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Writer
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 27
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(alias) Shades of Black
Please forgive me for my absence, i've been gone for months. I fell from my writing stage, and I just barely climbed back on. This is a story I'm writing, in a form of "Snatch", "Lock, Stock, and two smoking barrels." kind of thing, tell me what you think.
The cold gray waves crawled up the sand pitifully, before being dragged back in to make way for more of the ice cold water. The air itself felt jaded, with all colors muted. The air was bitter to inhale. The breeze sliced through anyone who was stupid to stay outside to long.
Alec wasn’t stupid, but he was out anyways. He sat at the edge of a green wooden bench, staring out at the depressing ocean. A brown wool trench coat covered his button up shirt and slacks, with a soft checkered scarf covering his neck up to his chin. His gloved fingers were intertwined, and his breath came out in warm white puffs.
Alec stood up, his face hiding sadness with faded determination. His salt and pepper hair caught the wind, giving him a cowlick. But he didn’t care how he looked anymore. He had nothing anymore, and nothing was important. Breaking the statue-like appearance he had as he stood there, he quietly walked forward, down the concrete steps to the shore. His eyes stayed at the horizon, the two different shades of gray-depression that led his eyes on forever till the curve of the world. The icy pain of the salt-water slipped into his shoes, and rose slowly as he kept a steady pace forward. A wave slammed into his chest, and flooded his shirt, but he was beyond feeling now. The water rose above his shoulders, and he looked up to the grayed sky.
His eyes closed, for the last time, lightening some of the wrinkles around his weary face. A muttered prayer escaped his lips and was cut off before he could finish, and his head disappeared under the water… romantically enough, his body didn’t wash to the shore, and no one ever saw him again.
* * *
The diner played the cliché elevator music no one had ever heard of, and it was quieted to a dull moaning sound. A small bell, hooked to the door, rang every so often as truckers, couples, and derelict men came in to get out of the cold and maybe buy a cup of coffee or a small plate of food or soup. Rough wood covered the walls, matching the smooth booth seats. A large woman stood behind the counter, working her jaw on a tasteless piece of gum.
Eric slipped through the door, wearing a blue and green Hawaiian shirt, and a pair of faded Levi’s. A folded paper was in his hand, and he took arrogant strides to a particular booth, with a man in a tight black dress jacket. He was sipping a glass of water, a platinum ring Eric had given to him was on his thumb.
“Alec’s dead…” Eric muttered uncaringly, and tossed down a note to the booths table, slipping into the opposite side from Malachi. The folded paper spun for a second, and slowed to a halt. Malachi looked at the paper.
“Where’d you get the suicide note?” Malachi asked as he set down his water.
Eric grinned an ugly, twisted grin, “Searching through his house…I suppose he wanted a relative or something to find it?”
“You’re sick, who told you to search his house?”
“No one told me to, I thought it was a go—“ his sentence was cut short when Malachi lunged from the other side of the booth and grabbed his collar.
“I hated Alec,” Malachi forcefully whispered, “but he was still my brother. Don’t ever do anything like that again.” Malachi’s Irish accent bled through his fake American speech pattern slightly.
Eric’s smile had faded, and the color had drained from his face. A cold hollow deep in his chest formed. Malachi Boyd was not one to mess with. Everyone called him Mel. He was the biggest name in underground boxing, until he retired. He was a living legend, but now he had a known name only in underground crime rings.
Malachi sat back into the booth, the maroon colored leather in the seat creaking and stretching. He looked at his Rolex. 12:51.
“You made a mistake Eric, but luckily for you, I don’t have time to punish you. I don’t want to see you until Saturday. Savvy?”
Eric nodded, and ran a hand through his blonde hair as the vicious beast of a man turned his back. Malachi left, with the note in hand, and the check for brunch in Eric’s possession. A certain sadness came through Malachi, and he realized he regretted Alec’s death. Regret…Malachi smiled. I haven’t had that in a long time he thought.
A handful of cars filled the parking lot to the diner, but his car stuck out like a sore thumb. A silver blue Z3 roadster beeped as he unlocked it, and he dropped into the leather seat and brought it to life with the turn of his key.
Malachi was Alec’s younger brother by many years, with another sibling between them who had died of a heart dysfunction. Malachi also had a younger brother, whom he had never heard from, and who currently lived in New Zealand. Their lives had never been the easiest, growing up in a bad part of Ireland. Malachi learned how to fight, and fight well, thanks to his smart mouth and his school, populated with many surly classmates.
One fateful day, Malachi and his family had been attending a funeral for one of his mothers close friends, when the funeral service had been caught in the middle of a brawl between the Catholics and Protestants. His mother and father were killed while they tried to get their family away, both of them took shrapnel in the head from a hand grenade.
