The Blue Wizard

Moving out of the comfort zone is never easy and rarely productive...

The Blue Wizard

“This game has been loading forever.” I was staring at the letters “L-O-A-D-I-N-G” scroll over and over the screen; Adam was just staring at the buttons underneath his fingers. We were sitting Indian-style on the gray carpet in front of the couch in the living room.

“It’s cause the PS2 is so old,” he added without looking up.

“Mom, can we get a Wii?” I yelled out to my mom who was chopping stuff in the kitchen.

“A what?”

“A NINTEND WII.”

“No, you can use your Playstation, dear.”

“Bitch,” I whispered. Adam and I laughed. The weird woman in the corner kept taking notes. I don’t think she heard me.

“Do you always play these games after school?” she asked. She faked her voice when she talked to me and Adam. She made it sound nicer—like a nicer voice would make us feel better. She talked to mom like an army man. “Do you always play these games,” she repeated.

“Most of the time,” I answered. Finally, the game came back on.

“Do you have friends to play with?”

“Uhh…” I had to beat N. Gin on this level by shooting him with all kinds of long-range weapons. It always takes major concentration. I didn’t have time to talk to this lady.

“Boys? Do you have any friends that you play with?” she asked, again.

“We have friends,” I answered real quick, just to shut her up.

“Does your mom ever plan activities for you?” She wouldn’t stop asking questions. Ever since she came here she just asked questions, and they were stupid questions, about Mom and Dad and Adam and school, dumb adult questions. And she wrote down everything we said in a yellow notebook she kept on her lap.

“We do stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

While I was listening to her, some stupid mutated animal beat me with a club and killed me. That was enough for me to tell her off.

“You messed me up,” I told her.

“Excuse me?” she asked, pretending like she didn’t understand what I said.

“You messed me up,” I repeated for her real slow. “Stop asking us questions; you’re making it hard to play.”
She laughed in a real funny way and scribbled something in her stupid notebook. Adam and I couldn’t stand her. She was worse than being around Mom or Dad—at least they let us play our games and leave us alone.
“Time to go,” Mom yelled from the kitchen.

“Go where?” I yelled back.

“Remember what I told you about your father and his visiting rights.”

“Dammit,” I whispered to Adam and rolled my eyes. We laughed again. I had totally forgotten about visiting rights. Apparently some judge ordered Dad to be around us. It didn’t make any sense to me. He either wants to be around us or he doesn’t—I don’t care either way—but why should someone else tell him he has to? When I grow up, I’m not taking crap like that from any judge.

Mom came over and told us to save our game or she would be forced to shut it off. We complained so she bent down to the console and was about to flick it off. We agreed and saved our game and then she turned it off and turned off the TV and told us we needed to wear our coats. Mom was a lot nicer since the lady with the notebook came here.

Dad was waiting outside next to his shiny new car. He talked to me and Adam all the time about the engine and the intake valve and stuff I don’t understand or care about because it’s supposed to make us men, not fruity fairies like Mom would have us be. Adam doesn’t eat fruit anymore because Dad said that. I could care less what Dad thinks of fruit, I eat what I like. If Dad called us stupid Cheetos I wouldn’t stop eating them either.
Mom grabbed our hands and took us over to Dad. The lady stood on the sidewalk and just watched.

“Here are the kids,” she said and threw our hands at him.

“Who’s that?” he asked her, leaning over to see past her shoulder.

“A social worker, Roger. A social worker from the state. Because of that late night call the police received from your neighbor I’ve got this bitch tailing my ass and more appointments with my lawyer, you can bet on that.”

“Is she coming to my place?” he asked.

“Yes, Roger. I told you this already,” Mom squawked like some kind of parrot.

“Oh goddamnit. I can’t deal with this shit, Mara. Get in the back seat of the car, kids.” We climbed into the back of Dad’s car.

“Where’s Adam’s safety seat?” she barked.

“Oh, I forgot it.”

“You still don’t listen to a fucking word I say, do you? We’ve got a social worker here and an unrestrained child. But whatever, whatever. I’m not attached to you anymore. You can get in hot water with her. I don’t care. But Roger, you are not leaving me alone with these kids forever, you better clean up your act so I can get some time to myself.” With that Mom walked away and the ‘social worker’ came up and introduced herself and told Dad she’d be following him today. Dad said that was okay, especially because we’re going to Chuck E. Cheese.

“I didn’t know we were going to Chuck E. Cheese,” Adam whispered to me.

“Me neither. Guess Dad wants to impress this lady as much as Mom does.”

* * *

There were a million kids at Chuck E Cheese. It was a Friday night anyway, and think more kids go there on Friday nights. Dad was talking to the lady, saying that we go to the park a lot, we eat lots of apples and carrots, and rent family movies at night. I rolled my eyes. My dad was such a liar.

“Why does everyone act different around this lady?” I asked Adam.

“Maybe she’s like, a wizard,” he replied, ripping a bite of pizza off his slice.

“You think?” I said looking back at her, studying her to see if I could see something magical about her. I don’t know if I believe in angels and ghosts and wizards and stuff—but I do know this—I’m not scared of them. She didn’t look like anything special to me. “I don’t think wizards wear blue suits,” I replied.

“She’s probably an evil wizard anyway.”

“An evil wizard?”

He was real quiet for minute, then he whispered, “She scares me.”

“Adam, you can’t let people scare you,” I said, turning his shoulders to me so I could look at him. “Mom or Dad or this lady or your teachers: nobody should scare you.”

“I don’t mean to be scared. I can’t help it,” he said looking at the table.

