Here's a story that I wrote a while back. I had alot of fun with it and it and a few other short stories that I wrote in the class really made me realize how much I enjoy writing. My teacher, Seth Raab, was an awesome dude.
Unfortunately, I've never done anything with my writing skills since that class, other than these rants, haha.This is the second revision of the story. The first reivision of the story seemed to flow a bit better as far as my writing went, but the plot didn't really make much sense.
I think I probably like the first revision more, but it just had too many plot problems-- that and I don't have a good copy of it lying around to scan into OCR-- and it took me fucking 3 hours just to get this one scanned in and edited from the paper it was typed on (I lost the .doc file for both versions a long time ago). Which reminds me, sorry for any mistypes or fuckups in the text-- that's probably just a result of OCR sucking ass-- please let me know if there are any such errors so I can fix them. I've read the whole thing over a few times, so there should be few if any.
Enjoy, let me know what you think in comments.
Drew
Its 3:00 a.m. and my cell phone is ringing. Again. To most people, 3:00 in the morning is an odd time for their cell phone to ring, unfortunately, I'm not most people. On any given day, I get calls from people who are looking for a pharmacy, a health clinic, a Wal-Mart, or various other mistaken numbers. Hell, I even had some kid call me and mistake me for his grandma once--not that I sound like a grandma, the kid just kept talking. When he finally shut up and let me speak, he suddenly realized that he was talking to a stranger and started crying--man, I hate kids. If the phone was ringing at any other time of day it could've been anyone of the aforementioned callers, but at 3:00 in the morning, I knew it was her.
I don't know why I always answered her calls; it's just something that people do. When a phone is ringing, everyone drops what they are doing to try to answer it. "Dear lord, we've got to answer the phone!" The tension to pick up a phone when it is ringing is directly proportional to a bomb-threat movie's climax scene; two men are trying to disarm a bomb and all that they have to do is cut the blue wire. That seems simple enough, but the magical blue wire is always hidden behind several other similar looking wires, a laser booby-trap, and a metal locking mechanism. There's always a timer with 5 seconds left, and just as the timer hits "I", the men disarm the bomb and save the world/children/cute puppy dog. Coincidentally, most telephones ring 5 times. Because of this, on some sub-conscious level, people seem to think that somewhere, somehow a cute puppy dog is going to die if they don't answer the phone in time. I think that's why I always answered the calls, regardless of what hour of the day or night it was.
I lifted my head up off of the pillow and felt around on the carpet until I found my cell phone. Groggy eyed, I flipped it open and struggled to read the name on the caller I.D. screen; it confirmed what I already knew, Dana was on the other end. Dana is my best friend's sister, and I've made the horrible mistake of getting her attached to me. I met her at a party and now she won't leave me alone, I hate clingy women. For the past month she's been calling me every night some time after midnight. She seems to think that we're an item, but I don't want anything to do with her. I mean, I've said to her a thousand times, "I'm not your boyfriend", but she just says that I'm "being a jerk". A lot of people might agree with her, but I don't care—it's not my fault that she's so clingy. I mean, I never asked her to fall in love with me or anything--people are such idiots.
"Why haven't you called me?"
"Because I'm not your boyfriend"
"Why do you have to be such an asshole all of the time? What did I ever do to you?"
I rubbed the sleep out of the comers of my eyes and in the most sarcastic voice I could muster said, "You called me". For a few seconds, there was silence on the line.
"You're... such a..." she paused for a moment and tried to pull herself together, but it wasn't much use, "You're such a jerk!" Doing my best to ignore what had just happened, I flipped the cell phone closed, pulled the covers up over my head and tried to go back to sleep. I slept in until mid-afternoon, when Sam called me. Sam is my best friend, but I don't really like him. I mean, I don't hate the guy; he just gets on my nerves, and lately I've really been trying to avoid him. A lot of the avoidance is directly related to the fact that he thinks that I'm actually dating his sister. It's kind of hard to tell your best friend that you think his sister is crazy, so I try not to bring it up. I'd probably still avoid Sam even if I had no connections to his sister, though. He's annoying in his own right; the kind of person who's always bothering you about something trivial.
"Hey Drew, did you just wake up? You did, didn't you?" He always answers his own questions; I hate it when people do that. When I didn't reply, he immediately began flapping his jaw again,
"Man, you're always sleeping in! Get up, you lazy bastard! Come over to my place and let's hang out, I'm bored out of my mind here."
