Tales From A Withered Wallflower

She dragged herself sleepily out of bed. She thought she had something to accomplish today, but plans has changed unexpectedly.

As she pulled up to the diner set in the style of a '50s nostalgia cafe, she looked through the heavily tinted windows for signs of life within...she then heard a child scream with the delight of playing with their food.

"How many?" the overly cheerful seating hostess asked. Noone should be that perky before 10 a.m.

"Just me" she replied with the haze of last nights events threatening to come into focus but not quite getting there completely in her conscious mind.

She was then seated in a booth across from a family with 2 small children. You could tell that they were on one of those family vacations that were supposed to "fix everything." How someone thinks that a trip to Disneyland is going to solve every f*****g problem they've ever had is beyond me. We all know that Daddy is banging the babysitter & Mommy's on the sauce. As they take their screaming little brats to the bathroom Grandma & Grandpa break out the goods. Gran takes out her travel-size pharmacy, carefully selects a couple valium, & with laser-like precision starts to grind it into a fine powder with the back of her spoon. She then proceeds to sprinkle it into her coffee like it was sweet n low. While she's having fun with her brain candy, Gramps breaks out the flask & pours a bit into little Jimmy's birthday cake shake to calm the little s**t down for a while.

 

Mom & Dad return with the 2 menaces. Jimmy starts to sip at his shake & complains that it tastes funny. "Well, you're the one who wanted it so badly so you're gonna drink every last bit of it!" says Dad. His right hand has become overly strong over the course of this trip.

Meanwhile, little Molly starts to stare at me in my decrepid state. I look like something the cat dragged in s**t before it decided to take it in the house. I just happen to catch her drilling a hole into my head with her eyes.

"Why's that lady eating alone mommy?"

I look over at her more than slightly perturbed & reply before mom can get a word in edgewise.

"This lady has what's called a hangover."

"What's a hangover?"

"It's what you get when you have too much fun the night before & wake up wanting to shoot naughty little children in the face for being loud & abnoxious & asking asinine questions."

 

"Mommy, she said a*s!"

 

Mommy in the meantime is sneaking gulps of Jimmy's intoxicating confection. Her speech gets slightly more slurred as the meal goes on. She ignores the little failed abortion & all her communication attempts are feeble. Daddy is too busy checking out the candy-striped a*s of the barely legal waitress that just passed by. Their actual server whose name is Bonnie snaps him back into reality with the check. She is one of the more normal & surly individuals of the establishment. As she walks away I notice more than a couple thick black hairs sticking through her nude colored stockings. The girdle she has to wear under her uniform to keep it from ripping has seen better days. You can see the bones of it through her threadbare uniform & see tension lines where it stops.

 

As the family all leave Gran has a permanent glassy-eyed smile while Gramps is walking with his arm around her shoulders as if leading her in the right direction. I see Mommy yank on Jimmy's arm to get him to walk a bit faster. Molly looks back at me & glares, while in the meantime I had drawn a Barbie at the gallows charged for being a w***e hanging by a noose with her neck broken, & Ken on the sidelines with his life-partner clutching his big brawny plastic arm. I figured that would give her something to bug her mom about on the ride to the money vacuum.

After they leave Bonnie comes up to me & hands me my check, I pay in cash while giving her as much of a tip as I can while still being able to have money to eat tomorrow & go on my merry way.

 

When I walk out into the blinding sunlight I realize that someone keyed my car while I was inside grubbing down on my delicious heart-attack special. Some little punkass decided it would be fun to key a normal car instead of some yuppie's car across the way. How dare they key a car that the owner's daddy's money can pay for. Grumpily I slide into my scarred silver Chevy & watch the world pass by me on my way home. My vision is starting to blur again from the headache that's going on day number 3 without letting up. Not to mention a hangover to top it all off. I can barely make out the buildings & the street signs around me as I get closer & closer to reaching home. The only thought keeping me driving is the hope of getting into bed with a percoset as my snuggle buddy.  My eyes start to water so much it looks like I've been crying my eyes out. I look like someone just died & I watched them buy the farm. Hell, I co-signed for them.

