Dysfunctional~ 2,827 words - Writers Forum

Kira the wanderer · 06-11-2007, 07:20 AM

Quote:

The ending sucks. This was a project for English class, but could be no more than five pages, so I had to wrap it up very quickly.

[Dysfunctional

His father was an odd man, balding and stocky. His features seemed to be the work of Pablo Picasso, a nose thin and bent like an iron pipe squished between a looming brow and the two loafs of bread that were his cheeks. Occasionally, like bread, the crust would be removed. Peering out from under a square like forehead were grey pair of eyes, from which violent stabbing glares were constantly in production. A skinny curling upper lip rested beneath his nose, typically fastening down a cigar or cigarette depending on whether or not his was indoors. He boasted on the left pocket of his wrinkled blue work shirt a name tag, which read Marcus Keen in a large font.

It was the third Sunday and warm weather had started to migrate back towards their pathetic smidgen of a town. Marcus Keen was going about his usual routine of the morning—crawling to an upright position in his bed with a hand scratching nastily at unruly places, then hobbling over to his small yellow tiled kitchen for a cup of Joe—before he acknowledged anyone else’s existence. Parking himself down on a wooden three-legged stool that had, at one time or another, once been a sturdy good chair he positioned a steaming red mug, with a chip on its side, down against the table. He fumbled a bit for the newspaper with his large hand, which had apparently inherited all the hair from his head, unable to find it at first underneath the stuff sprawled across the table. The triumphant chaos could only be described as stuff, for no other word could honestly portray the randomness in the scattered nick-knacks, papers, or old stained clothing from a week ago, quite as well.

Having emerged from the dark skeletal hallway, that wouldn’t have been half so bad if the turmoil of stuff had not spontaneously reproduced throughout the house, his son tripped his way into the kitchen. Snagging his foot on a luminous wire of some sort, a stumbling mess was made of the young man entering the semi-less cluttered room.

“Shit,” He cursed more severely under his breath out of the listening range of his father, “This place looks like crap. What is all this junk?” He clambered over to the coffee maker, scrunching up his nose in painful disgust from the almost rotten stench.

Marcus grunted in reply, his sticky hands gripping a week old paper which was the only one that could be recovered. After taking another sip of the watery brew, the red mug returned to the table. A page turned, his eyes never leaving paper.

“Hey, I’m talking to you. Why don’t you clean this shit up? The house is revolting.” He took a white mug out from the cupboard and then decided to wash it by hand in the sink just to be safe. “Your brother called. He landed himself back in the big house finally, that bastard. Sucks for him he wasted his one phone call to this place. Boy was he in for a shock when I picked up the phone, though I don’t know how I managed to find it in all this crap.”

Marcus looked up from the paper, his face squeezing up as though he intended to shrink it that way, his crusty cheeks turning red. “Don’t take about your uncle that way, you ingrate.” Spittle shot off from his fat lower lip, diving to the floor. “You better mind your fucking mouth, Chase.” The more he hollered, the more his third chin wobbled.
Chase plopped a spoonful of sugar into the mug, not bothering to look up. Tip-toeing around a wild pack of cardboard boxes, which had marked their territory around the outskirts of the counter, he plummeted down on the one chair that still had a back. He rested a forearm against the table, watching as it tilted towards his gut with a large dying squeak.

“You know damn well that asshole was going to land himself up in there sooner or later. Y’hear what he got busted for this time?” Chase paused, waiting for a reply that would never come. “Got caught making candy for kids. He decided to put in a little treat for ‘em. Ever try his Stoney Rancher, Keef Kat, or Shroom Pops?”

Marcus hardened his demeaning stare, fixating on his son’s forehead. “Yeah well ain’t my fault. Doesn’t mean you can talk like that about family, he wasn’t always like that. I don’t know if you can remember, but you loved him to death when you were little.” The rupturing volume of his tone caused him to hack up mucus, sucking it back down in a sickening display.

“Oh yeah, I just loved my dear old uncle. After all, he taught me so many valuable life lessons, such as how to hold and load a gun properly in case the cops came knocking for him at the door. Good times, Pop. Good fucking times.” Chase stared across the table, at the old man whose only use was paying for his past four years of college.

“Mark. Mark. Marcus!” Nicholas would have mistaken the droning wail for his old Parrot, which had conveniently ‘died’ when he left for the fall semester of his sophomore year that used to sit in his cage on the other side of the room, where a large plastic palm tree now resided. God knows why that was there.

