Chronicles of Des Smith, Volume 1: The Damned
1 – Prom Night
Once upon a time, I had a good life. It wasn’t perfect, I wasn’t exactly the most popular kid in school, and maybe I wasn’t happy with a few choices I had made, but it was a good life. I had friends, I had family. I even had love. Even if it wasn’t returned, it was still good to have. It was still something to hold onto, at least. Maybe that kind of love isn’t exactly the best kind of love to have, but it was something. I even believed I made a difference in her life. To many – no, not many, but a few lives, at least. I had a plan, and it was a good plan; get through the hell of high school, go to college, get a good job and then finally escape Dalton. Maybe having one or two good times along the way. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was at least something.
Hmm. Funny how some things never turn out the way you expect them to. Fucking hysterical when you have those plans ripped away from you and you have absolutely no idea of what to do next.
My name is Des Smith. I am 19 years old. And this is the story of how everything changed. Or at least, how none of my plans counted for shit. The funny thing is, it didn’t really begin with waking up on another planet, or even when I was falling and knew that I wasn’t going to be hunky-dory when I landed.
It began with the post.
It had been a few weeks since the last exam. I got up that morning (well, actually, it was more likely to have been the afternoon, now that I think about it), had a shower, got changed and went downstairs to have my usual healthy breakfast of a Pot Noodle when I suddenly noticed on the table that, rather unusually, I had mail. It wasn’t exactly a first, but it was rare. After all, most items of mail are usually bills and junk mail, and since my parents were the bill payers and I still lived with them, they usually got both. But this was different.
This was actually something I was afraid to open.
Even now…I think we both know what this was, and yet, I can’t bring myself to give its name. Even knowing what was on the paper, or maybe even because I know what was on the paper, I can’t bring myself to talk about it. But like I said, this was something that really changed my plans in life, so I might as well get on with telling you every detail about it.
I picked it up. Opened it. The first page was a letter from the school. A standard letter, given to every pupil of my year. Underneath?
The results.
My A level results, specifically. I didn’t know what to expect from it. None. Well, either that or every idea. And I mean every one: I had failed every course, I had passed every one, failed some, passed others, passed the wrong ones, failed the ones I needed the most. Every hope and fear went through my head as I was sitting down, holding that letter. Two years of studying really great subjects, two years in studying subjects that could help me to go places.
Eventually, after who knows how long I spent sitting in that chair, I turned the page.
2 U’s and an E.
Reading that…fuck. That was it. That was the thing that changed how I perceived everything forever. Can you believe that? The amount of shit that I went through, all the pain, and the torture, and the amazingly impossible stuff…and all it took was a sheet of paper. Strange how it’s always the little things that fuck up your life the most.
Because the funny thing was that I suddenly realised that I wasn’t expecting this. I thought I was. I thought I was being paranoid. But deep down…I wasn’t expecting to fail all of my subjects. Fuck. Even today, it’s difficult to think about. I can still remember the things going through my head. How the fuck was I going to explain this to Mum and Dad? How?
Eventually, I did the only thing I could do: took the results up to my room and hid them, went back downstairs, made myself a pot noodle, and headed off to my job centre appointment.
I went on the dole the day after I had finished my final A level exam. University was coming, and I needed a part time job to save up for all the shit I had to pay for.
Well, that was the original plan, anyway. After seeing those results, though? Well, the only thing I could do was carry on as normal.
After two different bus journeys to get to town (Dalton is so small and so far out the way that it’s ridiculously difficult to get anywhere interesting), I arrived at the job centre with five minutes to spare. I sat down with the other job seekers and waited for my usual appointment.
Naturally, I had to wait twenty minutes.
Eventually, I was called to see…fuck, I can’t remember her name, now. I’m not sure I even knew it back then. I just know that she was a skinny young woman, with hair tied up far too tightly, extremely pale skin and really, really round glasses that actually bordered on the kind that Harry Potter would wear. She was a bit stuck up, too. “How many jobs have you applied for this week?” she asked.
“Six,” I replied. “I’ve sent out cover letters to a few offices in the area.”
“And do you have any responses?”
“None yet, the application date’s not due for another-”
“What about the last lot of cover letters you sent?”
Suddenly, I got just a little more uncomfortable in my seat. “I haven’t had any responses yet-”
“I see from your job seeker record that you’ve only been applying for admin jobs.” God, I hated how she always interrupted me like that! “Why? Your signed agreement clearly stated you would also search for jobs in retail or customer service.”
“Well I haven’t had much luck in finding vacancies for those.” Ok, I’ll be honest with you, this wasn’t exactly true, but I didn’t want to be the only 18 year old in town who was earning money by flipping burgers, or worse, making people angry by ringing them up in the middle of the day and trying to sell them something they don’t want, before suddenly you’re being thrown a multitude of expletives reminding you just how much of a scumbag you were and how you deserved to die.
