The Naughties

The Naughties were called so for the simple fact that they were not The Ninties. The Not-ies. I don't care about the ninties. I never knew them like I did the two thousands that came after, and, even then, that knowledge is hampered still for me being born in two thousand and one, a couple months before that big, awful thing happened in Manhattan, and The States took it upon themselves to turn a bunch of middle eastern into smoking craters.

That's not why I hate them either. I'm Canadian, Ontario born and bred. Raised in some fancy suburb out by the marshlands. Grew up there my whole life but I'll never say that. Not after what happened in it. I won't ever forget any of it, and I will never forgive the pieces of shit involved, least of all the centerpiece.

That man at the playground.

**

It started when I was five years old, by then I was still youngest and getting all the attention. My mom and Dad were happy with each other, about as far as I could tell, and my older brother, Tyler, he was just about to start high school. I was in kindergarten then, and I had my friends, only one who I still keep in touch with. That would be Marshall, he'll come up later.

Something you oughta know about this kindergarten I went to was that it was part of the wider public school, from kindergarten up to grade eight. The older kids got the big play area, the asphalt around the school and the grass field beside it, separated by the playground, which had to be replaced after my last year when someone set the whole thing on fucking fire. Kindies got a little fenced off area for themselves, and that was fine because we were all just little things. World still seemed enormous.

So, when Marshall called me over one day and said he saw a giant out by the playground, I ran right over and looked where he was pointing. Sure enough, the man was huge, though, looking back with fully lucid eyes, he wasn't so huge as to be unreasonable. Couldn't convince a pair of five-year-olds of that though.

He wore a red flannel shirt with blue jeans, and his hair was solid black, buzzed so you could only see peach fuzz growing out of his scalp. He had dark sunglasses on so you couldn't see his eyes, and, of course, the black boots. Like snow boots. We could both see he was right beside the playground, watching the kids. We didn't know him, so we did as little kids always do; we took stock.

It was a fair distance from the playpen to the playground, so we only got the bare minimum (arms crossed over his chest, straight backed) but there was something else that we spent quite a lot of time racking our brains over. Something that we couldn't put our fingers on then but seems obvious now.

He had an audience.

A bunch of kids were gathered around him, staring up at him as he spoke to them. We couldn't hear him say anything over the other rabble, but we could faintly see his lips moving amid the swarm of shaggy, nodding heads before him. I still don't know what he said, but I have an idea now, which is why I still can't believe none of the teachers or supervisors were kicking him out.

Why didn't they call the cops? Why did Miss Holden, the sternest woman I'd ever meet, walk right past without so much as a glance?

I don't know. Maybe I don't want too either. Maybe I never did, because Marshall and I watched this for a few seconds before getting bored, going back to our little boy business. The bad stuff didn't kick off until I was home. That was the night Tyler ordered Mom to get pizza.

Ordered.

The spat after that was godawful. The shit Tyler said was the sort of thing no one oughta be saying to their own mother. My parents shouted him down after he called Mom a cunt.

He apologized the next day, and there were tears, of course.

It happened again two days after that, and Tyler said something that strikes me now as worse than any slur he could hurl.

"You need to learn your place, bitch!"

Said to his own mother.

I wished I had it in me to hit him after that, but Tyler was no small kid, and I was afraid. I think we all were.

**

Tyler never improved after the second incident, but he kept to himself for the most part. Brat that I was, I'd try to listen in on Mom and Dad when they talked after bedtime. Dad wanted to send Tyler to military school, but Mom talked him down, going over her and his own teenage rebellion; that phase where you know the whole world like the palm of your hand, but no one believes you do. I wish that was it. The fact of it was, however, that something had changed in the air of, and not just at home.

Marshall and I had a falling out by grade five. I was still on a WWE kick that would last until my early twenties, and he wanted to get away from that after he tried arguing that wrestling was real with a bunch of older kids. He lost the argument and, to add injury to insult, one of those assholes, some skinny prick named Jackie Marlow, plucked his hearing aid out and tried to break it. We made up well before the second incident happened, well before grade six afforded us the chance to be on the playground. We were playing on it in the middle of winter when the man in black boots arrived.

The same red flannel and blue jeans. The same sunglasses and buzzcut. He whistled through his teeth and that got everyone's attention. His voice... It was low, and it sounded like he was talking through a spinning fan.

