Chapter 11

“Battery Acid, Tarnished Snowflakes and A full day of shooting”

Uncle Thor looks amused with what Denzo had brought him, shaking his head as he puts down the books by his bedside table. ‘I appreciate it kid but I’m not really much of a comic book reader.’ He said as a faint smile crests upon his cheek.

Denzo was by his uncle's bedside carrying a bag full of oranges as he lays them down by his bed, taking a seat on the chair beside where his uncle layed. ‘How’s your back?’ Denzo asked.

‘Sore but manageable…’ Uncle Thor said ‘They said I’ll be out in a few days, just need to run a few simple tests and I’ll be back home kid.’

It has been a couple of days since the incident and Denzo has been coming back every night to see him no matter how late it has been, much to his grandfather’s dismay, making sure he gets his company during his hospital stay. Denzo felt guilty for sneaking out that night, feeling that he could have acted sooner if he stayed and prevented any of the damage Uncle Thor had suffered. So far the extent to his injuries were major and minor bruises to his torso and calves, bruises on his neck and jaw, a sprained knee and some swelling on his ankle. Even if he had arrived in the nick of time to possibly save Uncle Thor’s life, it was still too late for him, a thought that he could never let go, not whilst the image of his hospitalized grandfather lay before him looking as fragile that he’d ever seen him before.

Denzo peels an orange from the bag that he brought and hands Uncle Thor a fresh one. ‘Well just so you know I’ve been keepin an eye on the house while you’re out. Ain’t no intruders coming in while I’m breathing.’ He boasted.

‘How cute kid… but remember to focus on school, you’re not old enough to meddle with adult things yet.’ Uncle Thor said while examining the orange that Denzo gave him. ‘Nice pickins kid.’ He said, raising the fruit in acknowledgement.

Denzo snickered upon hearing the ‘stay in school’ line from the man. He hates the fact that after beating up the intruder into an unconscious pulp he still was being viewed and treated like a child, even though he knows that he can already handle his own decisions and make his own choices.

‘You sound like my mother, geez…’ He replied, a bit of a delayed response but Uncle Thor sensed the ire in his tone, which made it uneasy for him to say what was going to happen next.

‘Speaking of…’

The door behind him opens as Denzo turns to see a nurse dropping by with another guest following suit. To his surprise, Denzo was now face to face with his mother.

‘You fucking asshole…’ Denzo scorned at Uncle Thor

‘No you shut it.’

‘No you go fuck yourself old man I should’ve never fucking saved you.’

‘STOP….’

Denzo’s mother interjects, her eyes, round and deep like her son’s, bear the look of worry and pain as she finally sees her son all well and able.

‘Denzo, let’s sit down and have a talk shall we?’

Denzo looks long into his mother’s eyes as his legs anxiously bounce on the hospital floor. He takes a few anxious seconds looking irate and unsure before launching his feet forwards towards the exit. His mother quickly catches his arm and pleaded with him to stay but he angrily breaks her grip and continues to storm out of the room.

Outside he quickly spots a nurse asking where the nearest bathroom was as he storms down the hallway with a heavy heart, a heavy mind and very heavy footsteps. He finally reached the bathroom across the nurse’s station and banged the door on entry. There was a faint sound of the door locking and he was lucky no one had noticed but if one were to approach the door near enough from the hall one would hear the faintest hint of sobbing.

The next few days passed by and Denzo barely felt any one of them. To him there was nothing to look forward to and Uncle Thor’s return didn’t spark any enthused behavior from deep within him. He had already stopped his nightly visits and has already grown some resentment towards him for inviting his mother over. He knew that that moment would come but he wasn;t expecting it to be this soon. He tried to dismiss it as an unfortunate event but his inner selfish urges made him unshakably stubborn, intentionally blocking rational thought to continue refuelling his growing resentment at the adults in his life. The only thing he felt doing was to smoke in his room and attend school for the specific reason of guarding Pai from any kids who were trying to get their revenge. Besides those he basically felt purposeless and dull, any sign of any lighthearted feelings were absent, except for times where he’d encounter a comedy show on late night cable where he’d drown himself in obnoxious laughter before dozing off to sleep where he watched on the living room sofa.

