The Ape

Please note, this story contains instances of bullying, child abuse and self-harm. Reader's Disgression advised and thank you for your consideration.

The Ape

It is often said that it isn’t possible to know someone until one walks a mile in their shoes. After all, humans are not generally very bright; they can be judgmental, mean, and quite self-centred. Empathy, compassion and respect are not skills that all possess, and it’s worse when puberty sets in.

It was early 1991, February perhaps, and Travis Lastley was floating along in his first year at a small-town high school in eastern Ontario. Travis was a skinny kid, just turned fifteen, with short brown hair parted on the side and tired-looking brown eyes. Although he stood about five foot six at the time, his posture wasn’t the best, so it appeared he was a couple of inches shorter. The kid looked sad, exhausted or both constantly.

Most kids in his class knew of him, but Travis was never very social. He only had one real friend by the name of Ron. They didn’t get a chance to hang out often and shared no classes, but the boys did what they could. Travis never invited Ron to his home to spend time, but they would get together at Ron’s a few times in the last year. Generally, they would play on Ron’s Nintendo or old Tandy home computer. Perhaps watch movies or play with Boomer, Ron’s family dog.

Travis looked forward to those few weekends, but he could never really be himself around Ron or his family. To do so would have likely alarmed them and caused trouble for Travis at home. 

Travis would work every Saturday for an elderly television repair man, who also happened to be the family’s closest neighbour. The job didn’t pay much, and it was often dirty or unsafe, but it got Travis out of the house for six or seven hours a weekend. It also gave him pocket money for the boy’s passion, comic books.

Travis loved comic books. He read and reread every single one in his small collection, treating each as if it were a newborn baby. He would walk the six miles into town and back every Sunday and spend hours at the local book/video store, pouring over the proprietor’s extensive stock. Those books became a refuge from the real world, a safe place for Travis to escape whenever things were not well. Whether it was home or school, “not well” was the way one could describe most days for Travis. 

Back in the 1980s and 90s, was it a rule that enjoying things like comic books or science fiction; automatically puts a target on a kid’s back? Who knows, but it seemed as though everyone and their dog could see right through Travis. As a result, they avoided him as if he were Baskin Robbin’s failed 32nd flavour, broccoli and mint. 

He steered clear of most folks at school, but a few students were decent to him or at least tolerated his presence. He wasn’t a very confident fellow either, so Travis avoided confrontation at all costs. Often the boy would be the butt of jokes or pranks, and regardless of how he came out looking, Travis would eat his embarrassment.

Often it was a bitter pill to swallow, but he always managed. All Travis ever wanted was to be accepted. He longed to feel important, a part of something. So he never let these pranksters or bullies know that the treatment bothered him. Embarrassment and anger became very familiar feelings to Travis as time passed. 

One particular day, Travis made the mistake of cadging a smoke off of a senior fellow that most people knew around the school. The boy didn’t notice that, let’s call him Randy, pulled a cigarette out that he had been keeping separate from the others in his pack.

“Sure, buddy,” he said, handing Travis the smoke without a trace of emotion on his face.

Travis took the smoke, thanking Randy. He was too busy fishing his lighter out of his pocket to notice others, presumably friends of Randy’s, were watching him intently, snickering behind their hands. 

As one might expect, the minute Travis touched the flame to the tip of the smoke and took a pull, the cigarette exploded in his face with a tremendous BANG. Travis jumped as if someone had fired a gun, and the boy lost his balance, falling to the ground in a heap. His ears were ringing, and as most folks watch the flame of their lighter when sparking a butt, Travis now had bits of tobacco in his eyes. 

He sat there on the hard top of the smoking area for several minutes, waiting for the sting of his eyes to clear. Travis’ heart was beating quickly with the shock of the small explosion, and he could hear those around him laughing, the loud noise attracting the attention of everyone within earshot. His face was burning with embarrassment and anger, his vision blurry and uncomfortable. 

