Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2017 21:59:05 GMT -5
(Just in case y'all care for a little background. RPs are without the "shoot" parts.)
(12/19/2016)
Valley Stream, NY
Pushing a blue shopping cart forward as he paced a little more slowly than usual, Hubert Smalls wore something else today on his bi-weekly shopping trip to Wal-Mart aside from a hooded sweatshirt and a hunter's cap. It was a smile.
While Hubert did not keep an internal count, this was his fifteenth trip to this particular Wal-Mart Super Center since moving to a quaint community within the Long Island region of New York. His brain had come to register the layout of the store. He recognized familiar employees who had maintained a consistent shift schedule each Monday and Friday at 9:30 a.m. He even acknowledged the elderly greeter with a handshake upon the man's own recalling of Hubert after almost two months of consistency.
Approaching the middle of the now-familiar frozen food aisle, Hubert opened the glass door to pull out two family-sized bags of Cascadian Farms broccoli. After he'd dropped it into the cart to join a dozen and a half of eggs, shredded mild cheddar cheese, and a package of turkey bacon, he pulled a small piece of paper and a pencil from within his hoodie pocket.
SHOPING LIST
Bacen
Cheese
Eggs
Broccley
Mrs. Dash
Chickens
Lyma Beans
Deit Coke
Slim Jim
Putting a mark through "Broccley," he peered down to the next item on the list. However, like a ghost, the next words seemed to jump out of the page to deliver a fantastic fright. Hubert's smile quickly dissipated as he nervously shoved the paper back into his pocket and gripped the handle of the shopping cart with intensity.
A small sweat began to develop on his brow as Hubert looked around the aisle, breathing deep as he clutched the cart and gave it a deep Indian burn.
"Everything is fine," he whispered to himself. "Everything is alright. Everything is fine, everything is alright."
Prior to the trip from his rental suite, Hubert had an acute awareness that since he had just run out of the seasoning, it would cause a wrinkle in his routine. Despite fifteen minutes of mental preparation, he had completely forgotten about this during the Uber ride over.
He stood frozen, as he repeated the phrases to himself.
"Everything is fine."
(3/22/2010)
Petal, MS
"I just thought he was having a tough time. I mean, it ain't never happened frequently until maybe two or three months ago!"
Loretta Munson, hair white with a potent dose of age and stress, sat across from the small town's resident mental health practitioner as she delivered the news of the diagnosis. The latter, a very young Indian-American woman by the name of Dr. Kalyani Patel, looked back at the grandmother with kind eyes.
"Ms. Munson, you need to know that this is no fault of your own. Jake's condition is a root of psychological issues that stem from very early in his childhood," Dr. Patel explained. "As a matter of fact, the primary reason this has remained dormant for so long is a direct result of your love and support to his upbringing. Unfortunately, the stresses surrounding his schoolwork coupled with this stage of adolescence has caused the disorder to manifest."
Loretta dabbed her eyes with the Kleenex she held in her left hand. "Disorder," she repeated. "That god damned son of mine and that whore of his did so much damage to my special little man, he's...he's a FREAK now! He was so smart! So polite! He was gonna go up north to Ole Miss, ya know? Gonna be a doctor like you."
"Ms. Munson, please," Dr. Patel interrupted. "Jake is not a 'freak,' and you need to understand that now that we've identified this, it IS treatable."
"He ain't gonna be going to no looney bin, I'll tell you that right now!" She exclaimed, slamming her fist down on the doctor's desk.
"No," Dr. Patel agreed. "But I do think he would benefit from outpatient therapy at least a few times a week. And this is something that we can set up after school and on weekends, so his classes will not suffer any interruption. I feel that with this and with the medication, Jake will still be on the proper course to achieve all of those things that you want him to achieve! There are many like him who are fully-functioning members of society, and I have no doubt that he will be too as long as he receives the proper treatment."
