A story of Identity

Please understand that this was written some time ago, so how it reads is slightly to largely different to how I write now...

Thesis for story/, overview: There is a boy (the hero; Alan Harris) who is ordinary in every way. He seems to be normal; nothing outstanding about him, though he may be under some stress from his past and his family. He is funny seems like the class clown, acts dumb but is really smart. He’s very respectful and ever nice. And yet at other times he is very sarcastic and cynical. Alan is really shy and not at all what strangers see, he is reserved and has few true friends. But things change when he falls asleep or is daydreaming, something strange. He lives a completely different life. A man who is everything he isn’t, commanding, outgoing, a smooth talker, brimming with confidence and happens to be in the mafia. He is an outsider trying to become a “made man”. This man lives during the 1930’s. We suddenly see life through this mans eyes, every detail; these seem too specific to be just a dream, are they? Is it possible the boy is living in two places at once? Who is real and who isn’t?

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Chapter I: Silent Dreams Kill

   An unknown figure walks down a street at night, he is only discernable by lamppost he passes under, he’s in a black trench coat and black with a white stripe fedora, it appears to be the mid ‘30s in Chicago. The man is in the service of a little known mafia, under the command of a small time but ambitious Don named Augustus Mancini. What is it this man does? Everything and anything Augustus asks. The man has just come from an important meeting and is walking to his girlfriends house, when suddenly he sees a car creep around his girlfriends street corner and stop in front of an apartment porch…the passenger side window rolls down and out pops a barrel of some kind of machine gun *Braaaaaaannnnggggg* the gun cracks to life spraying death to all around. He Screams “NOOOOO!!!!” And without regard for his safety whips open his trench coat, unholsters his two Colt 1911’s and wildly sprays the car with bullets, his clips runs dry.

The man hurriedly looks around for cover and spots a mailbox; he ducks behind a mailbox to reload. He only has two clips left, he formulates a plan on the spot; the man creeps in a crouched position from behind the mailbox to the bullet-infested car which by this time which had stopped spewing death into the apartment. As he gets closer to the car thoughts of the worst for his love fill his head, he tries to clear them but with little success. He readies himself, ‘now is not the time to mourn’ he tells himself, over and over again. He’s almost within point blank range now, the car is silent, there appears to be no one moving from within. He knows better than to let himself relax, but he can’t help it as he begins to rise to his full height, a head emerges from the dashboard of their car. Two doors from the destroyed car creek to life, two hit men who are fatally wounded but not dead, rise out of the car, they take aim. But just as they are about to fire two shoots ring out from a darkened alley. The driver falls in an instant his partner fires at the man wearing the trench coat, the bullet grazes his left arm, and the man returns fire *Blam, Blam! * The passenger falls, hit in the neck, chest and abdomen, he sputters his last breath before fading from this world.

The now bleeding man, cautiously looks to the darkened alley, he sees nothing, no figures, no light, nothing. Then almost cinematically the hidden figure casually walks from the shadows, guns still smoking, and he asks, “Tom What happened?!” Tom the bleeding man looks bewildered, it’s his best friend. ‘But why was he here?’ all the questions would have to wait along with the answers; he had to check on his love first. Before his best friend would get any answers from him. He sprints off into the Swiss cheese like double doors of the apartment building. Tom dashes through the first floor hallway and bursts through the barely hinged doors; runs past the Tenant listings and turns a corner. He finds the door he seeks, Tom gets an interesting thought ‘this door looks nothing like the front of the apartment or the double doors outside’ he finds this unsettling. Tom fumbles for the keys to the door, finds the right set jams the keys into the lock and throws open the door.

He looks at the mess, the bullet holes, and the destruction-total carnage, full on panic sets in. He tries desperately to hold back his tears, he begins to search through the rubble, slowly. For he doesn’t want to see what he knows, his girlfriend is dead-his love. He tries to call out to her, he searches the apartment again and again but he can’t find her. Tom can’t decide if it’s a blessing or a curse . He’s about to give up ‘maybe she went to his place’. He returns to the front door turns and faces the destroyed place he knows he’s wrought with his associations, its times like these he wishes he wasn’t what he was…a single tear falls down his cheek.