I really didn't want to go over to Sam's, but I couldn't think of a good enough excuse not to go, "Alright, but I'm eating your food when I get there."
I hung up the phone and rolled out of bed. My bedroom floor was a minefield; extension cord trip mines and deadly piles of clothes scattered in every direction made it difficult to maneuver, especially for someone who had just woken up. Despite the navigational skills that were required to move through the mess, I could never allow myself to clean it—within each pile of junk, I knew exactly where everything was. The only time that I ever forgot where I put something was when I put it in its "proper" place. On the way to the door, I grabbed a pair of frayed jeans and my dirty sandals from one of the piles. Sam lived just down the street, so there was no need to snatch my car keys up off of the carpet as I exited the apartment. Outside, the sidewalk was littered with gumballs from the trees that lined it. On the way to Sam's house, I kicked one of the prickly spheres along, trying carefully to keep it rolling with me as I walked. I actually had it rolling along with me for a fairly long time, but the gumball’s odd shape made it bounce in an awkward way, causing it to spiral off into the street; it was promptly run over by a passing garbage truck. It figures, I thought to myself. Oh well, kicking those stupid gumballs around was a waste of my time anyway.
Sam has a small and unattractive house; it's never been in good condition, ever since he purchased the heap from his Uncle Norman the building and all of its surroundings have been slowly decaying. Weeds grow all around the sides, and most of the grass in his yard is yellow. His driveway is stained with patches of oil, and most of the shingles on the roof are falling off. There are no trees or bushes on the lawn; a fat, naked plastic garden gnome stands alone in the yard, proudly sporting a full erection. Sam is in the garage sitting on an old fold-out lawn chair, drinking a soda.
"What the hell is that thing?" I questioned, motioning toward the odd statue.
"That's Beebo." Sam said it as if everyone and their mom knew who this famous Beebo was.
"Beebo?" I could tell he was waiting for me to ask.
"Yeah, Beebo the boner gnome. What do you think? I think it's cool!"
"Dude, you have serious issues."
I didn't bother talking to Sam after that statement. Quite frankly, it was just too early to handle the concept of a boner sporting gnome named Beebo. I made my way through the garage, into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Spotting the orange juice in the comer, I opened the carton and guzzled it directly from its container. I couldn't help but notice a faint, repetitive squeaking noise as I downed the OJ. Looking to my right, underneath the table I spotted Sam's dog. The small Chihuahua was staring me directly in the eyes, unblinking, ferociously humping a small purple rabbit. With each thrust, the stuffed rabbit let out a pathetic squeak—I actually felt bad for the toy. And the dog... the dog just kept humping and starring at me.
"Jesus Christ, Sam! When are you going to get that thing neutered?" I shouted out towards the door to the garage, still starring in disbelief of the dog's shamelessness; it just kept going even though I was looking right at it.
Just then, my cell phone rang. I was so amazed by the audacity of the Chihuahua that I didn't bother to check the caller I.D. on my cell phone before I flipped it open and answered it.
"Hello?" I questioned, not really paying attention to the phone call--the dog was much more interesting.
"Hi, I was wondering what underwear qualified for your buy two get one free special this week. See, I saw the ad on the front page and--"
"What?"
"The underwear special, what qualifies?"
I immediately realized what kind of person I was dealing with, "I am NOT a Wal-Mart, you IDIOT. Stop calling this number. I don't sell underwear, and even if I did have my own private underwear selling business, I wouldn't have a buy two get one free special. I mean, do you really think that you need to focus on cutting the cost of your underwear?" What a moron. I flipped the phone closed and walked back out to the garage. People are such idiots.
Sam was still sitting in his lawn chair,
"So, Drew, how are things with you and Dana?"
"Um. . . fine, just fine.. . "
"Hey man, that's great. Did you do her yet? Was it awesome? I bet it was!"
Sam has no shame; he's probably never been with a woman in his life, so he loves to hear about my adventures in the world of women. I guess it never occurred to him that it was weird to fantasize about his sister having sex.
"I'm gonna go back home, Sam. Thanks for the OJ, but I don't really want to do anything today."
"But dude, you just got here... plus, I just got a new video from my Uncle Norman, 'Ron Jeremy's Greatest Moments vol. I!'"
"Dude, why the hell would you even want that tape? You know what, never mind, I'll see you later."
