The Man, the Myth, the Legend

Craig sat on the living room floor, adjusting the dial to his toy train.  It only went in a circle most of the time, but not now.  It was the last gift from his dad, and he treasured it. 

Craig’s dad, Robert Norris, was a professor of mythology at a local university, and was often buried in a book studying the histories and beliefs of some ancient culture.  When the school was no longer able to continue the mythology program, due to a lack of interest, Mr. Norris found himself out of a job.  His wife picked up the slack by finding a second job to cover expenses while she waited for her husband to redefine his career.  

Two years later, he was still pretending to look.  He grew accustomed to sitting at home and absorbing himself in the stories of dead civilizations.  It was difficult for Mrs. Norris, but it was during these two years that young Craig Norris grew in his fascination of all things ancient.  The boy loved to listen, sitting on their scuffed velvet couch or at the kitchen table, to stories about King Midas or Pandora’s Box, or Gilgamesh, Veracocha, Ninigi, or the Maya Hero Twins.  Craig treasured every moment.  He imagined himself as one of the Hero Twins fighting Seven Macaw, or Perseus running like a blind man from the Gorgon Medusa while tricking her into looking at her own reflection.  

His favorite though was the story of Odysseus and the cyclops Polyphemos.  The hero, Odysseus, tricks the cyclops when he tells the monster his name is “Nobody.”  Later in the story, when Odysseus and his men escape, the blinded Polyphemus screams in frustration, “Nobody did this to me!” and all the other cyclops think he’s crazy.  Sometimes, Craig would pretend to be Odysseus, and much to his mother’s dismay, sneak around the house and stab his stuffed animals in the eye.  When his mom would ask how he ruined one of his toys, Craig would explain that Nobody had done it.

One morning, while Craig listened to the Odyssey on tape for the fourth time, and his dad sat reading a textbook, his mom came into the kitchen and said, “Robert.  I’ve been seeing another man for a few months now, and I’m leaving you.”  Then she handed him an envelope, and left for work.  It happened so fast, neither his dad nor Craig had time to react.  After she walked out the door, his dad looked at the envelope, opened it and read it, then walked to the phone in the kitchen.  He talked for hours with someone.  To Craig it sounded like his grandma.  She sounded unhappy.  Craig could hear her yelling through the phone, but his dad never raised his voice.  Robert Norris whispered the entire time, quiet enough that Craig never knew what the conversation was about.  By the end his grandma was tired.  She stopped fighting.  Robert Norris set the phone back in its cradle, and knelt by his son.

“Craig.  Would you like to go to the store with me?”

Craig nodded vigorously, and they walked to the door, removing their jackets from the coat rack.  “Why are we going to the store?”

“You’ll see.”  He smiled.

“Is mom there?”  He asked, but his dad said nothing.

They walked down the street to a local strip mall.  Two men smoked outside a liquor store, laughing. To Craig’s amusement, one of them poked at the other’s butt with the end of a broom, which led to high pitched threats and swinging fists.  Robert Norris ignored them, leading his gawking son to a different storefront, and walked into a hobby store lit at the front with only an “OPEN'' sign.  The bell over the door rang.  A man with two chins and a clip-on magnifying glass covering his right eye scratched away with an X-acto knife.  The model of a tank was partially built next to him.  He never looked up.  Inside the store was everything a little kid wasn’t allowed to have.  Model airplanes, boats, cars.  There were multiple sizes of rockets with the words “Warning: Flammable” written on the side in red letters.  There was a plastic track running around the store for slot car racing, a LEGO castle, and even a metal detector for finding gold on the beach.  At least, that was the only reason Craig could think of for a metal detector.  He was afraid of walking forward.

“Go ahead,” his dad said.  “Pick anything you want.”  

Craig stood for a few moments in front of the door until the clerk asked him to move.  He’d never been in a place like this.  Once, his mom took him to Toys “R” Us, but Craig wasn’t allowed to touch anything.  She told him they were shopping for his cousin’s birthday, and nothing he picked out would be for him.  He looked up at his dad again, eyes wide.  His dad nodded like he understood what he was asking his son to do.  