A scrawny woman worn out from the years, who obtained enough wrinkles under her eyes to prove it, pushed her way into the kitchen. An unflattering pink nightgown draped across her figure, her feet snug into a pair of wooly blue slippers. Wispy dyed curls slouched over her head, lazily flat. Shuffling over with a semi-limp, her emerald eyes had a kind and gentle texture to them when looking at Chase. She had a warm glow about her, and a soothing scent, but the tongue—many of the neighbors swore—of hissing venomous cobra.

“Marcus.” She dropped the second syllable hard. “Stop arguing with Chase, he didn’t come home for this. I mean, honestly, its barely even nine in the morning.” Darting back and forth between the two, her eyes exchanged signals of malice and sugar.

“Morning, Mom.” Chase lifted his hand in an awkward greeting.
Marcus shifted his rear end around in the seat just as uncomfortably, before finally kicking back the splintering stool to rise. Dragging his feet over to a crooked coat rack, he clutched a stained brown jacket in his bear-like hands and announced he was off to work. Chase sighed and shook his head disapprovingly, nearly sparking another flare. His father, the transit worker, was on his way to the worst job he could have ever obtained.

“Chase,” Placing her pinkish-olive hand down on the wrist of her son, she spoke tenderly with excitement. “He’s just a little grumpy, with the check deduction. Give him some time and before the next raise it’ll all be okay with him, stubborn as he is. Really. We’re both so glad you decided to come home this time around.”

Nodding his head, strands of strawberry-brown hair fell down to poke his eye. He rubbed them away, silently and mostly still. Feeling the tugging need of his mother’s hopeful look for an answer, he slumped further down into the chair.

“I know I already asked you and that you did just come home, but have you decided whether or not to return to college? You’ve said so many times you wanted to change majors and if we just take another loan out from the bank…”

“Mom, I don’t want to talk about this.” He stood up, heading towards his room.

Nothing made sense anymore; no matter how many times the situation would be run in his head. It wasn’t that he was stuck between two things he had wanted to do with his life, but Chase simply couldn’t even begin imagining doing anything at all. He brushed open the front door, squinting out in morning sun. The lawn was disturbing mixture of overgrown and nonexistent, waning away like his father’s hair. Plummeting his hands into the depths of his pockets, he moved towards the end of a dirt path that was the driveway, slouched yet refined. The thoughts buzzed louder in his head than the city he had just left, that endless migraine which had started the problem.

Kicking a tin can with the inner side of his left foot, Chase studied it clanging against the jagged road. He stopped walking, a few yards from his parents’ house, and stared blankly at it. Rusted around the edges but perfectly fine on the inside, it reminded him of someone but was unable to name who. Sighing, he moved on and parked himself down on a bench. The lonely figure, impractically built alongside a main road which was treacherous to cross, made for a fine place to think.

Chase bit his lower lip, a habit obtained when he was a child. Life, even then, was slipping by without a decision for the future to be made. Shutting his eyes, he thought about the past few years. Going to college four years ago, thinking he would want to be an engineer, was a big mistake. He had no passion for the job and neither particular likes nor dislikes—that is, before he had started studying in the field. Chase not only found a dislike, but pure hatred so saturated with acidic angst, it dissolved all ambition.
A humidly warm wave of air blew against his face, harassing his hair. Cars shot by from each direction, a destination on the other end of their journeys. Sitting up slightly more erect, Chase clasped his hands together. His sleeves, wide and floating as though an apparition cloaked itself within the materials, hung down low swaying drunkenly to the rhythm of a sticky waft of air. The young man was worn out every passing second; uncertainty was taking its toll.

His mother blamed Marcus for her son’s confusion, for her husband had never been motivated towards aiming for a better course for his own life, let alone his child’s. Family was never a reliable source, for they had only been useful for proving one solitary message to Chase. He had the typical American dysfunctional family.

“You’ve gotta take the blame.” Chase recalled his uncle begging Marcus on one occasion, as the clouds started to form grey heavy shapes in the sky. “If they think I did something to violate parole they’ll have my ass back in jail.”

“Well who told you to mail dog crap along with your payment on a parking ticket?” Sprinkled with a mist from above, he shook his head at the memory with disapproval. It wasn’t rare that such conversations would take place. That one had been the sanest in regards to his deadbeat uncle.
“I don’t know what is with your side of the family, Marcus.” His mother would always say. “They’re always getting into trouble. Sometimes I wonder how I got married into such a weird situation.” It was proven repeatedly Chase’s mother most skillful in lashing out her tongue upon unsuspecting prey, yet not so adapted in receiving a negative response. Her parents were a pair of gay men, an African American who was half Chinese and a small Polish man with Irish features that most closely resembled a Portuguese sausage. Needless to say, nobody dared to point out anything unusual on her side of the family. The last time such an event occurred Chase had seen his aunt for the final time.

