Self Made Outcast

He stumbled slowly forward. There was no urgency. There hadn’t been for a long time. He’d grown far too accustomed to his situation to the point where he no longer gave it any thought, willfully ignorant to the absurdity of his daily life. He stumbled slowly forward.

To any average person, the scene would have been completely overwhelming. The sewer was rife with every conceivable grossness. Every surface was coated with slime of unknown origin. Of course, you would only know that if you felt it. The darkness was so intense that you could nearly feel it. Perhaps if you tried, you could imagine you were somewhere slightly more pleasant. The musky, stale air was enough to make you think you were suffocating. The immediate area was quiet enough to make you uneasy, but the sounds in the distance teased horrors to come. All in all, the sewers below Benton Harbor were the last place any half reasonable person would want to be.

There is no person in the world who would describe Branson as reasonable. His early life was characterized by emotionally driven outbursts and a poor grasp of consequences. His mother was a tired woman who loved her son deeply. She spent her days cleaning up in the boy’s wake and attempting (with as much energy as she could muster) to teach him healthier ways of processing how he felt. Though she was endlessly exhausted, she wouldn’t have it any other way. The days were filled with energy and life so volatile that she had no choice but to live in the moment. They were happy moments, for her at least. Branson’s father was fascinating, juxtaposed against his wife’s selfless devotion to being a mother. He distanced himself greatly from his son’s boisterousness, opting to leave matters of parenting to his matriachical partner.  His work consumed most of his waking hours, though you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who could tell you exactly what he did. When asked, he’d often describe himself as a “Freelance Contractor”; the nature of these “contracts” would remain dubious however. All that was known was that he could be seen entering and exiting the town in his truck several times a week. Regardless of his shady occupation, he kept food on the table and there was a sense that he was caring for his family in his own way. Branson was perhaps the most perceptive of this. He idolized his father’s cool demeanor and nonchalant approach to everything. To Branson, a seemingly unstable ball of restless motion, his father was the stoic, well adjusted man he secretly longed to be.

Their home was chaotic and unkempt and often looked down upon by the rest of the community, but it was good. Everything seemed to be going as smoothly as possible. The mother would run around frantically trying to keep track of Branson’s mischief while chipping away at a backlog of other household tasks; her husband would cycle between nondescript trips out of town and calmly enjoying his downtime at home. Branson, as a child, would typically be unrepentant of the ruckus he caused. However, he was far more intelligent than anyone could tell. He knew deep down that his behavior was problematic; that was just how he was. He never thought it would cause any harm, nor did he think his spontaneity  would define the rest of his life. This was a lack of foresight that would, by no fault of his own, cause such a dramatic shift in his life. 

Branson’s father was dedicated to his work, whatever it was. It was not uncommon for him to leave and not return home for several days. What was uncommon (in fact it only happened once) was for the father to head out one evening and never return. There could be any number of reasons as to his disappearance from Branson’s life. Perhaps the man’s patience with his family had worn thin or his work had gotten him involved in something potentially dangerous. Whatever the case, neither his wife nor their son ever saw him again. No one could tell what had possibly happened to lead to this.

He was always fairly removed from his son’s antics and he and his wife weren’t particularly close. They had found themselves in this arrangement after their parents, who were quite close, set them up together. Neither one of the two were living lives that they found fulfilling, so they each decided to give it a shot. There was no immediate chemistry, nor was there any animosity. In fact, they actually gave each other satisfactory company. The relationship provided both of them with a stability they had each lacked, and so they found themselves together for the majority of their days and found it only appropriate to be wed shortly after their initial meeting. The ceremony was not romantic; it was not magical. To them, it was simply the natural progression of their lives. 

So after eight days had passed since her husband’s departure, Branson’s mother was not struck with feelings one would typically associate with being abandoned by a spouse. She didn’t cry or question why this would happen to her. Her only concern was how she would continue to raise her son to the standard she had come to expect of herself. With their household income gone, she felt panicked as to how to remedy her family’s situation in a timely fashion. How could a single woman handle the responsibility of an additional person? Her rock had vanished and with it those precious, happy days. 