My one day of work experience that I had a few weeks beforehand (before losing the job because they apparently had enough employees anyway) didn’t improve things one bit, and I certainly wasn’t going to be put through another day of such humiliating work (which I'd rather avoid discussing, but let's just say I had to stand around a lot in public, wearing something that was far from being the latest in fashion) anytime soon.
(Well, that’s what I thought.)
The fact was the only reason I put those other two down was that they were the only job sectors I was qualified for, and after receiving that letter earlier in the day, it didn’t look likely that that was going to change any time soon.
“Mr Smith”, the Cow Behind The Desk replied, “we both know that’s not true. You’re either not bothering to apply for those vacancies or you’re just not looking hard enough. There are a few vacancies here that I want you to apply for,” she suddenly handed me a thick wad of paper, “and I want you to apply for every single one by the end of the week. If you don’t apply for every single one or fail to bring evidence that you’ve applied for them, I’m afraid I’m going to have to put your allowance on a 6 week suspension.”
I quickly looked through all the sheets. “There don’t seem to be any admin vacancies among these.”
“There aren’t,” she replied, “not many admin vacancies around I’m afraid.”
My heart was sinking. This was a fucking nightmare. Or a joke. All a matter of how you look at it. I certainly wasn’t laughing at the time, though. “Look, it’s not as if I’m one of those wankers who-“
“Please refrain from using that language in here.” She handed me the signing-on form.
“Sorry.” I wasn’t sorry, of course, as I filled out the usual signature and date. I was actually more pissed off than anything else. “It’s not like I’m one of those…people who actively try to abuse the system to avoid work at every opportunity. I have been looking for work, but I need the admin vacancies. They’re the only ones I can do. Anything else, I’ll be qualified for on paper, but I’d be sacked within the day. I can’t do customer service - I have no people skills whatsoever. Until I find admin work, I need the allowance.”
“You live with your parents, Mr Smith, I’m sure you’ll scrape by. NEXT!”
The condescending bitch. I wanted to say a million things to her then, to tell her to fuck off, to tell her to fuck her condescending nature, that just because she had a desk and had a job didn’t give her the fucking right to look down on me like that. Instead, I got up, walked out, and sulked like the overgrown boy that I was. Because the worst of it was, although I didn’t want to admit it to myself at the time, was that she was right. It wasn’t like I needed the money, it wasn’t like I was living on my own, or even raising a family on my own and needed the money to pay my rent desperately or else I’ll be thrown out of my bedsit. But I wasn’t entirely happy with the idea of living in Dalton for the rest of my life, leaching off my parents. And after I saw those failed grades…I really didn’t see any other future. Quite simply, I was fucked.
I was so angry then. I know that sounds emo, but I was torn between bursting into tears or screaming out loud for a long, long time. The only thing that held me back was the idea of prom night. The last hurrah. Normally, I wouldn’t feel up to it, but Susan was going to be there. Ah, Miss Susan Grey. My best mate. Perhaps one of my only mates back then. And, if I’m really being honest, more. To me, anyway. Seeing her again for the first time in months would make it all worthwhile, even if she was going there as her boyfriend’s “plus one”. The fact was, I needed to see her.
Feeling a little bit better at just the thought of seeing her, I took the return journey home to get ready for the prom.
***
I think practically everyone in my year was excited for that night. Prom is, admittedly, a “very American thing”, to quote my mum, (on a fairly regular basis she would say that, ever since she first heard of it), but it was a nice thing to have. For one thing, it got all us college leavers excited for something that was actually happening in Dalton, for once: normally, for us to do anything exciting, it had to involve a bus, a train, or any other form of transport to get us as far out of town as possible, so it certainly made a nice change.
The “plus one” was also a big bonus. Not to me, so much. I still didn’t have a date, but at least I had the option to have a date. It just would’ve seemed wrong, otherwise.
And if there was one thing that I was very happy about, it was the fact that we all had to look smart. Because if there was one thing that I was good at, it was looking smart, and that’s exactly what I was, looking into a mirror at five o’clock in the afternoon.
Well, no, that’s actually bollocks. What I looked like was exactly what I was. What I’m worried I still am, in some aspects. An overgrown kid. A boy who never grew up, but just got bigger. I had considerably more weight back then than I have now. I wasn’t fat, so much – or at least, I didn’t like to think of myself as fat – but I was definitely chubby, at the very least. Round all over, like a giant jelly baby. Except not quite as orange (the orange ones were always my favourite). My light brown hair was…tidy, but rather dorky. Think of the Beatles. Specifically, early Beatles. That’s what it was.
You can just imagine how much I got picked on at school, can’t ya?