Before he could explain himself, I started off down the street, taking the orange juice with me--Sam is like strong liquor, most people can only handle him in small amounts.
On the way home, I kicked another gumball along with me. This time, I wasn't going to let the little bugger roll away. I made it all the way to the parking lot with my prickly friend, when suddenly, my cell phone rang. Unfortunately, I didn't have the coordination to kick the gumball and answer my phone at the same time the gumball twirled off onto into a sewer drain. It was Dana, how incredibly annoying.
"What do you want?"
"Do you want to come over?"
"What? No. Why would want I do that?"
"I just wanted to talk… never mind, goodbye."
What a stupid girl, how could she just call and expect me to come over with no prior notice? Not only that, but her useless call had interrupted my fun with the gumballs, which--although a rather stupid act in itself--was much more interesting. She just doesn't get it. Maybe if she'd leave me alone for 5 minutes, I'd actually have an interest in her. Not that she's really my type anyway.
I opened the door to my apartment and stepped inside, flinging my sandals off into separate piles of junk in opposite comers of the room. I knew that would frustrate me to no end later on when I needed to put my sandals back on, but I didn't care--even though I knew I'd end up thinking, why the hell didn't I kick them both into the same pile? I do that kind of shit all the time, though. I never stop myself from doing what I know I'll regret later, even if I know I'll hate myself for it.
In my room, the T.V. was already on. It's always on. Whether I'm at home or away, whether I'm awake or asleep; I never bother to turn it off. I guess it's comforting to have ambient noise in the room. It's nice to have something to come home to, something that's there waiting for you to pay attention to it. Laying on my bed, the only thing that I could find on television was infomercials. I think that if I was an infomercial host or audience member, I'd probably kill myself. It's all so pathetically stupid.
"Okay folks, I have a great deal for you today!"
Insert cheesy applauses and whooing noises.
"It's a knife that can fillet a fish in under 30 seconds! If you ever find yourself stranded in the middle of the woods with no food or water and the only way that you can survive is by catching fish like an animal with your bare hands, you won't want to be without this nifty tool! And if you order today, you'll get another knife that is almost just as useless, FREE!"
Who the hell buys that crap, anyway?
After about an hour I got tired of surfing through the channels. When half of the shows on T.V. are knife-set infomercials, it's easy to lose interest. At that, I decided to check my cell phone to see who'd called me; maybe someone else would have a better way to occupy my time. As I flipped the phone open and checked the call log, I noticed that something was missing. No one had called me, not even Dana, who I thought was so obsessed with me. And then it dawned on me, she wasn't obsessed at all. She just wanted to get to know me, and that's exactly what I was afraid to let happen. It's amazing that she's even put up with me at all considering the way that I've treated her. It's really stupid to go on acting so bitter, but it's the only way that I know how to act.
I decided I'd walk back over to Sam's house and give him back what orange juice I had left in the carton. Without turning the television off, I got up off the bed and went to the comer of the room to retrieve my left sandal. I'm such an idiot, I thought to myself as I walked to the opposite side of the room to get the other sandal for my right foot. Taking the remaining OJ with me, which was less than a cup, I opened the door and started off down the sidewalk.
Walking down the sidewalk, another gumball tumbled along with me--only this time, I kicked it differently. I didn't concentrate so much on the gumball. I just kept my head up and looked straight ahead as I walked. I was thinking about Dana; I thought about when I met her at the party, and how much I really liked her right off of the bat. I mean, we really hit it off, but as soon as I realized that I got scared. This whole time I've been acting like a jackass because I was afraid of what might happen if l actually let myself care about someone, or let someone else care about me. When I got to Sam's house I looked down at my feet, and you know what? That damned gumball made it safely down the whole sidewalk with me.
Waving to Beebo as I walked up the dirty driveway, I noticed that Sam wasn't in his usual chair. He must have had company, which was fairly unordinary. A bit puzzled, I knocked on the door.
"Drew, what's up dude?"
"Hey, Sam." I held up the orange juice and shrugged my shoulders, "Sorry about drinking all of your OJ, I'll buy you some more."
"Hey, man, it's all good."
I smiled, "... who's here?" I asked, poking my head inside. "It looks like you have company."
"Oh yeah, Dana stopped by, we're filleting fish with my new knife set! I just got it off of the T.V. for three easy payments of $I9.99! You wanna join us? You should join us!"
"Heh, sure, Sam."
--END--
