Tales of Childhood (freewrite fiction #10)

Noah Mermont hadn’t intended it to end like this. He’d been warned, couldn’t say he hadn’t, though at first, he’d thought it was just something the man of lights was saying to ward him off. The trouble with Mr. Mermont was he’d been raised wrong – on a diet of wholesome stories and senseless endings. He and his sister had both been brought up to see the best in people, which one might think ironic, considering their unfortunate parentage. Their mother, Caryssa, always enjoyed a good story, but tended to veer off into her own somewhat bitter tale – married young and married wrong, chained up with two little ones when she was no more than twenty years old herself, she’d never really stood a chance in the outside world. Or at least, that was the way she always put it. Never stood a chance. Naturally, it didn’t much help that the money was short or that her husband’s temper was even shorter. Caryssa’s stories always left a sour taste in the children’s mouths, but if there was one thing she managed to teach her kids, it was that we don’t always pick our battles. Caryssa Mermont certainly knew when she’d already been defeated, so for the last few years of her life, she cultivated a habit of growing disoriented each time things became unpleasant, shielding herself away when life simply came to be too much, her children asking questions, her husband telling lies.
No, it hadn’t been Caryssa’s stories that had made Noah and his sister search out the good in others, nor had it been their father, who although kind, kinder than their mother thought, anyway, didn’t spare much time on his children. To him, they existed only as two increasingly larger holes in the back pocket of his trousers, always draining away at the family resources, so he spent most his spare time trying to think up ways to stitch those holes back up, fix something that even he understood was far from fixable.
Which left them only with their grandfather, Lars. Larceny Mermont, as his friends had once called him, that is, if you could brand such an ill-fitting bunch as friends. Cutthroats with a common goal, more like, but one lessons seems to seep into all our lives is, you take your chances where you can get them, and Lars had never been picky much.
Their grandfather, waiting for sister Death to come and claim him, spent his days making up stories for Noah and Cami. Like any good storyteller, he made sure not to tell them the stories were fake, of course. Wove them with just enough reality for them to seem plausible. Besides, no one from his long-legged past ever came to the house and his reputation among the townsmen had since grown into legend, so there was practically no chance of anyone coming and setting his stories straight.

Lars’ tales changed with the wind, but the children never spoke up, too engrossed in the adventure to much care. And one story, in particular, had always stuck with Noah, despite its gruesomeness and in spite of his growing suspicion as to its veracity.
He began speaking more out of a desire to ascertain that he was still there, in the realm of the living, than anything else. He couldn’t be sure the man of lights was listening, although he made the tremendous effort of opening his eyes just a fraction. The man of lights’ face had grown pale and he was watching the dying man in the rear-view mirror. He had warned him, and yet his warning had gone ignored.

‘When I was a boy, my grandfather used to… tell stories, to pass the time. My father was often gone and my mother, she wasn’t much in the way of stories. Wasn’t much in the way of children either, if I’m being honest.’

The man of lights closed his eyes, visions of Noah’s mother already swimming over his shaking eyelids. He knew all this already, had seen them all as soon as Mermont had gotten into his car, but he said nothing. It had always been his firm belief that the wishes of the dying should be accommodated, whenever possible.
‘Now, my grandfather Lars, he was a seaman, he’d sailed a hundred voyages over before my mother was born and yet a hundred after that. He was never gone too long, though. Time never mattered much to him, it was the bounty that he cared for.’

Perhaps, but time for Lars’ grandson was growing short, yet shorter, and the man of lights wished the story would be a short one, so that he might finish it before taking his last breath.
‘And on one of these voyages, he met a man, a good man, as tall as the high clock-tower in my grandfather’s village when he was a boy and twice as wide. A mountain of a man, he was, and they called him Teeth O’Joyce, though his real name was Jacob. Jacob O’Joyce, though there was nothing joyful about him clouding your doorstep. He was a fearsome sight, scared my grandfather something awful when he first met him, but he would be an oarsman on their journey, no going round it, even though the captain was just as scared. Teeth O’Joyce, much like my grandfather, was in the business of robbing people.’

