Rise of the Warlock: The Beginning

July 2002: The Drive By I walked slowly down the street, George Thorogood playing on my CD player, or to be more precise, skipping on my CD player. The faulty CD player was half of why I was walking slow, the other half being I just didn't feel like going home. It was June and the sun was burning in the sky. The block I lived on would be having a party. Now some may ask what ten-year-old wouldn't want to be drinking pop, eating junk food, and winning games like ring toss. The answer was one who knew that he would be spending that time corralling the little ones, while his mother and the other adults drank themselves into a stupor, which could only be interrupted by the occasional fight or upstairs liaison. Now don't misunderstand, I knew that at ten years old I should not really know what s*x was, or even consider my mother a s****l being, but that ship set sail the first time I woke up to “f**k me harder!” being screamed through the house. I had an older sister that was fourteen, and I knew that she'd be put on “brat duty” with me not going home, but I had decided not to care. Besides, the only thing I'd be keeping her from was smoking behind the house and stealing beer when the adults were either too busy or too drunk to care. I had been walking the streets since I slipped from the house at six. First, I walked to the library and finished the last of what they had available to read. A little more than eight months ago I could barely read. It wasn't that I didn't have the tools. I was just too stubborn to let the teachers actually do their jobs, and I was also either suspended, in detention, or sitting in the principal's office doodling and otherwise making a nuisance of myself. It was that principal that gave me the drive to read. Oh, she didn't bribe me or punish me as neither of those things would work. No. All she did was bet me that by the start of the next school year I would still be unable to read, and then threw in there that I wouldn't be able to read because I was too stupid to figure it out. So, that next school day I was in the school library reading Berenstain Bears, Captain Underpants, and Clifford books. I won our bet, and I won it before that school year ended. Since I’d discovered the joys of reading I hadn't been able to stop. I read everything and anything I could get my hands on. When I finished what the school had available, I went to the public library and began to work through what they had to offer. Today was the end of that crusade as I finished reading a biography on Lincoln which I had been putting off since I had already read two other books that touched on him: one that contained information on all the presidents, and another that pertained to the civil war. So that's why I was walking in the hot sun instead of sitting in the air conditioned library, reading to pass the time. I read the store fronts as I walked along when I stopped at one I hadn't noticed before. It was simply called “Used and Discount Books”. I walked in and glanced around. There was no one in front but I could hear what sounded like a spoon tinkling against a coffee cup, and that's when I saw it—the book. It was old, with a cracked leather cover, and large—by far the largest book I'd ever seen. The pages within the book were uneven and rough. The book carried a smell that reminded me of the newspapers that my grandmother had stacked in her home. When I opened the cover the first page didn't have any writing on it and was yellowed with age. I flipped to the next page and there was a list of signatures, most in languages I'd never seen. I flipped page after page—the names simply continued—until I started to see more familiar writing. When I came to the last name it was just the letter ‘G’, a scrawl, then an ‘L’ followed by another scrawl. The next page I flipped to looked newer than the first blank page and was carefully written out. The title was An Introduction To Magic and the Mastery of One's Soul Translated by George Lawrence. I simply stared at the page until I was startled by the sound of a cupboard being closed. As quick as I could I gathered up the book and walked out. I turned down one street, then the next, the heavy book still in my hands. The book almost seemed to call to me; even as I walked I had the urge to stop and continue to read the book. All that ran through my head was Magic is not real, right? But what if it is? What if I could learn it—what then? I had already resolved to skip the block party and instead find some place quiet and solitary to read over the book. I was so engrossed in thoughts of magic and mystery that I didn't see the person coming at me until it was too late. “Ugf,” I grunted as I was suddenly slammed into and I crashed to the pavement. My left elbow burned and I’d watched my CD player slam into the ground when I fell. A laugh came from my right then a mocking voice called out, “What kinda faggaty-ass s**t is dis?” I glanced over and my eyes narrowed when I saw Derek Washington standing there. Derek and his i***t friends had been the bane of my existence since we moved into Grand Rapids after my parents split. Derek was an annoying s**t-bird who talked big and would tell anyone who listened how his brother was the head of the city’s toughest gang, the Ten K Krew. At the time I didn't know much about the Ten K Krew, only that Derek was a loud-mouth who bullied anyone he could. I became the focus of his attention when he tried to steal from me by saying that a bike I owned was his. When I fought back and won, well, he couldn't have that, so he had begun to try and make my life hell. Half of the time I spent in detention or on suspension was due to fights with him and his friends. I glanced at my elbow as I started to get up; it was already bleeding and I could see bits of stone and dirt in the scrape. “Put dat b***h back inna dirt,” Derek said to one of the morons who followed him around. The kid was bigger than me, but from the look of him it was mostly Skittles weight. As he went to kick me with his right leg I grabbed it with my left hand and punched him in the balls with my right. I laughed as his eyes bugged, all the while pulling his left leg up and toppling him over. Derek's other follower was more fit and I knew him to be just as much a scrapper as myself. He waited until I turned my attention back to Derek, then taking a boxer's pose moved in. He made a left jab which I took to my forehead. As his face scrunched up in pain, I grinned and came in swinging. I hit him with a left and right to the body before grabbing him around the head and slamming his face into my knee. He fell to the ground heavily. I lifted my right foot to stomp on his face when Derek tackled me to the ground. He straddled me and started to punch me in the face. I growled as I tasted blood, and grabbed his ear in my right hand, pulling his head to the side until he stopped hitting me to break my grip. I took advantage of the respite to punch him in the nose. As he reared back I managed to get enough room to hit him with a right, then roll him off. I scrambled over and climbed onto him, bellowing in rage and pain. I quickly pulled him around and started hitting him, growling all