Archaic Venture_The Myth Of Cerberus Read online

  Archaic Venture

  The Myth of Cerberus

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter I

  “Michael? Are you okay?”

  Michael coughed a few times while holding onto his knee. “Yeah, I think so.”

  Michael reached up to grab the guard rails and pulled himself back up to a standing position.

  “Good job, Mike. Power through these last couple steps and then we can take a break.” The physical therapy trainer said.

  “Okay,” Michael mutters under his breath. Taking a look down the length of the guard rails, Michael had no idea how he was going to make it. He could feel his knees wobbling underneath him, a feeling that has been used to since birth because of his Cerebral Palsy.

  “Take it one step at a time,” the therapist said before continuing with his usual motivational drivel. Michael does his best to ignore it as he struggles to move down the line. In instances like this, Michael wished his parents would just give up on the therapy. He had become accustomed to his leg braces, and they didn’t bother him anymore. They were his crutch. Despite all of the jokes, pranks, and altogether rotten interactions he has had with kids his age, the braces allotted him a sense of comfort and safety. Michael had accepted that he would never play sports, never be the coolest kid at school, and probably never have a girlfriend, but his parents had not. As this thought passed through his head, Michael’s sweaty left hand slipped on the guard railing, and he fell to the floor again.

  “You were so close this time, Mike!” the therapist said. “We will get there next time alright.”

  This comment always came at the end of Michael’s sessions. All of the fake emotional support, excitement, and motivational speeches seemed to lose their zeal when Michael would hear these words. It was in this statement that Michael embraced the fact that he was a charity case, or worse yet, a paycheque. He knew that a physical therapist could start caring for their patients; and, in some cases, they could even fall in love with them. Of course, this was not the case for Michael; Michael’s physical therapist, Ben, was a big, burly man that looked like one of his parents could have been a gorilla or a bear. No, this is not what he wanted, but he yearned for someone to care about him enough to see that this whole therapy thing just makes him feel like a disappointment.

  “Here Mike, let me give you a hand,” Ben said as he leaned over, placed his hands on Michael’s armpits and lifted him into the hair. Michael put his hands back on the guard rails and held himself up. “Your parents are downstairs waiting for you. Can you hold yourself upright while I put on your braces?”

  “Yeah, I can do that,” Michael responded like he had a choice.

  “Okay, great!” Ben said with fake enthusiasm as he made his way over to a nearby bench where Michael’s leg braces were laying out. “Alright Mike, hold still while I put you back together,” Ben said with a chuckle. Michael didn’t laugh; he didn’t find these jokes funny, he had heard enough of them on the playgrounds growing up.

  Slowly, Ben made sure each clasp was closed tightly around Michael’s right leg and then his left. Before releasing Michael, he gave each brace a little shake to make sure they wouldn’t fall off. Satisfied, he stood up and told Michael, “Alright Mike, you are all ready to go man. Let me walk you out; I need to speak with your parents before you go.”

  “Works for me,” Michael said, starting to wobble towards the elevator. He always found the fact that this particular physical therapy center—the one his parents chose to send him—put their workout facility on the second floor hilariously ironic. Maybe, he thought, the idea was that one day the patients—at least the ones with similar problems to himself—would one day see all the hard work they had put in finally pay off, and they would be able to bypass the elevator and use the stairs. Sadly for Michael, that day was not today.

  Downstairs, Michael’s parents sat patiently in the waiting room. They sat beside each other, but they looked in opposite directions. It was a charade; they wanted to sit close to one another to give off the appearance that they were happy together, but Michael knew that if his parents had the choice, Mr. and Mrs. Maddox would probably have chosen separate rooms, at least that’s what they did at home anyway.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Maddox, how are you doing today?” Ben said, starting with the pleasantries.

  Both of Michael’s parents perked up and said, “We are doing just great, thanks for asking. How was the session?” Another charade, Michael thought.

  “It went awesome!” Ben said, flashing them a thumbs up. Michael was getting nauseous from all of the fictitious elation. “Michael almost made it to the end of the guard rails without any assistance today. Of course, he received a few bumps and bruises along the way, but he did great.”

  “He still hasn’t made it to the end of the guard rails yet?” Mr. Maddox said bluntly. Finally, a shred of reality had slipped out of his father’s mouth, Michael thought. Mrs. Maddox swiftly patted him on the shoulder, not so playfully, and shot him a stern glance.

  “What Mr. Maddox is trying to say is, is there anything at home that we could be doing to speed this process along?” She said, returning a smile to her face.