Soon enough the weekend had arrived and the summer rain had hit them again, reminding him of the day when it all started. He checks the calendar to see if his favorite show would be on tonight and to his delight it was. It was now the last weekend of June and it was also a race day weekend which he found funny as it was also raining, making him chuckle that the conditions were exactly the same as the day he left. He never had any plans on going out during the weekend and for some reason he didn’t feel giddy enough to be in any mood to visit Jack and Barry’s. So in accordance with how everything, weather and current mood, applies Denzo took out his hard pack of cigarettes and with a rare spark of excitement, did something illegal in Uncle Thor’s living room. Smoke a fat, stinky cigarette.

The whole morning was spent smoking and looking out the window as he found the raindrops quite soothing to the eyes along with the sound the water makes when they hit the roof and the roofs of other houses around him. When not smoking he was having a cup of coffee or rather a mug of coffee and a plate of deep fried jelly doughnuts with some maple syrup that was hidden above the kitchen cupboards. For lunch he watched a couple of cooking videos on Youtube from sell out chefs who needed to earn a quick buck and found himself settling for a ten minute ramen recipe using instant noodles, two eggs, toasted peanuts, a chunk of butter and all of the vegetables he could find inside the fridge.

He was surprised it turned out as well as it should.

He also didn’t know why, but he cleaned up after himself afterwards and he questions why as he never does when Uncle Thor or his mother was present.

In the Afternoon he found an old stash of pornographic magazines in pristine condition inside Uncle Thor’s room. He found the girls quite up to his taste and he was puzzled that the pages were close to brand new, but with that in mind it sparked an urge within him as he escaped to his room to look at his own pile of dirty pictures. Another hour of smoking and coffee binging ensued as the rains lighten their intensity at sundown and at night he cracks open one of Uncle Thor’s beer that he forbids Denzo from drinking while having the audacity of charging his pizza dinner to his mother’s credit card, which he took during that fateful rainy day.

With the pizza arriving warm and delicious, and a frosty bottle of beer in his hand he turns to the clock to confirm the time: “8:30” and sets himself in a comfortable position in front of the television.

Tonight was Qualifying day for the Formula One teams as it was just a Saturday but since his freedom would be compromised the day after with Uncle Thor’s return, he thought to enjoy it while the serenity lasted because ‘Days like this are hard to come by Denzo…’ As he told himself while watching the spectacle on the screen.

It has always been a passion of his to race cars.

Ever since an early age he was always getting all excited with anything that resembles an automobile. He used to save up all his lunch money to buy the latest die cast toy cars and mini four wheel drive kits that he threw a tantrum over when his parents denied him that request on his 10th birthday. He had all the magazines and books about racing and cars in general and when he heard that there was a karting track that was built near a theme park in their area, he begged them to take him there and drive, but once again he was forbidden since his mother thought it was dangerous for a child to drive such a machine, a memory he holds bitter within his heart.

Of course after all the denied opportunities and all the forbidden actions they had imposed, sooner or later Denzo had grown to learn that he might never get what he truly wanted. The only person that sparked the fire within him was Uncle Thor, but then again the man was not a welcome guest in their household so he rarely ever sees him but on the days that he did, which is almost always christmas, he always had a car related present.

They were the only Christmas presents he actually cherished, amongst the piles of socks and school materials that he’d receive from other relatives, they were the only toys that had him smiling from ear to ear, sadly though his parents would always scold him for playing with them. This scene had gotten worse one fine afternoon that his mother had taken extreme action to lock away these toys and instead forced him to bury himself in books and other materials that they thought were crucial to his education which left him longing for cars even deeper than his parents realized.

