CHAPTER ELEVEN
Darkness was broken as light crept into the room and filled the tiny spaces between his legs and his scrunching body inside of the small box. Alex tried to clasp his eyes shut and go back to sleep.
He’d been dreaming that he was in his old living room in his old city and he was watching his brother playing computer games on the big television. He was standing behind him and he kept wanting to ask for a turn, but he never did. His mother was in the kitchen and she was pouring a glass of wine the whole time. He could hear the wine splashing against the glass but every now and then, when he looked up, he could see that she wasn’t there. She was pulling weeds out of the garden. And it wasn’t wine she was pouring; it was the sound of rain lightly splashing against the pergola. When he turned back to the game, though, he could hear the wine gently pouring into the glass once more and he could hear his mother clearing her throat. It was something she always did before she got drunk.
The locks of the door clicked once and then clicked twice and the big heavy bolts clanked and turned and then the loud squeaky handle it squeaked and it squealed as it slowly pressed down and the door spilled open.
The light from the corridor flooded into the room and it took with it, the sound of shuffling feet that at first shuffled by the door and then shuffled around the room. First by the edges and the far corners and then by Alex’s feet that were pressed against the edge of the box.
Alex clenched his hands and he tensed his body. He could hear the sounds of large hands rubbing against the lid of the box, rubbing back and forth and around and around in big circles and then in tiny circles and then in even tinier circles until finally just a single finger traced around a breathing hole carved into the box by his naked feet.
He flinched when the finger touched him. It scratched against his toe and he pressed his foot against the hole and it scratched against that too. He tried to move his feet around, to hide them somewhere, but he had nowhere safe to press them against. There were holes on every side.
Alex closed his eyes, but that just made everything worse because he could hear, so loud, the sound of hands sliding over the wooden lid and human nails, scratching against the grain and picking at small splinters as it found them.
And the way the sound echoed inside the box, it sounded like there were thousands of giant hands all closing in around him and there were tens of thousands of fingers on those thousands of hands, all poking through the box and trying to touch and to scrape and to scratch at his trembling and shivering skin.
Alex played dead.
He pretended he was asleep or not breathing. He tried not to move. He tried not to care. He pretended not to feel anything when the poking fingers touched him just above his right knee and then again by his left shoulder and finally when it twisted and curled some strands of his hair and pulled one of them out.
He sat perfectly still, just like the mouse, pretending he was asleep or not breathing, just hoping that every poke and every touch and every pull and every scratch would be the last.
That’s what kept him still. It’s what kept him from crying out. It’s what kept him from squirming around and making it worse for himself and it’s what stopped him from making it more fun for whoever was peeping through the tiny holes and hoping he would jump and flinch and scream and squirm.
“Nobody knows where you are” whispered The Man. “No-one except for me.”
Alex thought of his mother and father.
Where were they?
“You’re never going home.”
Alex was shaking. He gritted his teeth as hard as he could. He shoved his tongue against the roof of his mouth so hard that he thought it might push right through. He clenched his hands together so tight that his nails made thick grooves in the skin, but there was so much fear and sadness in his blood and welling in his eyes that he couldn’t feel the pain from his digging nails. He wanted to, though. He wanted the pain to take away the sadness. He wanted his sore hands to be the only thing that was real about any of this.
“You think you’re special?” said The Man. “You’re not special. I’m special. I’m the special one. You’re never going home. You’re never gonna see your mum and dad again. You’re not special” he hissed.
The Man punched the side of the box and Alex shrieked. He screamed so loud and so sharp that he thought his soul might just jump out of his body and leave him, to this hungry cat. Alex was shaking and crying. He couldn’t pretend anymore.
The Man punched on the top of the box and he dragged something sharp along the sides like the rounded end of a hammer and then he started beating against the top of the box.
And smack, smack, smack; the hammer crashed down and more light flooded in around the spaces between Alex’s trembling body. And he hit harder and harder and harder and part of the lid split open and The Man, he didn’t stop.
“You’re not special” he screamed, smashing the hammer against the sides while Alex tucked his body as tight as he could.
He shook and he trembled and it was all happening so fast and he could hear The Man shouting, but he couldn’t make out any of the words and he could hear the hammer crashing against the wood and he could hear the wood splintering and ripping apart, but he couldn’t feel the hammer hitting his thigh or the back of his head. But it did.
