Entry #1 Gregory Langston

This is the first entry for Gregory Langston and it give you a little bit more information as to who he is and thickens the plot. It's the second chapter so make sure to check out the first!

 

Entry #1

Gregory Langston

               

It was a rainy Sunday morning in Northern Michigan. I was 16 years old. My parents and I were on our way back home from church and I remember my dad turning the radio to another church sermon. It was just like my dad, who was a very strict Baptist, to leave church and immediately turn the radio to another sermon. There was never enough God for that man.

My mom was sitting in the passenger’s seat, directly in front of me. She was taking off her pale white “church gloves”, when she turned around to face me.

“What do you want for lunch, Gregory?”

“I wouldn’t mind some burgers or hot dogs. Maybe we can throw some on the grill and invite the neighbors. I know Hannah’s parents really want to meet you two.”

“Yeah, well we don’t want to meet her parents,” my dad chimed in with a lisp caused by the cigar hanging out the side of his mouth. He grabbed his lighter from his jacket pocket and lit it.

“Harold! Hannah and Gregory have been seeing each other for quite some time, it’ll be nice to finally meet her parents,” my mom barked back, sticking up for me.

“Her and her commie family are a bunch of Catholic traitors. You should hear the talk around the warehouse, Susan. It’s bad. Apparently, Hannah’s father is in deep with the Soviets, he is some sort of spy. In my opinion, he should be arrested and…”

“They aren’t like that dad! Just because they don’t follow the same religion you do or view the situation with Russia the same way you do, doesn’t mean they’re communist! You know you can be such a judgmental a*s sometimes!” I had made a mistake in saying that. I knew it and so did my mom. She let out a sort of gasp as my dad slammed on the brakes and pulled over to the side of the road.

“What did you say to me, boy? You know damn well your mother and I do not tolerate language like that! Get out of the car. You can walk home.”

“Harry, come on that’s not…”

He hit her.

“Susan, do not question me in front of our boy. Out, Gregory! Now!”

“Dad, I’m sorry. I really didn’t…”

He hit me.

“Out!”

I opened my door and crawled out the backseat. I saw my mom through the passenger’s seat window. She was holding her cheek where my dad had backhanded her and tears were starting to roll down her face. She was red with embarrassment.

My dad rolled down the window and yelled to me, “Maybe the long walk will give you time to think about how you treat your parents. We are not your jackass friends, we are authority figures. You understand?”

I raised my hand to my forehead and brought it down swiftly, as if to salute him. He scoffed and rolled up the window while putting the car in drive, and just like that, I was alone.

 

 

I grew up in Harrisville, Michigan. Harrisville was a small city along the edge of Lake Huron up in the Northern Peninsula of Michigan. With the population never going over five hundred and the only sign of life being the tourists who came for the town’s beaches, Harrisville was the epitome of a small town.

My dad had kicked me out on Route 72, which was the main road that lead from the shores of Lake Huron all the way to Traverse City if you followed it long enough.  I was right at the intersection of 72 and Everett Road, which meant I was about a mile away from 6^th Street which led right to Jefferson Street and the humble abode I called home. A long, mile walk never killed anyone.

I began walking and admiring the beautiful corn fields that surrounded Route 72. That’s really all there was: corn. Once you got closer into town you could start to see the distant outlines of the airport, but other than that, it was just corn.

I scavenged the ground with my eyes as I walked, looking for the biggest piece of rock I could find. I found a decent sized one and kicked it a few feet ahead of me. It hit a hole in a road and bounced up in the air, before landing back on the road. I approached it again and kicked it even harder. It began as a game at first, just a way to pass time, but as I kicked the rock over and over again I began to use it as a stress reliever.

“Take that, dad!” and “You like that?” I would say, pretending the tiny rock was my father.

My dad and I had never really gotten along. He was raised in a strict military family and his father and mother were about as strict as could be. They were loving and caring parents, but they didn’t put up with any of my dad’s “shenanigans”, as he always put it. My dad was the oldest of four siblings, so he said the house was a little bit crazy at times, but his mother and father did a good job putting things into order.

