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Post by Light Rises on Jun 20, 2005 16:19:39 GMT -5
Whew! Yes, I’ve finally finished a piece of fanfiction! And yeah, this happens to be the one that’s kept me from updating “Homecoming,” since I didn’t have the heart to set this aside once it was more than halfway done. Part college, part rabid perfectionism, part the fact that this one-shot ended up being more than TWICE as long than I’d originally thought it would be can account for the ultra loooong delay. Blech—I must learn to write faster! Anywho, this originated from a story idea I brought up on the old Boggs’ Board last year (yikes, it’s been that long?!), when we were discussing Cajun and Southern accents. It’s one of my first forays into fanfic angst-dom, so be forewarned—the “light” parts are few and far between. Also, I would rate this one-shot “PG-13” for some graphic images and language (although, in terms of the language, it’s nothing TOO bad, I hope). I’m dedicating this fic to you guys, so I ask for your honest feedback on what’s working, what sucks, what needs to be corrected…that type of thing. Constructive criticism is NEEDED. -_-; Oh, yeah— Monsters, Inc. and anything related to that motion picture that’s used in this story were created by Pixar, and are sole property of the Walt Disney Company. I’m not making any money off of this, so suing is not necessary. ~*~*~*~ A Matter of PerspectiveBy Light Rises ~*~*~*~ Life’s funny sometimes—and for some people, life feels like one big joke after another, in endless, excruciating succession. You might’ve been there before, if not now: it’s when you’re certain all of civilization and even nature itself is making you pay through the nose for having graced the earth with your existence. It’s when everything suggests that you’re a liability—an unwanted burden on everyone, especially those who’ve dared to get close enough to you to become friends. So relationships never last, and those people who probably would’ve backed you up are either dead and gone or have come to the same conclusion about you as everyone else: Not worth the time; not worth the effort. But the hilarious thing is when you try to adapt, try to “look out for Number One” and follow every other cynical tidbit of advice that experience has taught you—only to still get burned in the end (or get whacked in the skull by a shovel-wielding idiot…which isn’t any different, really). It’s not like you can complain to anyone, either…unless you’ve tried arguing with God or whatever Powers-That-May-Be about how He, She, It, or They are running your crappy life. Which has never done you a lick of good, anyway. You have the cards you’re dealt with, and if it’s such an atrociously bad hand that you have little to no control over how you play them…well, then, don’t go expecting any special treatment. Such is life: con-artists come out all roses, and decent folks get sent through the wringer—all for no apparent reason. Too funny, really. A big fat joke.But life can be funny in another way. It’s in the smaller moments, when you end up doing something completely out of the norm (at least for you). The sudden urge to call a friend or loved one you haven’t spoken with in years, an invisible hand that stays your own from doing something otherwise routine or natural—that kind of thing. Yet they’re still fleeting moments, and no matter how spontaneous or out-of-character they seem at the time, almost nobody’s going to notice right away how those decisions will affect the whole scheme of things. You might be lucky enough to find out soon after the fact: that loved one you call ends up dying the very next day—and chances are you weren’t going to call that person even then. More often than not, though, you won’t understand why you did what you did WHEN you did it for years…or maybe never at all. Something powerfully significant happens when you allow your hand to be stayed just that one time, and you’ll never figure out what that thing is, much less understand why it happened. Is it because, most of the time, we don’t need to know why? Or is it just because, most of the time, we don’t pay close enough attention? Such is life: people can be so preoccupied with what’s obviously wrong and unfair with the way things are, they rarely notice the little, daily miracles occurring all around them. Another big joke—but maybe more sad than it is funny. From almost any angle, it’s hard to tell how these two things—all of life’s injustices and these small miracles—balance each other out. That might not be the point, or maybe there’s no point at all: everything we’re bombarded with could just be random happenstance, brought about without purpose or any regard as to what we consider “good” or “bad.” But for most people, it’s hard to shake the feeling that there IS a point after all, even if there’s no easy explanation as to just what that point is. For all we know (and that, admittedly, isn’t a whole lot), it could be just a matter of perspective…that perhaps Someone, who isn’t restricted by our rather limited perception of things, not only sees all those little connections but also understands why they’re there. By chance, by fate, or by something even bigger than either…it may not matter to you which one really applies to the way things work. But for those who do care, here’s one story that might help you decide for yourself. And this is one case where we have the rare advantage of understanding the importance behind someone else’s “fleeting moment”—or, rather, his series of such moments. -------------------------
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Post by Light Rises on Jun 20, 2005 16:22:26 GMT -5
The Atchafalaya Basin, Louisiana, USA November 3, 2001 1:49 A.M., Central Standard Time
The heads of numerous water reeds swayed under a quiet, whistling breeze, bathed in moonlight. The Southern night’s stillness, complemented by chirping crickets and droning cicadas, was punctuated by the sudden, loud humming of an on-coming car engine. Within moments, the vehicle’s headlights washed over the reeds and the area of swampland and dirt road surrounding them. Its tires dipping in and out of various ruts and shallow pits, the old, trunk-covered pickup truck lurched onward through the muggy darkness, its plastic “Pizza Planet” spaceship jerking and bobbing slightly from its perch atop the passenger compartment. Inside, a groggy, greasy-haired (and, admittedly, tipsy) teenager sat at the wheel, halfheartedly navigating the road before him. He was mostly checking to make sure he didn’t get stalled in a mud patch or veer off into the unstable, marshy earth on either side. Beat tired as he was and blunted as his senses were—not to mention the rather gloomy thoughts nagging him at the moment—he was in neither the mood nor condition to be more attentive to what he was doing.
Eyelids drooping, the boy released a hand from the steering wheel to quickly rub at them, as if thinking that would wipe away their heaviness. He then glimpsed his headlights catching on the trunks of cypresses that were embedded in murky water on either side of the road, their boughs hung with dripping, lace-like lengths of Spanish moss that sometimes stretched over the dirt path he presently drove upon like gossamer curtains. Vaguely, he acknowledged their presence; it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen this type of scenery before, in dozens of different places and in hundreds of variations. And besides, all he wanted was to get his exhausted bum home.
At length the road began to smooth out, firming up as it crossed more reliable terrain. His vehicle’s handling much easier now, the boy leaned forward, squinting in anticipation of the familiar silhouette he would soon come upon. Then he saw it: just ahead, nestled on a round clearing of brown earth surrounded by long, waving grasses and water reeds was a small trailer home, its dull white metal laced with rust stains. The road approached it from behind, and he proceeded to pull the pickup into a spot along the trailer’s right side. Shutting off the ignition, he glanced to his left to look through the driver’s side window. A single bulb near the trailer’s front door was casting a yellowy light upon a makeshift porch area, mingling with the blue glow from a bug zapper that hung from the porch’s corrugated metal canopy. And—most tellingly—he could see through the trailer’s shaded windows that the lights were still on inside.
Mama waited up for me. The boy gulped convulsively, looking down at his lap and slowly licking his lips. Then, with a surge of resignation, he swung the car door open and trudged out, kicking it shut behind him as he thrust his hands into the front pockets of his red “Pizza Planet” jacket. He trod several sluggish, heel-scuffing paces before stepping onto the wooden porch and stopping in front of the door. Shifting his weight from one leg to another for a moment, he pulled his cap’s visor down and then reached to grip the door handle. With a turn, he nudged his way inside the trailer and let the door slam closed behind him.
“Cal! You’re late again!” His mother was quick to the draw, her forehead creased furiously as she whirled around to face him from where she stood at the kitchenette (since she had, apparently, been in the middle of a long overdue washing of a formidable stack of dirty dishes). Several damp strands of hair, loosened from the bun she’d tied the rest of her dark locks into at the nape of her neck, dangled in front of her red face. “Where the hell have you been?!”
