Scottie finds a savoir.

disclaimer: language, violence and race sensitive issues, if this stuff bothers you, you should probably leave now, and you should also probably realize that people like YOU who refuse to discuss these things are the reason these things continue to purvey in our society's youth.

This is an excerpt from a current project title (tentatively) "The Epistle Of Jude" it is the other half of the story you have already seen excerpts from: "Saint Impossible". In this passage, we find an eleven year old boy, in bed, while his mother argues with her boyfriend about Scottie's new "friend" Benny. Benny is significantly older than Scottie, and he is a skinhead...I'll leave the rest to your imagination. Please don't forget to give feedback!


One evening, Benny dropped Scott off at home, and instead of her normal willingness to chat with Benny, his mother rushed him out before Scott had even finished his shower. From his bedroom, he could hear the reason behind it. Vincent and his mother were arguing. Vincent said Benny was bad news, that Scott needed to be kept from him, before it was something more serious than a three day suspension and a bloody nose. His mother told Vincent he was being unreasonable, Benny was obviously a nice young man, and Scott really enjoyed going to Benny’s place and learning about cars and spending time with the other kids.

“What other kids, Sarah? Have you thought of that? There aren’t any other kids in Benny’s car when he drops Scott off, you don’t wonder about that?”

“Oh, come on, Vincent, Benny has a younger sister a couple years younger than Scott, and the guys he works with at the auto shop all have kids that hang around, it’s good for Scott to be out of the house, around other kids”.

“This Benny guy is not a good guy, Sarah, I know his type, Sarah, Chicago is full of them”.

Scott heard his mother give a sigh, “What type is that, Vincent? He’s a nice young man, who has a decent job and doesn’t mind looking after a few kids in the afternoon, you, if anybody, should be happy, I know you hate having Scott in your hair when he gets home from school.”

“Look at him! The way he dresses, his haircut, just like the ones we see on the news, beating up on people, talking about white power.”

“Oh! Vincent, honestly, you think that young man is one of those crazy Nazis? What has gotten into you?”

Before Vincent could answer, the phone was ringing, “Let me get that,” Scott heard his mother say. The phone continued to ring while Vincent told her not to answer, they argued about the phone until it stopped ringing. A beat later, when it began ringing again, Vincent snatched the phone from its receiver and answered it. Scott couldn’t hear what was said, and didn’t know who had been on the line, but when Vincent spoke again, his voice reeked of anger.

“And now, Sarah, that peckerwood thinks he can call my house to 'check up on things'? I don't like that guy and I don’t want Scott going over there anymore.”

“Vincent-“

“I said I don’t want him to go over there anymore. It’s not like there isn’t anything for him to do around here.”

“Vincent, please, where else is he going to go?”

“Are you arguing with me?”

“What?” Scott heard the panic in his mother’s voice, “No, of course, not, I just don’t see…”

Scott heard Vincent’s broad hand strike his mother’s face, heard her yelp in pain. “Don’t ever think you can question me like that, you silly bitch!” He hit her again, she cried and whimpered out apologies.

Scott felt fury raging in his gut, his face was hot, he was too infuriated to feel fear. He wanted to rip Vincent’s yellow heart out of his chest and spit in the hole it left. He wanted to see the look on Vincent’s face as he got the living hell beat out of him. He wanted to burn the cheap, rat infested row home down and sit outside on the grass with his mother listening to Vincent scream out in agony.

How dare this dago fucking wop come into his house, sit on his couch, take his mother from him, then have the balls to beat her? In here, in his house. He wasn’t going to let it fucking happen, that was for damn sure, he was a fucking American, and this interloper wasn’t going to be running things in his life any fucking longer. He pulled the blankets down slowly, set his feet on the floor quietly, reached out and gripped the base of the lamp on his night stand. He felt the brass in his hand, cold and hard. He stood and carefully unplugged it, walking on eggshells into the living room.

He could clearly see Vincent, in an old ratty undershirt and his boxer shorts, standing over his mother, lecturing her as she cried on the floor. He was telling her he didn’t want to hit her, no, but she needed to respect him.

Respect? I’ll show you fucking respect!

Scott raised the lamp like a baseball player at the plate and crashed the brass base behind Vincent’s knees. It caught him off guard, and the blow was hard, even coming from an eleven year old, he lost his balance, unable to catch himself before spilling onto the floor.

“What the hell?” He roared as he turned to Scott, screaming threats and obscenities, Scott crashed the lamp into his face before he could stand up, then again. He couldn’t hear his mother screaming for him to stop, he wasn’t aware of his own guttural, primal screams as he bashed the lamp into Vincent again and again. He never let Vincent get more than halfway up from the floor, which was good, because if he had, Vincent probably would have flattened him, but he had caught the beast by surprise, and as long as he could keep Vincent on the floor, the better his chances were of surviving.

He wasn’t thinking any of this through, he was acting on instinct mixed with clean, unadulterated hate, his fury blinded him from any thought or emotion. He felt powerful, he felt in charge, for the first time since this dago-wop-piece-of-shit-fucking-interloper had come into his house, he felt at peace. And in his guttural, furious screams of passion and hate, he felt freedom. He felt in charge, and he fucking liked it.

