1ofthe19
02-23-2008, 08:14 PM
This is one of the first (and worst) stories I have ever written. The only reason I am posting it here is because I think it has no chance of ever getting published. So do undertand while I may not be a GREAT writer, this is below par quality wise than my regular stuff.
Plights of the Lonely
anonymous
Note: Please struggle through the very weak start, and awkward character intros. I swear it really picks up and if you read through the whole thing you will be QUITE glad you did for nothing else, but a truly unique experience.
Robert Rondder held the flowers under his coat, making sure that they didn’t get damaged by the harsh wind that blew from the south, bending the plants that were by his feet. He continued his slow walk to the house of Colleen Gerald, the only girl he had ever thought that he may like. He had ignored the feelings, deeming them stupid, that was until today during free bell. She had sat next to him; she had said that she knew how much that he cared about her, and had asked him to come to her house later that night. He had been confused and dumbfounded. He had been ignored for the last two years of his high school career, why did she like him now? He really didn’t care the reason. She had said it, she liked him too.
It had been hard for Rob to fit in at his high school at first, he would be the first to admit that he wasn’t quite “normal” and he sure as heck wasn’t the wealthiest person in the world. Lately though he had been getting generally more accepted, and Colleen’s feeling knocked yet another block out of the wall of loneliness that had surrounded him since the divorce of his parents.
Rob finally reached her house. He had parked a block away, still even after his self esteem had risen so high he found it to invasive to park in her driveway.
He reached the door and knocked three times, and Colleen answered.
"You told me to come around later!” he said trying not to smile.
Colleen was a mess: her hair stuck out in random directions, her left eye had a distinctive black ring around it, her usually immaculate clothes were torn, and a dark purple welt rose on her left arm.
“W-what?” she stuttered and a thin spray of blood left red driblets running down Rob’s clean white T-shirt.
“You said, ‘come by tonight and we can hang’, don’t you remember?”
Rob so blinded by his own fantasies had failed to take any particular interest in Colleen’s peculiar condition, and instead had already pushed it to the back of his head for later consideration.
“I’m sorry Rob, I just wanted to make Justin jealous, and it’s nothing against you it’s just…..” She was mumbling on the verge of senselessness, her mind trying its best to break free of its nebulous state and find coherent thought.
“Okay,” Rob finished for her, tears already beginning to form in his eyes. Rob was determined to leave his almost lover’s porch before he broke down. He turned to leave……
“Wait,” Colleen started, but Rob didn’t hear and continued to walk away, “Were those flowers for me?” She gasped in a sober whisper and then turned back toward her own house.
It wasn’t till she caught herself in the hall mirror on her way to her room that she realized in how pitiful of a state she had turned off the boy of her dreams. It wasn’t her who had the problem with Rob, it was her dad, but she got to wear the proof.
Outside of the small shack that Coleen Sanders called home, Rob stalked back into the windy night, his eyes burning with tears, his self esteem that had only moments ago been so high now non-existent.
***
Justin Breemer, whose house Rob had rudely parked in front of, looked at his reflection in the grimy mirror hanging on the paint-peeling wall of his room. He was star of the basketball team, football team, and the most popular kid in his junior class, yet he was completely lost.
He wasn’t rich like most popular kids, everything he had he worked for; his social status was totally deserved. He wasn’t a wuss or childish like most of the other populars at his school either, he knew hardship, hardship was his mate.
He continued to look into his crystal clear blue eyes and his perfectly shaped nose and chin. He was good looking, above average, but still not anything too special; his ears popped out at a slightly odd angle and his skin was rather pale. It didn’t matter though, he had worked his way up the social ladder anyway.
Justin had never been “fine” emotionally but now he was worse then ever, culminating in his breaking up with Colleen. Did he like Colleen? Yes, very much, even though she could be mean sometime it was never aimed at him and even though her hatred was aimed toward most others, Colleen was not a bad person, just a hurt one. She had been horribly abused, and it was a blessing she had come out as normal as she did. Today though he had watched as she flirted with that nerd Robert and that had made him sick, all in attempt to get her Justin back. Breaking up with her had made him sick too, but it was something he felt he had to do.
Why did he do it? Was he too busy to have a relationship?? Did he find someone he cared for more?? Neither one of these were true. The real reason was something he had known for years, but had lived in denial about until a few months ago. Justin Breemer was gay.
He had thought for weeks on end about telling someone, anyone, just so he didn’t feel like exploding…. and eventually he had told someone. He had told his best friend Ryan who had broken out into hysterical laughter. There was nothing at all about Justin that fit the stereotypical outlook of someone who is homosexual, but it was still true nonetheless.
He knew someone would believe him though, his parents. He suspected they had found hidden files on the computer months ago and all he had to do was confirm their suspicions….or was it their fears? He didn’t know which until 20 minutes ago when he had told them and…..they had kicked him out. Told him to leave the house and never come back. His parents were good people, God fearing people, and he had never seen them so angry before.
So now here Justin was in his room packing his stuff in to a suitcase. Where would he go? What lie would he tell the kids at school for having to leave his parents house? He didn’t have an answer to either, it didn’t matter, all that mattered was that he left as quickly as he could, because his parents had warned that they would call the cops if he was still at their house when they returned from church.