It was impossible.  How would he choose just one?  Craig wandered the store, checking every corner, drawing the eye of the man at the front desk, though he didn’t move to intervene.  He checked under every table, behind every box taller than he was, just to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, and finally settled on a model train.  It had an engine, a passenger car, a coal car, a logging car complete with plastic logs, and a red caboose.  Craig’s dad had barely paid for the train with his credit card before his son was desperately clawing at the tape seal.  

Craig couldn’t wait to get it open.  To set it up and play with it.  When they got home, he shoved the front door open and ran to the kitchen, pulling a butter knife from the drawer, and used it to open the top.  He pulled out the styrofoam and plastic bags containing small pieces that said “Keep out of reach of children”.  Craig smiled.  He didn’t notice the time pass.  He didn’t notice his dad packing in the bedroom.  Never saw him walk out the door.

By that afternoon, his grandma was there watching him play with his train while she smoked in a corner of the house, staring out the window, occasionally glancing at Craig with a worried expression.  When his mother came home, his grandma gave her a letter, the signed divorce papers, and then heard the news that her husband had left.  She crushed the paper in her hand and held it to her forehead, whispering, “Godammit, Robby.”

She asked Craig’s grandma, “Mom, did you read this message?”

She shook her head.

“We need to call 9-1-1.”  Mrs. Norris said quietly.  

For the first time that afternoon, Craig looked around their small house.  “Where’s dad?”  He asked.

Craig’s mom said, “You’re going to stay with your grandma for awhile, okay?  She’s going to take care of you while...”  Her voice cracked.  She patted his head like someone might pat the head of a dog, and went to the kitchen to make some phone calls.  Craig gave his grandma a confused look.  He didn’t like her very much, because she always smelled like cigarettes, and when she spoke to him, he thought her breath smelled like blood.  He decided a few days with them wouldn’t be bad, though.  They let him watch as much TV as he wanted, something his dad never approved of.

Craig would spend the next eight years with his grandparents.  A month after he had moved in with them, he was playing with his train on the floor.  He played with it every day now.  Instead of a circle though, he had arranged the tracks so that they went in an “S” shape at the top of the stairs, and made the engine push all the cars off the end to tumble down into the basement.  He did this many times while his grandparents and one of his uncles watched from the living room.

“Somethin’s wrong with that kid, mom.  You’re gonna wake up with a dead cat one day, its eyes glued together.”  He rotated in his chair to look at her, and she just turned away from him.  He shrugged, “Tell me I’m lyin’.”

Craig’s grandma took longer drags on her cigarette.  Her husband chuckled.  He said, “You know...I haven’t seen that cat in awhile.”  He arched his neck and pretended to look for it., then settled back into his chair, holding the neck of his beer.  “The dad was a nut, wasn’t he?  Freeloader spent all his time readin’ books on people sleeping with their mothers.  No wonder Maggie left him.”  Craig’s grandpa took a swig.  The bottle was empty and he glared at it with one eye, then rose from his chair with significant effort.  “Gonna get another beer, want one?”  He pointed to Craig’s uncle.  The man nodded, but was paying more attention to the boy on the floor and his model train.  Craig once again pushed the train off the steps to tumble into the basement.

His uncle lifted himself from the couch and walked over to his nephew, who was setting the train cars back on the track.  He said.  “Craig.  What the hell you doin’?  You’re gonna break it.”  Craig ignored him and ran the train again, building speed until his uncle put his foot on the track, stopping the train completely.  

“You hear me, kid?  You deaf?”  He leaned in closer.  “I’m talking to you.”

Craig had been listening to them, hoping they’d just go away.  He screamed, “Get OFF!”  Then he lunged at his uncle in an attempt to push the big man, but the effort was hopeless.  When he couldn’t move him, Craig beat on his uncle with tiny fists until the man pushed his nephew down hard.  He sprawled on the carpet, but didn’t stay down.  When he jumped up, his chest heaved and his fists were balled tight.

