Inside Out
A coming-of-age tale
By
Troy McCombs
Copyright 2014 by Troy McCombs
Inside Out
The three preteen boys sat on their bikes on the corner of Epson Street, staring up at the Bailey House—a place many kids (and adults) avoided at all costs.
“I dare you to sneak in there,” Tim said to the boy beside him.
“Yeah, I double-dare you. Triple-dog-dare you! Sneak into the basement. That's where they say the monster lives.” This boy, Greg, the one half-standing, half-sitting on his bike in the middle of the road, looked at Scotty—the monkey in the middle.
But Scotty, a mild-mannered lad with red hair, freckles, and washed-out green eyes, didn't believe a word his so-called friends were saying. Monsters didn't exist. His father had checked under his bed and in his closet a million times and hadn't found a thing. No, monsters only existed in people's heads. His dad should know; he was a therapist.
“Did you see it? Who told you a monster lives here?” Scotty knew they were just trying to scare him. It took a lot more than some silly “monster” story to do that.
Tim, the boy sitting on his sister's pink bike (his was broken), said, “Eddie Yearsor said he saw it when he was walking past here one day. Said that when he glanced down at the basement window, he saw the outline of this disgusting beast standing there, watching him with its evil eyes. That's why Eddie never walks this way to school anymore. He won't go near it!”
“Yeah,” Greg said. “Story goes that the woman who lives here had a child that was cursed when she had it. That's why she keeps it locked up in the basement... so it won't hurt nobody.”
“I don't believe a word of it,” Scotty replied, glancing up at the old Bailey House. Sure, it was creepy looking. It had paint-chipped shutters. It had cracks sprawling every which way. Ivy consumed most of it. Who knew? Maybe ghosts existed. But monsters? No way.
Scotty wanted to check it out... but only for compensation, reward.
“You guys triple-dog-dare me to go in there, right? Well, what do I get out of it?”
The two boys on opposite sides of him looked at each other, one confused and one irritated.
“Ginger... I think—” Greg started to say.
“Ginger? I told you not to call me that !” Scotty hated that term, but almost everyone in school called him that. Unfortunately, he was cursed with the red hair and freckles. Why the heck did people refer to redheads as “Gingers” anyway?
“Sorry, sorry. If you go in, I'll consider you the bravest person I know,” Tim said, trying to seal the deal with a cheesy smile. “Not only brave, but braver than Lance Miller.”
Scotty laughed. “I want money, Tim. Besides, if you want me to go in there, that's a little thing called trespassing. I could get in trouble, y'know.”
“Okay, I'll give you five bucks.”
“No, I want twenty.”
Greg shouted: “Twenty?! Are you crazy?”
Tim sighed. Greg rolled his eyes. “Here, I have some on me. Tim, do you have ten?”
He didn't respond. What he did do was twist the rubber grips of his sister's bike. “Oh, all right! I just want to let you know that I earned this dough by cutting my grandma's grass. Took me over an hour. I sweat my balls off.”
Both boys reached into a pocket and reluctantly pulled out cash, which they handed to Scotty. Smiling, he shoved the green into his pocket. Easy money, little labor.
Soon, however, he would realize it wouldn't be as easy as he'd thought.
***
Nervously, Scotty climbed the privacy fence and jumped into the Bailey's backyard. Hunkering down, he hurried over to the basement door, hoping that nobody would peek out the large picture window and see him. For the first time in his life, he felt like a common criminal; all those immaculate report cards would not matter anymore; those A's and B's would not save him.
He couldn't get in anyway; the sloped wall door was locked and chained. There was, however, a hopper window. It was already open and ready for entry. Perhaps just large enough for him to slide his body through.
Disappointed with himself for trespassing, Scotty went to the window, bent down, opened it further, and crawled through, eating spiderwebs and inhaling dust. This wasn't worth twenty bucks. Maybe not even forty.
