Hazard 1

March 14, 2009
Hazard, Nebraska

'Sitting on the side, waiting for sign, hoping that my luck'll change. Whoa! . . .'
Mackie lit the thin white candles, painted with red streaks. To him they looked like tears of blood. Snapping shut the silver lighter, he stared at the photo of his family. It'd been taken on Ike's 21st birthday. The last photo of them all together. 'Reaching for a hand that'll understand, someone who feels the same. . . .'
It was Taylor's birthday today. He would have been 26. He should have been 26, smiling and laughing, gently teasing, cutting the cake with twenty-six delicate pale blue candles and murmuring in his girlfriend's, or maybe even his wife's, ear.
'When you live in a cookie-cutter world, being different is a sin. . . .'
Instead, all that was left was Taylor, 18 years young, staring out at his little brother from behind a thin shield of plastic in the photo frame, caught in the middle of a laugh, mouth wide open and his eyes shining. Lighting the last candle in the circle, Mackie stared at the pale reflections coming off the photo frame they surrounded.
'So you don't stand out. . . .'
Ironic, how could Taylor have known when they wrote that song that it would become the perfect description of his little brother?
'But you don't fit in. . . .'
God fucking dammit, why were they dead?!
'Weird. . . .'

The seat swing rocked back and forth . . . back and forth. Long blond hair and camouflage Docs were sprawled carelessly on it, looking depressed.
"Mac?" he looked up from the maths text-book he was pretending to work from.
"Yeah Mom?"
"What do you want for lunch?" Diana's voice was quiet and sad. She almost never smiled.
"Nothing thanks, I'm not that hungry,"
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah," the screen door shut softly and left Mackie alone once more with the open text-book. He pretended to read it, all the while, all he could hear were the whispers as people went past. Eight years and still they whispered insults and prejudiced gossip about him. Whenever something went wrong, it was always his fault. The Kilch boys had ripped off the general store again last week, and the next morning, Mr. Lawson came pounding on the door shouting that Mackie had stolen cigarettes and beer from his store. Diana had thrown the bastard out, but she was growing weary. Every day when she got home from work, she seemed more tired. He'd tried to convince her to go and see a doctor, but Diana just kept on working. He was getting really worried about her now.
"Ow!" the cry was involuntary, followed by a chorus of cackling laughter. The Kilch boys. They were the ring-leaders of the I-Hate-Mackenzie-Hanson committee and instigators of all the shit he copped. They threw the pebbles harder at him; he hated giving in to them, but this time he didn't have much of a choice. Dropping the maths text-book, he fled inside.
"Go on you dickhead! Run to your Momma!" one of the Kilch boys shouted after him. Something inside Mackie snapped. That's what Avery had called their Mom. Instead of running to his room and locking the door – like he usually did (the only solace he ever found was in that room, alone, surrounded by lit candles of remembrance and pictures of his shattered family) – he ran to the hall closet, where he hid his Dad's old rifle.
Danny, 16, Kenny and Benny, the 14 year old twins, and Sonny, 12, Kilch were laughing and slapping one another on the back in triumph when the screen door burst open and a furious Mackie aimed the rifle right at them. They stared in amazement down the barrel.
"Get out," was all he said. Like most bullying bastards, the Kilch boys were cowards at heart. They ran for their lives. As soon as they rounded the corner and were out of sight, the empty, unloaded gun dropped from the fifteen-year-old's numb fingers. Collapsing on the board steps, he tried to swallow back the sobs burning his throat. Why did they all hate him so much?

A knocking on the door brought Diana from the kitchen. Why was she so tired lately? She could barely find the strength to get up in the morning. She was working too hard, that was it. She was just working far too hard. She'd have to call her boss and ask for the day off. Not that he'd give it to her, but anyway. . . . She answered the door to find a woman about ten years younger than herself and a girl about Mackie's age standing at the door.
"Hi! I'm Nicola Hutchinson and this is my daughter Mary, we're your new neighbours,"
"Hi! I'm Diana Hanson, welcome to Hazard! Won't you come in?"
"We'd love to," Nicola answered, smiling. Both she and Mary carried plates covered with red and white checked cheese-cloth. As Diana led them through the house, Mary couldn't help but notice all the pictures hanging on the walls and sitting on shelves. Three of the faces seemed familiar; where had she seen them before?

"So who else lives here?" Nicola politely asked. They were seated around the kitchen table, sipping tea and eating biscuits.
"Just me and my son Mackie. He's about your age Mary," Diana answered, smiling with her lips but not her eyes.
"Then where do all the others in all those photos live?" neither of the Hutchinsons missed the flicker of pain in Diana's eyes. Realising that once again she'd put her foot in it, Mary hung her head. It was her worst habit, asking about things that were not only none of her business, but caused people pain.
"They're with God," mumbling out the answer, Diana took a hasty gulp of her coffee and looked out the window.
"How?" it was out before she could stop it. Nicola sent a reprimanding glance at her daughter.
"Hush Mary!"
"A plane crash. About eight years ago now," then it clicked. Diana Hanson, the long blond hair, the North Dakota air crash when she was seven years old, Hanson! Poor Diana! To lose her entire family in a split second! Seeing the flicker of recognition in the girl's eyes, Diana felt a stab of pain in her heart.
"Mary, how about you go and find something to do?" her mother gently said, a little embarrassed.
"You know Mary, my son Mackie's outside I think. I'm sure he'll be glad of the company," they didn't particularly want her in the room, and she didn't particularly want to stay there. Opening the back door, she stepped outside into the fresh air.

