Sunshine State Chapters 1-3

Excerpt from a book idea I have

 

Chapter 1

 

All I could think about was that lone slice of pizza. It raced through my mind since hunger was striking my stomach like a pack of ravenous wolves attacking wounded prey, but this task was easier said than done; in fact the area was about as close to comparison to “The Western Front” as anything could be. A vast area with enough room for battalions of soldiers and guarded by the most vicious of commanders, my step mother. I knew if I crossed into that refrigerated minefield known as the kitchen I would receive a lecture on how she is fixing dinner and “Soon, it will be ready”, and how rude it is to eat after she “slaved” over this meal. In reality all she did was stand over a bowl of always dry instant potatoes and hope for the best. It’s not that I despise dinner time, quite the contrary actually. I love to eat, but her unfortunately she had the tenacious appetite of a spoiled 5^th grader. I’ll save you the trouble of trying to figure out what I mean by all this, it meant that we were having chicken that night.

Chicken served on occasion or mixed with other things is very pleasant and goes with just about anything, but at my house we had chicken almost every night because that was about the only thing she would fix. I’m a firm believer that she solely was responsible for the rising stock prices of the Tyson Corporation.  We had had baked chicken on Monday, grilled chicken on Tuesday, chicken strips yesterday and tonight we were having barbequed chicken. This chicken being the deadliest of all these poultry concoctions, on the surface it doesn’t sound that bad. We have chicken, check…. We have barbeque sauce, check…… throw in some spices, and presto, pure culinary magic, right?  Wrong! Instead of the heavenly dish that came from a Martha Stewart cookbook, lay a creature that resembles the tiny baby from Alien. (You know, the one that bursts from the man’s stomach while they are eating dinner, and it hisses and runs off never to be seen again, while the blood splatters all over that poor woman’s face, God how I love good movies!!!!).

My name is Seth and the previous soliloquy may not show it but I consider myself an uncontrollable optimist although I shouldn’t be by all accounts, here’s why. The stepmother mentioned earlier did not result from divorce as most do nowadays but from the death of my mother from terminal bone cancer. I try not to remember her too much, memories are a funny thing, you can memorize song lyrics, phone numbers, addresses….hell, and I can even remember this stupid lesson on statistics for my criminal justice class but can’t remember what she looks like anymore. How fucked up is that?! The things I do remember though are the usual, Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays, (we used to go to my favorite pizza place.) Her voice rings through my brain as I turn to her and say “thanks for taking me here mom!” “You’re welcome sweetie.” she replies as she stares down my mile high amount of pizza on my plate and then suggests that I get a salad as if that makes this trip healthy.

The plates piled up as we ate until our stomachs couldn’t handle anymore, she would look at me knowing I was anxious to head across the street to Wally World and get my present and trying to decide to get that piece of cheesy goodness on the buffet “go ahead sweetie, we have plenty of time, what’s time to a hog?” She was always coming up with funny expressions like that. It wasn’t too long after my birthday when she got sick. She hid it for a long time, for years actually, puking here and there without anybody being the wiser, fatigue we attributed to her busy schedule, (as anyone will tell you raising a child is harder than any activity known to man, except maybe bullfighting) and even one time while home alone she fell on our front porch and was so weak that she laid there for over 4 hours until my aunt made a surprise visit and helped her to her feet, or so I was told years later. Time went on and my dad and I had finally got used to the routine of care he executed on his wife that honestly would put Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman to shame. It became a routine and like all routines, you eventually go on autopilot, not thinking about the severity of how situations can turn out, and cancer is no jet airplane which you can turn on a switch too, not without consequences anyway.

We got used to the vomiting, the chemo and the hair loss, my aunt even threw her a wig party once, (and this act was of the utmost importance to my mother as she had the most beautiful long black hair) and the doctors who assured us that they were doing everything they can to as they called it “win the battle.” It was more like an ambush than a battle, like the cancer gods who were sitting up on their throne, turned to each other and said “look at that family, they seem relatively happy, how about we just f**k up their lives because we have nothing better to do!” They attacked under the radar and by the time we even had an idea on how to defend ourselves from the onslaught it was too late.  A month later was when it all came to a head, she had relapsed a few days earlier and it was taking its toll on everyone.

