Alan the Prince: Ch. 1

Logan meets Alan. Alan's fucked up. Alan f***s up Logan. Alan gets arrested. Logan to the rescue.

“So, you’re Logan Korbl, eh?”

Last time I checked.

The interview room smells suspiciously like vomit. The previous visitor must have been some shitzo-sociopath who had a seizer or something. Perhaps this is a bad omen. Though being called into a police station is pretty bad luck in itself.

I had been waiting in the vomit-room for almost twenty minutes before the officers entered. Two of them, one fat (a.k.a. Officer Borowski), one chunky, (a.k.a. Officer Howell). Both old"to a high school kid"squatting across the table from me like two pigeons on an ever straining telephone wire.

The fat one had been at the job too many years; his eyes are stuck in an accusatory squint. “You comfortable, kid? Want anything? A drink?”

A lawyer? Maybe later. “I’m good.”

The fat one squints at me. “That’s one ugly mess on your face.”

Gee, how tactful of you.

Chunk gives his partner a look. Fat shrugs it off. A routine exchange. These two have got to spend too much time together.

“How did it happen?” Chunk asks delicately. Sympathy. I vastly prefer Fat’s blunt approach. 

I scrunch my brow automatically. I can feel the line of the scar from over my right eye to my left cheek when I scrunch my brow. If I wrinkle my nose I can feel the chunk of skin that’s off my nose.

“Bicycle incident.”

Don’t think that I’m horribly disfigured. In some light, from about fifty feet away, you can barely see it. Besides, girls like the stripe of glossy pink across my face. Makes me manly.

Chunk  slips a folder onto the table between us. Evidence? Were there photos from the drug store I lifted those cigarettes from yesterday? Had they really have to call me here for that? “You’re not in trouble, Logan. We only want to ask you a couple of questions.”

Right. I settle back in the folding chair.

“You ready to go back to school?” the chunky officer asks.

What’s this? Making conversation? Why not invite me over to their house for crumpets?  What am I doing here? Why am I important? They could have at least put some effort into getting me here. Driven to my house, picked me up outside school, then at least I’d feel I deserved to be here. If I was a criminal, really, there would have been nothing in that phone call that would compel me to actually show up. I could’ve skipped out. I could’ve left town. But I hadn’t. Instead I’m here, in the vomit-room.

So I give the pair of officers a dry, you-know-you’re-talking-to-a-f*****g-teenager look and answered. “Yeah. Got all my books.”

The fat man grunts, nodding sideways to his partner. “Yes, yes, starting your senior year, is that right? Deer Park High?”

These pleasantries would be the death of me. “I’m sorry, but what is this all about? I don’t even know why I’m here.”

The officers look at me as though they were one person. Then the fat man shifts his bulk onto his elbows on the table top. “Do you know an Alan Prince?”

Somehow, I hadn’t seen this coming. But I should’ve guessed. I hadn’t heard from Alan in a month. “Yeah, I know him.” 

“You are aware of Alan Prince’s involvement in the incident that happened at Lakeview Discipline Camp for Boys last month?”

“Yeah. What’s happened to him?” I couldn’t not ask.

The chunky man composes a grave expression. I want to punch him. “Your friend Alan is in a lot of trouble.”

I got that. His disappearance that night, and then the helicopter and cop cars that had arrived the next morning were all kinda a clue. “Where is he?”

“Relax, kid.” The fat man flaps his meaty hand at me. “He’s not going anywhere.”

This isn’t at all reassuring.

The fat man gives me a ruthless look. He must be “the bad cop”. “You two were bunkmates, were you not?”

I really wish he hadn’t said “bunkmates”.

“We were in the same room. Him, me, and four other guys.”

“Yes.” The fat man’s loving those report pages; he kept running his sausage fingers over them.  “A Michael Keats, Michael Mins, Tyler Lawrence, and a Garret Steck, is that right?”

Things that clearly everybody already knew. “Those are the ones.”

 “We talked to them before you,” bad cop says, as his good cop hands fold like a proper gent and peers at me with relentless fever. “They all said you and Alan had an"what was it?”

“An interesting relationship.”

“And interesting relationship. What do you make of that?”

The pair wants me to freak out. I’m not freaking out. Yet. “He’s an interesting guy, if you hadn’t heard already.”

The fat officer’s not done. “They all said you were probably the closest to Alan of all the boys in that camp.”

If that meant anything, I would have cared. No one knew Alan. I just spent my time with him. “My dad’s deaf too, ok? I was the only kid, or counselor, there that knew sign language. Getting to know Alan was kinda… inevitable.”

The fat officer makes a face like he’s sucking on his front teeth. Chunky man takes over. “How did Alan behave with other people?”

