Russell (Rusty) Thompson was always a character that leapt off the pages as clearly as a male peacock strutting his stuff.
He was born to a world that he saw as black and white. His parents were doctors, working within a world that demanded certain social status and regality. They had three children, but not out of love. It was purely because it was just ‘what was done’. To be able to say my children went to such and such school, they won certain awards, and eventually that they married into certain respectable families was all Rusty’s parents saw in their kids. Not people. Not individuals. Just another peg to be used in climbing their ladders to success.
He did grow up rich, but Rusty was of a rare breed. What others saw as privilege, he could only see as a dusty prison bereft of human love and kindness. Granted, success and financial security can be great things – but too often they lead to soulless greed, where enough is never enough. By the time he reached his middle school years he hated all of it.
Rusty was raised with a constant stream of nannies (which he called Wardens) who had little patience for his sense of humor. His siblings were the prized jewels. They were consistent, perfect wrapped boxes of stereotypical rich kids; as unaware as his parents. Perfectly content to live in their white-washed, walls and cold marble floors their eyes only looking forward to their own successes and eventual trust funds. Rusty… didn’t fit.
His brazen ability to see behind the curtain and point out the inherent flaws was a cause of great distress in the Thompson family. When he started paring that with his comedic flare by the age of nine, his parents finally lost it. They did their best to ignore him – in their minds the lack of their attention was withholding parental love and approval. Rusty saw it for what it was: an acknowledgement that they didn’t care at all and were finally putting their money where their mouth was.
After getting kicked out of his fourth private school, Rusty, 12, was put into public school. His parents considered it punishment: to them he was the equivalent of the beast they hid in a tower. Rusty, in one last desperate plea to see if his parents cared at all, moved out into the old butler’s house at the other side of their property.
They never noticed.
Their own twelve-year-old son lived on his own and they never even asked where he went. He made his own food, he sold the fancy gadgets he didn’t care about, and slept in a musty old bed. It would have been a desperately painful experience except for public school.
Where private school had been as black and white as his own life, public school was technicolor. Not only did he not stand out, but he made friends easily. Teachers laughed at his jokes because they saw that he was a bright boy who worked hard and got good grades. Instead of his humor being a protective shield against his suffering, it became a source of joy. He could make people laugh and bring happiness.
Now, it was during these times that Rusty’s style began to solidify. In his middle school office there was a poster. One of those cheesy posters that were so popular for a while – like the cat holding on for dear life with a silly tagline. This one was of Hawaii. A man surfed on the waves with the beauty of the tropical forest in the distance with the tagline: “Life is what you make it: so, make it happy.” Rusty had stared at the poster as his parents enrolled him worried this was going to be like all the other schools. Then, as he realized how different things were going to be it became his mantra. Hawaiian themed happiness.
In high school, a computer teacher opened his eyes to the digital world. It was the one thing that wasn’t a joke. He saw a world where he could create something good and help others. He started building websites, making one for the school district, and, to his great surprise, received enormous accolades.
The only time, Rusty felt a blemish on this new life was when his parents were asked to come to a special ceremony. They sent a nanny – a woman Rusty had never even met, but had apparently been meant to ‘watch’ over him. She strode in stern-faced and grim and handed over a check to the Principal who stood on stage in front of hundreds of students and parents. “The Thompson’s contribution if you will not expel their son. We know he is a problem, but he is your problem.” She was as oblivious as the rest. Rusty had never felt so shamed and exposed; vowing in that moment he would never step foot into his parent’s world ever again. The Principal just stared at the woman, took the check in disbelief before tearing it to bits.
“Russell Thompson is not being expelled, ma’am. He’s being awarded for his services to our school organization. I don’t know what kind of people your employers are, but thank goodness, their son is nothing like them,” the principal had said with a slight tremor to his voice of unrestrained anger. His face had remained cool as he had security remove the woman to the cheers of the crowd as she tried to argue.
Russell had never felt so validated and he made a second promise on that day: that he wanted to protect people like his principal and the good teachers who had risen him up.
At 18, Rusty moved out. Living sometimes with his principal and his family when he was out on break from MIT where he had received full tuition. His principal and several of his teachers came to his graduation, cheering him on like they were his own flesh and blood. When he joined the FBI, his principal had shed tears. Rusty knew that family was not bound by blood, but through love. He never gave his own ‘blood’ family another thought.
He rose through the ranks of the FBI, wowing with his sheer skill on the computer and internet. Enough so, that his humor which still defined much of his personality, was widely ignored. He was an asset. And one that couldn’t be ignored.
He lived well and happy in spite of his childhood, but Rusty always felt like something was missing. Especially in those moments when he went home and he had no one to make laugh, no one to make smile. Alone to his thoughts and the painful memories he did so well to ignore – they were colossal mountains and he was just a little boy again desperate to be loved.
Until one day, a new recruit came into the field office where he worked…
V. L. Clark - Author 
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