AUTHOR'S NOTE: Part 2 can be found here -
https://steemit.com/short-story/@phoenix32/journal-a-short-story-part-2
The sun rose over the hill, the first day of his freedom. He had turned 18 over two months prior, but he did not quite feel like an adult until the previous night. He was free, with his whole life ahead of him.
High school graduation.
The school had set up a party for the newly-minted alumni, an all-night event to keep them from getting in trouble or, worse, partying too hard and not making it far beyond graduation. They were bussed home at sunrise, and as he stepped off the bus, his physical exhaustion reflected his mental and emotional state from 13 years of schooling and education.
The bus had dropped him off several miles from his home. Since there were over 600 students that had matriculated, and the majority of them had opted to attend the celebration, bussing was at a premium, and everyone was getting dropped within a few miles of their usual stops. He had no way to call home to have someone pick him up, so he was on his own for the walk home.
He crossed the street as the bus pulled away, a gaggle of his fellow alumni scattering to the winds. He paused for a moment to watch them go, and as he looked up, he saw the scarred man leaning against a car. He smiled broadly and found a hidden reserve of energy to run over to the man. “Man, am I glad to see you. It’s a long walk home, you know.”
The man stood up from against the car and gestured for the newly-graduated younger man to continue walking. “Sorry, kid. But we’re walking today.” They started down the sidewalk together. The graduate noticed the absence of the man’s katana and overcoat.
“Yeah, I figured it wouldn’t be good to have all that out in broad daylight. I draw enough attention on a normal basis.” A few more steps in silence. “So congratulations are in order, my friend. You made it through the traumas and hell of compulsory education.”
“Thanks. I feel like it shouldn’t really have been as difficult as it was. But thank God I am done with it! College is going to be awesome — more acceptance and understanding. Mature attitudes and behaviors.”
The scarred man opened his mouth, but quickly closed it again. I can’t tell him. I can’t tell him that eight months from now, his heart will be broken as badly as it was last time he fell in love. Rather, he allowed the graduate to continue pontificating on the glories of higher education and his imagined open-mindedness of collegians. The man nodded, indicating that he was listening.
“And if I wanted, I can carry a freakin’ toy lightsaber on my belt and no one would say anything. Because it’s college, man!”
The man stifled a laugh. The next few months would be relatively quiet for the graduate, although once he started college…
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They were a block form the house when they parted ways. The man turned and wandered about the town for a spell, knowing that he would have to wait until dark to sneak back into the house, retrieve the katana, and return to his place.
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He arrived home and dropped himself down at his desk, opening one of the journals. He thumbed through it, scanning the pages, looking for the graduation. June 23, 1999 — there it was, the day after graduation. He read the entry for that day:
The scarred man met me after I got off the bus from the overnight party. I haven’t seen him in two months, but I’ve been kinda busy anyway. I’m glad he stopped by, though. I got to tell him about my plans for college — it’s going to be way better than high school! I’m looking forward to being able to actually be myself without having a bunch of jocks and jerks giving me a hard time. Maybe I can meet a girl who won’t care that I’m an über-nerd… or maybe she’ll even like that about me. That would be pretty sweet.
Shaking his head, the man flipped through several dozen pages until he found entries from October 1999.
Thank God… He came to see me, because I needed some advice. So there’s this girl on campus… She’s a skinhead. Like, the real deal — I mean, an actual, literal skinhead. Buzzed her hair off and all. And she was talking about bringing up a bunch of skinheads to campus for Homecoming.
I was floored when she said this in front of me. I had no idea what to do, really. I got to my car, and the scarred man was waiting for me, almost like he knew that I would need to talk to him — like every other time he’s come to find me. So I told him about the skinhead girl, and I asked him what to do about it. He told me that I needed to talk to an administrator for campus life and make sure that someone with authority and power is aware of this.
Man, college is not at all what I thought it was going to be. Skinheads? I mean, really? What is this girl thinking?
He inspected the date — Wednesday October 6, 1999 — and leapt to his feet to grab his katana.
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The drive to the campus would take him about an hour — assuming that he had access to a car or truck. As it stood, there were no vehicles left for him to borrow, but this was something to which he was accustomed. He knew that it would be a couple of years, at least, until there would be a spare vehicle for him to use on his visits.