His uncle’s permanent scowl twisted into a smile, and he turned to Craig’s grandpa.  “Well he’s got more balls than his dad, that’s for sure.”  When he turned back Craig was lifting with all his might on his uncle’s leg, the leg that blocked the train, arms as small and useless as paper towel rolls.  The bigger man easily shoved him aside, away from the toy train, holding him back while the small boy swung wildly with his fists.  “I’m gonna teach you a lesson, Craig.  Something your dad probably never did.”  Craig stopped swinging.  His uncle bent down so that he was level with his nephew, the boy’s eyes already red and wet, his hands weakly holding onto the man’s thick fingers.  “Them books your dad read, they ain’t real.  He spent his entire life readin’ a bunch o’ made up stories.  There ain’t no cyclops or Hercules.  Ain’t no gods.  Robby loved to shove it in our faces that we were all a bunch of ignorant hicks, that he was cultured.  But he was the ignorant one.  The only real myth in life is thinkin’ you’re the hero.  But you’re not.  You’re in the same boat as everyone else, and sometimes it’s a real shitty boat.”  Then he lifted his boot and crushed the train engine, smashing it and scattering the broken metal and plastic across the floor.  He did it again, smashing the other cars, and Craig fell to his knees.  His uncle left him there, crying silently.

When the bigger man walked back to sit on the couch, no one said anything.  They all continued to watch TV.  Craig gathered up the broken pieces of his train and dumped them on the floor of his room.  His treasure.  Picking up the remains of the shattered engine, he threw it against the wall as hard as he could, and dove face first into his bed.  He cried himself to sleep that night.

When only Craig’s grandpa slept in his chair while lights from the TV screen flashed silently over the faded carpet, and the sound of doors closing to other rooms in the house had long passed, Craig woke up.  Or at least, he thought he did.  He rubbed his eyes, still a little swollen, and blinked around the room.  It was his room, but something was different.  It was dark, but Craig thought he saw something in a corner of his room where the light from the TV couldn’t reach.  He gasped a quiet “Hello.”  There was no response.

He carefully set his feet on the floor, then shuffled to the door to flip the light switch.  For a moment it was too bright to see, but when his eyes adjusted Craig found himself alone in the room.  It was all in his imagination.

“Hello Craig.”  The voice came from behind him, and Craig spun around, so surprised he fell over.  Before him stood a man, not much taller than his uncle, who wasn’t there moments ago.  This man reminded Craig of his dad, though he was dressed in a different style, and the face wasn’t quite the same.    

“Who--”  Craig stuttered, “--who are you?”

The man clasped his hands behind his back.  “Your question is irrational, though understandable.  A better question might be ‘what are you?’, though I do not wish to discuss semantics with a boy of eight years.  You could say I’m a messenger, like Hermes.”

Craig’s heart thumped like the bass in his uncle’s truck.  “You’re a god?  Like in my dad’s stories?”

The man smiled.  “You could say that.”

Craig’s mind now raced.  “So you’re real?  It’s all real!”

The man stopped smiling.  “Some would say I am a god, but what I am is not important.  It’s why I’ve come.”  He stepped to Craig’s closet door and opened it.  Behind the door was not the inside of his closet.  Instead, there was a cave in some other part of the world.  Craig’s mouth cracked open a little, and he held his breath.

“This,” the man said, indicating the boy’s room with his arms, “will not be your life forever.  Eventually you’ll leave these people and do something others will find unbelievable.  Keep your eyes open and follow the clues, and we will meet again someday.”  The man smiled warmly.  “In fact, you and I will be very close.”  He paused, stood up.  “But for now, I must leave you.  Find me here.”  He pointed through the door.

“Do you have a name?”  Asked Craig, still stuck on the same question.

Kneeling down to Craig’s level, he said, “Nobody.  Nobody is my name, so my mother and father call me, and all my friends.”  Then he winked and the lights went out.

Craig was back in his bed again, face down in his sheets, in the dark.  He sat up and looked around.  His room had returned to normal.  His closet door was shut.  He could hear his grandpa snoring in the living room.  Everything was normal, but also it wasn’t.  He was special.  His uncle was wrong.

Craig looked at the remains of the train on the floor.  He picked up the broken engine, and set it down.  Look for the clues, the man said.  He walked to the kitchen and pulled a trash bag as quietly as he could from under the sink.  Then he collected all the pieces of his model train and filled the bag, walked out to the garage where his grandparents kept the trash cans, and threw it away.  He’d never play with it again.

Nobody had come to visit him that night.