Paranoia ✓

XI: Hunter - Baby Bomb Plot (Part 2)

Hunter stopped checking the news for updates when the death toll had surpassed 1,000. At that point he couldn't will himself to torment himself any longer. His O-Helm was still on the floor where he had left it, yet his console had shut off after four hours of inactivity. Hunter sat by the window, staring outside into the rain.

Suddenly he was eleven, just three years ago. He could hear the rain pounding on the metal porch in the crappy backyard behind him, where the concrete buckled like a person whose legs gave way to the blow of a sledgehammer. A roar of thunder echoed across the sky, yet he saw no lightning. All he saw was his mother angry at him, cursing at him for failing another quarter at school.

"Hunter you have to quit playing those fucking video games and start studying. This is ridiculous already! You promised to do better this quarter. Look at these grades. No more video games throughout the week. That's it."

"C'mon that's not fair. It's not like I don't try—I just don't care. School is dumb."

"Well this school will get you places in life. That's why I pay so much money for your ass to go to a Catholic school. Tuition ain't cheap, but I want the best for you. You know how many times I had to forego lunch in order to save money for your schooling? Look at these clothes I'm wearing. These jeans—I've been wearing them since you were born. I haven't spent any money on myself—all of it goes to you. I'm not complaining, but if I'm sacrificing so much for you, why can't you just do what I ask and try to at least get me a C."

"I don't owe you anything," Hunter shouted. His mother clenched her fist as Hunter spouted. "It's not like I asked you to put me in Catholic school. I was perfectly fine in my old school with all my friends until you had to take me out of it."

His mother breathed a sigh of frustration, trying to contain the well of emotions flustering to the surface. "That old school was a shit-hole. That school breeds drug dealers and degenerates. I won't have you become like one of these knuckleheads out in the street, doped up on some drugs and robbing people for a fix."

"I told you not to put me in a new school. I was doing well on my report cards there before you decided to ruin my life."

"Ruin your life?" his mom said choking back tears. "How did I ruin your life Hunter?"

"You don't know what it's like to be in a school with a bunch of rich snobby white people who look at you like you don't belong—who always guard their backpacks because they think imma steal something from them, or who make fun of me because I'm some poor lil' nigger. So yes mom you freaking ruined my life. At least in my old school I wasn't some lil' nigger who needed to be watched like I'm some sort of criminal."

Silence broke the angry shouts. Hunter stared at the drops dripping down the window-panes while his mother tried to understand his situation.

"You think it was easy for your father and me at Northwestern? Sure there's people that treat you like shit, but it gives you all the more reason to prove them wrong. When you fail like this and give in to their stereotypes, you only satisfy their standings. Prove them wrong Hunter."

But Hunter wasn't having it. He was tired of being alone at school and relying on friends from his old school to stay sane. He couldn't believe that his own mother would put him in this situation. "The only person I'm proving wrong is you—for putting me in this stupid school and for destroying my life." Hunter crossed his arms in defiance, seeing a satisfactory victory.

His mother felt about as put together as a broken glass vase. "Fine then, if you feel that way, go back to your old school. But don't ask me for any money, don't ask me for no more of those stupid fucking video games, and don't ask me to cook for you. You better hope your father will do all the shit I do for you because I had it."

And she stormed off upstairs and slammed her door. For the next ten days Hunter did not speak to his mother and neither did she break the silence. Hunter's dad was caught in between like a middleman.

One day Hunter's dad was walking him to school when he asked, "Why haven't you talked to mommy?"

Hunter spat. "She's the one who wants to force me into some school where I'm not wanted. She's the one who said she was done with me. She's just angry that I'm right and she's wrong. It's her fault all of this happened."

Surprisingly, Hunter's dad did not say a word. He neither confirmed nor denied Hunter's position. He simply kept his mouth shut.

At the end of the day, when Hunter returned home from school, he threw down his backpack and went upstairs to his room. When he opened the door to his room he began taking off his school sweater and undoing his tie when he spotted a piece of paper folded and placed neatly on his bed. He unfolded the paper and realized it was a letter written by his mother to him:

Hunter,

I'm sorry for putting you through all of this. I just want the best for you. I don't want you to end up like me, enslaved to paying off thousands of dollars in debt and living in this pit that's impossible to escape the older you get. I want a better life for you. I want you to escape the ghetto. The truth is, being a nurse is hard—it's hard seeing people constantly on their way out, on the edge of death. My biggest fear is that one day I'll be visiting a patient and find out that the patient is you because I didn't do enough to keep you safe. That's why I put you in the new school—to escape this city. That's why I'm getting you the things you want and need. All I ask is for you to succeed. But I'm sorry if it's too much pressure on you. I'm sorry for everything. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I miss my baby boy.

Love,

Mommy

Hunter couldn't help crying after reading the letter. How foolish he was to think that his struggles were his alone. His mother bore and still bears the same responsibilities that he has to bear. Yet she never complained. Everyday she came home and asked him how was school, and always had food on the table for dinnertime, and came in to hug and kiss him goodnight. How many of his 'friends' from his old school had a loving mother like her who was willing to sacrifice her freedom to guarantee a better life for her son?

So yes, Hunter cried when he read the letter during his pre-teen rebellious years. He cried when he saw his mother come home that day, and hugged her tightly as she kissed his head. And he cried now as he stared outside the rainy window waiting for that same woman to come home to hug and kiss him—the same woman who moves mountains for him so that he can have a better life.

After the letter and the reunion, he got his act together and proved to everyone—but mainly his mother—that he was not a loser, but a respectable youth. He turned his F's to A's by the next quarter and he has never looked back.

Hunter hoped for another reunion, one that will change him and propel him to excel in another area in his life.

He was so lost in the raindrops and the memories that he didn't hear the front door being unlocked.

He turned rapidly to find his father soaking wet. When he got in he closed the door and just stood there looking down at the ground, dripping wet. His wooly trench coat smelled like a dirty mop and his Yankees Cap was shaded a different color by the water. Yet at the same time, the water couldn't wash away a rather dusty material that had clung onto his black trench coat and turned it ashy brown, as if he got caught in the middle of a sandstorm. His father didn't move for a good minute.

Hunter stared at his father, hoping: hoping for someone to pop in from the door behind him, hoping for an announcement from his father, hoping for the rain to let up, hoping for his mother to call his name...

Hoping patiently with tears in his eyes.

His father didn't look at him. He just sniffled. "Mom—Mommy's not coming home."

And with those four words, Hunter's hope had been obliterated.