This story isn't sexy. It's also not intended to be political, or even social commentary. The true takeaway should be what you read happens, not ruminate on the unfortunate circumstances that lead to it too deeply. Sometimes, people are horrible in the name of good. =============== It was a tedious process. One that saw vinyl gloves, applicator bottles, more than a fair share of plastic and a whole lot of patience. Louis rubbed his head with an old towel. One that his parents had said they wouldn't miss, and one that could be easily thrown away if it were ruined. The bathroom was full of steam still, and only seemed foggier with the sudden surge of cool water from the faucet, breaking up the sweltering swampy vibes. Dark, dark yet darker, the bottle of dye resting on the corner of the sink, giving the white interior a slightly darker stain towards the drain. After removal of the acoutrements, it was time for the big reveal. He stood before the mirror, first covered in steam and then consolidated droplets of condensation. A squeaking rub of the used towel as an impromptu dehumidifier, and he saw himself looking back at him from the mirror. What before was sunny blond, from the roots of his underfur to the tips, was now a deep and unforgiving black. A kind of color that defied light sources, in a way that natural hair or fur does not. Turning his head from side to side, tilting back and forth. A hand mirror was lifted up, turning around to make sure he got all the spots he wanted to get, and none of the fur he didn't. Finally lowering the hand mirror, he was satisfied with the results. If one had just met the kid, they'd never suspect his hair was naturally that bright, shiny, messy yellow. Good. Cleanup was equally as tedious, but he cleaned up all the same. His right forearm and bicep still hurt, along with the bruising of the right side of his face and jaw. There were no smiles of satisfaction to his new look, no glee, no pride. The only feeling was spite, frustration and resolution. The only satisfaction and contentment he felt in his new appearance was that it was over and done. By the time he was done, one wouldn't have even noticed there was anything that took place in the bathroom. The final touch to his new look was removing prescriptionless, decorative contacts cases, setting them on the sink counter. He never needed glasses before, nor did he wear contacts, but these ones were special. They bore the horizontal pupils of goats, and these ones were similarly deep, darp colored things. Round rings of black that promised to mask the shade of even the lightest irises, no matter the dilation. Applying them was tricky, but he endured. When he finished, yet again it was like seeing another person that wasn't him. Perhaps someone more distantly related, but not the same guy. Those bright, round edged rectangles of his birth were almost indistinguishable from the iris. If they weren't set on a face that looked like cream with tiny freckles of grey and white, he would've been unplacable. It wasn't perfect, but it would suffice. Good. Louis turned around and stepped out of his bathroom, turning off the light and shutting the door, leaving it dark and deplete of light. ----- "I just don't know what to make of it." A genteel, middle aged red fox puzzled from behind his desk, slumped in his chair and shaking his head. His dark green, near black suit and sporty tie "We've never had problems like this from him before." Not staring directly across from him at the counselor, but he didn't need to. He knew she was staring at him with an anticipation, a kind of judgemental contempt. The woman across from him had a stern expression on her face. In her fifties and perpetually discontent looking, the grey cat queen's arms were folded and her tail lashed behind her in agitation. Dressed in a conservative robin's egg blue blouse and grey pants, with judgemental yellow eyes. "He's around the age when young men like him start getting certain 'thoughts' and beliefs, Helton. We see it every year." Drumming her fingers against her forearm, a look of expectation on her sagging cheeks. "Louis is a mischevious kid, but I don't think he's a bigot." Mr. Helton replied, looking over at his contempt wearing co-worker with a look of apologetic resignation. "All signs point to the opposite. He reported another student for using slurs, last week." "We have a zero tolerance policy at this school, Helton. And numerous third parties indicating pretty unanimously, he said something he wasn't supposed to." Mr. Helton pointed at her, elbow resting on his office desk. "Yes, and being pretty ambiguous about what was said. Have you noticed that?" One dark brow raised. "They won't even indicate exactly what he said. They just keep saying, 'He was being a bigot.' And hinting nonspecifically, it was either sexist, or racist, or both." "They don't want to repeat what was said. Because they're good kids." The counselor advocated, a certain implied venom in her tone. "Could've been anything from homophobia, to religious bigotry, for all we know." "But we don't, and they won't say. That's my point." Principal Helton emphasized, raising his hand just to accusatorily point at her with punctuation for 'don't' and 'say. "They vaguely indicate he did something wrong, but won't even write down the word. 