Quote of the Week

Take a shower, shine your shoes/ You got no time to lose/ You are young men you must be living/ So go now you are forgiven.
-The General, Dispatch

Monday, August 22, 2011

A Dream That Evolved

*This is what I was working on while I was ignoring my cousins on Cape Cod. It isn't finished. It doesn't even have a definitive start. But I liked it. So enjoy.*

**You guys get to read this and no one else does. Don't you feel super duper special now?**

.....

Angeline looks at me and smiles her evil, sickly-sweet simper. I am, quite frankly, terrified right now.

"There's a dance tonight at the community center. You should, like, totally come. It's going to be such a party!" She seems to be serious, but I don't trust her. Something about her just screams 'MALICIOUS INTENT!' but I can't be sure.

I'm just wary. What would Angeline Johnston want with me? I mean, sure, she's the welcome wagon and all, but after that first day I kind of never expected her to talk to me ever again. Especially with the way she kind of kicked me on my butt and left me for the wolves.

"Okay..." I say, trailing off. Angeline and her cronies take this as an enthusiastic "Yes!" complete with a cheerleader jump and a confetti cannon instead of the hesitant acknowledgement it really is.

"Awesome!" says Brie-Ann.

"Peachy!" enthuses Margot.

"Faboo!" squeals Karen.

"Great," says Angeline with that smile. "See you at the dance!" Somehow she can show emotion in her voice without any inflection ever reaching her eyes.

Something about that girl is very sinister.

*********

"You? You're going to a dance? A dance? You?" Dad seems at a complete loss for words.

"See, Pops, I'm assimilating." I joke. I'm in my closet looking for clothes while Dad is stretched out on my bed, making a career out of being shocked by me. All of my clothes are black, nerdy t-shirts, or jeans. Or my clubbing clothes, but since Dad is all I have besides Nana and Gramps, I'd rather not put him into an early grave. He's shocked enough right now anyway.

"Nothing to wear, Trixie Cup?" Dad uses my childhood nickname. He's getting sentimental. Or hungry.

I back out of my closet and flop onto my bed next to him. He smells like Indian food, all coconut and curry and mango.

"Nope," I sigh. "Did you roll in coconut chicken curry? You smell like you robbed an Indian restaurant."

"I didn't roll in chicken curry, nor did I rob an Indian restaurant. I'm far too squeamish for the first and far too much of an upstanding citizen for the second. Coconut chicken curry is what's for eating tonight. And I think that I have something that could help you on the clothes front-" I raise my eyebrows and snicker. Dad swats me. "I have something. Honestly. Go masticate, progeny. I will retrieve the clothing. Scoot ya boot." He pushes me off my bed. I fall onto the floor and bang both of my elbows.

Dad jumps over me and lands gracefully. Obviously I didn't get that gene.

"That clothing better cover my bruised elbows, good sir!" I yell at his disappearing back as I clamber to my feet and skulk downstairs.

The kitchen smells like an Indian food bomb went off in it. I love it. Coconut chicken curry and jasmine basmati rice with mango lassis. I could subsist off of mango lassis, honestly. I'm stuffing my face like a pig when Dad comes downstairs with a box. He looks perturbed.

"Are the clothes possessed? You look like the demons of your past just sent you spam mail. What's up?" I take a long swig of my lassi as Dad answers.

"These were your mother's."

I do a spit take.

"Jesus, Tris, what the hell?" Dad jumps back. The box jumbles.

"You kept Diann's clothes? That's not healthy! Seriously, I've read studies on that! It's, like really bad for the healing process, or something!" Dad kept Diann's clothes? Why? After everything she did to us? To him?

"Yes, I kept Diann's clothes. After she," Dad swallows hard, "left, I couldn't bring myself to toss them. I don't have to explain any more that that. I get what you're saying about it not being healthy, but kiddo, I'll never be over your mom. It's just not going to happen. I know you are angry at her, and I am too," he sighs deeply, "but I will never be over her." He strokes my hair.

"I'm not wearing anything she left. Obviously they were as important to her as I was, if she just left them behind." I'm not hungry anymore. My stomach evacuated via my feet. I don't feel like dancing anymore. This has put a damper on my whole evening.

"Kiddo, your mom loves you. She, she just can't be your mom. She's not good at it. Please. These are a gift from me. Diann has no part it." He hands me the box. I stiffly take it.

"Not hungry anymore?" he asks lamely as I poke at my food.

"I'm going to go get ready," I answer just as lamely. At least if I go to the dance I don't have to deal with my father for an evening. I carry the box upstairs and drop it roughly on the floor. I stare at it.

It stares at me.

Finally, after a staredown, which the box has apparently won, I open it. It's my style. It's my size. It's all so me, it scares me. I poke at the mass of clothes, and as I'm tossing the clothes around, this one dress gets caught on my watch. It's charcoal colored, with a lacy overlay. I try it on, just for posterity's sake. It fits like a glove. I can't not wear it.

Dad knocks, then comes in after I don't shriek for him to stay out.

"Oh, kiddo." He looks at me like it's my wedding day. "You're a knockout, Tris. If I don't have to buy a shotgun, something's wrong with the boys in this town." He gives me a hug and plants a kiss on my head.

"Let's get you to this dance."


*****



The community center used to be this old widow's house. She lived in a veritable mansion. After she kicked the bucket, the town committee snapped up the property rights and decided to transform the old biddie's house into a center. They use her main dining room as a function hall now. That's where the Harvest Dance is being held.



