Topic: Beantown Boy

Chris Driscoll

Date: 2010-05-16 15:04 EST
Boston, Mass
September 1991

"Mrs. Driscoll, I want to talk about your son."

Eileen Driscoll's stomach twisted into knots. She'd dreaded this day, ever since her husband had walked out the door, abandoning her and their two children. Chris had taken his father's desertion hard, and without any real father figure, she'd worried about him getting mixed up with the wrong kind of people.

"Is my son in some kind of trouble, Mr. Wilson? I'm not sure if you know this, but my husband left us some years ago, and it's been been especially hard on Christian. He's a good boy really. He just... He needs a little guidance."

The man sitting across the desk from her smiled and lifted a hand to reassure her. "I didn't call you here because Chris is in any trouble, Mrs. Driscoll. In fact, quite the opposite. I am not sure you are aware of this, but Chris is an exceptionally talented young man."

Eileen exhaled a sigh of relief and silently thanked God. What the elementary school principal was telling her came as no surprise. She knew that her son was an unusually bright boy when he chose to apply himself, when he didn't have his head buried in comic books and video games. "He's always been a bright boy."

Wilson leaned forward and folded his hands on the desk. "Bright is putting it mildly. Chris scored a 130 on his I.Q. tests. I have to wonder if he really applied himself, could he have scored higher?"

"130?" Eileen asked, uncertainly. "What does that mean?"

"140 is genius," Wilson told her.

Eileen gasped, the color draining from her face. She knew her son was bright, but near genius? Her blue eyes blinked in rapid succession. "But his report cards..." Her son's grades had been less than stellar, no indication of anything other than average intelligence.

"Simply put, the boy is bored."

"Bored?" she echoed, puzzled.

"It's not lack of ability that's holding Chris back. It's his own desire to learn. He needs a challenge. He's bored here."

She paused a moment to consider what he was telling her. She didn't have the resources to send her son to private school. Raising two children on her own, she was struggling to make ends meet, as it was. "What should I do?"

Wilson smiled reassuringly. "Not you, Mrs. Driscoll. What should we do? I'd like to put Chris in an accelerated program. He shows exceptional aptitude with math and computers. One of our teachers is putting together a program for students just like Chris. With a little encouragement and the right education, the sky is the limit."

"Are you sure you're talking about my Christian?" she asked, uncertainly.

"We tested him twice to be sure. The results were the same. A little higher the second time actually. I'll be frank. His scores put my own to shame. He's an exceptional child, Mrs. Driscoll. But with intelligence like his comes a certain responsibility, and that responsibility lies with us."

Eileen hesitated. Her head was swimming. The sky's the limit? What did that mean? She blinked out of her thoughts and looked back at the school principal. "Very well, Mr. Wilson. I am putting my son in your hands. I trust you know what you're doing."

Wilson smiled again, pleased. It was a rare opportunity to encounter a student possessing Chris' abilities. "You won't regret this, Mrs. Driscoll. I promise you that."

Eileen nodded again, hoping he was right.

Chris Driscoll

Date: 2010-05-20 22:30 EST
Boston, Mass
October 1991

"This is boring," the nine-year old complained, wrinkling his nose at the papers that sat on the desk in front of him. He was about average height for a boy his age, with a mop of blond hair, clear blue eyes hidden behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, a sprinkling of freckles set against a fair Irish complexion.

Mrs. DeMarco just smiled serenely at the boy. If there was one thing she'd learned in her thirty-some odd years of teaching elementary school students, it was patience. "Trust me, Christian, there is a point to all this."

"These questions are stupid!" he continued, pushing his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose, only to have them slide back down again. "A farmer had seventeen sheep. All but nine died. How many sheep are left? What kind of stupid question is that? The answer is obvious."

"It's not that obvious to everyone," she replied, as he scribbled his answer on the paper.

He silently read the next question and then laughed. "A man builds a house with four sides of rectangular construction, each side having a southern exposure. A big bear comes along. What color is the bear?"

Mrs. DeMarco arched both brows and peered over her glasses at the boy.

"White. Duh. It's the north pole." He scribbled the word "white" on his paper. "Who made this up? Any idiot could answer these questions."

"You'd be surprised how many grown adults get them wrong," she told him, turning back to the pile of papers laid out in front of her.

"They're stupid then," he muttered to himself, and she couldn't help but smirk. She considered herself to be a woman of some intelligence, and yet, even she had gotten some of the questions wrong on her first try.

Chris answered the rest of the questions in silence, and when he finally finished, set his pencil on the table with a heavy sigh. "I'm done," he announced. "Can I go now?"

"Not yet. Bring me your paper, please," she instructed, and he obediently obliged, standing beside her and wrinkling his nose as he watched her go over his answers.

"I'm sick of taking tests," he complained, frowning and fidgeting beside her.

"I know you think this is stupid, Christian, but it's necessary. We're almost done with the testing. Then we can do something fun."

"Fun?" he asked, giving her a skeptical look. School wasn't supposed to be fun. It had never been fun before. "Like what?"

