Unlikely Hero

Unlikely Hero
By Geri Fitzsimmons
All rights to the author

“Sure,” the Old Fellow said, “revenge is best savored when it’s no longer expected.”

Chapter One

The land around had been bulldozed so dark soil encircled a massive structure. Barbed wire topped stone walls that stretched for miles. Slimy green mold discolored the gray stones of those walls. An oppressive silence polluted the air outside the walls.

There was noise aplenty within those walls, howling, cursing, and even the sobs of men mixed with the incessant barks and yells of warders. At nine years and a few days old, Garth Ahern knew all this though he had never actually heard it.  Hadn't his mum spit it at him for as long as he could remember, accompanied by her usual cuffs and slaps. "Sure'n that's where you'll die Gareee, squawking in a prison, just like your pa."

Now he rocked his buttocks back and forth lifting one then the other to keep the dampness from seeping through his short gray pants. It was wasted effort but he did it out of habit. As if the movements could somehow prevent his dirtying his pants. Tears dribbled from his eyes to streak his cheeks. He rubbed at a nose, more like a pop up button, in the center of his small face. A chubby hand reached up to shove the dusty blond hair from his forehead. Managing to soil his face sufficiently, he then slipped his hands beneath his cold buttocks. Back and forth he continued to rock.

No adult could see what his innocent eyes viewed through the fog of his tears. Parading the dead land around those prison walls were big men, broad of chest, heads held high. Strong voiced they sang to him. He had only a smattering of an idea of what their words meant. Battle, glory and death all connected as one concept within his immature mind.  Most of the phantoms he didn't recognize. The few he did were from faded pictures in books that didn't look all that much like these heroes.

Garth never sat here with his friends. He never let on to them what he knew and saw when he came here alone to visit. Among his pals, Garth was a comic who teased and made other boys laugh. He sang nonsensical rhymes of things that could never occur. Dreaming up goblins and ghouls, he could entertain his restless young chums for hours. Some of the older lads dubbed him The Rainmaker and swore, “Surely his lies cause the angels themselves to weep endlessly.”

No one ever saw Garth cry. Even when his ma whipped him in her meanness or a Holy Sister blistered his palms for, “Taking the Good Lord's name in vain.” Garth never shed a tear. The heroes cried for him. He knew that was what caused the rain, not some silly angels who didn't give a hoot. The heroes cried because they knew he would soon join them and die in the prison like his pa.

Garth didn't know his pa. Daniel Ahern was dead eight months before Garth was born. His ma had burned even his pictures that might have given the boy some vague remembrance. “Nay, Gareee, I'll not have ya grow inta a boozing, fighting, wasted lump the likes of Dan'el Ahern.” She told him daily but Garth knew different.

His eyes burned as he watched the ghostly heroes marching around those prison walls in time to their battle hymns. A sly smile formed on his lips and he licked at them. He knew that in the middle of that parade, Daniel Ahern was marching, waiting for his only son to join him.

Garth shivered from the chill inside as well as outside, his chest hurt as a patch of ice replaced his heart. He trembled and jumped to his feet, dancing about trying to restore the flow of warm blood. He didn't concern himself with hours or minutes but he realized he had been here a long time. Time enough to get in big trouble. Since he was always in trouble, he didn't waste effort on worry. The emptiness of his stomach caused noisy grumbles and a bit of a gas pain. Abruptly the heroes began weeping and the rain splashed on his head. His school uniform would be dirty and wet and his ma would whip him good. Her slaps didn't bother him much anymore, but that yowling. How he hated the sound of Leona’s voice. How he longed to smash a burning brick of peat into her wide yap. He snickered. Sure’n, but weren’t he the Devil's child like the Good Father Reagan said.

The rain came harder. He ran. Faster and faster his legs pumped, his feet keeping time to the rhythm of the rain. If he could move fast enough, the speed of his legs might carry his body above the heroes' tears; he might run all the way to Hell. The sound of his childish laughter rang loudly. Sure'n he'd never be cold again.

He couldn't see much through the haze of the downpour but he knew the way by heart. He'd entered the road to increase his speed but when the auto came around a bend he didn't hear it. When his small body suddenly took flight, it was as if he'd gotten his wish and left the Earth behind.