'He was being a bigot,' and 'Nazi punks, fuck-off.' It's unhelpful, to say the least." "I HIGHLY doubt a group of eleven children are going to just conspire to say this for no reason. Where there's smoke, there's fire." "Eleven children with rapsheets longer than than this table, Ms. Epel." Mr. Helton snapped back. "Their past misbehaviors are not condemnations of their entire character, Mr. Helton." Ms. Epel reminded, "None of them have been reported for bigotry." "No," Mr. Helton agreed, "Just vandalism, theft, intimidation, blaring music banned from the school and instigating fights on school property." "Only a few of those students have those on their permanent record, and you know it. We have an understanding with child services and child welfare." "Yes, and those repeat offenders seem to work with the ones that never get in trouble for it, that sticks." "Be. that. as. it. may," Ms. Ephel interrupted, raising her voice in a tone that suggested the last word on the discussion, "We have a zero tolerance policy at this school for bigotry, and if this situation is not handled with the utmost caution and concern for the wellbeing of the student body AS WELL as the reputation of the school, we're going to find ourselves with more bad press, negative reviews and punitive community action. Do bear this in mind, Mr. Helton. Is that what you want?" Ms. Ephel tilted her head, leaning slightly forwards for emphasis. The way she would lean for dominance against any of her students that drew her ire. Mr. Helton considered, frustration and resignation on his face as he let out a big breath. There really wasn't much he could do, here. Like dealing with a paper fingertrap, the more he pulled, the harder it'd stick. Even advocating too far on a student's side in a situation like this would just reinforce the ideas the school was run by those complacent with supremacism, ready to punish victims on the side of the majority. That meant people talking. That meant the consensus interpreting him, or just the faceless archetype of The Principal of the School, as a bigot, regardless of his feelings, complacency or participation. It meant fewer students next year, it meant less grant money, it meant greater scrutiny for parties to find things, even if they had to manufacture them to find. His hands were largely tied. "Any time now, Helton." Ms. Ephel pressed. "Before the little prick joins the Trenchcoat Mafia and shoots up the school. That'd be nice." Mr. Helton's expression of distate was made, and made clear. Salt in the wounds. "Ms. EPHEL," He hissed, emphasizing her name. That was over the line, even if she meant well. And Mr. Helton had his doubts, about that. She held her gaze, unrepentant. She knew she had the higher ground, here. She could afford to be snippy. Reluctantly, Helton took in another breath and sighed his frustrated, defeated sigh. "I'll see what I can do. This IS his first real offense. Maybe he has some character witnesses." "The boy is a sexmaniac, far too young." Ms. Ephel disapprovingly blurted. "You've seen the way he looks at girls." "With all due respect, Jen, if we start punishing every student for being a leering pervert, about eighty percent of the student body would disappear. He's never, and I mean, NEVER, been so much as reported for pervert behavior at school." Mr. Helton retorted, that accusatory finger pointing returned. "He got caught feeling up a girl last week." Ms. Ephel rebutted. "Off school grounds, out of school hours, that was a WOMAN, and ENTIRELY with her consent." Mr. Helton clarified. "You know well, public nudity is perfectly legal in this state. Ever since the Naturalist Act of 1843. Dairy Leaguers championed that! Rude, classless and distasteful as it is to yank down a woman's top and waggle her tits at a security camera, while making stupid goat faces, they were both within their rights. And she found it hilarious." With Louis' rapsheet, he had ample time to refresh himself on the minor infractions. Few truancies, no thefts. He was a little asshole, but he wasn't a monster. "Don't try to misrepresent that to me, missy, I know what happened, AND I've seen the security tape! She was even a student here, just eight years ago." Ms. Ephel bristled her fluffy tail, gritting her teeth. "The misogynistic little brat." Her tone croaking with vitriol, a grimalken mrrroooowwwwwwwwl escaping her nostrils. "You saw the size of those breasts, Ephel. A twelve year old isn't making those shake like that by himself." Mr. Helton reminded her, as he pointedly turned in his swivel chair to pick up his phone. "He could barely lift them." Jennifer Ephel hissed loudly at him in warning. ---- Just passed one o'clock in the afternoon. Louis sat in the passenger seat of his father's station wagon, gazing out at the telephone poles and houses as they blew passed. This was the more urban part of his community, the place where he went to school. It was far more populated than the quaint little suburb bordering the rural areas in which he lived, but by the rules of how the state worked, this was where he went for school. It wasn't a big commute when you went by school bus. His face was still swollen, his arms hurt and his thighs smarted from being kicked. The defeated roots of a scowl settled on his face as he watched the scenery pass by. Clement occassionally glanced towards his son as he sat there, slumped and turned away. The boy was putting on a brave face, but it looked like he'd been crying a little. And hit a lot. There was a conversation that needed to happen, but Clem felt like it should be his son that spoke first. It took a few blocks for Louise to say anything at all. He hadn't even noticed his father was taking the scenic route and being light on the gas pedal to do it. "Dad?" Louis asked, still facing the window. Idly playing Little Running Man on the passing utility poles and cables, swollen ear laying closer to his head. "Yes, son?" "Did our family ever own slaves?" Clement snorted. Oh. It was time for THAT talk, was it. The older billy's lungs silently filled with air, licking his lips as he thought about the absolute iceberg of a conversation this one