After minutes of wondering what to pack he had finally decided to just take the essentials and so on his bed laid his book bag (filled with toiletries) and his suitcase (filled with as may clothes as he could fit within its small confines).
Staring at the bags laid out on the surface on which he would never again sleep, Justin couldn’t shake the feeling that he was forgetting to bring something important, and then it finally dawned on him; he had thrown off his cross necklace in anger during his confrontation with his parents, and they had afterwards confiscated it, telling him he no longer deserved to where it. Feeling the place on his neck where the small crucifix usually resided he felt naked and ashamed, he had been shunned by the people who he cared about most and now even Jesus had left him.
As quick as he could, Justin slipped into his parent’s room, took a small object out of his dad’s bedside table, and shoved it into his bookbag. The object that he stole wasn’t the cross.
Without further hesitation Justin Beemer grabbed his suitcase, shouldered his bookbag, and walked out of his parent’s house and away from the place that he had formerly called home; away from his old life and into the start of a new one.
***
Rob quietly made his way back to his car, holding back tears. For once couldn’t something just go right? He walked with his head down lower then it had been in months. He was stupid to think that things would start getting better, he would always be a loser.
Then when he didn’t think that things could get any worse he ran into Justin, literally, there were disadvantages to walking with your head down. At first he didn’t know who it was, his head was still hung low, but then after they bumped he jerked it up and looked right into the other boy’s eyes.
“O-out of the way,” Rob tried to act “big”, but his words come out as a stutter, he ended up looking like an idiot.
“Just leave me alone,” Justin said and then sat down on the curb.
Rob was taken aback Justin always took time to make fun of his stutter, or his glasses, or the gap between his front teeth; instead Justin burst into tears.
“Are you okay?” Rob asked looking down, now that he wasn’t trying to act tough his stutter was gone, it use to happen constantly, but lately it only reared its ugly head when he was lying.
“Do I look okay?” Justin asked, raising his head and showing off his puffy eyes.
“What happened?”
“Get the F--k away you loser,” Justin growled and Rob began to walk the last few feet to his car when he heard: “Come back here you little freak.”
Rob stopped and turned back. He didn’t like Justin, at all, but if someone was having problems he wasn’t about to be to turn his back on them as he dad had done to him.
“I got kicked out,” Justin said, “My parents threw me on the streets.”
“Bad Grades?” Rob joked
“I get straight As,” growled Justin.
Rob had always thought of the other boy as the epitome of the dumb jock and knowledge to the contrary quickly humanized the sobbing creature in front of him.
“Oh, then why?” Rob asked his voice a tad gentler then it had been when asking the previous question.
“Its personal,” Justin thought for a second and then added,“ but I need a place to stay.”
Rob looked at the boy in front of him. It was Justin Beemer, the same person who had made him cry on many an occasion; who had broken his glasses in 4th grade, broken his nose in 8th, and who had been slowly breaking Rob’s spirit his entire life. Why then did he feel the compulsion to give the boy shelter? Why then did he feel sorry for the person who had made his life miserable? The answer was quite simple: Rob was lonely; both of his parents would be away for the week, and the aspect of having someone to talk to…..anyone to talk to…….was a pleasing one indeed.
“Tell me what happened and you got yourself a place to stay” Rob said, and then sat down next to Justin on the curb.
“I’m gay,” Justin said it with a straight face, cutting to the chase quickly.
Rob grabbed his knees and started laughing; laughing because he had thought for a minute that Justin actually wanted a place to say, laughing because his pity had been met with ridicule, and laughing because he could already feel the cold embrace of solitude tightening his chest and making it hard to breath.
“Tell me the real reason or you can’t stay,” He said already getting to his feet and turning back toward his car.
“It wasn’t a joke,” Justin said an air of agitation making its way into his crackling voice.
“It was funny the first time,” Rob said while opening his car door.
“I’m being serious,” Justin pleaded
“Of course you are,” Rob laughed as he got into his beat up Honda
“I swear to God its true,” Justin had now gotten off the curb and was standing directly behind Rob’s car, making it impossible for him to leave.
Rob began to back out anyway, planning on going around Justin, that was when the boy behind his car snapped.
“STOP!! STOP MOVING, WAIT…PLEASE…HELP..PLEASEEE!!!”
In mere seconds the distraught jock had shed his face and his age, transforming into a rabid eight year old wanting nothing more then a roof over his head and a warm meal in his stomach. In those brief moments the walls came down and Justin screamed like a hawk and howled like a wolf; thrashed the ground with his fist and his face with his nails; bled and cried and screamed and wailed. Everything that had mattered only hours ago was no longer a concern, necessity had overridden dignity and then thrown pride to the wind.
Rob stopped the car got out and opened the passenger side door, “Get in,” he spoke quickly fearing the second thoughts that hesitation might bring.
Justin stopped and looked at Rob with defeated eyes, “R-really?”
“Get in, really.”
The drive back to Rob’s house wasn’t long, only around fifteen minutes, ten if Rob drove fast, as he did now.
“So I can like stay with you?” Justin’s voice broke the silence that had been hovering within the car for the duration of the trip.
