Nate Jacobs, Little Boy Lost.
An overwhelming calm crept over the shadows of Nate Jacob’s bedroom, slithering into every corner, every crevice, blanketing the air like a heavy, crippling weight as he lay upon his back, fixating his gaze to a particular swatch of peeling paint that had somehow become painfully obvious to his keen eye despite the surrounding darkness.
There was nothing comforting about this calmness, this stillness that seemed to stop the flow of time between the four walls of this generic bedroom of a high school quarterback, the only decor being trophies of past victories that seemed to blur together, insignificant and nearly meaningless in the hindsight of it all. No, this was an ominous tranquility, as if a soft, uneasy whisper was rising up from beneath the silence to hint that it was all just beginning.
“Nathaniel, your whole fucking life’s a secret. A mystery.”
His father’s targeted words shouted so pointedly amidst the slurred speech of his drunken bender as his brawny frame swayed upon the perfectly manicured stairwell of the Jacobs household a mere hour before scraped continuously at the back of Nate’s mind like a dulling knife, looping, clawing against the confines of his sanity. As his thoughts began to spiral, his calloused hands tugged upon the fabric of the sheet beneath him, balling his knuckles into tight, tense fists.
“Who knows about you? I have lived with you. I have raised you, I am your father. I know nothing about you. That’s not true, I know that you’re angry.”
How dare his father not see that this emptiness, this vacancy of youth, of substance, had been bred and perpetuated by his own doing. How dare he speak of freedom from a life he felt so burdened by without taking ownership of ruining his son. He had raised a little boy lost; so devoid of affection and true guidance that the only remainder of humanity in his pivotal transition into manhood was too far cloaked in layers of trauma and ever present anger to truly surface. In his isolated quiet, Nate tried to source his memories for before the numbness set in, before the day to day auto piloting and emotional emulation became his normal behavior, perhaps a time of innocence that hadn’t been filled with faux laughter and forced smiles. Did those moments ever truly exist for him or were they only displayed in media he consumed, this unattainable idea of a healthy, doting family dedicated to the wellbeing of their children. His father had even managed to rob him of the potential concept of family trauma bonding; a moment that could have perhaps mended any possibility of a family environment finally without the presence of his father, an aspect of mutual affection that could be shared in the wake of his emotional destruction but, no. Nate had already known his father’s secret, a secret he had kept locked tight for seven years that wreaked such havoc and developmental destruction upon his adolescence that he had dissociated from forming any concrete personality just to keep, his sacrifice amounting to absolutely nothing now that his paternal figure was so carelessly choosing to scream about his closeted queerness in the foyer, hardly scratching the surface of the loaded layers behind his confession. Within his ramblings, his drunken narcissistic father failed to mention his graphic collection of homemade, male centric, violent pornography with predominately underage teens Nate found as a mere eleven year old child, but no, why would he focus on how he threatened his own son into silent submission, leaving behind a vacant shell of a blooming boy, when he could instead victimize himself in his self inflicted chaos and once again inform Nate that it was his son’s fault for not allowing him in.
Interlacing between the echo of his father’s slurred speech was the voice of his ex-girlfriend, his Maddy, the words bouncing off a moonlit memory from the night before as she asked in earnest if he’d ever felt loved by her, the whites of her puppy dog eyes searching his stoic demeanor for any ounce of true emotion to cling onto. “I don’t know” he remembered responding, his gaze fluttering closed momentarily, tearing away from the peeling paint as his gut wrenched upon the most honest moment he allowed himself to have in recent memory. How could he possibly know love? There had been no love within his father’s insatiable desire for violence or the distance his mother put between her and the bouncing baby sociopath she knew they’d inevitably bring into the world their second time around. He searched so desperately to know even the smallest aspect that breathed hope into the sensation of love. He could almost see the brightness of love dancing upon the golden strands of Cassie Howard’s hair when sunlight trickled delicately through the blinds in the early hours of morning. He could almost feel the heavy pang of heartache attempting to break through when Maddy’s tough exterior had cracked before him in utter desperation to save any remainder of their relationship. There were seconds where his heart began to beat faster and slower all at once but as quickly as the sensation came on, it seemed to be ripped away.
A muffled buzzing abruptly vibrated upon the wood of Nate’s bed-side table marking the first sign of life for hours that penetrated the darkness of his bedroom. Almost in a reflex, Nate’s right hand immediately shot up, clutching the vibrating device, swiftly throwing it across the room where he lay, a loud huf accompanying his violence, his body jolting upward and forward, as he watched it land safely in one piece near the doorway. He couldn’t even destroy a Goddamn phone when his father had so effortlessly destroyed an entire family.
In a sudden burst of aggression, Nate allowed his lips to part in a scream, a piercing yell that came from the depth of his belly and rose the veins of his neck to the surface, his flesh immediately turning rosy with his rage. A large breath to catch his anger followed as he threw his muscular frame back upon the mattress, another full body scream piercing the air as he rocked his figure forward and backward continuously slamming himself upon his queen sized bed. Feel something, you fucking asshole. His subconscious screamed. Feel fucking anything.
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