Cal hardly deigned his mother a glance her way before stomping to the coach, trying to ignore her continuing barrage of questions. Without motioning to sit down, he proceeded to shuck off his jacket and drape it onto one of the armrests with a deliberately curt toss. He was about to pull off his cap when Mama’s tirade (which had only gained steam with his brooding, unresponsive behavior) made him pause, setting his teeth on edge. Frustration ballooning in his chest, Cal rounded on her with flashing eyes.
“I ain’t been doin’ NOTHIN’, Mama!” To his slight chagrin, he sounded much more like a little kid than he’d intended to.
“Like hell you haven’t,” she shot back. “You think it’s real funny, runnin’ off with your friends night after night instead of getting on to work, thinkin’ y’all can pull a fast one on me.”
“I already done TOL’ ya, Mama,” he whined, turning aside and watching her out of the corners of his eyes as he twisted his cap restlessly. “I just make a lotta deliveries down by Lafayette an’ N’Awlins, an’ dem things take awhile to get through.”
“That ain’t how your boss tells it,” she said, advancing a couple steps. “‘Hasn’t turned up for work in a week,’ he told me. ‘Gonna take away the car an’ uniform if that boy don’t start showin’ up,’ he told me. Now you tell ME what business you got all the ways out in Lafayette an’ New Orleans when you only deliver five miles outside of Morgan City.”
Cal shrugged, knowing the instant after what he said next that his words had leaked out too carelessly. “Passin’ a good time, I guess.”
“‘Passin’ a good time’?” With a backhanded swipe, Mama smacked the back of his head, snapping it forward painfully. “What ya, outta yer ever-lovin’ mind?!” She glared at him, muttered a sharp curse under her breath, then turned from Cal with a heavy, weary scowl. “Goo’ Lord, boy, I swear you’re no good to nobody,” she added, shaking her head as she returned to the kitchenette.
The boy remained stationary, not even turning to look her way as he massaged the back of his skull. The skin there sung with throbbing heat, nearly on par with the familiar, pained resentment which now knotted his throat and twitched the corners of his mouth downward. “Den I don’t see no point in me stickin’ around dese parts all da time, seeing as I’m so much trouble,” he mumbled tensely before letting his tone surrender to gloominess. “’Sides, N’Awlins an’ Lafayette’s da only places in dis whole stupid bayou dat’s got anything worth doin’.”
“Now don’t ya start with that!” Mama’s eyes were locked on him with sudden keenness, and there was something strangely intense about the way she presently wagged a wooden spoon at him, which was dripping with soapy sink water. “It’s just that kinda talk that got your pa goin’ an’ ended up drivin’ him into some slum in Jersey, leavin’ us for some pie-in-the-sky dream to fend for ourselves. An’ you don’t wanna turn out like your pa, now do ya?”
Cal’s body went rigid; just the mention of this subject was plenty sufficient to send an unpleasant thrill through him. The accusatory overtones in his mother’s voice only made the feeling linger, only fed the bitterness he’d forced himself to keep bottled up since the night Pa left. But again he had to give her a pat answer—not so much because he knew being honest wouldn’t please Mama as the fact that he didn’t know exactly how he really felt, anyway.
“…Well?”
“Naw, Mama,” he replied in a low, sullen mumble. “I don’t.”
The fierceness in her demeanor softened, her brow not quite as furrowed as she turned back to washing the spoon. “Of course not,” she said in a more subdued, yet stubbornly affirming way. “You’re aimin’ to be a nice Southern gentleman, you are. An’ you’re gonna start by stowin’ away that jacket in the closet neat an’ proper-like, y’hear?”
“Oui, Mama.” Pivoting slightly, Cal reached to retrieve his jacket from the coach’s armrest and then slung it over his shoulder as he started trudging toward the trailer’s single closet. Something about this simple task (or rather, his obliging to carry it out) had imbued him with an odd, infuriating sense of powerlessness. The strangest part, though, was that even his efforts at conjuring up any inner stirrings of defiance seemed hollow—like an act that was somehow both futile and very, very wrong. And it was the “wrong” part which had been plaguing Cal’s thoughts the most lately.
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Post by Light Rises on Jun 20, 2005 16:25:03 GMT -5
Quite numbly at first, he followed through the motions of approaching the closet door, opening it, taking a coat hanger, sliding his jacket onto it, and then replacing it in the closet. Once Cal finished and had shut the door behind him, however, the numbness diffused somewhat and he let his back thump against the door and rest there a moment. He huffed a sigh, staring hard at the floor in front of his feet.
Everything had made sense when Pa was around—more importantly, everything had felt RIGHT. Not perfect by any means, but then again, it wasn’t like Cal had ever known what “perfect” was anyway. His family was, after all, a rather infamous lot when it came to its possession (or lack thereof) of exceptional “intellectual faculties.” More to the point, just about everyone in the Basin counted the Heberts as a particularly slow bunch (that Mama had figured out what she had about Cal’s pizza delivery route was a feat unto itself). And the locals had rarely missed an opportunity to remind Pa, Mama, or even Cal and his little sister Rita of this fact—whether in the form of a good-natured joke or of a ridiculing jab that was sure to provoke some expletive-ridden comments on Pa’s part. But the mocking never seemed to really bother either of Cal’s parents all that much, and the way they’d appeared to lead their lives unquestioningly—never thinking twice about the reasons for why they lived how they did where they did—compelled Cal to be just as unquestioning about his own life. For the Heberts, there truly was bliss in ignorance.
The problem was, though, that it turned out Pa wasn’t as certain of things as his son (or even his wife) had originally believed. That in the past year, Pa had started feeling uncomfortable around the more educated tourists who often came to hunt and sight-see in the Basin, and that all the teasing (even from good friends) was beginning to rub him the wrong way. For the first time that Cal could remember, Pa was worried about what people thought of him…and trying to examine himself through others’ eyes had led his father to believe there was much lacking. It was only once Pa had begun questioning whether what he had now was truly enough that Cal started to question the very same things, too.
Mama tolerated Pa’s bouts of uncertainty for a time; probably figured it was one of those “phases,” and that he would be through with it soon enough. But when he began concluding that it might be the PLACE, the Basin itself, that was holding him back, incredulity and a strong conviction that her husband had completely lost his mind finally sapped her of any remaining patience. Many shouting matches between Cal and Rita’s parents ensued, rocking the Hebert trailer night after night until—without another word—Pa simply left in a determined huff. Just like that; gone. With nothing but a few select belongings in tow. And with just the same sort of swiftness, the last of Cal’s certainty about his life came crumbling down…leaving him with a vindictive mother who now thrived on “I-told-you-so”s whenever news of Pa’s antics in the “real world” trickled in, and a little sister whom he rarely saw anymore, as she now had been sent to live with an aunt in South Carolina. Cal’s friends weren’t much help, either; no amount of carousing was enough to mask or sufficiently sugarcoat the fact that they could never understand what he was going through. If none of them had ever gotten to know their own fathers very well, if at all, then how on God’s green earth were they SUPPOSED to understand? Besides, Cal was a guy, and what sort of guy acted like an emotional mess of a sissy, anyway? It was just these kinds of things which kept nudging him toward the very edge of deciding to leave this godforsaken place altogether. Because that’s all the Basin was to him anymore—a stinking, godforsaken bog.
So what was it, then? What possible incentive—no, what thing still managed to keep him tethered here? Except maybe…Cal presently lifted his eyes, looking to the kitchenette as Mama finished up with the dishes. The tap now shut off, she began shaking the water from her hands and stepping away when a faint crunch stopped her cold. She looked down to see that her left shoe had tread upon a small pile of shattered brown glass. A rush of blood flickering across her cheeks, she raised her foot and hastily nudged the shards out of immediate sight with it. She then glanced up to see Cal looking back, something passing across her gaze that didn’t seem so much angry at him as with herself, and briskly turned from him to open a cupboard.