I remember being in the grocery store with my dad, he was silent as we made our way to the frozen food section. He picked up a carton of eggs, and thoroughly searched for the price tag. “Where in the hell is the damn price tag?” he exclaimed as he continued to search, “Where the hell is it,?” at this point he was yelling. “WHERE IN THE F**K IS THE PRICE!?!?!?!” Here I am just standing there watching my dad thrashing his arms through the display of eggs, yelling loudly, everyone staring, “I JUST WANT SOME GOD DAMN EGGS SO I CAN MAKE MY BOY SOME BREAKFAST!” “HOW F*****G HARD IS THAT? He cries loudly as tears stream down his face. “IS THAT OK WITH YOU GOD, IS THAT FINE BY YOU, IS THAT F*****G FINE? GO AHEAD, TAKE MY BOY TOO WHILE YOUR AT IT? YOU ALREADY DECIDED YOU WANT MY WIFE, AM I NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO TAKE CARE OF HER, AM I NOT A GOOD ENOUGH MAN!!!!!” At this point the manager starts walking up, by the look on his face you can tell he is expecting a confrontation but it doesn’t come to that, my father is on the ground with his hands on his face wiping his stream of tears and snot. The muffled tone of his voice haunts the aisle “I just…wanted some eggs… for my boy… just some eggs….for breakfast.” “You can’t take her….. you…..you just can’t…” 

My father’s emotional breakdown in the middle aisle 6 was the least of our troubles at the moment. The hospital walls were bellowing our name and we arrived back later that day. I sat there with my dad and watched the TV just above this picture on the wall of sailboats shining through the Pacific Ocean.  I hadn’t noticed the time but it was a quarter past 7 and I had been up for almost 24 hours, I think he noticed this too on my 14year old face. “Why don’t you get some sleep for a little while, you look like you need it.” He said. I replied with my typical “I’m ok.” “Do you think mom is gonna pull through this time?” I added with a touch of hesitance in my voice, but before he could reply my Aunt Sarah walked in the room and had my father chatting with her in an “adults only” conversation and since she thought of me intellectually as if I were still in diapers I figured now would be a good time to catch some shut eye.

It had seemed like days had passed when I was brutally awoken from my slumber by my family members. “What’s going on?” I said as I pressed my hands over my eyes to wake myself up. “You need to come on, we need to hurry.” I know that being a teenager you are always in a hurry, in a hurry to school, in a hurry to do homework, and in a hurry to grow up, but in this moment I would have wished for my feet to be made of concrete. We walked down the hall into the room. Room 2B, I remember this because I had always associated it with Shakespeare and the whole “Too be or not too be” thing. In this moment I was far from Hamlet, in fact I didn’t know who I was. I knew in a few moments I would never be the same person I was standing in that room. You could hear the machines subtle beeping in the background. My mother looked defeated, the wrinkled hospital gown encased with tubes surrounded her body. I walked toward her with tears streaming down my face, “this wasn’t supposed to be happening to me”, I thought. I pressed each foot on the floor with what felt like the weight of tons, my body began to lose all feeling. I didn’t know it, but I had somehow managed to wrap my arms around her, she was cold, unbearably cold. I mustered up the strength to look her in the eye and smile. She looked at me with mysterious delight as I spoke “please don’t go, I need you here, I need you more than anything.” I kept talking but I can’t remember what I said, everything was in a blur, maybe if I kept talking she would be able to stay here with me instead of letting go. I knew it was all in vain…. My mother who had put up a fight worthy of William Wallace’s admiration, had finally been taken by her disease….

