Zero Sight

by B. Justin Shier

  Tyrone Nelson was the undisputed king of our school—but that wasn’t enough. More than fame, more than power, Tyrone loved to control. He took over the Splotches as a hobby, purely as a way to get his rocks off. Under his leadership, the Splotches cornered our school’s soft drug market. They sold ecstasy mostly, plus some of the good ADD medicines that the nerds loved to pop before tests. Tyrone was smart. He avoided the hard stuff and never let the Splotches sell shit on school grounds. The Splotches didn’t exactly terrorize the school either. Tyrone’s violence was more targeted. He preferred to make one or two kids’ lives a living hell. Tyrone call them his ‘projects’. He would toy with a kid for a while, break them, and then move on to the next.

  No one bothered to intervene. Tyrone was the school hero. He was something rare for Las Vegas: a success. Vegas was in the shitter. The decade long Great Slump had crushed people’s self-worth. They all desperately wanted to be around something that wasn’t rotting. They wanted to rub up against it. Maybe they hoped that some of it would come off in their hands. Most of the students, a good number of the faculty, and a majority of alumni backed Tyrone no matter what shit he pulled. They looked the other way when the Splotches dented in a dork—and to be honest, I did too. I had no interest in getting involved in any of it. That would have conflicted with the Plan.

  The Plan called for calm. Throughout high school I had kept my head low. I managed to make it into my senior year with only five major fights under my belt. I think it might have been the school record. (I could see the yearbook inscription now: “Dieter Resnick, least likely to be stabbed dead in a bar fight”) The trick was to bloody up your opponents. You know, hurt them real bad. Then no one wanted to mess with you.

  Ted Binion High was sorta like prison + homework. The same rules applied.

  I had kept my head down for good reason. I only saw one chance to get out of this shit-hole of a town: a full-ride to a private. Nevada’s state college system collapsed my freshman year. The funding had simply dried up. Across the country money was tight, so the Great Slump was hitting Vegas especially hard. No one wanted to take a trip to Vegas when they were worrying if they had enough money to last the winter, and with the tourists went the tax base. There was barely enough revenue to fund the primary schools let alone state colleges. With state school out of the picture, an admission to a private was the only viable option for an aspiring Nevada youth. If your parents were wealthy enough to stash some cash you might be able take out a loan. But that wasn’t an option for me. My dad was heavily invested in The Bank of Ethanol, and believe-it-or-not, their interest rates are terrible. Since the only help I got from home was free lessons on how to dodge beer bottles, I needed to go for broke. A full-ride to one of the East Coast privates—that was the Plan. To do that, I had to deliver straight A’s and blow the doors off every AP test that Binion High had to offer. There were a lot of smarts gunning for the same scholarships. If I wanted to make the Plan happen, I needed to keep my head down and bust my ass. So you see, I didn’t want to be involved with Tyrone. I didn’t want to fight any of the Splotches. It’s just that I couldn’t help myself.

  The kid Tyrone Nelson blinded was my friend.

  His name was Victor Newmar, and we cut vegetables together.

  Because my father is such a money sieve, I’ve worked since I was fourteen. Air salads and invisible hamburgers aren’t very filling, and hunger serves as excellent incentive to forage for a paycheck. That’s where the Newmars came in. Victor Newmar’s father used to deal cards with my dad. When I was about five, Mr. Newmar left the casino floor and—with some seed money he and his wife had scrounged together—opened a little restaurant in the same district as all the strip clubs. No one ever opened businesses down there, especially not 24-hour restaurants. But it was a brilliant move. It turns out that strippers and bouncers have to eat too, and being service employees themselves, they tip damn well for your efforts. The Newmar’s little joint became a huge success, and at fourteen, I became a grateful employee. Mr. Newmar had me do two hours of prep-work in the kitchen plus give Victor any tutoring he needed. In return, Mr. Newmar paid me a full-time wage.