“My mom’s on vacation with friends, my Dad’s gone, you can stay till my mom get’s back in ten days.” Rob voice did not raise, but he spoke in a stern tone.
“Thanks man for everything, if I could do anything just…..”
“Leave me alone, sleep in my parent’s room, don’t talk to me, don’t throw any parties.”
“Anything else?”
“Right now you can be quite.”
Justin looked down hurt and Rob averted his eyes in shame. This was what he wanted: a friend, someone to talk to, someone to tell all him problems to…and now here he was messing it up like he always did. Rob took a deep breath then said:
“I’m sorry your parent’s threw you out.”
“Thanks for the sympathy,” Justin snapped.
“I was just trying to be nice,” Rob muttered somewhat under his breath.
“Sorry, I’m just-”
“Upset cause you got thrown out?”
Rob smiled at Justin and Justin smiled at Rob
“It was just- I knew they would freak, I just didn’t know they would FREAK.”
“I know what you mean, I don’t know what my mom would----Shit did you see that lightning?”
“That thing was huge, thanks again for taking me in.”
“It’s no problem.”
Both boys stopped for a moment to listen to the following thunder and then silence once again filled the cramped car.
Justin slowly reached his hand across the car’s middle and placed it on Rob’s thigh. Rob taken aback jerked the wheel (nearly running into a branch that had fallen across the street) and moved his knee until the hand was removed.
“What the hell?” he shouted as soon as he regained control of his vehicle.
“It wasn’t like that,” Justin began, but before he could finish his eyes had hazed over once more and he had fallen once again into thoughts of his own desperation.
: ***
After arriving at the house, Rob showed Justin his parent’s room and then left him to unpack by himself. He didn’t want to leave Justin alone , but Justin forced him out of the room, telling Rob that he could unpack alone.
Justin took the shirts he had shoved into his pack and put them in the draws that Rob had specified, they used to hold his dad’s stuff before his parents divorce, but now they were empty. Justin then took out his pants and folded these neatly into the draws as well. Then he stared at the only thing left in the old beat up backpack, the object he had taken from his parent’s room before leaving their house. His father’s handgun.
Justin had never seen his father use it and was pretty sure that his dad had long forgotten ever buying it in the first place; Justin had taken it knowing that his parents would never know it was gone. Originally the gun had been bought for target practice; Justin had planned to use it for a totally different purpose.
Looking at the shining black pistol now though he saw just how beautiful and grotesque it truly was. Within its cylinders lied the ability to bring forth both pleasure and pain; amazing joy and great sorrow; the ability to take a life or to save one. The “weapon” wasn’t just an extension of its owner’s desires, but a living breathing thing in itself. It had its own aspirations and anxieties, its own loves and hates, and right now….
“I just want something to eat,” the gun said in a sly whisper to the boy now caressing its barrel.
Shocked Justin almost dropped the pistol to the floor, but fascinated by its idiosyncrasies he only clutched it harder.
“You’ll never create life, so just give me yours,” the small pistol smirked barring its teeth of rust and getting ready to strike.
Justin raised the gun’s head to his own, ready to give his new friend sustenance and then just as he was about to tickle the things tongue, a voice called from down the stairs, “Dinner’s ready.”
Snapped out of his dream like state, Justin threw the gun into one of the already opened draws in front of him, and went down the stairs to join Rob for dinner
Upon coming down the stairs Justin found Rob at a dingy dining room table with a small plate of pasta in front of him. He reluctantly took the seat across from him where another small morsel of pasta sat untouched.
“It’s really pouring out there” Rob’s voice came across the small dining room table weak and unsure, pleading for a secure answer.
“Me and my dad use to watch the rain,” Justin responded his eyes staring down into his spaghetti.
“Really?”
“Ya, he would pull his car out into our backyard and we would sit there and we would……watch the rain.”
“Sounds nice.”
“It was,” Justin briefly looked up on the word ‘was’ to put further emphasis on it.
Rob, feeling he had misspoken, desperately tried to backpeddle, “You know we could go outside and I could pull my car back and….”
“It’s okay,” Justin said once more fascinated by the noodles on his plate. Only they weren’t noodles anymore, they were worms and……
Justin screamed as he fell backwards out of his chair and down onto the linoleum kitchen floor, slamming his head on its cool tiles.
“Woah, are you okay,” Rob said already on his feet and ready to help the boy to his own.
“I’m fine,” said Justin gripping his head and making his way into a standing position, “I’m going to take a shower…I feel like crap.”
“Bathroom’s on the second floor, two doors down from the spare bedroom,” Rob called, but Justin had already mounted the stairs.
Rob proceeded to pick up their plates. Justin’s food hadn’t been touched.
Justin slowly climbed the rackety wooden staircase up to the houses cramped second floor and then, instead of turning into the bathroom, he continued back to the spare bedroom where he had stashed the gun under a pillow.
It was there as it had been before, but now Justin noticed the age of the thing-the rust on the hilt, the way it made a weird clanking sound when moved- the gun was ready to die and so…..so was he.