           

 

Chapter 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flash forward to now, as I sit at the table for our typical 7:30pm awkward “family” dinner gradually sculpting my “instant lies” into some type of starchy architectural masterpiece with their conversations swirling around the room until finally my dad asks: “How was school Seth?” This seemed like a normal enough question, normal enough for those that didn’t attend Harrison High, but I replied with a typical: “It’s ok, I guess.” The reality of it was that I was a secluded 16 year old kid with a nose ring, awkward around anything with makeup and tight pants (and I don’t mean Goth kids) and passion for surfing, but the closest beach was 2 hours away and my grandfather’s hand me down 71 Volkswagen Squareback which I had received 2 months ago for my 16^th birthday was very unlikely to make it past Sierra County much less the coast. “That Robert kid called today wanting to speak to you, sounded important. You know how I feel about him, he’s a bad influence, always rambling on about military this and military that, you know it’s not as fun as those computer games he spends his time playing….” My dad’s voice keeps droning on about his dislike for Rob, but the truth of it was Robert Marshall Jackson (his parents thought it sounded presidential but it ended up sounding more like he owned a chain of used car lots. I can see it now, Jackson’s Used Jaguars) was my best friend.

We were opposite on every single level, I liked surfing…, (at least I did in my old life. The ocean always appealed to me, ever since I was little. I would go out and just watch the waves roll in and out for hours as my feet would get drenched in the whitewater) English, living in the present and, on a not so enjoyable subject, had no clue about my future, and he, terrified of sharks, would tell me all the time about the articles he had stumbled on how shark populations are growing by the thousands and that he would rather take a harpoon to the chest than to put his life in the hands of a $7.50 dollar an hour lifeguard whose job it was to (as he called it) “protect him from an aquatic Ted Bundy.” There was even this one time he warned me how a teenage girl in South Carolina stumbled out into the ocean unaware she was about to start her menstrual cycle and the shark “smelled her scent” from miles away and rushed inland just to devour her whole like a human baitfish. “I’m telling you bro, Jaws is nothing to mess with….” “I appreciate the advice dude, I’ll make sure to change my tampon to throw the shark off track.” He was not amused. What can I say, the guy was a stiff, but it wasn’t really his fault. Since the day he was born, his parents had destined him for greatness, (on my best days my destiny seemed to be to figure out which toaster pastry I felt like choosing that morning, exciting, I know.) and they weren’t far from what they predicted, he had a 4.0 GPA, ROTC Squad Captain, President of the Future Entrepreneurs Club and last but certainly not least Harrison High’s 43^rd Secretary Treasurer of the Student Council, (the latter being the most manliest of all earthly titles as everyone knows.) I really shouldn’t make fun of my friend because what he lacked in the loosening up department the guy more than made up for in the area of friendship.

We were tight, we had been ever since the 7^th grade when my science teacher decided to pair us up for a project on animal cells. I can hear her now: “Robert, you’re a model student, why don’t you partner up with Seth and take him under your wing.” You need to understand something though, it’s not that I was a bad student, I just didn’t have the incendiary interest on the subject of biology as most 7^th graders (rolls eyes). The only interest that was shown could be seen by my inappropriate wide ruled doodles of animals participating in explicit acts I had stumbled upon on Channel 64 of my television. English was more my thing, but we got through it and somehow managed to pull off an A. In fact it is kind of my fault for Robert’s fascination with the armed forces with the introduction of my favorite video game Foreign Commando. He used to come over after school and we would entice ourselves behind “pixelated enemy lines” until his parents decided it was time to go home. He was always there for me before and more importantly, after my mother passed away, and in a world as cruel as this it was something I was grateful for. I told you I was an optimist, most other kids would have rebelled against getting partnered up with the middle school class “suck a*s” who was intelligent enough to recite all the elements on the periodic table but lacking enough common sense to know that by putting his hand in the bottom of the Nutella jar to get the last scoop it would get stuck, resulting in a trip to the emergency room and frustrated looks from middle aged menopausal nurses who “didn’t have time for such foolishness!”