“Fucking stop it!”
When the person in the other box shouted out, Alex heard; and The Man, he must have heard too because he stopped swinging and the hammer stopped crashing down and he stopped cursing and spitting and he left Alex all alone.
The Man stepped away from the box. He shuffled back towards the door and there was a terrible clanking sound as he threw the hammer out of the room and down along the corridor.
“He’s not special” shouted The Man as he closed the door.
Alex froze.
He could feel the lump on his thigh and he could feel the lump on the back of his head. They didn’t hurt. Not as much as they would later on. But he could feel them and he knew he had been hurt. He just didn’t know if he’d been hurt bad or if he was going to be ok.
He stayed frozen.
He lay there in his wooden box with his legs flat against one side and his hands pulled up over his face. His heart was beating out of control and his breath was running along with it. As the second lock clicked and clanked and the thought of being safe or out of immediate threat settled in his ears, he let go of his restraint and a warm stream of peepee ran down his legs and it pooled under his body and some of it trickled out from the wooden box where the hammer had hit and in some places where breathing holes had been made.
“Hey kid, you ok?” asked the other person.
Alex stared at the palms of his hands. They were entrenched on his face.
“Hey, kid. It’s ok. He’s gone.”
The sound of the person’s voice made him feel safe. Not like his father’s would or even his brother’s, but it put a blanket on his fear. It made him think that nothing bad might happen to him. Not now. And maybe, this voice, this other person, maybe they could shout loud enough and keep The Man away, long enough until someone came and rescued them.
He thought about his mother and his father.
When he thought about his father’s face, he felt strong enough to kick the box open and try and escape. When he thought about his mother’s face, he saw her crying and then he felt soft like jelly and he just wanted her to pick him up and to hold him in her arms and to stretch her arm around the back of his head and to keep his face buried in her chest.
And he wanted to hear her heart beating.
“I’m getting us out of here. Hold on buddy. Just gotta twist this and turn this and cut this and…”
Alex could hear a lot of scratching and then a lot of shouting and cursing. But it was a different type of cursing. The other person, he didn’t sound mad or dangerous, not like The Man. He sounded frustrated, kind of like his father used to get when he had to assemble a bicycle at the last minute.
His fa
ther would yell and shout a lot and he would say loads of bad words, but the kids would always find it funny. They never felt scared when their father shouted like this because he wasn’t really angry with them, he was always angry with himself. Well, angry at the bike and the stupid company who made the bike and the stupid instructions for being in Chinese and the stupid pictures for being too small. And he was mad at their mother because she was being real nice to him and asking him if he needed any help or a special tool or a drink or anything.
But really he was just mad at himself for leaving it till the last minute and he was mad because he didn’t know how to do something and he was mad because he wanted it to be really special and he wanted everything to be a great surprise. That’s how everyone knew they were getting a bicycle or a home kitchen set for their birthday, by the level of the father’s expletive frustration.
“And one and two and presto, we’re out. Piece of cheap crap.”
The lid on the other box flung open and it banged against the wall on the other side. That’s what freedom sounded like. It wasn’t trumpets or fireworks or even sirens. It was the sound that wood makes when it’s kicked open from the inside. And it’s the silence afterwards that sounds like a prisoner sighing in relief. And that’s freedom; hearing someone else acquiring theirs and knowing that you’re next.
Alex listened to the sound of tiny feet scuttering about on the open box beside him and then the sound of those tiny feet being carried over the side and crashing down on the floor below. Their boxes must have been placed up high. He hadn’t thought about it but the other person, he cursed when he hit the floor.
The other person, he was mumbling to himself as he crossed the room and the climbed up onto Alex’s box. Alex couldn’t really hear what he was saying. It sounded a lot like complaining. He could see the outline though of the person and he looked kind of funny. He looked really small.
“Cover your eyes’ shouted the person.
Alex did as he said.
It was like when the dentist told you not to swallow. It was always because they were using some bad stuff in your mouth. Once it was because the dentist was using a type of glue and she told Alex not to swallow, not because it tasted bad or anything but because it was glue and it would probably stick his food to his stomach or something. It didn’t help. That day, the dentist was filling his mouth with water and more glue and she wouldn’t give him the chance to spit any out. She just kept saying, “Now don’t swallow honey, ok?”