‘Did he bite?’ the man of lights ventured and, even with his eyes closed, he recognized the faint smile in Noah’s tone.
‘Worse, he took. Folks are fond of their riches, but they’re much fonder of their teeth, especially if you know how to phrase it and Teeth, he had a real way with words. Next to him, my grandfather was as good as dumb.’
Noah Mermont sucked his teeth, waiting, but nothing came. This had always been the place where he’d interrupted his grandfather and he’d expected the same question from the man of lights, even though he wasn’t much for talking.
‘Men are complicated, Noah,’ the man of lights sighed, absently rubbing the bridge of his nose. ‘There is more to life than this good and bad business. So if you say this man was, as you put it, good, then I’m willing to believe you, even though his business methods were less than neighborly.’
‘You read my mind,’ Mermont breathed, a sudden stab of pain at the side of his head.
‘No, I simply remembered your boyhood, just as you did. Go on.’

‘Right. So my grandfather’s crew set out to sea, with Teeth O’Joyce on board and the men took to betting who’d be the first to cross the giant and what would happen to him, his denture in particular. But O’Joyce was a quiet man, kept to himself mostly and ignored the others most time, so that when they’d reached their destination and nothing bad had happened, the crew grew restless. They were young men, mostly, looking to prove themselves and they’d somehow got it into their heads that O’Joyce was an easy target. They’d gone on the attack, a small village out on the coast of some nowhere land, and the big man was vital for their win, but these men my father sailed with, they were lowly, of no great quality. They held O’Joyce in no high regard, even after he’d helped them all fill their pockets. Thought once they were out at sea, they’d take him on, kill him and dump his body out over the edge. Take his loot and even more, carry the name as slayers of a giant.
‘My grandfather, he was, in his own way, a good man, also. He’d learned, meanwhile, there was nothing much to fear in Teeth O’Joyce, so he let the others know he wanted no part of their miserable plotting. And he could’ve gone and warned Teeth, but he didn’t. Not because he was scared,’ - and here, the man of lights got the impression Noah was talking more to himself than his audience - ‘but because for a man who betrays his brothers, there lies only a coward’s death, regardless which side wins.’

This was another lie, the man of lights noted bitterly, for betrayal often bought mercy and even a broken sort of love, at least for a while. Everyone betrays their brothers at one point, but he chose to keep this to himself.

‘So he sat quiet at his oar, but kept an eye on the other men, who’d chosen to strike at the height of the afternoon, when the sun was at its most powerful and the big man at his most tired. Not even they would strike in the dead of night, so they’d taken the next best thing, a moment that would let them keep their glory. It was a rat-like man took the first swing, snuck behind Teeth and clubbed him in the head with his own oar. And the room grew all quiet. Grandfather watching, fingers tight around his own oar. His oarmates were cowardly men, but quiet, they’d give him no trouble should he decide to rise. Teeth held up one hand, rubbed at the thin trickle of blood in his stubble of hair, which is when two more men turned, one swinging an old rugged chain, the other gleaming a small food dagger. Small, but enough to do the job, my grandfather always said.
The man with the knife took a swipe at Teeth, just enough so he’d pull back a little more, right into Rat, who caught him with his oar, pulled on his neck hard, but O’Joyce barely seemed to notice. He may have been big, but he was awful fast, shot one elbow into Rat’s side, broke three ribs at once, by the sound of it. Rat fell down, but there were two others immediately willing to take his place. The men on that crew were violent, it was the one thing they had in common. That and a penchant for gold, and Teeth fighting back somehow felt personal. They had no good reason to go against Teeth, but violence makes men stupid, drives them to careless risks. The man with the knife ended up stabbed in the eye and the man with the chain got his arm broken, his chain helping to ward off two more men. But Teeth was losing ground, his moves growing bleary. Not obviously worse, not enough for the others to yet notice, perhaps, but my grandfather always was a fast thinker. He could see that the big man wouldn’t hold out much longer and the others wouldn’t cave, not now, when they wanted to see how far they could push him. Such is the way of men…’ Noah grew quiet and for a while, the man of lights listened to his ragged breathing. Undoubtedly, he now felt more like Teeth O’Joyce than he had when he was a kid. It seems life has a way of deciphering all the gruesome tales of childhood for us.

to be continued