question was going to unlock. Luckily for Louis, he'd foreseen it, long before he was born. "Well, you certainly haven't." Clement joked, at probably the most inappropriate time. But, what are you going to do? Dads gon' dad. "I'm a character witness." The look Clement earned as Louis turned his head and gave him a full, unamused glower from that punched up face. His lip swollen out of place like he'd been to the dentist's office and numbed up, eye tightened like a boxer's. Just, the disapproving, sullen stare. "And I clearly haven't. Your mother doesn't count, either. I tricked her into marrying me!" "Dad." "Alright, alright." Clement chortled, returning his grey-blue eyes to the road with an amused smile on his face. Louis was not in the mood to bullshit, and that meant over the last six hours, something had rocked him too his core. "Did our family ever own slaves?" "Not a single member, as far back as eight generations, son." Clement said. His tone suggested a sagacious, overt bluntness. "You sure?" The kid asked, sounding detatched and impartial, but Clement knew the mask when he saw it. "I looked into it." Clement replied, turning his eyes to his battered son. Up and down, to the outwardly bruised parts to the hints of blood on his clothes. "We didn't even arrive in the New World until about eighteen eighty. And slavery endeeeeeeeeeed...?" Louis just looked at him, blankly. ".. December, eighteen sixty five, son. It ended in the eighteen hundreds. Dang, didn't they teach this in school? An institution, a generation to dust, before my side of the family got here. There was no time for the Braintrees to have even had slaves in the new world." Louis stifled a wince. HIS side of the family. "What about mom's?" But again, Clem seemed to have the answers. "Your mother's side arrived before ours, but stuck to the north. In fact, your mother's great grandfather was an abolitionist minister." It was subtle, but this seemed to return some spirit to the boy. Turning his head to gaze out the window again, he squeezed his seatbelt and grit his teeth. Another few minutes passed between them, as this new information poured into the cauldron of thoughts and mixed like reagents in a witchery brew. "That stuck up rat bitch sure seemed to think we did." There were many questions to ask at this juncture. Clem thought carefully. "And what did she say?" Louis frowned and looked at his father. "That all Sunsettians are oppressive, privileged bigots." Clem chuckled again. Such an audacious statement. It was something he had heard, long before, but he wasn't going to tell his son this. Not yet. "Quite the broadsweeping statement, isn't it? Last I checked, you weren't even the kind of boy that slurred at videogames." Looking at Louis again. "I believe the common parlance is, 'Gamer Words?'" "StaaaAAaahp." Bleated Louis, much to Clem's delight, bobbing his head and chortling like a snake choking on peanut butter. "She also said I hated women." "Well... if I'm being honest, Louis, you ARE a bit cavalier with the fairer sex.." This just drew a sullen, disappointed stare. "That's not the same thing as hating or oppressing someone. I don't act the fool to girls that aren't in on the joke." He insisted. "You have to build rapport. Feel them out. Get a subtle nod. I don't hate women." "So. If I may ask, what happened?" "I tried to make some new friends. Thought they looked cool. But that bitch had it out for me at first sight, and I just could not do right by her no matter what I said or did." Louis sulked. "She jumped all over everything I said, no matter what it was. Or who I was talking to." "Like what?" Clem asked, intrigued now. "'Good morning, Zapthra!" Louis pantomimed leusirely giving a single wave, as if someone just walked near. "Morning, Dave!" And again, letting a little time pass between each one. "Morning, Huck!'" "Zapthra?" Clem asked, his questioning tone clear mockery. "I don't know either, dad. I just call'em as they name'em. We have one Naruto in the school." Looking dead serious at his father. "More Sunsettian than we are. He wants his name changed when he turns eighteen." Clem just laughed. Louis cracked a smile, but with his bruised cheek. It was still too swollen to properly show the corner of his mouth. "Please continue." "She kept making all these weird..." Going quiet, as he realized he didn't know how to properly describe her behavior. He'd never seen someone acting so hostile and with such cold blood, before. "Accusations?" Clem offered. Louis nodded, wild blond hair bouncing! "Yeah! I just ignored them at first. I didn't even know what she was talking about. She was just doing that... thing girls do when they think they're making fiery zingers." Before abruptly making the most 90s, 'smug kid making a sarcastic joke' face Clem had seen.. since the 90s. An unpleasant wave of familiarity poured over the older billy's memories like a gravyboat full of hot wax. He knew that look well. "'More like, Fourteen Eighty Eight, am I riiiiiiight?'" That overly animated 'I just burned you' smug look. It was a look of jaded (or, wanna-be jaded), faux worldly, cynical contempt. The sort of look one would get from a monochrome aesthetic rocker, or the sort of person that smelled of pot, cloves, stainless steel chains and body odor. "Really. She hit you with the fourteen eightyeight bit? Really." "I had to look that up on my phone to get what the hell she was talking about. I never heard it before! I thought it was an important historical date. She also hit me with the, 'you'd be spared during a fascist uprising, so I don't care what you think' thing." It was someone far more 'real' than the shallow, uneducated vestiges that Louis was trying to be. "I didn't get her, 'jokes,' because