Chapter 6

“Mr. Kalma is in big trouble”

The infamous last words of every Principal of every school Denzo had been enrolled in, it was also the last words his uncle had heard through the phone before the principal abruptly ended the call. Mr. Thorasis Elvin is not the kind of man anyone would want to mess with but because Denzo is in his care, he couldn’t bring himself to discipline the child for some reason. Once again he pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed knowing what the boy had done. To think that a former drill sergeant would be twirled around by a snotty teenage boy is a frustrating thought but he knew that applying disciplinary action would just make things worse for the both of them. It is almost seven in the evening and school had ended hours ago, but as he expected, there was a knock on the door.

‘Hey Uncle, is dinner ready? I’m starving.’ The boy said while he walked straight through the living room without a pause.

‘Shoes…’ The old man exhaustedly whispered.

The boy apologized, quickly removing them and placing them by the door. ‘So how was school?’ The old man asked.

‘Fine, well quite boring really but that’s how it--’

‘What subjects did you learn about?’

‘How many friends did you meet?’

‘What subject interests you?’

‘Did you even go today? Child?’

Denzo started walking up towards his room to evade the man's questions, but his uncle wasn’t having any of it as he caught a grip on the boy’s shoulder forcing his attention. The boy snaps his arm back to escape his uncle’s grasp but he quickly pulls him back, making Denzo stumble his steps down the stairs. ‘I just received a call from your school principal! This is the fifth time Child. How many more transfers do you want?!’ His Uncle, fuming by the nose, exclaimed.

‘If it makes you happy then fine. I’m going to school tomorrow.’ The boy spitefully replied, pulling his arm from his uncle’s grasp as he stomped his feet up the stairs. ‘If it makes me happy?!’ The old man shouts as he disgruntledly followed the boy up the steps. ‘Look kid I don’t know what kind of bullshit you’re playing here but it’s time to take things seriously! You’re growing up and old! Life isn’t child’s play like what you think it is. It’s not a videogame where you can try again! One wrong move and ‘yer dead! So don’t you be playing games around me or the people in school or anyone for that matter or else you’ll be starin’ at ‘yer own jail sentence or worse, a grave!’

‘Yeah like my dad?’ He replied. ‘Well that’d be the day.’

‘Don’t you talk like that to your father, kid. From what i'm seein now, the apple is far from goddamn tree.

‘And a God Damn tree it is!’

-SLAP-

‘You disgraceful son of a…’

‘What? Go ahead, call your own daughter that you fu-’

-SLAP-

‘You better report your ass to school kid, people are running out of patience giving you chances, and that includes me. So stop acting like a pain in the ass all the time. You might regret it.’

The old man turns around with a frustrated look in his eyes as he shuts the door behind him leaving Denzo alone and hurting inside his room. ‘I guess I’m in charge of my own dinner again.’ He thought.

He quickly wipes his tears and opens his bedroom window. He positions his feet by the window sill and carefully closes the glass behind him carefully tucking the edge of his curtain so that it sticks out from the windows edge. He spots a near hanging tree branch that he uses to drop down into the tree it is attached to as he climbs to ground level and out of the surrounding property.

‘Ok kid where to?’ He asked himself as he walked down the street near his house. He reached into his pocket to check the contents of his wallet and is disappointed to find what little amount remained within as he settles to dine at the nearest convenience store in the area.

‘Thank goodness for Seven Eleven meals’ He said as he grabs one of the microwavable rice boxes that the store has to offer. It was also the only decent meal he could afford as it costs less than a bag of potato chips. It was now a little bit more than half past seven and in the middle of a scorching June evening the sun had already set as the last remaining ounce of daylight fades, along with his troublesome worries.

He thought about the incident that had just happened at the “house” and the boy that he ran into back at the mall and how everything became such a coincidence that led to him attending school the way he’s supposed to. ‘I guess it helped that I went to the very mall near where “that” school was but I guess it can’t be helped…’ Denzo thought as he took another bite from his meal that he was struggling to finish, as the microwave didn’t get to heat the middle part of the rice, leaving it still chiller cold. A brief thought of Pai brushed his mind as he wondered if the boy had safely gotten himself home after the incident. ‘It’s not like he’ll get followed or something…’ He ponders, immediately shaking his head at such a ridiculous thought.

A couple of minutes had already passed when something outside had disturbed his quiet meal. A child, around the age of a kindergartener, was knocking on the window pane directly beside him making a hungry gesture as he begged a piece of Denzo’s meal. He looks the child straight in his eyes and shakes his head slowly and monotonously before continuing on his meal. He begrudgingly waits for the beggar to leave watching him from his peripherals but the poor child was persistent and kept on begging for his attention. Soon enough Denzo ran out of patience and moved himself to a different seat, leaving the child with no choice but to find another place for a meal, walking away with an air of gloom.

Annoyed he gobbled up what remained of his dinner, which was barely less than half full from finished, and left the establishment feeling annoyed but full. Outside he sees the child playing with other homeless kids in the middle of the road as a car approaches their area. He watched as the driver stopped to honk the horn at the children who seem to have not noticed his presence.

‘Move it ya’ bastards!’ The man said as the children fled and foul mouths the man with some of the kids throwing pieces of trash at him in retaliation, a scene that further infuriates Denzo as he watched, feeling justified for his actions earlier.

‘If I only had a car…’ He tells himself as he leaves the scene. An hour had passed since he left the house and still his spiteful rage had not calmed. From a distance he spots a cigarette vendor hiding behind a burger kiosk and decided to take an interest in what he was selling.

