If you were to ask me what I thought of mankind six months ago, I would respond with: ‘Man is evil.’ Then I would go on to tell you why. Whenever you hear a fairy tale, the good guy wins after slaying the villain, wins the heart of the beautiful princess and they live happily ever after.
But, in real life, the good guy is actually a bad guy with something to gain. The princess is a backstabbing, conniving dog. The bad guy is a nerd with a bomb. The end of the story is simple. Good guy gets girl long enough to knock her up, tosses her aside, unaware of her many affairs, gets shot by the bad guy, who rapes the pregnant girlfriend, who, in turn, murders her unborn child.
The world is an ugly place. And who am I to have such a cynical, pessimistic view on the world and its evils? My name is Adam. I’m considered the bad guy in some perspectives. I’ve spent most of my twenty years thieving, mugging, and worse. But don’t worry, I’ve turned my ‘heinous’ activities into a family thing.
Well, my family actually got me into all of these things when I was stuck on the streets, barely able to survive. They were a small group of people like me, outcasts, criminals, down-right dirty scumbags. They took me in when I was in my lowest, having had no home, barely alive when I was four years old. They gave me my name.
They called themselves the Robinsons. Our father was named Matthew Robinson. He was the baddest of the bad, training me in his ways. I never asked him, but I always wondered if maybe he hadn’t done a lot worse than just robbing a bank at gun point. His handsome face was tanned, marked with a few heavy lines. He had seen a few horrible things, though when he took me in, he couldn’t have been older than twenty-five.
In his short life, he had taken more than a few people in circumstances like my own. He lead us. He cared for us. His physical stature was enough to fool anyone, only about five foot eight, weighing hardly anything. I was under the impression that it would be kind to consider him two hundred pounds. He was scrawny, but his brains obliterated the need for brawn.
He had long black hair, with the dark brown eyes to match. He always wore a black t-shirt and faded jeans, heavy biker boots on his small feet. He was a force to be reckoned with. He was respected, feared, and loved in our family.
His partner in crime, quite literally, was a short Asian woman who everyone simply new as Mum. As far as I knew, she had once been a famous chef, working for everyone you could possibly image.
One day, after some movie star pissed her off, she put some sort of toxin into all the food in his home, poisoning everyone and everything, including herself. She got off scot-free. Then, after she recovered, she moved onto the next person. A director that was known for his sexism insulted the old-fashioned Chinese woman, causing serious offense which earned him a slow and painful death.
I’m not sure how many times she’s done this, but I’m almost quite certain she had a certain immunity built up. No one messed with Mum or Matthew. They would take lonely, poor people and give them a new way of life, showing them the real world, cruelties and all.
Anyway, I think I may have gotten off topic. Let’s head to the present. I’ve been Adam Robinson for sixteen years. I’m next in line to lead after Matthew finally kicks the bucket. Mum still wears the pants in that relationship, sadly. Matthew’s brown eyes still have that wicked glint, despite his health problems. He hasn’t been able to get help for obvious reasons, but he’s not fooling anyone anymore. He’s not going to last very long. There are now twelve kids in the family, not including myself.
Life is good. I’ve been honing my skills, avoiding the dark world to the best of my ability. You ever hear those insane God-loving hippies use the phrase ‘In the world but not of it?’ I suppose that how I consider myself. Everyone in the world considers me to be this monster because of my actions and my family, but they really don’t know what we’re about. They don’t see the world like we do.
We understand that life isn’t easy. People aren’t good. Life isn’t fair. There is no happy ever after. Well…at least, I used to know that. And then Matthew brought home a girl that looked to be about eighteen. He name was Rosie. She was the very last Robinson..sort of.