she kept talking like some rich asshole was in the room. I thought she was just cracking wise about my hair. Lots of girls mention my hair. It's kind of normal." Louis said, with a kind of mournful frustration. "Hello. I'm, 'rich asshole,' apparently." That made Clement wince with a snort. Rich? No. Comfortably middle classed, perhaps. It took a team effort, wise saving and investing and diligent employment to get there, and they started later than most, but they did it. They still were only just above making ends meet, at one child in the house. Rich. "Was she, also, Sunsettian?" Clem asked, with a kind of tone that suggested he also knew the answer. "Looked it." Louis admitted. He didn't know. "But her clothes looked more expensive than like... seven sets of my school clothes. I didn't even think we could wear chains to school anymore." To which Clem just snorted. "But the teachers never call her on it, for some reason." "So, this girl accused you of being a rich white boy. What happened next?" "Well.." Louis looked away, looking for the words as his father patiently waited. "She finally just started interrupting every word I tried to say to other people there. 'No platform for fascists.'" "That's a deliberate tactic of someone trying to silence you." Clem informed. "And it's a tactic to get people both upset and subordinate, or escalate to violence." Louis was glad his father understood. "Everyone there just sort of said nothing. It's like they were hard wired zombies or something. Like.. dealing with a bunch of bees around a queen. I don't even know how to describe it." Louis stared into the middle distance, still trying to wrap his punched mind around what happened. "Some seemed open to chat, but the minute that fucking bitch started opening her stupid mouth at me, they fell in line and pretended they couldn't see anythinng... Or, egged her on." Clem just smiled out the left side of his mouth, where Louis couldn't see. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. "Well I finally just looked at and engaged her, and told her to please stop, I wasn't talking to her. That was apparently the secret word to kick it into overdrive, because she got in my face." Louis said, again adopting overly animated mannerisms. Throwing his chest out, hands on his hips, chin out and frowning. Just like that stupid bitch had done to get in his face. "'What you gonna DO about it, HUH? FASCIST?'" And there it was. Clem rolled his eyes as his son made The Motion(tm.) Ah, the Motion. The secret weapon of every school grade girl that has ever lived, when she wants to instigate or pull rank among her peers. Exploiting that special relationship had between a girl and society, that magical loophole that says, 'you're allowed to physically push any man or boy you want, larger or smaller than yourself, and it's not considered physical assault or even unwanted touching when a girl does it.' Especially when the boy is larger or heavier. But even when he isn't, a grace period follows. Unfailingly, any jerkass boy that tried the same would be made an example of, and most of the time, a girl doing it would have it memory holed. "When I was your age, we called them, 'Potato girls.'" Clem snorted, this time openly grinning as he turned a corner. "Why the hell did you call them, 'potato girls?'" Louis asked, genuinely perplexed. "Because it was always the maladjusted ones that were about as wide as they were tall, had short hair, and thought they were as tough as they are round." Louis couldn't stop himself. The mental image had him snicker through his swollen nose. "And they squeal, fall over and let out hot air and steam when you poke them hard enough. Usually about the time a girl like Cherry kicks their shit in, or a boy with state protected social difficulties forgets his place and swings. Then you get a singing, mashed potato. Stuck a fork in them, done." The noise Clem made as he pantomimed it. The proverbial Pushy Potato Girl, with that hyper exaggerated, 'I'm tough,' frown, just to bolt backwards against the car seat and make the most indignant, girlish, 'AA! AaaaAAA!!' noise, as though skewered and shocked by the violence of someone actually hitting them instead of punching them, howling bloody murder. "Anyway, continue. It's just getting good." Louis took half a minute of smothering laughter into nostril wheezing snickers to recompose himself. "Is your nose broken? It's whistling like an OSHA violation." To which Louis' nose replied with a stuttering, high pitched wheeze from his snickering. It was another minute before he could continue his story. "So some simp that was barely five pounds heavier than me, all of it in fat, eases up and shoulder-blocks between us, shaking his head at me and holding out his arm, palming my chest. I don't know why the dude acted like he was a body builder." Louis shook his head. "It really was pathetic. You know that slow moving you do when pretending you're a kaiju? Like you're a hundred feet tall, and built like a roblox bodied brute? Dude fancied himself her bodyguard. Genuinely thought that sad mean mug meant anything to warn me off." Clem knew the strut. It was the body language of a poseur with a high self image. Even if he wouldn't have phrased it like such a fucking zoomer. "Yup?" "Well he was doing that but, just tall enough to look down at me by an inch. Just. LARPing as a huge dude. I don't know who he thought he was kidding." Louis frowned at the memory. Really, the fact this guy, only technically larger than himself, acting like he was shoulder to shoulder with some of the football kids. It was insulting to have someone like THAT try to perform being a big guy at you, when, no, they were not a big guy. The football kids would