A woman in simple yet elegant green knee length dress walks into to her apartment bewildered by what she saw as she entered the building and more so with the door open like it was. She enters the doorframe sees a shadowed figure standing with his back towards her, she screams. Tom whips around his guns aimed at her head and chest, she starts crying, he recognizes who it is and immediately withdraws his arms. He holsters them and walks into the light. She realizes who it is now and rushes into his arms. He grabs a hold of her never wanting to let this moment pass, she looks at him tears swelling up in her eyes begin streaming down her face. He looks into her eyes and passionately kisses her, nothing else exist but that moment and them, they are intertwined for what feels like an eternity. She breaks away, looks around her destroyed apartment and slowly asks what happened…

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   “Alan, WAKE UP!!” the math teacher yells but Alan doesn’t respond. The teacher nudges him still nothing. She picks up his textbook and slams it on his desk with extreme force *BANG! * *Snores * Alan’s head snaps up, his body soon follows “Look, I don’t know what happened, but you-!” he says eyes half opened. Alan looks around the room and notices everyone staring at him “Huh?” he says quietly. “Oh…sorry” he says slowly and looks away embarrassed. The class erupts with laughter. Alan blushes and turns to stare out the window. Autumn giggles, and Ben smirks. Derek continues to text his girlfriend, oblivious to what just happened. The rest of the class goes by without a problem, no outbursts, no embarrassing moments just another blur of a day. The bell rings, the students file out of the classroom. Alan is at the door; “Excuse me, Alan, could you stay behind for a minute?” says the teacher. A cold chill runs down his spine, he rolls his eyes and turns to face her and says “Sure, but what for?” All of the students have left the class now, the teacher rises and goes to close the door. She turns to face him and takes her hair out of its bun. She loosens the buttons on her blouse and moves closer to him - “Wait a minute! That never happened, stop lying! Gosh! Your pretty perv sometimes Alan!” Autumn Shouts bewildered. Ben tries to join in “Yeah, man what’s with you? Huh? Disrespecting ladies and all?!” and as he finishes his sentence he looks at Autumn with a warm smile.

She notices, socks him in the arm and turns away, to hide that she’s blushing, Alan chuckles and gets hit by both of them, all the excitement has peaked Derek’s interest “Hey, what the fuck is going on over here?” “Jeez, if were going to beat up Alan let me help.” He says with a devils grin on his face. “Nobodies beating me up!” Alan chimed in. “Well then tell us what really happened!” Ben and Autumn say in unison. “Fine!” So he tells the real boring truth about what really happened when he had to wait after class. That the teacher didn’t want to see him sleeping all the time, that he was smarter than that, that he was better than that. She wanted to know if things were “alright” at home, well they were as “alright” as they could be given his up bringing.

After the boring truth was brought into the light, Autumn said as sweetly and sincerely as she could “well, why do you act like this, you are much, much better than it, you know that…” Alan had to think on it for a while, he knew why he didn’t and why he did act like this, but he was tired of hearing that line, and the more it floated through his head the more he couldn’t stay calm…*boom! * “You know what, Autumn?!” “SHUT THE HELL UP!! And MIND YOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS!!” “my reasons are mine and I’d think you of all people would know what they are!!” “I swear to god if I hear that one more time today, I’m gonna start killing people!” and with that Alan stormed off to be alone somewhere that wasn’t in class-- where he was alone surrounded by people. “Wait!” Autumn said feebly, she knew she shouldn’t have said anything but she couldn’t stop herself. She just stood there shocked, when she heard Ben say “Aren’t you gonna go after him?” when she didn’t answer he took off down the hall. Derek grabbed his arm sharply and yanked him to a stop. “whataya doin?” Ben mumbled. “stopping you from making it worse.” Derek replied, “look if he wanted us to follow him he wouldn’t have stormed off, would he?” “let him have his space to reflect on what it is that’s bothering him first, before rushing after him and making it worse.” Makes sense, right?” Derek tried logic on Ben, if he did that then Ben knew it was serious and to best leave it alone. So the two of them decided to walk with Autumn to her class and then to lunch.

   As Alan walked he knew he shouldn’t have said those things to her, but he couldn’t help it, he was just so angry then. Just sick of people not giving up on him, but he didn’t know why people hadn’t given up on him and that pissed him off so much, he didn’t know when he gave up on himself. But he knew if he could have it his way he would’ve dropped out of high school, gotten a job and made a living for himself, but he couldn’t. His ideals wouldn’t allow it and neither would anyone else he knew. So he just had to suffer through it, without knowing why he was suffering in the first place. He lets out a sigh, all these depressing thoughts are doing him no good. He looked for a place to be alone, not any of the bathrooms, filthy and not in an empty classroom. He thought of someplace outside of school, but on school grounds. Maybe the football shed and concession stand? Maybe under the bleachers? Maybe in the hockey rink? He figured he make up his mind when he got outside.

