Greatest

8: scourging kingdoms

Bradley says his car will fit all of us. It's a convertible with three seats in the back so that's kind of an exaggeration. He drives, and his friend turns out to be a leggy girl with dark brown hair and grey eyes, wearing white shorts and a purple button up that's tied in the front. Her name (for the purposes of this narrative) is Logan, and she takes my entourage and me in general in stride. Again, let me remind you reader that I look an underfed primate that narrowly escaped death in a blender only to drown in a pool of piss in an alley in the Bronx. And that's on a good day.
Bradley introduces Logan swiftly, "Cyrus, this is Logan, Logan this Cyrus my new roomie and his two permanent floating g-men."
"Hi!" Logan waves politely at us before we all pile into the car. I sit between Shane and Jonesy. If I haven't made it clear before, these are two six foot plus individuals who could easily bench press me. I'm the afore described drowned primate looking person dying actively alien brain goop. I easily fit between them and it only highlights how small and unsexually appealing I am.
"Okay, I think there was a late night dinner playlist here so let me try," Bradley says, hooking up his phone.
"There's a 'going to get shakes at seven pm' playlist but pick what you want," I say, helpfully.
"So there is—Cyrus is providing us the soundtrack for the adventure," Bradley informs Logan, as he sets up his phone, "All right, are burgers and shakes good with everybody?"
I nod, even though I don't care at all what we get. It's my first meal out of the house all summer, first sanctioned one anyway that doesn't involve me hastily paying a street vendor and running for my life.
Bradley drives into town, "Dancing Queen" blasting on the radio, as he winds carefully around the curves. He's wearing a red jacket for the evening out, and his gold hair brushes the white collar as the wind batters us. I watch those locks of hair the entire drive.
The diner is a chromium air streamer, with black and white checkered tile floors and a juke box in one corner. Logan and Bradley and I immediately go over and set it to play 'What's New Pussycat' as many times as it will allow, while giggling. Then, while the song plays, we, still giggling, line up to order our food. Shane and Jonesy probably suspect we're being idiots, but again, they're fairly tolerant of teenage idiocy and forgiving, in so far as they want us to behave as we would if they weren't here.
We all order burgers, Bradley and I both get vanilla shakes and Logan gets chocolate. We pack into a booth and Jonesy and Shane sit at a little table right next to it.
I sit on one side, Bradley and Logan on the other.
"So you're the first son? I read about you in Time Magazine once," Logan laughs, though she's not flirting nor is she impressed. Just interested.
"One of three, yes. Means I get shadowed on all outings, and that two member's of our fine secret service have to listen to 'What's New Pussycat' twenty times in a row without complaint," I say, smiling a little.
The conversation moves on from there. I'm used to being polite, brief, and charming, specifically with schoolmates. I know what answers I am and am not supposed to give and how much information I can give out about the family or our movements or anything like that.
I'm also used to covering up how our family actually behaves. I discovered age 6 that my father holds us to a higher standard than anyone has ever been held in the entire universe, because we must be the greatest of all time. And so we are.
But that currently means lying to my perfectly good new friends about my injuries. It was warm in the dorm and I shed my hoodie, and now they noticed my arms, which are rife with white, jagged scars.
"How did that happen? Riding?" Logan asks, pointing to my left arm. A thick, wedge shaped gash, healed over with tough ugly scar tissue. It's years old now, I rub my fingers along the rivets of it, sometimes, for comfort.
"No, actually, I was riding my bike and crashed, there was like a bit of rebar sticking out of the ground. It bleed all down my favorite Mario shirt. I was crying more about that then the cut. I was only eight," I say, smoothly, leaning back in the seat.
I never had a Mario shirt.
I've never had a bike of my own.
I was seven.
My father told me that we were without pain. That death could not take us. That I was his blood and I was strong. And he plunged a jagged serrated knife into his own skin, and told me to stick my fingers in the wound.
Then he handed me the knife and told me to do the same to myself.
And I did.
I was wearing a green polo. The blood nearly sprayed all over it. And I did not want to cry so I bit my lip so hard I still have marks beneath it.
And he stuck his own fingers in the wound, staring at me with his cold black eyes. Then he withdrew his hand, and handed me a cloth.
And he told me the story that I just told my friends. And that that was the story of that scar, the story the world would know. But only I would know the real story.
That's why I'm writing this all down, really. I have a story for every single one of my scars. The web they make up on my body is shrouded in deep, lonely secrets. My father and I are the only ones who know the real story of that scar, and my brothers who have nearly identical ones. But dozens of others are known only to me, or the men who gave them to me. Many of those men are now dead.
And again, in the blink of a moment, my normal evening becomes glazed with fine, lies. Sweet lies that are so much prettier than the truth, that must gloss over the whole of my life. And even if I have time to write them all down it wouldn't be enough. Because every breath I live feels like another lie.
"How many stitches did you get?" Bradley asks, wincing appropriately.
"Eleven," that's the truth.
"I don't think I've ever had that many stitches," Bradley say, touching his side, "I had appendicitis, that was a few."