have dove through this scrawny wanna-be like a cane corso with a balsa wood chew toy. "Ahhh. In cometh the, 'White Knight.' Trademark." "You've met, I see." "It wasn't that long ago, Louis, when I too was a snot nosed punk.. like you. But I'll let you tell your story before I tell you any of mine." That earned papa dear a look. Louis did not verbally say, 'Who are you kidding?' Clem read it. He simply chose to pretend he didn't see it, or acknowledge it. Louis knew better than to try and engage in a staring contest with someone pretending not to know. "So about this time she gets really blatant with it. No one was saying anything about anything, except the music they were listening to. I thought it sounded cool and I wanted to know more about it. Next thing I know, I'm getting called all kinds of -ists and -phobes. And she started really yelling it, too. Just, trying to get peoples attention that weren't around us." "Ahhhh. Yeah." Clem nodded. That, also, brought back memories. "Were you saying anything bigoted?" Clem asked, directly. Louis frowned, shaking his head. "Not unless, 'I like this song, who wrote it?' counts as racism or sexism, somehow? But she seemed really, really, intensely focused on calling me these things. I don't get why. I just wanted to make friends." Clem glanced towards his blond haired, blue eyed son. His eyes lidded, with an expectant stare. Louis noticed it, but didn't quite know how to respond. Clem eventually turned his eyes back to the road. "You remember what you learned of the Great War?" Clem asked, with a lower voice. "Mmhmm." Louis nodded. "How New World and Old World teamed up to beat supremacist ass, and destroyed their regime. What about it?" Clem chuckled. "You remember the OTHER member of that war? The Socialist Republics?" To which Louis looked blankly. For some reason, the school didn't have a whole lot to say about those. Just that they were there, and fought in the war. "We had Fascists and Communists and Socialists in the states too, kiddo. They were sympathizers, partisans, and shared beliefs and values with both that empty headed supremacist country, and that teeming borg of a union that was sending nailbombs to politicians. You can guess what the Sunsettian fascists believed. Do you know what the Union believed?" Louis shook his head no. Clem gazed out his windshield at the road. That was going to be multiple conversations, in and of itself. They'd be home in a few minutes. Instead of go on a diatribe, he chose his words carefully. "Long story short," Clem looked to Louis. "There are some people in this world that will twist good things, in order to hate you. Sometimes, they'll act in concert. Sometimes, they'll conspire. They'll find vulnerable people, confirm every bias they have and turn them into violent monsters for a cause to be pointed at. No one is immune to this. Absolutely no one." Clem paused, before adding, "And I don't mean just individually. Name a group on this planet- religion, species, hair grade, blood type, foot type, and there's an ideology out there teaching everybody in that group are sub-human monsters. That the world is too good for those-people. Better suited to yous-people." Clem went on, before realizing his diatribe and quieting. He closed his thoughts, "This includes those that hate Sunsettians, and anywhere they live. Whether some would like to argue against that, or not." Louis frowned. He hated this conversation. And most of all, he hated that he'd learned it, firsthand. "Would've been nice to know ahead of time, dad." Clem internally winced, but he let no time pass before his reply. "There are some things in life, Louis, that you have to learn on your own. Look at me." Lifting his right hand from the transmission, indicating his grey, and greyer, hairs. "I'm aging. Busted up. Biased and set in how I think. The absolute worst possible thing I could do for you, is tell you how to think against your own experiences." There was a hint of apology, there. Louis could tell there was so much he wanted to say, but didn't. "You experienced it firsthand. You know what you saw. You heard why she had a big problem with you. And with a little waiting, watching and listening, you'll better understand the why, and whom. One thing I DON'T want you to do, is cling to the lowest common denominator of resistance to this shit they did, like internet anti-thing personalities and make it YOUR personality. But it's alright to be mad." "I feel like you know something, and you're deliberately not telling me." Louis complained. "That's part of life. Especially in this family." "What?" Louis asked, ever so briefly startled. "What?" Clam replied, with the same tone of confusion. Barely eight seconds passed, "Finish your story." Louis stared at his father, lips pursed into a tight O. It was as if he witnessed a tiny portal open in space, to unknown dimensions and horizons. A vector to the unknown. It scared him, and the way his father returned to casuality so quickly just seemed more concerning. Perhaps Louis wasn't the only one in this house with secrets. "So Captain Tryhard kept trying to convince me he was some big tough bouncer guy and that I was in her face, so I needed to step back when I hadn't moved at all. I ignored him. She kept trying to get him to push me back so she could step forwards. It's like, she was trying to make it look like I was backpeddling afraid of her or something. Like, 'Ohh no, don't tell me off, angry girl!' So I finally engaged her, putting an arm up to push against Dumbo the Clown." Raising his right arm for emphasis. "He didn't like that he couldn't push me around without exerting enough effort to look like he wasn't big. Like.. He wanted to look like he could lift me with a finger, but he couldn't. It was one hundred percent a power move. And he didn't want to commit to the effort to prove he wasn't as strong as he thought, so he just kept pretending to be super strong and tolerating me being there." Louis pantomimed his conversation with the girl, acting every time her simp tried to push him backwards. "Girl, I am not a racist. We weren't even talking about race! What the hell!" Relaxing his arm. "And that's when she hit me with the, 'All white people are racist,' thing. All I said to her is, 'I'm not racist.' That's it. That's the big, ugly, bigoted Gamer Word I used. 