Straightening, Cal trained his eyes on the floor again. He brought a hand close to his mouth, exhaled, and sniffed. His breath stunk of alcohol, just as he was sure his clothes stunk with the stuff too. How strange, he thought, that he was rather open about his recent turn to drinking (although he never even tried to conceal it) while Mama seemed to be making every effort to hide her own. But it wasn’t all that strange, really, because despite that thick, hard wall of bone which made up his skull, he understood that her behavior had something to do with those long gone dreams she apparently still clung to of becoming a true “Southern lady.” She’d been entranced by the romanticized, Hollywood version of “the Old South” as a young girl, and Mama, once upon a time, had high hopes for herself since she’d been able to snag a man whom she was certain she could actually hold down. “Proves me a fool,” Cal often heard her mutter now, “thinkin’ a wedding ring would make any difference. Stupid, stupid, stupid.” Such candidness wasn’t her tendency, but that and her moods—bearable or utterly foul—would ebb and flow with the swigs of booze. And she was ashamed of it, of what this new habit did to her; that much even Cal was able to figure out. He could also see, although he was only realizing it just now, the kind of toll all the extra responsibilities she’d taken on since Pa left were starting to have on her, and that by itself tore rather deeply into his rebellious streak. Who was he to fool around, after all, when money was tight and especially when Mama was managing things as best she could?
Therein laid the “wrong” part, of course—that bothersome sense of obligation to stay which struggled with a heart that wanted so badly to leave. But if there was one reason, more than any other, for which Cal continued to keep his feet planted on Basin soil, it was this: Mama had stayed. A terror though she could be, Mama hadn’t been the one who’d left Cal. And that was key—Pa had abandoned them. He had abandoned them. Worse still, Mama had predicted that “no good” would come of Pa’s departure, and everything she and Cal kept hearing about him ever since seemed to confirm that. Actually, Cal realized, Mama had been right about a LOT of things. So it made perfect sense for him to believe that her other predictions—that Cal would end up in the gutter like his pa if he didn’t straighten up—would come to pass if he didn’t start behaving. In the same vein, if she said Cal was going to be a “Southern gentleman,” that surely meant he was capable of becoming one.
And that’s what he’d have to aspire to…because that’s what Mama said he could be. Because as much as he loathed to remain here, he wanted even more to NOT become like Pa.
Almost imperceptibly, Cal shook his head. No—it’d never come to that. He was going to behave more, be a good boy, act “gentlemanly.” Since as far as he could tell, his future depended on it.
“You done yet, boy?”
Cal looked up with a start, blinking. “Wha?”
“I never got around to fixin’ supper, waitin’ up for you like I was,” Mama went on tersely, still poking around in the cupboard. “If you’re plannin’ on eatin’ ’fore breakfast, then you’d better get on over here an’ help me set things up.”
He breathed an inaudible sigh. “Oui, Mama.” Hands burrowing into his jean pockets, he began making his way to the kitchenette when—after only a few steps—his foremost leg jerked to a halt in mid-stride. He managed a small, startled yell as momentum wrenched him downward and slammed him face-first against the floor. He lay there a moment, swearing through clenched teeth before hoisting himself up and onto one knee. As he gripped the nearby couch’s armrest with his right arm, he looked up to see Mama staring back at him. One of her eyebrows was arched in puzzlement as she stood there with various utensils clutched in both hands.
Her eyes briefly flicked downward before meeting his again, bewilderment now traded for a lidded gaze. “Your shoe’s untied,” she muttered, returning to her work.
Blinking again, Cal glanced down to see that she was right: on his right foot, the one whose leg he wasn’t kneeling on, the sneaker’s shoelace was loose. A scowl tightening his face, he exhaled a groan and tried to tie the lace properly, only to find his hands far too unsteady and his fingers too sausage-like in feeling to cooperate. The booze, of course—what else could it be? And what else could make him act this childish, tripping over his own shoelaces like he did AND not being able to tie them up afterward? Face burning with embarrassment and frustration, he abruptly let himself fall onto his rump, shook the offending shoe loose from his foot, and then kicked it under the couch. Darkly, he glared at the spot where the sneaker had disappeared into shadow, then back at the sock-covered foot sprawled before him.
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Post by Light Rises on Jun 20, 2005 16:27:03 GMT -5
Hardly three seconds passed before a loud THUD sounded behind Cal, jolting him out of his brooding in time to hear the sharp slam of what could only be a door. Muscles suddenly taut—and his mind refusing to jump to any conclusions—the boy made slow, clumsy business of twisting his body round and getting onto his feet. By the time his wide eyes had fixed upon the source of the racket, the thing was already less than a few feet from where he presently stood…appearing as much agape at the boy as the boy was at it.
A split second of hazy uncertainty passed between them, with Cal’s brain trying to wrap itself around this problem-apparent. But once his sight latched onto the fact that it was a critter, had scales, was terribly large for a normal lizard, and had rather threatening-looking teeth showing through its parted jaws, his reason all-too-easily gravitated toward one particular idea. Raising a finger toward the critter and retreating, he loudly observed that which seemed to make perfect sense to him:
“Mama, ’nother gator got in da house!”
Mama had glanced up at the sound of Cal’s voice, all sense of weariness dropping from her demeanor upon looking past her son at the thing his finger indicated. Even before his warning was out and finished, she’d already left the kitchenette and had nearly crossed the distance between them.
“’Nother gator?!” she exclaimed, now standing at his side. Ever so dimly, her eyes flashed in a way they hadn’t for a long, long while as she then pointed at something leaning against the wall to her left. “Gimme that shovel!”
Cal promptly obeyed, hearing an additional, almost vicious charge of “C’mon!” from his mother even before managing to pass the shovel to her. Then, backpedaling a couple steps, he watched on as the gator’s attempt at flight was stopped in midstream by a swift, fierce crack of rusty metal against the back of its skull.
Sweeeee’ mother…what a blow! But this gator was a bugger—still up, though quite well stalled—and in quick succession came another solid downward swing of the shovel, just as true to its target. These first spatterings of violence were already stirring Cal’s insides, warming him with a rush of adrenaline, and he felt inspired to a weird, sort of delirious, yet shameless state of exhilaration. It didn’t matter how stupid it made him look; this was the closest thing to being happy he’d come by in months, after all.
“Get ’im, Mama!” he rooted behind her, raising his fists and even breaking into a little hopping dance. “Get dat gator!”
The blows kept coming, just as cheered for. They dazzled Cal, each swing viscerally satisfying by virtue of the solidness with which they struck home, of the sounds of contact between gator hide and metal. WHAM—smashed against its left side; crumpled the limbs there!—WHAM—its head again, the front this time!— WHAM—rammed into its upper back, drove it downward; what made it think it could still get away? WHAM—!
Then…stillness. It wasn’t stirring, and most certainly wasn’t going to get up this time.
Breathing heavily, Mama lowered the shovel’s tip onto the floor, leaned a moment on the wooden handle as she surveyed her work. She was starting to chuckle, soft and winded though the sound was. When she turned to look her son’s way, Cal saw that a broad, pleased grin had broken across her face.
“Hoooo boy…” she laughed. Although a thin sheen of sweat slicked her forehead, there was a faint sparkle to Mama’s eyes. They were strangely, comfortingly warm. “A…bit more excitement…than we’ve had in a while, eh?”
Cal fastened his gaze upon the carcass behind his mother, feeling a grin creeping across his own face. “You done got dat gator good, Mama,” he remarked, turning back to her. “A real big one, at dat.”
Mama’s smile lingered a couple seconds longer before fading into a frown. Brows suddenly creased, she raised one hand to his left cheek. “Now it didn’t harm you none back there, did it?” she fretted, albeit a tad gruffly. “’Cause I saw that thing charge at you an’ Lord knows what—”
“Aw, Mama, no!” he moaned, swatting her hand away. “No more fussin’, stop it! You’re goin’ on like I’m some baby.”
She blinked at him, then withdrew her hand. “Oh, right,” she mumbled; no hint of sarcasm could be detected in her voice, and she emitted a soft laugh. “Of course…”
A loud thump made them start, whipped their heads round. Directing their gazes groundward, they saw the gator’s tail still coiling—faint and painfully sluggish though its movement was—across the floor. Little, odd noises breathed through the gator’s teeth, faint quivers of unmistakable life running through its body as the critter began making feeble attempts at moving its limbs.