Seconds later, there he was, blind in the pitch-black basement of the Bailey house. There were only two windows, and the sun that shined through them didn't illuminate much. If there was a monster down here, he surely couldn't see it or hear it.
Stupid, Scotty, stupid. I wonder how many years I'll get in juvie for this stunt—
He froze when he heard the sound...
A rustling, shifting sound from the recesses of the murky blackness. His heart leaped into his throat. He could not breathe. Breathe? How do I do that again?
Someone or something was down here with him. Whether it was a monster, he couldn't tell, and was too afraid to climb back out the window.
There's no such things as monsters, there's no such thing as monsters, there's no such thing as monsters.
He expected to be devoured or torn apart at any minute. But what happened surprised him and alleviated some of his fear.
A voice. A boy's voice.
It was filled with horror and sounded very slithery, as if the speaker in the shadows had a bad lisp or speech impediment.
“Go! Leave me alone here! Who are you? Please don't hurt me! Please!”
Scotty could move again. His heart returned to its original place. Breathe? How did I forget how to do that?
He still couldn't see—at least not anything but some lawn equipment: a mower, shovel, rake. Curiosity boiled within him, boiled like a pot of steaming water. Just what or whom did that petrified voice belong to? What kind of monster showed fear instead of cause it?
“Hello? I'm not here to hurt you,” Scotty said.
“Just go. Hurry! You can't be here. I don't want no trouble.”
The fear inherent in that poor, pitiful voice couldn't be more paramount.
As Scotty stepped forward, the unseen thing rustled away from him.
“It's okay. I just want to look at you, see who you are...”
“Why? What do you want from me?” The boy sounded like he was about to cry.
Scotty took another step and ran into a pull-string light switch with his face. That boiling pot of water inside him gave way, exploded. With one quick grab and pull, he extinguished the darkness and illuminated the room.
The sight before him made him think that Greg and Tim had been right, a monster did live in the basement of the Bailey house. But it wasn't a monster, not really. It was a kid—an extremely deformed boy whose age was impossible to tell. He was trembling in the corner by a concrete wall, much more afraid of Scotty than Scotty was of him. His ripped clothes looked decades old, stained and covered with dirt. Both of his hands were lumpy, the fingers fused together, the nails discolored. His face... that wretched face. It looked too big and too heavy for his neck to support. One eye bulged from its twisted socket while the other one was hidden under ripples of dirty flesh. His lips went in opposite directions, beneath which misaligned teeth jutted from crooked gums. The many lumps—large and small—buried much of his Greek nose. It made his breathing sound loud and heavy. Despite the tumors, the deformities, Scotty felt no bad vibes from this boy. Instead, he wanted to know more about him.
“Why are you here?” he asked Scotty, wiping away tears.
Scotty walked toward him slowly, nonthreatening, the way you'd walk to an abused animal to show it you were friendly.
“My name's Scotty. They call me Ginger, though, because of my red hair.” Scotty smiled.
The other boy smiled back with his twisted lips.
> “I'm—my name's—I shouldn't be talking to you, you know.”
“Why? What happened to you? I'd like to know. I promise you I won't judge you.”
The kid looked disbelievingly at him, as if he'd never heard such a phrase. “Ethan.”
Scotty knelt down and extended a hand. Ethan looked at this, confused, befuddled, and bewildered.
“You mean, you want to shake my freakish hand? I'm not contagious, or anything. Nobody ever shook my hand before.”
Ethan took this kind gesture. His hand grip was as light as air.
“Well, I used to look perfectly normal. I grew my first deformity at age nine. Some kid called me a retard for no reason. That's when this blister sprouted. I thought it was a pimple at first, like the ones my older cousin used to get on his face. But mine didn't go away. They never go away. They just grow and grow upon each other. Whenever somebody does something bad to me—no matter what it is—I become more of a freak who doesn't belong in the world. My dad left us because of me. He's ashamed.” Ethan covered his face and cried.
