NaNoWriMo Day 7: 1,668 of 50,000
Honesty time. My main character, Theo, is not just loosely based on someone in my life he is entirely based on someone in my life. That someone is my older brother Jake….. he doesn’t know this yet!
To read the prologue head HERE!
One Year Earlier
Chapter 1
We all want to be normal. That’s something we can all agree on. For Theo all he could think about was being normal. His whole life he walked around trying to define what normal was exactly. It didn’t take Theo long to realize that normal was subjective. What one person would find normal another would find strange. Was normal just getting up, heading to work, coming home, eating dinner, and then doing it all over again? Or was normal getting up, going to work, going out to party, and then doing it all over again? Theo wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure when he was a kid and he still wasn’t sure as an adult.
Sure, his skateboard was normal. His desire to move was normal, but only to Theo. To his family his skateboard was reckless and his constant moving around was stressful and sporadic. Normal for someone like his mother was staying in the same state your whole life because your family is there and that’s what you do. You stay with your family. Yet, Theo couldn’t say that was his normal. After all he was over 2,000 miles away from his parents. His younger sister, however, lived not too far from his hip, Seattle neighborhood of Ballard. I guess Theo could reason he was within his mother’s “normal” limits, but that was by chance, not choice.
All this to say we as a society strive for normal. Yet within that striving we judge people for not adhering to our standard of normal. We go to the office and judge the guy who’s laughing about some show he watched last night with his wife. Instead of laughing along we turn to the person next to us and complain about the guy’s binge-watching habits and say things like: “why is this dude so obsessed with Black Mirror?” Then we go into the break room for coffee and judge that new 20-something woman who was hired just last week to a position above yours and we wonder how these darn millennials are able to get a job you’ve worked 20+ years for. Judgment is a crucial part of our society. Without it there would be no competition.
All this to say this man that Theo began noticing around his neighborhood could seem normal to others, but each and every time he walked by this man on his way to the local coffee shop he got a bad vibe. Theo hated the word “vibe” because it never quite described something concrete. It was usually just a feeling and Theo was not one for feelings. And yet, here he was enthralled with this guy in a way that was terrifying to him. There was nothing specific about the man the first time Theo noticed him. Nothing unordinary, but just that bad vibe.
The moment the bad vibe actually morphed into something concrete was two weeks later. Theo turned the corner onto 20th Avenue and observed the man from two blocks down rummaging around in a beat-up, blue van. Theo had figured the man lived in a house around the neighborhood, but it was becoming abundantly clear not just for this man but for many people around the city that he lived in his van.
It was no surprise to anyone who either visited or lived in Seattle that there was a homelessness problem. It was an ever-growing debate around the city both politically and in personal conversations. Tents dotted various places around the city and despite the ever-rising number of homeless people inhabiting the city the tents only seemed to increase and the efforts being made to help these individuals was scarce. Sure, people were concerned and there were certainly members of the community that were doing what they could to help solve the issue, but there still was a lot of work to be done.
Which is why seeing this man rummaging around in his home parked on the side of the street no longer surprised Theo. This fear that had been building in Theo’s chest for two weeks subsided. He realized this man was just trying to survive and all he had was his car and his possessions that could fit in it. Theo could relate to this as he had often found himself bouncing around from new place to new place. He had driven from Michigan with a blow up mattress in his back seat after all.
Theo stood a few blocks away pretending to be looking at his phone only so he could actually observe this mysterious man. If one were to follow the societal expectation of judgment Theo would take in every detail of this man and label him “odd” in a heartbeat. His white t-shirt was more yellow and looked like it had been worn everyday for more than a few years now. The man’s outfit was finished by worn, torn blue jeans with several holes blanketing the front and back. This was the first time, Theo recalled, that he noticed the man was wearing shoes. No part of his outfit could adhere to this label of “odd” without the man’s facial hair: Santa Clause white and nearly encompassing his entire face. Shaving was clearly not a part of this man’s daily routine as the hair seemed tangled and stained.
Sensing no immediate danger now that the mysteriousness of this man had subsided a bit Theo continued his walk back to his place. As he approached the man for some reason his heart began thudding in his chest at a fast rate. Why that was Theo was unsure of until the glint of metal caught his eye. At first Theo thought the man was simply locating an eating utensil or some other object that was metal. It’s strange what the mind does to convince us that we are not in danger, that there is absolutely nothing to be concerned about. That is until the image becomes clearer and the man isn’t holding an eating utensil, he is in fact holding a sharp weapon. No, it’s not a gun or a machete, but a medium-sized knife. Theo stumbles as his feet move him forward and he is now seconds away from passing this man. This man who has just pulled a knife out of his van and is tucking it into his back pocket. Theo quickly places his phone back into his own pocket and nearly trips over a crack in the sidewalk in his haste to get some distance between himself and this man with the knife.
Moments later when Theo is safely enclosed in his room he peers out of his wide window and catches the bearded, worn down man at the corner. At first Theo reacts like any normal person who has just noticed a shady looking dude pull out a sharp knife and proceed to walk around the neighborhood by pulling out his phone and hovering over the keypad ready to dial 911. Then he stops because the man isn’t scoping the street out for a victim to plunge his knife into. Instead he is bending down and using his free hand to pull at a tangle of weeds wedged in between cracks in the sidewalk. He pulls the knife out of his back pocket and finds the right angle to cut the greenery. He is cutting the weeds in the cracks of the sidewalk.
“What in the-“ Theo cuts himself off because he suddenly finds himself locking eyes with the man. In any normal story Theo would feel a chill run over his body, but not this time. No, because in reality it’s 90 degrees outside and this guy isn’t completely creepy. No, instead Theo ducks beneath his window like a child and waits a few seconds before popping his head back up. The man with the knife is gone and has changed Theo’s life in a way he won’t understand for quite some time.