Branson was very aware of his father’s absence. During the boy’s days of stomping around the house, his mother always sought to steer him away from her husband. He had no history of retaliation or angry outbursts, but his wife knew that he preferred to have his space. Branson longed to get attention from his father, but never dared to defy this one rule that his mother adamantly enforced. Despite all the chaos he wrought, he understood his mother’s insistence, so he had to take on the task of carefully towing the line between respecting his mother’s wishes and finding ways to get through to his father. Without him around, Branson lost much of his desire to act out and make himself the center of attention. It was clear that despite their limited interaction, Branson’s father was a huge part of his home life. The home felt so different to him. There was no energy, nor the cool demeanor of his father figure to channel it toward. The now single mother noticed this change in her son. She was heartbroken at the loss of his unbridled liveliness, but she took the opportunity to find means of providing for him. She worked tirelessly, part-time as both a server at a local fast food franchise and a housekeeper at a nearby hotel. While she couldn’t bring in the kind of money that her husband previously did, she made enough to maintain the essentials of life for her child. The following days were a challenge, but she found some satisfaction in knowing that she wasn’t powerless. Her son was taken care of and that was certainly a worthwhile accomplishment. 

Unfortunately for Branson, these new arrangements left him feeling lonelier than ever. Not only had he lost the man he looked up to more than anything, that loss necessitated that his mother find employment. His days were now filled primarily with solitude. Children his age tended to be alienated by Branson’s overwhelming energy and tendency to cause trouble, so by this point he had formed no meaningful connections with any of his peers. He had no father around to vie for the attention of, nor a mother to coddle him and clean up after him. He had very little awareness of consequences as a result and so he found himself causing trouble in less focused ways. He would wander the nearby streets de-posting and smashing streetside mailboxes. Most weeks his mother would purchase a pack of her favorite beverage, a citrusy tonic that was sold in a glass bottle. Branson would routinely swipe the unopened bottles and take them to the very same store they were bought from to smash against the side of the building.  He used these things as an outlet for his rage. The boy was filled with bitterness. He felt no anger towards his father, whom he believed must have had a reason for his departure. He was not angry at his mother for needing to neglect him for his own good. He was fed up with the world as a whole. Circumstances beyond his control caused his happy moments to be transmogrified into somber days that all bleed together. When he hurled a bottle at the wall, he imagined that it was shattering against the Gates of Heaven. He hoped that the Lord, or anyone for that matter, would notice his plight.

Branson felt as if nothing would change, so it came as a surprise when a car arrived in front of his home one morning. His bewilderment continued when his mother, after preparing for work, exited the home and entered the mystery vehicle. Branson’s face was pressed firmly against the pane of his second floor window as he tried to identify who was operating the machine. He caught only the slightest glimpse of a man he didn’t recognize. In that split second, the driver looked directly back. His eyes were closed slightly as he smiled up at the boy before whisking his mother away. For the rest of the day, Branson roamed aimlessly around the house. He had no idea why, but he felt a heavy, inescapable dread looming over him. His mind was flooded with memories of happier days. No longer did he feel a burning desire to return to those times. He felt only pain at their passing and despair for things to come. 

As the sun was setting, Branson found himself sitting on the step in front of his house, watching cars pass. It was unremarkable until a familiar car came to a stop not four feet away from him. Through it’s  window he saw his mother, her face aglow with joy like he’d never seen. The driver side door opened and the same man from earlier walked around the vehicle and opened the door closest to Branson. His mother stepped out and nodded thankfully to the man before turning toward the building and noticing her son. For a moment she froze, unsure of how to proceed. The man next to her broke the stalemate by reaching into the backseat of his car and handing her a plastic bag. The woman accepted the gift and asked Branson if he’d like to meet Henry. The boy locked eyes with this stranger for a moment. His heart was racing and his eyes began to tear up. He never believed that his mother would try to replace his father, and certainly not so soon after his exodus. Branson jumped up from the step and bolted back inside the house. His mother called after him, but he was leaping up the stairs to his room before she could properly react. His mother expected such a response. She thanked Henry again before following her son into their home. She placed the plastic bag on the countertop and began unpacking boxes of freshly made food. Despite Branson’s reaction, she was hopeful that he would come around to Henry. Although only a burgeoning romance was present, the fact that she was able to provide more than the bare minimum for her child filled her with hope. Though she had no reason to be anything but proud of the work she had done up to this point, no mother would not long for their child to have more in life. 

