This four-story collection is about how many lives interact in the world and how one false step, move, or thought can change everything for us.
The exploration of lives is a constant journey, some sad others brilliant. All, though, share one quality: struggle. The struggle to succeed, to find meaning, to find happiness, or to find freedom.
What is the journey that you are on now? And how are you faring? The subjects of the stories are somewhere on their paths toward a resolution that they may never find.
But isnāt that all of our lives?
We want resolution, about one matter or another, at all stages of our lives, but we may never find it.
And isnāt that just sad?
This four-story collection is about how many lives interact in the world and how one false step, move, or thought can change everything for us.
The exploration of lives is a constant journey, some sad others brilliant. All, though, share one quality: struggle. The struggle to succeed, to find meaning, to find happiness, or to find freedom.
What is the journey that you are on now? And how are you faring? The subjects of the stories are somewhere on their paths toward a resolution that they may never find.
But isnāt that all of our lives?
We want resolution, about one matter or another, at all stages of our lives, but we may never find it.
And isnāt that just sad?
The boy, a fireplug of a young man. Heās short for his age and has obviously struggled with weight. A Mexican boy in a small town in the South, it was a daily struggle. Every face around him at school was black or white; having no one that looks like you can be scary, but he took it in stride. He barely spoke English when he first started school here, and the English that he did know he had learned from TV. A few years on, he spoke perfect English, but everyone was friends by then and it was too late to become one of them. The funny thing about a Mexican kid that speaks perfect English at a young ageāthey donāt speak Spanish that well. The English speakers donāt like you because you donāt look like them, and your own family wonāt like you because you donāt speak Spanish like they do. The double-edged sword of being an outsider everywhere you go.
He walks slowly down the sidewalk, diligently attempting to step on each crack in the sidewalk. His mother had angered him again; he wanted to hedge his bets and make sure her back was good and broken before he got home. As a child, you never really know how cruel some of the things are that you believe, the sayings that are passed forward, the ways people speak to one another. Itās all truly vile. But itās what developing minds do: they make up mean rules to live by, and a caste system begins with no knowledge of what is happening.
He walks ahead, and just thinking of his mother brings up a well of emotions. He pictures her yellow, parchment-like, saggy, veiny skin. Even at 12 and being short himself, heās a bit taller than the junkie he calls Mom. Sheās rail thin. Most of the boyfriends she brings into the house give her the money she needs to get drugs. And the others, they just straight up give her drugs to get the night with her. Heād never met his father; for all he knew, it was probably one of guys that spent the night from time to time.
Sure, many things are learned at home: hate, racism, and a healthy fear of your parentsā hands. But, quite naturally, kids come up with ideas of hierarchy amongst one another.
Interestingly, itās based on looks, size, and dress. And our boy has no looks, heās oversized, and most of his clothes are from the local Goodwill. But it is what it is.
The boy kicks small rocks from the sidewalk into the roadway. He doesnāt seem to care if he hits a person or a car. He is angry again; Mom treats him poorly. She hits him on every occasion that she sees fit. Most days, he really doesnāt care anymoreāsure, it hurts, but only for a while. They can only physically hurt you so much.
Hurt. Yeah, slaps and punches, they hurt. But the real hurt though, thatās the words. The mean words, they hurt the boy more than anything else. He knows heās fat, he knows heās ugly, he knows heās stupidā¦ He knows all of it! She reminds him daily and heās tired. Heās 12 and he hates living. He hates school, and nobody likes him there. Heās near tears as he realizes that he hates himself. Some people would find it strange for a child to hate themselves. Itās difficult to explain self-hate to those that can look in the mirror and be happy, those that can look to their friends for support, to be built up. For those with a home like the boy, one filled with non-stop ridicule, anger, and paināyeah, self-hate is easy. Even now, adults wonder, what do kids know about hate? Kidsā lives are all cartoons, snacks, and homework.
The boyās tears burn his cheeks. He knows hate. He wipes the tears; he hates crying. All the men that spend the night, they call him a pussy when they hear him crying in his room. Some of those men had given him very bad reasons to cry, once they got bored with Mom. He grows angrier and sadder with each step. He thinks, Fuck those people that donāt know or understand what kids can feel or not feel! And fuck those men that like kids. He begins to cry even harder.
He wonders if there is a God. If there is, why does he hate me? Why did I get the mother I got? And the big question, the one that he falls asleep to and wakes up to: If I just āaccidentallyā stepped into the road in front of a carā¦would He know?
Itās not killing yourself if you step in front of a car by accident. Even if you cause the accident, right? For all he knew, and it wasnāt much, just a couple shows talking about suicideā that was the word, suicide? Anyway, accidents happen. And you donāt go to hell for an accident, right? Then, in a fresh wave of anger, the boy thinks, What does it even matter? He is already in hell.
I'll be plain from the outset: this book impressed me, and while it's one I can recommend, it's not necessarily one I can recommend to everyone. If you're seeking a book that will make you feel good about the human condition, Divergent Lives of No Consequence: Short Stories is probably not it.
In this book's four short tales (I found them to be a lot like case studies, actually), Juan J. AlemƔn II takes us on guided tours through the unenviable lives of his characters. We find them struggling with the injustices they have seen, experienced, or both. Most of them are searching for social acceptance and social connection, and these things elude them time and again. Each protagonist ultimately decides how to respond to his circumstances and the challenges he faces, and in most cases, death is a prominent ingredient in the solution he selects.
The first story takes us into the life of a child who's desperate to escape the life that fate has thrust upon him. His present state may be joyless, but at least he looks to the future with hope. That sense of hope dissipates in the three subsequent stories, whose principle players are men who choose to use death as the answer to their questions in life, and that answer may be directed either inwardly or outwardly.
AlemƔn's prose keeps the characters' thoughts and actions (mostly thoughts) vivid and clear. The stories never feel like they're dragging, and it's easy to forget that these stories are not, in fact, particularly short. I especially appreciated the author's knack for portraying human relationships while minimizing the use of dialogue. The manuscript itself is well-edited and refreshingly free of the excessive typos and misspellings that sully so many independently-published works.
I'm happy to give this book four stars out of five. Those who have served in the military, as the author did, could very well find some of these stories relatable. I think the book should also serve as required reading for aspiring social workers. If you want to find out why, get your hands on a copy of Divergent Lives and read its second story.