Still, looking back, it wasn’t too bad, especially with the amount of shit I’ve had to deal with the last couple of months. Back then, I had my mum, I had my dad, and of course, I had-
“Oi! Bitch!”
My best friend, Suze.
Running to the window, I called out to her, “For the last time, Suze, I am not your-”
Then I saw her, and I don’t have the words to describe how fucking dumb I must’ve looked then, my mouth hanging open in mid-sentence.
She was standing there, outside my house in a long cream dress. Her shoulders were bare, showing as much of her white, pale skin above her chest as she could without showing the slightest bit of cleavage. She was never “one of those girls who would offer a good view for nothing”, as she told me once. Her long dark hair had been done up in a simple yet elegant fashion, leaving her amazingly blue eyes room to get noticed by , ooh, just about everyone who was going to the prom.
She was right, you know. I was, in that moment, her bitch.
I still wish, now more than ever, that I had a problem with that.
I must have looked a bit of a proper twat, because that was when she asked me, just a little awkwardly, “What?”
Nothing, it’s just…you look beautiful is what they always say in the movies, and I’ll be honest: that was exactly the kind of cheesy shit that I was thinking at that moment, but I wasn’t gonna fucking tell her that, was I? What I actually said was, “Nothing, just surprised you didn’t go with grey!”
“Well that would be a cliché, wouldn’t it?” she replied. “You honestly think I would do something that god awful cheesy for the prom?”
I defended my awesome suggestion with, “Hey, you’re the one who keeps saying, ‘Not everything’s black and white!’”, in a near perfect imitation of her.
After wincing rather noticeably, she then asked, “Is that whiny voice supposed to be me? Please tell me that’s not how you see me!” I did say near perfect.
Moving on from her obvious awe of my impressive gift for impressionism, I asked her, “Why are you here, Suze?”
“What?” She asked innocently, which was about as convincing as my impersonation of her. “Can’t a girl come visit her lifelong best friend out of the blue?”
“On prom night?”
“Especially on prom night.”
By this point, I had just about had enough of the innocent girl act. “Why are you really here, Suze?”
Reluctantly, she let the innocent smile drop and it was replaced by a look that said she really needed a favour. “Brian’s not going. He and some of the other boys in college are having their own thing, it’s something of a pub crawl, I think.”
“I thought there was only the one pub in Dalton.”
“It’s in London.”
“Oh, right.”
“Anyway,” she continued, “I thought I might as well have some fun anyway. What do you say, mate? Alright if I be your plus one?” she asked me, mostly with those big, blue eyes of hers.
A sloppy seconds invite. That’s what you could boil it down to. Still, I can’t even begin to tell you how awesome I thought it was at the time, though. Of course, I couldn’t let her know that, so I asked, “Now what makes you think I don’t already have a date?”
With a big fat smile on her tiny, skinny face, she replied, “One, this wouldn’t be a date, so there wouldn’t be a change there, and two, this is you I’m talking to.”
A little peeved at my best friend’s assumption, (even if it was correct,) I said, “Hold on, you can’t just come round here and just assume that I’ll always be single and dateless, especially on something like a prom night! That’s just pathetic!”
“Well, do you have a date?”
“No, but-”
“Well then, you’ve proved my point! Come on, mate! I was really looking forward to tonight! I even bought this gorgeous dress - the fact that I’m even wearing a gorgeous dress should tell you something about how much I’ve been looking forward to this! Come on, Des! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease?”
Looking at her then, in that fantastic dress of hers, I knew I couldn’t say no. Mind you, she could’ve been going to the prom in a hoodie, jogging pants, and a massive hangover and I still wouldn’t have said no. She had that effect on many men, really.
Eventually, I said, “Oh, alright! Why not? I’m all ready up here. Do you want me to get my mum to drop us off?”
“Nah,” she said. “It’s only fifteen minutes walk away, and I’ve got the low heels for it. Besides, you and me haven’t talked in months! It would give us time to catch up before we see more friends there! What do you say? Sound like a plan?”
“It certainly does, Miss Grey,” I replied. “I’ll be down in a moment, just need to get my shoes on and tell the folks that I don’t need a car, and we’ll be off.”
“Ok! See you in a sec, Mr Smith!”
“Yeah, see you in a sec, and don’t forget: you owe me!” I called to her before closing the window and allowing a massive grin to spread across my face as soon as I knew she couldn’t see it.
Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this isn’t someone hanging out with a friend, this is someone who wants to be with someone he can’t have in any possible way. Well let me tell you something: that would come pretty close to the truth. You know it, I know it, and I think even back then, my old self would’ve known that deep down, too. But I knew that, for the next few months at least, I was gonna be pretty fucking miserable, and I knew that I could even have a happy time out with someone I cared about, or go to the prom on my own and be even more miserable. Pretty simple decision, right?
It’s funny how decisions like that can make a man damned.