Relaxing somewhat, since the gator wasn’t moving nearly fast enough to arouse immediate concern, mother and son exchanged awkward looks with each other. Several such hushed seconds passed before Mama glanced at the gator again, pursing her lips in a grimace. “Hmm. Must be losin’ my touch…” she mumbled.
Fingers slipping under his cap, Cal began to scratch his scalp. “So…you gonna finish ’im off or what?”
Her gaze shifting away from his, Mama took the shovel into both hands again and eyed it, her bottom lip partially sucked in, seeming almost…thoughtful, somehow. Her son paused his scalp-scratching and raised his brows at her. He’d begun to wonder about this urge to hesitate which she seemed to have just conjured up when she spoke again.
“…Actually, I’m thinkin’ you could do it.” She then flipped the shovel over so its blade now pointed heavenward. “Here,” she continued, holding it out to him. “One more good blow should do it, nearly grown as you are.”
The boy stared at the shovel for a moment, a bit slow in comprehension of what he’d just heard and seen, then looked up at Mama. Her warm expression confirmed for Cal the compliment she’d just paid him, making him half-smile with appreciation once it finally sank in. He took the shovel from her.
Its heavy wooden handle felt strange in his grip, like a power newly endowed. He started rotating it in his hands. “An’ he’ll be ripe for eatin’ afterwards?” he pressed her, eyes lit up with sudden eagerness as he looked her way again.
Mama chuckled. “That goes without sayin’!” Her laughter calming, she flashed another smile; how long it’d been since Cal saw her smile this much, he honestly couldn’t say. She presently bent toward him, framing his face with her hands and shaking it gently. “Ooooo…just think it!” she enthused, releasing him to make her way back to the kitchenette. “More gator than we know what to do with! Mmmm! As good a reason as any to start up the pot for jambalaya, the way I see it.”
Cal said nothing further, but his insides continued to swell with glee. There was a reason why she seemed so much happier than usual, and it had little to do with alcohol (which, admittedly, made her as goofy at some times as it could make her intolerable at others). Unlike previous gators that had wandered into the trailer, this one was huge…and in terms of food, terribly substantial for more than a couple days’ worth of meals. Why, a mother like this was going to keep the two of ’em fed for a couple weeks at least! Saliva already filling his mouth, he gulped it down and returned his attention to the gator. So WHAT if it was almost two in the morning? As far as Cal was concerned, there were only two things that mattered right now: that he was one shovel blow away from supper, and that things in general felt nice—if not a modicum closer to right—once again.
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Post by Light Rises on Jun 20, 2005 16:29:36 GMT -5
He took a stoic step forward, then a second, slower one—consciously yet curiously solemn. Halting there, standing just shy of two yards from the gator’s head, he raised the shovel upward in a cautious, two-handed motion, stopping it once the bottom of its blade reached above his eye level. One more good blow…one blow…one…just one… A simple, swift swing downward; then, supper. Then…passin’ a good time.
That simple. That easy. Yeah.
Cal squeezed his eyes shut, let them flutter open, shook his head as if to rouse himself from sleep. Easy. Just do it like Mama done did it. Simple. Kids’ stuff, practically—he knew that. This was the kind of thing Cajuns and other Basin folks did all the time. Nothing special, really. So…why didn’t this feel quite as unceremonious to him, like with every other gator his family had slaughtered for meat? To his way of thinking, it was either because this just happened to be his first time delivering any blows, much less a fatal blow, which logic told him had to be the case…
…Or that, just perhaps, it was something else altogether.
While he stood there, frozen, staring, arms weirdly hesitant to follow through with the swing they were poised for, the gator had managed to prop itself up. Not by much; just with its right foremost limb braced against the trailer floor, holding its upper body partially aloft under terrible, shaky strain. Just as he saw the gator’s struggle come to this point, its curiously short-snouted head still bowed, its breaths still labored and odd-sounding…recognition dawned on Cal. He’d heard that kind of breathing before—in a bar some weeks ago, where a fight had broken out. He remembered vividly—it’d happened inches from his face—one guy getting elbowed hard in the throat, doubling over…ending up, now that Cal thought about it, in much the same pose as the gator was presently in once he’d dropped to the ground. And the way he’d breathed, those wheezing, strangled breaths…it was the very same here, the very same noises.
…The same? Was that possible? Although, now that his attention had been focused solely on the gator for more than a few seconds, Cal had to admit it was a rather…odd-looking gator: eight limbs instead of four, a lavender and blue coloration to the scales, three frond-like appendages cresting its head, each tipped with a rosy pink. And it wasn’t like it hadn’t been this odd-looking to begin with, right? And gators just did NOT make noises like someone—no, a guy—who’d come out of a bar fight. It just didn’t happen. Right?
Uneasily, Cal started rotating the shovel’s shaft in his hands again. Something felt wrong here. Very, very wrong.
“Mama…I ain’t sure dat, I…uh…” He struggled a moment, eyes briefly squeezed shut with frustration before he finished in a quick, slurred-together blurt, “Somethin’s not right with dis here gator.”
Stopping the cooking preparations (and making it obvious by the way she now turned her undivided attention to him that he was interrupting her), Mama raised a baffled and slightly incredulous eyebrow at her son. “What? You sayin’ you don’t think that gator ain’t good for eatin’?”
“No! Well, no, I-I guess…” He averted his eyes, aiming a sheepish gaze at a random spot on the floor. “I mean…well, no, but i-it’s just…” His voice having grown very small, he stopped talking altogether, now concentrating all his unease upon twisting the shovel’s handle in his grip.
An exasperated sigh passed through Mama’s lips as she rolled her eyes. “OH, for…” Giving her head a shake and then tilting it sideways, she sent a more-than-slightly-peeved glare toward Cal. “Boy, you not up to goin’ through with it or what? ’Cause I don’t got a problem takin’ back that shovel an’—”
“N-no!” he said hastily. “I got it! I got it…” Cal glanced from her to the gator, then back at her again, meanwhile giving the shovel a small, confirming sort of jostle. “Just another minute. Oui…”
Again came some headshakes, and then a grunt and dismissive wave of her hand as Mama turned back to the preparations. She did no more or less than that—which, considering her mood at the moment, he took to be a good thing.
Slowly, Cal pivoted toward the gator, possessed with a sudden urge to slam his forehead against a wall. What was wrong with him?! This sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen…getting squeamish about killing a gator! Unheard-of! But that was just it…this whole feeling was unheard-of, unnatural—something he couldn’t make heads or tails of for the life of him. And the more he reflected upon it, the more he knew for certain that fear had little, if anything, to do with it. At least having “the jitters” about killing his first gator would’ve been understandable—even (to an extent) to his own friends.
Something new was ballooning within him—this time a hollow, sinking sensation—and Cal felt his lips part. The fact that he didn’t want to do this for Mama, that he was unwilling to follow through with this simple charge…he was starting to wonder if he was just doomed. Doomed to be this sad, idiotic, nasty young man who didn’t give a rip about his mama, preferring to drink his pathetic life away at bars night after long night.
All that. And only to end up no better than his own pa…
In a flash, Cal’s gaze snapped upward, his sense of resignation snatched away in the same instant. Stupid! This was so STUPID! He knew he wanted to eat gator—as much if not even more so than Mama. He wanted that jambalaya, could deliver that blow, had seen others deliver it without so much as batting an eye! Kids’ stuff! Pffft! Setting his jaw, Cal again hefted the shovel upward, drawing it back for a swing just as before. Pffft. So easy, it was stupid…
But a new, particularly sharp uncertainty soon wedged itself into Cal’s scoffing. In a slow, tremulous motion, the gator presently managed to lift its head (peculiar fronds and all) and draw its gaze upward, stopping as it met the boy’s own. In turn, Cal’s renewed tenseness faded. That thing was…staring at him, its teeth clenched, those eyes—green; deep green, just like Rita’s!—widening at the sight of him like…almost…but that was impossible, wasn’t it? But then so was the fact that the gator proceeded to shake its head at him, the lips which he knew didn’t even EXIST for other gators starting to mouth one distinguishable word over and over again: “No.”