 

When I finally reach my bedroom the one person I would like to see least is in there waiting for me (as always) like a puppy waiting for its master to give it love & attention. When she notices my lack of enthusiasm she asks the 6 million dollar question: "Are you ok?". It would be fine if I actually heard this question when something was plagueing my memory or shrouding my current thoughts. However, it becomes shallow, empty, & hollow when it is being asked at least twice every time they see you. At this point it makes me want to punch her in the f*****g face. If I walked in with a smile I would still be greeted with the same question. My head is pounding so bad at this point it's hard for me to hear anything else. The pointless celebrity gossip white noise comes spewing out of her mouth like word vomit & I can't help but to hear it. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears pounding louder & louder as the pain increases & the urge to brutally slaughter something rises higher & higher. I almost wish I was back in the room with those unhappy accidents back at the trough. I pop a xanax & hope that sleep will come to me in the midst of hearing about some dumb f**k who decided to use a vacuum to masturbate with & got his hair ripped out. Their voices are starting to become fuzzy, & soon they all blend together in a cacophony of sound that slowly seems to fade from my thoughts as I start my passage into the sandman's domain.

 

I wake the next morning, my head still throbbing but not as severely as it was the day before. I am thankful that the b***h has left before I woke so my I.Q. won't drop another 10 points before I can do anything about it. I slowly start my day. I get dressed, check my email, & listen to Rosie Thomas. I look out my window, & it's a beautifully overcast day. It's not too cold, not too hot, but cloudy & breezy.  It's the perfect kind of day that you can just go to a coffee shop, order a caramel macchiato, & just soak in your surroundings. I relish my time spent alone (even more as of late) just watching the world go by. It makes me miss those from the past that I hardly see anymore, but it helps me realize that my world does not end because a past life had to. There is a whole new horizon in front of me to be explored. It is a good day for a spontaneous road trip. One of those kinds where you let the road in front of you determine where you're going, & how much time you have to get there. My surroundings as of late have begun to bore me. It's becoming more evident that I have to keep moving from place to place every few months or I get very restless.

 

I jump behind the wheel of my marked chevy & just drive. I drive through the mountains, I drive through the valleys. I drive so far & without realizing it I've come back to my hometown. When you're driving  just to drive your destination is unclear til you arrive there. & here I am: away from the chihuahua, away from celebrity gossip, away from the radio bukkake I am forcefully injected with every morning & night. I feel incredibly free.  I once looked at my hometown as a cage from which I had limited windows to escape from. I now look at it as something to consider coming back to. I go to visit my mom, her face never changes. She greets me & gives me the most enormous hug. A hug that has all 4'10 of her behind it. She broke her ankle about a year ago, but that doesn't stop her from hobbling  fast towards me in as much of a run as she can muster. She tries to feed me almost everything in her fridge by the time I've sat down. She wants to know everything about life down there; about a life outside her walls. I feel oblidged not to go into the whole fiasco of the socially awkward & completely useless waste of skin roommate, so I reply with the most common lie known to the human race. "Everything's fine." Even those who think they're so perfect they never lie have told that one. That is the one little imperfection that could keep most away from heaven; away from the god they so willingly serve, but stupidly refuse to see everything going on around them with true sight. I get to her house late, & say I'm only staying for a short while. She begs me to stay the night. She just washed the sheets on my old bed in case I dropped by. I wait til she falls asleep, then go into her room to kiss her on the forehead to say goodbye. As much as I would like to stay I have things to worry about back where I live. I have no home anymore

Reviews

[TTBoy28]

Awesome! Home is where the heart is and it's obvious how much you want to get away from it all. You are so right to say that we try and comfort our parents by saying all is "fine" when in fact it is not. It's hard to imagine you as a 'Wallflower' because of the headache and all. What a fantastic story! I really enjoyed this! The drawing of the dolls for the little annoying girl is classic!