"Oh, I'm on the hockey team, I once had a skate catch the whole length of my leg in a fight, I think I was more cross about being off the ice for the rest of the season than the twenty stitches," Logan laughs, companionably.
"I can imagine," and I'm ever suave, ever polite, ever cool.
We eat our burgers and conversation turns to safer topics. Movies I haven't watched. But I have learned about from reading so I play along and pretend I've seen them. More lies. We eat and laugh about our annoying musical choices while other patrons slowly collectively blame us. Jonesy and Shane, for their part, do not stop us from continuing to cue up 'What's New Pussycat' a million more times while we eat and finish our shakes.
Eventually, I discover Logan and Bradley have known each other since they started here at Rose and Swan, they were in home room together in the eighth grade and have been friends ever since, both are on the hockey team (Rose and Swan is Co-ed). It doesn't necessarily seem romantic but I kind of hope it is. Bradley deserves someone nice to love him and to make teenage memories with. Someone who, I don't know, isn't the child of the most powerful man in the free world, whose skin isn't a tapestry of unforgotten violence, who hasn't aided in the near assassination of his father, who isn't infected with alien brain goop. Someone who can go to graduation with him, who is genuinely a good person who's felt human emotion before, who is going to live past age eighteen.
We park and Logan kisses Bradley's cheek, says it was nice to meet me, and bids us goodnight. We four tromp back towards Canterbury house.
Just as we're getting back in, my phone goes off. A text from my father, just a screenshot of my activity tracker for the day. Which is not nearly to the goal. It's a subtle threat and he knows it. He is not beyond dis-enrolling me here, this very night, if I'm not keeping up with my exercises.
"Well, I'm going to go for a run," I say, it's not a question, and I tip my phone. Shane and Jonesy glance at it, well aware whose fault it is.
"Oh, okay," Bradley shrugs, "You want company?"
"I mean, I have company," I don't know why I say that. I nod at my agents, "You don't have to ah—wait up. I'll be quiet."
"No, why don't I show you the good jogging trails? I'm supposed to be giving a tour after all," he says, shedding his jacket on the bed.
"I mean, you don't really have to, only if you want," I say, my heart sinking.
Why are you persuading him not to come, Cyrus? (You ask) Wouldn't it do your gay little heart good to see the glory that is Bradly Thomas all sweaty and in running clothes, Cyrus? Do you even know what is good for you, Cyrus?
The answer to that last one is a resounding no. But as for the other two, well, remember how I said my entire life is a lie? That's, there's my life, and who I really am, and that that is a horrible, twisted shadow I lock up inside me to present a smooth porcelain exterior to the unsuspecting world. And I can't let those two things ever meet. The angel that I'm pretending to be. And the devil that I am.
And all this sounds very dramatic for an evening run but unfortunately it's necessary.
But. Back to me not knowing what's good for me.
"Sure, yeah, I mean, you've got to keep up," I say, offering a smile, before turning to change. I run in jogging shorts, no shirt, and my usual running shoes. I have a knife on my thigh already, that will do.
Bradley glances at my naked chest. No, not appreciatively I like that you're rooting for me, though. It's something more like abject horror. I lie about my scars, I don't hide them. I simply must twist the horror within, not fully mask it. My legs and thighs are not much better than my chest, and currently I'm black and blue on half my body from tumbling out of the car to go on our morning run on Thursday.
"What happened there?" Bradley asks, after looking like he's lost count of the various marks on my body.
"Where?" I ask, surprised at how real and ice cold my actual voice is, not the pleasant one I usually use. Not my first roommate. Not the first conversation I've had like this. It's always the same. He and my sports teams will know to fear me soon enough. That mild indifference turns to quiet dread of presence. And then I'll slip from this world like a shadow, leaving only relief.
"Everywhere?" He says, undeterred.
"ATV riding with my brothers," I say, gesturing to the bruising, "I'm one of those skin types that bruises easily, and on top of that I'm accident prone, got no coordination." Of course neither of those things are true. And we both know damn well that he was more referring to the obvious knife wounds, four bullet wounds, whip marks, fire poker burn, and obvious animal bites, that nearly engulf my torso. The deepest mark is from a chainsaw across my shoulder blades, giving a two inch wide rivet. To give an extent of the damage, there's very little smooth skin left, my belly button is marred  from the fire poker, still hot, that landed across my belly, and both nipples are gone, left only with smashed marred skin, from an obvious array of slices. Explaining the bruising was the understatement of the year. But it also answered his question that he was only going to get pleasant lies. It's fairly fucking obvious I'm more than accident prone.
"Right," he nods.
"Lets go," I stuff a vial of my pills into a pocket. Watch my dumb gay ass faint and have a fucking seizure in front of my unrequited crush at nine o'clock at night. Remember, we've checked into our dorms so it's fine we're out for a run.
Shane and Jonesy have taken turns changing as well, though they wear running jackets to hide their guns.  Our house father, Coach Nashe (coach of the swim team, my swim team) nods at us leaving. I think his gaze lingers on me but only for a moment. I suspect he's been briefed, not just on security protocol, but also on not asking questions. The usual story given to my teachers is that my injuries are none of their business and that I'm not a danger to myself, only others. I assume he got a lecture like that.
