The boy

The boy sat on the hillside burrowed into the bushes that surrounded him. He sat waiting for his prey, the deer, to come to him. He sat reading, seldom looking up to scan the small valley below. He believed he would sense his preys presence. The boy glanced up and glassed the valley with a small pair of binoculars. His thoughts drifted away from the small valley in the Texas Hill Country.
He tried to piece together the details of the previous night, he woke with his clothes on, with the putrid smell of stale marijuana, and with his shirt blemished with a musty stain. The boy laughed and thought to himself “it must have been a good night” immediately ashamed of the thought. He embarrassed himself. Ashamed of the stark contrast between his own thoughts and the thoughts he believed were laudable, the thoughts of the characters in his books. He read again.
Perhaps the boy read too much. He had been told so before. His readings had influenced his perspective on the world more than he knew. The books were the source of his embarrassment. He saw himself so different from the heroes of his books, different in ways that he could never change. The books made him embarrassed of the qualities that he was born with and the circumstance that he was born into. His readings created a distinct difference in the way he acted and the way he thought. A difference between what he strove to reach and what he actually was. A difference between what he did and what he wanted to do. The books made him hate himself and what he came from, the boys books created a campaign that could never be completed, and a battle never to be won
The books accounted for the grass he had tucked into his collar, pockets, and hat, too many military sniper books. The books accounted for his distorted idea that he would be able to feel the deer presence, and that he was hunting for a worthy reason, too many Cowboy and Indian books. The books made him believe that he was part of the wild and one with the animals he hunted, too many wilderness stories.
He turned back to his book reading about wild hippy boys free from restraints roaming the countryside. He dreamt of his own adventures but his dreams were restrained by the thought of his own restraints, parents, expectations, and school in the spring. He dropped the idea and continued reading. He heard the grass rustle to the left and snapped his head to attention. It was nothing but the wind the boy kept reading. He read of his heroes’ rampant drug use used to reach a mystical and creative view upon the world around them. The boy thought of his own use of illicit substance, he imagined himself reaching their spiritual level, but in reality he was just trying to have a good time like the kids around him, the kids he despised because they were so much like him.
He heard a tree branch snap and immediately scanned the area where he thought the noise had came from. The boy spotted a deer and immediately took aim. No thoughts of the ways of nature or about the spirit of the deer entered the boys mind. Non-chalantly he fired and the deer fell. The deer lay convulsing hidden from the boy by the long grass of the valley. But the boy knew the deer was suffering. The boy knew he could end the suffering. The boy sat on the hillside burrowed into the bushes and he knew that he should end the deer’s misery that is what the men in his books would of done and that is what his father would of done maybe it was the deer’s youth, just barely entering manhood, that stopped the boy from approaching the deer. No, it was not the common trait the deer and the boy shared that stopped the boy. The boy was just a boy. The boy was scared. The boy did not approach the deer until his father appeared from another valley responding to the boys gunshot. The Father congratulated the boy for a good hunt and the boy basked in his own glory as he told his father the story of the glorious hunt. The boy and father approached the deer but the boy stopped short letting his father continue on. Only when the boy heard another shot did the boy approach his game. The boy helped his father clean the deer and helped pack it out. The boy had even helped load it into the car and had helped drive the deer back home but the deer did not feel like his.

At dinner that night the family sat around waiting for the boy to tell his story, how he had killed the deer how he had stalked the deer and conquered the wild. The boy had done what heroes of his books had done. He had provided for his family, he had returned from a successful hunt, he had returned from the wild having conquered it. Everyone in his family rejoiced at his success except for the boy. The boy knew what he hadn’t done knew that he was still just a boy. The boy knew that he had discovered just another difference between the characters of his books and himself. He knew that another stone to the façade surrounding him had been put in place. The boy hated it.

Chapter 2

After dinner the boy went out with his high school friends. Everyone had returned from their universities for the winter break. He loved his friends and his friends loved him. To Find a group of friends as close as the boys circle of friends would be impossible. They did everything together and everyone wanted to do everything with them.
This night the boy and his circle of friends were off to celebrate like they did almost every night. But to tonight the friends had something to celebrate. The friends were celebrating the return of their leader, the boy. The boy was celebrating the return to his troops. This night the boy and his friends drank too much and smoked too much but they did this almost every night. They did it to celebrate their youth they did it to keep up with their leader. The boy did it to keep up with their expectations.
The night was filled with girls these nights always were. The girls drank and the boys drank and soon the boy and all of his friends were having a great time. The boy knew what he had to do it was time to add another brick to his façade. The boys books were filled with men who always had whichever woman interested them, the boy wanted to be like them. The boy loved none of the girls at the party. The girls at the party all adored the boy. But the boy knew the girls didn’t love him , he knew they couldn’t he knew they didn’t grasp him. The girls did love his outward show just like the boy friends loved it.
The boy knew he had to take one of the girls that night. Which one did not matter it would be overlooked and disregarded just like the ones before. The boy and his friends had a great time all night. Then the time came, the time the boy knew would come and the boy hated it. The time the boys circle of friends would tell stories about on nights they drank too much nights like this night. The boy didn’t pick a girl the girl picked him. In a back room that night the boy had a girl and it disgusted him the whole time. When the girl was finished the boy left. The boy could never stay afterwards. The girls body disgusted him it was just another brick. The boy had to leave.
The next night the boys circle of friends celebrated again celebrated their youth. Tonight was calmer but still the boy drank too much and his friends drank too much to keep up. The boy told stories of his friends exploits to prove to those who weren’t there their meaning and importance. Then the friends told stories about the boys exploits. Stories that built the boy up stories that reminded the boy of his books. No one remembered which ones were true and which ones weren’t, not even the boy.
The boys friends laughed at the girls he had had and the relationships he had avoided. They all knew that the boy laughed at the idea of relationships they knew he got what he wanted and left never calling the girls again. But what the boys friends didn’t know was that the boy dreamed of a girl that he could talk to, a girl that grasped him, a girl that he could call. The boy knew that if a girl ever did break through his wall, the wall that girls smashed into, the wall the girls called the boy an asshole for, the wall that always left the girls wanting more, they would hate him for it. The boy was trapped within his own façade. The walls he had put up. The wall his friends had made stronger now trapped the boy. But, the boy had a plan.