“What da hell…?” Cal’s left hand let go of the shovel, the other hand lowering the wooden handle to the floor and then sliding down its length as the boy crouched onto one knee. He knew he should’ve felt vulnerable, his face now less than a couple feet from the gator’s jaws as it was, but no degree of true anxiety ever struck him. He simply returned the creature’s wide-eyed stare, his jaw hanging slack—for a moment seriously considering the idea that he was still too drunk to trust what he was seeing, much less what he was feeling. The gator continued to shake its head, now emitting short gasps that Cal couldn’t help but notice sounded like the “no”s (and now “please”s) which the critter’s lips formed in desperate repetition. Almost imperceptibly, Cal started shaking his head, too, increasing disbelief drawing him back a few inches. But something caught his eye, and he froze in place. A shade of crimson had begun invading the critter’s left eye, deepening with every blink. Looking down slightly, Cal traced the blood’s source to a deep, diagonal gash which ran from the base of that eye to the gator’s upper lip—probably, he supposed, from when the shovel’s blade had been at a slight angle upon impact and had gouged into the scales there. Something about this realization made his insides twist into a brief, disconcerting knot, and when he locked gazes with the gator again, his uncertainty finally formed into something concrete. And that concrete something was the fact that suddenly, it’d become very, VERY hard for Cal to convince himself that this gator was just some dumb animal.
And suddenly, too, it’d become very hard for him to raise that shovel again. Not while this critter was looking at him that way and acting so godawful strange, at least.
“What on earth are you doin’?”
His breath catching, Cal stiffened. No shovel twack had sounded, which meant that Mama knew he hadn’t gone through with the kill yet. “Uh…” Unable to think up a decent response of any sort (other than his rather loud “uh”), he nervously shifted his lowered knee, trained his eyes on the critter, then rose to his feet. The shovel continued to act as a staff for him, now clutched by both hands. He mirrored the gator’s gritted teeth in his own grimace, his eyes briefly darting to the side. Something flashed across the critter’s gaze in that moment, as if it’d recognized how torn the boy’s feelings as to what he should do just became, and all head movement and mouthed words died away almost instantly. A single noise heaved from its thin chest and passed through its teeth—like a choked sob. Unmistakable wetness brimmed in its left eye, until a droplet spilled over the eyelid and slid down the gator’s face in a red streak. A bloodied tear.
Watching this, Cal was suddenly aware of something wet on his own fingers, the ones of his left hand. He quickly brought the hand to his face, flipping it palm-down, and saw a thin band of red across his knuckles. His eyes snapped upward to the shovelhead, where the blood had dripped from one crimson-rimmed edge, then looked past his outstretched hand at the gator below. In that single instant, the true magnitude of what he’d been asked to do—how wrong it was, although he still didn’t completely understand why—finally struck Cal in all its horrifying reality. And the critter promptly collapsed, its battle against unconsciousness lost.
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Post by Light Rises on Jun 20, 2005 16:31:56 GMT -5
“Calvin!”
The boy lifted his eyes at Mama’s voice, stared vacantly at the air before him. He couldn’t disobey her again—couldn’t see how he could afford to, for that matter. He had to be a “good boy.” He had to. But this was wrong. This—
“D’ya hear me, boy? If you can’t gimme one good reason why you haven’t finished that gator off, I swear I’ll kill that thing myself! Calv—!”
WHAM!
Silence followed; even Mama had let her tirade get cut short for the moment. His arms still tense from the swing, Cal stared down at the shovelhead and the place it’d lodged itself into. Whether he’d had anything to do with it or if the matter had somehow resolved itself (and he wasn’t entirely sure which case it had been, if not maybe a mixture of both), it was over with. The shovel’s metal edge was now partially embedded into the floor, hard as his swing had fallen…several inches to the right of the critter’s head. Exhaling a long-held breath—a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding in until this moment—Cal closed his eyes and let his head fall forward, his chin thumping against the top of his chest.
At length, Mama’s still-peeved voice drifted his way. “…Well?”
The boy remained motionless, sucking in his bottom lip as his eyes reopened. Suddenly, they widened in realization. She done didn’t SEE it. From where she stood at the kitchenette—and with his standing in the way—she hadn’t actually seen where his blow had landed. And if there was one thing Calvin Hebert had learned in the past few months, it was that what Mama didn’t know (and never managed to find out about from a neighbor), couldn’t hurt her.
Cal glanced at the critter’s prone form on the trailer floor. Then, giving a silent thanks for its present unconsciousness, he drew a quick breath and straightened to turn Mama’s way.
“I done did it, okay?!” he snapped at her. With a clatter, he roughly dropped the shovel off to the side, then gestured at it as though punctuating his “indignation.” “See? It’s finished, just like I done tol’ ya it would.”
Arms folded across her chest, Mama narrowed her gaze at him. She guided it to where the shovel now lay on the floor, then to the critter, and eventually returned it to Cal, as if boring into him. The tense, faux-angry conviction steadily faded from Cal’s face, the boy himself beginning to lose the nerve he’d managed to muster for his little outburst when Mama hmphed and at last turned back to the stove.
“Fine…fine,” she muttered. It was as though she’d given up on getting angry with him, and instead had turned to brooding. “Just dress the thing so it’ll be ready for me. And do kindly by bein’ quicker this time, hmm?”
“I’ll take da gator outside for dat!” The words had rushed out of him too quick to temper, and Cal pulled a face immediately afterwards, realizing he’d sounded just a bit TOO enthusiastic about this prospect.
Mama didn’t seem to catch it, though. She simply hmphed again, her concentration now fully returned to the pot in front of her.
For the moment, Cal remained rooted to where he stood, drawing in another, deeper breath. He was still a tad uneasy, perhaps even more so than before, which was mostly due to Mama’s suddenly calmed mood. Whether or not he could trust that mood, though, at least the breath had made his limbs feel a little less like jelly. Thus feeling more pulled-together, Cal proceeded to bend down and carefully, very carefully gather the critter’s upper body into his arms. Ignoring the fresh blood that presently stained his clothes (not that that was a big deal, anyway) and feeling the urge to mind the one limb that he suspected to be broken (which WAS, oddly enough to him, a big deal), he half-carried, half-dragged the critter to the trailer’s front door. His regained steadiness only last so long, however: a weird—and increasingly panicked—impulse kept Cal’s eyes locked to that very door, as if he feared a backward glance would alert Mama to what he was actually up to. So once he was within arm’s reach of the door handle, he swiftly freed up one arm, clutched the handle, turned, and with a fast push stumbled onto the makeshift porch. A soft thump sounded, and when Cal whirled around to see his almost-forgotten cargo only halfway through the door, he (gently enough) tugged the rest of the long, reptilian body outside. The door drew to a complete close once the critter’s bulk passed through its frame.
Chest heaving, Cal leaned his left shoulder against one of the canopy’s supporting polls, head craned back. His lifted eyes peered through a hole in the metal sheet above, at a night sky liberally flecked with stars. He was about to lower his unconscious load (which he’d come to realize was quite heavy, even if it was only half of a whole) to the porch floor, to make his respite complete, when a faint, distinctive howl sliced into the surrounding swampland’s near-silence. Cal straightened immediately, eyes growing wide. He’d know that sound anywhere, at anytime.
“Catahoulas.” He’d seen plenty of them in his time—they were a dog breed that faired well in this part of the country, after all. They needed all that extra, wide-open space which rural countryside offered. And they were something to behold, too: large, powerfully-built dogs, coming in an endless variety of fur patterns, some bearing a pair of piercing, ice-blue eyes. They were beautiful, a force to be reckoned with…and as a hunting breed, they most certainly weren’t above taking advantage of injured prey and then summarily tearing it to shreds.