‘Red, and a cherry mint candy.’ Denzo asked, as he reached for some change in his back pocket.

‘D’you have a light?’ He said as the vendor reached up to light his cigarette, a puff of smoke floated by gently while he inhaled the vapor. His Uncle nor his parents would be proud of such an act, but he was taken in by an ad he’d seen a few years earlier about cigarettes. The whole ad was about the effect a single stick of cigarette could have on one’s body. It was an ad published by the government at the time to further their campaign against its use. He didn’t know why but the ad enticed his curiosity more than deter it, prompting him to find and steal from his uncle’s hidden stash. He was later caught, apprehended and punished that night, resulting in some bruises from a harsh belting at his bottom, but the punishment didn’t solve anything as it only pushed him further to try it which led to him learning fully how to smoke cigarettes. He takes a long pause after inhaling his first puff of the day, letting the nicotine seep into his bloodstream as the sensation rises at the back of his head making him feel “floaty” as the chemicals do their job within the inner workings of his mind. The sun had already set and the night sky was now in full view in all its blackness. He tried his best to spot some stars above him but all he could see was the quarter of a moon flanked by two haunting looking clouds that moved at a snail’s pace. Denzo watched intently as the clouds steadily envelop the moon behind their presence, leaving only a faint glow of silver against a jet black backdrop of emptiness.

‘Ouch!’

He felt something burn in between his fingers.

Denzo failed to realize he’d been staring at the moon for longer than he planned to, that the embers of his smoke had already burned through most of the tobacco, making him throw the stick away accidentally as he frustratedly realized that he wasted a good stick of smokes. He reached for his pockets once more to try and purchase another round.

But as he struggles to find another coin, he hears a noise most violent approaching. He turns his eyes to where his ears had heard it and suddenly a pair of bright lights appear from a distance. They seem to float menacingly from afar as they grow larger the noise louder until it blinds him in white stinging light as the screaming sound of a brutal engine whips the air around him in a hurricane. Papers and trash and dust swirl into the surroundings as an invisible force pulls him amongst other things towards the street and as quickly the scream had arrived it had soon swiftly vanished leaving those who were there to witness it with no trace of its existence. But Denzo knew what it was and he knew what had happened he was just too surprised to witness it properly. He had heard a couple of rumors about similar incidents around these parts of Manila and was keen to witness it for himself just days before, just as he was starting to think the rumors were only rumors a flash of truth had beckoned before him but he wasn’t so sure. He needed more, he needed proof , he needed to know their source.

‘That bastard, always showin’ off at this time of the night.’ Said the cigarette vendor, who was re-unpacking his goods from behind the burger kiosk he was stationed on.

‘I guess so… you look like you’re prepared for it mister.’

‘Well, its been a week since that car appeared, always at the same spot, always at the same muggin’ speed and always annoying the hell out of the residents.’ He said as Denzo’s once deaf ears started to pick up the car alarms from the nearby houses and there were a lot of them if not all, from what he could hear.

‘D’you get a good look at it?’ He asked the vendor but he was only met with silence. He never needed an answer as he already knew what it was but “what kind?” was the question he’d like answers to, and he knew he won’t get one from the vendor but it was too late to catch his lips as he stood there still, pondering on his loose mouth.

‘Are you gonna buy or what?’ The vendor asked the absent minded boy.

‘Oh right, another one please.’ As he hands him the right amount of change from his pocket. The scene had only aggravated him more as his insides struggle to calm down with the aftermath while the car alarms continue to echo across the neighborhood. He takes a long relaxing sip from the cigarette as he replayed the moment in his mind’s eye, over and over as the nicotine slowly numbs the back of his head, feeling the gentle buzz streaming down his spine. He looked at his phone to check the time, it was already eight in the evening, but he did not care whether the old man noticed. He even pondered on not returning if he only had the pocket money to survive another week. He takes the last puffs deeply as he savors the final surge of nicotine in his blood before killing its embers on a nearby ashtray, bidding the vendor goodbye as he paced his steps back to the house.

There was nothing different upon his return, the curtain he left dangling by the window still remained and the television still glows with a faint purple haze as it blasts the evening news from the speakers. ‘At it again huh…’ he whispered as he climbed back up the tree and back to his room. He was surprised that the room looked untouched as he slid into his bed beside the window, he could swear the wrinkles in his bed remained exactly like it did the moment he left as his now troubled mind fills up with questions about things he didn’t dare ask. Slowly he opened his bedroom door cautiously stepping out onto the hallway on the tips of his toes. He looks at the far end of the hallway to see nothing unusual but the single ceiling light at the end by the stairs seemed alluring him to step forward, seducing him to come see what it illuminates. Denzo gets to the start of the steps as the television starts to reach his ears from the living room while he takes each step down as cautiously as he ever could. All of the lights by the ground floor were lit up brightly but the only noise he could hear was the evening news blabbering from the adjacent room. He looks around to try and find any signs of his uncle’s presence but all seems unsettlingly normal to him as he instinctively picks up an umbrella resting at the bottom of the steps, one of those long ones with the sharp pointy ends. He made his way into the hallway that leads to the kitchen and with each delicate step a distinct weird noise was reaching his ears going through his spine.

It was a nasty, disgusting, gurgling noise.

His legs exploded into a sprint to reach the kitchen, his sweat dripping down his neck not knowing what to expect but at this point he expected the worse. Upon reaching the kitchen he saw his very own Uncle Thor on his back struggling, as he was being strangled by another man.