One Sunday when his dad was out of the house, Grant snuck over to the church. It was a great place. It was full of normal people were who were so glad to have him there. After that day, Grant snuck over whenever he could. He felt like such a rebel going to church.
It was hard to say how often he got beat up by his dad. Entire segments of Grant’s childhood were a blur to him; he just erased it from his memory. But Grant did remember one thing clearly; the day the beatings changed.
A sophomore in high school, Grant was now over six feet tall. He came home from school one day and his dad was in the kitchen. His dad started yelling at him about some chore that hadn’t been done, and then started coming at him. Grant planted his feet, clenched his fist, and punched his dad right in the face. It hurt Grant’s hand, but it hurt his dad more. For a split second, the look on his dad’s face was total surprise. It was like he was saying, “You… just hit… me?” In that moment, it was obvious his dad had realized that Grant was now big enough to fight back. The bastard was scared.
Grant loved it. The bully was getting hit for a change! Grant felt a surge of adrenaline. It was like he was fully alive and invincible. That felt really good (despite the throbbing pain in his fist). He wanted to do it again. Grant started chasing his dad through the house. He loved to see the ogre run like a scared little girl. This was for all the times his dad had hurt him and his sister. Hurt defenseless innocent little kids.
Grant didn’t want to hurt the guy as much as he wanted the guy to quit hurting him. But, yeah, Grant did want to hurt him, at least a little.
After showing the old man what a pussy he was, Grant waited for the inevitable retaliation. Sure enough, the next day he was home from school in the kitchen cutting a block of (government) cheese with a big knife. His dad came into the kitchen looking like he was going to kill Grant. Like he was going to actually kill him. It was a look Grant never forgot.
Grant was terrified. He dropped the big knife and started to run. As he got out of the kitchen, he looked back to see his dad picking up the knife and starting to chase after him, with the huge butcher knife. Grant saw everything in slow motion. He was focused on the blade and couldn’t really see anything else. He couldn’t hear anything. All he could see was the knife in slow motion. The fear gave him super human strength.
Grant ran, faster than ever, through the dining room and living room and out the front door. The ogre was a few seconds behind him. Grant had the strangest thought as he was running down the porch and into the street; hopefully no neighbors would see this. Oh, how the town would talk. That was actually running through his mind as he was running for his life.
Grant kept running for blocks. He was amazed at how fast he’d run and how far. That fat old bastard couldn’t keep up. Grant was several blocks from his house.
And then he stopped. Now what would he do? He had to come back home at some point. Would that knife be waiting for him? Would his dad wait until Grant fell asleep and slit his throat at night?
Grant walked around the neighborhood for a few hours. It was getting dark. What would he do? As he was deciding to go back home, his dog, Buttons, came running up to him. Grant was glad to see him and noticed Buttons’ collar chain. Grant loosened the chain and swung it a couple of times in the air as a weapon. It was a pretty decent fighting tool.
“Thanks, Buttons,” Grant said as he gripped onto his improvised weapon. “Might as well get this over with,” he said to Buttons. He walked toward home. Every step was terrifying. Each step brought him closer to the house where the ogre and the knife were. The lights were on in his house. His dad was waiting for him.
Be a man and get it over with, Grant thought. It never occurred to him to go for help. Who would help him? He couldn’t think of a single person who could help him. He needed to do this himself. No one was ever around to help. You had to do things like this on your own. It’s just how the world was.
Grant walked in the front door with the chain out as a weapon. The old man saw him with the chain. The bastard decided that his boy was getting big enough and smart enough to whip him.
“It’s dinner time,” his dad said to Grant.
That’s it? Grant thought. The rest of the night, his dad didn’t say anything to Grant, which was fine with him. Grant couldn’t sleep that night. He kept the dog chain under his pillow. He also loaded his. 22 rifle and put it by the bed.
Grant woke up the next morning, and was genuinely surprised that he was alive. He got ready for school.
School sucked. It was so stupid. Grant was an extremely good student; straight As when he tried. School was so easy that he was bored. Except for history, especially American History.
Grant loved the Revolutionary War. He read every book in the library about George Washington. His hero was Marion Fox, the “Swamp Fox” who fought a guerilla war in South Carolina against the British. Grant was fascinated about how a small band of farmers and other average men and women could tie up a sizable chunk of the most powerful army in the world at the time. Fascinated; and he wondered why he was so drawn to this subject.
Grant could get along with anyone (except Larry, apparently).
He was the one kid who could hang out with just about every clique: preppies, stoners, rednecks, Mexicans, the town’s one black kid— anyone. Grant found it easy to move from one kind of person to another for two reasons. First, he didn’t care about a person’s status or social standing. If a person’s social standing mattered then, by definition, Grant was worthless. So this wasn’t a way for him to measure people because he would fail that test.
Second, Grant had a strong innate political sense. Not “politics” like the obnoxious “vote for me!” student body candidate. That was “retail” politics; shaking hands, figuring who could help you, and promising things you couldn’t ever deliver. That wasn’t Grant at all.
Grant was a master of “wholesale” politics. Figuring out what motivates people to do things they wouldn’t normally do, how to make people feel comfortable, how to explain a complicated problem facing them by relating it to something in their everyday lives so they understood that their little problem is part of something bigger. Grant knew exactly how far the other person could go towards doing what Grant wanted and when it was time to stop asking for more. He understood how vanity and ego were tools to get people to do what he wanted. He figured out a lot about institutions—teachers, bureaucracies, businesses—and how they made decisions, which allowed him to tailor a plan toward getting that institution to decide the issue his way. This skill can’t be taught; Grant was born with it.
While Grant downplayed his intelligence as much as possible, other kids could tell that he was smart—but that didn’t help him in high school social circles where conformity was more important than merit. On the positive side, Grant was fairly good looking so that helped. But no girls really took him seriously since he was… well, a loser.
He did have one weapon that no one in his class could match. He was funny; hilarious, in fact. He could turn a phrase, make a play on words, recall lines from movies, and do amazing impressions. His impressions of teachers and other kids had people rolling on the floor. Even if they thought he was a loser, they laughed at his jokes and were entertained by him. Grant was the most well liked loser at Forks High School.
Since he was a loser, he could instantly identify with other losers. This would have a major impact on his life. He knew what it was like to be humiliated and he hated it. So Grant helped other losers whenever he could. It was more than just being a sheepdog and helping people who happened to be losers. Grant had a loser bond with all fellow losers. They were all in a club, The Loser Club. But, hey, it was still a club.