  “Well, you already have the elastic bands and the at home regiment that Michael should be following. The stretches and workouts each night before bed will help, but the best thing for him is to attend more physical therapy sessions,” Ben is interrupted by Michael scoffing at this remark. All three of them turn to him, displaying irritation on their faces. His parents are embarrassed by him acting out, and Ben is put off by Michael’s lack of faith in more physical therapy d
oing the trick. The truth comes out. But, instead of pressing the issue—as always—Michael decides to take the high road. “Sorry, I think there must be something caught in my throat.”

  Satisfied with his response, the adults turn back to each other and Ben continues, “I think that he could benefit largely from coming here three, maybe four times a week instead of the two sessions he already has.”

  “How much more would that cost?” Mr. Maddox said.

  “Does it matter, dear?” Mrs. Maddox replied, looking over at her son bending over and untying his workout shoes and replacing them with his everyday pair of Vans. “This is our son we are talking about, Steve. We should do everything in our power to give him a normal life.”

  “I share that attitude,” said Ben. “I have a dream that one day Michael over here will one day use those stairs and walk out of this place without those god-awful braces.”

  Michael bent over a little further to hide his smile and used every ounce of self-control he had to prevent himself from laughing out loud. What was big Ben over here getting his lines from Martin Luther King now, Michael thought, I have a dream? Give me a break.

  “Honey,” Steve Maddox said, turning his gaze towards his wife and attempting to sound as sincere as he possibly could. “I agree, we should do everything in our power to help Michael be the best person he can be, but the question remains, how much is this going to cost? I am all for helping Michael out, but I don’t think we should have to remortgage the house for physical therapy.”

  Mrs. Maddox was apparently irritated by the way her husband was talking to her, but because she is all about appearances, she would never enter into a full-on row in front of Ben. So, she smiled at Mr. Maddox before she said, “Mr. Maddox is right, we will need to know the numbers before agreeing to anything.”

  “I will have the paperwork drawn up for you, and you can take it home with you after Michael’s next session. But, while we are on the topic of money, it seems that there was an issue with your last payment. I guess we never received your last month’s payment. Do you know any reason why we would not have gotten that cheque?”

  Mr. and Mrs. Maddox—with wide eyes—turned to one another hoping that the other would have a quick response. Neither of them had one. Michael, being done with his shoes, was looking at his parents and shared in their discomfort. He knew that their money troubles stemmed from him, and he had always felt terrible about it. While Mr. and Mrs. Maddox stumbled over each other with Ums and Uhs, Michael cleared his throat and interrupted the both of them, “It was my fault, Ben, they had handed it to me before our last session and I was supposed to give it to you, but I forgot. It is still in my backpack at home. Do you mind if I bring it to you on Tuesday next week?”

  Relieved to hear that the money was indeed coming, Ben placed his massive paw of a hand on Michaels' head and messed his hair up before saying, “Oh yeah, no problem Michael. That must have been tough to confess. Just bring it to me on Tuesday, and we should be all good.” Ben then turned to Michael’s parents and said, “Sorry to give you that scare. You must have been pretty confused there. You should be proud of your son. That was a very mature thing to do, confess to his mistake.”

  “Oh yes, we are very proud of him,” Mrs. Maddox said, although neither of them even looked in his direction nor did they give him any thankful glance for saving their asses. Michael resented this. “Is that all Ben? We need to get going.”

  “No problem, I will see you guys next week,” Ben said with a smile before turning his attention to Michael. “Keep your head up big guy; even Mohammad Ali hated training. Do you remember what he used to say?”

  Michael, facing the door already, rolled his eyes. He knew what Ben wanted him to say, how could he forget? Ben pounded it into his head every time they had a session together. He turned around and said, “Suffer now, and live the rest of your life a champion.”

  “You got it, big guy,” Ben said. “Go be a champion.”

  “I will,” Michael said semi-sarcastically, and flashed Ben a thumbs up before turning around and walking out the front door. His parents said their goodbyes, apologized again for the money issue and followed Michael to the car. To Michael’s amazement, they managed to keep their bickering at bay until they were inside the vehicle and had driven outside of the parking lot, safely outside of earshot.

  It started out slowly with Mrs. Maddox taking a dig at her husband’s excellent ability to forget important things, “I cannot believe you forgot to pay the physical therapist. I am mortified.” Her voice was blunt.

  “Oh please, like you’ve never forgotten anything,” Mr. Maddox rebuked.

  “Maybe if I didn’t have to prepare dinner EVERY night, and fix your lunches EVERY morning, my tiny little female brain would be able to remember other things instead. For god sakes, you are a grown man. All this family asks of you is to go to work on time and take care of the bills. I do everything else.”

  “Not this again,” Mr. Maddox not only rolls his eyes, but he rolls his entire head for dramatic effect. Michael had seen this movie before.

  “Yes, this again Steven,” Mrs. Maddox said sternly. “More and more I get the feeling that you have just given up on this family.”

  “I am still here aren’t I?”