How was I supposed to answer that? I only knew the guy for two months… “I don’t know. Fine. He was quiet, but what do you expect?”

“Did he…” the chunky officer closes his partner’s report. “Ever act violently with the other boys?”

“No.” I said no. I had to. I have to believe my own dead-wrong lie. 

“What about girls? Alan liked girls, didn’t he?”

Alan likes everyone. “I don’t get what you want me to say.”

“Want you to say?” the fat officer repeated. Was bad cop getting testy. Come on, hit me. I’d love to sue your fat a*s.

“Logan,” and the chunky man takes on a “father-ly” tone as he clasps his palms together, “What do you think this is? If there is something you knew about Alan, you need to tell us. We can help him.”

“Help him with what?” I would stand my ground"sit my ground, anyway. I’m not going to deal with any of this until I know what these guys want. “What’s happened?”

The fat officer scowls. “Ok, Logan, you friend is in a lot of trouble.”

“How’s that?”

“Do you know Julia McClain?”

I’ve never heard that name before. “No.”

The fat man gets a twitch in his cheek. “You should. Your friend is on trial for her murder. This is serious, young man. Mr. Prince could"”

“What?”

The fat officer stops, squinty eyes squinting until they are only folds of wrinkled flesh. “Alan Prince murdered Julia McClain.”

What? “Who?”

The officers are not amused. Neither am I. “You didn’t know Alan Prince was on trial?”

Hadn’t a f*****g clue.

Why hadn’t Alan told me? I told him to call me. I told him to tell me everything… In just one month of being out of camp… Alan’s already going down. I hadn’t known the girl had died. I had seen the ambulance, just as everyone at camp had. I had seen the cop cars. I had heard the rumors. But I hadn’t seen Alan since the day before. He had just disappeared by morning. Never came back the previous night.

There it is. Like the vomit in the air is now in my own throat. Like the whole interview room is rattling, I’m freaking out.

Alan.  What the f**k did you do?

 

 

No one likes to hear sad stories. I don’t know anyone who is sadistic enough to actually sit through a crappy depressing movie where nothing good happens. Not a hope in sight. And I’m not talking about something like the Titanic where everyone dies except Kate Winslet but she’s ok cause she’ll see her lover boy in heaven. I mean, crackhead steals candy from a kid and then dies of leprosy in the alley way. It makes the speaker uncomfortable. It makes the audience uncomfortable. Then everybody is thinking: man, maybe my life should also suck this bad.

So I’m not going to tell you about my mom. Or why my father is deaf. Or why my sister ran. That stuff is boring.

Alan Prince is so much more interesting.

He’s got that tragic hero factor. That if-this-one-little-thing-wasn’t-wrong-with-him-he’d-be-a-regular-kid factor. Audiences like that kind of story.

Author's Note

It's angstastic! (also check the tensing on here. I just changed it, seeing if I like present tense)

Reviews

[LiberScriptus]

Haha- angstastic is the perfect word to describe it! I really like how you get inside this guy's head from the beginning and let the reader know pretty quickly who they're reading about. And somehow, perhaps because I was once an angsty teen myself, I find the silent quips inside Logan's head (as he undoubtedly stares blankly at the two bumbling adults) somewhat hilarious (in a good way- like, you can't believe how irritating these cops are, or that they can't realize it themselves). Especially parts like this: "What’s this? Making conversation? Why not invite me over to their house for crumpets? What am I doing here? Why am I important? They could have at least put some effort into getting me here. " I love Logan's attitude toward the whole situation- the sarcasm and silent snarkiness (since we know what he's thinking even though the audiences don't) make it an entertaining read. I also think you do a great job of setting us up for the rest of the story, of leaving us wondering what happens next. And I think the first person present works very well for the characterization of the protagonist, as well as to add an element of suspense.

Generally, I think the whole thing flows very well, although the last paragraph was somewhat disconcerting. It seems as though the main part up until then, we the audience are experiencing the story along with Logan, but then suddenly at the end, he makes it seem as though he's looking back. Perhaps it would work better as the opening of another scene, or even as an introduction to the whole thing.

[Kloud_Nine]

To answer your question, I do like the present tense (been experimenting with it myself recently), its a refreshing change of pace.

You open this well and maintain a steady pace throughout the chapter, and from early on you did a good job at introducing us to Logan, his wit and sarcastic sense of humor means that I probably wouldnt like him in if I knew him.

Anyone, a decent openeing, could use some polishing (like all things). But I cant say much else beyound that because this is still the first chapter. Anywho, you post em, ill read em.

Oh, and to echo a concern of the previous reviewer, the final paragraph does seem out of place down there and would probably work as an opening instead.