Alas the announcer on the television had signaled to his viewers that qualifying was about to start. 59:59 or one hour had started counting down from a simple graphic at the top of the screen as the lights at the end of pitroad had turned green and a flurry of cars were exiting their respective garages. Drink in hand and a box of pizza on the other, the first fifteen minutes were a cut throat sprint for the fastest time. He was rooting for the classic scarlet red Ferrari team who were behind by just a thousandth of a second from their latest greatest rival.

Carbine Automotive Racing Team.

CART as the announcers refer to them.

“Once again CART is ahead by only the slightest of margins. Can Ferrari do anything about it Murray?”

“At this point the qualifying session is still up for grabs James and it will only get better as the time on the clock winds down to zero so stay tuned as Ferrari head back once more for another set of slick tyres -- AND A CRASH a crash has happened and it’s… ALBERTO! Alberto Rascasse is out of qualy in just the first fifteen minutes of the session. How devastating for the Mercedes team who was putting a great effort to topple the leaderboards this--”

“I may interrupt you for a second there Murray as I might’ve found out the cause of the crash, right there at the exit of turn 9 where the cameras are located you can see spots of rain on the camera lenses, again these are just two corners away from where the stricken Merc is and it might be the cause Murray.”

“What a shame, if this light drizzle continues as you can see from our TV cameras right there near the backstretch then it would be qualifying over for most of these teams as no one could set a faster lap time now because the track, the asphalt is now wet and therefore less grippy when it was dry.”

“Very insightful there Murray, very insightful.”

Denzo sighs annoyed at what he was witnessing. He was hoping for an action packed qualifying for this year’s British Grand Prix as Ferrari and Mercedes had finally found solutions to their handling issues earlier this season and were looking forward to taking the top spot from the dominating CART team as their car, The CART 1075 had always locked out the front row for the last seven races. Now it seems that it would still be a similar result with a CART car on top billing and a Ferrari on a close second.

Denzo punches a pillow by his side in frustration as he chugs down his cold bottle of beer in hopes to cool his steaming head but even as he tries, the frustration has already settled in. He tried to flip through the other channels to see what was on but none of the shows presented gave him any interest as he flipped back to the sports channel to continue watching the show. In the end he had finished all of his pizza and two more bottles of beer from Uncle Thor’s possessions before calling it a night. The rain was still pouring down outdoors and there was nowhere else for him to go. He checked the clock to see that it was almost 11 in the evening but he strongly felt that there was something missing. That he oughta do something even though he doesn’t know what it is and it was starting to dig in deep within him, making him feel uneasy. The only thing he knew for sure was his restlessness and the only remedy he had sat inside his table drawer, underneath a false bottom that he made to keep “snoopers” away from “teaching him what’s good for him”.

It was another hard pack of reds. He takes them and runs back down the stairs.

He goes towards the kitchen window and opens it, the cold harsh wind giving him a surprise as the raindrops blow inwards getting the counters damp. He aborts the idea and closes it only to do the same in the living room at the front, gambling on the fact that the wind was blowing the other direction, which made him feel like a genius after the gamble paid off, lighting up his cigarette as the winds pull his smokey exhales away from the house and into the stormy downpour.

‘I don’t deserve this…’ He told himself.

‘I need something better… hopefully i’ll find that soon…’ He continued as he puffed another fog of smoke into the atmosphere.

His thoughts started to wander on the days that had passed, him meeting Pai, Jack and Barry’s and the curious little tournament from the Student council and thought that there might be something there, he just couldn’t wrap his head around it to make sense of any of it. Especially the tournament where he competed with no one at all, though try as he might, there was nothing he could piece it together with, at least he got a lot of money from it. The only drawback he could think of was it might be a scam but he brushed it off, feeling confident that he could fight his way out of it, if it ever did happen.

Nonetheless he just stared into the abyss, smoke in hand and the cold breeze caressing his cheeks with thoughts and dreams of what can and might, as his hopes light a spark within his heart despite the awful week he had that started that morning at the hospital. He remembers quickly that Uncle Thor was coming back in the morning as he looks back at the mess he made inside, he smiles, takes another puff and lets his worries float away with the smoke.

At that very moment,

things felt ultimately right.