[Stylist] Latest story--"A Mother Who Could Raise a Son So Well"

[Jacobson, Shawn D]

Dear Stylist

Here is my latest story, I hope you enjoy it.
Shawn


"Jesse why are you home from school so early?" mom asked.
"I got sent home," I replied, "for fighting."
"What about?" mom asked, but she had a good idea.  This wasn't the first time.
"Some jerk called me a freak," I explained.
Such things were common in my life, for I really do look freakish.  I have the thick legs and lower body of mom's people and dad's, relatively spindly arms.  Mom's folk are a lot hairier than dad, and my body splits the difference, not with even, medium-thin hair, but with thick patches interspersed with bare skin.  Also, mom's facial features go in slightly different places than do dad's; I think my body got confused about just where they should go.  So, as I said, I kind-of look like a freak.  Even my friends at school notice.
"And what did you do? Mom continued.
"I kicked him in the knee," I replied with naughty pride," real hard to.  He goes in for surgery tomorrow."
"Son," mom said, "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, if you want to get a human boy's attention, you need to kick higher than the knee.  Remember this for me please son.  Then what," mom continued getting back to the current problem.
The teacher decided to get my attention by kicking my knee, and he had on his steel-toed boots from shop class" I said.  It was a good thing my lower legs had extra padding, a gift, like my ability to kick kids into the hospital, I owed to mom's side of the family.
"I'll deal with this," mom said getting hot, the way she did whenever I had school trouble.  She kicked the end-table on her way out the door unmindful of the avalanche of junk caused by its disintegration.
"Do you think I'll have to change schools?" I asked dad, "like the last time mom stormed out like this?" No one was sure just what happened, but you couldn't get within sight of the old school without a biohazard suit.  I'd asked mom about that once; she merely smiled and said, "don't mess with mama."
"It might not be that bad," dad soothed, "it might be like Mrs. Rollins, the teacher who thought you were demonically possessed.  All mom did then was spray her arm, the one the teacher used to whip you, with stuff that made it wither and fall off."
"That's not reassuring dad," I said.  I hadn't been, kicked out of school, exactly, for that one.  The principle merely suggested another school across town and hinted that their school could help pay the tuition if I should decide to get my schooling there.  "If you humans didn't coddle bullies," mom had said on our way to the new school, "your history wouldn't be so full of them."
As we worried about how mom would engage with my teacher, I helped dad hang contact day decorations.  While hanging ornaments depicting different galactic peoples, I had another thought.
"If something exploded at the school, do you think we would hear it?"
Dad scratched his head.  I wondered if he was remembering the crater where Progress elementary school used to be.  Once the smoke cleared, the hole was so spectacular that it become a tourist attraction.
"If it was loud enough," dad said slowly, "we might hear it."
We continued with decorations in silence as we waited for the boom.  Then dad turned on the ancient Earth music history show on the radio.
"Up against the wall you redneck mothers," intoned a twang-laden voice, "a mother who could raise a son so well."  It was the chorus to mom's battle song, the one she requested when she went to war for me against the forces of educational evil.
"I'd better call work," dad said, "and see if mom scheduled any weapons testing."
Dad picked up the phone and had words with different functionaries at the office.  Finally, he got the research department.  Then dad set down the phone as if it might explode.
"She checked one of our new wagbots," dad said.  "You may have to explain to your classmates how the dog ate the teacher."
"What" I asked, "wagbots, what are they?"  I knew that Mangler, where my folks worked, was in the war business and made weapons, but I'd not heard of wagbots before.
"They look like regular dogs," dad explained, "but they're cyborgs.  When their master gives the command, the claws, spikes, and chompers come out and whatever you sick the wagbot on has a real rough time.  They come with signs saying they're therapy dogs and, I guess, if they slice and dice your enemy, that could be therapeutic.  Mom must have thought you needed that sort of therapy."
Just then, something pounded on our door.  "Open up in the name of the law!" a cop-sounding voice boomed.
.........
As children, I'd played jail with my friends.  However, I was learning that real jail just isn't as fun as pretend jail; you don't get to take turns being the warden.
