Well, I've been writing for the past couple of hours...I've never really tried to write a narrative before, but I feel its the only acceptable means of writing this all out, so everyone can see it from my first person perspective, it's just odd writing dialog for real people I've interacted with, so in order to keep it authentic, I only will use dialog that I actually remember or recorded (I used to just record all kinds of things without my parents knowing it).
I have 4 pages written, single spaced, and I would appreciate any feedback that you could give. Its mostly just "world-building" , and only 3 people appear in this prologue, myself, my mother, and my father...
The title I am currently using is "World Coming Down", from my favorite Type O Negative album. Copyright infringement ahoy! Anyway, to anyone willing to read the 4 pages, I will post it here, and again in my first post...I would greatly appreciate it. I don't know how to post the file itself here...so here it is in shitty copy and paste format...I sincerely apologize for it. Also, Please do everyone else a favor, and don't quote this post please, also now edited slightly so reading it should be more manageable..also my italics didn't copy over so...it'll be harder to tell what is me narrating, and what is meant to be me actually thinking words aloud in my head
Also, for anyone reading this, please be brutally honest. I want to know if it sounds cheesy or not interesting enough, I like to think I can tell good writing from bad in books and film but that doesn't mean I can write it.
World Coming Down
January 28th 2008- The Peak
Finally, the fucking car is bearable enough for me to actually touch the steering wheel without my fingers freezing off! I thought as me and my increasingly warm car traveled down I-57 on a night so cold it’s practically not worth it to attempt some clever analogy.
My car was relatively new, a maroon 2002 Sebring, with an automatic starter that I didn’t remember to use more than three times up until that point, despite the fact it could have potentially saved me from a great deal of frozen nose hairs and temporary ball shrinkage.
My father, who until a few weeks earlier drove a very red, very classy 2007 300C became so jealous of my car’s unique feature that he traded in his car for the next year’s model, solely because his car didn’t have an automatic start and mine did. Why he didn’t just do the logical thing and have one installed I did not understand, it seemed like a massive waste of money, but who am I to question him?
If I ever intended to question him, it certainly would not be tonight, not when I’m speeding home from the pathetically small town of Ashkum to my even more pathetically small hometown of Chebanse, a solid hour later than I was allowed. Of course my dad would understand, I was spending time with my girlfriend and things just ran late.
He’ll likely assume it was because we were exploring each other sexually, when in reality it was because we were watching TV with her mom and step-dad, and I simply lost track of time. I’ve gathered that my dad takes some sort of strange pride in the thought that I am slowly working my way around the bases for the first time, when in reality I’ve been stuck at 2nd for a few months now. Since I wouldn’t want to crush his dream of me scoring, I’ll just let him think whatever he wants.
Approaching Chebanse, I laughed internally as I often do at the thought of what a welcome sign could say to greet those passing through this insignificant waste. My favorite idea has always been “Welcome to Chebanse: We Used to Have a Gas Station!”. Chebanse is a metropolis of about 1200 people, with a railroad track running through the center of town, dividing the poor half and the rich half for the most part.
There was a grocery store in town that closed a few months back, and a single gas station on the edge of town that was forced to shut down due to some sort of leak when I was about 12. Though there are a handful of small businesses in the town, the most frequented appear to be the multiple bars and churches that can be found seemingly everywhere. Easily accessible small-town poison for all!
I stopped on the end of the exit ramp and looked to my left to get a glimpse of the main street before turning the opposite way and headed into the darkness toward my home in a small subdivision about a mile east of town. Sugar Island is a small rectangle of about 20 or so houses, hidden from the highway by a large wooded area on the northern edge of the street that leads to the highway.
My family and I reside on the south street, on the southeast corner, which has a back road alongside it that runs south into a catacombs of small, poorly maintained roads. Though my house is small, so are the majority of the houses on my street. The primary difference between them is that my house has a much larger yard, due to our corner lot. Also, we never decided to jump on the “cut down all our trees for some fucking reason” bandwagon.
Another interesting fact is that my neighbors are evidently part of a hive mind. Nearly all of them have converted their single-car attached garage into either an extra room, or used it to add on to their living room. My father did no such thing, instead using it as a place to store our rather infinite supply of tools and useless crap. Our house has somewhat faded sky blue siding that my dad installed promptly after we moved in during the summer of 1995. An old, poorly built front deck links our paved but cracked driveway to the house, with a 4 year old wheelchair ramp jutting off the front of the porch making an L-shape to a different spot on the driveway.