Dad drops me off in front, with him shouting the lyrics to Pretty Woman after me and me screaming at him that I'll be home when I'm home and to please be up so I don't have to climb in through the window since I can't unlock a deadbolt from the outside. He waves the love sign after me and I flash my own back at him. We really are the oddest pair.



Bunches of kids arrive in cars that probably cost more that my whole old apartment. They are all dressed in upscale costumes. All the girls who wear pastel sweater sets are now slutty nurses, slutty cats, slutty pirates, and the like. Why is it that every costume for women is always preceded by 'slutty'? Weird phenomenon.



For the guy contingent, I see some football players, some 50s style gangsters, a ghostbuster, a few pirates, even a drag queen.





I'm underdressed.



Shit.



Angeline and her posse come up to me, a foursome of slutty angels who seem to find their only enjoyment in life in being cruel.




"Oh, Beatrice," sing-songs Angeline. She looks like an angel, more than her cronies, with her creepy doll-blue eyes and flaxen hair. Her eyes seem more malicious than usual as she smiles evilly at me. "Did I not mention it was, like, a costume party? Must've slipped my mind. How, like, silly of me. Oh well, right?" She ends this with a giggle icier than the Arctic circle.




"Oh well," I repeat. Where do all of my good comebacks go when she comes around. It's like she sucks them out of my brain.




Angeline smiles at me for a second more, then turns to her crew and says "Let's go, girls, or all the cute boys will be snapped up. Have, like, a peach of a time, Beatrice." Angeline and Co. stalk off in their thigh high, snow white platform boots and I am left looking like a complete fool.




Hoo-freaking-ray.




I turn to go into the dance when a large hand wraps itself around my waist. I can tell from the corny mobster-style rings on it that it belongs to Bruce. His breath is hot on my neck as he whispers in my ear.






"Hey teacher girl. Who knew you got such a nice ass?" He slaps my butt. I elbow him, but it's to no avail. He seems to have hands made out of steel.






"Ouch, teacher girl's got bite. I like a bit of fire in my girls. Whaddaya say, teacher girl? Wanna be my girl?" I can hear the leer in his voice as his hand creeps down to my butt. I elbow him again, right in the center of his chest.






"Let go of me, you cromagnon brained maggot! The next time I'll elbow your face!" I hiss, squirming out of his grasp.






"Christ, okay! Jesus, do you have a stick up your ass, or something? I've never known such an uppity bitch in my whole life!" Bruce looks to his cromagnon cronies for back up on this statement. They all call me bitch as they walk past. It hurts, but it would hurt more if any of them had more than four brain cells apiece.






It's too far away to walk home, so I suppose I'll just have to tough it out. I walk inside, and am immediately lost in the haze of blaringly loud Top 40s Hits, so many different perfumes and colognes, and about four hundred high school age kids. I know a few of them by sight, but most I've never seen before in my life. All of the movement jostles me into the center of the mosh pit. I'm stuck.






I give up and start dancing. I'm having a good enough time. I saw some people that I knew and I said hi and all that, and I felt vaguely cool for a moment. Angeline and her posse are staying far away from me, just how I like it, and Bruce the Pervert is nowhere to be seen.






Suddenly, a hand wraps around me and gives me a good old grope. I feel so disgusting right now. I look down. The same corny mobster rings. I struggle to get away, but Bruce holds me tight. He turns me, so he can look in my eyes as he completely does away with my dignity. Leering, he waggles his tongue in my face as he reaches for my chest again.






I do not appreciate. Thank God Dad made me take female self-defense classes. I punch him straight in the nose. I can feel in crunch under my knuckles. Self-empowered, I almost do a little victory dance, until I realize that Bruce is wailing in rage and pain, and that I'm royally fucked.






Shitfragglefuckrocks.






Bruce has his hands to his face, and is pushing people wildly as he tries to find me. I attempt to disappear into the crush surrounding me, but this doesn't seem like an option as the crush is thinning as Bruce is crashing around like a drunken elephant. I run for it.






The doors aren't chaperoned on this side, which registers in my brain as 'odd' but what the hell? If I can get through one then I can hide in one of the smaller rooms. The door opens easily, and on the other side I find canoodling couples. It becomes obvious very fast that someone paid off the chaperones to make sure this side wasn't covered. There is one girl moaning so loudly I'm surprised that I didn't hear her over the music.






I keep bumping into people, apologizing as I stumble down the hallway. I hear the door crash open at the end of the hall. Bruce stands in the doorway, outlined by the flashing lights of the dance in the dim light from the corridor. His face darkens as he spots me, trying to blend into the wall. Something evil enters his eyes. I swear to God in Heaven that they flash an evil, sickening green as he locates me.


To be continued....



I know that you guys physically can't read super long posts because they are 1. Super long and sometimes boring and 2. SO MANY WORDS MAKE MY HEAD HURT ARGH.


So I made this shorter for you. It's a lot longer, so don't tear your hair out.


Tell me if you like it, so I'll know to not post the rest if you hate it. Point out anything I should change, I love critiques. And enjoy!


I made another blog for this type of thing, but only three people subscribed, and this story has nothing to do with the other one. So don't get freaked. I haven't posted on my other blog because I've been having writer's block, and then this happened and I'm kind of pleased with it.


Parting joke:


A sandwich walks into a bar, and the bartender gives him a weird look. The sandwich goes "What?" and the bartender says "We don't serve food here."


GET IT?! (interrobanged)


Love and kisses, fooligans,


L.

3 comments:

Hey ya goon! If you liked it, tell me so!