Beautiful Dreamer

One of my favorite genres to write is subjective narration. The goal is to be completely in the mind of the character. Enjoy.

There was no way of telling that something really messed up was going to happen that day. No what do they call it? Premonition, or like a foreboding feeling of, I don’t know, doom or whatever. Everything seemed normal enough.  I went to school- sat through hours of boring high school crap, like every other weekday of my life. I had pizza for lunch that was pretty OK, I guess. I got on the bus after school and sat in the back like I always did. I was talking to my friends, you know. Everything was normal. The bus took forever to get to my stop. I only lived like five miles from the school, but it seemed like there were a million bus stops before we got to mine. So I sat back and listened to my friends (who I didn’t really like that much, to tell you the truth) go on and on about nothing. I watched my stoner friend Leon draw anarchy signs on pretty much every blank surface he could reach with his Sharpie. And outside, the same boring s**t I had the misfortune of looking at my entire fifteen years crawled by at school- bus-speed: dirt, Joshua Trees, weeds, cactuses, more dirt"in a story or poem or something we read in English class once an author described some place as a “vast wasteland.” That’s what this stupid town is " a vast wasteland"complete boring waste of space. What’s really sad is that it’s like less than ten years till the New Millennium, and this town is still stuck in the fifties.

                When I got to my apartment I could see my mother’s fat, loser-a*s boyfriend Dale watching me from the window.

                “S**t,” I said to my friend James who was walking with me, “look whose waiting for me.”

                James was a pretty good friend so he knew all about Dale and how much I hated the SOB. Well, James was a boy with a crush on me, anyway. I knew he really liked me, so I usually just teased him until I knew he was about to burst. I had to get my kicks somehow, right? My life was so boring. “You gonna be alright, Jen?” James asked.

                “Yeah. I can handle that doofus.” I turned around, and knowing full well that Dale was watching from the window, I kissed James hard"tongue and everything. James was pretty shocked, I could tell. I figured I did my good deed for the day.

                I walked like real slow across the parking lot of my apartment building. I guess I was teasing Dale"dumb redneck" they only think with their dicks, you know. I kind of swayed my hips back and forth, you know, like that actress in that old movie mom and I saw on TV that time. What was her name? Mamie Van Doren. Yeah, that was her name. I walked like her. When I got close to the window I looked up at Dale, who was still standing there watching me like a retard, and I winked. Right away I kind of knew it was a bad idea though. Dale didn’t look so good. His face was bright red and I could just tell  he’d already been drinking. It was only like three in the afternoon, he was such a loser.

                “Well, if it isn’t the little w***e,” Dale said when I walked into the house. I just smirked at him and headed straight to my room. “I’m talking to you"little w***e,” he said.

                “Well I’m not talking to you, limp dick.” I just went in my room and sat on my bed. I was thinking that maybe I should, you know, like keep a low profile or something. Isn’t that what they call it? Laying low? Just like stay out of his way.  Like I said, he was probably just drunk " as usual. I figured he’d pass out in front the TV eventually. But wouldn’t you know it, he wasn’t about to leave me alone. He just burst right in my bedroom door. I hate it when parents adults do that s**t, I mean the least a girl could ask for is a little privacy. What if I was like, changing my clothes or something, you know?

                Anyway, so there Dale was just standing at my door with his finger up his a*s. “Don’t you know how to knock?” I said.

                “I pay the rent and therefore, I aint gotta knock.”

                “Yeah, right, you pay the rent? You don’t do s**t. My mom is the one who’s got the job. She has to go do that stupid telemarketing s**t all day while you sit here in front of the TV and drink-- and then you come in here and are all, ‘I pay the rent.’ Whatever.”  

                “For your information my disability check pays the rent and your momma’s pay check goes to the other bills. Not that it’s any of your damn business anyway.”

I rolled my eyes, what a loser. “What do you want, Dale? I was about to change my clothes. So can you like, you know, get the hell out?”

                That’s when Dale came all the way into my room. He cleared his throat and looked behind him like he was nervous or something. “So, change your clothes.” He raised his eyebrows in that really sleezy perverted way he does. I had seen it a bunch since the day my mom let that jerk move in.

                “I’m not joking, Dale. Get out of my room.” I stood up, put my hands on my hips"you know, like I meant business.