That’s when they had all split apart. Ben, the youngest, had moved to New Zealand then, to live with his cousins and Alec and Malachi left to America, living on opposite sides of the same metropolis. Alec married a woman and had a child, but four years into the marriage his wife was killed in a small gang skirmish. Alec then lost his job and his son was rebelling against him viciously. His apartment was repossessed, and his son was taken in by a foster home. Alec lasted four more months, before he broke down and disappeared.
Malachi sat parked in front of a yellow suburban home, scanning the suicide note with an uncaring look but a sympathetic aura. His face turned and looked into the window of the house…
* * *
Tybalt Boyd. Son of Alec Boyd. He sat with one leg folded on the window sill. His eyes pierced through his ghost like reflection in the window to his uncle’s sports car, a car that was a different color with a different license plate every other month. He looked down, disheartened. His chest was rapidly becoming cold and he slipped away from the window and through the home like mercury.
“Ty?” his mother called, peeking her head out from the laundry room. “What’s wrong hun?”
“Nothing, Denise.” He said disrespectfully to his false guardian.
She took a few steps into the hallway and continued to fold a shirt subconsciously. “Something’s wrong, what is it?”
“Nothing” Tybalt replied again, slightly riled by her redundancy.
Tybalt then proceeded to stuff a few pairs of clothing into his back pack, along with his money box, he slipped a pen into his pocket, and put a butterfly knife into his cargo pants pocket. The strap of the backpack slipped into his shoulder, and he walked back out to Denise. He hugged her tightly with one arm and kissed her cheek, pulling away with a strong hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t worry for me anymore, this is where I go downhill. If you ever see me again, avoid me like the plague. I won’t bring anything good.”
There was an heavy silence in the world, and for a time, it was relaxing. A tear came to Denise’s eye and she looked down. He walked away from her and went out the front door. The iced air stung his face.
Malachi stepped out of his car, his hemmed dress pants showing a little bit of his white tube socks, a complete yin-yang opposite of his luxurious black shoes. He turned on his heel and looked at Tybalt over the car’s top. The air tossed Malachi’s curly black hair, trying to pull it to one side along with the collar of his tight black dress jacket.
Tybalt looked at him, seeing the dark future he would have. A weak sigh emitted from Tybalts chapped lips and he went to open the passenger door. Malachi watched as Tybalt’s head dropped into the car, revealing Denise at the front porch, watching them leaving. Streaks of mascara ran, scarring her aged but beautiful face.
Malachi locked eyes with her for a moment, and felt a sharp, hot stream of hate fill her teary eyes. He looked down in disgrace at what he was doing to the poor child, Tybalt. Ruining his life at fifteen. Denise spit onto her lawn and pulled back into the darkness of the now jaded home.
The car door shut and Malachi stared at the steering wheel for a moment. Tybalts eyes crept to Malachi and he shut his for a moment, turning on the car. The car pulled from the house and drove away, watched by Denise through the living room window. Her husband put a soft and comforting hand on her shoulder and she held on to the tips of his aged hand, rubbing her cheek on the hand sadly.
“He’s gone now, just know that we taught him something…” he said.
Denise nodded, and walked back into the kitchen.
* * *
Cityscape passed by with a blur, seen and forgotten in seconds. Tybalt rested his elbow on the small curve between the door and the window. His cheek rested on his hand.
Malachi smiled and turned up the radio.
“The Red Hot Chili Peppers, you like them?”
Tybalt’s eyes wandered back to the rest of the car, “A few of their songs.”
Malachi nodded satisfactorily, “I like ‘em…”
He had shed his American accent, the Irish taint returning to his words slyly. Silence had been in Tybalts life so much he could stand to have Malachi talk to him. Malachi was such a stranger to him, even though he had seen him so much. He had only seen a fake shell Malachi put around himself for protection, he barely even heard the accent he had.
“So, where going to my apartment for now, um…you cant go to school anymore..”
Tybalt laughed, “Doesn’t bother me at all.”
Malachi nodded and smiled a little. He rested the bottom knuckle of his finger on his lower lip and turned, parking about ten feet from the from door, in his own personal space.
The Elevator dinged at Malachi’s floor and he walked to his door, opening it to reveal an extravagant home. He slipped in and turned on lights throughout the rest of the house, and Ty threw his stuff on the guest bed, walking into the living room, flopping on a black leather couch. Malachi came in, his hair messed up and his jacket and shirt off, revealing many tattoo’s over tight muscles under a black A-Shirt.
His face was tired, as if he hadn’t slept in days. Tybalts uncle was an insomniac, and he always had been. He told him it was like he was dreaming, but he wasn’t sleeping. It was never being asleep, but never being quite awake
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There's a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path
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