Fortunately, we didn't have to stay there long.  We were just absorbing the concept of a door you couldn't open when a guard came for us.
"Great Anarch Covax wants to see you," the guard said as he ushered us out the cell door.  "After me," he continued.
Another guard fell in behind us as we fallowed the first guard through a maze of halls till, we got to a lavish office with a desk the size of a small starship.
I recognized the great anarch from television.  I didn't recognize the avian creature standing with him.  Delmarvia is a human world.  Anything else you see here came to the planet for a purpose; so, what was beak-face doing here?
"Birds," dad groaned, "I've never seen one that didn't have an attitude."
"You won't have to worry about it long," the bird-thing--Covax's spokeswhatever-said.  You'll be leaving soon."
"But our work," mom, who'd arrived about the time we had, said.
"Is no longer required," beak-face replied.  "The Libertarian Socialists have made glorious peace with the Socialist Libertarians, an end to the war that has ravaged this world for too long."
"Congratulations," mom sneered.
The Libertarian Socialists believed in freedom and community.  This made them the mortal enemies of the Socialist Libertarians who believed in community and freedom. Forging a peace between these rivals for Delmarvia was an achievement, but I didn't feel safe saying that around mom.
"Anyway," the bird continued, "part of the deal is that Mangler Corporation is banished from the planet.  Both sides strongly agree that peace will have a better chance with your company gone.  So, take your plagues, pests, cyborgs," he looked at mom with disgust, "and the rest of your weapons off this world."
"The teacher your beast just mangled was my brother," the second guard broke in.
"While you're doing that," the avian resumed, "you can dump your toxic waste, human and/or alien, somewhere else.  Your filth is not wanted here!"
"That's the problem with arming both sides in a war," dad explained as the guards drove us to the spaceport's holding cell, "they figure out that you're the reason they're fighting.  Then they bring in negotiators and the next thing you know you're gone."
"Don't worry," mom scoffed, "we'll be back before you know it.  You humans are always blowing smoke about peace, but everyone wants to defend themselves.  Once they're suitably reminded of this, they'll be begging for our services.  Besides, if you're not on both sides of a war you're missing out on business opportunities.  You're a bean counter, you should understand this."
With that pearl of wisdom, we were herded onto the next spaceship leaving Delmarvia.
.........
The planet we ended up on was called Okie.  New Tulsa, the capital, looked like a place thrown together by people who could care less about city planning, a jumble of buildings with conflicting styles.
Of more relevance, they didn't go in for modern medicine, and that was a problem.  To understand why, you should know that I take a lot, and I mean a lot, of meds that are hard to keep in balance.  This comes from being part Human and part Hakkah.  Putting Mom and Dad's biological heritage together is a bit like putting together a hover-car using parts from two manufacturers, what you end up with does not fit together well and needs a lot of monkeying around to keep going.  In my case, the monkeying around is done by a lot of pills that must be delicately balanced so that they'll play nice.  Right after our arrival, the pills stopped playing nice.
I found that out when I blacked out at school and found myself in the hospital.  The doctor looked, learned what he had and threw up his hands in despair.
"How am I supposed to deal with this mess?" the doctor asked.  "It's a blue miracle he's alive at all," he continued looking at dad.
With the medical community in confusion and us in a desperate place, we turned to an herbalist who claimed she could help chimeras like me.
Tigerlilly was a chimera herself; something that gave us hope.  We figured that she'd started by working on herself, and, she was still alive.  We took this as an indication of success.
"Let me try something that works for me," she said.  "I can't make any promises, but this helps me and the other chimeras I treat.  Maybe it will help you."
"We tried her herbal concoction, and, wonder of all wonders, I started feeling better.  I found I could cut the number of pills I took down to a reasonable number.
"What's in that stuff?" I asked a couple of weeks later.  "It's a godsend.  I've never felt this good in my life."
"Extract of preggerbarries," she said.  "They're deadly when eaten whole, but useful after they've been properly killed."
"What are preggerbarries and why are they deadly?" mom asked.  She was always on the hunt for new weapons.
