Thread: mac and cheese - flash fiction? [Warning: Language]

Hi, new to the forum. would love some feedback

mac and cheese by andrew benedict

The kid is crying again when Tony goes to stir the macaroni and cheese, but by now it barely phases him. The kid isn’t hurt. He couldn’t be. There’s nothing in the playpen that could hurt him. Kid just wants his mom, and she’s not here, so tough. Tony used to try to calm the baby, but it never worked. Sure, sometimes the crying means he’s hungry or his diaper is full. But Tony knows it’s neither of those this time. He just wants his mom and he’s going to have to learn, like everybody else, that’s not going to happen.
The TV is on. It usually is. News right now. The President is talking about taking back Detroit. Why anyone would want it back is the bigger question. Let them have it. The rest of the world has gone to shit. Why not let them run their own shit city. Because they might do better, thought Tony. They might make it a place people wouldn’t mind living in. So take it back. Don’t even give them the chance to succeed. Who cares really?
The kid is still crying. Tony looks down at him while standing at the stove. He frowns slightly, more from being tired than upset. He looks back to the TV, back to the kid, into the macaroni and cheese. The kid won’t stop crying. The mac and cheese looks disgusting. Two days straight of the stuff, it’s ok. Really, three days is fine too. But when that fake shit cheese is all you’re tasting for three weeks, everything else becomes a disgusting yellow with it.
Tony turns the burner off and leaves his large plastic spoon sitting in the pot. He looks down again at the kid. Hasn’t eased up on the crying. Your battle kid, keep fighting. Tony reaches under the sink and finds a paper surgical mask. He puts it on and opens the fridge and pulls out a plastic bag, heavy with rotting food inside, the consistency of mashed potatoes. He carries the bag as he maneuvers around his and Cherrie’s bed, unfolded from a worn, brown couch.
It’s really not a fold out couch if it’s always out, is it? It’s a bed. A shitty, thin bed that has the back of a couch on one end. Everything in the 12x15 one-room apartment is shitty. The shitty bed looks at the shitty TV next to the shitty playpen where a shitty little kid won’t stop fucking crying.
Tony reaches the other side of the bed and opens a closet door, pulls a tiny chain to turn on a hanging light bulb inside. He steps in, and shuts the door and the crying kid behind him.
He pushes boxes and bags of clothes and blankets out of his way. Another sound, a scratching, is coming from behind the piled up closet shit. Now it’s a lot of little scratching. And a smell.
An old, lumpy mattress leans against the wall. Tony breathes deeply as he pushes it aside to reveal a cheap wooden door. The scratching is stronger now, drowning out what can still be heard of the kid. The smell is stronger too. A thick, rich, odor.
Tony opens the door and looks inside his tiny illegal drug farm. A windowless room almost as big as his entire apartment, completely brown with four rodents, each the size of a toaster, and covered in their own shit, scurry to the open door. Tony lets out a gagging cough and throws the bag to the opposite corner of the room. After the little high-inducing guinea pigs run across to their rotten feast, Tony steps inside. And closes the second door behind him.
A stool, a small dresser, and a large, plastic bin of water are the only things that could possibly be called furniture in the room. Tony sits on the stool and takes an electric hair clipper out of the dresser.
He grabs one of the mad, little animals in his hands and forces it in the bucket. Water splashes as the thing panics underwater. He brings it up squealing with limbs flying and inspects it. Not clean enough. He dunks it again. Up again. Clean enough. Tony shaves the creature, careful to catch the falling hair in the open drawer.
He tosses the creature towards the others with it landing in a confused roll. The thing gets it’s footing and makes its way back to the slop food just as Tony grabs another.
The process repeats for two more little stoner beasts, a five-minute bad dream of water and a buzzing machine that scrapes against them until they wake up bald, back in their little world of food shit and shit shit.
They’re called gonzos. Or gogos. Or zos. Either way they’re incredibly stinky little animals that have fur that gets you high as shit. Fur that Tony can sell for $$$. People say they’re from Africa or India. That they’re a government experiment, or a mutant that grew out of nuclear testing. Tony doesn’t care where they came from as long as no one knows where they are now.
Maybe some of the fur would quiet that kid, Tony thinks as he grabs the fourth and last remaining hairy creature and dunks it. Cherrie would kill him. No getting the kid high was her number one rule. Well, keep the kid safe was number one. And getting high counts as not safe to Cherrie.
Tony licks the gogo hairs stuck all over his left hand from the shaving. It’s not much but it hits hard. His eyes perform a slow, deliberate blink as he’s filled with warm. He’s not supposed to get high when he’s the only one with the kid, but it wasn’t that much. Enough that Cherrie would disapprove, though she out-used everyone when the kid wasn’t around.
Fuck Cherrie’s rules. Fuck Cherrie for leaving him with the kid. Fuck the macaroni and cheese on the stove. Fuck these little animals and their hair that was too much for Cherrie. Fuck these little things that took her away.
Tony dry heaves, throwing up nothing in place of the usual mac and cheese. Tears move silently and slowly down his curved face.
It’s been too long, he thinks as he realizes his hand is still underwater. Yup. Killed another one. His livestock is down to three now from its start at six. This will hurt. How will Tony ever be able to afford more macaroni and fucking cheese?
He shaves the dead one and leaves its body with the other gogos. They’ll eat it by tomorrow and disposing of it somewhere else would just attract cops with the smell. Tony bags the hair, and closes his eyes as he licks the rest of the hair from his hands. He’s floating now, bag in hand toward the door. The door into the fake closet. To another door, to his real apartment. His real life where nothing goes right. Where the mac and cheese tastes the same every day. Where the kid cries for his mom every fucking day.
Tony fights his way through the closet, getting the mattress back over the hidden door. The gogo hair has really got hold of him hard as he turns off the closet light. He shuts the door and realizes its quiet. The kid is standing in the playpen, eyes wide on Tony.
Tony takes an unbalanced step along the bed in the two-foot space between the bed and the wall. The kid watches as he takes another.
“Cherrie,” he grunts quietly. “Cherrie, the kid stopped crying.”
His head falls to his chest as a hand grips the smooth wall barely keeping him up. He takes another step and falls. His legs twist over the corner of the bed, and his head hits the floor hard. The bag of hair spills. He doesn’t move. The kid doesn’t cry.