Before he raised the gun though he realized how dumb it would be to kill himself in the bedroom. It would be rude too….would you ever sleep where someone had previously splattered their brains? No, it was inconsiderate to ruin someone else’s bedroom because of your own depression. With this resolve Justin took the gun and he did enter Rob’s bathroom, that way when he was finished everything could just go down the drain. The tile floor would be much easier to mop up then the rugs in the bedroom and the walls in the bathroom were red anyway, a little blood stain would be nearly unnoticeable. Yes, it was much more polite to kill yourself in a restroom.
Before preceding any father he leaned over and turned the shower on, that would keep Rob from hearing the gunshot, and that way no one would interrupt him except for a fag or a pervert-
What’s the difference?
Justin pulled the safety off the gun, something he had learned from the thousands of cop dramas that populated the television, and then he began to raise the device to his right temple.
No one loves you
He set back the trigger a little.
You were left on the streets to die
He coked the trigger back a little further.
Come on you sissy, are you going to do it or not
He began to thumb the trigger back to the point of no return when-
There was a knock on the door and Rob’s voice came in a rushed panic: “Justin are you dressed because I really really need to use the toilet and I guess you were wise not to eat the spaghetti and …”
“Please don’t come in,” The voice was void of emotion
“Can you hurry up them, I think I’m going to shit myself.”
“What about the bathroom downstairs?”
“ It’s been clogged and,” Rob gave a weird half chuckle and then finished, “Just hurry.”
In the commotion Justin had lost grip on the trigger and the gun’s hammer had returned to a resting position. He didn’t have to do it, he realized, he could burry the gun at the bottom of the trashcan and then take a shower, he could forget about the whole thing forever. That was what he was going to do, he decided, death was permanent and he was afraid of commitment.
Justin lifted up some of the trash and reached into put the gun beneath it when a voice rang in his ears, it wasn’t Rob’s.
“What are you doing honey,” His mother stood in front of him, clutching her rosary tight in her hand, “You were so close.”
“You don’t have anywhere to go,” chimed in his father from where he was standing behind the shower curtain, “We threw you out and in ten days you’ll be back on the street. What are you going to do for food, for money?”
“It doesn’t matter,” his mother proclaimed, “Your going to die of AIDS anyway, why not save yourself a whole lot of pain and end it now?”
“Besides,” said Father, “You’re going to hell no matter what you do, it doesn’t matter if you die on that toilet, brains splattered on the wall or in some hospital bed with all the other sinners.”
“Y-you can help me,” pleaded Justin, “You’re my parents, you’re suppose to help me.”
Justin leaped to his feet and pulled back the shower curtain, ready to confront his father, but his father wasn’t there….all that was behind the curtain was a tub full of
Blood
Red lumpy congealed blood
Justin turned his head away from the gruesome mess of the tub, back to the door, back to his escape.
Where’s the door? Why can’t I find the door? The door???
“Justin are you almost done?” Rob’s voice came not from one direction, but from all directions.
The room was spinning now. Twisting turning, turning twisting.
“Please someone….help me…” Justin tried to speak, but he couldn’t.
On the wall a lymric was written in messy childish handwriting : Asked for help, but no one was there to listen…..Cried in desperation, but no one could fix your position.
Writing on the wall? Who the hell wrote on the wall? Is that magic marker?
Justin wanted someone, anyone, just to hold him. Tell him it was all just a bad dream and he would wake safe in his bed. Warm and loved. All he wanted was to be loved, but
“No one will ever love you. No one is left to hug you. You weren’t even grateful for the grave they dug you,” came the sing song voice of the toilet as it choked on lumpy green shit.
He knew this couldn’t be real. None of this could be real. It was in his head and he had to get rid of it, purge it from the recesses of his brain. He closed his eyes and counted………
One…..Two…..Three
And when he opened them he once again stood in the bathroom of Rob Rondder the only noise coming from the ticking lights above; the toilet was spotless, the walls clean of writing, bath filled with water and not blood But Justin wasn’t alone in the bathroom, his mother had also stayed behind, for him, because of him….because she loved him.
“Mommy…” He breathed and he threw out his arms and she held him. Held him for seconds…minutes….hours….because time didn’t matter anymore, because as long as they were together even death could not tarnish their bond.
“It’ll be okay,” cooed his mother.
“Y-you can help me?” he asked while looking into her warm loving eyes.
“No, now you have to help yourself sweetheart.”
And with that she held out a hand. In the hand was the gun.
“Do I have to?” the child within her arms cried.
“For mommy.”
“Okay, but you promise it won’t hurt?” Justin giggled innocently
“I promise.”
Justin held the gun to his temple. Laughed as its long forked tongue fondled his face, tasting its meal.
“For you mommy.” He chimed and pulled back the trigger one final time.
****
Rob heard the ‘BOOM!’ from where he was standing outside the bathroom. He didn’t think, he just moved. He tried the knob, it was locked. Without wasting anytime he slammed a foot into the old warped door and it collapsed inward, landing in front of the sink. Rob ran into the restroom and looked at Justin.
Blood dripped from the boy’s mutilated right hand and a destroyed gun lay by his feet. Rob stared directly into his peer’s red, swollen eyes.
“The gun was old,” the shaken boy who was once called Justin breathed, “it exploded when I pulled the trigger.”