Loretta sighed, refusing to accept the reality that smacked her in the face, accepting blame that she put upon herself. Her transgressions with her son had been the first burden that she'd carried for many years: while having to deal with an alcoholic husband, she had worked hard to provide somewhat of a stable family life for the three of them. However, the doldrums of rural Mississippi had led her son to cure his boredom with drugs and alcohol, impregnating his girlfriend at fifteen who had ultimately given birth to the kid who would eventually refer to himself as Hubert Smalls in the future. With her son and his lover deemed incapable by the state to adequately raise their child, he was turned over to his grandmother's custody at the age of six.
The regular visits stopped around Jake's eighth birthday, when Loretta and her son swore never to speak to each other again. Not surprisingly, the birthday cards stopped coming in the mail around age eleven. To this day, Jake had no idea where his parents were, or if they were even alive.
Loretta saw Jake as her chance to start anew. And bless her heart, she had succeeded. Her husband, who had passed away due to liver failure when Jake was four, no longer was a burden to her parental structuring. Jake had done well up to this point in school, and had developed into a respectable young teenager: actively involved in sports, Boy Scouts, and a regular attendee of Petal First United Methodist's Sunday services.
"He ain't gonna want to miss practices. He don't know he's different. So I don't know what you want me to do there about the after-school stuff," Loretta responded as she shook her head and looked down at the floor.
Dr. Patel nodded. "I suppose that I agree with you that pulling him out of his regular activities may not be the best course of action, then. While it's my professional opinion that he would benefit from as many therapy sessions as possible, I'd also be inclined to take the position that any interruption in schedule could set him back. So," she continued, typing notes on her desktop computer, "we'll start him off doing Saturday sessions, and re-evaluate in two months..."
Meanwhile, Jake Munson sat in the waiting room while his grandmother and the doctor discussed his ailment. Worry had set in a long time ago, yet his pride had prevented him from seeking help: it was his falling grades that had set the alarm off which led him to this moment. Like any teenager, his only desire was to be normal again. He had no recollection as to why his learning process had become so difficult for him: things like geometry and reading comprehension were sometimes challenging but never impossible. Not only this, but his once friendly and expressive nature had soured due to his inability to find the right words to communicate. It had caused relationships to stagnate. His friends, his ex-girlfriend, his teachers -- all had sensed that something was different, that he had begun to shut out the world.
His brain felt like a Mardi Gras parade.
Feeling his leg begin to twitch, Jake scanned the table in front of him for what had become his defense mechanism: a distraction. Scanning the magazines that were strewn across the furniture, he eyed a copy of Highlights for Children and picked it up.
The dust had seemingly settled on the jazz, masks, tits and beads in his mind as he opened the publication. His nervous twitch had come to an abrupt halt as he started reading.
"If Goofus makes a mess, he leaves it there," Jake mouthed silently. "Gallant cleans up after himself."
(06/02/2009)
Gulfport, MS
The sand sauteed the tops of their feet as Jake Munson and the blond-haired cheerleader struggled to lug the massive, wheel-less cooler over to the spot that their friends had already begun to prepare.
"It's a Yeti," his friend and teammate Randy had beamed as the two had loaded the cooler in the back of the pickup back in Petal. "These thangs are fuckin' the Mustang of coolers."
At this point, Jake would have been fine if it were just the Datsun of coolers, so long as it were about three tons lighter.
"I know why they call it a Yeti," he remarks to Madison as he grunts with exertion. "You gotta be a Sasquatch to carry it yourself."
Madison shoots a glance at him as her poor little arms could barely get the back end of the thing off of the beach. "Um, what's a Sasquatch?"
"Bigfoot," Jake says as he mentally kicked himself in his own ass. Five minutes into the trip with one of the best looking girls in his class, and he'd managed a bomb of colossal proportion.
"Yeah," she agrees, continuing the no-sell of the punchline.
Still, Jake was just happy to be there. As the Petal High wrestling team mainly consisted of guys coming in directly after the football season, he was the quiet taller kid who'd managed to be the only bright spot on a poorly under-coached squad. His friendships continued to develop during the spring as he'd also proved to be a fairly capable hurdler on the track team. Jake was fine with his popularity by association, even if it meant that he was the baby bitch assigned to cooler duty: he was the only other freshman that'd been invited on this trip.