Hiya, atbenedi. Welcome to WF!

This story is rather depressing. I'll definitely need a beer after this one.

Excellent job on creating a believable and well rounded character. I feel like I know this guy, and I really don't like him. Ironic that he views everything as "shit".

The first thing that did come to mind was your point of view. You use third person but the speaker seems to go back and forth between being the narrator and Tony talking about himself. Let me give you an example:

Originally Posted by atbenedi

He steps in, and shuts the door and the crying kid behind him.
He pushes boxes and bags of clothes and blankets out of his way. Another sound, a scratching, is coming from behind the piled up closet shit. Now it’s a lot of little scratching. And a smell.

The question is, who is your speaker? When you use language like "shit" in the 3rd sentence, I assume that it is an informal, unsavory character. Someone very akin to Tony most likely. However, the sentences 1-2 and about a third of your sentences overall are very plain statements, coming from the generic "hidden camera" narrator. For me it made the piece difficult to follow because I couldn't determine who was speaking or his attitude toward Tony.

If it were me I would do one of two things.
1. Use first person throughout the whole piece, except where Tony dies. There, revert back to third person.
2. Use a generic voice but put Tony's thoughts in quotations or have Tony verbally expressing his feelings to himself throughout.

Great Job and keep on posting. I'll look forward to seeing more of your work here. Oh, and don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions.

Alex

Speaking strictly as a reader and not an experienced fiction writer, that pov shift works quite well. Everything meshes together seamlessly. Quote marks would, for me, be a major distraction. We've been invited into Tony's world, and sometimes we see the world through Tony's eyes.

I'll second Garza--this is great. And actually, with all his shit, I like the character. Irresponsible, rude and apparently a criminal, but very likeable if his life weren't so shitty. Even his attitude towards the baby crying (I hope no one is shocked) seems respectful to me--babies cry even when nothing's wrong, and it makes you wild. If you feed him, change his diaper and don't throw him out the window usually it's okay... unless you get so stoned you pass out, of course. (yes, I'm a very loving mother lol!!)
Speaking of which, are we sure he dies at the end??
I have a stupid question... I don't know that much about psychadelics... I've heard of shrooms and needles and such... do these rodents actually exist??? (I'm kind of joking...)
brilliant
Roughin

I forgot something really geeky I wanted to say... has anyone heard of "The Dialogic Imagination"? It's been so long I can't remember the author except that he's Russian, but anyway, he argues that the straight narrator doesn't exist.
I've read multiple comments (on more than one site) where someone finds a multi-perspective narrator confusing. I know journalistic fiction has had a lot of influence, but I can't quite figure this one out--is it out of fashion to have narrators with their own personality--not a character in the story but a narrator who mixes pov because he/she has the privilege of being a narrator and can do anything... am I making any sense?? I can't figure out why this is distracting... can anyone help me out??

Originally Posted by garza

Speaking strictly as a reader and not an experienced fiction writer, that POV shift works quite well. Everything meshes together seamlessly. Quote marks would, for me, be a major distraction.

Thanks Garza for giving the other side, so to speak. I'll agree with Garza that quotes would probably be distraction from the work. Also, the piece does flow quite well, atbenedi. You've done a excellent job here.

That said, let me rephrase what I said earlier: It doesn't make the piece difficult to read, just more difficult to interpret. If the shifting voice of the narrator is important to the theme, don't touch it. If it is an accidental shift, however, I would change it so that the voice you want to portray is more direct.

As I said before, Great post!

I really like this; I can completely imagine his shitty apartment. I feel a bit sorry for the kid, which is great; empathy for a fictional character is really important ^^

Strangely I didn't pick it up when I read it, but the bit Flapjack quoted has "He steps in, and shuts the door and the crying kid behind him." It works I guess, but then the logical part of me wonders how he can shut the kid. Shut him out? Up? Picky, I guess. ^^