The boy didn’t cry, just stared into space; Justin was dead, and only his shell remained.
Plights of the Lonely
anonymous
Note: Please struggle through the very weak start, and awkward character intros. I swear it really picks up and if you read through the whole thing you will be QUITE glad you did for nothing else, but a truly unique experience.
Robert Rondder held the flowers under his coat, making sure that they didn’t get damaged by the harsh wind that blew from the south, bending the plants that were by his feet. He continued his slow walk to the house of Colleen Gerald, the only girl he had ever thought that he may like. He had ignored the feelings, deeming them stupid, that was until today during free bell. She had sat next to him; she had said that she knew how much that he cared about her, and had asked him to come to her house later that night. He had been confused and dumbfounded. He had been ignored for the last two years of his high school career, why did she like him now? He really didn’t care the reason. She had said it, she liked him too.
It had been hard for Rob to fit in at his high school at first, he would be the first to admit that he wasn’t quite “normal” and he sure as heck wasn’t the wealthiest person in the world. Lately though he had been getting generally more accepted, and Colleen’s feeling knocked yet another block out of the wall of loneliness that had surrounded him since the divorce of his parents.
Rob finally reached her house. He had parked a block away, still even after his self esteem had risen so high he found it to invasive to park in her driveway.
He reached the door and knocked three times, and Colleen answered.
"You told me to come around later!” he said trying not to smile.
Colleen was a mess: her hair stuck out in random directions, her left eye had a distinctive black ring around it, her usually immaculate clothes were torn, and a dark purple welt rose on her left arm.
“W-what?” she stuttered and a thin spray of blood left red driblets running down Rob’s clean white T-shirt.
“You said, ‘come by tonight and we can hang’, don’t you remember?”
Rob so blinded by his own fantasies had failed to take any particular interest in Colleen’s peculiar condition, and instead had already pushed it to the back of his head for later consideration.
“I’m sorry Rob, I just wanted to make Justin jealous, and it’s nothing against you it’s just…..” She was mumbling on the verge of senselessness, her mind trying its best to break free of its nebulous state and find coherent thought.
“Okay,” Rob finished for her, tears already beginning to form in his eyes. Rob was determined to leave his almost lover’s porch before he broke down. He turned to leave……
“Wait,” Colleen started, but Rob didn’t hear and continued to walk away, “Were those flowers for me?” She gasped in a sober whisper and then turned back toward her own house.
It wasn’t till she caught herself in the hall mirror on her way to her room that she realized in how pitiful of a state she had turned off the boy of her dreams. It wasn’t her who had the problem with Rob, it was her dad, but she got to wear the proof.
Outside of the small shack that Coleen Sanders called home, Rob stalked back into the windy night, his eyes burning with tears, his self esteem that had only moments ago been so high now non-existent.
***
Justin Breemer, whose house Rob had rudely parked in front of, looked at his reflection in the grimy mirror hanging on the paint-peeling wall of his room. He was star of the basketball team, football team, and the most popular kid in his junior class, yet he was completely lost.
He wasn’t rich like most popular kids, everything he had he worked for; his social status was totally deserved. He wasn’t a wuss or childish like most of the other populars at his school either, he knew hardship, hardship was his mate.
He continued to look into his crystal clear blue eyes and his perfectly shaped nose and chin. He was good looking, above average, but still not anything too special; his ears popped out at a slightly odd angle and his skin was rather pale. It didn’t matter though, he had worked his way up the social ladder anyway.
Justin had never been “fine” emotionally but now he was worse then ever, culminating in his breaking up with Colleen. Did he like Colleen? Yes, very much, even though she could be mean sometime it was never aimed at him and even though her hatred was aimed toward most others, Colleen was not a bad person, just a hurt one. She had been horribly abused, and it was a blessing she had come out as normal as she did. Today though he had watched as she flirted with that nerd Robert and that had made him sick, all in attempt to get her Justin back. Breaking up with her had made him sick too, but it was something he felt he had to do.
Why did he do it? Was he too busy to have a relationship?? Did he find someone he cared for more?? Neither one of these were true. The real reason was something he had known for years, but had lived in denial about until a few months ago. Justin Breemer was gay.
He had thought for weeks on end about telling someone, anyone, just so he didn’t feel like exploding…. and eventually he had told someone. He had told his best friend Ryan who had broken out into hysterical laughter. There was nothing at all about Justin that fit the stereotypical outlook of someone who is homosexual, but it was still true nonetheless.
He knew someone would believe him though, his parents. He suspected they had found hidden files on the computer months ago and all he had to do was confirm their suspicions….or was it their fears? He didn’t know which until 20 minutes ago when he had told them and…..they had kicked him out. Told him to leave the house and never come back. His parents were good people, God fearing people, and he had never seen them so angry before.
So now here Justin was in his room packing his stuff in to a suitcase. Where would he go? What lie would he tell the kids at school for having to leave his parents house? He didn’t have an answer to either, it didn’t matter, all that mattered was that he left as quickly as he could, because his parents had warned that they would call the cops if he was still at their house when they returned from church.