After the Homeward Bound-like journey from the parking lot to the seaside post that had been marked with a Saints flag and a bright white canopy, both Madison and Jake dropped the Yeti unceremoniously at the far corner of the site. Pulling the sleeveless West Marine t-shirt over his head and throwing it in the sand, Jake immediately reached inside the grizzly-proof container and retrieved a can of Natural Light.
"Hey Scout," called Rusty -- a mammoth of a teenager who'd headed the 285+ weight class and anchored the Petal Panthers' offensive line. "Gonna need to see some ID," he jokes. "And does your Webelos master know you drinkin' that?"
"Scout" was Jake's given nickname, all thanks to his involvement with the local Boy Scout troop. Coincidentally, this little getaway would be the last he'd have before being gainfully employed at eighty bucks a week at Camp Seminole as a counselor. The nickname had really stuck fast when Jake had lost a bet with one of the wrestling team's members, with the punishment being that he had to wear his uniform to school the next day.
"Yep. Workin' on my vomit merit badge," Jake responds, eliciting laughter from the group. Rusty, a graduating senior, lumbered over to Jake and put his arm around him, clinking the Bud Light can to his Natty.
"Atta boy."
(06/02/2009)
US-49 North
The expectation of the day’s events were not exactly met. Madison, who’d passed out prematurely thanks to Firefly’s sweet tea vodka, dreaming of Brad Paisley in the back of a red Honda Accord.
Meanwhile, Jake fiddled with his thumbs in the front passenger seat. Buzzed yet coherent, he had maintained a limit, knowing that he’d be up early in the morning to leave for his summer gig in Starkville. The sun had not quite set, and he wondered just how long it would be until the beach party was inevitably broken up.
“I gotta head out,” a petite brunette had announced thirty minutes prior to this moment. “Anyone need a ride back?”
Jake’s ears piqued, although it was not for lack of hearing a new voice. The crowd of about fifteen of Petal’s pretty delinquents had branched off into pairs and clusters. Madison’s attention had been snaked by a senior upon arrival, but he didn’t care. He’d spent the bulk of the afternoon with her and her boyfriend, shooting the breeze and looking forward to the future. Camille and Brandon had both just graduated: Brandon heading to Tuscaloosa while Camille had made plans for State.
He enjoyed the company of two people who were dead set on leaving Petal in the rear-view mirror for good. He had the exact same aspiration, but unfortunately, it was an Oregon Trail worth of time before he’d be given that opportunity.
“Good to take me? I reckon we need to get her ass home too,” Jake replied, as he motioned toward Madison, currently passed out upright in a beach chair.
“Don’t go ya lanky fucker!” Rusty exclaimed. “I didn’t get to hang with you hardly none today!”
“I’ll miss you too, big un,” Jake quipped as he leaned down to hoist Madison over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. She muttered something unintelligible in response, to which Jake ignored as he started his walk through the sand.
“Heavier than the damn cooler,” he remarked as he marched with Camille towards the car.
“She’s the real yeti,” Camille added, smiling.
She enjoyed his reserved nature. Unlike Brandon, who was known to dominate most conversations, it was refreshing to be able to speak her mind without interruption. Whether it was just intimidating for Jake to be in the presence of a very cute upperclassman or not, he only chimed in when posed a question, limiting his responses to a sentence at most.
In all honesty, Camille nowhere to be in the morning, and certainly did not have a curfew this early to worry about. The fact of the matter was that she had felt somewhat flighty since they had first arrived. She knew that after a few beers, Brandon would want to stay until midnight, so her opportunity to escape had presented itself.
Camille and Jake had exchanged glances the entire day that seemed to linger a little too long. This is why it came to no surprise that he’d volunteered to accept the ride home.
She just wondered if he’d accept her invitation to stick around.
06/03/2009
Petal, MS
Lying back on the hood of the Accord, they were two bodies juxtaposed close but not quite touching. Of all of the places they could have been: anywhere separate would have been smarter than here together.
The inebriated Madison had been dropped off to face the wrath of her parents several hours ago. Camille, who was no actress, had still given a performance that this was completely unplanned.
Jake, having plenty of teenage sense to know that logging “alone time” with the girlfriend of a highly-liked senior was a horrible idea. Unfortunately, the alcohol had long since clouded his judgment. There were still about four beers left in the Yeti: enough to justify driving to the empty lot in Relay Park to polish them off before morning.
