The Vanishing Foreigner, Part 1

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It had been a difficult pregnancy. At the first signs of fetal movement she had gathered her family round to feel the tiny life stirring inside her, but within a few days that initial joy gave way to disbelief followed by a growing sense of alarm: the child was like a ball of energy, an atom of frenetic activity unable to hold still. By the time Danny Markem-Mallone could ball his tiny hands into fists he was spending every waking minute thumping away at his mother's womb.

As the months wore by and he grew in size and strength, there was real concern whether she'd survive. She tried to make him stop through home remedies and old wives’ tales, but by the end of her second trimester gave up and began sneaking vodka and cough syrup in the afternoons. Her husband, a general practitioner, wanted to deliver Danny himself but several weeks before he was due took her by ambulance to the obstetrics ward at the university hospital in Durham. Her new physician had never seen anything like it and after a few days convinced the couple to let him perform a Caesarean section. When the nurse finally carried Danny to his mother's arms, she took one look at his shiny red curls and waved her away.

Danny's mother's ancestors had arrived on the Mayflower and were among the first white settlers in North Carolina. They took pride in their lineage and passed it from generation to generation like the farm on which she now lived. It had been in her family for over three hundred years and though she had never gotten her hands dirty working its earth, the year in year out rhythm of life on a tobacco plantation was as much a part of her existence as the very air she breathed. She had never given much thought to the day to day operation of a working farm but that suddenly changed one day when her parents and brother died in a traffic accident one Sunday morning.

It was a difficult time to be a tobacco grower. Tobacco companies were being sued for record settlements and were using the suits to gouge their suppliers. There was pessimism all around but she was amazed to find herself the only one who knew the hard times would blow over and that once the smoke cleared, the giant tobacco companies, with their slick lawyers and deep pockets, would be the new owners of their land. Her parents and brother were hardly in the ground before she realized she had no choice but to become actively involved in her farm’s management.

Though in the beginning she saw it as a daunting prospect, in time she found it was actually a rather straightforward proposition and began instigating changes that breathed knew life into the land and, for the first time in decades, the farm began to expand. The most important and far-reaching innovation she made came about after a representative from one of the tobacco companies offered her a price she knew was below market value. Nothing she said would sway him, and as he was quick to point out, if she didn't accept his price all he had to do was drive down the road until he found some down-on-his-luck farmer who would. She knew he was right but would be damned if she ever allowed herself to be in that position again.

From then on she devoted herself to quietly organizing the other growers to stand together and avoid the tobacco corporations' strategy of pitting farmer against farmer for payments; payments always offered as reluctant handouts. By the following harvest she'd erected a warehouse for the other farms to bring their tobacco to be bid on and sold in lots at auction. The tobacco representatives were invited as guests, and though they scoffed at first, once it became apparent that that was the only way they'd be able to buy tobacco, they began arriving hat in hand.

She took a small percentage from each sale and saw her and the other growers' fortunes rise on a flood tide of fresh capital. Her efforts and steel will transformed how the tobacco business was conducted and in time her influence spread beyond the state legislature in Raleigh all the way to Washington. She was nicknamed The Grand Dame of North Carolina by the press and ruled her farm and all who dealt with her with an iron fist, but neither she nor her husband ever found a way to manage Danny.

Danny's parents had intended to have four children but Danny brought an end to that. It wasn't the difficult pregnancy nor surgery that caused them to reconsider so much as Danny himself: he was a constant source of irritation and needed to be supervised around his brother and sister for their protection. Even though they were larger and stronger than him, he never ignored a slight and from an early age learned how to aim his punches with such devilish accuracy they were sure he'd permanently injure one or both of them. Life was never the same after Danny was born and it seemed everyday was ruined by some mischief he'd gotten into.

One day Ms. Markem lost her temper over a minor offense and raised welts on him with a willow switch. As soon as he was sent to his room he climbed out his window and ran to Jerome's, his best friend and son of one of the hands that had worked on his farm for generations. Jerome's grandmother had been his nanny since birth and was the only person in the world Danny knew loved him. He thought of her as his own and when he told her what had happened she decided it was time he learned about his family history.

Generations before, in pre-civil war times, a more recent arrival named Mary McCutcheon had somehow managed to slip through the guard and married into the Markem family. She had a questionable past and was famous for her fiery red hair that hung to her shoulders like bright copper coils and her flighty, viperous temper. She could erupt over the slightest infraction and one Sunday morning nearly killed one of her coachmen with a horse whip in the town square for failing to tip his hat to her. Though the name McCutcheon and all it implied had long been forgotten by the other white families in the area, it was still synonymous with evil among the blacks who had lived there for generations.