The half cigarette that didn’t explode in Travis’ face was sitting next to him on the hard top. Travis noticed it, grabbed it, stood up on unsteady feet, and stuck the thing between his lips. He tried hard not to show emotion as he lit the half with shaking hands. Looking at Randy, Travis thanked him again and turned away to walk to the street. By the time Travis was finished smoking that half butt, the boy’s heart rate had returned to normal. That afternoon, he boarded his bus home with a new rule stuck in his head. Never bum smokes off of seniors, no matter how nice they seem.

As tough as the bullies and various other wildlife in school happened to be, Travis loathed going home. There was always work to do around the house. Travis’ stepfather took what the boy thought was an immense pleasure in keeping him busy. Tony called it “Trying to teach the ungrateful kid what it was like to earn what he has,” but Travis knew better. Tony was simply keeping Travis busy and out of the way. Whether it was splitting and stacking bush cords of wood, pilfering the abandoned lumber mill across the road for kindling, or cutting up scrap wood and tree limbs with a bow saw, Travis was always doing something and hated every second of it. 

Many fights happened over the years in that house. Tony would push and push, verbally and sometimes physically abusing Travis to keep the boy under his heel. On the rare occasion that Travis did lose his temper and try to stand up for himself, the tyrant would knock the boy down as quickly as he got his back up. 

It was a problem Travis faced each day. The reason he couldn’t speak when it mattered. Unheard, the boy internalized everything, eating it like a tainted all-you-can-eat buffet. He ate it from the general population at school, and he ate it at home from his parents. And the poison spread, consuming the boy until one night, something happened that would be the last straw.

In February of that year, after Travis had finished cutting wood for the night and hung the saw on a nail in the mud room, he settled down on his bed and opened an issue of Spider-Man. Travis was so engrossed in the story that he didn’t hear the sound of heavy footsteps descending the basement stairs. A moment later, his bedroom door flew open, and Tony walked into Travis’ room holding the bow saw. Crossing to where Travis sat, he held up the tool.

“What the hell have I told you about leaving my bloody tools outside?” Tony asked angrily. 

“Uhh… I didn’t leave it outside!” Travis nervously stammered, “I hung it on the nail in the mudroom as you told me to!” 

Quick as a flash, Tony’s right hand lashed out, striking Travis across his cheek. With a sharp crack, Travis’ head rocked to the side and collided with his wooden headboard. Pain ripped into Travis, and tears instantly stung his eyes, but he would not cry! He would not give this man satisfaction. Travis knew he hung that damn saw up, but that didn’t matter now. Tony would have his way.

“That was for lying, mouthpiece!” Tony shot at him, “So what am I going to do with this? I can’t afford to be continually buying replacement blades!”

He held the saw up in front of Travis’ face. This problem had occurred a few times before, but this time the boy knew he had hung up the thing. Tony’s eyes moved to the comic book sitting next to Travis. His expression changed. 

“Ohh, I understand,” he said, “you were in too much of a hurry to get back to your stupid comics and just dropped my tools when you came in. I get it!”

He leaned the bow saw against the wall and began gathering up every comic book in Travis’ collection, a stack of perhaps sixty-five or seventy books. It wasn’t difficult as the boy kept them all together. 

Travis knew what would happen as the ignorant man left his room with the pile of books. Anger roiled in Travis’ belly like a California wildfire. The boy screamed expletives in his brain, clenched his fists so hard fingernails bit into his palms, bringing blood. Still, no words, even as he heard the wood stove door open and close a moment later. He wanted to scream, throw things, and beat this man to a bloody pulp, but he couldn’t move or speak. 

“Consider that payment for another blade,” Tony said when he returned to collect the saw, “And, in case you take it in your head to buy more books, I’m just going to burn them too!” He then walked out of Travis’ room, slamming the door behind him.

Morning dawned clear and cold, and Travis woke in a horrible mood. He kept himself to himself, saying nothing to anyone, still angry over the loss of his books. Everything was going perfectly until third-period science class. 