“So what exactly do you do at Scout camp anyway?” Camille inquired, taking a drag off of a Marlboro light and passing it back to Jake.
Jake inhaled the cigarette, chasing the tobacco with a swig of watered-down lager. “Teachin' people how to canoe. Waterfront’s the only thing I’m qualified for, ‘cause they always need people certified in lifesaving.”
“Know your way around a boat pretty well?”
“No. But I reckon I can fake it pretty good,” he responds, handing her the last of the smoke. “So when do you start up at Starkville?” he asks, desperate to change the subject of the summer filled with adolescent boys in the dorkiest of circumstances.
“August,” she answers. “But I’m thinking about heading up this month. Kinsey’s got an apartment there and I might be able to stay with her until I can move into the dorms. I dunno. I’m sick of being in Petal, sick of all the people here.”
“Yeah,” Jake agrees.
“Hey,” Camille turns, “if I’m gonna be in Starkville and you’re gonna be nearby, we should hang out on the weekends or something!”
Jake grins. “That’d be cool. I can probably get a ride into town pretty easily.”
“Pssh. I’d come get you,” she insists.
“Fuck that,” Jake protests. “There’s a reason they call parents’ night ‘Big Sister Night,’ and I ain’t subjectin’ you to that fuckin’ nightmare.”
Camille laughs. “You make it sound real charming. But I bet you look cute in one of those uniforms.”
Despite the boozy haze, Jake’s cheeks turn a flush red at Camille’s pass. Pausing to try to come up with a suave retort, he mumbles.
“You should see me in it when I’m wearing my merit badge sash.”
Not since Wayne Campbell had quipped to Cassandra that everyone had been “kung-fu fighting” had there been a more colossal bomb. Camille, who was surprisingly on the level for a small-town girl, immediately decided to toss a dash of salt inside the wound.
“I guess you’re still working on the merit badge for Smooth Responses When Women Pay You Compliments,” she chuckles, taking a pull from the can of Bud Light.
Jake sighs. “Planned on trying to knock that one out this summer.”
Without warning, Camille’s hand fell directly over Jake’s as she scooted over close to him. He turned to face her, dough-eyed and wistful as they exchanged a glance. In the distance, the tree frogs signaled the rain to come and served as a crooning ballad to provide the soundtrack to a connection of nicotine-flavored lips. Their tongues swatted in rhythm as their hands gave into a mechanical motion up and down each others’ backs, caught up in the intoxicated missteps of teenage infidelity.
Then, they boned. And it was totally awesome.
“Shit.”
Jake swore aloud in the confines of his bedroom as he lay with his eyes open in the darkness.
“I gotta be up early in the morning,” he’d said.
“Thanks for the ride,” he’d said.
“I guess I’ll see you around?” Fuck. No he wouldn’t. He was going to spend the rest of his summer paddling around like a doofus, being forced to listen to a bunch of his fellow Scouts drivel on about how cool they actually were in their hometowns when in reality they were the Webster’s definition of pariah.
06/04/2009
Petal, MS
The plot resolution in his fantasy was always more David Lynch than E.L. James. However, his frustration came more from the fact that Camille had essentially handed him a skeleton key and all he had to do was unlock the door. His hesitation, his fear of inadequacy: he had grabbed his life preserver and jumped starboard out of the side of the canoe.
But as Jake awoke and logged into the family computer to do one last check of his Facebook, a smile spread across his face.
The ship had not sunk.
From: Camille Moore
hey! it was cool hanging with you yesterday! hope you have fun this summer! xoxo
Jake stared at the screen for a few seconds, a million thoughts pulsing through his mind. He had to go for it.
From: Jake Munson
Hey! It was cool hanging with you too! Not gonna have Internet access but will have my phone on me, you should text me or something. 601-833-4931
Without hesitation, he clicked the mouse with a cocksure press of his index finger. And thus, he began to wade back towards the vessel, extending his arms into a crawl stroke to try to fight against the buoyant life jacket that only served to slow him down.