These sentiments, however, did not detract from her concern over her son’s displeasure. After some deliberation, she decided to speak with Branson once he was given a chance to center himself. She sat for a spell, thinking of how to console the son she felt she hardly knew anymore. She climbed the stairs slowly. The sun had only recently finished setting and since she had been absent for most of the day, not a single light upstairs nor the ones flanking the staircase was lit. The darkness always perturbed Branson’s mother. Beside being such an inconvenience, the lack of illumination mirrored the shadow she felt had been cast over her family’s home. Thankfully, she knew the home’s layout well enough to not particularly struggle with navigating towards her son’s bedroom door. Through the space beneath the closed door she could see soft orange light bleeding out. She gently knocked before opening the door and slowly peeking her head in. She had prepared a smile to greet her son, but her jovial expression melted away instantaneously. The orange light had not been from any indoor lighting fixture. The window was left wide open, framing the streetlight just outside and allowing it to cast it’s light upon the empty vacant room. A heavy thud resonated briefly through the carpeted floor as the woman collapsed, shaken to her very core and unable to take a steady breath. Branson had never attempted to escape in such a fashion before. He and his mother held a seemingly inseparable bond. While the boy was quick to act upon his outbursts of emotion, he would always eventually seek his mother for solace. Now she sat propped up against the doorframe attempting to calm herself in preparation for the coming search. 

Branson had hastily made his way to the quiet corner on the right side of the supermarket. Though not a completely conscious action, he had been possessed with the overwhelming desire to be anywhere besides home. He had seldom been here after dark, and so he failed to find as much comfort in arriving as he had hoped. Leaning against the fence facing the building wall, he saw stained bricks and the ground beneath littered with a variety of sized shards of glass. Though the corner was quite out of the way, lamps and lights were plentiful enough that the space was sufficiently lit. Logical, considering the nook was home to a smaller loading dock and a very worn looking manhole cover. His chain link support was not in any way comfortable so Branson spent some time fidgeting around and shaking the fence. This caught the attention of one of the store employees, who was making a last minute sweep of the lot for stray carts. Branson stayed still, hoping to avoid detection, but he found himself in an unannounced staring contest. Without any other available course of action, he just stood against the fence. The grocery associate looked away and promptly made their  way back into the store. For a moment Branson calmed down, but shortly after the cart attendant returned along with what could only be a supervisor. They stared over at him for a bit, seemingly hesitant to approach. In fact, they didn’t approach at all. The store staff members slinked back into the building and, unbeknownst to Branson, contacted the authorities to investigate the matter in their stead. The combination of this recent encounter as well as the overall uneasy atmosphere of the nighttime lot left Branson more worked up than before. In a fit he had attempted to extricate himself from the tragic reality of home, only to find he had landed in a position full of increasingly irksome events. He stomped back and forth anxiously, pondering whether or not he should just return home now and spare himself any further issues. Each second he spent felt like hours; His mind was a whirlwind of regrets and frustrations. The world around him grew ever obfuscated as he found his vision veiled with tears, and his consciousness retreating into his mind. He felt that surely he was about to implode in upon himself when he was suddenly snapped back to his surroundings by the flashing of headlights as two vehicles pulled into the lot. He immediately identified the cars and the uniformed officers within and fell directly back into a panic. He had enough information to determine that police presence had been requested to investigate. He wanted nothing more than to melt away and escape this situation.

Hide.

In a frantic scramble, Branson began searching for a place to squirrel away. He dreaded the thought of stashing himself in a trash bin or dumpster, but he was also desperate enough to do so. Perhaps fortunately, no such receptacle was present. The only option that he could see was the entrance to the sewage system via the rusty manhole cover. The boy darted forward, quickly brushing aside bits of glass before wedging his fingers under the most worn edge of the metal. In a feat of herculean strength, he managed to pry the cover aside just far enough for the opening to accommodate his size. He slid his way in feet first. By the time his head was hidden he expected to feel a surface to land on and, once he let go of the edge of the hole, he did. Unfortunately, he landed on his back after falling what felt like several feet. The escapee let out a muted grunt as he was downed on the unpleasantly gooey ground. He once again found his vision impaired, being able to only make out a faint bit of light that had snuck in through in the same way that he had. The light enraptured him. All other stimuli seemed to fade away and the dim artificial light became Branson’s whole world. He didn’t think about anything else and soon, he wasn’t thinking about anything at all. In the most unlikely of places he drifted off, the light guiding him to sleep.

