Friday, June 28, 2013

Today's Guest Is... #FridayFlash Fiction

     Of course it was wrong; but they had threatened her yet again, and she was so tired, so hollowed out that making the drug buy was definitely the lesser of two evils. Three evils if she counted her stepfather, five evils if she included being tossed out in the street or sent to live with her sister in Buttcrack, Idaho.
     What kind of parents send their teenage daughter out to score some coke for them? A rhetorical question. It was her last thought before running footsteps and a blow to her head so hard she couldn't even suck in enough breath to scream.
*****

     She sinks into a chair which exudes a delicate flatus of leather-scented air, mixed with cologne and sweat. Her escorts you can call us Jamie and Robert sit with legs crossed in carefully orchestrated nonchalance; if they had tails, the tips would be twitching. A green light flickers on, they motion for her to stand up, and taking her each by one arm, propel her thru the door.
     A wall of faces roars with approval, beams of light nail her to the floor, and her mouth salivates in preparation to vomit as a giant of a man ambles into view and places a heavy hand on her shoulder.
     "Come and sit down with us, Amy," he says gently, guiding her to a sofa. A montage of photos - her riding a pony, playing in a pool, holding up a play-doh hand print, playing baseball - takes up an entire wall. Her mother is on one end of the plump couch, and she's made up to look like a decent human being for once. Her stepfather looks like a preacher who's just seen the devil.
     The kindly man who first greeted her, whom she now recognizes as Dr. Jerry, addresses the audience. "I'd like you to meet the beautiful young lady we've been talking about. Now Amy has a long history of behavioral problems. Her teachers tell us that she often falls asleep in class, starts fights with other girls, and is disrespectful. Just last week she disrupted her math class by arguing with the teacher that a rectangle is NOT a square. At home she refuses to do chores, is rude, and sneaks out at night to buy drugs. As a matter of fact, a few nights ago she was badly beaten because of a drug deal gone wrong. Her parents are here on our show because they love her but they just don't know what to do any more."
     Shocked faces, vague stirrings and murmurs of approval ripple through the human reflective pool.
     Amy lowers herself carefully to the couch, as far from her mother as she can possibly get. Her mother reaches for a tissue from her pocket and manages to give Amy the finger at the same time.
     "I hate you!" Amy hisses. The microphones pick it up and everyone gasps.
     "Now Amy, it's obvious that you have very strong feelings of anger toward your mother. And we're here to help you learn to cope with them in a more constructive manner."
     "She just flipped me off!"
     Dr. Jerry calls for a replay of the tape, and there is Amy managing to look like a wide-awake drunk while her mother clutches a tissue and sadly dabs at her eyes.
*****
      She concedes that yesterday she hit a girl; it doesn't matter that she is bullied daily and that other girls steal things from her locker at school. They are, after all, members of the Key Club and Pep Squad.
      She explains that the drugs were for her parents; she is called a liar.
      After a parade of accusers, a litany of crimes and everything but the national debt is hung upon her frail shoulders, Amy is informed that she will be taken directly from the show to a boot camp for teens in - wait for it - Idaho. Applause. Part of Amy wants to clap as well; at least she won't have to go back to their crummy apartment and eat some variation of Tuna Helper every night.
     "And we're also sending her folks to an all-inclusive resort in Hawaii for a week so that they can reconnect as a couple and enjoy a well-deserved respite from teenage chaos."
     Thunderous applause.
     Mother now has Dr. Jerry's enormous handkerchief to mop her bloated features - and cover her self-satisfied smirk.
*****
     Amy leaves the stage between her handlers and passes a boy with a linebacker build and golden hair flopping across one eye. He flicks it out of the way and smiles lasciviously at her.
     "See you at the Happy Trails Camp I guess," he manages before he disappears through the doorway and into the spotlight.
     She just catches the introduction before the door swings shut.
     "Meet Robert, who has a drinking problem, steals cars, and is now accused of raping a girl..."

    

21 comments:

  1. please tell me there is a place called Buttcrack, Idaho!