It would only be months from now that he’d discover the hole in the bottom of the boat.
(12/19/2016)
Valley Stream, NY
Pushing a blue shopping cart forward as he paced a little more slowly than usual, Hubert Smalls wore something else today on his bi-weekly shopping trip to Wal-Mart aside from a hooded sweatshirt and a hunter's cap. It was a smile.
While Hubert did not keep an internal count, this was his fifteenth trip to this particular Wal-Mart Super Center since moving to a quaint community within the Long Island region of New York. His brain had come to register the layout of the store. He recognized familiar employees who had maintained a consistent shift schedule each Monday and Friday at 9:30 a.m. He even acknowledged the elderly greeter with a handshake upon the man's own recalling of Hubert after almost two months of consistency.
Approaching the middle of the now-familiar frozen food aisle, Hubert opened the glass door to pull out two family-sized bags of Cascadian Farms broccoli. After he'd dropped it into the cart to join a dozen and a half of eggs, shredded mild cheddar cheese, and a package of turkey bacon, he pulled a small piece of paper and a pencil from within his hoodie pocket.
SHOPING LIST
Bacen
Cheese
Eggs
Broccley
Mrs. Dash
Chickens
Lyma Beans
Deit Coke
Slim Jim
Putting a mark through "Broccley," he peered down to the next item on the list. However, like a ghost, the next words seemed to jump out of the page to deliver a fantastic fright. Hubert's smile quickly dissipated as he nervously shoved the paper back into his pocket and gripped the handle of the shopping cart with intensity.
A small sweat began to develop on his brow as Hubert looked around the aisle, breathing deep as he clutched the cart and gave it a deep Indian burn.
"Everything is fine," he whispered to himself. "Everything is alright. Everything is fine, everything is alright."
Prior to the trip from his rental suite, Hubert had an acute awareness that since he had just run out of the seasoning, it would cause a wrinkle in his routine. Despite fifteen minutes of mental preparation, he had completely forgotten about this during the Uber ride over.
He stood frozen, as he repeated the phrases to himself.
"Everything is fine."
(3/22/2010)
Petal, MS
"I just thought he was having a tough time. I mean, it ain't never happened frequently until maybe two or three months ago!"
Loretta Munson, hair white with a potent dose of age and stress, sat across from the small town's resident mental health practitioner as she delivered the news of the diagnosis. The latter, a very young Indian-American woman by the name of Dr. Kalyani Patel, looked back at the grandmother with kind eyes.
"Ms. Munson, you need to know that this is no fault of your own. Jake's condition is a root of psychological issues that stem from very early in his childhood," Dr. Patel explained. "As a matter of fact, the primary reason this has remained dormant for so long is a direct result of your love and support to his upbringing. Unfortunately, the stresses surrounding his schoolwork coupled with this stage of adolescence has caused the disorder to manifest."
Loretta dabbed her eyes with the Kleenex she held in her left hand. "Disorder," she repeated. "That god damned son of mine and that whore of his did so much damage to my special little man, he's...he's a FREAK now! He was so smart! So polite! He was gonna go up north to Ole Miss, ya know? Gonna be a doctor like you."
"Ms. Munson, please," Dr. Patel interrupted. "Jake is not a 'freak,' and you need to understand that now that we've identified this, it IS treatable."
"He ain't gonna be going to no looney bin, I'll tell you that right now!" She exclaimed, slamming her fist down on the doctor's desk.
"No," Dr. Patel agreed. "But I do think he would benefit from outpatient therapy at least a few times a week. And this is something that we can set up after school and on weekends, so his classes will not suffer any interruption. I feel that with this and with the medication, Jake will still be on the proper course to achieve all of those things that you want him to achieve! There are many like him who are fully-functioning members of society, and I have no doubt that he will be too as long as he receives the proper treatment."
Loretta sighed, refusing to accept the reality that smacked her in the face, accepting blame that she put upon herself. Her transgressions with her son had been the first burden that she'd carried for many years: while having to deal with an alcoholic husband, she had worked hard to provide somewhat of a stable family life for the three of them. However, the doldrums of rural Mississippi had led her son to cure his boredom with drugs and alcohol, impregnating his girlfriend at fifteen who had ultimately given birth to the kid who would eventually refer to himself as Hubert Smalls in the future. With her son and his lover deemed incapable by the state to adequately raise their child, he was turned over to his grandmother's custody at the age of six.