So “So there is a surfing contest next month at Callaway Beach,” I said, interrupting. My dad looked up from his plate, his mustached face looking at mine. “A surf contest huh?”, “What day?”, “The 23^rd” I told him. “That’s the week we are supposed to visit your cousins in Texas isn’t it?” I loathed Texas, it was dry, hot, and worst of all, Texas. As a native Floridian, I was accustomed to heat but humid heat none the less, and dry heat was a whole other ball game. That and the fact that my aunt and uncle were so cheap they refused to own an air conditioner or even open up a window for fear of the “North Wind” that would somehow affect their electric bill. I firmly believed that man’s wallet was stitched up so tight that it would have taken the Jaws of Life to make an indention. I braced myself for warfare, I should have been an expert on it by now from all the excited tid bits Rob let me in on every day. “I don’t think so, I think that’s the week after.” My stepmother having heard this immediately chimed in with her usual know it all attitude “No, it is the week of the 23^rd and you’re going.” Never even taking her eyes off of her spoon from which dangled mid-air near her fire breathing snout.  “Texas will be good for you, you’ve been walking around this house with that same lifeless look on your face since we moved in this new house.” I don’t know if Texas is good for anyone, as much as the thought of wearing a giant straw cowboy hat and sneaking 7 eleven beer in my Slurpee cup as the “adults” get light up listening to George Straight’s Greatest Hits Volume 2 appeals to me, I would much rather be in The Space Coast of The Sunshine State reading Surfer Magazine, gawking at the bikini advertisement girls, (not having the slightest idea of what I would say if one was to suddenly appear in my daydream as if this was some sort of modern day Alice in Wonderland), and enjoying my freedom, also I could have that same said Slurpee experience mentioned above, since 7 Eleven was literally just a rock’s distance from my house. “Come on, Really?” “They hate me anyway, they always pout as soon as I walk through the door.” Finally putting her spoon down (things just got serious) she replied with: “They do not!” You could tell she was getting aggravated. Me: “Yes, they do, Dad, come on, back me up here?

You know as well as I do that they won’t even speak English around me!” (Her family was originally from Finland and they used Finnish as some sort of code for the unpleasant, like it was supposed to make me feel better that I couldn’t understand what they were saying.) “Not to mention they wake up every morning at 5:30 (an act that would have made Ray Charles envy the deaf) and rustle around the kitchen for the hell of it. What kind of sane person gets up that early just to check on a cat, that if it wasn’t for the smell of the litterbox I would swear doesn’t exist, riddle me that, Batman?” I can hear her now. “Kishu Kishu Kishu!” What did I do to deserve this Lone Star hell? My father not wanting this to go any further as it would affect his rest a lot more than it would mine, tried to defuse the situation. “Maybe we can work out some kind of a deal where you can stay home.” “Absolutely not!” my step mother replied. “They are your new family and you are going to spend time with them, you know as well as I do you need to get rid of this teenage fantasy of surfing for a profession, its time you took a trip into the adult world so you can focus on your future instead of splashing around in the ocean!” These fine adult words coming from the lady who put a $2400 refrigerator purchase on her freshly new credit card because our old one lacked the appeal of the modern housewife, what it lacked in appeal it sure than made up for with reliability, that’s a lot more than I could say about this woman. About that time, the phone in my pocket made its normal notifying beep it does every time I receive text messages. I checked it secretly, it was Rob and apparently it was of the utmost importance. My stepmother was knee deep in her Oscar worthy performance on how she knew what was best for this family and all I could think about was what in the mortal hell was so important that it couldn’t wait until tomorrow, (that and the thought of taking my car keys to the refrigerator and watching the stainless steel beg for mercy as I carved Gold-digger down its throat to its ice maker.) I jumped from the table, “May I be excused?” “You most certainly may no-” “Thanks, bye.” She was stunned that I wouldn’t let her finish her sentence, for a person who claims to know everything you would have thought she would have saw that coming.

When I finally got to my room, I turned on my computer and what is the first thing I see with my eyes, but the image of Robert changing out of his military outfit into some camo shorts unaware that he had left his webcam on from our last chat. “Dude! Cover that s**t up!” The sound of my voice startled him so bad that he completely fell down in what you would have thought was a barrage of gunfire. “Sorry man, didn’t think you would be able to get away from your family that fast.” He finally regained his composure and managed to pull up a chair. “So what is so damn important that you had to drag me away from my dinner and bestow that accidental burlesque show on me?” Then with the swift action of an Army Ranger he held up the flyer that I had spotted earlier on my way to the bookstore. The Tri State Surfing internationals. “We are going!” “Dude, I can’t, I have to go to Texas that week.” “Why would anyone want to go to Texas, period?” You can see now why we get along so well, that and the fact that Robert’s hatred of Texas stemmed from this girl who moved to our school sophomore year, Carrie Austin. (Her last name being just a “fun fact” she used to joke about since she was from Austin Texas.) She was what the school considered a Mid-West masterpiece, and 3 things stood true about this girl.

