By contrast, I was everything he wasn't. I was not a small kid, actually I was one of the largest in the school, while Brian DuMont was the smallest boy in his class. He hated me from the first moment he laid eyes on me. He coined the name 'Crispy' within a week of joining school. The nickname coming from the hideous burn scars that even still today cover most of my body. That includes both my arms and a good portion of the left side of my face that can be easily seen by anyone.
Brian DuMont hated that he shared the same first name as someone who looked like me and was constantly making it his mission in life to humiliate me as much as possible, taking any opportunity he could to screw me over. Stealing my chubby girlfriend, wasn't above him. Ava didn't know it, but she'd be out of his bed and single within hours of leaving here today. Once she told him how I'd thrown her out, her usefulness to the French prick would be complete.
Now I am against violence, but before Ava could finish her sentence, I grabbed her by the arm and forcibly moved her out the front door of my house. That was followed a moment later by her pink bag which thumped heavily against her pink Nissan Micra parked on my driveway. While she was standing there in shock, I slammed the front door shut, not caring what she did next and walked into the kitchen, dumping the desired bracelet into the bin and then in a moment of inspiration, scraped my raw, left over chicken scraps over the top of it.
Stalking the few steps to the fridge, I grabbed and cracked a beer, drinking the thing in almost a single pull. Then let out an angry belch to which of course no one replied.
With the steam I was sure was pouring out my ears right now, I likely could have cooked dinner there and then had the human body the capability to turn emotion into energy. It wasn't just that I was annoyed that I had been preparing dinner for two or that Ava was being a bitch. I knew she could be, so that hadn't really surprised me. It wasn't even that fucking Brian DuMont had again caused me grief. No, it was my life in general and the way the world treated me.
Never one to waste good food, I cooked while I fumed, and then ate dinner. I have to admit though, I almost pushed my knife and fork through my food and into the ceramic of the plate several times. I drank another beer before stomping up my hallway to the shower like a little kid being told off by a parent. I knew I was acting childish, but I could easily justify my behaviour to myself. As I raged, I stopped myself just short of damaging my house. I stripped, and entering the shower noticed I was still a little dirty from the day's work.
I worked as a labourer for a local landscaping company. It was good honest work and being a bigger guy, I had the strength to do it well. For the most part the guys I worked with ignored my scars and disfigurement, and when my looks did come up, they were about the only group of people that never used it as an excuse to treat me like a freak. This was how I knew that Ava was bullshitting me about the 'fool' comment, since I met her through these guys and I knew they had my back.
One time, my boss had hired a guy that must have known DuMont and he kept calling me Crispy all day, laughing and trying to get everyone else to join in. He didn't return the next day. I learnt he was let go when the team took their complaints to the boss.
After a few minutes of just letting the hot water pour over me as I continued to fume, I grabbed my shower gel and almost twisted the safety cap off the bottle along with the plastic neck I was still so annoyed. I learnt in the years after my skin grafts that failure to keep myself clean resulted in skin infections. I was much more susceptible to infections than normal people, so soap, shower gel and keeping clean was a must.
Stepping out of the shower and drying off, I paused to inspect myself in the mirror. Overall, I was a tall barrel-chested guy. I had long brown hair that came down past my shoulders. On the job site I tied my hair into a ponytail, however outside of work I used it to cover my face. The first of my patchwork of scars, was visible a little to the left side of my forehead and then covered two thirds of my left eye, cutting down over my cheek and over the left side of my mouth in a fairly straight line before finally moving down over my chin and neck. My left ear had been reconstructed, but was a mockery of my original ear, so I kept my hair over it most of the time.
My chest and torso were the least scarred, only my left pectoral was marked by the discoloration that comes with skin grafts. However over ninety percent of my back was a patchwork of scars, skin grafts and burn discolorations where my skin never properly healed itself.
My left arm, from shoulder to wrist looked like it was from a horror movie; as I grew and hit puberty, the skin couldn't stretch like that of a usual adolescent and as such my left arm was more purple veins through translucent skin than a normal looking healthy arm. My right arm, with much lighter scarring, still showed the ordeal I had been through.