The regular visits stopped around Jake's eighth birthday, when Loretta and her son swore never to speak to each other again. Not surprisingly, the birthday cards stopped coming in the mail around age eleven. To this day, Jake had no idea where his parents were, or if they were even alive.
Loretta saw Jake as her chance to start anew. And bless her heart, she had succeeded. Her husband, who had passed away due to liver failure when Jake was four, no longer was a burden to her parental structuring. Jake had done well up to this point in school, and had developed into a respectable young teenager: actively involved in sports, Boy Scouts, and a regular attendee of Petal First United Methodist's Sunday services.
"He ain't gonna want to miss practices. He don't know he's different. So I don't know what you want me to do there about the after-school stuff," Loretta responded as she shook her head and looked down at the floor.
Dr. Patel nodded. "I suppose that I agree with you that pulling him out of his regular activities may not be the best course of action, then. While it's my professional opinion that he would benefit from as many therapy sessions as possible, I'd also be inclined to take the position that any interruption in schedule could set him back. So," she continued, typing notes on her desktop computer, "we'll start him off doing Saturday sessions, and re-evaluate in two months..."
Meanwhile, Jake Munson sat in the waiting room while his grandmother and the doctor discussed his ailment. Worry had set in a long time ago, yet his pride had prevented him from seeking help: it was his falling grades that had set the alarm off which led him to this moment. Like any teenager, his only desire was to be normal again. He had no recollection as to why his learning process had become so difficult for him: things like geometry and reading comprehension were sometimes challenging but never impossible. Not only this, but his once friendly and expressive nature had soured due to his inability to find the right words to communicate. It had caused relationships to stagnate. His friends, his ex-girlfriend, his teachers -- all had sensed that something was different, that he had begun to shut out the world.
His brain felt like a Mardi Gras parade.
Feeling his leg begin to twitch, Jake scanned the table in front of him for what had become his defense mechanism: a distraction. Scanning the magazines that were strewn across the furniture, he eyed a copy of Highlights for Children and picked it up.
The dust had seemingly settled on the jazz, masks, tits and beads in his mind as he opened the publication. His nervous twitch had come to an abrupt halt as he started reading.
"If Goofus makes a mess, he leaves it there," Jake mouthed silently. "Gallant cleans up after himself."
(06/02/2009)
Gulfport, MS
The sand sauteed the tops of their feet as Jake Munson and the blond-haired cheerleader struggled to lug the massive, wheel-less cooler over to the spot that their friends had already begun to prepare.
"It's a Yeti," his friend and teammate Randy had beamed as the two had loaded the cooler in the back of the pickup back in Petal. "These thangs are fuckin' the Mustang of coolers."
At this point, Jake would have been fine if it were just the Datsun of coolers, so long as it were about three tons lighter.
"I know why they call it a Yeti," he remarks to Madison as he grunts with exertion. "You gotta be a Sasquatch to carry it yourself."
Madison shoots a glance at him as her poor little arms could barely get the back end of the thing off of the beach. "Um, what's a Sasquatch?"
"Bigfoot," Jake says as he mentally kicked himself in his own ass. Five minutes into the trip with one of the best looking girls in his class, and he'd managed a bomb of colossal proportion.
"Yeah," she agrees, continuing the no-sell of the punchline.
Still, Jake was just happy to be there. As the Petal High wrestling team mainly consisted of guys coming in directly after the football season, he was the quiet taller kid who'd managed to be the only bright spot on a poorly under-coached squad. His friendships continued to develop during the spring as he'd also proved to be a fairly capable hurdler on the track team. Jake was fine with his popularity by association, even if it meant that he was the baby bitch assigned to cooler duty: he was the only other freshman that'd been invited on this trip.
