DAMN! I was afraid of that. “Breathe deep.“ I leveled my own voice. “Dig your fingernails into your leg or something. Focus and choose every word you’re going to say…carefully.” Chazz started hyperventilating. “No no no! You’re not in trouble, friend. You’re not in trouble. Not at all. Just talk…slowly.”
A few more panicked gasps and Chazz was able to talk. “They’ve…been making me…watch…these…cartoons…” He almost dropped the r in cartoons but caught himself mid phoneme.
The hair on the back of my arms was starting to go straight up. “Who? ! Beouf? Zoge?”
“No…My…my…” He stopped himself. He didn’t want to say ‘Mommy and Daddy’, but it was the only word that his brain might let him get out.
The programming was too intense for him. “The Amazons who took you?” I said. Then I added, “Adopted you?” A snot bubble inflated under his left nostril and popped. He nodded his head. “I’ll tell Mrs. Beouf about that,” I promised. “Maybe she can get them to stop.”
He moaned a little bit. I heard a burbling and popping noise. He was still filling up his diaper.
“What’s wrong with your stomach?” If he’d only been caught a week he shouldn’t be diaper dependent yet.
Still crying he stuttered out the answer as best as he could. “Ch-ch-ch-choc-”
“Training chocolate?” I had my own mini-flashback of a few days ago.
If Chazz pulled on his scalp any harder, hair would be coming out in clumps. “Mommy and Daddy keep making me eat it….as a treeeeeat!” Sometimes there’s nothing you can do except let a person cry it out. So I did.
“I’M EIGHTEEN!“ he screamed. “I’M JUST EIGHTEEN!” More incoherent bawling. The next part came out barely above a whisper, though “i moved out…and i didn’t even make a year…” I felt nauseous and it had nothing to do with the smell coming out from behind the kid. Now I wanted to cry. I gave him a hug. Not as an adult hugging a child, or a Helper trying to make an Adopted Little feel childish. There was no calculation, or hidden agenda on my part. No paranoia. I just wanted to be a decent person to him.
He was bawling into my shoulder. I was close enough that I could hear the hiss as his bladder gave out and released a deluge into the padding between his legs. “blasted’ AMAZONS!” he screamed.
Right then I wanted nothing more than to help him. I wanted to give him the keys to my scooter, tell Tarnia to open the door for him, and give him as much of a head start as I could. Instead, I leaned in and grabbed the back of his head, pressing our foreheads together in a kind of aggressive nuzzle. I helped the poor kid the only way I knew how, instead.
I whispered to him. “Say ‘typical’.”
Chazz stopped bawling long enough to take a breath. He sniffled. “Huh?” he whispered back.
“If you need to say the F-word, say ‘typical’ instead. You can get your anger out, and they won’t have any reason to know what you’re really thinking. ‘Typical Amazons’. You’re going to make it through this.” I was giving empty promises. The same promises I told myself. “But to do that, you’ve gotta be smart. Rebel, but do it in small ways. Subtle ways. Ways that won’t make them take it out on you. Ways they won’t think of. Don’t say the f-word. Say ‘typical’, instead.”
He was quiet. Good. Quiet meant thinking. “Okay…” he finally said. His breathing was slowing. Getting it back under his control. “‘Typical Amazons’. Yeah…I like it.”
We were too close to make proper eye contact, but I’d like to think he felt my smile. “So do I,” I told him. “So do I. Use it everyday, myself.” I stood up and offered him my hand. He took it and I helped him to his feet. Hopefully his so-called parents wouldn’t turn him into a crawler.