"You're just gonna waste your days like this." I thought it was a question, so I asked him what he meant.

"I didn't ask you anything. "

Boy, did I ever sulk about that. Honestly, I'd say I'm thankful for it, my spiteful decision to ignore him, because when he started talking, everyone else fell into listening, all except Marshall, who turned his ears off, as he would put it. I remember the words though. I remember them like a burn scar.

"I've seen a lot of pathetic behavior before, but this takes the cake. A bunch of spoiled little brats fighting over useless pieces of plastic while we've got good, strong men fighting across the ocean. Fighting for you, might I add? Fighting so you don't have to, but that just isn't true, is it? You will have to fight, and soon, you get me? There's a turn coming up, one that's leading the western world into a brick fucking wall. One that'll see all of you locked up after they let them in."

"Who's they?" I looked and saw Jackie Marlow, his voice just shy of a whisper.

"Of course, you wouldn't know who they are," The man answered, his words spat with an anger that didn't reach his face. "They're the ones sneaking into the government offices. Sneaking over the border. The same ones that tried to destroy New York. The shitskins sneaking into your homes at night to make your mother's love them. Yes, I said your mothers. They fuck them until they love it, and then they fuck 'em some more. They fuck them until there's nothing left but harpies looking to chop your balls off and make you fuck them too. Do you want that? Huh?!"

I have a distinct memory of us all flinching back in that moment, the moment where this huge man made like he was going to backhand us. Even Marshall flinched.

"That's why you gotta know now. Gotta know so you can cut the stem of these poison flowers, so you can drive out the shitskins and turned women. Boys, you gotta teach the girls who runs the world. Girls, you never let anything but pure white between those legs. You plug that hole up if you have to, or, even better, cut theirs off. Cut their poison flowers, you hear me?"

I was hearing him, and what I was hearing as making me queasy. Who the hell was this guy and why weren't the cops coming for him? It was me looking for a teacher, any teacher really, that let me see just what was happening around me. A boy beside me was nodding his head, and his face took on a look that I never want to see on a child again. That face he made; you could be forgiven for mistaking him as a grown man. All hardlines and glaring eyes.

Looking around, I saw some others get that look, all of them boys. The girls among us looked afraid more than anything. Of whom, I can hazard a guess. Looking to Marshall, I saw him shrug and start looking around, trying to call over a teacher. None came.

"We have duty, not just to our nation but to ourselves and our neighbors. Do NOT let the enemy win, or they will win forever, and you will be hurt forever in ways you could never even dream of. We're counting on you."

And then he was gone. We all went back to playing, but it was slower, lethargic. I saw a boy chase after a girl, and her friends chase him in turn, off of the playground. I don't remember what came of that, wasn't paying attention.

I was watching the man walk off toward the houses outside of school grounds. I could only think of one thing.

Emry Neale.

That was his name. He never said it. So how do I know it?

How did my brother know it when I heard him talking in his room that night, talking of invasions and 'preserving our people?'

**

My sister was born when I was around ten years old. Her name was Karen. She loved her overalls and her Dora the Explorer and her family. We loved her too, my parents and me. She deserved to grow up somewhere better, but she didn't get that, to my endless regret. I could have done something for her.

Not for the growing stream of missing children, all girls, that flooded our town as I grew out of elementary school and into high school. I couldn't have done much for them because the other boys, the ones aside from Marshall and I and a few others, would have a go at anyone who talked like they liked girls. The words bitch, slut, cunt, and whore are words I never want to even think about again with how often I heard them. The actions were worse, though. Jackie Marlow cornered a pair of girls in the bathroom and got his little dick out, only to find out they both carried bear mace. He got arrested for that, but I could name about three others who didn't.

Mark Hotch, who grabbed a freshman girl by the breasts and squeezed them so hard she cried.

Allen Karson, who'd grope any girl who so much as got near him.

John Wilson, who found a senior girl named Nerissa Senay walking home alone. His friends laughed about it. All of their friends laughed about it. When the police came looking for him no one ever found John.

They never found Nerissa either.