Even my backside had not been spared, following the hideous pattern of my back and continuing down both of my legs. Though I was fit and muscled, anyone who saw me naked outside of a medical setting would likely run screaming from the room. Once I became a teenager, for a time, I refused to be seen by anyone, including my family without a long-sleeved shirt or long pants on.
By now you're wondering, how did the scarring happen, how was it that I ended up with such massive burns to the majority of my body that Brian DuMont used to bully me, women like Ava to taunt me and more than one child to run screaming in tears when they saw me?
Well, when I was five years old, my parents had been out for dinner with friends and the sixteen-year-old girl next door, Tilly, was charged with looking after my three-year-old sister, Harper, and me.
The fire started out in the kitchen, apparently a faulty oven that hadn't shut off correctly and by the time that the smoke alarm went off, Tilly who was watching TV, could do almost nothing.
She managed to get to my room and drag my sleeping body out the door, while coughing and wheezing from the smoke. But by the time she turned to go back in and get Harper the house was well ablaze. Still half asleep and worried for my little sister, I ran back into the house to get Harper, ignoring Tillys cries, not truly understanding the danger I was in.
When the firefighters arrived and got into the house with a sobbing Tilly being held back from running in after us by neighbours, they found me hunched over Harper in the corner of her room with flames crawling up the walls. My clothes were on fire as was over half my body as I wrapped myself around my sister to try and protect her from the flames. Harpers arm that wasn't covered by my body was also on fire and we were both screaming despite smoke choking our lungs.
To this day I cannot praise those firefighters enough, brave men that risked their lives to save us. If they would have been a few minutes later, neither Harper nor I would have made it. Both of us were carried out and rushed to a hospital where after immediate emergency burns treatment to stop further damage, I was kept in an induced coma for almost ten days while they worked to save my life. When I woke up, I had no idea what had happened, only that I was a child whose body itched, and I couldn't move. As it was, I spent almost ten months inside a sterile burns tent, as they worked to keep my skin alive. My only contact with other people were my doctors and my parents, all who had to wear outfits that looked a lot like hazmat suits from the movies, because they were so worried about infection.
Harper had third degree burns along her right arm along with significant scarring. However, fortunately, she wouldn't have to endure the painful skin grafts that I required for the areas of my body where the skin was too damaged to survive. To this day, Harper is my most adamant supporter. To her I am her hero, the one that saved her from the burning house using my body to protect her. Throughout school, she was suspended five times due to starting fights with anyone she heard call me that dreaded nickname. Three times she was sent home for getting physical with Brian DuMont.
As for me, the surgeons did an amazing job with what they had to work with. After seven surgeries I had an almost normal looking face, even if I looked a little more like Frankenstein's monster than your average person.
For the first year after they released me from hospital I refused to go anywhere outside the house, throwing a tantrum any time Mum or Dad told me we were going out. But eventually with Harper's assistance they got me to go to places. I struggled, being openly gawked at. Parents gasped and I am sure I made my share of babies' cry as they saw the child with horrific burns.
I started school a couple of years late. In fact, I started the same year that Harper did and until high school we were in the same class. She was my best friend, my confidant and protector even though I was easily twice as large as the rest of the kids in my grade and as big as the kids' years ahead of us. Looking back, I know, if it wasn't for my little sister, I think I would have just stayed home and never learnt to read or write.
As I moved into high-school and puberty, I grew, to be the biggest of the kids in any grade. Dad's family had a long line of men who were big, fit, physical men, and very manly looking. Yes, the women were tall, but were very graceful. I had the genetics, so without any effort I started bulking up. As I grew, I quickly overtook most of my bullies who were years ahead of me, so they started teasing me behind my back. However, once they realised that I was a gentle giant it started again. I took it week after week. I knew I was an ugly beast, so I expected it. I kept to myself, did my schoolwork, and rarely spoke to anyone outside of Harper.