the while how I was going to kill him. I was still hitting him when stars burst behind my eyes as my book was used to bash me in the side of the head. I tumbled to the side and grunted when the heavy book was dropped on me. Through bleary eyes I saw Derek get pulled up by his friends, then they took off. Due to the pain in my head I couldn't even muster up the effort to smile as the fat one sort of half limped as he ran. I wasn't exactly sure how long I lay there on the ground, but the three of them were no longer in sight when I rolled over and forced myself up. I fought off the feeling of vertigo that came when I stood up, and spat out the blood in my mouth before feeling with my tongue the small cuts where my teeth had mashed into my lower lip. My nose was a little tender, there was a knot on the side of my head, and my elbow still stung. So all in all, it could have been worse. I still didn't feel like walking home, though now it was less about not wanting to watch the little ones and more about avoiding the scolding for getting my CD player broken. So I cut through a few parking lots, slipped through a hole in a fence, ignored the sound of my shirt ripping when it got caught on a broken link, and finally stopped at an old derelict shell of a car. I slipped into the back, laid against one door, and began my study of the book. I flipped through the pages, and there were a lot of them. Some of the pages were older than others, and it appeared as if someone—or several someones—had removed the binding and added their own research into the book before rebinding it. I also came across loose pages that would have a diagram or some writing as if it had been added last minute. There were also rubbings mixed in with symbols that I recognized as Egyptian, and others that I didn't recognize at all. I returned to that first part and started to read: Mind, Body, and soul—these three things are the most important aspect of anyone who wishes to step upon the path of true understanding of the world, the universe, and the infinite realms. To strengthen the mind is to indulge curiosity, to strengthen the body is to push one’s self past the limit again and again, to strengthen the soul is to know one’s self and to live without regret. I read for hours until I could no longer make out the words on the pages. Realizing I was going to catch hell for staying out all day, I walked toward home slowly, enjoying the night. I could see the flash of emergency lights and hear the babel of the crowd before I fully turned onto the corner. I walked numbly into the back of the crowd I could hear snippets of their conversation and I felt as if I had been punched in the gut. “They came out of nowhere just slowed down and started firing right into the crowd, all those kids.” One man said. Another said “ I heard that several people were killed including kids?” I didn't wait to hear the reply as I pushed forward through the crowd just trying to get to the front and see what happened. Pushing past a cop I sprinted toward my house where a number of cops were standing and I could just see blood, a lot of blood when a cop grabbed me. “Let go!, Let me the f**k go!” I screamed turning to face the cop directly only to find myself face down on the ground with his knee pinned to my spine as I thrashed and screamed. “Get off him” I heard a girl scream vaguely recognizing her to be my next door neighbor. I was let up and she explained what had happened. It was a drive by and my family had been smack in the middle of it. My mother was dead and two of my sisters were in surgery a cop drove me to the hospital while another sat beside me asking questions about the gangs in the area. I couldn't help but notice the many questions he asked about the Ten K Krew. We stayed until my sisters were out of surgery, then we left to Aunt Maureen's home near Lansing. A large two-story farmhouse with a garage the size of a second house, and a massive pool in the back. My aunt rattled off the amenities. I guess she was hoping it would cheer us up. It didn't work. My uncle, James Madison, paid a moving company to collect our stuff, then sold the house and my mom’s car to pay for the funeral and hospital bills. From an argument I overheard between my aunt and uncle she didn't believe all of that story. My mother may have partied and drank far more than she should have, but she loved us and did have a life insurance policy. As for the hospital bills, we all had insurance as well so that would only leave a deductible. Again, this is what I overheard from their discussion, as it was hard to call what they did fighting when I compared it to my parents. A week or so later would find me sitting in the room my sisters were given at the hospital. It would be then that my older sister’s father would come back into her life. My mother got pregnant when she was sixteen with my older sister. From what little my older sister knew he’d been a choir boy, played football, and was the community sweetheart in the suburban hell my grandparents lived in. I knew it was hell from the short time we were forced to stay there after my parents split up. Mass, sunday school, and hell fire. My grandparents were Irish immigrants. My older sister had stared at the man who was her father, barely recognizing the man whom she had only seen in photos before that day. Apparently my aunt called him to tell him his daughter was in the hospital. I have no idea why it took him so long to visit his critically injured, could-have-died, daughter, but visit he did. He became a constant fixture, eventually introducing my older sister to his wife and kids. When she got out of the hospital she would move to Ohio with them. My younger sisters and I would live with my aunt and uncle. However, friction between me and my uncle would end up with me being forced to leave. “I can't wait to see you this weekend, Baby Doll.” “Oh yeah, I’ll lick up all of your liquor,” I heard from my uncle when I stumbled upon him in the back of the house a few weeks after moving in. “You’re having an affair! You son of a b***h!” I screamed at the older man, his eyes going wide in surprise at being caught. “Shut your f*****g mouth, fat ass!” he hissed right before I coldcocked him. “I'm calling the cops, you little delinquent,” he growled. I was about to hit him again but my aunt got between us. “Stop this instant, both of you!” my aunt demanded. “He's having an Affair!” I yelled in protest. “I know. It's just a midlife crisis. It won't go anywhere. He loves me, don't you?” she asked turning to him. He looked flabbergasted but it passed quickly into a look of apology. My uncle then pledged his undying loyalty and love to my aunt, and promised it was over between him and whoever he was seeing. However, he demanded that I leave because he couldn't live with me and my disrespect anymore. So I was moved to my mother's brother, which would last for two months until he screamed, “It's my way, or the highway.” I just left. I got picked up from a bust station by my Aunt Maureen, and I was brought somewhere else. Twelve homes, twelve different schools over two states, and each time it just didn't work out. Mostly my fault, I guess. I was stubborn and obsessed with my book.