Mister Vandertoorn was a pleasant man and a good teacher. A short, soft-spoken, balding man with spectacles, he seemed to be in good humour as usual. He seemed rather excited as all his students filtered into the classroom, and he called for everyone to take their seats. As Travis was making his way to his seat, an ape of a boy barrelled past him, sending Travis sprawling across a desk, nearly knocking him to the floor.

The ape, a six-foot-tall, two-hundred-pound moron named Jamie Proctor, turned around and sneered at Travis. “Hey, dork! Why don’t you watch where you’re going or you’ll be dead on the floor!”

Travis looked back at him for a moment before sliding silently into his seat. He could feel the eyes of the others on him, but Travis only concentrated on a blemish in the desk’s work surface. He bit his tongue hard enough to taste the copper of hot blood as Mister Vandertoorn began his lesson and handed out small racks of two test tubes to everyone.

“Did you get a good look?” the voice of Proctor hissed up to him from the back of the room. “What ya gonna do?”

Travis turned in his seat, his gaze met Proctor’s, but there was no expression on Travis’ face. He quietly shook with anger and swallowed the blood gathering in his mouth.

“You eyeballin’ me? Is that what you’re doin’ dork? I know all about you! Bring it on, and I’ll hurt you so bad your mother will feel it!”

At that moment, something occurred to Travis. He took a deep breath. Calm washed over him like warm water in the shower. He slid one of the glass test tubes out of its rack, looking at it thoughtfully as though pondering the secrets of the universe with it.

Travis stood up slowly, holding the test tube in his left hand and walked back to the ape’s desk. He looked down at Proctor and bent in close. 

“You think you can hurt me, Jamie?” Travis hissed, “You don’t know pain! You don’t know me nor what I’m capable of!”

The words tumbled out of Travis’ mouth, and behind him, everything stopped, all eyes on Travis and the ape. Travis thought he heard Mister Vandertoorn instruct him to find his seat. He did not listen. It seemed too far away.

“What you gonna do, dork? Take a shot! See what happens to you!” Proctor exclaimed.

Travis chuckled, “You have no idea what pain is, Proctor! Would you like to see it? I’d be happy to show you!” Taking the test tube into both his hands, inches from the ape’s face, Travis snapped it like a dry twig. It shattered in the boy’s hands into shards. 

Opening his hands, the broken glass dropped onto the desk’s surface, and Travis chose the largest piece with his left hand. “Let me show you, Jamie, what true pain is.”

Travis turned his right arm so that the ape got a good look at the underside of Travis’ wrist. His eyes still locked onto Jamie, Travis drew the shard first across that wrist, slowly opening his flesh, before he switched hands and repeated the action on his left wrist. 

Jamie Proctor’s face when ashen as his colour left him. Blood trickled from the wounds, dripping freely onto his desk into a puddle. Travis only looked into his eyes angrily, shaking with the onset of adrenaline.

“You’re crazy,” the ape whispered. He had never seen anything like this, “like you’re certifiable, man!”

Travis stood up straight, his arms falling to his sides, blood trickling down his fingers and onto the classroom floor. Not another person spoke, not even Mister V. 

“Make up your mind, Proctor,” Travis said quietly, “Either do something to me or leave me the hell alone. But nothing you do would hold a candle to the pain I feel inside every bloody day!”

Travis then walked out of that classroom, every eye following him. He walked quickly. It wasn’t until he made it to the boy’s room to clean the cuts that he began to come down. His legs shook and felt rubbery. The boy didn’t know how to explain this to his parents, but it would be easy to hide. They never really paid any mind, anyway. 

That day Travis Lastley found his voice for the first time, and no one, including Jamie Proctor, ever bothered him again. Hopefully, they learned something that day. One can never know what another has been through. Sadly things would not be so fortunate at home, but he would find a way to adapt. 

To survive.