Cal kept a firm hold around the critter’s chest, its heartbeat fluttering against his fingertips while the howls and barks of more catahoulas echoed in the distance. To be completely frank, he hadn’t had any idea coming out here just WHAT he’d do with this non-gator…whatever-it-was; from when he swung the shovel till this moment, he’d been making up this crazy scheme as he went along. This much was clear to him now, though: he couldn’t just leave the critter out here, quite unable to defend itself. Catahoulas were a definite and formidable danger, but other carnivores—a real gator, for instance—would be just as eager to snatch up their share of this readily available, two-hundred-plus pound slab of fresh meat. And, of course, returning it to the trailer’s confines was not an option. If Cal didn’t want his efforts thus far (inexplicable as they were to him) to prove in vain, then he needed to figure out a place that would provide this beast with substantial safety. And he tried to do just that, hurriedly scouting the surrounding area with his eyes.
Soon enough, his visual search led him to glance over his truck—and then look directly at it as the solution struck him. The truck! There was ample room in the old pickup’s trunk, whose cover was securely fitted on top…and that was as far as Cal needed to think it through. Instantly he was on the move, re-steeling himself as he hauled the critter off of the porch and across the ground, this time heading toward the space rocket-topped car. His load became, for obvious reasons, no less of a burden; by the time Cal managed to drag the critter to the back of the pickup (and this took much longer than he’d expected it to), his arms burned fiercely with pain, and he felt drained of more than just a little of his patience. He went ahead anyway to pull open the trunk door and the cover’s rear window—both unlocked, since the Herbert trailer was located far enough in the middle of nowhere to justify not locking anything up—and then bent down to heave the critter’s upper body into the trunk itself, followed by his lifting the lower half up and inside.
Once this was through, however, the grunt work finally complete…Cal let his posture grow slack, propping up a stinging forearm against one of the trunk cover’s inside edges. At length his gaze slid toward the critter’s limp body, focusing on the part nearest to him: its head. A scowl darkened his features, and the boy bent down so he could spread his hands on the trunk’s bed, his eyes still upon the thing’s scaly face. That familiar, hot anger was brimming up, and whatever had driven him to believe that this critter’s life was worth saving had waned considerably.
“Hope you’re happy now,” he began, his voice low. “You done screwed with stuff—lots of it. Not dat you care much dat Mama’s gonna stew me soon’s I walk back in. Things were fine for once, an’ you don’t give a rat’s a** dat you done just screwed it all up.” He snorted. “Dat’s what you do, ain’t it? Screw things up for folks—’cause you always get in da way. Make us, make ME do da damnedest, craziest crap…” His face tightened, and he raised a hand that flickered between pointing a finger and curling into a fist. “You…stupid! You crawl into my stupid house an’ get stupid beat up by a stupid shovel an’ I hafta stupid drag you out here an’ I…an’ I…”
Cal’s voice cracked. An image had flashed in his mind’s eye while he was glaring at the critter’s battered body, and he could no longer find it in himself to berate the thing. He’d seen himself back in the trailer, cheering Mama on, oh-so-gleefully, as she swung the shovel again, again, again. And the whole time the critter cried out, almost seeming to scream and scream and scream for it to stop…
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Post by Light Rises on Jun 20, 2005 16:34:49 GMT -5
Still panting from his departed rage, Cal dropped his raised hand onto the trunk bed. He lowered his head as well, now staring down at the bed’s cold metal.
“…An’ I’m just an idiot,” he finished, quietly. Crickets chirped in the following hush; the boy’s shame soon ebbed, and he lifted his eyes a little. He was almost nose-to-nonexistent-nose with the critter, its long, diagonal head wound catching his attention once more. He brought his left hand into view, looked at the red stripe that’d since dried on his knuckles. Flexing those fingers, Cal’s gaze shifted back to the critter…something new to him touching his eyes, the expression on his face. For the past few months, he’d been certain he had encountered the worst luck that anyone could have in this world. He hadn’t known anyone could have it worse than him, and he certainly couldn’t relate to those others, couldn’t feel empathy for them. Not until now, that is.
Straightening slightly, Cal glanced over the critter’s body, then reached into the trunk’s dimness to retrieve a toolbox. He opened it and examined a white rag that’d been tossed into the box’s top tray. It was only stained with a couple, tiny black spots, as the pickup hadn’t needed much work ever since the rag was replaced recently, so he nudged the open toolbox aside and then—tentatively—used the rag to dab at the critter’s head wound, to clean it out a bit. The blood had mostly clotted by now, but the cloth quickly absorbed wherever there was still bleeding, as though drinking it up. The critter winced faintly in its unconscious state, which prompted Cal to move on to wipe at the blood surrounding the wound. In some places where it’d dried, it obligingly peeled off of the scaly skin, falling away in small, dark flakes and clumps.
Cal pulled back after a moment, inclining his head. He then slowly stretched forward, to dab at the wounded area a last few times.
“Je suis désolé[1],” he spoke softly, solemnly. “For everything.”
He drew the rag away, resting his forearms on the truck’s bed as, for a short while, he watched the critter’s chest rise and fall with its breathing. Then, absently draping the rag across his right shoulder, Cal rose to shut the trunk’s door and release the hinged strut that’d held the cover’s rear window open—this time making sure to lock everything up, to be on the absolute safe side. He turned to rest his back against the closed trunk, expelling a low, long breath while his hands found their way into the front pockets of his jeans. A moment passed, and the boy lifted his eyes from the ground, starting to make his way back to the trailer.
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“He WHAT?!”
Taking a half-step backward, Cal turtled his neck slightly. All told, his reaction was actually quite controlled: he’d anticipated such a response from Mama, and since he’d been given some time while outside to think things through (well, sort of), he managed to blurt out a fairly prompt reply.
“H-he done took off! Just…see, I’d done brought ’im outside an’ laid ’im on da porch, right?” he explained, beginning to pantomime his alleged actions. “An’ no sooner den I close da door, he starts makin’ off da other way. So I done grabbed his tail—got towed ’round for a bit—but den soon’s he done twisted his head back an’ made for my leg…” He held up his hands and shrugged at this point, as if to say, “What ELSE could I do?” “How was I supposed to mess with dat? It woulda been, I mean…suicide!”
Mama—who’d moved away from the stove once Cal broke the “news”—bent to one side, the back of a wrist planted on her hip. Her lips were tightly pressed together. “That gator…” she started, her voice reflecting the slow thought process which her knitted brows also betrayed. “…That gator was beaten to a bloody pulp…wasn’t goin’ anywhere fast, anytime soon…an’ you expect me to believe,” she continued, her eyes now narrowed suspiciously at her son, “that he just up an’ took you on like bein’ beat down by a shovel was nothin’?”
Cal felt his lips begin to tremble, and quickly glared to cover it up. “Yes!” he shouted. “’Cause dat’s what happened!” Lame. STUPID lame.
Mama seemed to ignore the comment entirely. “An’ what business did he have movin’ around, anyway?” she went on; her ire was growing by the instant. “You told me you finished ’im off, Cal—dead! I saw it! How on God’s green earth could that blow of yours NOT kill ’im right then an’ there?!”
“I don’t know!” Even if he wasn’t the most convincing of liars, Cal was pretty good at acting irritated. And petulant. He threw up his hands. “I done did what you asked me to, so how da hell am I supposed to know what went wrong?” The boy sighed harshly, then looked to the side while he shook his head. “It ain’t dat big a deal,” he muttered, shrugging again. “Maybe I done didn’t hit ’im as hard as I thought. Or maybe I just—”
A loud gasp stopped him, whirling his head back toward his mother. She had been pacing a bit while she seethed, and she was presently looking down at her right foot…the toe of which had caught on a gouge in the floor. Slowly, she pulled the foot away to reveal the slivers of dried blood that lined the gouge, and then drew her gaze to the shovel, which still lay where Cal had discarded it less than a foot away.
The boy’s jaw went slaw. “…Missed?” he finished, quite feebly.
