Night of the Parents
Copyright 2012 Christopher Suarez
CHAPTER ONE
God I hate report card day. On any other day I can at least hope to avoid being negatively compared to my siblings, but on report card day? No way. If only I’d managed to pull off a B average to match Lynda’s. It wouldn’t have been nearly as impressive as Mark Jr.’s straight A’s, but Dad never gets on Lynda’s case for failing to live up to Super Brother, so if I’d matched her average he would have had to give me a pass too. But of course I couldn’t do it. Today, on my very first high school report card, I got my usual C’s and D’s. So tonight, when I finally go home, I’m going to get my usual lecture from Mom about how I don’t try hard enough, and worse, my usual put down from Dad about how it’s not a matter of my not trying, it’s a matter of my not having the necessary intelligence.
Screw it. I’m putting that moment off for as long as I can. My fellow underachiever Jobie, the closest thing I have to a friend, got detention today. He won’t be at the youth center for at least another hour and a half, so I have some time to kill.
I get off the bus and walk halfway down Noble Street to the Bluebird Diner, a small hole-in-the-wall greasy spoon that Mom says has been in business since the fifties. I’ve spent many glum after school hours at the Bluebird. All through junior high school, on report card day or any day that left me reluctant to go home, I would get off the bus six blocks from home, just like today, walk into the Bluebird, sit down at the counter, and order something to eat, C-minus depression or not.
And that’s exactly what I do now. I walk in, take off my backpack, sit down at the counter, and order a cheeseburger and coke. One thing about me -- I’m never so pissed off or depressed that I lose my appetite. And the burgers here, despite being greasy, are really good. I can’t imagine anyone coming in here and not eating one, especially since this place is so homey and friendly.
The massive, grey-haired African American waitress who’s always behind the counter serves me my food. I grab the burger with both hands and take a huge bite. Immediately I start to feel better. Eating always cheers me up. I turn to food a lot for comfort. Luckily I have a fast metabolism, otherwise I’d be as fat as a house. That’s one of the few things I have going for me. Too bad everyone else in my family is the same way. If only one of them had a weight problem to struggle with. That would draw some attention away from my many failings: my poor grades, my clumsiness, my total lack of creative talent, my plainness. But no, everyone else in my family is perfect. Well, maybe not perfect, but pretty damn close. Smart, good-looking, athletic, creative, they’re all the kind of superior beings that make ordinary humans sick with envy. Take my dad for example. Lawyer, former high school football star, and so handsome that he actually paid his college tuition by modeling. A living, breathing testament to the unfairness of life. Mom’s no slouch either. A watercolor artist, tennis player, and ex-high school cheerleader, she’s like the moms on those really old sitcoms that you see on cable.
As for my brothers and sister, they take after both of them, in varying degrees. Mark Jr., at sixteen, is Dad’s “Mini Me” -- same honor society grades, same career goal (lawyer), same football stardom, same good looks. Taylor, my twelve-year-old younger brother, isn’t quite the star that Marky is. Gradewise he hovers between an A and B plus average, and athletically he’s a participant rather than a star. (He plays football for his junior high but usually warms the bench.) And he has no idea what he wants to do with his life. Still, he has the Hallenbeck family good looks and all the girls at his school love him. As for my ten-year-old sister Lynda (Mom has a fondness for common names spelled in an uncommon way) she’s strictly a B student, like I said, but everyone knows that’s only because she focuses all her attention on her acting lessons. Despite their almost religious belief in top grades, Mom and Dad never get on her case about her B’s. They’ve seen her act in her school plays and workshops. They know how talented she is. Her acting coach keeps pleading with them to let her audition for TV and film roles. So far they haven’t given him the green light, but it’s only a matter of time before they do. They know how badly she wants it, and they’ve never been able to say no to her for long. After Marky, she’s always been the favorite.
So what happened with me? Why didn’t I get any of the Hallenbeck genetic bounty? Fate I guess. Or God’s will, if you’re religious. Then again, I’m only fourteen. There’s always a chance that I’m just a late bloomer, that one day all the boring stuff they throw at me in school will click and I’ll become an A student, or that my later teen years will bestow on me some kind of beauty, or at least athletic ability. But I doubt it. I’ve never seen anything like that happen with any of the other plain, underachieving kids I’ve known.
So where does that leave me? I remember seeing a movie once called American Beauty that had a girl character my age. She told the main character of the movie, a man in his forties, that she couldn’t imagine anything worse than being ordinary. Well in a way I agree with her. Being ordinary does suck. But there’s something that sucks even more: hating yourself for being ordinary. I absolutely refuse to hate myself. I don’t want to end up like my Uncle Wayne. He’s the other member of the family who missed out on all the Hallenbeck talent, beauty and grace. Only unlike me, he hates himself for it. I know because he doesn’t have a wife or girlfriend, doesn’t have a job, and hasn’t left his apartment in years. Mom says it’s because he has this debilitating condition called agoraphobia, which as I understand it is a fear of going outside. Okay, maybe he does have agoraphobia, but I’m sure the only reason he has it is because he’s spent his whole life feeling inferior -- so inferior that he feels he doesn’t deserve a life. It’s a good thing he injured his back on his last job and received a small disability pension, otherwise he’d probably be out on the street. I never want to be that spiritually messed up. And I’m never going to be.
It’s already starting to get dark out, even though it’s only a quarter to five. That’s one of the things I love about fall -- the shorter days. I’ve always preferred night to day, and fall and winter to summer. As soon as I turn eighteen I’m going to start hanging out late at night.
“Anything else?” the massive waitress asks.
“No. That’s all,” I reply. She hands me the check. I leave a dollar tip on the counter, put on my backpack, and pay the paunchy, olive-skinned man working the register.
