2. David Bloom
Eighth Grade
A swarm of grackles shrieked in discord from the tall oak behind us. I turned to watch them; blackbirds with iridescent bodies like something born of oil spills. Texas' answer to the raven. They loved to eat garbage, and so plagued the trailer park. Cast in shadows by the daybreak, they looked just like leaves. A sudden noise startled them, and they burst in unison away from their gathering place. It was as though the sound blasted the foliage up and off the tree—all for the slamming of a trailer door. The calamity in Broadway Trailer Park even annoyed the pests.
We were early for the bus. David and I stood at the road outside the park, watching the chaos unfold. The faces, names, places—a holy mess. Big barking dogs in makeshift fences, beer guts in ripped jeans, and high drama at loud volume.
I turned and stared at the face of my best friend, who focused on what happened inside the park. David’s skin shone against low-hanging sun, wisps of curled brown hair a halo charged by the dawn’s light. Never got a haircut his mom didn’t give, so it was shoulder-length, in calm curls.
Angry almond eyes. Fourteen, two years older than me, and a foot taller. Lean. He hated watching the adults fight.
"The landlord again," I mumbled. Adults screamed like babies. A fat man in a tank top threatened to punch a woman, one of his tenants. Everyone around me acted like this was normal. Acceptable.
Except David—he looked disgusted.
The bus was always late, which always made us late, which highlighted the fact we were from a different part of town than the ‘normal’ kids. Most other kids’ parents drove them to school. I’m sure mine would’ve driven me if they could. I’d never met my mom because she died of cancer when I was two.
The bus rumbled to a stop. David and I let the other four kids from Broadway—all misfits like us—get in first. David's seat in the back was reserved, like it should be. The ride was quiet, the morning’s grim events having spoiled the mood. We peered out our respective windows as the wild forest around Broadway Trailer Park cultivated into the pristine town of Kingwood with its simple cream-colored buildings and new football stadium.
The high school and middle school were only a hundred feet apart, sharing bus routes and sports fields. Lessons were simple; everything outside the classroom was hard.
After school, I waited for David near the bus stop. Waiting there was the worst part of my day. No one rode the bus except the kids from Broadway, so I made an easy target.
Two high schoolers approached. Trouble.I recognized the pair as being some of the stupidest, meanest bullies in their grade. They sported grubby gremlin hands and cruel inquisitive eyes. Boiled chimps that stank like Corn Nuts and unwiped asses.
“Hey buddy,” the fat one said. “Make any crystal meth today?” The instigator.
“Probably got a backpack full of cold medicine and match sticks,” the tall, slim one said. The enforcer. He stepped up. Over a foot taller than me; he spun me around and gripped my backpack, holding it so I couldn't run.
“His parents probably traded him for lottery tickets,” the heavy one observed a moment before David collided with him, sending him tumbling onto the ground, fat face bouncing off the grass.
Tall and thin turned to meet this new attacker. He kicked David, shoving him back with his foot, sending the lean scrapper rolling onto the ground. My defender quickly stood and lunged at skinny with his arms swinging in a series of akimbo assaults, fists flailing like a carnival clacker.
Fat and squat lumbered up then backed away from the ferocious little Newton’s Cradle, while his companion tried to put a hand on David’s forehead to hold him back.
David grabbed the hand greedily and bit in. Blood poured. Skinny tried to pull away, but David clamped down harder and started swinging his arms again, striking his opponent on the left and right side of the face even as he bit down, teeth slowly sinking through layer after layer of delicate tissue.
I tackled David, finally pulling him off. The bully fell. David yanked out of my grip and started kicking at him again and again, aiming for ears and neck. Finally the bully got up off the ground and limped away sulking, tears in his eyes, cradling a bleeding lip with a bleeding hand.
David wiped the blood from his chin. A droplet fell from his hand, returning to Earth. Shoulder-length brown hair matted to his forehead where the enforcer’s sweaty hand had pressed against it. He looked ready to strike at anyone who came near, five and a half feet of tightly wound determination. My friend David: The only reason I survived middle school.