Mama didn’t answer him. She just continued to glance between the two items of interest, a speechless Cal watching on and mentally willing her to dismiss the gouge itself as nothing. But it wouldn’t have taken much effort for anyone who lived in this trailer to realize that this gouge was new, and Mama soon stepped towards the shovel, bending down to retrieve it. He could tell as she straightened that the cogs in her head were turning, that she’d already made a connection; she eyed the gouge below, the shovel grasped in her left hand, then stared hard into the air. At last, realization dawned on her, lighting slowly upon her face…and Cal swallowed, feeling the blood drain from his own.
“You let ’im go.” She’d spoken this quietly, very quietly, her head turned toward her son’s direction. Her eyes were wide, deeply incredulous.
Growing more pallid, Cal shook his head at her. “No…”
“You. Let. Him. GO!” Fury was now taking precedence, Mama stepping forward and urging Cal to match those steps in retreat.
“No!” he said desperately. “I—”
“An’ you LIED to me—lying straight to my face right now!” There was a vague sense of disappointment in her anger, amidst her total lack of comprehension, and it only made Cal feel lightheaded with inner stirrings of guilt. “What is it, huh? You get some kind of a hoot outta dealin’ me a load of B.S. every chance you get?”
There was no use lying anymore. “Mama, please, you don’t understand—”
“D**n straight I don’t! You make like you’re all giddy ’bout killing that gator, don’t kill ’im, an’ then let ’im go—what am I supposed to think, ’cept you went through all that trouble just to piss me off?”
“It ain’t like dat, I swear!”
But she was in no mood to listen. “Over a gator, Calvin! You lied to me over a friggin’ gator! What on earth is WRONG with you?!” Her son now backed against a wall, Mama halted her advance. Suddenly, her gaze jumped to the rag on his right shoulder. “An’ this?” she questioned sharply, snatching up the rag and holding it in front of him. “Oh, lemme guess…you got thrashed while wrastlin’ that gator outside, right? An’ this is YOUR blood, right?” She crumpled the rag in her left hand, the other still wielding the shovel. “C’mon, boy, try me! You get such a kick outta it, so why not?! Just try…try me…”
Her words faded, along with the rage. Something in Cal’s mind snapped at this instant, inspiring a pang of exasperation at how he’d let himself be a doormat up until this point, and he found the nerve to scowl at her.
“Dat ain’t my blood on der, okay?” he spat. “Now gimme dat!” He reclaimed the rag without any protest, clutching it possessively to himself…and then realizing something. Holding it out, he uncrumpled it and then watched his right thumb stain the outer fringes of the cloth with a red oval. The blood apparently hadn’t dried quite yet—and was still warm. Not from Cal’s body heat, either, as the rag itself had remained cool wherever blood wasn’t present.
Gaping, Cal looked up to see his mother staring at her own hand, which also had blood on it. The blank, astonished expression on her face was still in place from that moment when her anger had dissipated, and Cal now understood what had silenced her. They remained like this for a while.
At length (or at least it seemed that way), Mama blinked and lowered her hand slightly. “That blood was warm…” she murmured. Her eyes finally met Cal’s, and he nodded in mute confirmation…although, to be completely honest, he hadn’t realized until just after she had that the so-called gator was warm-blooded, as it wasn’t something he’d paid attention to while hauling the critter around and fretting over what to do with it. But he knew, in a way, that she’d really been seeking affirmation about his knowing if the gator wasn’t a gator after all. And THAT he could truthfully answer with a “yes”.
Without another word—and looking a little less like a deer caught in headlights—Mama lowered her hand completely and walked to the kitchenette. With a mechanical sort of precision, she proceeded to lean the shovel against one end of the kitchenette’s counter, return to the stove, shut off the flame, remove the pot from the burner, sidestep to the sink, and then dump the contents of the would-be jambalaya down the drain. Steam billowed and lingered momentarily above the sink; Mama set aside the emptied pot, gazed wearily at Cal, then sighed.
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Post by Light Rises on Jun 20, 2005 16:37:05 GMT -5
“It’s ’bout time we headed off to bed, don’t ya think?” she asked, rather subdued.
Discharging a sigh of his own through his nose, Cal nodded. Mama hmphed softly and started to put the utensils, etc. away, with Cal heading towards the bathroom to clean up before pulling out his rollaway bed (the trailer was far too small for even one separate bedroom). Just before going on in, he stopped and peered over his shoulder.
“Hey, Mama…” He waited for her to look his way. His mouth twitched awkwardly as the word came out. “Thanks.”
She blinked, then snorted as she turned back to her work. “Just make sure you change outta those clothes before you turn in,” she replied gruffly. “I don’t want you to stink up the bed sheets.”
Cal glanced down at the smudges of blood on his t-shirt and jeans, then arched an eyebrow at her—she knew that neither of them really cared if something smelled in the trailer, especially if it wasn’t all that noticeable most of the time. His puzzlement soon gave way to a small, appreciative smile, and the boy disappeared into the bathroom.
Most of the kitchenette now cleared off, Mama reached to remove the pot from the counter. As she was about to lower it into the cabinet below, however, she caught sight of the shovel—still leaning where she’d left it against the counter—and paused. After an indecisive moment, she placed the pot on the floor and stepped around it to take the shovel. She held it horizontally in both hands, sucking in her lips as she eyed its crimson-stained blade. Then, releasing one hand to turn on the sink’s tap, she ran the shovelhead under the water, starting the process of washing away the blood.
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Just before daybreak, Cal’s eyelids flew open. The boy hesitated a moment before sitting up in bed, having realized that he was very much wide awake and had no hope of drifting back to sleep. Grateful that at least he didn’t seem to be suffering from a hangover, he bent forward and began kneading his forehead with the thumb and forefinger of one hand. Something…something had crashed in his sleep, some time before he woke up—a very distant sound, with no visuals to accompany it. Logically, though, that was all there was to it, and it didn’t seem like nearly enough to rouse him from sleep, especially if the sound was just part of a dream.
Unless… Cal straightened suddenly, glancing towards the other end of the trailer to confirm that Mama was still asleep. Then, reassured by her snores, he bolted out of bed and hastened through the door—being just careful enough while in the trailer to not startle his mother awake.
He emerged into the haze of predawn, barefoot and only wearing his customary PJs: a white t-shirt torn at the collar, and a pair of pink sweatpants (cut into makeshift boxers) covered with pudgy cows which he sincerely hoped his friends NEVER laid eyes upon. Not bothering with the steps, Cal hopped off the porch and sprinted towards his truck. He skidded as he hung a right…then quickly slowed his pace to a jog, a walk, and then a complete standstill once he stood next to the pickup’s rear bumper. He dared not move—partly because the sight before him hadn’t quite sunk in yet, and partly to protect his feet.
In front of the trunk, numerous glass shards littered the earth, gleaming dully under the waning moonlight. And the trunk cover’s rear window had been shattered.
“What da…?” Cal took a couple slow, tentative steps forward, gawking quite openly. He froze upon spying something on the ground, about a foot away from the truck’s rear bumper, and he bent to pick it up—a monkey wrench. It didn’t take much puzzling to figure out where it’d come from: it was his wrench, the one he usually stored in the toolbox in the back of his pickup. Which was also the toolbox he’d taken the rag from—the one he didn’t lock up again earlier this morning.
Pivoting, Cal rushed to the trunk and peered through the broken window. It was empty inside, except for the usual spare items and his open toolbox. No critter.
The boy’s gaze slid to the monkey wrench in his left hand. “Dat son of a…” He was more taken aback than miffed, and what little temper had flared in him died quickly. The moment having passed, Cal pulled away from the trunk to look again at the glass-strewn ground. The surrounding air was brightening in anticipation of dawn, making it easier for him to see the faint, numerous tracks of a three-toed critter as they led from the trunk and traveled—from what he could tell—down the dirt road ahead for a distance.