Tyler had moved in with some friends I didn't know before I got to high school, and I could tell that my parents were as relieved as I was about it. Otherwise, I was just lonely, especially because Marshall had to leave with his family after a break in attempt. He never said what they were after, but I had my theories, which is why I spent all my time after school playing bodyguard to Karen. My parents took pictures of it, cooing about how I was such a good older brother, about how it was so adorable that I was so protective of my baby sister. She was pretty happy about it too, which is why I can never look at those pictures they took.

I can't think of her without thinking of what might have happened after the break in.

I'll go over it now, so you can understand, not that I wouldn't expect you too after what I've already described. Honestly, this is more for me. I need to hurt myself.

**

It started in the middle of the night, when the moon was covered by thick clouds and the streetlamps provided the only glow. I woke up to the sound of glass shattering. I froze there, in my bed, laying on my back in a room coated in darkness, hearing the hushed whispers of my parents as louder voices came up from downstairs. I made out no words, but I knew the voice, one of them at least.

Tyler.

Before I could ask myself just what the fuck that piece of shit was thinking breaking into his own parent's home, about why he had what sounded like three or four other guys with him, I heard a door opening.

Karen's door.

That got me moving. I was out of bed and in the hallway before Dad or Mom were, and I saw Karen. Little Karen in her Hello Kitty nightie, pushing her own door open. Industrious little shit.

Booming footfalls sounded from below as the intruders downstairs started bounding up. Dad pushed Mom behind him as the first of them found his way up. Dad, the crazy old man, just stuck his arms out and shoved the fucker right back down. Then Tyler came up.

Dad hesitated.

Tyler hit him with a crowbar. I pulled Karen into my arms and rushed us both back into her room as it happened, so I can only attest to what I heard rather than what I saw.

I heard Mom shouting and then I heard someone hit her until she went quiet. Then she started screaming. I couldn't rush out because one of them was trying to break the bedroom door down, so I braced my back against it while telling Karen to hide. She went for the closet.

I spent five long minutes trying to keep them out. I heard Mom begging for help, begging for them to stop. I heard them laughing, then I heard Dad come to and they laughed harder after hitting him. The one on the door, the one splintering it with his boot, that was Tyler.

"Give us the little slut!" He screamed. God, did he scream. He screamed every type of slur and degradation a person could dream up. I got mad.

That was my mistake.

I pushed off of the door and turned just as he burst through, figuring I could hurt him for what he was doing to us, to me.

I failed.

He punched me and kicked me and bit a strip of flesh out of my cheek. He would have killed me, I know that. He would have killed me if Karen hadn't opened that goddamn closet door. He leapt at her. He dragged her by the nightie right past me and I couldn't even will myself to take her hand, my fingers fat and numb from pain. He held her over his head like some prize and those bastards cheered for it. I only managed to sit up after they had gone out the front door. I couldn't move my legs, so I dragged myself to the window, maybe to open it and call for help. Maybe to fly out like superman and beat the hell out of all of them. What I did was watch as they took her to a big pickup truck at the curb and present Karen to the driver.

Emry Neale.

Same red flannel and blue jeans. Same sunglasses and buzzcut. Grabbing my little sister by the neck and tossing her into his hatchback like a bag of garbage. My blood is boiling from the memory, more so from what he did next.

He looked up at the house, up at the window I was pounding on. He smiled at me. He waved at me. They all left after that.

**

Tyler was found dead a month later. I don't know how. They had us identify him Mom and Dad spent years looking for Karen, finding no leads and getting no help from anyone. Anyone who could help was still looking for their little girls. Karen wasn't the only one they got that night. It was a big thing in the news. Dad recovered from his head trauma surprisingly well, maybe that paternal instinct helped; the need to be whole for your family.

Mom killed herself. I don't want to say what happened to her, or why she did it, or how I live with myself. I don't know how I do, or how Dad does. I don't live with him anymore because he still lives in that town. I can't go back there. I can't face it. I can't understand why any of it happened. I've wished death on Emry Neale, but I know it hasn't happened.

I've seen him.

On my way out of that town, I passed by the elementary school, and I saw him at the new playground, emptier than it was before.

Same red flannel and blue jeans. Different head.

I couldn't even call it a head.

Tyler, I hope you're in hell.

Mom. Karen. I hope to God you are safe and sound wherever you may be, and I hope beyond hope it's not in the same place.