Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Exercise #1: The Reluctant I

This 600 word exercise called for a 1st person POV without using the first person pronoun more than twice. Much trickier than I would have thought.

We knew it would all go bad the second Jessie spotted the bum sitting on the park bench.

It was past midnight. Jessie, Tyler, Chloe, Casey, and me, we were all out past curfew. Bored and stoned out of our minds, everyone of us. All except Casey. She was new to our group and had turned out to be a virgin in every sense of the word. Like that Sandra Dee chick in that movie Grease, she didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't toke, had to twist her arm to get her to dye one strand of that California blond hair black. Literally. One strand. That's all she would let us do. It was barely noticeable and her parents still reamed her out over it.

The others, Tyler and Chloe, they could never figure out why Jessie would allowed her to hang out with us though Tyler suspected he just wanted the chance to bang a virgin. Chloe's lame ass theory was that he thought it was convenient having a designated driver. This was utter bull shit. Nobody in our little group had ever cared if there was someone sober behind the wheel so long as we had a vehicle that would take us where we wanted to go. That was Chloe for you. She had it bad for Jessie and she just couldn't bend her mind around the idea of a mousy little nobody like Casey being competition. Whatever the reason for Jessie's interest, she was apart of our cliche' even if her status wasn't official. This was just as well since Casey was the only one of us equipped to think straight at any given time.

She must have been keen to Jessie's mood too when she proposed we head out to the lake, the rec center, anything but the park. Jessie wasn't biting.

"Rec center's closed and the lake's frozen. Nothin' to do but get wasted and fuck," he said with a creepy smile aimed at her. His grin widened she blushed three shades of red. "But hey, if that's what you want to do..."

Casey quickly shook her head no.

"It's too cold for the lake," Chloe grumbled.

"Just as cold there as it is here," Tyler chimed in and yelped when Chloe kicked him in the shin.

Jessie turned his attention back to the homeless guy on the bench who was snoring louder than a buzz saw. He was old but not "old" old, like in his late forties maybe. He was probably younger than that even, aged from a hard life on the streets. He was greasy looking and everything he wore was shabby except the long dark trench coat that he had to have stolen or found or something. He held a bottle of something that was probably booze wrapped up in a brown paper bag gingerly in his arms. The guy was what in our comfortably suburban upper class minds, consisted the perfect stereotype of what a homeless loser had to look like. Old, drunk, filthy, and harmless.

Jessie watched him with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes that always warned of torments and humiliations to come.

He smiled at us and said, "Let's have us some fun with that old geezer."

Tyler spotted the old guy and grunted. "What you want to do, man? Steal his dime store Schnapps?"

"I want his coat," Jessie said, eyeing the man's coat like a shark eyes chum.

"You've got a coat," Chloe said in disgust, "one that doesn't smell like piss. Seriously Jessie, you can smell him from here."

"The smell just adds to the challenge."

"What?" said Tyler. "You making a game out of it?"

"Sure," Jessie said with a shrug. "Why not?"

"Because it's not your coat!" Casey said frowning in disapproval. "You can't do it."

It was the worst thing she could have said. You could just see the wheels spinning in Jessie's mind. Nobody told Jessie what he couldn't do. It didn't make him angry because it took a lot to make him angry, but it did make him playful. Well, playful in the same way as a cat plays with a live mouse just before it gobbles the damn thing whole. This game of his had started out as a way to mess around with some nameless bum. Now it was Casey's turn to be tormented. It was Jessie's idea of foreplay.

"Why not?"

"He's homeless!"

"No shit."

"He has nothing and you have everything. Why take one of the few possessions that he owns when you already have one of your own. It's too cruel," she said, looking at him as if he were more repulsive than the smelling homeless guy he wanted to prank, "even for you."

Jessie stared at her, his eyes dead pools of azure blue. Lifeless, pitiless, serial killer eyes. The rest of us, we all held our breath, even Tyler who was bigger than Jessie. Tyler was our high school's head quarter back, all muscle. He could probably take Jessie in a straight fight if he was stupid or drunk enough to try. Problem was, everybody knew if you beat Jessie down, you damn well better take him out-permanently. He was clever and patient and, above all, petty. Pique his wrath and he'd make your life a living hell just wondering what form his vengeance would take.

Casey had hung out with us long enough to realize this, but even if she hadn't, the look he gave her was enough to scare her. She gulped loud enough that it would have been comical under different circumstances, but she held her ground. She met his soul chilling stare and refused to turn away.

"Leave him alone," she said, arms folded against her chest in an act of defiance.

Jessie gave her a slow grin. "Unlike you, the rest of us aren't up for sainthood. Who else wants to play?"

"What are the rules?" Tyler asked.

"Whoever gets the coat off the smelly bastard and brings it to me wins wins the prize."

"Ooh," Chloe said, rubbing up against him. "What's the prize, Jessie?"

"Key to my dad's liquor cabinet."

Tyler grunted. "Dude, I could jimmy the lock off that thing for less trouble."

"I meant the liquor cabinet on my dad's boat," said Jessie. "He's going on vacation with his new whore and he won't be back for a couple weeks. I swiped the key from his office and mom gets seasick, so she won't bother us."

"Shit man," Tyler said with a hang dog expression, "You had the old man's yacht all this time and you brought us here? We could have invited the whole school out, made a real night of it."

"Getting wasted is more fun if you earn it," Jessie said grinning. "In spite of my father's whoring ways, he has tried to instill me with some values."

Tyler snorted. "Whatever. Let's do this thing so we can get to the real party."

He started for the bench but Jessie grabbed his arm. He turned to Casey and said, "Ladies first."
Casey's expression hardened. "Forget it."

"See, this is the problem with allowing a nun to join our group," he said. His smile faded. "Get me the coat, you cunt or you can walk back home right now. And you better believe that if you walk from our little troupe tonight, you can never come back."

Casey's eyes flared. She turned to leave without hesitation, her boots stomping the sleet covered ground as she walked away. We were all surprised. Jessie must have expected her to fold too because he watched her, open mouthed and confused before he yelled back at her.

"You willing to spend the rest of your high school career as a pariah, Casey? 'Cause that's the way this is going to play out!"

Casey paused, turned to look at him. He smiled, but the smile froze when she flashed him the bird and started walking again. Jessie yelled curses at her back while Chloe held on to him, tried to calm him down. The bum hadn't moved once, asleep and dead to the world. Guess he was used to shouting.

Have you ever had that feeling like a ton of lead was pushing against your chest or the feeling that something was clawing inside your stomach trying to rip itself out. That's what if felt like to watch Casey walk away. She was a prude and vanilla as they come, but at least she was willing to stand up for what she thought was right. She had a mind of her own and she didn't care what anyone thought of her. She didn't take Jessie's shit either. That was no small thing considering the evil things that boy could come up with when he was in one of his little moods. We watched her walk away, watched the conscience of us all leave us to our own devices, and knew she was in the right.

The look Jessie gave Casey was nothing. You should have seen his expression after I flipped him off and ran after her.

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