   When he opened the back door to the school, he notices people practicing Lacrosse on the field. So he decides that the first two option are out of the question. He then heads for the Hockey building, as he walks he hopes that the door was still unlocked. He reaches the side door; which was hidden from view of the field by three tall spruce trees. Alan reaches for the handle, twists it and pulls, it opens! He was thankful that they didn’t lock the door. Alan always did like coming here over all the other places. One could be alone here; it was big and spacious, so you could move around freely, and had many places to hide if anyone came looking. But Alan rarely hid because no one really came in here during school hours. As he walked around the rink, he debated if he should sit close to the exit or far in the dark. He chose a balance and sat in the middle. He was only sitting for a brief while when all the things he’d been thinking about and all the things he’d been through and just all the “all thes” started dancing through his head. Alan tried to lay back and relax but it didn’t work, he thought about screaming but didn’t want to draw attention to himself even if that was unlikely. So he just sat there thinking, for what seemed like years. He tried to meditate, but that only helped a little.

Alan became increasingly restless with his thoughts attacking him, he had to fight them off and he only knew of one-way, physical exertion. He took off his shirt, untucked his t-shirt and began with basic Tae Kwon Do forms; he slowly started to feel better as he danced (practicing forms sometimes looks like dancing rather than practical moves to be used in combat) around the confined area. But even the confined space worked to his advantage, because it would tighten up his forms. After he performed all the way up ‘till Brown, he decided to work on his technique, it was working splendidly when suddenly he heard someone behind him, now that he heard them, he realized that he had sensed someone there for awhile. Alan decided not to let the person know he knew they were there, by finishing his techniques. And he did all the way up until Black when he began to get tired. He didn’t want to start sweating but once he got into it, he couldn’t stop. He turned around to see Mai sitting there watching him. Mai Xiong! He couldn’t believe it!

All of a sudden he forgot his burdens and sorrow and felt hot embarrassment wash all through out him. Its not that he was embarrassed to perform, he just would have rather preferred knowing that someone was there so he could have snapped his kicks and punches more. He composed himself, and walked over to where Mai was sitting. He wondered why she was here, here of all places and especially now. They exchanged greetings. There was a brief silence. Then Alan decided he couldn’t keep his curiosity to himself any longer, he had to know why she was here. “So, why are you here, Mai?” he asked with a bit of timidness in his voice. “Oh that? Because I wanted to see if you were all right you didn’t look to calm or peaceful back in the school, you know. So what’s up?” she said in her usual goddess voice. “Well…” Alan began but trailed off. He didn’t know if he could trust her, or if he could tell her. She sensed his hesitation and warmly put her hand on his thigh to comfort him. That was all he needed…He told her everything, it just came out as if water was spewing forth from his mouth. He told her about what happened today, in his past, why he hates school, everything that was bothering him, he told her and he felt better for it. After he was finished, it felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, but then suddenly a new thought crept into his head. He had said too much! She must think that he’s crazy. Slowly he began to panic, the only thing he could think of doing that would make it right was telling her “he was sorry” that he didn’t intend on telling her all of his problems or any for that matter. He figured, she thought him weak or a coward for running away from his problems. But she said nothing, and her actions were the total opposite.

Mai leaned in close to Alan and kissed him, first lightly then passionately. He was taken aback by this but at the same token wanted this so much. So he stopped holding himself back and … then they stopped, she broke away saying she was sorry, that she doesn’t normally do that. She then she got up and left in a hurry, but turned around when she reached the door; “Its okay! I don’t think any less of you!” “Things will get better, trust me they always do.” “Oh and by the way you looked really good when you were practicing TaeKwonDo, Alan!” and with that she left.

When she was on the other side of the door she added to herself “Alan, thank you for having the courage to tell me your deep secrets. It means a lot to me. And you are a very good kisser. You know that?” then she walked back to class or at least to lunch. She couldn’t go to class now if she wanted to. She figured she would hide out at lunch until next period.

Back inside the Hockey building, Alan sat there bewildered. He couldn’t believe that just happened, he wanted for so long to kiss her, but her never thought it would happen! Alan laid back feeling good about himself and thinking about the last words she said to him. Not before long he was sleeping again.

Chapter II: The unknown hit