The clouds rolled slowly along in the sky. Mackie wondered if his brothers and sisters were up there, watching him. Absently, he ran a hand over the brown brittle grass. He hated this time of year. It was so cold and so dry, waiting for the April rains. He heard the backdoor open and bang closed and bolted upright.
"Oh, I'm sorry! Did I startle you?"
"I . . . um . . . no. No, not at all," his brown eyes, so like his father's, were wide as he stared at the girl sitting on the steps of his back porch. She was beautiful. Her sunny blonde hair fell down to the middle of her back, her blue eyes were wide and slightly slanted, her face had a slight Russian look.
"What are you looking at?" she asked, coming towards him and sitting down on the cold ground. Amazed that she wasn't hissing insults in his ear, he could only stare at her. "You don't mind if I sit here?" she looked scared. Not scared of him, more like scared that she'd offend him.
"No," she relaxed, "I was just looking at the clouds,"
"I love watching the clouds. You can see so much in them!" looking up, she pointed out a certain patch of cloud and giggled, "Can you see a dragon there?" he looked up.
"Now that you mention it, yeah I do," he lay back down in the grass. It crunched underneath him. Much to his surprise, she lay down beside him. 'Why isn't she running away?' flickered through his mind, before she spoke.
"I think that –" she pointed to another patch of white, "– Looks like the sword in the stone. What about you?" amazed, he saw the sword stuck through the rock.
"That's my favourite movie,"
" 'The Sword In The Stone'? God I love that movie so much! You don't have it do you?"
"I do actually," any moment now, he expected her to jump up, spit in his face and run away. Like all the other girls had.
"Do you want to watch it?" she sounded excited.
"I . . . I don't see why not. It is getting a bit cold out here," laughing she almost ran inside. With one last look up at the clouds, Mackie followed her in. For the first time in 8 years, he had a friend.

"Oh my God! This is so beautiful!" Mary stared wondrously out at the beautiful riverbank. The setting sun reflected off the crystal clear water. All along this stretch of the bank, lilies grew in surprising abundance, especially for this early in the spring. The trees were silhouetted black against the sky, a mass of oranges and pinks and yellows and purples.
"I've never seen anything more gorgeous in my entire life!" she breathed.
"I thought you'd like it," They'd spent an hour and a half watching 'The Sword In The Stone' together, then Mackie had taken her down to the river.
"How did you find it?" busy drinking in the beautiful scenery, Mary didn't notice Mackie's sudden downcast eyes.
"I was just walking and here it was," how could he tell her what had happened, what had driven him as far away from Hazard as he could get? She took his hand casually, didn't notice – or ignored – how he stiffened, and led him over to a fallen log, pulling him down to sit beside her.
"Do you come here often?"
"Occasionally," she turned inquisitive eyes towards him, asking for an elaboration, "This place just calls to me. Actually, I come down here a lot," it wasn't exactly a whole lie, he did come here a lot.
"I can understand," 'Can you?' he couldn't help but think, "Beautiful places always seem to call to me, they just pop up in my mind and I can almost hear their's voices crying for me to come. Is that weird?" those big blue eyes held something he'd never seen before. They seemed to be asking for his approval!
"No," he answered quietly.
They sat together for a long time, just staring as the sun slipped beneath the prairie, not saying a word.
"I really want to thank-you for bringing me here," what he wanted to say was 'Thank-you for not running away at the sight of me', but said,
"No problem, really. I just thought you might like it,"
"You've given me something really special," 'So have you', "I have to give you something. . . ." she looked around and spied a lily-bed nearby. Delicately, she bent down and almost reverently picked it. "Here, I know it's not much but –"
"No, it's all right," he stared at the perfect whiteness, "It's beautiful," it was the first gift he could remember getting that wasn't from his family.
"Do you . . . um . . . wanna, come back tomorrow?" she asked, looking down shyly. It was the first time she'd asked a boy anything.
"Um . . . sure," she smiled. To Mackie, she looked, if possible, even more beautiful when she smiled; like an inner light had been lit inside her eyes.
"Great," and she was gone. With a sigh of contentment, Mackie lay back on the grass. Right in the east, he could see the first star. What more could he possibly wish for this night? He had a friend. A tiny little smile crept onto his face. It disappeared as quickly as it came, but it still twinkled in his eyes as he turned back to the clouds, searching once more for the one that carried his brothers and sisters and father across the sky.


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