When next he could see, the light had grown blindingly bright. Miraculously, he shot up. By all accounts he should have been far less spry than he was, but nevertheless he rose. While his body fared surprisingly well, his mind was muddled. The bright light was about all he could make out through his clouded vision. As if possessed, Branson unconsciously made his way towards the light. He was stopped in his tracks by a wall. After feeling around, he found what must have been the rungs of a ladder and without thinking he began his ascent. He climbed by feeling alone, as the now midday sun made it nearly impossible for him to look straight up. Step by step, he made his way toward the surface. As he approached, his thoughts returned to the events of the recent past. He attempted desperately to put off this rumination. Such thinking only sapped him of the desire to reach the top at all. Branson hadn’t been paying very much attention to anything was hearing until he made out one sound, the distinct beeping of a reversing truck. This detail wouldn’t have affected his climb, but then the truck’s wheels briefly came into view. The light was blocked out almost entirely until the rolling rubber shifted the cover that had been left ajar. With a hearty clang, Branson could no longer see the light that was, at that moment, only three rungs away. He was now in complete darkness, the truck’s tones now muffled and distant. He felt his heart sink, followed by the rest of his body as gave an encore performance of his previous fall. This time, however, he was entirely cognizant upon landing. The justifiable panic he had felt moments ago was now replaced with complete resignation. While he certainly didn’t wish to remain on the floor of the dank dungeon, he could only imagine any possible attempts to anything ending in some sort of tragedy. He hesitantly sat up, unaware of if his eyes were opened or closed. It was irrelevant considering the absence of any light source. His mind was racing, darting around to everything that had ever upset him. His consciousness was a swirl of negative emotions. His thoughts seemed to only be composed of failures, disappointments, shortcomings, betrayals, heartaches, despair, dread, anger, sadness, regret, fear, hollowness, depression, rage and guilt. In both his eyes and his mind, the light had been completely blotted out. This was his life. He brought it all upon himself and deserved every misfortune he was experiencing. Not a single fiber of his being felt the need to try and make the best of the situation, to try and find a way to sort things out. He had concluded that he was content to wallow in absolute misery until the end of time.

While Branson’s shattered soul was set on shriveling away, his body moved on instinct, following it’s core directive to survive. There were many edible things available for a being that refused to experience the exterior world. Vision was unnecessary when the only thing he did was creep forward aimlessly, using the grimy wall as a guide. Thoughts and feelings, aims and goals, the future. Everything was superfluous. While he would have rather collapsed and let himself die. This was the next best thing. Simply subsisting because he had no choice. He had no gage for how long he spent walking or how much time had passed. The days managed to bleed together seamlessly while he experienced the same sensations in perpetuity. While Branson had no idea when the days would pass, they continued to regardless. Days became months, months years, et cetera.

There was a single moment of deviation from what the boy’s, now technically man’s, life consisted of. Upon following a wall that curved to his left, he stumbled upon a morbidly nostalgic sight. A bright, blinding light sneaking it’s way through a manhole with it’s cover left slightly ajar. While Branson had spent the vast majority of his recent life content to carry on the status quo, his curiosity was irresistibly piqued by what lay ahead. As he approached the spot directly below the opening, he felt the metal of the ladder rungs. He had encountered them numerous times since his fall, and he not once considered a second escape attempt. In fact even now, with freedom but feet away, he had no intention of leaving. He felt as though he was being pulled against his will as he grasped the cold metal bar. Step by weary step, Branson grew closer to reaching the light. He half expected the cover to slide shut on him simply out of spite. However, he reached a point where the ladder ended and the only thing left to do was pry the cover over just enough to poke through. His eyes had adjusted to the light unbelievable quickly. As his head emerged from the depths, he was met with another familiar scene: The only grocery store he had ever seen. In fact, from where he was Branson could see the corner that contained the first ever manhole he had gone through. The view should have been an overwhelming surge of stimuli, but Branson’s eyes were immediately drawn to a certain grocery cart. The rickety metal clanged against itself as the cart rolled along the uneven lot. Finally he shifted his attention slightly to see a couple: a man walking alongside while a woman guided the cart forward. Branson’s mother, though decades older, was instantly recognizable. Her face was aglow with a joy he had only ever seen her experience a single time. The man beside her seemed to be the catalyst. The same man that drove Branson away from home was subsequently the person that brought light into his mother’s life. Seeing his mother’s smile didn’t elicit any feelings from her son. She wasn’t distraught at the loss of her son. Why would she be? It had been years since he had disappeared and surely she had finished mourning and gone on with her life. Branson wondered if she even grieved at all. Perhaps his departure had been a blessing. Freedom for a woman who worked tirelessly for the sake of a boy who would never change. These thoughts felt natural. He didn’t think anything negative of them, it was simply the truth. Branson leaving opened up the spot for Henry to come and give the downtrodden mother the life she deserved. In all his time wandering the sewers, there was only ever faintly, and briefly, consideration of what the world had become without him. What he saw now lifted that shred of doubt from his shoulders. 

In a now practiced maneuver, Branson released his grip on the rung of the ladder and plummeted back down to the dank tunnel. He thought nothing of the pain as he slammed against the hard ground. His mind was busy. He had finally proven what he had repeated to himself all the years he spent wandering the underground. There was no place for him up there. He and everyone he knew would be better off with him gone.