“C’mon, let’s get out of here," David said.
I followed in stunned silence. I’d been raised to feel helpless—every set of eyes I peered into banished me to a dark place, dismissing me as backward and poor. Within that dark place, I weakened, submitting to my definition because I thought other’s eyes were a reflection into my own. I accepted their definition to be true. They made me.
Only David rebelled. Only David knew there was something within himself that wasn’t weak, and wasn’t backward, and wasn’t poor. Only David looked inward for answers.
There was a softknock on the Plexiglas porthole serving as my window. David motioned for me to join him outside; I checked the wristwatch I set beside my bed as a clock: 3 AM.
Only needed jeans and a shirt; on a balmy spring night in South Texas, you didn’t need the sun to sweat. David stood outside my trailer, perched over a chrome bicycle, two backpacks slung around his shoulders, each bulging. One of David’s hands gripped the handlebar of a second bicycle.
“What’s going on?” I asked, vision cloudy.
“My paper route,” he said. “I want you to come with me tonight. I’ve gotta show you something.”
“Paper route? Don’t you have school?”
“I just get up a few hours early. Sleep is a waste, if you think about it.”
I took hold of the second bike, a diamond-shaped red frame with front shocks and knobby tires. The clamp underneath was stuck; I banged on the seat with my elbow until it lowered into a position I could get my leg over. “And where’d you get this?”
“I borrowed it. Ride with me, I’ll explain.” David stood out of the saddle and pushed the pedals, accelerating quickly. I struggled to keep up with the older, leaner boy. My new bike crunched through its gears angrily, metal on metal, and finally settled into one with enough resistance to get some speed.
We sped down the freshly paved road leading to Kingwood, half in the grass. No cars came; no headlights pierced the black silk of the night around us. Thick sheets of darkness ruffled my hair and teased my skin. Exhilarated.
A mile or so down the road, we made a right turn into a proper Kingwood neighborhood. A newer one, the trees still saplings, but laid out in big figure eights like all the rest. David pulled off to the side, under a street light but away from any houses.
“Check this out,” he said, sliding one backpack off his shoulders and digging through it, retrieving a large chart folded into thirds and marked with addresses and instructions, written in code. “This is my paper route. They give me a new one every week. The route is stupid, but look: people tell us when they’re going on vacation. Know why? They don’t want the papers piling up out front, so it won’t look like they’re gone. Of course, it also means I can guarantee they won’t be home for another…two weeks, it says.”
“And you, of course, just want to let them know about this security risk?” I got off the bike and stood over the frame, on my toes to keep the aluminum bar from digging into my crotch.
“I’ve been breaking in.” David smiled. Teeth white, practically light sources in their own right. “There are two in this neighborhood that are on vacation, one of them for two months, the other for two weeks.”
The high school freshman mounted his bike and pedaled off; he hopped a curb and we slogged through the grass outside a small brick house. The realization I was about to break the law dawned on me; my pedaling slowed.
David turned. “Come on. Don’t be a wimp.” He sounded disgusted; this rebuke caused me to put all my cautions aside. He fished a key from the backpack and opened the back door. “I used the window the first time,” he informed, retrieving a flashlight. “Just took a key from the cabinet after that. No reason to look so suspicious. C’mon, pull the bikes in, don’t want them sitting outside.”
I did as he instructed, guiding my bike over the white tiled floor of a clean kitchen. A green scrub brush was the only item out of place, sitting across the sink. It felt wrong to be inside this home, with other people’s aunts and uncles on the walls staring at me, their pleasant expressions turned into condemnation.
A sudden, crushing anxiety forced itself on me, as intense and real as diving to the bottom of the deep end. I was in someone else's home, their private sanctum, without their approval. I found myself unable to move as cold sweat began to cling to my skin.
After a few deep breaths I managed to regain control of my legs. An upright piano occupied the far corner of the living room, covered with photos and trinkets, keys blanketed with a red cloth. I studied the photo: a middle-aged woman with a short, tidy haircut. Modest makeup, long dress, no jewelry. Very reserved.