After minutes of wondering what to pack he had finally decided to just take the essentials and so on his bed laid his book bag (filled with toiletries) and his suitcase (filled with as may clothes as he could fit within its small confines).
Staring at the bags laid out on the surface on which he would never again sleep, Justin couldn’t shake the feeling that he was forgetting to bring something important, and then it finally dawned on him; he had thrown off his cross necklace in anger during his confrontation with his parents, and they had afterwards confiscated it, telling him he no longer deserved to where it. Feeling the place on his neck where the small crucifix usually resided he felt naked and ashamed, he had been shunned by the people who he cared about most and now even Jesus had left him.
As quick as he could, Justin slipped into his parent’s room, took a small object out of his dad’s bedside table, and shoved it into his bookbag. The object that he stole wasn’t the cross.
Without further hesitation Justin Beemer grabbed his suitcase, shouldered his bookbag, and walked out of his parent’s house and away from the place that he had formerly called home; away from his old life and into the start of a new one.
***
Rob quietly made his way back to his car, holding back tears. For once couldn’t something just go right? He walked with his head down lower then it had been in months. He was stupid to think that things would start getting better, he would always be a loser.
Then when he didn’t think that things could get any worse he ran into Justin, literally, there were disadvantages to walking with your head down. At first he didn’t know who it was, his head was still hung low, but then after they bumped he jerked it up and looked right into the other boy’s eyes.
“O-out of the way,” Rob tried to act “big”, but his words come out as a stutter, he ended up looking like an idiot.
“Just leave me alone,” Justin said and then sat down on the curb.
Rob was taken aback Justin always took time to make fun of his stutter, or his glasses, or the gap between his front teeth; instead Justin burst into tears.
“Are you okay?” Rob asked looking down, now that he wasn’t trying to act tough his stutter was gone, it use to happen constantly, but lately it only reared its ugly head when he was lying.
“Do I look okay?” Justin asked, raising his head and showing off his puffy eyes.
“What happened?”
“Get the F--k away you loser,” Justin growled and Rob began to walk the last few feet to his car when he heard: “Come back here you little freak.”
Rob stopped and turned back. He didn’t like Justin, at all, but if someone was having problems he wasn’t about to be to turn his back on them as he dad had done to him.
“I got kicked out,” Justin said, “My parents threw me on the streets.”
“Bad Grades?” Rob joked
“I get straight As,” growled Justin.
Rob had always thought of the other boy as the epitome of the dumb jock and knowledge to the contrary quickly humanized the sobbing creature in front of him.
“Oh, then why?” Rob asked his voice a tad gentler then it had been when asking the previous question.
“Its personal,” Justin thought for a second and then added,“ but I need a place to stay.”
Rob looked at the boy in front of him. It was Justin Beemer, the same person who had made him cry on many an occasion; who had broken his glasses in 4th grade, broken his nose in 8th, and who had been slowly breaking Rob’s spirit his entire life. Why then did he feel the compulsion to give the boy shelter? Why then did he feel sorry for the person who had made his life miserable? The answer was quite simple: Rob was lonely; both of his parents would be away for the week, and the aspect of having someone to talk to…..anyone to talk to…….was a pleasing one indeed.
“Tell me what happened and you got yourself a place to stay” Rob said, and then sat down next to Justin on the curb.
“I’m gay,” Justin said it with a straight face, cutting to the chase quickly.
Rob grabbed his knees and started laughing; laughing because he had thought for a minute that Justin actually wanted a place to say, laughing because his pity had been met with ridicule, and laughing because he could already feel the cold embrace of solitude tightening his chest and making it hard to breath.
“Tell me the real reason or you can’t stay,” He said already getting to his feet and turning back toward his car.
“It wasn’t a joke,” Justin said an air of agitation making its way into his crackling voice.
“It was funny the first time,” Rob said while opening his car door.
“I’m being serious,” Justin pleaded
“Of course you are,” Rob laughed as he got into his beat up Honda
“I swear to God its true,” Justin had now gotten off the curb and was standing directly behind Rob’s car, making it impossible for him to leave.
Rob began to back out anyway, planning on going around Justin, that was when the boy behind his car snapped.
“STOP!! STOP MOVING, WAIT…PLEASE…HELP..PLEASEEE!!!”
In mere seconds the distraught jock had shed his face and his age, transforming into a rabid eight year old wanting nothing more then a roof over his head and a warm meal in his stomach. In those brief moments the walls came down and Justin screamed like a hawk and howled like a wolf; thrashed the ground with his fist and his face with his nails; bled and cried and screamed and wailed. Everything that had mattered only hours ago was no longer a concern, necessity had overridden dignity and then thrown pride to the wind.
Rob stopped the car got out and opened the passenger side door, “Get in,” he spoke quickly fearing the second thoughts that hesitation might bring.
Justin stopped and looked at Rob with defeated eyes, “R-really?”
“Get in, really.”
The drive back to Rob’s house wasn’t long, only around fifteen minutes, ten if Rob drove fast, as he did now.
“So I can like stay with you?” Justin’s voice broke the silence that had been hovering within the car for the duration of the trip.
“My mom’s on vacation with friends, my Dad’s gone, you can stay till my mom get’s back in ten days.” Rob voice did not raise, but he spoke in a stern tone.