  His son, Victor, was two years younger than me. Victor’s folks realized early on that he was a bit slow, but that never stopped Victor. He tried hard and seemed immune to frustration. Teaching him inspired me to work harder myself. It made my own excuses seem petty. My own struggles, small. Growing up, the Newmars were like a surrogate family. When my old man settled in for a bender, I could always crash at Victor’s place. Before I was halfway through the door, Mrs. Newmar would be on her way up the stairs to make a bed. They never made me feel like a charity case. They never made me feel guilty for hiding out at their place. Heck, they even made me feel like they were happy to have my company. But the best part about the Newmars was how they never said a word about my father. When I got older, I realized why. There was never any alcohol in the Newmar household, and despite all the family gatherings the Newmars hosted, I never once heard Mr. Newmar speak of his own father.

  I never asked him, but I figured Mr. Newmar knew more than most about growing up with a drunk.

  I was sitting in the stands the day Tyrone hit Victor in the skull with that fastball. In the car with the Newmars as they followed the ambulance. At the hospital when Victor woke up blind in one eye.

  Victor shrugged it off like it was nothing.

  “Can’t fix what’s already done, Dieter,” he had told me. “Only what’s comin’.”

  Only what’s coming…

  I spent that night punching a wall till my fists bled, but in the morning I bandaged up my knuckles and told myself a convenient lie. I told myself that Tyrone didn’t mean to do it, that it was an accident, a fluke pitch. It was a lie, but I had my eye on a scholarship and taking on gang members didn’t mix well with Dieter’s Grand Plan. I told myself it wasn’t my business. I told myself making a stir would amount to nothing. I told myself it was all for the better if I got the scholarship. I told myself I could give Victor a better turn if I became powerful and wealthy. What good would revenge against Tyrone be anyway? The world was a hard place. You couldn’t fix it with your fists…You needed money and power for that.

  I avoided those arguments when I stood in front of a mirror.

  They didn’t work so well when I looked myself in the eye.

  Then one day as I was walking to class, I overheard Tyrone talking with his buddies. They were laughing about the ‘tard he puttied during the Valley High game last year. To my surprise, I realized I had stopped walking. Instead, I was standing in the middle of the hall shaking. People were bumping into me as they rushed to class. I stood there oblivious. Part of my brain screamed at me to stop glaring, screamed at me to let it go…That part got smacked down, and smacked down hard. All those weeks of cowardice boiled over. I wanted Tyrone to hurt, for him to bleed, for him to plead for mercy, and get nothing but more pain in return. I knew I was distinctly qualified to make it happen, and that excited me. It drove me wild.

  Tyrone noticed my glare. It must have unnerved him, because he jolted alert. Tyrone wasn’t used to having that sort of look directed at him—it was unheard of.

  His reaction thrilled me. For once, I didn’t hesitate. I started right towards him.

  Tyrone saw me coming. He stood, ready-to-go—but we were interrupted.

  Dr. Leeche, my chemistry teacher, intercepted me mid-stride. He was going on and on about the work we were going to do in the lab over the weekend. The Plan. My brain reoriented at the word. Schoolwork. College. Gainful employment. Or the alternative: Stuck in Las Vegas. Dicing onions and frying burgers. Going nowhere just like my dad.

  The fear of no choices. The fear of no free will. That fear was greater than my sense of shame, greater than my desire to smear Tyrone Nelson up and down that hallway. I faltered, and just like that, my fury ebbed. I walked away. I buried the urge deep inside me. I decided to let it go.

  But things are never that easy.<
br />
  Tyrone wasn’t ready to let it go. He couldn’t really. I had challenged him in front of his crew. In the world we lived in, you couldn’t let that slide. That was weakness, and weakness wasn’t allowed. The Splotches started in on me the very next day. Pushes in the hallway. Snickers in class. Spitballs at lunch. Weeks of silly bullshit. They never challenged me to an actual fight. They were too smart for that. There was no profit in a direct confrontation. It was better to wear me down.

  I took it all in stride. With graduation only seven months away, my eyes were back on the prize. Things would be better in college. Toughing it out would be worth it…

  Then they torched my notebooks.