'I am not a racist. You aren't racist because you're born from certain people.' And that made her REALLY mad." Clem contemplated that for a bit, as Louis waited for his input. "You sure you didn't use the words, 'bitch,' or 'cunt' at any time?" Louis shook his head. "Pity. That shoe fit." "I think you know as well as I do what happens when you call girls that." Louis warned, and continued, "So she went on to flick me on the nose and make that stupid, 'whatcha gonna do about it?' face. Kept on looking at the group around her for support while she accused me of shit I never did, or never thought, or said. It was confusing." Louis complained, remembering the moments clearly. He hadn't done anything to deserve just being randomly hit with accusations of doing something wrong. She said white people owned slaves, like she was so absolutely sure about it. Like, that every single one was a slave owner, before it ended, so all from Sunsettea collectively share the blame. The end. No exceptions, all of us just in the same pot, all of us equally guilty. I told her, 'no,' and suddenly I wasn't a person anymore. I was a monster." "Mm. Mmhmmm." Clement nodded along. "It's like.. how can you blame an entire continent for the actions of the richest, rich people?" Louis blustered hypothetical. "Then she said some bullshit about society and capitalism. I'm not exactly rich, either. It makes no fucking sense." Louis said, voice breaking again. "She said I was 'oppressing her' by just, standing there. I can't tell if she was using it as an excuse, or meant it, or both. I told her that's not how oppression works." Finally, the two pulled into the driveway of their suburban home. Turning the key, he just sat there with his son, listening to his story. "She started screaming, 'You RACIST piece of SHIT! GET AWAY FROM ME!' And, of fucking course, the other kids started watching and paying attention to a girl screaming. So, yeah, soon we had some concerned people making me out to be the bad guy. Why else would that evil cunt start randomly yelling about someone being a bigot, right?" His tone one of bitter, hurt sarcasm. "I'm trying to focus on her, a dozen people are trying to draw my attention away, believing her. Their mission, desperate to save the poor hysterical girl from the scary mean goat." "Yeah. Yeah, sounds about right." Clem said, lifting his sixteen ounce beverage from his side and drinking from it. "So now I'm, 'Mr. Racist Sexist Fascist Guy', to a bunch of other schoolmates, and all they know is I apparently offended some girl so bad she started calling for help. Because ohhh, a girl would neeever do thaa~aaaat. Ever! She'd never just lie to win an argument. Of course not!" The return of sarcasm so bitter and heavy handed, it could've been a sculpture of a fist made of coffee grounds. Clem just listned without interrupting. "It's hard to describe what she was doing. It's like she was replying to someone else, that wasn't even saying anything, or something. I got hit with a sarcastic, 'OH, AND YA KNOW, AlL LiVeS MaTtEr, am I RIIIIGHT?' And she said it loud enough that they genuinely were mad at me, as if /I'D/ said it, as if I'd tossed out that cliche." Wiping his salty cheeks. "I never said that!" Louis yelled in fury. "How did that WORK?! Why did they just believe whatever she said!? Why did SHE have the right to act like I'd said stuff I didn't!? And people just.. believe her?!" "Bring this thing home. Your mom is going to want to hear the whole thing again, and I want to hear the end." Clem half smiled. Louis composed himself. "The annoying bitch suddenly got in front of her Simp Knight and threw up her arms, screaming, 'STOP FIGHTING!' Which was apparently the signal to have Simp Man sucker punch you." Louis said, pointing to his right temple and orbital bone with a frown. "She just kept screaming that, using herself as a living shield while Simp Man took cheap shots." His frown had grown larger, his tears coming faster. "I was so confused and angry. I wanted to beat him to death, but she kept trying to grab my arms, while her underfed bodyguard swung around her shoulders and over her head. I know better than to hit girls. I never touched her." "Wise boy. Nothing good ever comes from hitting women." Clem said with approval in his voice. "At least you can honestly say it. If only they try and lie that you did it." "Mr. Puniverse is not the one that ruined my face." Louis frowned. "Got him back, though." "Oh?" Louis nodded, then indicate the forehead and top of his head. "What's he going to do? Cry that he punched my hard, fucking.. goat head, and broke his fingers?" A bitter, black mirth crawled across Louis' face. "And I headbutted him so hard, he flew off his feet. Right under his STUPID. FUCKING. CHIN." Louis bragged, pride gushing out of every word like mess from squeezed, juicy sponges. "It's too bad that apparently summoned the rest of her simp herd, because they took me off my feet and beat the shit out of me." "You want us to take you to the hospital?" Clem asked, again eyeing the blood stains and the marks. "You might be concussed." Louis shook his head. "I balled