CARRIGAN, kurt neil

KURT N. CARRIGAN

FIRST MEMORY
Snowfall was like falling diamonds on the outside of the Carrigan house. Poor but able, the young couple tried their best to keep their newborn child warm. Though they were a well-mannered pair, they were constantly working, and they put their trust and their child into the hands of a young girl named Natalie.

Blue eyes opened to her face as the two were introduced. "Hi," she waved with a smile. She was seventeen at the time, unable to dream of having one of these things on her own. They cried and farted and burped all the time. She could do with taking care of one, though. His eyes made her feel less lonely. If only children could stay young forever.

The light was on in the kitchen, casting a shadow across the floor of the living room where Kurt lay in his cradle. The contraption rocked back and forth. And that's what his eyes saw: the ornaments attached to his little bed, the fairies that floated above his head. His parents were too poor to afford all the things they needed for a boy; they had a few objects here and there that they purchased at a Goodwill, not from the Gap. But babies didn't know. So the shapes floated above him. Once Natalie's face disappeared from view, he rested his eyes on fairies. He stared at fairies until he was rocked to sleep once again.

FIRST CRUSH
Priscilla was the second-prettiest girl in class, the one with frizzy braids but a gorgeous smile. At seven years old, she had rosy cheeks and a melodic laugh that made Kurt wonder if that's what angels were like: always smiling, reaching out to hold his hand when they ran on the playground. They were the best of friends, at least back then. Maybe he would have told her that he liked her, but little boys never understand their own feelings. He just enjoyed her company and the warmth of her fingertips as they brushed his knuckles. Holding hands: that's where it started. He just wanted someone to care, someone to touch him. He just wanted someone to keep him warm.

No one did that but Priscilla. Natalie was a nice babysitter. Well, she had been -- that was before she went away to study for a job in dentistry. Now, Kurt had to stay with his uncle, Pete, who was witty and funny. Sometimes. Priscilla was scared of him, of course. When she walked down the street to play, she was not fond of speaking to Uncle Pete. Kurt understood why. Whenever his busy parents dropped him off at his uncle's house, they told him to call them if anything made him uncomfortable. So Kurt knew that Uncle Pete was bad news. As long as Priscilla didn't get hurt, though, his world could turn in any direction and he wouldn't notice. That was a crush, after all. It was weightless.

FIRST FIGHT
"Did you just threaten my cousin, you little fuck?" Kurt spat, holding a firm finger to the larger boy's chest. He was a football player at Kurt's age: seventeen. The two of them went to a crowded high school in West Virginia. The town was poor, but the kid's parents were rich. That was alright, but he was constantly letting other people hear about all that he had. His parents could pay for all that they had: cell phones and fun little gadgets. At the time, maybe he was cool. But Kurt didn't care, because his cousin was standing on the edge of a circle that had formed around the group in the school cafeteria.

"I didn't threaten him," Chad replied. The jock wasn't frightened at all. That's why he was lying.

"Yes. You did. I was asking out of courtesy." With a smooth breath, Kurt's fist cut through the air and slammed into Chad's face, sending him sprawling to the ground. He smiled with satisfaction and turned to face his cousin, Garrett.

Garrett looked embarrassed. His cousin had defended him. So he walked the other way.

FIRST DISAPPOINTMENT
"... pregnant," he heard.

Kurt had just returned from a Monday class. It was his second week of college. This year, he was living out of home until he could transfer into a decent business school in Virginia. If he could get to the city, it would help. Something would help. Something other than living with parents who were too busy working for nothing.

Kurt had even gotten a job to help them out. He never spoke of it; he was the broody kid who sat in the back of class, the kind no one wanted to fight. Hell, he'd been put on probation once before and none of those boys were stupid enough to fight with a guy who could knock a guy out in one punch.

So people were scared of him. But it was for the better. He didn't have room to have friends when he had to support his family. His parents both worked at the chicken plant in town. With Irish blood in their veins, they were hard-working, but his father's bad leg and his mother's lack of college education made the chicken plant ideal. They paid some people under the table, and his parents happened to be those parents.

As Kurt untied his shoes, he listened the voices in his parents' bedroom. Pregnant? He was an only child and always had been. "Mom? Dad?" he called. No answer. Only silence.

Silence?

He walked cautiously down the hall and pushed the door open to see a man, half-dressed and completely surprised, standing in his mother's room. Nothing registered. Kurt's anger was subdued. That beast was sleeping.

The man wasn't his father, though. "What are you doing?" Kurt asked, his voice rising with the beating of his heart. He couldn't stay calm. He couldn't do this. But he couldn't afford to be put on probation again.

"Kurt, get out," he heard his mother say. She was dressed and came from the pathetic excuse she had for a walk-in closet. He could tell that she had just been naked, though, from the mess of her hair and the wrinkles in her shirt.

And he knew what was going on. The mom who never had time to take care of her child could carry on an affair.