I got out of my car, made sure my slightly damaged window was closed as well as it could be, and walked up the wheelchair ramp toward the front-door. As I walked up, I could hear the faint sounds of music, very fast, techno music. Something was out of place…My father loves to drink, and when he drinks, he listens to music at an absurd volume. I dread when he does this, because when he drinks, he needs someone to drink with him, and talk to him.
My mom usually cannot hold out any longer than 8 or 9 o’clock before she goes to bed, leaving my father no choice but to drag me into the kitchen to blather on and on about whatever happens itself into his head for hours that could be felt as eons. But today isn’t supposed to be one of those days. He only ever drinks on Fridays and Tuesdays and every other Sunday, never does he deviate from this schedule. A Friday night without my dad drinking hardly feels like Friday night. Today is Monday, not Tuesday. Friday, or Sunday. Before I was even in the house, I knew something was wrong, that something negative had clearly transpired. Has someone died? My paternal grandmother had died 13 months earlier, the last of my grandparents from either side, so the possibility of a family death seemed remote…
I clutched the handle on the door and jerked it open more aggressively than I had intended, an unfortunate action as I knew my dad would immediately notice me if he were in the kitchen, and sure enough, he was. His back was turned to me, but I knew he was aware that I had entered. The living room was pitch black, aside from the little bits of bouncing light given off by my dad’s massive surround sound system.
The kitchen just had one small, old fluorescent light on above the sink, making everything in the kitchen look dirty, and gritty. Someone really should get rid of that fucking thing. Just as I took my first few steps in, my mom appeared from behind the opposite side of the kitchen, where my view from the front-door was previously obscured by our refrigerator.
“Goodnight Aaron, I’m going to bed.” My mom said quietly, with her voice doing that thing where it sounds low due to her being drunk. “Goodnight mom, sorry I’m late, I didn’t mean to be.” I knew she heard me though she didn’t respond, just kept walking away toward their bedroom at the left end of the hallway. My mom is a very thin woman, with the curliest, knottiest black and gray hair I’ve ever seen on a white woman. She is much shorter than me, perhaps 5’ 7”, about 130 pounds, with a facial bone structure that hints at her partial Native American ancestry. She is 51 years old, the youngest of 4 siblings who are all males except for her. Besides me, she has another son named Dane, my disabled half-brother who is 21 years old.
I turned again to my father, a 58 year old man who weighs about 260 pounds. He is 5’11”, the same height as me. He has a fairly average build, except for a massive beer gut. His hair is gray, just barely receding away from his forehead. He used to have a pony-tail practically as long as his torso, but has since cut it off and meticulously combs his hair toward the back, much to our mockery. On his face is a thick, silver mustache that I often imagine must have been present from birth.
I believe that when I am 58, I will look just like him, as each day we look more alike it seems. The only easily identifiable trait I received from my mom is her curly-as-fuck black hair, and perhaps her extremely timid highly cave-in-able personality. My father also has children from previous marriages: My eldest brother Joseph, his whole brother Jeremy, and yet another half-brother Chris, ages 35, 31, and 22 respectively.
“Son, sit in here and sit down” my dad said so slowly and slurred that I could barely understand him with the music blaring through the house. I did as I was told, ignoring the error in his statement. It’s always the best choice when it comes to dad, particularly inebriated dad. My brothers and I usually prepare for these events by going to bed a little earlier, so as to avoid dad barging into our room and picking one of us to go talk with him, like someone picking which lobster they want murdered for their consumption at a restaurant.
We always prepared for drunken dad time, or as we called it, DDT. As I sat in the chair across from my father, I wished I hadn’t been out so late, because now I get to sit here for 3 hours minimum, answering my dad’s same questions over and over, waiting for the occasional new one or for him to get bored and let me escape to sleep.
“Sorry I’m late, things just kind of ran late and I lost track of time. Steph’s parents seem like they like me enough to hang out with me and watch TV at least…everything seems to be good with that.” I said to avoid the expected ‘so where were you?’ pretense. My dad was still staring down at the table, he didn’t look particularly sad about anything, but from the look on his face, I doubt a single word I spoke registered with him. He finally looked up, and his drunken, empty looking eyes met mine. “Son, at 1:15 today, they fired me.”