I guess that all changed during some battle in the Second World War My dad’s father was shot three times in his left leg; two times above the knee and one time below. He miraculously survived his injuries and despite frequent claims that his leg would have to be amputated, kept his leg. He was never the same after his time in the military, though. My dad said that his father became reckless and paid no attention to what was right and wrong. One night, after spending a good amount of time at a local bar, his father came home with a bottle in one hand and a pistol in the other. My dad said that he had never been so scared in his life, but he knew that in that moment he had become the man of the house and he needed to protect the members of his family. He charged his father, but with one swift movement of his hand, his father knocked him to the side; where my dad hit the wall hard and blacked out.

When my dad woke up, he was staring directly at his mother, who had her arms wrapped around all three of his siblings, their bodies riddled with bullet holes. To the right of that gruesome scene, was his father, who had a gaping hole in the back of his head; the barrel of the pistol still in his mouth and the bottle of alcohol still in his hand.

When my dad grew up and started a family of his own, he vowed that he would never let himself become like his father, and for that I love my dad; but sometimes he tried too hard to be the perfect dad. Because of that, situations like him kicking me out of the car a mile away from home happen.

I kicked the rock one more time, harder than I had been kicking before, and it hit another hole in the road. This time the rock ricocheted off the side of the hole and bounced to my left, landing in the middle of the road. An oncoming car ran right over it. I watched as the pressure from the weight of the car crushed the rock into pieces.

“Good riddance, Dad.”

 

Entry #1 (continued)

Gregory Langston

 

The walk had begun to take its’ toll on me. The afternoon sun had begun to peak out from behind the clouds and was shining down on me hard. Sweat was dripping from the very top of my forehead, all the way down to my now sore feet. I had taken off my church suit jacket a while ago, and I was beginning to contemplate taking off the collared shirt that was now soaked with my sweat. I guess church clothes didn’t make the best exercise clothes.

I had made it about 2/3 of the way home. Route 72 and all of its’ corn was beginning to give way to residential homes and in the distance I could see a tiny recreational jet taking off from the airport. I had just began to think that the walk hadn’t been that bad (besides the scorching rays of sun beating down on me) and that if my dad wanted to teach me a lesson, he had better try harder, when I got to the part of Route 72 I had forgotten about.

I had remembered the surrounding corn and the airport that was barely visible in the distance, but I had forgotten about the hill that rose up from the Earth right before you approached city limits.

“You had got to be kidding me!” I said aloud. A murder of crows flew up from one of the surround patches of corn, cawing as they soared through the sky as if to say HA-HA. I picked up a rock and through it at the hoard of black birds, out of anger. It was a silly chore; the rock never even approached the birds before it fell back to the dusty ground.

I sighed as I traced the road up towards the sky. I placed one foot in front of the other and began walking up the hill that at this point seemed just as tall as Mount Everest. I took back everything I said before about the walk being easy and my dad having this try harder to punish me: this walk was bull s**t.

I was already tired and the extra effort it took to climb the hill drained me of whatever energy I had left. The ashy pavement was hotter than the air that surrounded me and whenever my feet would slip out from underneath me, and I was forced to catch myself by placing my hands down on the road; I grimaced with pain as the heat from the ground transferred from the rocky surface to my hands. I think the only thing that made climbing up that hill worse was the passing cars escalating the “little bump in the road” with ease, and here I was struggling like a little kid trying to climb backwards up the playground slide.

The smell of exhaust didn’t help much either. It was a sickening smell that hit me every time a car passed by, causing me to gag and at some points causing a bile liquid to come half way up my throat, leaving it dry and coarse.

What I wouldn’t give for a glass of water right now.

I was almost to the top of the hill, when another car passed; leaving that horrid smell behind. However, this car did not travel too far ahead of me before braking. I thought that maybe it was one of my friend’s families or a caring pedestrian who thought they would help a young, struggling teen by giving them a ride home, but when I approached the car I noticed that they had stopped due to traffic.

