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

[Ann Chiappetta]

Hi Sean,
Good story. Reminds me of some of the  classic  sci-fi pulp fiction. Have
you submitted it?
Best,
Annie
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Stylist <stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Jacobson, Shawn D
via Stylist
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2019 9:24 AM
To: Writers' Division Mailing List <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Jacobson, Shawn D <Shawn.D.Jacobson at hud.gov>
Subject: [Stylist] Latest story--"A Mother Who Could Raise a Son So Well"

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."


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