“Thanks. Come again.”
“I will.”
Outside it’s considerably cooler than it was before. I yank my sweatshirt hood out from under my jacket, put it on and shove my hands into my pockets. It’s still too early for Jobie to be at the youth center, so despite the cold I stop at the playground and watch the skateboarders. I don’t go in, I just watch from the fence. The skaters don’t do much, just jump over an overturned milk crate. I recognize one of them as a boy from my block, a big red-haired kid of sixteen named Rolo. Rolo’s a bully and a trouble maker, but he never gives me a hard time, probably because of my older brother. Even though Marky’s a real straight arrow, and about as far from “street” as a teen can get, he’s respected by the tough kids in our neighborhood, no doubt because of his size and athletic ability. Still, I don’t want to take any chances with Rolo. When one of the younger skateboarders, a boy of about twelve with a mohawk, looks up and sees me, I take off before he can point me out to him.
It’s even darker now. The youth center is still four blocks away. I walk faster, keeping my hands in my pockets. As I pass the apartment building on the corner of Albermarle and Mott I hear what sounds like a kid screaming. The voice comes from one of the first floor windows.
I stop and listen and hear a boy shout “What did I do? What did I do?” I move closer and stand right under the window and hear another scream, followed by a loud crash. Then nothing. I wait, but there are no more sounds of violence. I look around, hoping to spot an adult nearby who heard the same incriminating sounds that I did. But the only other people I see are two older teens -- a long-haired boy and a short-haired girl walking about half a block ahead of me. I briefly consider calling Nine-One-One on my cell, but when the silence continues I decide against it. For all I know it could have been a TV show or a DVD someone was watching. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t, to be honest, but I don’t even know the number of the apartment, and now that whatever happened -- or didn’t happen -- is over, I don’t see the point of calling the police. They probably won’t be able to do anything anyway.
Ignoring the voice of my conscience, I continue down the street. God I hope Jobie didn’t get so pissed off about detention that he decided to go straight home. Not that that’s likely: as a rule he spends as little time at home as possible He told me so himself. Jobie’s father is MIA and his mother is a major alcoholic. He hates having to be the adult and look after his mom, so he spends as much time in the youth center or on the street as possible. I would do the same if I could. He and I are both misfits, unpopular at school and at home. I like to think of him as a friend, but I don’t know if he really cares enough about me to be called a friend. I don’t think he really cares much about anyone. Still, he’s one of the few people I like to talk to -- that is, when he’s in a talkative mood. He’s the one who told me that I have the same first name as the girlfriend of the famous nineteen fifties serial killer Charles Starkweather.
The boy and girl walking ahead of me start laughing about something. The boy reaches out and takes the girl’s hand. As soon as he does a car screeches to a halt alongside them and a tall bald man gets out. Despite the cold he’s dressed only in blue denim pants, a blue flannel shirt, and black leather cowboy boots. In his right hand he holds a tire iron. Leaving the door of his car open, he runs up to the two teens. The girl apparently knows the man, because even though she looks scared she makes no attempt to run. I hear her cry “Daddy!”, and then the man raises his tire iron and tries to bash her over the head with it. The girl reacts instinctively, raising both her hands to ward off the blow. As she does the boy steps between them, reaches up and grabs the man’s arm. The two of them wrestle for the tire iron. Frozen with fear, the girl just stands there screaming “Om my God!” over and over. “Mr. Hughes! What the hell?!” the boy shouts. Finally the girl snaps out of her fear-induced paralysis. She throws her arms around the man’s waist and tries to pull him away from the boy, but the man is too big for her to move.
I look around to see if there are any other witnesses to this mayhem. The only other people on the street besides me and the three combatants are an elderly man with a cane and a thirtyish woman. The elderly man watches the fight from the other side of the street. The woman, walking very briskly, completely ignores the homicidal man and his two intended victims even though they’re right in her path. She walks around them without even turning her head. As she draws closer I see that she has an intense, almost crazed look on her face. I back up several feet to give her a wide berth, but my precaution turns out to be unnecessary. The woman ignores me too and just keeps walking, as if she’s on a life and death mission.
Well I’m not on a mission, at least not a life and death one, so I reach for my cell phone. But before I can dial Nine-One-One I hear a familiar voice call out my name.
“Caril! Caril!”
I turn and see my brother Taylor and sister Lynda running towards me. Lynda cries and stumbles as Taylor grasps her tightly by one wrist, pulling her along with him. There is blood smeared on the lower half of his face and his nose is bleeding. I put my phone away.
“What the hell happened to you?” I ask Taylor when they stop in front of me, but he’s too out of breath to answer. Gasping, he leans forward with both hands on his knees and struggles to catch his breath. Lynda does the same.
A patrol car driven by a single male cop speeds down the street with its turret lights and sirens on, but it passes the still fighting bald man and long-haired boy without stopping. Two cars follow right behind it, travelling at the same high rate of speed.
Lynda recovers her breath enough to straighten up and throw her arms around me, a weird thing for her to do since she’s never been a huggy kind of kid, even on the rare previous occasions when she’s cried. What the hell is going on?
“Taylor what happened to you?” I repeat. “Why’s your nose bleeding?”
Behind me the teen girl screams again. I glance over my shoulder and see the man bring the tire iron down on the long-haired boy’s head so hard that I can actually see the metal sink into his scalp. Blood sprays up and the boy goes down like a marionette with it’s strings cut. The man hits him again. And again. I stare transfixed until I hear Taylor’s voice again.
“Caril, Mom and Dad tried to kill Marky!”
“What?”
“Mom and Dad tried to kill Marky!”.