He would have beaten this piece of shit into a bloody dead mess on the floor if not for his mother screaming. It broke through finally, her begging him to stop, her crying. It broke through his fury and into the softer part of him. The part of him that was still eight years old and only had eyes for mother. He felt his heart twist in his chest as he looked at her red, tear streaked face, and he put the lamp, now broken and bloody, down.

He looked at the mess that was once Vincent, and spit into his bloody face. His mother was a blubbering mess, hysterical, reaching out for him. He looked at her, and began to sob. He went to her, and fell on his knees, allowing her to hold him as he eroded into a confused, scared, little boy again. As she held him, rocking him, both of them sobbing, Vincent was getting his senses about him again.

Scott heard his mother scream as Vincent put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him away from his mother’s arms.

He would always hear her voice, screaming, in his dreams, in his nightmares, screaming for Vincent to leave her baby alone, don’t hurt her baby boy, begging him, please, please don’t hurt my baby boy!

And with his hate and fury removed from him, not an all powerful being, but a scared, eleven year old momma’s boy, crying, he suddenly knew with clarity, that without a miracle, he was going to die that night. He was going to die while his mother watched, and then, she too, would die.

Vincent held him by one arm and swung him around hard enough to hurt his shoulder joint. When he looked at Vincent’s face, he could do nothing but continue to cry. Vincent took Scott by the shirt collar and slammed him into the door jamb, his head hit the corner with a loud thwack and blood gushed down. Vincent let him slide down to the floor before kicking him hard in the gut. Scott had no sense about him, he tried to speak, tried to scream, but all that escaped his mouth were weak, unintelligible moans, his mother watched as his eyes rolled back in his head, and her screaming became more urgent.

“Vincent!” She screamed, “Vincent for chrissakes he’s only a boy, you’re going to kill him, please, oh please don’t hurt him anymore!” She screamed so shrilly that the small part of Scottie Wagner that was cognoscente desperately willed her to stop, it was splitting his ear drums. Vincent kicked him in the teeth and he spit out a mouth full of blood, and a molar. His mother continued to scream hysterically, and, just as the lights in Scottie’s world went out, he heard her scream turn abruptly into a yelp after a hard kick to what he imagined was her gut.

He felt dizzy and sick to his stomach, but he didn’t have enough sense to be scared, or to think about the throbbing pain in his head, as he came to, seconds, maybe minutes later, his eyes opened to see Vincent in a complete rage, holding his mother by one shoulder as he screamed in her face and slapped her hard. The thought that they would both die that night came back to him quickly, jabbing at him like the sharp end of a tent spike.

He tried to pull himself up, but his hand slipped in what may have been his blood, or may have been Vincent’s and he fell helplessly back to the floor. He remembered his mother teaching him to pray, and he wondered if God heard prayers from little boys covered in two kinds of blood. He prayed for anything to make it stop, please, God, oh Lord, please….please just make it stop!

His mother was still crying, still able to beg Vincent to stop, Scottie hoped that was a good thing. He saw Vincent back hand her so hard that her face jerked to the side through his swollen eye. He tried again to scream, and this time, he found a voice, but there were no words. He tried to push himself up again, and slipped again, smacking his face on the tile and sending all new waves of pain through his mouth and nose. He had made the decision to keep trying to push himself up until he succeeded, when he heard a pounding on the door. Oh thank God, he prayed silently, some one called the police! He tried to scream, but it was more inarticulate mush, his mother, however, still had her voice and she wailed for help once, before Vincent hit her across the face so hard that she hit her head on the cabinet behind her.

Scott attempted one more time to push himself up, and he made it to his knees in time to see Benny walk into the kitchen, his face red, his chest heaving with deep, heavy breaths, he was carrying a baseball bat.

Benny spoke clearly and calmly, but the hand holding the ball bat shook with anger, “Vincent, I want you to stop what you are doing, and walk towards me slowly. If you so much as fart as you do it, I will bean you with this baseball bat so hard your head will spin.”

Vincent laughed at Benny, “Is that so?” He stood and swung out, Benny pulled the ball bat back and hit Vincent square in the jaw. He fell. Benny picked him up by the collar and threw him into the grass. He nimbly padded down the steps after him and hit him in the gut with his bat, he nodded to two other men with him, both in bomber jackets like his, and they converged on Vincent like wolves on fresh prey.

He ran back to Scott and his mother. “Shit, shit!” he gasped, “Oh Jesus, are you alright, Sarah?” Scott now noticed the trickle of blood coming from his mother’s nose.

“Scottie!” His mother screamed, “He tried to kill Scottie!”

Benny turned to see Scott, still only half way up, his knees and palms on the floor, blood dripping from the back of his head and mouth. Benny helped him up, looking into his eyes intently, “Okay,” he sighed, “Now Sarah, I need you to be calm okay? We need to go to the hospital—“

“The hospital? Oh, god, oh, god, Benny is he okay? Is my baby okay?”

Benny looked her in the eyes, holding Scottie gingerly, “Scott will be fine, Sarah, as long as we can all calm down and take him to the doctor, he’s got a concussion, but he will be all right, I promise if you calm down and get into the car with me, everything will be fine”.