“Thanks man for everything, if I could do anything just…..”
“Leave me alone, sleep in my parent’s room, don’t talk to me, don’t throw any parties.”
“Anything else?”
“Right now you can be quite.”
Justin looked down hurt and Rob averted his eyes in shame. This was what he wanted: a friend, someone to talk to, someone to tell all him problems to…and now here he was messing it up like he always did. Rob took a deep breath then said:
“I’m sorry your parent’s threw you out.”
“Thanks for the sympathy,” Justin snapped.
“I was just trying to be nice,” Rob muttered somewhat under his breath.
“Sorry, I’m just-”
“Upset cause you got thrown out?”
Rob smiled at Justin and Justin smiled at Rob
“It was just- I knew they would freak, I just didn’t know they would FREAK.”
“I know what you mean, I don’t know what my mom would----Shit did you see that lightning?”
“That thing was huge, thanks again for taking me in.”
“It’s no problem.”
Both boys stopped for a moment to listen to the following thunder and then silence once again filled the cramped car.
Justin slowly reached his hand across the car’s middle and placed it on Rob’s thigh. Rob taken aback jerked the wheel (nearly running into a branch that had fallen across the street) and moved his knee until the hand was removed.
“What the hell?” he shouted as soon as he regained control of his vehicle.
“It wasn’t like that,” Justin began, but before he could finish his eyes had hazed over once more and he had fallen once again into thoughts of his own desperation.
: ***
After arriving at the house, Rob showed Justin his parent’s room and then left him to unpack by himself. He didn’t want to leave Justin alone , but Justin forced him out of the room, telling Rob that he could unpack alone.
Justin took the shirts he had shoved into his pack and put them in the draws that Rob had specified, they used to hold his dad’s stuff before his parents divorce, but now they were empty. Justin then took out his pants and folded these neatly into the draws as well. Then he stared at the only thing left in the old beat up backpack, the object he had taken from his parent’s room before leaving their house. His father’s handgun.
Justin had never seen his father use it and was pretty sure that his dad had long forgotten ever buying it in the first place; Justin had taken it knowing that his parents would never know it was gone. Originally the gun had been bought for target practice; Justin had planned to use it for a totally different purpose.
Looking at the shining black pistol now though he saw just how beautiful and grotesque it truly was. Within its cylinders lied the ability to bring forth both pleasure and pain; amazing joy and great sorrow; the ability to take a life or to save one. The “weapon” wasn’t just an extension of its owner’s desires, but a living breathing thing in itself. It had its own aspirations and anxieties, its own loves and hates, and right now….
“I just want something to eat,” the gun said in a sly whisper to the boy now caressing its barrel.
Shocked Justin almost dropped the pistol to the floor, but fascinated by its idiosyncrasies he only clutched it harder.
“You’ll never create life, so just give me yours,” the small pistol smirked barring its teeth of rust and getting ready to strike.
Justin raised the gun’s head to his own, ready to give his new friend sustenance and then just as he was about to tickle the things tongue, a voice called from down the stairs, “Dinner’s ready.”
Snapped out of his dream like state, Justin threw the gun into one of the already opened draws in front of him, and went down the stairs to join Rob for dinner
Upon coming down the stairs Justin found Rob at a dingy dining room table with a small plate of pasta in front of him. He reluctantly took the seat across from him where another small morsel of pasta sat untouched.
“It’s really pouring out there” Rob’s voice came across the small dining room table weak and unsure, pleading for a secure answer.
“Me and my dad use to watch the rain,” Justin responded his eyes staring down into his spaghetti.
“Really?”
“Ya, he would pull his car out into our backyard and we would sit there and we would……watch the rain.”
“Sounds nice.”
“It was,” Justin briefly looked up on the word ‘was’ to put further emphasis on it.
Rob, feeling he had misspoken, desperately tried to backpeddle, “You know we could go outside and I could pull my car back and….”
“It’s okay,” Justin said once more fascinated by the noodles on his plate. Only they weren’t noodles anymore, they were worms and……
Justin screamed as he fell backwards out of his chair and down onto the linoleum kitchen floor, slamming his head on its cool tiles.
“Woah, are you okay,” Rob said already on his feet and ready to help the boy to his own.
“I’m fine,” said Justin gripping his head and making his way into a standing position, “I’m going to take a shower…I feel like crap.”
“Bathroom’s on the second floor, two doors down from the spare bedroom,” Rob called, but Justin had already mounted the stairs.
Rob proceeded to pick up their plates. Justin’s food hadn’t been touched.
Justin slowly climbed the rackety wooden staircase up to the houses cramped second floor and then, instead of turning into the bathroom, he continued back to the spare bedroom where he had stashed the gun under a pillow.
It was there as it had been before, but now Justin noticed the age of the thing-the rust on the hilt, the way it made a weird clanking sound when moved- the gun was ready to die and so…..so was he.