Dripping more severely down his face, the raindrops warned him about a vigorous shower. Icy liquid pellets splattered against the side of his head, declaring war should he not move. Mother Nature’s warnings continued on in vain.

Colliding with a spraying puddle, a muddy tire ejected the water high into the air. Luckily for the stream, Chase’s face had been there to catch it. Clinging tightly to his body, the cloth had a tighter grip upon his figure than a drunkard and his beer. Heavy as well as bitterly cold, the fabric drooped slothfully but was not attempted to be fixed. Behind his eyes was the expression an old building would release before being demolished, once mighty strong but about to be crushed to intolerable debris.

Approximately one year ago, one of his relatives sat him down to discuss where his future was going on a lunch outing. Maureen was silver eyed with a pale pair of thin eyebrows, which arched so stiffly it looked as though they had been tattooed on. A third cousin of an third aunt’s sister-in-law thrice removed on his mother’s side, she was the type of person whom was in touch with each member of her family no matter how distantly related they were. Having met her through a reunion barbeque, Chase found the curly blond most peculiar when greeting each and every person she came in contact with and being able to determine exactly who they were or how they had come to be related.

However, the sit-down had not gone on so well, for she was morbidly depressed after the cancellation of her wedding. The conversations, which had more sadistic mood swings than a pregnant boar, had mauled all possibilities of him ever allowing her to contact him again to a bloody pulp. Having gotten to the point of her hysterically bashing a tightly clutched fist into the table of the restaurant until a knife flew astray—in hopes, Chase felt, of committing suicide as to not listen to her howling anymore—and landed perfectly lodged just above the waiter’s head, stabbing itself into the wall. After of which her response was to flood the place similar to the sinking of Atlantis, through a bursting display of tears. Black streaks of mascara voyaged down her red, red, cheeks painting her face like that of a heavy metal rock star, her screams adding the finished touch to the look, while Chase fled leaving her with the check.

Later on he had learned such hysteria had been the result of the terms of her cancelled marriage. Maureen had gotten into an argument with the groom-to-be over her having helped her son steal nearly fifty-thousand dollars worth of jewelry (because, she was afraid he would hurt himself if he did it alone and couldn’t talk him out of it), the result being her taking all his electronic belongings and driving them off into a harbor.

Chase tugged at his hair, with the sudden desire to rip it all out and go bald from stress early. Flopping soggy wet strands twirled themselves through the grooves of his hands, their roots tying themselves down to his scalp maliciously. He was supposed to have a decision on life by now, but was tossed into such a family that it seemed as though his only future was being put through professional help. Then the pounding in his chest became calm, his eyes opened up as wide as they had ever been seeing for the first time what had been so blindly hidden from him. Stinging salty sweat streamed into his eyes, burning them, from being washed down by the rain. The grim and muck from all the year’s worth of anxiety, from being aware at so young an age that his family was not what it should or even could be, melted away. It traveled down his forehead, off his shoulders and down his bony wrists. It came from his heart, diving down in droplets clarity.

Standing up, a gust of wind aggravated the downpour to blow against his side. Chase looked directly up at the grumpy gray sky, as it bellowed and moaned he knew what to do with his life. All the answers his mother hounded him for, the bafflement which stalked in him every shadow and the ticking time bomb of lost hope were all suddenly irrelevant. He knew—Chase Keen knew! What else could there be for a young man with such a background, such a family. He headed home, a carefully stride, and then burst into a running sprint. Up the blocks down the blocks, he was darting cars and traffic from all directions. Racing to his future, to what profession he knew was waiting for him all these years, Chase pursued a purpose. His foot smacked against a tin can, it flew ahead a few feet. The rusty rim had broken off. College was just a few months away and Chase wanted to enroll as quickly as possible. He smashed his way through the door, puddles forming at his feet, a giant grin plastered across his face. That house, his muse, welcomed him back eagerly. For it was always within these walls that fate whispered to him unknowingly. Chase Keen was destined to become a psychiatrist.

Kira the wanderer · 06-18-2007, 07:25 PM

I know my ending sucks, however if I could get tips on how to improve when I have a page limit, it would be very much appreciated.

Kira the wanderer · 07-02-2007, 06:33 PM

I know WF can get slow, but its been a few weeks...

Kira the wanderer · 07-18-2007, 07:01 PM

...Any day now...