Never to Grow Up

He was born in a rusty bathtub filled with chlorine water. It was to Julie; a woman but not quite yet. An exchange student from France, a naïve, sheltered virgin tragically curious about a curly-haired man of frighteningly inviting demeanor. He'd been doing a second Master's, that's what he's been told, as his mother had been, two months after they'd had sex.

The bathtub was in a bathroom, and the bathroom was in a shed. A dusty kitchenette and a patchwork couch stuck out like sore thumbs in the enclosure. Neither Julie nor Peter were allowed to leave, neither had a pressing need, a burning desire, a scorching hot flame, simmering. Not anymore, not yet.

By the time he could crawl, Father had driven away in his camper van. He'd left two bucks; a small mercy. He was short on cash himself, disgraced, hunted by police for notorious sex offences slowly coming to light, no hope, no future, nothing to do but delve deeper into crime.

Julie died when Peter was twelve and Father had come and gone sevenfold. He didn't know why. He dug a hole under the ruthless midday sun and threw her corpse inside, either way. The gravelly earth provided the illusion of death by abrasion to the chest. The grave wasn't very deep, and the trickles of read on the outline of a female body shone through.

"Pew, pew, pew!" he whisper-shouts to himself, using the spots as target practice. Father was forgetful. He'd left a gun.

Father, now a man of forty-something years, face shaved biannually, trails of silver falling over his shoulders, a precious mineral. He trips over Julie, whether it's because he's old and stupid or evil and doomed to fail. Peter briefly considers whether he's simply surprised; but the human emotion could not possibly have spoken louder than the atavism that seemed to govern his very mind and being.

"If you miss her so much, why don't you join her?" he jokes, sitting cross-legged on the miniscule front porch, and mercifully allows a flash of recognition to enter the man's eyes before pouring milk all over them with a single practiced movement of the forefinger.

He drives his father's van into town. He crashes it into the orphanage. Peter has heard of the concept of friends. He wants some, too, after being denied them for so long.

Two kids hop right in, a lanky teen calling shotgun, a prepubescent girl tumbling onto the stinky back couch. Peter yells at her to leave and she complies.

The teen looks like he wants to inquire. A rehearsed gaze causes him to refrain. Peter likes to think he's got an influence.

Three more join; only boys, and Peter is pleased. He reverses just as the sirens begin to close in. The ride is pure bliss, tumbling through the grid of streets, jerking the steering wheel left and right, being the herald of mayhem, the bringer of carnage. A primal urge, sated.

The van is christened with a boisterous red spray-paint sign. Neverland. The live on the road, drive with the radio blaring and the windows down. They sleep in the back, huddled together in the cold of Arizona nights.

Peter takes the lead. He's young, almost the youngest, both in a biological and mental sense. He makes reckless decisions, stupid mistakes, a fuss out of everything.

Five years later, the lanky teen, George, his right hand, his second-in-command, the most faithful and supportive of them all, calls bullshit.

"You're seventeen, Peter," he says, radiating bitter disappointment. "We've all- we've wasted out lives with you. Put up with your childishness for so long. But we're adults, now. Nobody knows our names. Our faces. We- we can live, live like normal people, having normal lives!"

Peter looks at him, open-eyed, disbelieving.

"Think about it, Peter," he pleads. "You- you told us how you were born, and where. You don't exist. You can make yourself. Say you're from some nomad family and you want to settle down and get an identity with an ID to go with it. Live your life."

Peter stares.

George sighs. "What I'm saying is- I'm leaving. And I know some other want to, too. And they will. We will."

He whips his head around. Dejected faces. Guilt plastered onto them like a wanted poster plastered onto a brick wall.

"Grow up, Peter." A whip to the back. A belt to the chest. A slap to the face.

Lost. Lost to society, to purpose, to fate, to all that was, is, and will be, and to himself. They are not lost. They will never, Peter decides. They will never understand.

He is left to cruise the highway with dead silence as a companion, an empty fleshy case leaning against the front passenger seat, eyes looking forward, never back, and never to move from the one cause. Never to stray from the one life.

Never to grow up.

Never, ever, to grow up.