He said it so matter-of-factly, no real inflection in his voice, other than that of the booze inhibiting his speech. “I put some shit in the wrong place with my forklift, and my own friends ratted me out, dumb little cocksuckers…and you know why?” As if I could know. “Why?” I inquired. “Because…” my dad began slowly, “…they’re a couple o’ little assholes, that’s fucking why.” I stared at him dumbfounded, and the questions that everyone must have when this happens arose in my mind. How could this happen? What are we going to do? Will things be the same?
“Tomorrow I’m gonna go and apply wherever. I need you to make a resume, on the computer.” My dad said, still bluntly, but a bit louder. I heard every word he said, but the intensity of the bass was nearly shaking the house, I couldn’t help but be distracted at least a bit.
“Hey…Are you fucking listening to me, dumbass? I’m talkin’ to you.” He stared at me from across the table, unblinking. Even though it happens so frequently, it always catches me off guard, and I never know how to reply so I can make it stop. “ONE MORE TIME!” The CD restarted, and the first song began with those sudden, loud lyrics, they always make me jump. “Where do you think you’re goin’, sit back down, now go and make me a resume.” Ah, great…I now must do 2 things that contradict one another completely…
“OK, I’ll get it done before I go to bed.” I said while getting up to head for my room. But he stopped me, allowing me to walk into his outstretched arm like a blinded fool. “I said sit back down there!” He growled angrily. Once again, I sat down in the chair directly across from him, feeling like a mouse within a cat‘s clasp. As I did so, a strange half-smirk appeared on his face. He suddenly looked as if someone told him a joke worthy of a chuckle.
“So, did you fuck her yet?” His voice growing lighter. I stared incredulously, not wanting to answer…but also wanting his praise. “Well, we did do some stuff, I’d rather not go into details.” “Did you lick her pussy? Or her asshole?” He suddenly interrupted. “No!” I shouted back without thinking out my answer. What the fuck is wrong with you? Why would you ask me something like that? The fact was I had done that, or at least the former, and it was certainly a good time, but it just rubbed me wrong for him to ask those two questions in tandem. I decided to try and change the subject before he could muster a reply.
“Do you know if mom took her medicine or not?” I asked, hoping he would take the bait. This is one of my only defenses against DDT, and it was necessary because I have school in the morning, and have to get up early to do a little homework before school, because I am the absolute fucking king of procrastination.
My dad slowly got up, the wooden chair creaking loudly as he did so. He didn’t provide me a proper response to my question, instead proceeding to the hallway to check on my mother. I immediately got up to stalk behind him quietly, hoping he would actually enter their bedroom rather than just crack the door and ask her about her medicine.
Sure enough, he clumsily opened the door, and walked on in, giving me the perfect opportunity to enter my own bedroom and lay down. This defense isn’t entirely fool proof, unfortunately. Occasionally my dad will realize that I’ve left the kitchen before he could properly conclude DDT, and will come into my room even if I am laying down with the lights off, and demand I come back to the kitchen. Today was not one of those days, as I heard my dad’s thunderous footsteps move past my door, and come to a stop in the kitchen.
I always feel bad when I use this escape plan on my father, my mother’s medicine is unfortunately not an issue to be taken lightly. Her not taking her medicine for even a day can potentially spell trouble for our family. If she goes more than 2-3 days without taking it, she usually decides to stop taking it, in a way that always reminds me of the concept of an artificial intelligence becoming self-aware. My mother has a diagnosed and highly documented case of schizophrenia, paranoid type.
There are some contradictions and gray areas as to how long she has had it, and what caused it, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is, without her medicine, she becomes a monster, a full-blown Jekyll to Hyde, Banner to Hulk transformation in terms of her personality and overall attitude toward everyone and everything. This last occurrence spanned nearly a full year, from late 2004 until September 2005, and was one of the most frightening events of my life, and it particularly took a toll on my father. He threatened to kill himself during this period more than once, even brought his rifle into the kitchen hollering “I’ll fucking do it, bitch!” and such before returning to his bedroom…and with that slight feeling of guilt lingering in my thoughts, I drifted off to sleep.