1.)  She was a Texas Beauty Queen.

(She had moved her from Texas when just before her 2^nd year of high school, but all of her credits didn’t transfer so she was enrolled with the freshman class, not only making her a years older, than every fresh from middle school nervous nelly, but also making her noticeably more, well for a lack of better words, noticeable.)

 

2.)  She knew she was a Texas Beauty Queen.

 

  And 3.) Her Texas accent made me want to puke, despite how smoking hot she looked in a Longhorns midriff shirt accompanied by the best secret Victoria had to offer. What this girl lacked in brains, (seriously, the girl was going to be a 17 year old freshman.) she MORE than made up for in b***s. (I may hate the girl but I’m no liar.)

This is where my story really begins. Let me drop you a little info only what happened between Robert and Carrie. She had just moved here, and didn’t know anyone (as most new kids don’t), she came strutting down the halls in her size 7 jeans that were ever so tight and clung for their life on her curvaceous body which was the epitome of hourglass. (Insert the scene in movies where the smoking hot girl comes walking down the hallway like a runway model and everyone starts staring, even though its 7am and we for all intents and purposes we should be rubbing the matter out of our eyes and popping some gum for our cases of morning breath, not gawking at the white, southern, Tyra Banks.) I remember standing at my locker with Rob talking about some new article I had read about Kelly Slater ripping it up in Hawaii and then we saw her, her blonde hair, (which you could tell she had gotten up hours early to curl it), flowing against the radiant Florida sunshine that was coming through the hallway windows as her giant hoop earrings dangled to the left and then back to the right, this pink tank top and enough makeup to kill about 100 rabbits in the Clinique testing phase. She was a 5’7 goddess.

Her mother, (who was often mistaken for Carrie’s sister, (God, there must be something in the water in Texas) and father (a prosperous businessman who had solely been responsible for the hiring of the best trainers money could buy for the Houston Astros, and in return for their perfect season they owed him such gratitude that he was given the opportunity to hold ownership of the team) had moved here from a ranch just about 5 miles south of Austin, where Carrie had spent most of her weekends in the backseats of different Lone Star Editions of Diesel Dodge 2500’s with a bottle of Fireball Whisky and some Wrangler shirt wearing wannabe Lane Frost of the night, while her high heels danced on the headliner and her pink v string thong lay on the Don’t Mess With Texas floor mats. A girl like that you just know is not a virgin, WE were virgins, but definitely not her and for whatever reason God had in mind, he put her smack dab down here in a remote town in Central Florida, (not that myself or Robert minded.) As this secret taping of America’s Next Top Model was unfolding right in front of us, I turned to Robert who by this point had completely dropped some toast on the ground with his mouth wide open, while noticeably staring at her “assets” and cheetah print tattoo that was peeking out from her lower back as she bent down. I had to wake him up from his drool phase, because 1.) It had to be done and 2.) Because that piece of toast that dickhead had dropped was meant for me and I was starving.

Me: “Snap out of it man,” *snaps fingers “Helloooo, Robert….Rob…. Reberto!” (Still nothing) so I did what anyone would do after just seeing Aphrodite in the flesh, I gave him a stern slap on the face. Immediately he was awoken from his erection coma.