  For a scientist, notebooks are everything. If it isn’t written, it didn’t happen. It’s that simple. They were the sum total of all my research with Dr. Leeche. I was studying how yeast could be used to generate energy. Dr. Leeche said I had a knack for breeding yeast, and the project had already won last year’s state science fair. If I could reproduce the findings, I’d be able to get published in a major journal. With that victory in hand, I was guaranteed a full ride at an Ivy League school. The data in those notebooks were my meal ticket. Every experiment would have to be repeated. It would set my work back months. Tyrone was telling me he knew where to hurt me. If I didn’t do something, he could ruin me.

  And so I set a brilliant plan in motion. I challenged Tyrone to a fight.

  I knew the Splotches. They loved to beat down an opponent. It inflated their egos and improved their reputation. But once they did it once, the thrill was gone. I’d never been beaten in a fight. I was a big prize. I figured if I lost to them, they would get their kicks and move on. But for the plan to work, I would have to give them what they wanted: a damn good fight. I was going to throw it of course. I could use my Sight to turn the heaviest hits into glancing blows. I would take a few good punches, land one or two of my own, take one in the chin and go down. It was brilliant plan. I could get bloodied up while avoiding the worst of it, the Splotches would get their ‘justice’, and we all could get back to minding our own business.

  I challenged Tyrone right in the center of the cafeteria to a duel at dusk. (My performance was quite badass, if I do say so myself.) I needed people to know about it—and I needed him to be forced to fight me at a time of my choosing. A fight at school would probably get me arrested, but that was the whole point. I wanted the LVPD to intervene. It would give the fight a time limit.

  His honor at stake, Tyrone had accepted.

  When we met at the back of the school, the whole gang came to watch. I probably should have known what was going to happen next. Probably should have predicted it. As I stood facing Tyrone Nelson, my emotions started going haywire. I should have known they would—and maybe deep down I did. Maybe I needed a contrived situation where I could finally do what I really wanted. All I know is that as I watched Tyrone Nelson swagger up to face me, my mind went rogue. I thought of all those times Mrs. Newmar hustled up the stairs to make a bed for me, how none of them ever asked me where the bruises were from, how Victor never said a word when I cried myself to sleep at night—and I just saw red. When the punches came, there wasn’t a speck of hesitation. I only wanted to make pain. I was going to drop him. I was going to make him suck blood. Tyrone was going to know what it was like to be on the receiving end. He was going to know what it was like to have no control at all…

  +

  And now his buddies were readjusting my ribcage.

  Hollow thuds filled my ears. Their boots were playing my lungs like drums. I struggled for breath as blows exploded my belly and sides. A particularly brutal one caught a kidney. I gagged as that special pain stretched down the length of my left side. I was going to be pissing blood in the morning. My eyes rolled backwards. My shoulders sagged. And then, just when I thought I couldn’t bear anymore, the cheers of the Splotches were replaced by quietly shuffling feet.

  Whispers and gasps filled the air.

  I could hear sirens closing in.

  I blinked my eyes. I had made it. They were finally finished with me. I should have been relieved, but something was wrong with my insides. Air was seeping out of my mouth. My body was screaming for air, but even as I tried to draw it in, it leaked back out my mouth.

  For some reason the Splotches were walking in a circle around me. Looking at them, I felt like I was at the center of a merry-go-round. Why had the gang gone West Side Story all of a sudden? They whirled about, faster and faster…

  “Oh,” I thought to myself. They probably weren’t the ones spinning. The rock to the head must have caused a concussion. I blinked twice to try and clear the haze.

  Like at the end of a really long exhale, the leak from my lungs trickled to a stop. I could manage small breaths now, but the strangest thing was happening—only the left side of my chest was rising. That explained the leak. They must have popped one of my two balloons. Still, why hadn’t the Splotches made a run for it yet? I was toast, and the cops were coming. Why were they still hanging around? They were looking at something, something over to my left.

  I turned my head and looked.

  I really wished I hadn’t.

