The Soul of a Boy

What is it in the heart of a boy that drives him to war, to destroy?

Samuel, my 8 year old son is a warrior at heart. When I get home at the end of a day or even just from the store, I am typically greeted with an ambush or some new move he is mastering from his karate class. I usually love it and am ready for a good fight. He will be a yellow belt this week! Before I tucked him into bed tonight he disarmed himself:  five guns, a double holster, two pocket knives, his karate belt, and ninja mask. They are all neatly placed with his numb chucks next to his bed. He is ready for tomorrow's battle.

I was a boy with the same passion, the same drive, and the same heart. One difference was that my father was absent and I had three sisters. One sister, my twin, was a head taller at the time and always made sure I was walking one foot in front of the other. Basically I grew up with four mothers, an absent father, an older brother moving on to Yale, and a lot of locked-up confusion. Imagine how a boy might respond to that environment over time.

My father had divorced my mother at the age of 11, just about the time I was ready to break loose.  The drive for battle was ready to make it's way into the dark.

Fire was the first testing ground for my experimentation.  I loved lighting fires.  I would find ants swarming under a rock, fill the holes with gasoline, and watch them burn.  (Afterwards I felt guilty.)  My friends and I would make torches and walk around the neighborhood after midnight.  I remember torching my neighbor's yard, lighting two blocks of field on fire, and eventually building small bombs we exploded in peoples yards late at night.

My freshman year in high school I convinced a group of guys to skip class and drive out to a house that was presumably haunted.  The plan?  Burn it down.  I told them I would do it and they could watch.  We drove out to the house in daylight, parked the car down the street, and inched our way to the back door.   As we entered we were watching anxiously in all directions and shouting out to see if anyone was in the house, nervous we would be caught.  We went upstairs and found a large pentagram covering the entire floor.  Feeling justified in our plan, we went back down stairs, made a pile of debris, leaves, and sticks and fired it up.  We jumped out the back door.  Smoke was bellowing out the back windows.  We ran to the car and sped away in a fury, fearing the police were already on their way.  We made it to the top of a hill about 2 miles away where we could watch it burn.  No one seemed to have seen us or followed us.

Oddly, the smoke stopped and the house did not burn.  We were confused and drove back to check it out.  With no obvious explanation we enjoyed convincing ourselves that the house was, in fact, haunted and the "spirits" put out the fire.  That day ended up being my last fire in the dark.  My soul had found no rest and the journey was calling to greater explorations.