And we run.
Bradley leads us to the running trails and after that I take off. I need to hit a particular speed and mile goal, as well as heart-rate, and I've done no exercise at all today. That's my own fault. I should have run instead of going to dinner, but hell. This is my year. I'm supposed to be enjoying myself. I didn't want to go run earlier I just wanted to have dinner with my new friends. Except, now, they aren't my new friends anymore because I estimate within two days time Bradley will no longer want to speak to me.
"You don't have to try to keep up, I'll meet you back at the room," I say, before lengthening my stride.
"Are you challenging me?" Bradley says, trying to keep up.
After that we don't have air, and within two minutes I've outdistanced him.
Jonesy and Shane keep pace with me fairly easily, not even breaking stride when I cut off the path to hop on top of a brick wall and then run a few paces on that before going back down to the trail. Every five minutes I stop to do ten burpees, a stupid name if you ask me. Seeing as I'm dying, I'm gona rename the Cyruses there that'll be nice. Ten Cyruses, there god-awful exercises in which you do a push up, jump up to do a jumping jack, then fall back down to do a pushup. My agents follow suit, pausing to do push ups or their preferred exercise, before we turn back to running.
The first two times Bradley pauses to breath, panting and staring at us in something like actual horror, doing no exercises himself but instead just trying to regain his breath. The third time it takes our full pause for him to catch up with us. By the fourth we've lost him completely.
After ten miles I'm spent, and my tracker is buzzing that my goals were completed for the day. Yay me. That's sarcastic, read that very sarcastically.
Dripping with sweat, we hike back to the dorm.
"Not bad old man," I say to Jonesy.
"I'm twenty seven."
"Meant it as a compliment, old age is a privilege," I say.
"When did you get wise on us?" Shane laughs, handing me a bottle of water. I take no water on my runs usually, for training reasons, but Shane usually has at least a flask stuffed in his jacket.
"I've always been a wise ass," I remind them, "Pleased you can keep up is all."
"Got to be in shape to catch you," he winks. He knows damn well our father encourages the running away, however irritating it may personally be.
"Yeah, you're not getting away from us that easily," Shane says.
"I've sworn to be all together a decent charge while we're at school," I say, holding up my hands.
"Hmm, remains to be seen, oh look your little roommate wasn't scared off," Jonesy says, nodding. Bradley is waiting outside, apparently timing it on his phone. He's sweaty as well and clearly spent, even though he stopped running well before we did.
"That's your work out?" He asks, as we come closer.
"Yeah, tonight," I say. Tomorrow will be worse.
"You're fucking hard-core, Cy," he laughs, and that laugh eases every muscle I didn't know I was holding tight. So I'm not the freak yet.
We walk on up to our room. Jonesy sweeps it before we go in, and then he and Shane arrange to take turns changing and watching the door.
"Go ahead and shower if you like, I've got to call my mother," Bradley says, holding up his phone, "She just got off a flight and—,"
"Yeah, cool," I say, snatching sleep clothes from my open duffel bag, "Don't mind me."
I shower in the cramped bathroom, grateful at least for the privacy as I strip off the now sweaty and grass stained running shorts. We each have a laundry bag, mine is white and his is blue so that works out well enough. I stuff my dirty things in there, before getting into the shower. I stare at the knob a full moment before turning it as hot as it goes. When we lived at home, at the house, our father had the hot water disabled, saying it made us soft. Well, at the big house we can't do that so he just instructs us to take cold showers. I do fairly often just because I figured he'd have a way of checking. But I'm not about to do that here. Not worth it. I've only got so many showers left I want them so hot there's steam on the mirror.
There is.  I scrub down and dress in soft track pants and a sweatshirt as I'm usually cold in these places, then I brush my teeth and shave, something I won't feel like doing in the morning. I cut two cystic pimples so that's fun. I have a decently high pain threshold, but seriously it's just annoying.
Then I hang up my towel on the little peg and slip out back into the cool dorm room.
Bradley is just hanging up with his mother, lying on his bed, his feet propped up on the wall, his perfect hair still sticking to his face with sweat.
I lie down on my bed, slithering under the covers and feeling for where I left my phone. A couple texts from my brothers, but just funny things from the internet, nothing important. I respond, lying there and contemplating my basic lock screen. I think it's the preset one that came with the phone.
Bradley goes to shower, wordlessly. I sigh a little. Naturally he doesn't want to talk to me we established he knows I look like I was the victim of an unfortunate lawn-mowing accident. But still. It would have been nice. I put in my headphones, and roll over in bed, silently thanking the demons that control alien goop for letting me have a headache free evening.
I listen for Bradley to come out, hearing the soft splats of his damp feet on the dusty wood floor, then the creek of the bed as he crawls in. There's a soft light as he stares at his phone for a while, then his rhythmic breathing.
I fall asleep with one headphone in, face pressed into the flat pillow, wondering if when I finally do die, if it'll be in the night or if it'll hurt at all like my head did this morning. And thinking those thoughts, I sleep.