Greyson Vagner 'The Hunted'

Chapter 1 June: In the End, the Beginning Emerges “Jonathan, no!” a woman shrieked in the night. I shot up out of my harshly made bed and ran to my mother’s side, her dirty blonde hair was a tangled mess; she was sweating through the cheap motel sheets. As I reached her side, she repeated the same thing that she said every night, “Jonathan, I had to leave; it was the only way to protect you. He is not yours, and …” she turned to me and ran her hand down my face. “I didn’t want you to suffer. I knew you’d stay with me, and I didn’t want to ruin your life.” “Mom, it’s Greyson. You’re having another nightmare,” I said as I fumbled in the dark for her medication. I popped the lid off the bottle of anti-psychotics and gave her two pills and a glass of water. I watched her swallow them; I cradled her shaking body in my arms and rocked her back to sleep. I layed on the couch trying to go back to sleep, but my mind wouldn’t turn off. It was the same thing every night. The nights when she woke up screaming that demons were eating her flesh were the nights I just couldn’t feel, I just went numb. I felt as if my whole existence didn’t matter and I was here on earth to suffer. I had to watch her pull her hair out of her head or cut herself, and sometimes she would bang her head against the wall. As I got older, I was able to prevent her from banging her head, but the cutting and the pulling out of hair, well, that started to get too dangerous—especially after she stabbed me. I always wondered who Jonathan was. Sometimes I would ask her when she was stable. Her icy blue eyes would look off into a distant memory, where she would stay for hours before she would sigh and change the subject. My whole life I have felt like an unwanted burden that my mother put up with. I’m not sure I was ever wanted. She tries to show me that she wants me, but there is just something in her eyes that says her feelings are different. I mean, when she looks at me and thinks that I’m her Jonathan, she stares into my eyes, and I know she is in a whimsical place with her Jonathan where I don’t exist and time stands still. But me? Well, she doesn’t even look at me. The only time she looks at me is when she is having these delusions and she thinks I am Jonathan. That’s how I know; that’s how I know she doesn’t want me. The way she looks at her delusion with love and compassion and then at me; I mean, she can’t even say, “I love you” to me without looking at the floor. I was without. My mom has resented me all my life. And I have resented this Jonathan, who seemed to have my mother’s affection. I couldn’t stand to watch as others had the love and support of at least one parent. I used to see the happy families at the park when I was young. Moms and dads, holding each other’s hand, they would speak to their children with love that filled their eyes, and their words would be of encouragement and praise. Oh how I longed for normalcy. In many ways, I was an orphan. My mom did her best, but it was definitely her shifty, icy blue eyes that gave her away. I was not her Jonathan; I was Greyson, her son, her inconvenience. I was unwanted, and although I knew she was delusional, I still felt empty. I was without. I pretty much kept to myself. We moved around a lot. Each time I would finally make friends; my mom would wake me up or take me out of school early, saying, “The demons have found us!” This happened over and over again. Finally, I gave up on the idea of friends. I mean, can you imagine bringing your girlfriend home, and your mother asks her if she is Satan herself? I never knew what my mother was going to say. I remember one time, I think I was in fourth grade; she came storming into my school wearing ripped sweats, a tie-dyed Grateful Dead t-shirt, and a pair of yellow galoshes. She walked right up to the teacher and said, “Get away from these children, you witch!” Well it wasn’t more than twenty minutes later and we were packed and on to the next town. The alarm clock buzzed. Didn’t I just go to sleep? I rolled over, hit the buzzer, and got up off the couch. I looked around the seedy motel room. Its faded, white walls looked as if they had been through a flood of human misery. The rug was brown to hide the dirt from the sleaze of the past, and the smell of stale cigarettes hung in the air from the former occupant. I got up and slid into my jeans, which fit three weeks ago, but now were too short. I made my way to the bathroom. I looked into the mirror and saw my long black hair was disheveled after a long night of tossing and turning. I ran my hands through my hair to smooth it out; anchoring my hair behind my ears, brushed my teeth and washed my unshaven face, wiped the crust from my green eyes. I then performed my morning ritual of getting my mother her cup of coffee. This particular motel that my mother and I were staying in was for all intents and purposes a dive: where people went to hide out or die. People would come and go from the motel with their heads hung low, as though the weight of their burden was pulling them into a waking hell. Mr. Brownstone in 3B would walk around aimlessly scratching himself as though he had flees, which wouldn’t surprise me. He would always have the collar of his coat pulled up, and his blue, dirt stained woolly pulled way down. His long greasy gray hair mingled with his dirt covered grey beard made him look like a wild man out looking for his next fix. He had black eyes which spoke volumes of this mans strife in life. He continually talked to himself, an ongoing conversation with his plight. That was my existence; surrounded by those the world had thrown away, I never looked anyone in the eyes. I always felt that I could learn more about people from their eyes than by what they said. And since I didn’t want friends or acquaintances, I never looked into the eyes of anyone. A school counselor once told me that this was a “sign of being insecure.” I looked into his eyes, and told him, “I don’t have time to be insecure; I am too busy trying not to be noticed. Not to mention, you know and I now know your wife is sleeping with Mr. Waite.” That freaked him out and got me out of seeing the school psychologist. Of course I couldn’t see that in his eyes, but I did have excellent hearing. I had heard two teachers talking about the counselor’s wife two days prior to my session with this clown. I figured I could use the information to my advantage. I thought it was funny; not sure he did. Now with my recent growth spurt, it seemed that everyone’s eyes followed me everywhere. I don’t know; maybe I’m just paranoid. “Greyson, are you going to stand there all day with that pot of coffee, or are you going to pour your mother a cup?” My mom’s words snapped me back to reality, as she sat on the couch watching the morning news. “Oh, right. Sorry Mom. Don’t forget to take your meds. I left them out for you. Promise me you won’t forget.” I said to her. “I won’t, my Greyson. Now have a good day. Oh, and Greyson …” She looked at me, smiled, and looked back to the TV. “I love you.” As I left the motel room, I thought, ‘Maybe tomorrow she’ll say it to my face.’ I mean that’s all I really had—hope for tomorrow. I couldn’t dwell on these thoughts this morning, and first bell rang at 6:50a.m.; I had a lot to get done before heading off to school. I put on a white wrinkled t-shirt that fit six weeks ago. Why did fate give me this? Why was I to suffer this life of solitude? I had to remind myself that the anguish I felt needed to be locked up deep inside of me.