  It was Tyrone. He was walking towards me. Crusty gunk covered his face, and his shirt was soaked straight through with blood. But that wasn’t the worst of it. No, the grand prize went to Tyrone’s right hand. It was dangling like a wet noodle. He wasn’t going to be pitching fastballs anytime soon. But all was not lost. Tyrone still had his left, and that hand looked just fine. Better than fine, actually. It was still able to palm a rather large rock with ease.

  I swallowed.

  Tyrone noted my attention.

  The blood-crusted smile complemented the murderous vibe coming from his eyes.

  Razor-nails girl walked over to him.

  “Tyrone,” she said. “Step off a second. We gotta get you to a doc.”

  Tyrone looked at Miss Scratchums, glanced at his wrist, and then drove his forehead into her face.

  Miss Scratchums crumbled to a moaning heap at Tyrone’s feet.

  “Shut the fuck up, bitch,” he growled. He looked around. Some of the Splotches were averting their eyes. The dangling wrist was a bit much for them. “Go buzz the PD. I need a tic.”

  The fellow who had just deflated my lung turned to Tyrone. “Are you sure, man?” he asked.

  Tyrone nodded. “Hell yea. Kick it.”

  The Splotches ran off to run interference.

  I tried to move my legs, but I wasn’t going anywhere. They were totally numb.

  I heard the gravel crunch under Tyrone’s feet. He walked over and looked down at me. He said something, but the lack of oxygen was getting to me.

  I could hardly pay attention.

  Tyrone noticed. He kicked me onto my back and stepped on my chest.

  A mixture of pain and panic rushed over me. The bastard was choking off my air supply. As my heart sped up in my chest, my Sight flickered back online.

  If I could, I would have shrieked at the sight. A faint red cloud was hovering around Tyrone’s body. At first I thought I was just going hypoxic, but the longer I stared, the more certain—the red mist was real. I had never seen anything like it. The mist floated about like an aura of sorts, and it felt…mean. As I examined the strange haze, a wave of energy burst from the core of Tyrone’s body. I grimaced as it blanketed over me. This wasn’t normal at all. I wasn’t just Seeing these lights; I was feeling them too.

  I had never figured out what my Sight really was. It was a talent I had long ago given up trying to explain. I had acquired my Sight when I was a child. It was thanks to my father. His beatings had given birth to my Sight. The fights would always start with my mother. He would get to thinking of her, and the rest of the night was predictable. A binge to start. A bitter swirl of words to follow. He’d say things he’d never dream of saying sober. Then his garbled rants would retreat into a language I didn’t even know. But while I couldn’t parse his phrases, I unders
tood his pain. My gut reaction was to try and help him. His gut reaction was to punch me in the face. I was a stupid kid. I never ran. My dad was all I had. He was hurting, and I loved him. I’d step into the punches. I couldn’t bear to run away.

  In the midst of his punches, when I thought my whole body would break, I began to see strange lights. They weren’t the normal stars. They told me how to turn so that his blows would only glance. They told me when to dodge so that his punches would fly wide. They taught me the principles of angles, reach, and speed. They only came when I needed them most, only when I was really scared of dying, but they gave me hope.

  I thought the lights were angels. My grandma loved talking about angels. She said that some were guardians, guardians sent to protect those in need. Grandma said that I had one too, that all children did, and that all I had to do was listen close to hear it. I thought it was just as grandma said, that a guardian had come to protect me. The idea that something out there wanted to protect me—it kept me sane.

  As I grew older, I decided the waves of light were nothing mystical, just pure, reliable streams of data. Maybe this Sight of mine was a sixth sense that other people lacked. Some people were colorblind, maybe I could just see more than normal. Or maybe my Sight wasn’t a sixth sense at all. Maybe I just had a knack for anticipating forces. My Sight might just be an artifact, a creative way my brain had decided to represent information. I reasoned that lots of famous fighters claimed they could anticipate an opponent’s moves, and that maybe that’s all I was doing. Whatever my Sight was, I learned early to never bring it up in public. That only brought strange looks and whispers. I kept the knowledge to myself and was just thankful it was there.