                “Or what?” He said in a really like teasing way. He took a few steps toward me.

                “Or I’ll kick your a*s, is what.” I took a step toward him. I wasn’t scared of that pig.

                Dale laughed like I just told the funniest joke he ever heard. “So who was that boy you slobbered all over out there?”

                “A friend. What’s it to you?”

                “Well, you know. Since I’m your guardian and all"“

                “You are not my guardian. You and my mom’s not married or anything. You got nothing to say about what I do or who I do it with.” Damn he made me so mad trying to act like my father. He was nobody. I hardly even knew the guy. He and mom had only been dating for like what, six months or something by then? Where did he get off?

                Dale walked right by me then and started going through the stuff that was on my desk. “What the hell you think you’re doing? That’s personal,” I said.

                “If you won’t tell me who that boy is, I guess I got to find out on my own, don’t I? Can’t have just any little boy stickin’ it to ya, now can we? Where’s your diary?”

                I knew that he was just trying to piss me off. And it worked. You know, I don’t remember like crossing the room or anything. All I know is all of a sudden I was on his back, with my legs wrapped around his waist and I was pulling his hair and hitting him with my fists on top of his head. Well, that’s when things got really bad. Dale backed up and smashed my back against the wall"hard. I couldn’t breathe. The social worker who interviewed me later that night"after the police"said that’s called having the wind knocked out of you or something. Anyway, so I was like seriously gasping for air, and Dale was yelling at me. “You little b***h,” he said. I’m pretty sure he said lots of other stuff too, but I can’t remember it all cause while he was yelling at me he picked me up and threw me on my bed. I still couldn’t breathe. And it got worse cause my backpack was on my bed and when Dale threw me down a sharp edge of a textbook inside my backpack stabbed me in my side. I had a bruise for a week afterward. But I didn’t really have time to think about that because Dale was on top of me. He had two fistfuls of my hair and was holding me down on the bed. He was still yelling at me. All I heard where words like b***h, w***e, and c**t… you know the typical vocabulary of a piss -drunk redneck.

                “You gonna learn your place, little girl.” That was the next like full sentence I heard Dale say. I was getting my breath back and starting to really like grasp what was going on. Dale had all his weight on me, and he’s not light. He still had a fistful of my hair but he had his other hand under my chin and was pushing my head back pretty hard. He was breathing right in my face; the smell of his favorite whiskey, Jack Daniels, was freaking overpowering. “You gotta learn there’s consequences. You can’t act like such a little tease unless you’re willing to pay the cost.” He let go of my hair and moved that hand to my chest. Yeah, I was starting to really understand what he was up to. And just in case I wasn’t like totally sure, that’s when I felt him" you know" like getting all hard and stuff. What a f*****g perv.

                “Get off me!”

                “Make me.” Dale had his hand under my shirt. I wiggled to get out of his grip, but he’s really heavy.

                “I’m gonna f*****g kill you, Dale"I swear to god.”

                “Right.” Dale was trying to kiss me then. The smell of the whiskey was so strong it almost made me gag.

                “My mom will dump your a*s when I tell her!” That probably wasn’t the best thing to say, because right after I said it Dale started choking me. First with one hand, and then he took his hand out from under my shirt and was choking me with both hands. I started seeing these white spots. It’s a freaking miracle I’m still alive, you know.

                “You aint gonna tell your mom.” He loosened his grip on my throat but kept one hand there pretty hard. The other went under my skirt. “You been wanting this as much as me. That’s why you walk around here in those little shorts all the time. I see the way you walk when you know I’m watching. You’re a little s**t. You been waiting for me to do this.”

                I was coughing pretty bad from having been practically strangled to death but I still managed to say, “f**k you.”

                “Oh you will, precious, don’t worry about that.”  He was such a freaking psycho. He was all telling me how pretty I am and s**t. But it wasn’t in like a nice way, you know. It was in a really perverted way. And then he started saying other stuff"about what he was gonna do to me. I knew I had to do something quick but I was still pinned down under him. And at that point he still had one hand on my throat and that was kind of pushing my head back. I was looking at my grandma’s vanity table which was next to my bed. The jewelry box my daddy gave me was sitting on top of the vanity"that jewelry box was the last thing I remember my daddy ever giving me. It was one of those that’s like a tall rectangle with a glass door that has a flower painted on it. When you open the door a song plays. The sticker on the bottom of the box says the song’s called “Beautiful Dreamer,” Sometimes I would just open and close that door for like hours. The jewelry box is the wind "up kind, so I would just keep winding it and winding it.  Once in the library I looked that song up in a song book cause I wanted to know if it had any words. I remember the first line of the song, “beautiful dreamer, wake unto me…” I used to think that my daddy gave me that jewelry box because of that line in the song. I thought he was trying to tell me that one day he would come back for me. But that was stupid. I know that now.