"You eat them whole," Tigerlilly said, "and their seeds plant themselves in your gut.  Before you know it, you're eating for two, or two hundred if you gorge yourself like old man Jethro."
Tigerlilly explained that old man Jethro was a recluse who lived on the edge of town.  One night, he'd gotten too much of the old devil water and went stumbling around in the woods.  He tried some barriers, and, liking the taste, ate them until he was full.
The next day, he complained about what felt like the mother of all hangovers, only with the biggest case of the munchies in history.  He was getting big by the time he realized something was wrong besides a hangover.
"You should have seen how many critters chewed their way out of his body when it was time," Tigerlilly said.  "It was impressive in a gruesome way."
Healing the body left the problem with the soul, or rather religion, unresolved.  We were told that our faith was not a problem with the good folk of Okie, and this was, technically, correct.  The Church of Him didn't care about our differing beliefs, its problem was with half-breeds like me.
"You shouldn't be alive," one of the devotees of this faith, Himists, said, "God meant for all of his races to be pure."
Adherents of the church believed that anyone who was racially impure like me didn't have a soul and you could do whatever you wanted to us including any kind of violence that turned you on.  I had to kick my way out of a lot of Himist trouble.  Then mom had to get involved.
"A whole new world that has to learn not to mess with momma," she said with an outrage that masked the joy of a child able to show off her toys to a whole new planet of children.
I didn't learn much else about the church, and, at that time, I didn't want to know.  Our faith teaches that churches that define themselves by who they hate are synagogues of Satan and should be shunned.  Had I not followed this teaching so religiously, I might have known who went to their church, and the deeper meaning of the "ugly alien" contests that were a part of New Tulsa life.
One of the fanciest ugly alien contests was put on by The Burgermeister, kind of an Earth-retro restaurant that served hamburgers, hotdogs, and other sorts of traditional Earth fair.  The proprietor had always been friendly towards me, so I was happy, and a little proud, when he asked me to be his special guest at the awards ceremony.  I thought I was finally fitting in somewhere.
I sat on the stage as he went on about the traditions behind the contest; an older me would have recognized his joy at the glorious distinctness of the intelligent races as coming from pure Himist liturgy, but in the cluelessness of youth, I sat there thinking I was safe, after all, the man was affable, not threatening at all.
The alien figurines that we decorate with on contact day are too strange to be commonly considered beautiful, but they are imbued with a dignity befitting being who have ascended to the stars.  The caricatures here were merely grotesque.  I realized that they were meant to be this was for the various winners had created the most monstrous atrocities on display.  I sat there horrified as they came up to collect their prizes and thank god for their inspiration.
Just as the show was winding down, I found it was time for me to play my part.  "Young Jesse here embodies the spirit, the reason for this contest," the proprietor said.  "Because he has been burdened by needless torment by his heritage, I am offering him a free dessert.  Our famous berry sundae."  He placards a particularly scrumptious dish in front of me," on the house son," he said.
"Thanks" I said tearing into the treat.  "This sundae tastes awesome...."
"Don't eat that!" a voice screamed at me, then," dear lord!  Its half gone.  Get the doctor fast."
Tigerlilly later explained that the dessert was made with preggerbarries.  "There is an antidote if you act fast," she said.  "They feed you poison to bring the eggs, back up; it's kind of like worming a dog, effective, crazy unpleasant though."
When mom found out, well, you can guess what happened.  She blew out the door.  Furniture crashing around her as she ripped through the house doing a crazy-good impression of a tornado.
"Wait for the boom," dad said in the quiet that followed, but there was silence.
The next day, I went by the Burgermeister on my way home from school.  I saw someone from the health department putting up a "CLOSED" sign.
"You don't want to go in there," the man said.  "All the folk you ate here yesterday are in line to get their stomachs pumped.  Bad intestinal crud of some kind," he continued, "so we're closing it down till we know it's safe."
Later, mom explained that preggerbarries weren't the only food in the galaxy that could bite back.
"Yeah," dad said.  "I did a stint on Friley's world where a lot of food is like that; you watched what you ate there, really had to be careful."