up and covered the back of my head. They tried to punch my neck and stuff, but never landed a hit there." Lifting a hand to his ribs, however. "Lot of kicks to the stomach. Lot of stomps. They tried to kick my nuts, but my legs were in the way." The frown returned. "Why do they let the kids wear those metal boots to school?" "Because, Louis, if you're a special enough child," Clem tapped his nose, a motion one did when one wanted to signal a deeper meaning to a word, "They'll make exceptions. When I was in school, we had one mental miniature that thought he was tough for keeping a pocket knife in the special ed lounge at school. Just in the filing cabinet, so he could access it if he, 'needed' to. Liked to show off what a tough man he was at age ten, having a big strong pocket knife at school. Public school will let all kinds of bullshit walk, if it means keeping those juicy problem child dollars, and looking like they're making them graduate." Clem chuckled uneasily. "That unfortunately means you get the.. relatively normal kids, having to grin and bear the burden of dealing with the assholes, sanctioned by the school system. Not just protected, but weaponizing that." "Worse than getting gang slammed, was the weird cult vibes that happened after." "Cult.. vibes?" Clem questioned, one brow immediately raising. Louis nodded slowly, expression unchanged, but very serious. "When the school yard observer noticed and broke it up, Stupid Cunt led this big stupid sermon about, 'no peace for Fascists.' 'No peace for racists.' While her stupid friends and the stupid Dudley Dorights that thought they were helping save the universe from the tyranny of me, nodded along, like they hadn't just gang slammed someone for no good reason but the word of a noisy bitch. Or watched Simp Man throw the first punches, with no prompt from me!" "Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Yeah, I get what you're saying, now." "The paint wasn't even dry on the tarmac before they started making shit up. What happened, vs. being some skinhead rocking up and being like, 'Hey, EXPLETIVES! How about them SLURS?' and getting rocked for it. But, they said it in the weirdest ways.. Like it was something everybody already knew and definitely witnessed." Louis tried to remember exactly what she'd said. It bothered him he couldn't. How could she just say something as if it was something already known, and invoke compliance? It hurt his mind. That someone should have so much credibility for no apparent reason. "The other kids there, they didn't even know me. They thought the worst of me. All they knew was, according to HER, I was some fucking bigot. And that you punch and stomp bigots." Louis grit his teeth, until he realized it made his jaw hurt. "So they had their little circlejerk and gave eachother buttpats that they did the right thing, then all agreed to testify I was the one that incited them." "This phenomenon you are talking about," Clement began, "It's called, 'affirmation.' And groups, be they cults or not, use it to, as you said, reaffirm decisions made by ideology. It's as much social grooming as anything. Makes it easier for the flock to feel good about themselves for behaving like bees reading pheromone signals and just reacting with the faith what they're doing is correct." Louis rubbed his ribs with a wince. "I'm not going to lie, Louis. This isn't good. But, if what you're telling me is true.. and I hope it is.. then it's not your fault." Clem offered his son a sip. Lousis declined. "It's true. Sorry for that." "Don't be sorry." Clem shook his head. "But the bigger problem here is that your reputation may suffer for a while. Shit like this, it has a tendency to linger. Ever heard the expression, 'a lie can get around the world, before the truth can get its boots on?' " "It's a good expression." "It is, isn't it? Well. I'd recommend not trying to be friends with those kids, anymore. That kind of wanton manipulation of groups of people is a dangerous ability. It speaks to the kind of cold blood that could do... many terrible things. Bad vibes." Clem shook his head again. "You don't want to get mixed up with that, even if they offer friendship." Louis nodded meekly. ".. Which isn't to say they're bad kids because of their music or clothes. It's just, we had kids like that in the nineties, too. Hell. Your grandfather had them in the seventies and sixties. Take some solace in the fact, the kind of shit they're on?.. Well." Selecting his words carefully. Dadisms could be brutal, sometimes. "It tends to be a problem that solves itself, one way or another." Louis gave his father a comprehending look. Clement was not convinced. "You know how many times scum like that winds up on the news for doing shit like running a commune, just to end in some sort of drug induced murder-suicide scandal from the polycule? Used to happen all the time, but for a good fifteen someodd years things were quiet. I guess, we're back in a crazy cycle. Scary times." "I get it, dad." Louis tried to assure. "We have True Crime, now. I hear about that kind of shit all the time." "Yes, but do you? Do you really?" Clem questioned, rhetorically. "To you, it's like reading about abstracts. Tragedies in far off places, or in yesteryear. You hear about them happening, but they may as well have happened in a hardback novel for all the relevance to your life. It's easy to forget, these sorts of things can be scarily close to home. That loud girl effectively manufactured an experience of hunting and roasting a woozle for her tribe as a bonding and unifying experience, tightening the screws on a worldview that dominates their fantasies. That's.. That's a bad sign, boy. That's cold blooded manipulation. And you'd do well