Maverick Effect (Chapter 18)

  “He goes off to college.  Away from the hell hole he called his home.  Away from everyone and everything that knew him as he was.  He even looked a bit better.  The braces were gone, he’s gotten contact lenses by now, and the acne has recessed some.  He still dresses a bit dorky, but what can you expect when his family doesn’t have much and his parents are the ones approving every piece of clothing bought.  He wants things to be new and for a little while things are.  He gets a new group of friends.  He gets into the student government and does pretty well.  Well, lo and behold he gets attracted to a friend of one of his female friends.  But they don’t see each other right away, it’s strictly cyber friendly at the moment.  He feels like he’s on cloud nine, he’s floating.  He talks to his new best friend about it again and again.  Unbeknownst to him, his supposed best friend is also talking to her.  He gets jealous because he sees that the nice guy could possibly “steal” her from him, even though neither of them are in a relationship with her.  He makes up some lies and she believes him instead of the nice guy.  Once again, with one fell swoop, the nice guy is the odd man out.  He still hangs out with these people, but it’s just not the same.  Time goes on and he’s running himself ragged, trying to afford school and doing well at school at the same time.  Finally, with little choice left, he has to leave the school he loves and go back home.  Of course, his supposed friends at the university forget about him promptly.  Why shouldn’t they?  He’s just the odd man out.  He moves back into the hellhole called home.  He gets a job at a crappy retail store.  He makes enough money to make it into the college at home.  It’s a shitty college, one of the worst in the nation, but what else can he do?  A new manager comes in and decides he doesn’t like the nice guy.  Even accuses the nice guy of leaving about 500 dollars out in a tray after closing.  He gets mad when the nice guy tells him that he wants to see the security cam and the manager can’t prove it after that.  Nice guy decides it is time to leave before he gets accused of something else.  So, his life consists of going to crappy college and coming home to crap.  There’s girls here and there but it’s the same story as before.  Happens over and over, like a broken record.  Nice guy gets cynical.  He looks a bit better by this time too, but he hardly notices it.  By this time when a girl looks at him all he can think is ‘What the hell do you want?’  Or maybe something more like ‘Just dump your baggage here like the rest of them and leave. Come on, let’s get that over with.’  Every time something good happens in his life, something bad comes up to overshadow it.  Nice guy is no longer a nice guy, nice guy is now cynical guy.  He’s still a nice guy in some ways, he’s never rude to people right off, he’s not known for shouting at employees, workers, or assistants.  He’s never hit a photographer or been too busy for a fan.  But the cynism is still there.  It’s always there.  Nothing too good can come out of his life.  During his cynism, something happens.  Something big.  It’s a not just a good thing, its a great thing.  He never has to worry about money anymore, he doesn’t have to worry about living in a hellhole.  And he never has to worry about anyone else taking him for granted.  People wait on him, people want him.  It’s not the other way around anymore.”

Maverick closed his eyes again.  He stayed silent for almost half an hour.  Finally he spoke.

  “Maverick Effect is what happens when bad things happen to a nice guy.  It’s the effect cynism has on nice guys.  It’s the changes that happen when a nice guy, usually a bastion of hope and optimism, loses hope in anything.  Maverick Effect is beyond a nice guy going bitter or, feeling jilted, or even being cynical.  He turns into a Maverick.  A Maverick is someone you never want to really meet.  They’re those people that when you really look into their eyes you only see two things, sometimes only one of them, sometimes both.  You see emptiness, a dark wellspring from which only darkness flows.  Beyond vacant, beyond glazed, beyond vague.  It’s the essence of nothingness.  Or you see dark flame.  An eternal rage, a hate, a passion for hating the world around them.  For expecting everthing that comes to them to end up bad, to end up hurting them, to leave them lying on the floor with no one who gives a crap, leaving them clutching a pillow and tears dropping like rain in Seattle.  That’s a Maverick.  And what turns them that way is Maverick Effect.”

  Maverick slipped out from their arms and got out of bed.  He walked over to a chair and grabbed his clothes.  He started getting dressed.

  “Maverick, where are you going?”

  “I need to take a drive.”

  He grabbed his jacket and walked out of the room.  Neither girl tried to stop him.  They both knew that they couldn’t.  They looked at each other and found they could not think of a word to say.  They lay there for a long time after and Maverick hadn’t come back yet.”

-Damien