He had stashed the katana in a nook in the basement and borrowed a jacket from the freshman’s father. The fit was proper, and a wave of mixed emotions threatened to wash over the man. He choked it back, slipped out of the house, and made his way through the neighborhood. Knowing that his travel would be hampered, he made certain to arrive in the dead of night. It was chilly, as it was two weeks into the season of autumn. His journey towards the nearest highway gave him time to reflect on what he remembered of the freshman’s schedule of the day.
Granted, he had arrived in the house, and the freshman was sleeping a floor above him. It would have been exceptionally simple for him to do any number of things to help his own cause in aiding the freshman — wake the young adult up and talk with him now, or wait until the rest of the household was gone and reveal himself and hitch a ride to the campus with him, or even just leave a note. But that was not how any of this worked, nor could he force it to work in that manner. His advice could only be applied after an event occurred, and he could not forewarn younger man of any impending actions. He was risking enough with his trips, and to cause any changes outside of his mission was to risk extensive damage. So he made his way to the northbound bus station and began the hours-long trip to the campus.
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He had slept on the bus, thankfully, though fitfully. It was enough, however. He pulled the map of the campus from his memory with relative ease; although it had undergone tremendous changes, he could still find his way about. Hanging out at the student union, nursing his cup of coffee, he had to wait until the freshman ran into the skinhead girl, who he had been keeping his eye on as soon as she entered the building. “She’s something else,” he said to himself. “I wonder what is going through her shaved head before she speaks.”
If not for her closely-cropped hair and her blatantly racist ideology, she was not much different from any of the other young women on the campus — laughing, joking, having a good time, going to classes. But she was about something more insidious…
The scarred man saw the freshman enter the student union, walking with a couple of classmates. The skinhead girl approached them and began talking loudly about the upcoming Homecoming event and her grand plans for inviting other skinheads to join in the festivities. The man allowed the event to unfold and made his way to the parking lot. He had an appointment there.
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The freshman perked up as he saw his friend waiting for him at his car. He had gone to swap his textbooks, and was pleasantly surprised by the presence of the scarred man. “I haven’t seen you since June!”
“Yeah, it has been a few months. How was your oral surgery in August? All healed?”
The freshman had since ceased to be surprised or shocked by such questions; his surprise originated from the fact that he had not given it much thought, as it was almost two months in his rearview mirror. “Yeah, I haven’t even really thought about it. So I guess I’m good. What are you doing here today?”
“I had a feeling that you might need me, like there’s something on your mind,” the man replied.
The freshman nodded. “I just ran into this girl on campus —”
“Attractive?”
The freshman scoffed. “Unless you like them bald and racist.” He spoke of the encounter that he and his classmates shared with the skinhead girl. “She wants to bring all sorts of skinheads from all over to campus for Homecoming. I’m kinda freaked out about the idea of it.”
“So what do you think you should do about it?”
“Do? What can I do? I’m just a freshman…”
“Wrong, you’re a student with a voice. And you know that there are plenty of people on this campus with the authority and power to shut down anything that could prove to be problematic. I’m sure you know someone like that…”
The freshman paused to consider. “There’s a whole office for student life on the second floor of the student union. Someone there should be able to help, right?”
The scarred man nodded.
The freshman started to close his car door, but then paused. “Maybe… I shouldn’t carry this anymore.” He reached under his jacket and produced a toy lightsaber handle. He tossed it into the car and closed the door. “I don’t think going in there with that on my belt is going to serve me well…”
The man agreed, saying, “I can’t tell you what would happen if you did carry it, but I will tell you that I am glad you made that decision. Now go find someone in authority and say your piece, kid.”
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The toy lightsaber was showing its age, the years of use and the brittling of the plastic apparent. It was on his desk now — he had to dig it out from storage. When he had first picked it up, he recalled the first time that he had held it in his hands, the hands of a much younger man, greener and idealistic, doe-eyed and innocent. It was inevitable that the idealism and innocence would fade into the recesses, but the man knew that he could make that transition far easier and less traumatic than it could be.
End of Part 3