Traffic in Harrisville was about as rare as a polar bear turning up in Detroit. It just didn’t happen. The line of cars started with the car that had just passed me and lead all the way over the hill. Maybe Mrs. Winter’s had opened up her doughnut stand again, that always caused a big raucous around town, although it never backed up traffic this far. I mean her doughnuts were great, but not this great.

I approached the top of the hill now, no longer concerned with the sweat dripping down my face or the fact that a desert had opened shop in the back of my throat; I was transfixed on finding out what was causing this traffic jam in Harrisville. Like I had said, traffic in Harrisville was a rare occurrence.

I took one last giant step and planted my right foot on the top of the hill, putting all my weight on that foot and pulling myself up the rest of the way. I put my hand against my forehead, shielding my eyes from the light beaming down from the sun, as I scanned the view I had from atop the hill.

It wasn’t Mrs. Winter’s doughnut stand that was causing the traffic jam. It wasn’t even close.

 

Entry #1 (continued)

Gregory Langston

 

From the top of the hill where I was standing, I could see the entirety of the wreck. At first, it appeared to me that there were 4 cars involved, but after scanning the scene a bit more, I could tell that there was a fifth car underneath the body of another.

“Oh, s**t…” I muttered softly.

There were about four police cars, two ambulances, and a fire truck surrounding the gruesome scene. Two of the firemen were going to work on the car that had been lodged underneath the other. The car on top was a Ford pick-up and it looked as if it had climbed onto the other car when the car had swerved in front of it. I couldn’t make out the make or model of the car squished by the pick-up.

There was another crew of firefighters dealing with what looked like a small fire that had erupted in the front of a car that had slid off the road and landed at the edge of a corn field.

The other two cars were on the right side of the road, one after another, and were less damaged then the other three vehicles. It looked like the front car had slammed on its’ brakes to avoid crashing and the car behind it had not reacted in time, rear-ending the front car. Right next to these two cars, on the edge of the road, were four white sheets tracing the outlines of human bodies.

“Oh my god…” a near-by voice said. It was the passengers of one of the car’s sitting in the traffic jam, “That is so gruesome. I just…I can’t imagine.”

Voices of concern and despair started to surround the area around me, but I was fixated on the wreck, specifically the pick-up that was on top of the car. There was just no surviving that if you were in the bottom car. The tire would have ripped apart the roof of the vehicle, and if that didn’t kill you, Ford pick-ups are heavy. That amount of pressure placed on such a puny car, would not only crush the car, but anyone inside as well.

I remember being weirdly fascinated with the sight of that pick-up on top of the car.

I had to get a closer look.

The pick-up was driving on the opposite side of the road from me, so I weaved in front of one of the cars sitting in the traffic jam to cross the street. I stepped out on the other side of the road and noticed a big cloud of dust being kicked up in the middle of one of the fields. Upon further inspection, I noticed it was just a gravel road that ran through one of the fields, one of the cars stuck in the traffic jam must have gotten tired of waiting and decided to take a short cut. No big deal.

I started down the side of the road, heading towards the wreck. All along the traffic jam, people had begun emerging from their cars, hoping to get a closer look at the wreck. A group of kids I knew from school had actually gotten onto the top of their car so they could see over the cars in front of them. Most people seemed to be concerned about the lives of those involved, some were just shocked something like this happened in Harrisville, and others were just amazed.

As I got closer, I noticed three more lumps of white sheets, this time on the other side of the road, bringing the total to seven.

“Oh s**t…” I said again, beginning to grasp the severity of the situation I was approaching.

I reached the edge of the wreck, the policemen had blocked the road with their cars, but everything was still visible. I went up to one of the police cruisers and peered over the top, watching as a group of firemen tried to open the driver’s side door of the car underneath the Ford pick-up. The sound of steel bending underneath the pressure of the firefighter’s tools filled the air. It was loud. It was louder than anything I had heard in my lifetime, but despite that I heard something else. I could hear a faint sound through it all and it sounded eerily familiar to me.