to learn a lot from today. They invented a scapegoat and roasted you for the meat." Louis turned his eyes away, staring into the middle distance and not knowing what to say. He looked close to crying again. Clem sighed, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. "So.. What did you learn, today?" Louis thought. Without facing his father, he finally answered: "It's not just religious nuts that behave like religious nuts." "Well put. Anything else?" Clem said, proudly. Louis looked like he wanted to say something, but was holding back. Clem pursed his lips. He suspected he knew what his son was struggling with saying, so took a chance. Maybe an artful way to phrase it would sound better. "That regardless of your background, there are some people that will hate you, for whom you come from. No matter what you are. And you learned today, that includes us. The, 'majority.' The, 'oppressors.'" Clem said, in big air quotes. That did the trick, as Louis' good eye and even his swollen shut one opened wide and led to his nodding rapidly in the affirm. "What else?" Louis thought over the vitriol charged putdowns, insults, interrupts and filibusts of that psychotic girl, and her sycophanting friends. How they participated and enabled, by nodding along and parroting back whatever she said, as if it was reality. From intellectually, to their feelings. Even if they knew it was wrong, they still participated in a lie. It terrified him, that power. All of it wrapped in the platitudes and language and culture of social justice, while not truly being social justice. Just an excuse to vilify, to scapegoat, to polarize. All in the name of allegedly protecting the vulnerable, while aggressively demanding the vulnerable be categorized and thought of in a certain dichotomy to others. "It's funny.. but the way she talked before was just so broadbrush and sweeping gesture, I genuinely thought she was just really big into equality, and hated bigots. I don't know what she was on, but it wasn't hatred of bigots. So," Louis struggled to put his thoughts into words, "The worst cold blooded liars want to be seen as good. And if not, being seen as bastards for the right reasons?" "Good enough." Clem replied, with one final accusatory finger pointing at him. "And how has today affected your opinion of minorities?" Louis looked at his father as though he'd grown a second head. Blinking his ghostly blue eyes, he shook his head. "It hasn't. All the kids that beat me up were like us. Sunsettans." "HA!" Clement laughed. A bitter, sardonic laugh as he pounded his steering wheel. One Louis could tell without asking, had a story behind it. "Some things never change. Damn." Sniffing.. "One final question." "It doesn't have to be the final question." "Well I'm getting homesick and want to see my wife." ".. We're sitting in the driveway!" "Final question!" Clement barged passed the current conversational thread. "Has their behavior made you any more sympathetic to fascists, bigots, or any other variation of supremacist?" Louis had a disgusted face. Clement unapologetically looked back at him, understanding but unrelenting. "Asking you a genuine question, Louis. Not a joke." "No, it hasn't, 'made me sympathetic to fascists, bigots, or any variation of supremacist.'" Louis snorted, again through the one good nostril. "Just made me see the loudest voices, the ones that scream to hate those things the most, as liars with sour motives." "That's disillusionment." Clement nodded. "I feel like you aren't just telling me words, but giving me weapons. To use on things I didn't know existed." "You have many important books in your room, Louis." Clem said. "Given the bullshit that just happened, I may add more. If you read them, you'll be much better off." Opening his door and undoing his seat belt to get out. That's when Louis made his move. "Dad?" Clement paused where he stood, looking back to Louis. "Mm?" Another uneasy pause. "Can I dye my hair?" The question made Clement blink. Given the context, it suddenly became clear as to the reason why. Louis didn't have long to live uneasily, before his father made his reply. "Whatever color you want, buddy." Clement said, climbing back into the car and preparing to hit the mall. Though he was pretty sure he knew the color. Already, he was anticipating black nail polish and lipstick. After all, what's old is new again. "Call your mother and tell her we'll be about twenty minutes late- from now." ------------- Sometimes, we don't take the best lessons away from an experience. Sometimes, self-expression isn't a matter of defiance, but survival, even if it does bind and bury who we really are. Sometimes, self-expression and survival are the same thing; even if in surviving, we die a little inside. Louis chose to change himself, not challenge a system that erred on the side of smaller demographics. A written apology accepting rsponsibility for the schoolyard 'fight,' as well as the vague social faux pas that supposedly justified it. The school would go on to vaguely reference this phantom infraction as an empirical example of, 'the fascist problem' in the youth, as well as to remind students of the dangers of, 'ideological pipelines.' Much bluster and rumor was created for public, living memory to be perpetuated amongst Zapthra and her cronies' group among those that believed them, but nothing on the permanent records, as per this questionable arrangement. Video footage from the school security cams was purged before it could be presented as evidence, one way or the other. No excuse was ever given for what happened to it, but every so often, Zapthra's sycophants can be caught bragging 'good allies' in the school faculty did it for them. Usually over stolen alcohol.