-Two-
(In this chapter, I'm going to finally get to the main story. Enjoy!)
It was a clear morning, and I was about twelve years old at the time. I must've slept in, because after I got out of my dumpster that I called a bedroom, nobody was anywhere. I checked all the alleys. Nobody. I looked in all the buildings. Nobody. Gutless must've been out on a raid, at the moment. But then, I felt an arm grab my shoulder strongly. I let out a yelp in fear, and then looked behind me. I simply just saw a Steef chuckling to himself. It was Falpaine. After he was done laughing, he finally spoke.
“Hey there, Calvarr.” He said. “Good to see you're awake. Did the guys keep you up last night?”
I simply rubbed my eyes lightly. “You know they did.” I replied. “They kept throwing rocks at my dumpster. They even rocked the thing back and forth for an hour! Those bastards have some nerve.”
“Calm down, Cal. Boys will be boys.” Falpaine lightly patted my back. I became tranquil after that. “Come on inside my office. We can talk in there.”
I simply followed him, trying to keep myself awake at the same time. Falpaine spent most of his time in the old Raville Town Hall. To most of the gang, Raville Town Hall looked like a train wreck. All the windows we're broken, the inside was infested with cobwebs, almost all of the floorboards creaked when you'd step on them, and there was dust on almost everything. Falpaine looked at the Town Hall in a much more different way. He always said that it had a hidden beauty to it. To him, it was like a home. It was a place where he could simply think. Even Relt sort of liked the place. But me and the other people in Gutless didn't really like it. We all thought it was a strange place for a hangout.
I finally entered Falpaine's office, with him right behind me. It turns out that his office actually looked somewhat like an office, being inside Raville Town Hall and all. The room was large in size and had zero windows. The office was also filled with busted furniture, old books, and other ancient crap. Besides all the junk in there, the office had a normal-sized desk where Falpaine worked on plans of attack. The plans were pilled high in stacks of crusty, yellow papers, along with some simple knives sitting around his desk. Sometimes he would makes plans with Relt, but not too often either way. The odd thing was that Falpaine usually doesn't go on the raids that he planned in the first place. I'd say half of the days he will go, and half of those other days he would stay. Maybe it was because he wanted to babysit me or something. If I were left alone while the rest of Gutless raided, I would be fine. I like to be alone, after all. Perhaps Falpaine is just too scared that I'll run off or something. He can be a lot like a father, at certain points.
“Have a seat.” He said to me. I sat down on one of the busted sofas. It may not have felt stabilized, but I found it better than sitting on the hard, dusty ground. Falpaine sat down in his wooden chair next to his desk and sighed. Then he said, “I had to wake my ass up hours before sunrise, this morning. Relt and the Hilow brothers told me that they wanted an early morning raid. 'That I could do,' I replied. Unfortunately, as you know, they forgot already that we had an early morning raid. So what do they do? They decide to have a party! I wasn't even a part of the party as you were. When I tried to go to sleep, I could still hear them through the Town Hall walls!” As I could tell, Falpaine wasn't very happy, at the moment. He swiftly grabbed one of his knives on his desk and jammed it into the wood of the desk. I jumped slightly, making my heart beat fast for a second. “Sometimes they can be so absent-minded.” Falpaine said.
I couldn't have agreed more with him. Gutless was keeping me up by shaking the dumpster and throwing rocks at my dumpster, leaving some long-lasting dents on it. Falpaine also couldn't get any rest. That's probably why he stayed with me and decided not to go in the early raid. “Falpaine,” I asked, “are you always mad at Relt, Yulup, and everybody else?” He had simply sighed after I said that.
“There are some times where I am angry at them,” he replied, “but I couldn't possibly stay mad at them. It was only for one night, after all.” I then asked why he let Gutless even have a party in the first place. He simply shook his head. “I didn't know they were even having a bonanza.” He admitted. “Even if they were, they should have consulted me first. Now I am simply worried about Gutless. Relt came to me this morning looking pretty tired. I asked if he should call this early raid off. He said no, despite his tiredness. He said, 'I haven't missed a criminal raid in three years, now, and I don't plan do miss this one!' He must've been cranky. I'm just worried that the members of Gutless will all be too limp to succeed. We are striking one of the slightly bigger towns after all, which can be a little risky.” Falpaine browsed one of his papers for a moment. “All that Relt and the Hilow brothers wanted was to do something different...I guess they got what they asked for.”
I smiled at Falpaine. What a good Steef, and a good friend. “Can I go get some more rest?” I asked. “I'm a little bored and I could use another nap.”
Falpaine grinned lightly at me. “Sure, kid.” He replied. “Just don't oversleep on me.”
I walked out of Raville Town Hall and got back into my dumpster bedroom. In there, I was surrounded by darkness, away from Gutless for a while. It felt nice to not have Relt Fyrway around, due to the fact that he bugs me. I put my hands across my chest like I lying in a coffin and shut my eyes for about a minute. That was when some thoughts came through my head.
I thought about how Falpaine said that he sometimes doesn't like Gutless. He doesn't like how they disobey him and try to seek fun without his permission. He had to take more charge in the gang. As I studied over the years I was in the gang, Falpaine didn't take up a lot of responsibility other than him writing down attack plans on papers. Maybe it was his fault that he didn't like the own gang that he had created. Maybe Relt should just had been the leader, I thought. His first act would most likely be to toss me straight out of Raville. I could just imagine that scene, and it was quite the scary one. Without Gutless, I am simply hopeless. I would become dehydrated in the desert surrounding Raville. I would starve. I would die. In the gang, I haven't learned survival skills. Not anybody in Gutless knows that stuff! All they know is the art of taking things that aren't theirs and killing with deadly weapons and poison. Then again, that was what most Steef gangs, small-time or big-time, would know.
I wanted to see myself in a home. A home where I had a mother and a father, and maybe even brothers and sisters. Then I could've just grown up to be a normal, healthy Steef with no problems. There would be no Gutless. There would be no crime. I want to see myself in a caring and loving village with people that are nice. People with good habits. It would be the perfect life. But the tough truth is that village has burnt to the ground in fire and ashes, and it is now ruled by a band of thieves, criminals, and trouble-making vigilantes. There is no happy ending to that story. All that is there is ruins and darkness, just like the inside of my dumpster.
I closed my eyes and slowly went to sleep. I hoped that that day I would wake up somewhere else besides Raville. Somewhere I could be safe, and I could get a life and be away from Gutless. I wanted my freedom to be a good person. I want to be free, just like the natives escaping from the tyranny of the Industrial companies of the Glukkons. If only I could be like them, even if it was only for a stinking minute.
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