“That’s Pamela. She owns this house. Ex-husband, one kid. She’s an accountant. Come on,” he whispered, motioning toward a hallway leading deeper into the house. “Here’s what I’ve been thinking, Jacob: what makes a person into who they are? Themselves? Or, the way everyone sees them? Or, does the stuff around a person define them? And if it is themselves, what keeps them waking up as the same person day after day?”
“I guess that’s just who they are.”
David guided me into the bedroom, a space of impenetrable darkness, whispering as he did so. “Why does Pamela wake up to be Pamela, tomorrow? I think she’s trapped. Remember that piano? Just a place to put crap. People outside think of her as an accountant, need her to be one, and every morning she looks around and sees all this accountant stuff, and so she behaves the way an accountant is supposed to.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” I asked.
“I dunno,” David answered. “I dunno. It just…bothers me. I can’t stop thinking about this. I mean, this is who everyone is. Becoming an adult sounds so simple, but if you only get to decide one thing, shouldn't it be who you are? But…look, come in here.” He led me to the last room in the house, furthest away from any entrances. A walk-in closet, filled with drab dresses in neutral colors. We pushed our way through the forest of clothes and reached the far corner.
He folded back the dresses to reveal books of sheet music and photos of Pamela at a piano, seated next to an older woman. "I need to know how this works, Jacob. If I change the house, how does that affect Pamela?”
“How?” I asked, hairs standing at end.
At last, David removed the second backpack and opened it. More books of music, music stands, a decorative silver clef, classical albums.
“The other vacant house on my route…he used to be a piano teacher. After tomorrow he’ll be an accountant.”
“You stole his stuff?”
“Not his real stuff. This is just junk people cling to.”
“Sounds…wrong.”
David looked offended at the suggestion. “How would I get caught? I’m not keeping any of the stuff. C’mon, don’t be a coward. Are you gonna help me or not?”
I wanted to explain to him how something might still be wrong even if he didn’t get caught, but I figured it would be lost on him. How could I resist? “Sure,” I submitted. “I’ll help you. But for the record, I think this is just gonna scare the crap out of these people.”
“Maybe. Consider Pamela a test subject. Trust me; it could be a lot worse. We could just burn everything.”
I didn’t say anything, just stared at him. My friend didn’t seem aware he’d said something strange, but when those long, heavy eyes saw my expression, he explained: “I mean, just think about it. A house fire clarifies. Fire cleans away all this clutter and leaves…just the person. Of course, it’d be terrible to do that to innocent people. No, these two are neighbors. They can switch their stuff back, I’m sure. I’ll let them know somehow, after we’re done.”
He carried the bag of musical clutter to the living room and left it sitting open. “I want you to start going through her house with me. Anything you see that reminds you of an accountant, take it down and put it in your bag. When she gets home, she’s going to know: someone wants her to be a musician.”
We went to work, removing all the little kitschy porcelain calculators, books on tax law, degrees in Accounting and replacing them with half-complete artwork, a sketchpad, a book of famous drawings.
“Does this picture count as an ‘accountant thing’?” I asked, pointing at a particularly nerdy image of Pamela sitting in front of a computer, typing, but turned and smiling at the camera.
“God, yes.”
“What else have you done, anyway?”
“Last week I took all one son’s stuff out of one house and put it in another, like he lived there with them. The week before that, I put all my stuff in a house with a dad. I wonder if all this does any good—and I couldn’t say it does. You’re right; it probably just freaks them out. But it makes me think.”
“So it’s worth it?” I asked, setting the easel up in the center of her living room turned art studio. “All this redecorating?”
“No, not really. I don't think this will actually make Pamela focus on her music. I just like…making myself known. This will make her think something, right? My concept is sound, there just…has to be a better way. It's not the same when I force them to change. They need to do change themselves.”
If David left his ideas about identity there, we might be fine. He might still be alive. But he wasn’t satisfied; he wanted to find some way to strip people back, to deconstruct them. I think the idea of someone being reborn from fire, of losing what they had but learning who they are, enchanted him. These early experiments would lead him to develop Eureka, and Eureka would grow to control our lives.