“You have to stand up for yourself Adam,” I added. But he looked sad. I had to say something to make him feel better. “You’ll do it eventually. Don’t worry about it.” I smacked his back.

After dinner my dad handed us a bunch of coins and we ran off into the arcade. I played the Whack-A-Mole first. It’s the game I’m best at. I hit the crap out of those ugly little raisin guys; watch them run back into their holes after they feel my mallet smash down on their little brains.

I ran out of the coins dad gave me real fast. So I went back over to him to get more.

“Where’s your brother?” he barked at me like a dog. The wizard in blue was getting a soda so she wasn’t around to hear him talk like that.

“I don’t know, can’t I just have more coins?”

“Not until you find your brother.”

“But Dad—“

“I’m not arguing with you Ryan,” he said grabbing my shoulder and pulling me close to his face. “Bring your brother over here and then you can have more coins.”

I ripped my arm away from him and marched off to find Adam. Dad is a bastard, Mom is right about that. I checked the Skee-ball first. He wasn’t there. I checked the basketball and some of the racing car games but he wasn’t there either. I went into the tubes and the ball pit and I still couldn’t find him. I was getting bored of looking so I decided it was time to just deal with Dad. The wizard in blue was back sitting and talking with him, so I knew he’d be nice to me so long as she was there. Maybe she is a wizard, since she makes Mom and Dad act so nice to us all the time.

“Dad I couldn’t find Adam,” I said and held my hand out for some coins. Instead of grumbling at me he looked scared and shocked. So did she.

“Where have you looked, son?” he said crouching on his knee and placing his hand gently on my shoulder. I looked down at his hand and back up at him. He looked at me like I should just play along.

“Everywhere. He’s not around. Can I have my coins yet?” The lady jumped up and immediately went over to one of the employees.

“Shit, Ryan, how’d you lose your brother?” he said, not playing anymore.

“I didn’t lose him, Dad, he’s around here somewhere. I just want my coins.”

“Now we have to go find your brother,” he barked at me again.

“Fine,” I sighed and walked with him to go look for Adam. My dad held my hand the whole time we were looking. I’m not sure why. He never holds my hand for anything and frankly, I don’t need him to. It felt weird to have his fat, smoky fingers over mine. Pretty soon everyone was looking for Adam, even Chuck E., but nobody could find him. The social worker called mom to tell her what happened. Dad tried to stop her but she wouldn’t listen to him. Eventually Mom showed up in her fancy evening clothes and just looked pissed off. She didn’t even try looking for Adam. Mostly she just talked to the manager and kept putting her hands on her face and pacing. When she caught sight of my dad she started screaming at him. So he started screaming at her. The lady in blue just shook her head and took secretive notes. My mom was yelling and stomping her foot and pointing at dad and then at the arcade and then at the floor. Dad’s mouth was open real wide and he was waving his hands in the air and taking careful steps toward her. They were both pecking at each other like chickens. I heard the social worker lady yell, “Oh would one of you please do something!” and that’s when I saw Adam.

He looked different than I’d ever seen him. His face was scrunched up like a little angry bulldog. He was marching across the floor, with his fists clenched tight. He was gonna do something and I wasn’t gonna get in his way.

I watched him climb onto the booth and then lift himself up onto the half wall. He stood up on the edge of the booth and breathed one big, giant breath. “Shut up! Shut the fuck up,” he screamed as loud as I’d ever heard him yell in my life. My parents did. They listened to him. They shut up and just stared.

“Adam, get down from there right now,” my mom screeched after awhile.

“Fuck you!” he yelled and jumped off the wall onto my dad. Adam threw his arms around him and started kicking him with his sneakers. They lit up with every foot that landed on him. Mom tried to pull him off Dad but it only freed up Adam’s arms so he could punch Dad in the face. He kicked at Mom too so she dropped him and he kicked her in the shin. His shoes were lighting up like rocket ships. Anytime my parents would come close to him, Adam would smack them or kick them, screaming all kinds of bad words. Everyone was staring at them.

Eventually Chuck E. grabbed Adam and started dragging him away from our parents. He stopped after that, so Chuck E. put him down on the ground. He sat there a minute and then smoothed out his shirt. Then he looked up at me—nodding like he had finally done it. He got up. “I’m not scared of you,” he said to my parents. “And I’m not scared of you either!” he shouted at the blue wizard. I just smiled. He really had done it.

* * *

An hour later, we were sitting in the back of the blue wizard’s car. She was still out there talking to the police and yelling at my parents.

“I wasn’t lost,” Adam said to me suddenly. “I was hiding. But after I watched them for awhile I couldn’t take it anymore. They don’t understand at all.”

“They’re idiots,” I said, staring outside as the police tried to calm our parents down. Mom and Dad were screaming at the police as the social worker started walking toward us. She got inside the car and threw that yellow notebook on the chair next to her.

“Where are we going?” Adam asked her.

“Somewhere your parents can’t hurt you anymore,” she answered.

“They didn’t hurt us,” I said.

“Oh sweetheart, but they did. What Adam did today was because of your parents, because they hurt him so much he felt he had to hurt them back. Your parents are what we call unfit—they’re not good enough for you right now.”

I looked over at Adam to see if he understood that. He shrugged.

“I still don’t understand where we’re going,” I said.

“You’re going to go to a children’s home tonight,” she answered. “And then probably with a foster family for awhile after that, until your parents can get their lives together and learn how to treat you right.” At the stop light she turned around to look at us. “Everything will be okay.”

“Do they have a Wii there?” Adam asked.

“No,” she answered.

“A Playstation?”

“No, dear, I’m afraid not.”

Adam crossed his arms. “Then I don’t see how everything will be alright.” I agreed.