Anyway, Dale kept talking that perverted sex talk"using words that I don’t even want to say. But I was just looking at my jewelry box. It’s weird how calm I was. At first my mind drifted off and I wasn’t even thinking about Dale being on top of me and what he was trying to do. I was thinking about my daddy. I hadn’t seen him in like two years. He never even called anymore. I tried calling his number once, but it was disconnected. I didn’t know if he was alive or dead. But I knew if he knew what Dale was doing to me that he would kill him. That’s for sure. Anyway, so I was looking at that jewelry box when Dale took his hand off my throat. I felt his hand move down the bed and I realized that he was trying to unbutton his jeans. He moved his weight off of me a little so that he could do it. As soon as my arms were free I reached over my head and grabbed the jewelry box with both hands. I didn’t even think about what I was going to do. I just did it. I took the jewelry box and slammed it down on top of Dale’s head. I did that a lot of times. I guess the first time I did it, the edge of the jewelry box like cut into Dale’s skull. That’s what the lawyer said at the trial anyway. She also said that the jewelry box is made of oak. I guess oak is really strong and heavy or something. My daddy got me a good jewelry box"it wasn’t cheap s**t like something Dale would have bought my mom. Another thing the lawyer said is that I hit Dale over the head with that jewelry box twenty-two times. I guess they could tell when they did the autopsy"like by counting the number of cuts on his head and face or something. All I really remember is how Dale stopped trying to rape me all of a sudden. He picked his head up and looked at me real shocked like. There was already blood dripping down from the top of his head where I hit him.

After I whacked hit him, I don’t how many times, over the head with that thing he got up. I thought he was gonna just walk away or something. But like as soon as he was on his feet he fell down onto his knees facing my bed"like he was gonna pray.  I thought that was pretty funny. Because I was thinking that it was probably a pretty good time for him to pray. Then he just fell kind of onto his side on the floor. I got up real quick like. I was still really pissed off " I mean the pervert was trying to rape me. And saying that I wanted it? God, it doesn’t get any sicker than that, right? I still had the jewelry box in my hands. I stood over Dale"he wasn’t moving anymore, but he was still looking at me and I knew he was gonna get right back up and get on top of me again as soon as he got his wits back. I mean, I was pretty sure he was like totally seeing stars at that moment. You know, like in the cartoons.

“Hey Dale,” I said, looking right at those slitty little gray eyes of his, “you know you want this as much as I do, you sick perv.” I brought the jewelry box back down on him again, but this time on the side of his face. Yeah, that lawyer said Dale’s nose and jaw were broken. He f*****g deserved it. At some point the jewelry box connected with his face pretty hard and the door of the box swung open. “Beautiful Dreamer” started playing.

When I stood up straight again, I looked at Dale’s face. His eyes were still open but there was a lot of blood running into them. In fact, there was blood all over his face and there was a puddle of blood soaking into the carpet in front of him, too. “You know you like it.” I said"kind of imitating the voice that he was using when he was saying all that perverted sex stuff to me. I kicked him hard between the legs, but he didn’t even flinch. I guess that’s when I realized he was dead.

So, after that I just went into the kitchen and used the phone to call 911. I don’t know how long it took the cops and the ambulance to get to the apartment. I got a Pepsi from the fridge and went to sit in the living room to wait for them. I still had the jewelry box in my hand, the bottom of it was soaked in blood and there was blood splatter all over it. I opened the door to the box over and over again and played “Beautiful Dreamer.”

Author's Note

this is not the final draft. I seem to have lost the final draft. And I realize there are some errors. Somehow quotes got added when I pasted it??? Not sure how that happened. Anyway, I'll come back and fix the problems later.

Reviews

[The Raven King]

Pepsi is the preferred soft drink of female teen first time killers. You've done your research. Good Job!