Scotty reached out and placed his hand on the boy's shoulder, startling him but not stopping him from crying.
“It's okay.”
“No! I've never been okay, not even just okay. Look at me. I'm a monster. You thought so too when you first saw me. Nobody wants me. Nobody loves me. Nobody cares.”
“That's not true.”
Ethan stopped crying long enough to laugh.“It's funny; everyone's scared of me because of what they see on the outside. I'm afraid of everyone because of what I see on the inside.”
“Listen, if you can grow these deformities, then that means you can heal them.”
“I've tried healing myself. It doesn't work.”
“Ever hear the expression: 'sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me?'”
“I'm proof of that being a lie.”
“There's one thing more powerful than what negatives others can say or do to you. Self-confidence.”
Ethan looked confused.“What's that?”
“You mean to tell me you've never heard of self-confidence before? Belief in yourself?”
“How can I believe in myself when nobody else believes in me?”
“Nobody is perfect. Nobody. The world's an imperfect place.”
“But what happens when you break a mirror? It shatters, becomes disconnected. No matter how hard you try to piece it back together, it will never be the same again. I'm a broken mess of glass. I can't be repaired. Not even super-glue or self-confidence can fix that!”
“Yes it can. The human spirit isn't made of glass. When it breaks, it is not useless. Not only can it be repaired, but it can be much stronger once it's fixed. My dad—he's a therapist. He says that the human psyche is a lot like clay. It can be molded, stretched and reformed. Maybe you're right about one thing—maybe you can't heal yourself without outside help... but you can now. Consider me a new friend of yours. Okay?”
Ethan looked at this human soul—the first person to ever make him feel appreciated.
“You serious?”
“Of course. I'll go with you anywhere and never be embarrassed or ashamed. In the grand scope of things, looks really don't matter. It's what's on the inside that counts.”
The boil—the largest one on Ethan's forehead—bubbled inward and deflated like a balloon. Suddenly, some normality returned to his disfigured face.
“What the... Scotty, you did it! Because of what you just said to me.”
“No. You did that yourself, because you believed in something positive. You're a good human being, you know that?”
Two more tumors dissolved away—one on his right leg and one on his left arm.
“What's happening to me?”
“You're going to belong now. Your mother loves you—for sure. She just doesn't know how to show it.”
Two more deformities went away, then a third.
“I'm starting to feel free. It's almost scary.”
“Don't be scared, my new best friend.”
Another—a large mass on the side of his cheek, went away.
“I don't know you well yet, Ethan, but I already love ya.”
Scotty, in a way, was freeing his own soul in this process. He never knew that, by making someone feel genuinely cared for, he could feel such bliss.
Six more lumps deflated.
“Say it, Ethan.”
“Say what?”
“You know what.”
“I do?”
Scotty smiled and nodded.
“I... I... I love myself. I love who I am. I love me. I did nothing wrong. I'm a great person who never deserved any of this. Everything will be better now.”
***
Scotty helped him to his feet. Ethan looked like a normal junior-high student, free from the chains that had bound him for the past several years. He was definitely not the same person—inside or out. He was himself—his real self—and had a clean slate to start life again. Next time somebody tried to hurt him, he knew he could control it from breaking through his emotional dam. The past was gone. His old self was gone.
“Does this bike work?” Scotty asked him.
“It was my dad's, but yeah, it should.”
“Wanna go for a bike ride?”
“Where to?” Ethan wondered.
“Does it matter? Anywhere but here. Come on, I'll teach you, if you've never ridden before. It's easy.”
“Scotty?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“No need to thank me. Let's go and have some fun now.”
Seconds later, they left, riding their bikes through the streets, the alleys, the park, up hills, down hills, and everywhere else across town. The sun felt glorious as it shined down on Ethan. He had given up on all this beauty because of a few bad experiences?
He never would again. This world was all his to explore. This place was his to enjoy.
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