So the man went home with a bruise on his once-pretty face, a bruise that was black and blue and yellow, all at once. And he stayed away from his mother. No one told. No one talked about it. So Kurt's father, Donovan, never found out. He never would.

FIRST SUCCESS
Five months out of graduation, Kurt had an interview with a small business in Richmond. His business school degree was in his hand and his heart was full of ambition. He had escaped from that shitty little house his parents couldn't seem to scoot out of. After giving them his savings from his hard work at the dump, he left them behind.

So Kurt Carrigan could get a job. And he did. He got one and he did well. In fact, by the time he was twenty-three, he was on top of all of it. He was in charge of finances for a larger business that sold furniture. It was fine with him; he was making good money for a young guy, and all was well. But he had to lie to get there.

Sheila, the regional manager... Well, he had his way with her, and that's how he had gotten that nice office in that building. Because he had seen what his parents' lives were like. They always spoke of integrity, but they had no money. They couldn't parent. And his mother didn't even love her spouse. "Integrity" wasn't the most important word; "wealth" could be, though. That was the best thing for him. It got him beer. It got him friends. It got him out of West Virginia, gave him a new beginning, a nice car. That was all he wanted from Sheila -- that, and then some. But he had finally been promoted to the top of his building. He was working above a lot of older guys, but that's what he could do with connections. He just had to keep charming her, charming all of them, and they'd listen to him. He didn't mind the work. He just didn't want anyone to tell him who to be. No more Chads. No more Garretts who were unappreciative. No more cheating mothers and careless parents. This was Kurt.

FIRST LOVE
"Priscilla, is that you?" Kurt asked incredulously. He took off his sunglasses and took a step closer.

Her hair was no longer frizzy. After moving away in the third grade, she hadn't spoken to Kurt at all. Of course, that was at the mercy of their dispositions: Kurt had no telephone as a child, and she didn't have the means of communicating without snail mail. After a few letters, their correspondence had weakened.

And that's where it began. They rekindled that flame, fell in love, moved in together. She had recently moved to Richmond, hoping that she could tie down a job in graphic design while she considered moving to D.C. to open up a coffee shop where she could display her art and serve fine scones. She seemed simple, but he loved her; he had known it since they were young.

He wasn't, though -- he wasn't young anymore. He was rugged now, changed. She could tell, but not until they had moved into together. It took a few months. Four months, to be exact. From the moment they ran into each other again in a Walgreens parking lot, she knew she wanted to be with him. But in that moment when he raised a hand to her because she had spilled red wine on the linoleum floor of their kitchen apartment, she knew that he was no longer the happy Kurt.

She knew about Sheila, about how he still had to flirt with her to keep that job. And after those four months, Sheila had grown tired of him, and he had been bumped out by a man in his forties -- someone who had earned his position in the company with hard work and purity. Kurt could feel her judging eyes on him each day. She had a steady commission with her graphic design -- she worked for local firms at all times -- but he had nothing anymore, and she had the upper hand. He couldn't let her. So he hit her a few times, just because it made him feel stronger, because he remembered Chad's snide smile and didn't want to be weak ever again.

And one night, after an argument, she got out from under him, made sure that she could make it out of the door before he could slap her again. She did a good job with covering up the bruises. He was getting better at hitting her where no one could see.

So she got into that car and she drove off, but not before a police car down the street came screeching down the road. And on that turn, she didn't look; that stop sign wasn't there, not for people who were trying to run away. She died that night, and Kurt never quite understood it. He just packed his bags that night after watching from a distance as the cops checked out the scene. There was barely a body, just a mangled shape of something that was once Priscilla. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't. This kind of thing only happened in movies.

And in movies, they got to some other place -- somewhere new.

LAST HAPPY MOMENT
First off, when he found Maine. After driving for a few hours, he found it. He had left most of his belongings behind. He moved into Brunswick. Made everyone think he was fine. That he hadn't just watched his girlfriend die. He made friends quickly, charming them from the moment they met, and soon enough, they went on a business venture and opened up a nice dance club where Kurt forgot about everything that was behind him.

And his happiest moment he could think of these days? The moment he met Daniella. Sweet eyes, great dancer, amazing body. But he hadn't loved in years, and he wouldn't again. She must know that, he told himself. She must. The last time he loved someone, he had been going on twenty-four. But before that birthday, Priscilla left him, left his life forever and left the world behind. Now, at twenty-six, his heart was hard and heavy. Maybe it wasn't even there.

And Daniella was cute. She was nice. But she annoyed him -- her innocence, her constant giggling. And after a while, he got back into an old habit. Putting his hand on something that irritated him. He was just trying to fill the void. And that void left him painless, remorseless. But that was nice. Numbness was safe. Numbness was like snow. Snow made him numb, made his fingers feel paralyzed. That snow that fell outside his window in his old dreams? It was all he had left. And every once in a while, Daniella was like a fairy, floating right above his head. But most of the time, she was everything but Priscilla. And he used to try not to hate her for it.

BEHIND THE MASK