That red curly hair skipped a generation then reappeared in a son even more volatile than Mary. Little more than a beast, he ruled with the rod and took pleasure in profiting from the labor of the many children he sired among his slaves. On hot summer nights he would sit naked drinking bourbon on the long white veranda of the colonial mansion where Danny now lived, sometimes firing his pistol into the air when the spirits so moved him. He was feared far and wide and by the time of his death the plantation was near ruin.

After his death whenever a Markem gave birth to a redhead with curly hair, the child was regarded as a curse. In olden times the family had attempted to purify the line through infanticide but that practice had largely been forgotten by the time Danny was born. He was the first in over a hundred years and his mother, knowing that history, was determined to not let him become a repeat of the McCutcheon legacy. When Jerome's grandmother reached the end of her account she twiddled his hair as she always did and said, "You ain't that man Danny, but your mama don't know."

One spring when a curing barn was destroyed by fire Danny's parents were quick to accuse him. Though he denied responsibility, as far as his parents were concerned it was the last straw and sent him to summer camp at St. John's Military Academy in Wisconsin. Two weeks before he was to come home they informed him that he would be staying there as a cadet and no amount of pleading or promises could get them to change their minds.

Danny was short and no matter how much he ate could not put on weight. He was as freckled as only redheads can be and that, combined with his slight frame, gave him an impish air that misled many into thinking a joke about his appearance was a good way to break the ice. He hated his mop of unruly hair, and it didn't take long for his classmates to learn that Danny was someone you wanted on your side and calling him Stoplight or Rudolph was not the way to go about it.

The academy's chaplain, Father O'Leary, was also its boxing coach and Danny was directed his way after handing out a few black eyes. In his youth Father O'Leary had also been too quick with his fists and took an interest in him not only as a boxer, but as a means of atoning for all the senseless violence in his past. He was patient with him and knew when to prod and when to pull back, and Danny soon learned and expanded on all the foot work, counter punches, feints and combinations. He was never able to get his weight up higher than the bantamweight division but was good enough to go up against heavier fighters and soon became the star of the St. Johns boxing team. Because of Danny, whenever a tournament was held with another school the gymnasium was packed with cheering fans. As soon as he stepped into the ring the St. Johns cadets would begin to chant "Mar Kem, Mar Kem" and for the first time in his life he felt like he was the welcom member of a group.

One time when the St. Johns team visited another school, midway through the second round one of the opposing team's supporters called out, "HEY SCARLETT! SCARLETT O'HAIR!" Everyone who heard it laughed and Danny looked through the crowd to see where the sound had come from. When he did, his opponent caught him flush on the jaw, something that had never happened before.

Danny saw stars, backed up and covered until his head cleared. He was shocked that he'd allowed someone to hit him, and when his wits returned he did something he'd never done before: he dropped both his arms and leaned forward daring his opponent to try to tag him on the chin. Each time he threw a punch Danny would respond with a quick tap intended not to hurt but to torment. At the beginning of the third round Danny strolled out to the center of the ring with his arms to his sides again. This time when the other fighter tried to hit him Danny punished him with his counter punches. He kept him on his feet until just before the end of the round then knocked him out with an overhand right that broke his nose, then caught it again with a left cross on his way to the canvas.

After the fight Father O'Leary went to check on the boy and apologize to his coach. When he got to Danny he flew into a rage and demanded to know where his barbarity came from. When Danny finally let out the history of the McCutcheon curse Father O'Leary began working on a plan to teach him how to control his temper.

From the following day he never called him Danny and instead used countless variations of Red, a nickname Danny hated. Each time Father O'Leary called him a name, he made Danny count to ten until his anger subsided. Whenever he did this it was as if the priest had struck a giant gong, and the purest ire would reverberate through his body in waves. Until this time Danny had always simply lashed out but now, with no outlet, his anger rose like heat up his spine, through the cortex then out through his hair. His hair was like a barometer of his mood and when he lost his temper it would begin to glow like a mound of blown-upon embers.

Father O'Leary's methods were crude but worked, and by the time Danny graduated he had real friends and had learned enough about fighting to put away his gloves. In his senior year several colleges offered him boxing scholarships but he declined them all.

Rick Nelson grew up in Oklahoma and has lived in Japan for all but a few of the last 27 years. His mother was a librarian and professional storyteller and was instrumental in developing his interest in literature and writing. Hiroshima inspires him and he currently divides time between Hiroshima city and Shikoku.

Edited by JJWalsh