    When this started it reminded me of a joke told by a Scottish comedian Jerry Sadowitz - "My parents would kill me if they knew I was performing here at the Edinburgh Festival. They think I'm buying drugs off a prostitute!"

    You did a nice fun spoof of the interventionist culture & how it can be exploited

    Marc nash

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    1. Only in my mind. It was originally Buttecrack but the "e" was dropped somewhere in history. It's your typical small town with a diner, gas station, sheriff, saloon. There are some "frackers" wanting to move in and drill for shale oil, a few wealthy landowners, a college drop-out from back east who's trying to find his grandaddy's old silver mine, an anthropologist hoping to make a momentous discovery, several bodies buried here and there and a coyote who is only seen on the main street when someone is about to die.

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  2. Very good spoof but I was caught up in the tragedy of Amy and the undoubtedly awful things that will happen when Robert meets her again.

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    1. Imagine being in that situation, when you simply cannot prove your innocence. And Robert may, or may not be, a danger. perhaps he was framed as well?

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  3. I just felt so sorry for Amy...and very unsorry for everyone else in this flash Li. Sparks of real life.

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    1. You know, I thought of her as the victim, then I wondered if she might be as manipulate as her mother - chip off the old block, so to speak. I could turn this into a NOBODY is who they seem sort of story. or maybe a serial.

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  4. What Denise said. Or… I wonder if she's pushed her mind into believing it's everyone around her. Now that dichotomy would make for a really interesting psych-thriller.

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    1. True, Larry. And thanks to you, now I'm wondering what exactly is going on. :-)

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  5. This contains the most elegant use of "flatus" I've ever read.

    It took me a little while to realize who and what Dr. Jerry was. I should have gotten it from the second scene - it's so apparent after you realize!

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    1. Ah, thank you John. I have immortalized my favorite chair at the old Borders Bookstore.
      Dr Jerry is actually an amalgam of 3 different TV personalities. Oh,and one court case - the "Kids For Cash" scandal in PA where a judge (and several others, don't remember details) were indicted for taking kickbacks from boot camps for sending juveniles there. Often for fairly minor infractions. really mindboggling!

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  6. This felt very dream-like the way the story unfolded and I felt like I missed a step a few times. Maybe it was the blow o the head in the first paragraph...

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    1. It did jump from the opening sequence to the first person narrative. it could have been done more smoothly, but I wanted to keep the word count down. this might bear expanding at some point.

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  7. Felt bad for Amy. It's like those movies where someone is falsely accused of being crazy and thrown in a psycho ward.

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    1. Thanks Alex. Yes, it's hard to get my head around stories where people are unjustly incarcerated and lose years of their lives!

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  8. Context really is everything. The blow to the head atthe beginning makes me wonder if the TV show part is running in Amy's head. Whether it was real in story-time or a dream, it was a great depiction if everything that's wrong with those kinds of shows.

    And I agree the use of "flatus" was a particular stroke of brilliance.

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    1. That's what I love about blogging and commenting - you've brought out yet ANOTHER angle I hadn't thought of! I should just start tossing out ideas and letting the Friday flash community write book chapters for me. You could each write your version of what was REALLY going on with Amy! :-0

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  9. I love the downward spiral this left me feeling - a sharing of Amy's hopelessness. Poor girl.

    Great job!

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    1. Thanks Chuck! I'm glad you got the spinning out of control feeling. But maybe the boy was also framed, and in reality he's wonderful and he and Amy will fall in love at camp and run away from camp, strike it rich, live happily ever after...

      Nah.

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  10. This is only a dream. This is only a dream. This is only a dream. This is only a dream. This is only a dream. This is only a dream. This is only a dream....

    If I say it enough times that makes it true, right? I love all the different angles people are seeing in this one.

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  11. I was totally caught up in this - I feel for Amy but I reckon she's better off out of it.

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  12. You've got a lively style of writing. I shall be returning for more! A painful but thought provoking read.

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