"Anyway," mom said, "I think the Burgermeister crew got their just desserts.  They won't have the guts to pull another stunt like that."
After that, life settled down.  The folk of Okie believe that people who pick fights have earned the right to the consequences of their actions; mom found this philosophy particularly enlightened.  So, the himists who picked fights were encouraged to find other targets upon which to inflict their zeal.  While Mom was around, no one bothered me about being a chimera, or looking like a freak.
Then the day came that mom and dad were called back to the planet of my childhood.  It had not surprised mom in the least that this might happen only that it had taken this long for Mangler's sales department to remind them of their need for Mangler's services, of how dangerous the galaxy could be to those who were defenseless.
By then, I was settled on our new planet.  I'd found a group of friends who didn't see me as a freak or didn't care.  I also wasn't sure I wanted to see how Mangler's sales force had reminded Delmarvia of their need for self-defense; rumor had it that such reminders tended to leave ruins where cities once stood.  Besides, I couldn't get the preggerbarry potion that made me feel, well, human, anywhere else in the galaxy.
Before my folks left, I talked to them trying to understand why I had been given life.  You see, I was wondering if my conception was no more than one of those crazy things people did for the sake of religion.
"Was I conceived as part of your religion, to be some sort of sacred child?" I asked.
"Well," dad said, "I think all parents view their children as sacred."
"But was I conceived just to be your idea of a holy person?"
"I think all parents want their children to be holy, to have a purpose for good" mom replied.    It surprised me that she jumped into the conversation here. Mom was never one for philosophy.  She was about her family and her god, and things that went boom.
"But did you give me birth because you wanted a child or just for your religion?" I persisted, not sure I was getting the answers I really wanted.
"Creation of life is a sacred part of any religion I've heard of," dad said.  "We want you to be holy and sacred and have a purpose in life.  But know that we love you for who you are and for who you have become.  Mom sure shows it every time she goes to war for you.  You don't think she'd cause all that mayhem if she didn't care."
It was obvious that I wasn't getting anything else, and I'm not sure just what I wanted to know, how to put it into words, anyway.  So, I left it at that.  We exchanged tearful hugs as we parted at the spaceport, the last time I saw mother while she lived.
...............
I heard about mom's death from a Mangler representative I'd never seen before.  He told me that mother had died on her home planet fighting in one of those honor brawls that the Hakkah did.  I didn't understand the detailed reason for the battle save that it had to do with mom's religion.
"She killed twenty-seven of her enemies in the fight," the Mangler rep gushed.  "Too bad the twenty-eighth warrior killed her."
Somehow, I got the impression that the representative was happier about the valor mom displayed then he was sad about her passing.  Mangler folk were weird that way.
I saw her dying moments, recorded by drones for the mayhem channel, as we traveled to her home planet for the funeral.  I didn't count the number of Hakkah she'd killed, so I can't verify that the kill count was twenty-seven.  I can say that it was a lot.  She'd demonstrated all the combat skills she'd taught me and a few tricks I sure wish she had.  I had to agree with the company representative that it had been an impressive battle.
Mom's home-world was a heavy chilly place, a place where the high gravity made my cobbled-together body feel especially rickety.
I remember feeling the weight and the chill of the place as we waited for transport to the funeral.  The site of the ceremony was too far from the spaceport for us to take striders; we would need aircars to get there.  I got to talk to dad as we waited for enough aircars to take our group.  He was grief-stricken, but somehow unafraid for the first time that I can remember.  Mom could be fearsome, even to those she loved.  Some of dad's courage ebbed as a couple of mom's co-workers, equally fearsome beings from Mangler's research department, joined us.  Mangler was not an employer for the faint of heart.
I ended up sitting next to one of mom's office girlfriends, a gelatinous creature that couldn't keep her pseudopods to herself; Mangler was not an employer for the squeamish of stomach.  I dodged her suckers as we journeyed across the interminable grasslands where the Hakkah had ascended to intelligence.
The funeral place was within sight of the mountains that separated the plains from the artic wastes to the north.  As mom's body was broken for the ecosystem-the Hakkah did not go in for putting remains in boxes--an icy wind blew down from the snow-capped peaks, a wind that hunted for gaps in the layers of my clothing seeking out any exposed skin.