The firemen pulled one last time on the door and it gave way, crashing to the ground. It was in that moment, when the bending of steel had stopped, that I heard the faint sound clearly for the first time.

Susan.

The firefighters rushed to the side of the car and pulled my dad’s body through the gaping hole they had just made in the car, as I rushed around the police cruiser I had been standing behind. The EMT’s hurried over with a stretcher, which the firemen laid my dad onto, as I hurried over to the side of the stretcher

One of the EMT’s looked at me. “Who the hell let this kid get in here? Get him out! Get him-“

“That’s my dad! That’s my dad! Please, that’s my dad!” I repeated over and over again as a few of the surrounding firemen grabbed me by the arms and began to pull me away.

“Gre-Gregory?” My dad had just barely pushed the words out.

“Dad! I’m here. I’m here!” I said, breaking free from the firemen and returning to my dad’s side. “Don’t worry, dad! They are gonna take care of you, okay?”

“Give me a moment with my boy, please?” My dad ordered the EMT’s who were surrounding him.

“Sir, you need immediate medical attention! I cannot just leave you here!” one of the EMT’s replied, clearly worried about my father’s condition.

“Dad, just let them-“

“I’m dead either way, boy. We both know that.” He snapped at me and I shut up. He then turned towards the EMT saying: “Just leave me with my boy. Please.”

The EMT looked back and forth to his colleagues; I could tell there was some sort of silent conference going on between them. The EMT took one last look at my father and, reluctantly, backed away.

“Gregory, come closer,” my dad said, turning his attention from the EMT’s to me, “I need to share something with you.”

“I’m here, dad. I’m here and so are you and you aren’t going anywhere! You’re gonna be okay!”

“No, son, I’m not. They did their job. They did their job well.”

“Who? Who did their job?”

“You will find that out in time, but it is not important right now. What is important is that you listen to me and do exactly what I say, you hear me boy?”

“I’m here. I’m listening.” I replied, softly, beginning to worry about my father’s condition.

“They have the Callus. I was stupid enough to have it on my person and for that I will pay my dues. I know that means nothing to you right now, but it will become very important to you soon. I need you to go back to the house. In my dresser drawers, third from the bottom, there is a small lever on the right hand side. Pull it and you will have your answ-“ He coughed, and blood came up and splattered across his face. He breathed in heavily and then closed his eyes.

“Dad? Dad? Open your eyes, you can’t leave me yet. You said they did their job! Who did their job, dad? Who?” I was yelling into his face now, shaking his shoulders with my hands. He coughed again, more blood littered the sides of his mouth.

“They’re long gone by now, Gregory. They took the Callus. They did their job. They probably took one of the side roads, through the fields. They are long gone by now…long gone.” The last little bit of his words trailed off as his head fell to the side, giving one last cough before his whole body went still.

“Dad? Dad, no! Dad, you cannot leave me! You cannot leave! What am I supposed to do? What about mom?” I yelled into his face, tears rolling down my eyes, anger in my voice.

What about mom? Mom!

I stood up from my dad’s body, wiping the tears from my eyes. I twirled around, doing a complete 180 degree turn. I was now facing the hole the firemen had ripped in my parent’s car. I peered through it. Inside, resting against the dashboard, was my mother. There was deep gash right down the middle of her head, opening up to reveal the innards of her skull. Blood was spattered across the front windshield and the passenger’s side window.

I fell to my knees.

My eyes clouded with tears as I traced the entirety of my mother’s body. Her legs were bent in ways human legs are not made to. Her arms were hugging her torso, as if she had been trying to protect herself from the oncoming pick-up that was now on top of her.

I leaned back and sat on my heels.

Her pale, white “church gloves” were now stained completely red.

“He’s gone. There was nothing we could have done.” I heard the EMT who had been reluctant to leave my dad’s side say behind me.

I was overwhelmed now.

I was weak both physically and mentally.

“Goodbye, mom,” I whispered silently. “Good bye, dad.”

I fell to the hot, ashy pavement, the heat didn’t bother me anymore as I closed my eyes and let myself drift away.