SoMa Literary Review

Heroes

By Hayden Thorne

She sits him on her lap and begins her tale, nurse and charge alone by the sugar icing and gingerbread hearth and its desolate little flame. The stools are handmade, and so are the tables, and above them hang rags which his mother has patched up and washed. There’s a heavy smell of candy in the air, and all seem snug and cozy, Mother Goose style. Now, child, if you listen to my story, you’ll have your sweetbread after. Why not now? Because there’s a story to tell, and as you know, we all need to hear these things before we all get too old for them—But why can’t I have my sweetbread while you talk? Because it isn’t done yet, and every time you wriggle too much on my lap, time steps backward, and it’ll never be done. So he sits still, all five years of life, thin and ruddy-cheeked, and listens with the weariness of a man who’s heard it all before.

There will be castles, of course, and magic—dragons, witches, wizards, offended stepmothers or aunts or oversensitive fairies whose invitations happen to be overlooked or are lost in the post—perhaps even forgotten by the poor, harried messenger, who can only fit so many names and addresses in his unschooled mind. You see, child, there’s this princess who falls under a terrible spell—Is a prince supposed to come by for her? Yes, dear. Why not another princess? Because princesses don’t go gallivanting about the countryside, looking for adventures. Why not? Because that’s the prince’s job. What if he doesn’t want it? He can choose, of course, but it won’t do him any good. Why? Because, you silly little twit—and the nurse smacks the boy upside the head—princes need to prove their worth and not just sit around and dawdle and let a princess do his job for him. Besides, the world has laws, and princesses ought to—

And they’re all meant to be broken sometimes, he quickly replies, and he sees that he’s towering over his nurse—no, his mother this time, who’s grown older gracelessly, almost vanishing under her salon-broiled coiffure and her Dolce & Gabbana pantsuit, her legs trembling violently under his weight as she struggles to hold him up with her feet encased in leopard-print slingbacks. So he sits himself at her feet instead and gingerly touches the itchy area around his nose ring and toys with his spiked and home-colored hair. She scowls at him behind a bronze mask, her skin baked from all those soccer practices. Just because you’re sixteen, it doesn’t mean you’re above laws, you stupid boy. Now shut it and listen to your mother. Once upon a time—Yes, yes, I know how this story goes, Ma, and I don’t like it. Have you anything different? I haven’t gotten past the introduction yet! Why does the prince have to do all these things? Laws, child, laws—and boundaries.

And why are princesses always the victims? I’m sure there are stories out there where the prince is a victim, but I haven’t bothered looking for them because they sound rather pointless stories in themselves. Besides, princesses are lovelier when they’re in trouble, don’t you think? Can you imagine Reese Witherspoon in distress and in a princess’s gown like the one Audrey Hepburn wore? I suppose these princes in trouble are saved by other princes? Why should they be? They’re princes! They can save themselves—But why can’t a prince save another prince? For God’s sake, next you’ll be expecting a prince to kiss another prince for a spell to break—But what if—

Have you forgotten about the ogres? a man’s voice cuts in, and the boy finds his father standing by the door where his mother used to be, a bulging suitcase in each hand. These princes are caught with their horses and thrown in a bubbling stew before they’re fed to their unsuspecting parents, who make a feast out of their sons. But that’s cannibalism! the boy protests, and his father snorts, That’s child support for you—All right, what about the fairy godmothers? Shouldn’t they be helping—Did you want them to help? his father scowls from a bronze mask, his skin baked from all those pretend business trips to Hawaii. No, I’d rather have princes and princesses fight their own battles! Keep in mind, boy, that chance plays a bitch of a role in those stories, and some princes get their girls only because they happen to be in the place at the right time. His father vanishes behind the door just as a glass slipper sails across the room and shatters against it.

The boy shakes his head disapprovingly and scowls at the hearth, which has now turned to a pile of burning tires. The cottage is gone, and so are the handmade stools and tables, the patched rags that hang above his head above his mother’s washing—all sugar icing and gingerbread and candy melting in the conflagration. Scattered around the bonfire are princes and princesses—some naked and wrapped around each other, writhing and moaning, some passing a needle or a little bag of white powder around, some barely conscious with a pile of beer cans and puddles of vomit nearby, some huddled together and staring dazedly at the fire with blackened eyes and blood-encrusted mouths.

He sits on the grass and feels his twenty-three years creep steadily toward him as he plays origami with his university diploma—he can never manage a crane, for the love of all things holy—and brushes stray dirt off his denim jacket—a real bargain with his employee discount at Abercrombie and Fitch. There’s nothing but the silence of nature, and he waits for the birds or the trees to tell him stories that celebrate his sort, but it seems that he’ll have to wait a long time for fairy tales to allow him his heroes. For the life of him, though, he can’t make up one of his own, and he finds it difficult wrapping his mind around one.

Hayden Thorne is a writer of gay YA novels and flash fiction. Her debut novel is set to be released in 2008 from Prism Books. More information on her works can be found at her blog. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and three cats.