When it came time for me to give the eulogy, I told the assembled crowd about my childhood, about nursing from my mother's breast while a joey in her pouch.  Then I told of sitting in her lap as a child as her capacious body sheltered me from the insults of the world.  I told of how she gave me what comfort she could during the pain of the medical procedures used to keep my patchwork body together.  I told of how she fought for me and taught me to fight for myself.  She died fighting for my right to exist, the last gift of life a warrior mother can give.  She said I had a purpose, to bring healing to a fractured galaxy and told me to find my place in the purpose.  And so, I told them of my resolve to fight for those who could not fight for themselves against those who prowled the galaxy preying on beings who couldn't defend themselves.
I do not know if it was the excellence of my words or my obvious struggle to stand proudly before the crowd, but the assembled throng who had come to pay respect, even warriors who shunned emotion as a weakness, was moved by my words.
I was glad to have spoken for my mother and to have seen father again.  Having said that, I was glad to leave that place, and mom's office crowd, for my lighter home among the stars.
.........
Home was lighter but not safer for scenes of mom's passing, as shown on The Mayhem Channel, had reached those who considered me an abomination.
"What you going to do now that your mommy isn't here to protect you?" one obnoxious Himist asked as he shoved me against a wall.
"I hadn't had a chance to get any of Tigerlilly's concoction, so I was still working off a shaky mix of meds, still, I was able to put enough behind my foot to give the himist creep an answer that would persuade him to drop the matter.
And then there was my promise to fulfill the purpose I'd sworn at mom's funeral.  Okie doesn't have many people of mixed blood, but Tigerlilly and I are not the only ones.  So, people who want to fight for purity have a choice of targets.
Just this afternoon, I was walking down the street when I surprised a bunch of racial purist wannabees going after this girl who had more than a few bird-like features indicating an interesting biological heritage.
"You're too pretty to be a half-breed freak, "the chief goon said.  "Taking you down would be a real feather in my cap.  In fact," he continued as his buddies whooped and hollered, "I may just take some of those pretty feathers of yours and stick them in my cap.  Just like," he said as he grabbed her neck, "plucking...."
I took aim remembering what mom had said about kicking human males high.  Mom was right to; I had his absolute attention as he crumpled to the ground surrendering his hold and his lunch for the cause.  "You won't have the guts to do that again," I screamed.
I looked around as his mates scuttled into alleys.  They wouldn't have the guts to pick fights, at least for a while.  There's something about getting the boot that takes the fun out of defending the faith.  This was a good thing to; that kick took it out of me.
"And that," I say to the bartender, "is why I am here.  I'm more interested in a place to rest than in drinking."
"Understood" replied the barkeep, "I don't approve of fighting, but if you stopped those punks from beating on folk, well, you did some good for folk around here.  By the way," he continued, "I saw your mom on the mayhem channel."
"How'd you know that was my mom?" I asked.
"Not many people around here have as much patchy body hair as you," he said.  "If you don't mind me saying, you shouldn't wear a muscle shirt if you want to pass for human."
"Thanks for the advice," I said.
"Besides," the barkeep said, "I served your mom from time to time.  She was a hellacious fighter.  I wish she hadn't caused so much collateral damage though.  Some of the folk who ate at the Burgermeister are good folk, not the kind to feed you preggerbarry pie."
"That's the problem with war," I say in response, "people get confused about who the bad guys are."
"War is Hell," the barkeep says.
"But self-defense is necessary," I reply, "and telling the difference can be a beast."
The barkeep's guild allows their workers to toast with patrons who have no one else to toast with; so, we drank a toast to warrior moms.
"Can I play something on the juke box?" I ask.
"Go ahead," he replies.  "There's no one else using it."
I scan the listing of songs, old Earth classics that have followed humanity out into the galaxy.  I make my selection.  As the song approaches its climax, I join in, adding my voice to the chorus of time.  "He's thirty-four and drinking in a honkytonk / just kicking bully's asses and raisin' Hell/in New Tulsa, planet Okie/Milky Way."