Rob: “Did you just see what I just saw?” “The…. (Robert was moving his hands to illustrate since he obviously wasn’t coherent enough to speak.) And the….and th-. Me, as I interrupted his word vomit: “I get it man...” Rob: “She CAN’T be a freshman!” Me: “No s**t man, I think she’s from Texas or something, I hear her father is filthy rich.” About that time 2 girls from our class walked by us discussing that fashion show that we had just witnessed, they did not look as pleased as my friend here. You could hear their insults pretty well. The first girl turning to the other one saying “You know what they say don’t you?” “What’s that?” “The bigger the hoops, the bigger the hoe.” The first girl replied in a snarky but obvious jealous tone. Robert caught wind of this conversation and before he could catch himself he blurted out: “YOU’RE JUST JEALOUS!” now he was looking at me again. “I’m going to marry her….” I rolled my eyes at this fairy tale thought. Rumor was that her father wanted to build a huge resort right on the beach to bring in a lot of what he called “Wild Cat” money, not thinking about the environmental consequences. The day pressed on without incident, up until anatomy class, then it happened. “All right guys, take your seats, guys, GUYS…” “I’m happy to announce, we have a new student joining the class today…..” Oh... s**t, I turned around and looked at Robert who was gripping his pencil so tight in hopes that Little Miss Texas might be the new arrival he about snapped it in half. The teacher continued: “I’m happy to announce Miss Carrie Austin to the classroom.” She had heard her introduction and commenced walking through the door. This isn’t good, this is not good. I gave one quick glance at Robert again who by this point had a swimming pool forming on his desk, and what made it worse was that it was midterm partner pairing today. “Let’s, give Miss Austin a warm Florida welcome to our class.” I thought I was the only one that noticed, but I casually saw her scope the room as if to pick her next victim to get her through this scientific nightmare, (because honestly, the counselor who actually thought it was a good idea to put this girl in advanced anatomy should have been told to tender their resignation before the ink had dried on her schedule.) The introductions were over and she strutted over to find her seat and just my luck, the only seat left was right next to Robert. “I think this belongs to you”, she said as she bent down just in front of Robert to retrieve his pencil which had snapped like a under his pressure of anticipation. She sat the pencil on his desk and gave him the a look that Marilyn Monroe would have been in envy of, at this point I knew it was done, Robert was the South Carolina baitfish and Carrie, the Great White. “The, than, thank, you’re…so, pretty….,” Was the only thing that managed to leak from his mouth. As I tried to assess the situation a new voice presented itself in my ear “Now all the guys are going to be drooling over Little Miss Dallas back there….” The voice that was talking to me directly to my left was Kylie Williamson who had apparently witnessed the same horror, and was also new to Harrison High but because her father was a welder and not The Wolf of Wall Street nobody seemed to think she deserved much of an introduction, but something about her caught my eye, it may have been her all dark ensemble accompanied by her short black pixie styled hair under which presented the most beautiful green eyes that I’ve ever saw or maybe it was just her sense of speaking her mind to a complete and total stranger, (that, and her Lemonheads pin on her messenger bag, a girl that appreciates good punk rock  definitely appreciates the finer things in life.) I watched as my friend was being capsized by this flirtatious man-eater, not noticing Kylie was still talking to me. “That’s ok, just go ahead and stare at her a*s too, it’s not like I was trying to carry on a conversation with you or anything, continue your drooling and maybe one day you’ll get to see those panties in the flesh, and I hope they are every bit as glorious as you’ve imagined…” I turned back as I had just caught the tail end of the conversation. “Welcome back….” She said sarcastically.  “I’m Seth.” “Kylie.” “So, your friend back there. What in the hell is up with that?” Kylie and I glanced back at what we could have sworn was the beginning scene in a porno. Carrie had her blonde hair twirling in her fingers as she carefully positioned her cleavage ever so slightly in Rob’s face. “I have no…idea.” I replied still confused on what type of hormonal torture that girl was about to unleash on my friend. The voice of our teacher Mrs. Sommage rang out “Time to partner up, quietly go ahead and find your partner for the midterm project.” I could somewhat hear Carrie in the background as I turned around “Soooo, how about, you, and me…partner up for this project (as she reached under the desk and rubbed her hand up Robert’s leg) I’m not very good at science and I noticed your test on the table that you are in the top of the class, maybe…. You could teach me a few things, (at this point her mouth was literally almost pressed to his ear), and maybe…I could teach you a few things….” (as she rubbed her hand even closer to his loins.) Robert tried to speak but nothing came out so he obliged with a stupid grin and a subtle nod. I didn’t know what to think, I was thoroughly stunned. “I don’t believe it…” I said as I watched her laugh, popping her gum as she slowly groped him under the table, up until I finally couldn’t look anymore. Kylie had also again noticed what I had, and was speechless as well, until she finally look at me and uttered. “So, how about it surfer boy? Partners?” Apparently that wasn’t the only thing she noticed as I glanced at my surfing magazine laying on the corner of my desk.