Before he raised the gun though he realized how dumb it would be to kill himself in the bedroom. It would be rude too….would you ever sleep where someone had previously splattered their brains? No, it was inconsiderate to ruin someone else’s bedroom because of your own depression. With this resolve Justin took the gun and he did enter Rob’s bathroom, that way when he was finished everything could just go down the drain. The tile floor would be much easier to mop up then the rugs in the bedroom and the walls in the bathroom were red anyway, a little blood stain would be nearly unnoticeable. Yes, it was much more polite to kill yourself in a restroom.
Before preceding any father he leaned over and turned the shower on, that would keep Rob from hearing the gunshot, and that way no one would interrupt him except for a fag or a pervert-
What’s the difference?
Justin pulled the safety off the gun, something he had learned from the thousands of cop dramas that populated the television, and then he began to raise the device to his right temple.
No one loves you
He set back the trigger a little.
You were left on the streets to die
He coked the trigger back a little further.
Come on you sissy, are you going to do it or not
He began to thumb the trigger back to the point of no return when-
There was a knock on the door and Rob’s voice came in a rushed panic: “Justin are you dressed because I really really need to use the toilet and I guess you were wise not to eat the spaghetti and …”
“Please don’t come in,” The voice was void of emotion
“Can you hurry up them, I think I’m going to shit myself.”
“What about the bathroom downstairs?”
“ It’s been clogged and,” Rob gave a weird half chuckle and then finished, “Just hurry.”
In the commotion Justin had lost grip on the trigger and the gun’s hammer had returned to a resting position. He didn’t have to do it, he realized, he could burry the gun at the bottom of the trashcan and then take a shower, he could forget about the whole thing forever. That was what he was going to do, he decided, death was permanent and he was afraid of commitment.
Justin lifted up some of the trash and reached into put the gun beneath it when a voice rang in his ears, it wasn’t Rob’s.
“What are you doing honey,” His mother stood in front of him, clutching her rosary tight in her hand, “You were so close.”
“You don’t have anywhere to go,” chimed in his father from where he was standing behind the shower curtain, “We threw you out and in ten days you’ll be back on the street. What are you going to do for food, for money?”
“It doesn’t matter,” his mother proclaimed, “Your going to die of AIDS anyway, why not save yourself a whole lot of pain and end it now?”
“Besides,” said Father, “You’re going to hell no matter what you do, it doesn’t matter if you die on that toilet, brains splattered on the wall or in some hospital bed with all the other sinners.”
“Y-you can help me,” pleaded Justin, “You’re my parents, you’re suppose to help me.”
Justin leaped to his feet and pulled back the shower curtain, ready to confront his father, but his father wasn’t there….all that was behind the curtain was a tub full of
Blood
Red lumpy congealed blood
Justin turned his head away from the gruesome mess of the tub, back to the door, back to his escape.
Where’s the door? Why can’t I find the door? The door???
“Justin are you almost done?” Rob’s voice came not from one direction, but from all directions.
The room was spinning now. Twisting turning, turning twisting.
“Please someone….help me…” Justin tried to speak, but he couldn’t.
On the wall a lymric was written in messy childish handwriting : Asked for help, but no one was there to listen…..Cried in desperation, but no one could fix your position.
Writing on the wall? Who the hell wrote on the wall? Is that magic marker?
Justin wanted someone, anyone, just to hold him. Tell him it was all just a bad dream and he would wake safe in his bed. Warm and loved. All he wanted was to be loved, but
“No one will ever love you. No one is left to hug you. You weren’t even grateful for the grave they dug you,” came the sing song voice of the toilet as it choked on lumpy green shit.
He knew this couldn’t be real. None of this could be real. It was in his head and he had to get rid of it, purge it from the recesses of his brain. He closed his eyes and counted………
One…..Two…..Three
And when he opened them he once again stood in the bathroom of Rob Rondder the only noise coming from the ticking lights above; the toilet was spotless, the walls clean of writing, bath filled with water and not blood But Justin wasn’t alone in the bathroom, his mother had also stayed behind, for him, because of him….because she loved him.
“Mommy…” He breathed and he threw out his arms and she held him. Held him for seconds…minutes….hours….because time didn’t matter anymore, because as long as they were together even death could not tarnish their bond.
“It’ll be okay,” cooed his mother.
“Y-you can help me?” he asked while looking into her warm loving eyes.
“No, now you have to help yourself sweetheart.”
And with that she held out a hand. In the hand was the gun.
“Do I have to?” the child within her arms cried.
“For mommy.”
“Okay, but you promise it won’t hurt?” Justin giggled innocently
“I promise.”
Justin held the gun to his temple. Laughed as its long forked tongue fondled his face, tasting its meal.
“For you mommy.” He chimed and pulled back the trigger one final time.
****
Rob heard the ‘BOOM!’ from where he was standing outside the bathroom. He didn’t think, he just moved. He tried the knob, it was locked. Without wasting anytime he slammed a foot into the old warped door and it collapsed inward, landing in front of the sink. Rob ran into the restroom and looked at Justin.
Blood dripped from the boy’s mutilated right hand and a destroyed gun lay by his feet. Rob stared directly into his peer’s red, swollen eyes.
“The gun was old,” the shaken boy who was once called Justin breathed, “it exploded when I pulled the trigger.”
The boy didn’t cry, just stared into space; Justin was dead, and only his shell remained.