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Drabble #37 Blake 'Johan' Erics
Oct. 14th, 2008 10:19 amThere wasn't anything special about Blake's upbringing through his first few years. His mother doted on him, but was stern when required, and his father was just kinda there, but not a driving force in his life. When he was young, his mother would support his desires as they changed wildly with youth. 'I want to be a pilot!', 'I wanna be an astronaut!', 'I wanna be a cage fighter! RAWR!'. His mother would laugh, admonish, and support him in whatever he wanted to do. She would tell him 'You can be whatever you want to be when you grow up. Nobody can ever tell you what is best for you! Except me. Now eat your dinner.'
Even as he entered middle school and started to, 'hang out with the bad crowd', he was still the honor student and good boy at home. He never fought in school, simply kicking their asses afterwards, and took over his neighborhood gang his last year of middle school. His reputation around school was a strange mix as the teacher's all loved him and yet the students who knew of the gangs feared him, knowing him as a cruel boy who's violent ways could leave you in the hospital, yet he never got caught or received a mark on his body. He didn't let his subordinates handle it all, but he just knew when to back off and let them finish it.
This continued for years, him being the good boy at home and school, receiving the praise and adoration of his mother and teachers like he wanted, and running the streets at night, gaining the respect and power over the students by fear. His father was none the wiser, but his mother picked up on it slowly until she followed him one night, knowing good and well what she would find.
As she watched her son beat up a boy she had known since he was born, who lived down the street and had been in her house countless times, who had given her grudging looks in greeting as she waved to him, who she had watched fall easily into the dangerous life that took children young, and had never said her son was also involved in this life or death game, she steeled herself.
She watched as her son's eyes lifted from the bloody mess he left heaped on the ground; as he looked behind him at the other boys who were looking to him for guidence while they jerked their heads towards her. Her son's eyes met hers and she could see the shock go through him, the shirt still clenched in his fist sliding free as he stood, schooling his features into the mask he must showed to his subordinates, because that was how it had to be. Her son would never settle for following when he could be in the lead.
His head jerked to the side. She could only hear his curt tone and see the immediate obedience of the other boys as they walked by her, pretending as if they had seen nothing. And that was when she talked to him, telling him that if this was the path he would take, then he would do it properly. There were schools for fighting, for protecting, even for destroying. She wouldn't let him throw his life away just for a few punks who looked up to him. Even if they were friends. And that was when she saw the anger that he always had inside, the pride in his work that always made him glow happily at her was now a rage as she dismantled all of his work with a few sentances of logic.
He stormed away then, and it was a long while until she spoke to him again. It was during that time that his mask fell, and the scary face he showed to everyone else but her showed. To be honest, she had been afraid of her own son. Afraid that she had gone wrong, that all those times she told him he could do whatever he put his mind to was coming back to bite her in the worst possible way... but eventually he showed her that face again. That happy smiling face, and she wondered if this was that same mask... the mask that had kept her in the dark...
...years later, she discovered it was one of many...
[[I actually posted this a long time ago, but now I'm just making another public post for it. A little background story for Blake, I guess.]]
Even as he entered middle school and started to, 'hang out with the bad crowd', he was still the honor student and good boy at home. He never fought in school, simply kicking their asses afterwards, and took over his neighborhood gang his last year of middle school. His reputation around school was a strange mix as the teacher's all loved him and yet the students who knew of the gangs feared him, knowing him as a cruel boy who's violent ways could leave you in the hospital, yet he never got caught or received a mark on his body. He didn't let his subordinates handle it all, but he just knew when to back off and let them finish it.
This continued for years, him being the good boy at home and school, receiving the praise and adoration of his mother and teachers like he wanted, and running the streets at night, gaining the respect and power over the students by fear. His father was none the wiser, but his mother picked up on it slowly until she followed him one night, knowing good and well what she would find.
As she watched her son beat up a boy she had known since he was born, who lived down the street and had been in her house countless times, who had given her grudging looks in greeting as she waved to him, who she had watched fall easily into the dangerous life that took children young, and had never said her son was also involved in this life or death game, she steeled herself.
She watched as her son's eyes lifted from the bloody mess he left heaped on the ground; as he looked behind him at the other boys who were looking to him for guidence while they jerked their heads towards her. Her son's eyes met hers and she could see the shock go through him, the shirt still clenched in his fist sliding free as he stood, schooling his features into the mask he must showed to his subordinates, because that was how it had to be. Her son would never settle for following when he could be in the lead.
His head jerked to the side. She could only hear his curt tone and see the immediate obedience of the other boys as they walked by her, pretending as if they had seen nothing. And that was when she talked to him, telling him that if this was the path he would take, then he would do it properly. There were schools for fighting, for protecting, even for destroying. She wouldn't let him throw his life away just for a few punks who looked up to him. Even if they were friends. And that was when she saw the anger that he always had inside, the pride in his work that always made him glow happily at her was now a rage as she dismantled all of his work with a few sentances of logic.
He stormed away then, and it was a long while until she spoke to him again. It was during that time that his mask fell, and the scary face he showed to everyone else but her showed. To be honest, she had been afraid of her own son. Afraid that she had gone wrong, that all those times she told him he could do whatever he put his mind to was coming back to bite her in the worst possible way... but eventually he showed her that face again. That happy smiling face, and she wondered if this was that same mask... the mask that had kept her in the dark...
...years later, she discovered it was one of many...
[[I actually posted this a long time ago, but now I'm just making another public post for it. A little background story for Blake, I guess.]]