After the Homeward Bound-like journey from the parking lot to the seaside post that had been marked with a Saints flag and a bright white canopy, both Madison and Jake dropped the Yeti unceremoniously at the far corner of the site. Pulling the sleeveless West Marine t-shirt over his head and throwing it in the sand, Jake immediately reached inside the grizzly-proof container and retrieved a can of Natural Light.
"Hey Scout," called Rusty -- a mammoth of a teenager who'd headed the 285+ weight class and anchored the Petal Panthers' offensive line. "Gonna need to see some ID," he jokes. "And does your Webelos master know you drinkin' that?"
"Scout" was Jake's given nickname, all thanks to his involvement with the local Boy Scout troop. Coincidentally, this little getaway would be the last he'd have before being gainfully employed at eighty bucks a week at Camp Seminole as a counselor. The nickname had really stuck fast when Jake had lost a bet with one of the wrestling team's members, with the punishment being that he had to wear his uniform to school the next day.
"Yep. Workin' on my vomit merit badge," Jake responds, eliciting laughter from the group. Rusty, a graduating senior, lumbered over to Jake and put his arm around him, clinking the Bud Light can to his Natty.
"Atta boy."
(06/02/2009)
US-49 North
The expectation of the day’s events were not exactly met. Madison, who’d passed out prematurely thanks to Firefly’s sweet tea vodka, dreaming of Brad Paisley in the back of a red Honda Accord.
Meanwhile, Jake fiddled with his thumbs in the front passenger seat. Buzzed yet coherent, he had maintained a limit, knowing that he’d be up early in the morning to leave for his summer gig in Starkville. The sun had not quite set, and he wondered just how long it would be until the beach party was inevitably broken up.
“I gotta head out,” a petite brunette had announced thirty minutes prior to this moment. “Anyone need a ride back?”
Jake’s ears piqued, although it was not for lack of hearing a new voice. The crowd of about fifteen of Petal’s pretty delinquents had branched off into pairs and clusters. Madison’s attention had been snaked by a senior upon arrival, but he didn’t care. He’d spent the bulk of the afternoon with her and her boyfriend, shooting the breeze and looking forward to the future. Camille and Brandon had both just graduated: Brandon heading to Tuscaloosa while Camille had made plans for State.
He enjoyed the company of two people who were dead set on leaving Petal in the rear-view mirror for good. He had the exact same aspiration, but unfortunately, it was an Oregon Trail worth of time before he’d be given that opportunity.
“Good to take me? I reckon we need to get her ass home too,” Jake replied, as he motioned toward Madison, currently passed out upright in a beach chair.
“Don’t go ya lanky fucker!” Rusty exclaimed. “I didn’t get to hang with you hardly none today!”
“I’ll miss you too, big un,” Jake quipped as he leaned down to hoist Madison over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. She muttered something unintelligible in response, to which Jake ignored as he started his walk through the sand.
“Heavier than the damn cooler,” he remarked as he marched with Camille towards the car.
“She’s the real yeti,” Camille added, smiling.
She enjoyed his reserved nature. Unlike Brandon, who was known to dominate most conversations, it was refreshing to be able to speak her mind without interruption. Whether it was just intimidating for Jake to be in the presence of a very cute upperclassman or not, he only chimed in when posed a question, limiting his responses to a sentence at most.
In all honesty, Camille nowhere to be in the morning, and certainly did not have a curfew this early to worry about. The fact of the matter was that she had felt somewhat flighty since they had first arrived. She knew that after a few beers, Brandon would want to stay until midnight, so her opportunity to escape had presented itself.
Camille and Jake had exchanged glances the entire day that seemed to linger a little too long. This is why it came to no surprise that he’d volunteered to accept the ride home.
She just wondered if he’d accept her invitation to stick around.
06/03/2009
Petal, MS
Lying back on the hood of the Accord, they were two bodies juxtaposed close but not quite touching. Of all of the places they could have been: anywhere separate would have been smarter than here together.
The inebriated Madison had been dropped off to face the wrath of her parents several hours ago. Camille, who was no actress, had still given a performance that this was completely unplanned.
Jake, having plenty of teenage sense to know that logging “alone time” with the girlfriend of a highly-liked senior was a horrible idea. Unfortunately, the alcohol had long since clouded his judgment. There were still about four beers left in the Yeti: enough to justify driving to the empty lot in Relay Park to polish them off before morning.