But she didn’t give him an alternative. So in the dentist’s chair he focused on not swallowing and here in the wooden box, he focused on covering his eyes and not looking. It was so hard not to look when someone said, “Don’t look.”
Splinters were falling on and around him. He peeked through his fingers. He couldn’t help himself. He saw what looked like a tiny hand, no bigger than a baby’s, poking through the gaps in the lid and pulling back on the splinters at first and then, when it had a good grip, holding onto and pulling back hard onto the panels themselves and heaving with all might until parts of them snapped and then the little person went flying off of the box and slid along the floor, resting by the locked door.
“Kick your feet” he shouted.
“What? How?” said Alex.
“Just kick outwards. Trust me” said the other person.
Alex held his breath. He tucked his feet towards his body as much as he could. He wanted to get some kind of leverage and force before he kicked. He thrust his feet back towards the end of the box and when he did, he sprang backwards and his head bounced off of the top end and then the whole thing just fell apart.
The ends popped off and then the sides, they started to wobble and the lid, one side of it fell onto his body as one of the sides dropped onto the ground and then the other side fell off with it.
Alex held the lid in his hands. It wasn’t that heavy. It was really light actually. The whole box was. He might have been able to do this all along, but he hadn’t tried. He hadn’t even thought of it. And he wouldn’t be out if it wasn’t for the other person.
Alex lifted the lid in the air. It weighed less than his old body board and that didn’t weigh all that much. He threw it to the floor and lifted himself up. He was sitting upright and looking around.
He looked at his legs first. His thigh was really hurting. There was a big purple mark and the rest of the leg was red right down past his knee and up to his hip. It was stinging so much. His head was also throbbing really hard.
It felt like someone had hit him in the head with a hammer.
He was really cold. He was in his underwear and he was sitting in a now cold pool of his own peepee. It smelt kind of funny and it didn’t bother him before, but it made him feel embarrassed now. He’d only ever done something like this once before and that time, it destroyed him. It left him feeling a lot worse than he did now. But still, his underwear was stained yellow and he couldn’t hide it.
He started to cry.
“No, no, no, no. You can’t cry. I friggin hate crying. I didn’t break you out of this coffin so you could friggin cry. Stop it!”
Alex looked to the end of the room by the door. He was sniffling, but he held back his tears. He was looking for the person who broke him out, but he couldn’t see him anywhere. He looked to the left and he looked to the right. He even looked up on the roof and he hanged his head over the side of his wooden box and peered underneath.
“What? What are you looking for? What is it? What are you looking for? I’m right here for fuck’s sake.”
Alex looked back to the door, where was the voice coming from?
His jaw dropped and his eyes, they stretched wider than they ever had the entire of his life. He couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t possibly be true. He clenched his hands and then he rubbed them vigorously against his eyes. And then he looked back at the door and he did it again and he did it again. And then he shut them and he opened them and he shut them again and he kept them shut. And he expected to see something different each time. And when he opened them one last time, he saw it.
There, sitting beneath the handle of the door, was a small doll or what looked like a doll; a tiny little doll. And it was different to any other doll he had ever seen. It wasn’t like the dolls that girls kept and it wasn’t like a doll that boys had either. It was the same size, maybe a tiny bit bigger, but it looked really strange.
It had black jeans on. And it had these big black boots and the boots had silver tips on the ends and the ends were pointy and the laces were pulled really tight. And the doll, he had a black t-shirt on too and one of his sleeves was folded backwards and it was holding something square. And it had its arms folded and its arms were small, but they looked big and muscly and strong. And its face looked angry and mean. Its nose was all scrunched up and so were its lips. It looked like it had just sucked on a lemon or something. And it had a scar along one side of its face. It was a really big scar and it made it look really mean. And its eyes were hidden under black shades. It looked exactly like the older boys who smoked and were always up to no good; on the steps at the entrances to shopping malls, in parks and on play equipment and along the walls in front of schools.
And its hair. It looked like he had multi colored pine trees or furry springs growing out of his head. They were all springy and bouncy and they went up and back down and when they did, the different colors all moved in a flashy spiral.
And it was breathing.
And its muscles were flexing.
Alex smiled.
“The name’s The Gruff,” it said. “But you can call me Gruff, but not Gruffy or Grufster and definitely not Gruffles. Just Gruff.”