Mrs. DeMarco set her pencil down and turned to the boy, a warm smile on her face. Despite showing exceptional intelligence, physically and emotionally, he was just an ordinary nine-year-old. "I can't tell you, Christian. It's a surprise, but I promise you're going to like it."

"Chris," he corrected. "Only my mother calls me Christian."

"All right, Chris." She glanced at her watch. It was getting late. She'd kept him long enough. "Would you like a ride home? We could stop for ice cream."

He shook his head, frowning. "I have chores and homework to do." The offer of ice cream was a tempting one, but he had to get home. His mother and sister needed him, and he'd already been gone too long. He gathered up his things and threw a Red Sox jacket on over his t-shirt and jeans.

"Goodnight, Chris. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Goodnight!" he called back as he headed out the door, in a hurry to get home.

Chris Driscoll

Date: 2010-05-20 22:38 EST
Chris heard laughter behind him, taunting and teasing, and he quickened his steps. He was only two blocks from home. So close and yet, so far.

"Sissy Chrissy!" he heard them call. "Hey, Four Eyes!"

He winced at the name calling, heart pounding in fear, regretting now not having accepted Mrs. DeMarco's offer of a ride. He didn't dare turn around, didn't dare acknowledge he was being followed. He tried to ignore them, willing himself to become invisible. What he wouldn't give for some superhuman powers like the ones he read about in his comic books, but he was only human, and all he had at his disposal was a backpack and his brain.

"Hey!" he heard a voice shout, just before a hand shoved him in the back. "I'm talking to you!"

There was another shove, and he stumbled to his knees, tearing a hole in a brand new pair of jeans. One of the boys grabbed a handful of hair and pulled his head back to face them. He counted three in total, two in front of him and one behind.

"What's the matter with you, Driscoll? You deaf or just dumb?" the leader of the pack jeered, the other two cackling in amusement. Three against one wasn't the best odds, and they were all bigger and older than him.

The leader's name was Jimmy, and he'd been nothing but trouble since moving into the neighborhood nearly six months ago.

"What do you want?" Chris glared up at him. Though he was shaking with fear, he refused to give them the satisfaction of knowing it.

Jimmy grabbed Chris by the collar and pulled him roughly to his feet. "From now on, I get half the cut from your paper route."

The money from his paper route helped his mom make ends meet. There was no way he was giving any of it to Jimmy or anyone else, no matter what they did to him. "I don't think so," he replied, narrowing his eyes at the other boy.

Jimmy's face broke into a grin. "You don't think so? Then I guess we'll just have to convince you." He nodded his head to the other two boys, and Chris suddenly found a fist slamming into his face, knocking him senseless to the ground. He wasn't sure what happened next, but when he came to, he found Mrs. DeMarco kneeling over him, calling his name.

He blinked up at her, as she helped him to his feet. "I had a feeling something like this would happen," she said. "That Dixon boy is nothing but trouble. He's going to end up in jail someday. Mark my words."

Too dazed to reply and still reeling from the blow, he let her help him into her car, blood trickling down his forehead.

"You have to learn to stand up for yourself, Christian," he heard her say, "or boys like that will be the death of you someday."

Chris Driscoll

Date: 2010-07-24 15:32 EST
Boston, Mass
November 1991

Chris gasped in surprise as he was slammed up against a row of lockers, knocking the breath out of him, his head colliding with metal, sending a wave of pain throughout his body, his head spinning dizzily.

"I warned you, Driscoll, but you didn't listen. So now, I'm gonna show you who's boss."

Chris blinked to try and bring his vision into focus. He heard the other boy's threats, but his voice sounded distant and muffled from the ringing in his ears.

"Are you listening to me?" he heard the other boy say, a vaguely familiar face hovering in his field of vision, sneering menacingly.

Chris opened his mouth to speak, but only groaned in reply. He felt someone grab the front of his shirt, jerking him forward, and then heard the creak of a locker being pulled open. "I'm gonna teach you a lesson you'll never forget, geek boy."

He made a weak attempt to push the other boy away, his head still spinning, and then he was roughly shoved into the open locker, and the door was slammed shut, the muffled sound of laughter on the other side. He blinked a few times to try and clear his vision and the dizziness from his head, gut-wrenching realization at where he was.

"Wait!" he called, terrified they were going to leave him there, trapped alone in the small, dark space. He'd rather have the crap beaten out of him than this. At least, that way he had a chance.

"See you later, sucker!" he heard the other boy say, and then the sound of laughter faded as they abandoned him there.

Terror filled him, wrapping its cold hand around his heart, threatening to suffocate him. He felt like he could hardly breathe, small slits at the top of the door the only source of air and light. There was a pain in his chest, as he was overcome with fear, and then he was pounding on the door, screaming for help until his throat felt raw.

Ten minutes was all he had to endure in the locker before someone found him and came to his rescue. Ten minutes of torture, ten minutes of abject terror. Ten minutes he'd never forget for the rest of his life, and in that ten minutes, Chris swore he'd never let anyone get the best of him again.