  “Barely,” Mrs. Maddox looks away from him and stares out into the window. There is a long silence in the car. As much as Michael hated all of the arguing his parents did, he hated the silence more. Finally, Mrs. Maddox breaks the silence, “And, what is all this about grilling Benjamin about how much the physical therapy is going to cost? I thought you were in line for that promotion?”

  “I didn’t get it,” Michael’s father said in the tiniest whisper.

  “What was that?” Mrs. Maddox said, her voice rising out of surprise—and maybe a little bit of anger.

  “I said I didn’t get it,” Mr. Maddox said with more authority this time. “Some young, up and comer, got the job over me.”

  Mrs. Maddox went quiet for a second before saying, “I thought your boss loved you.”

  “He does, or at least that is what he said when I went to talk to him about it.”

  “What did he say?” Mrs. Maddox asked with genuine curiosity.

  “He said that they went with the other guy because he will be here longer and that I am already on the tail end of my career. If he goes young now, he won’t have to train someone later on down the line.”

  “That is preposterous!” Mrs. Maddox said, feigning hysterics. “Does he not know that your son is disabled?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Maddox said bluntly. “The man has a business to run; he doesn’t care if I have a deformed son. All that man cares about is performance.”

  Michael was used to his parents talking like he wasn’t in the room. It happened a lot at the dinner table when they would discuss how burdensome and restrictive the monthly physical therapy bills were right in front of him. Michael had learned to ignore them when they got like this, but it was impossible to entirely omit comments like, "deformed son" and "disabled" from his memory.

  When Michael eventually came back to reality, his mother was saying, “Well, there is no possible way that we can afford to put him in more sessions now. He is barely showing any improvement anyway.”

  “Agreed,” Mr. Maddox said. “If we can find another way to get him working on his coordination and balance, and hopefully get him out of those braces, then I am all for it, but it won’t be through more physical therapy.”

  “Well, I just don’t know what that will be because you already hound him every night to do his exercises and stretches,” Mrs. Maddox said to her husband. “At least you say you do.”

  Michael, being very intuitive about these types of things, could see another argument ensuing, so he decided to interrupt before his father could say something that would lead to another fifteen minutes of tension.

  “Excuse me,” Michael said, clearing his throat.

  Mrs. Maddox gives a little jump as if she had
forgotten that he was in the car with them. “Yes, what is it dear?”

  “I have to get to my shift in about an hour; do you think that you guys could drop me off on the way home? Rather than going home and then one of you having to drive me later, can you just drop me off now and I will go in early?”

  “Of course, honey,” Mrs. Maddox said, smiling and giving him a wink as if this small gesture of driving her son to his job was the greatest thing a mother could do for her child. Michael got the sense that she would often pat herself on the back for these small actions, thinking that these were what made up a mother of the year candidate. “Stephen, please take us to the Chevron on, where is it again sweetie?”

  “It’s an Exxon mom, and it is on Forth and west Sesame street,’ Michael corrected her.

  “Right, Stephen, could you be so kind as to take our son to work, please.”

  “Exxon it is,” Mr. Maddox said turning on the blinker and making a ride turn down Forth Avenue.

  Chapter II

  Michael had, had his job at the Exxon since November of the previous year. He had turned sixteen earlier than a lot of his classmates, and since he did not have extracurricular obligations or friends for that matter, he had a lot of time to work. Almost every evening and weekend—when he wasn’t studying—was spent at the Exxon. The job was perfect for his cerebral palsy. As much as he would like to think that the majority of his time at the Exxon was spent taking payments, watching people like a hawk to make sure they didn’t steal gas, and explaining to idiots how to work a simple gas pump, he can’t. In actuality, the four to six hours he spends at the Exxon on days that he works—when he doesn’t have homework or a test to study for—is spent watching the tiny twenty-five inches flat screen television that hangs above the candy aisle. The only time that he gets up from his chair is to fill the soda pop fridges.

  On this particular evening, the gas station was exceptionally slow, and since it was summer time, Michael didn’t have anything else to do but watch television. A lot of the time, the T.V displayed silly melodramatic soap operas. These, Michael watched merely to pass the time. It was the commercials that he was actually interested in. Sadly, many of the things Michael watched these commercials he would probably never be able to enjoy. Firstly, cars were kind of a difficult thing to navigate when you barely have control of your legs. Secondly, there would often be beer commercials; the ones with lots of good looking girls draped over the guy that chose to drink a particular brand—Michael found it very unlikely that he would ever have girls hanging off of him like that. Although Michael enjoyed living vicariously through these characters on the television, his favorite commercials were the ones for the newest gaming systems and the cool games that were coming out with it. This type of stuff was something that he could participate in and enjoy. He had been saving up money since he started his job at the gas station to purchase the newest PS4 and all the games it came with; he was just two shifts away from that goal.