the boy with blood stains

I am, under no uncertainty, more than you think I am.

But I suppose it could depend on how you look at it, because, it could also be very well a lie.

And, but -- again, yes -- this isn't about you. This what I believe who I am, and so I will tell you just that.

My name is Faolan, and I'm a kalon, like anyone on these streets. Yet, I tend to grasp the eyes of others in ways I never quite realize. If it wasn't for the vibrant red splattering my coat and my eye-catching shine, which, the color of has always reminded me of soft sweets, a cross between jolly-rancher watermelon and cherry, I might be able to go on easier. But people look, and they pause - is that blood...?

Alas, they are fools: they don't know what blood looks like. At the first cut blood is vibrant red, but still darker than mines: and then it darkens, and crusts to brown. I know that well - better than many else, in fact. Many get afraid when I mention that, though... I fear I do not understand why. I only work at the local butcher's.

Yes -- the butchers, you exclaim? Do your eyes hold suspicion? I fear, my friend, your suspicion is misdirected. I'll give you some gossip -- you know that man who runs it? He hired me... alas, three years ago, now, a fortnight from which I had turned seventeen. November, cold months good for keeping meat, and busy for people in search of fine cuts for their Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.

He grabbed me off the streets, with his glove-laden hands, and said, "Kalon, oh, oh, do you have a job? I would like to hire you very much..."

I hate that man, but I took the job because he offered good money, and free training. "The perfect way to cut meat," the man said, gleaming whites of his teeth on display. I learned, and by some days, my black paws were not so dark anymore. He gives many glances, as if checking to see that I am not gone; other days, he lets me handle the shop alone. I let him; besides being strange and hated, it is dealable. What kind of job has one where you don't hate your boss?

Oh? Rest assured, I'm not derailing from the question. What better way to show you who I am than this story...? Shh, just listen. I like to tell my stories, you see. I'll like your expression.... Hopefully I didn't unnerve you, friend.

Anyhow -- there was a day, the butcher owner was gone longer than usual. I wondered, and finally dared the ask the next time he had come back: circles under his eyes, and new meat to bring in. "Hunting, especially good cuts this time," he said. Too normal for that man, but then, he grasped my shoulders tightly and said: "Do you want to come with me?" He smiled, as if he knew something of me that I had shared with him. As if we were year old friends.

We aren't, so I went with him. Cautious, too curious for my own good, and set in my ways. Not a good combination. (I don't care though.)

My boss took us out of town, into the more rural areas. He took us to an old junkyard, with a lot full of cars, none too flashy -- nearly blending into the surroundings. He said something like, "Just your place, huh kid?"

I smiled, instinctively, at the man: a smile reserved for people who were so wrong they were dumb. I thought something like, ah,

this has happened before. Because so often people mistook me for someone I wasn't: me, oblivious of their suspicious thoughts, until it shone in their eyes.

I followed the man, because I was too curious for my own good.

It was not a dog-fighting ring; it was not a high-profile gang meeting; it was not a cannibal tribe; it was not a secret service meeting. No, the man -- my boss -- was a simpleton in the criminal world, the lowest rung, hoping on some fervent dream that working a stall at a black market will make him any greater. My boss sold exotic meats and pelts, specially cut by him. He worked long and struck hard bargains. He got into fights over it, defending the petty cut he gets from his boss, and his very job. It was not a nice job: he was hit, pitied for the man he was to come into crime, desperate for money, and bags building under his eyes. He was a hopeful fool, who thought he could gain something -- status? money? -- by bringing a pretty stranger who looks like a crime boss.

I am not a crime boss. I will never be one. The men at that black market eyed me, twisted their mouths into scowls at the sight of me with the old man. Naturally, one threatened me when I stared too long, curious. That one perhaps knew the truth of what I was.

I gave him the smile when I think someone's dumb, because guess what?

I'm the self-acclaimed best actor you've ever met, and I'm a crime boss.