Numb and slack-jawed, Cal seated himself on the pickup’s rear bumper. His eyes remained glued upon the scattered glass shards, one hand still loosely grasping the wrench. Of course, this wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t locked up the trunk. And to think that, at the moment, he’d thought he was doing a smart thing.
For a short while longer, Cal stayed like this, utterly motionless and silent. Then—inexplicably—he began to laugh.
The fit didn’t last very long, yet it managed to be cathartic, relatively loud, happy all at once. When it finished, he felt as though he’d just released a huge, invisible weight. And it felt good. MAN, it felt good.
Calmed once more, Cal held up the monkey wrench, half-smiled, then lowered it to look at the three-toed tracks. In the end, he’d done that critter right—that’s what felt best about the whole thing. He’d done ’im right. And, for some reason, Cal had a gut feeling that no one had done this critter right for a long, long time, which was what made it matter all the more.
The boy snorted suddenly, batting the thought away; it was just WAY too weird, and this whole ordeal was turning him into more of a sap than was to his liking. But it seemed he had at least one last “sappy” moment in store: as Cal rose to his feet to stretch, a rosy hue bloomed above the surrounding trees and ate into the dying night sky, one part becoming increasingly orange as the sun readied itself to peer above the topmost branches. The red glow presently spilled over the swampland, revealing how the numerous cypresses, Spanish moss, grasses, and reeds could be better reflected in the marsh water’s surface now than while under insufficient moon- and starlight. Cal simply stood there, drinking all this in—there was a unique, primeval beauty to this place, the Basin. It was almost hard for him to believe he hadn’t always noticed that…or appreciated it.
He glanced down at the shattered glass, visually followed the critter’s tracks again, then let loose one last sigh. Mama would be up soon enough, and while he was (mostly) certain he could get her to understand what had happened with the trunk cover without her getting too mad, there was still the matter of his boss at Morgan City’s “Pizza Planet.” Cal shuddered; he would have to look into getting a new cover before his shift tonight, before his boss had the chance to blow up at him. The Hebert phone book, several years old though it was, would be the boy’s best starting point in getting that done, to his way of figuring.
At last, Cal reluctantly turned from the scene of interest, tossing his wrench through the broken window and into the trunk as he headed towards the trailer. There just didn’t seem to be any point in mulling things over, and he couldn’t linger out here forever. He had a trunk cover to replace. And—besides that—he had the rest of his life to get on with.
END
~*~*~*~
[1] French for: “I’m sorry.” *seeks confirmation from Beboots and any other French speakers* ^^;
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Post by pitbulllady on Jun 20, 2005 22:37:34 GMT -5
EXTREMELY well-written, LR! It is different..and interesting...to see this incident from the POV of one of the people in the trailer; you must have taken a cue from "Sparky" on FF.Net, and managed to make a very unlikeable character seem, well, more likeable, as she did with Terrence. The only thing that nagged me a bit is that the kid in the trailer seemed like a much-younger person, say, maybe 8-10 years of age, but it's hard to tell not being able to see anything other than shadows. He could have just been short. Overall, you did a really good job with the dialect, which isn't easy to write. The only thing is that in the South, those things that fit over the bed of a pickup truck are called "camper shells", for some reason.
pitbulllady
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Beboots
Randall's Head Servant (300-799)
Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a plague in Equatorial Guinea that I have to attend.
Posts: 646
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Post by Beboots on Jun 21, 2005 0:18:37 GMT -5
Yay! LightRises ficcage! ;D *takes a few minutes to calm down*I absolutely loved the prologue (although, because I'm reading it late at night, I had to read it twice to really understand it). Your description in the following part was just... mind-bogglingly detailed. As far as I can tell (me being a Canadian), your Cajun/Southern accents were accurately done. Nice job; I know from personal experience that writing any accent other than one's own is extremely difficult, especially if one doesn't hear it spoken often. This is also pretty much the first fic that really goes into the lives of those two random trailer people we see for all of ten seconds at the end of the movie. ^_^ Nicely done. Very nicely done. ...And the way you had Cal compare Randall's breathing to a man who'd been in a bar-fight... *whistles* Man, I never would be able to think of that! It seems you've been paying attention to Pitbulllady's lectures. And I'm just like... "Awww... Angstful..." I actually cried here, if you can believe that. I could actually hear my French teacher's accent there. ; Yes, it is quite correct, especially in those circumstances. If you where to simply say "je m'exuse" or "pardon" (other words for "sorry") after you just beat the crap out of someone, it would be quite out of place (they mean "exuse me" and, you guessed it, "pardon (me)" - you don't just say "excuse me for trying to kill you", now do you?) To recap - Squee!!!! This was awesome stuff! ;D Write more! Of anything! ...It's nearly 11:30. I should probably go to bed now. *shifty eyes* Yes. *scuttles off*
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Post by RandallBoggs on Jun 21, 2005 11:17:26 GMT -5
Oh dear lord.... I'l...get back to this....wow.....
"Was that me in the beginning? Hmm....heh heh I did good heh heh"
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Post by RandallBoggs on Jun 21, 2005 11:40:32 GMT -5
Dang....not bad.....ehh....
"Yeah I feel it too..."
Emmm... Anyway. You did a good job here....more a bit on the boy and his mother's point of view in some sense, and the end added a bit of mystique as well....
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Post by lizardgirl on Jun 21, 2005 13:25:57 GMT -5
Wow.
I'll say it again- woooooooow.
That's absolutely incredible- what a great take on something really, really original! I felt for the characters the second you started writing about them, and, although I have no experiance with it, the dialect seemed perfect. I actually agree with the age you portrayed Cal to be- anything younger than a teen wouldn't seem right, especially since he has a job with Pizza Planet and everything. Your descriptions are intense and fascinating, and although you could say that Randall didn't get a massive part in this story, without him, Cal would never have come to the revelation that he did.
So, all in all, a brilliant short story! ;D
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Post by RandallBoggs on Jun 21, 2005 13:29:25 GMT -5
Ehh
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Post by Light Rises on Jun 23, 2005 19:17:02 GMT -5
*blushes* Thanks, everyone -- the feedback means SO much to me, since I now know that the story works. It is different..and interesting...to see this incident from the POV of one of the people in the trailer; you must have taken a cue from "Sparky" on FF.Net, and managed to make a very unlikeable character seem, well, more likeable, as she did with Terrence. The only thing that nagged me a bit is that the kid in the trailer seemed like a much-younger person, say, maybe 8-10 years of age, but it's hard to tell not being able to see anything other than shadows. He could have just been short. Overall, you did a really good job with the dialect, which isn't easy to write. pitbulllady It's funny, because I hadn't discovered Sparky's Foster's stories until I was about two-thirds finished with this fic. But we definitely went after the same kind of themes (of making an unlikable character easier to like), and I'm glad I was able to pull it off.^^ And, yeah, I thought about that -- in terms of the boy's age -- while writing; I guess I just took advantage of the fact that you never see his face, and that his voice IS kinda ambiguous by way of defining his age, lol. That's why I added the bit about his little sister, so that at one point (at least in the recent past), there would've been a child living in the trailer who was young enough to have been assigned a Scarer. I'm happy the dialects worked out, too. They were a challenge to write, but I enjoyed giving them a shot. Yeah, that just wouldn't sound right after what Randall just went through, huh? Thanks, though, for letting me know that I used the proper translation, since there were a bunch of variations of "I'm sorry" that I found while searching the Web.^^ *nods* You pretty much nailed down the main point of the fic: while Randall himself didn't exactly have a starring role, he's absolutely essential to Cal coming across that epiphany, and thus is still a vital character here period. Okies, no more rambling! ;D Again, I can't thank you guys enough for the feedback. *hugs all around* I'm gonna go ahead and replace the "trunk cover" references with "camper shell" (which I'm happy to do, since I felt a bit awkward repeatedly referring to that thing as the "trunk cover" or "cover" anyway, lol) and do a quick HTML reformat of the fic, so I can post it on DA tomorrow, if not sometime tonight. ~Light Rises
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