“So what exactly do you do at Scout camp anyway?” Camille inquired, taking a drag off of a Marlboro light and passing it back to Jake.
Jake inhaled the cigarette, chasing the tobacco with a swig of watered-down lager. “Teachin' people how to canoe. Waterfront’s the only thing I’m qualified for, ‘cause they always need people certified in lifesaving.”
“Know your way around a boat pretty well?”
“No. But I reckon I can fake it pretty good,” he responds, handing her the last of the smoke. “So when do you start up at Starkville?” he asks, desperate to change the subject of the summer filled with adolescent boys in the dorkiest of circumstances.
“August,” she answers. “But I’m thinking about heading up this month. Kinsey’s got an apartment there and I might be able to stay with her until I can move into the dorms. I dunno. I’m sick of being in Petal, sick of all the people here.”
“Yeah,” Jake agrees.
“Hey,” Camille turns, “if I’m gonna be in Starkville and you’re gonna be nearby, we should hang out on the weekends or something!”
Jake grins. “That’d be cool. I can probably get a ride into town pretty easily.”
“Pssh. I’d come get you,” she insists.
“Fuck that,” Jake protests. “There’s a reason they call parents’ night ‘Big Sister Night,’ and I ain’t subjectin’ you to that fuckin’ nightmare.”
Camille laughs. “You make it sound real charming. But I bet you look cute in one of those uniforms.”
Despite the boozy haze, Jake’s cheeks turn a flush red at Camille’s pass. Pausing to try to come up with a suave retort, he mumbles.
“You should see me in it when I’m wearing my merit badge sash.”
Not since Wayne Campbell had quipped to Cassandra that everyone had been “kung-fu fighting” had there been a more colossal bomb. Camille, who was surprisingly on the level for a small-town girl, immediately decided to toss a dash of salt inside the wound.
“I guess you’re still working on the merit badge for Smooth Responses When Women Pay You Compliments,” she chuckles, taking a pull from the can of Bud Light.
Jake sighs. “Planned on trying to knock that one out this summer.”
Without warning, Camille’s hand fell directly over Jake’s as she scooted over close to him. He turned to face her, dough-eyed and wistful as they exchanged a glance. In the distance, the tree frogs signaled the rain to come and served as a crooning ballad to provide the soundtrack to a connection of nicotine-flavored lips. Their tongues swatted in rhythm as their hands gave into a mechanical motion up and down each others’ backs, caught up in the intoxicated missteps of teenage infidelity.
Then, they boned. And it was totally awesome.
“Shit.”
Jake swore aloud in the confines of his bedroom as he lay with his eyes open in the darkness.
“I gotta be up early in the morning,” he’d said.
“Thanks for the ride,” he’d said.
“I guess I’ll see you around?” Fuck. No he wouldn’t. He was going to spend the rest of his summer paddling around like a doofus, being forced to listen to a bunch of his fellow Scouts drivel on about how cool they actually were in their hometowns when in reality they were the Webster’s definition of pariah.
06/04/2009
Petal, MS
The plot resolution in his fantasy was always more David Lynch than E.L. James. However, his frustration came more from the fact that Camille had essentially handed him a skeleton key and all he had to do was unlock the door. His hesitation, his fear of inadequacy: he had grabbed his life preserver and jumped starboard out of the side of the canoe.
But as Jake awoke and logged into the family computer to do one last check of his Facebook, a smile spread across his face.
The ship had not sunk.
From: Camille Moore
hey! it was cool hanging with you yesterday! hope you have fun this summer! xoxo
Jake stared at the screen for a few seconds, a million thoughts pulsing through his mind. He had to go for it.
From: Jake Munson
Hey! It was cool hanging with you too! Not gonna have Internet access but will have my phone on me, you should text me or something. 601-833-4931
Without hesitation, he clicked the mouse with a cocksure press of his index finger. And thus, he began to wade back towards the vessel, extending his arms into a crawl stroke to try to fight against the buoyant life jacket that only served to slow him down.
It would only be months from now that he’d discover the hole in the bottom of the boat.