Silent Warrior, Final Chapter

“Good morning to you…good morning to you…good morning, dear Alan…”

“G…g…good morning to you!”

“Alan, why are you so sad?”

“Why wouldn’t I be sad? This isn’t good morning. It’s fucking dark in here, Ally! I don’t see any sunshine! I don’t hear any cock-a-doodle-doos! Instead all I hear are screams. It could be another prisoner screaming in pain. It could be a guard screaming bullshit instructions. Or it could be me screaming ‘cause I’m constantly in fucking pain! Why, Ally? Why all the worms and maggots?”

“I’m a biologist. I deal with such creatures on a daily basis. I’m not going to just sacrifice my life’s work because you find earth’s critters disgusting. Everything in this world has its own special place. It could be a bat eating mosquitoes. It could be a pack of wolves hunting down deer. It could even be something as natural as a mother bird regurgitating worms into her babies’ beaks.”

“Cut the bullshit! You know how disgusting you really are! Scott had it right all along and I didn’t listen to him! He’s got more common sense than the two of us put together!”

“Don’t you talk to me that way, little boy! If I wasn’t a hallucination, I’d wash your chubby mouth out with soap! I left Scott George on his own for the same reason I left his father Carter. They rejected me, just like you’re rejecting me now. I tried to keep the peace between you and Scott. I even showed up at his trial to put in the best possible word for you. But you threw that all away when you tried to stab him in your cell. Now you’re in the darkest part of jail and you’ve no one to blame but yourself!”

“It should be Scott in this room, not me!”

“Then prove it, Alan! Scott became the man he is today because he fought for everything he believed in whether it was right or wrong. Now’s your time to fight. You may be under lock and key, but your war with Scott is far from over. As long as your mind continues to destroy you from the inside, you have all the reason in the world to fight. You don’t want these images and words, do you? Forget the worms and maggots for a minute. Your real enemy isn’t anything that can be found in the animal kingdom. It’s your own weakness!”

“Weakness? I’ve been beating ass since the day I was born and you have the gall to call me weak? What about all the crybabies on the playground who threw a fit because they couldn’t hang with me? What about all the teachers who care more about precious self-esteem than they do about the real world? Why aren’t you calling them weak?”

“Because they’re not weak, Alan. They have the kind of strength you could only dream of having: strength in numbers. You’re only one man trying to fight an entire world. But if Mr. Simpson has taught you anything, it’s to pick apart the army one soldier at a time. Mr. Simpson may have softened over this long exhausting semester, but that doesn’t mean you have to. I want you to take every ounce of your insanity and use it as a weapon. Fists alone have achieved nothing.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m in solitary confinement! You even said yourself you’re a fucking hallucination! Who am I supposed to use this weapon on? There’s nobody here with me! Even the guards have tuned me out, for Christ’s sake!”

“You can’t stay in solitary confinement forever, Alan. Even the strictest prosecutors know this to be true. For what you did, you won’t even be in jail forever. You may be a destructive bastard, but you’ve never once murdered another human being. Implanting suicidal thoughts in someone else doesn’t count. I’m talking about the worst kind of murder there is. I’m talking about animalistic rage that can only be forged in darkness like this. Channel that rage and don’t let the world get away with locking you up like this!”

“…You want me to survive this place…by beating the shit out of everyone here? You want me to find my exit by pushing around people more powerful than me?”

“This isn’t the sandbox, Alan. This is jail. If you don’t stand up for yourself here, nobody else will. The guards aren’t here for your protection. They’re here to make sure you conform. They’re here to use you as a punching bag whenever they damn well feel like it. You’re not going to let that happen, are you?”

“…Never…I never wanted to be a part of society…I never wanted to follow anyone’s rules…Why should these assholes in uniform be any different? Is it because they have keys? Is it because they have so-called training? Is it because they’re tougher than me?! I don’t fucking think so!”

“Good! That’s what I want to hear from you! That’s what I’ve been waiting to hear from you since I married your father! Nobody pushes my baby around! And when I say baby, I’m not talking about that ungrateful snake Scott! I’m talking about by one true baby. The one I’ll forever cherish. The one I’ll forever spoil and love. Alan…this is your time. Don’t screw it up!”

Alan Young awoke in his solitary confinement cell with rough stubble on his chin, razor sharp hairs poking out of his bald head, and his heart beating a combination of fire and nitro glycerin. He breathed heavily like a wounded animal. He lusted for violence and aggression with bloodshot eyes. He smiled so hideously that he could smell his own sour breath.

Only a small patch of light illuminated the room through the barred window to the outside. Even though the sun was barely rising over the landscape, Alan still had lost track of how much time he spent cooped up in here. No clocks, no indication from the guards, only the occasional shitty meal which was inconsistent with the rest of the feedings.

Alan stood his clumsy body up and grabbed hold of the bars while staring out into the horizon. He held his stepmother’s words deep inside him until his very core was hot enough to melt away the last of his sanity. What once was a heart was now a heap of ashes. What once was a racing mind was now a zombie’s rage. The urge to kill had taken over his entire body. Just one taste of blood…anybody’s blood…

Surely another prisoner would satisfy his violent appetite just fine. He even believed some of the guards deserved a few undead thrashings. But the ultimate dessert at the end of this blood-soaked meal would be none other than Scott Marcus George. All Alan needed was one opening to strike. One tiny mistake made by another occupant of this hellhole. The rest would come as naturally as breathing.

“Scotty-Boy…I’m coming for you…and not even your marsh-dwelling girlfriend will be able to save your skinny ass this time!” Alan ranted as he shook the bars like a steroid-pumped professional wrestler. “I’m coming for you, motherfucker!”

THE END?

Silent Warrior, Chapter 22

“I wanna go home…take off this uniform and leave the show…but I’m waiting in this cell because I have to know…have I been guilty all this time?”

Scott George’s trembling rendition of “Stop” by Pink Floyd was met with a sarcastic golf clap from the shadows of his jail cell. A familiar voice said, “Good one, buddy. You really do have the prettiest little voice. The last time I heard singing that good, you were bawling like a big baby over your daddy’s grave.” With shadows now covering only half of his face like a neo-noir villain, Alan Young’s hideously transformed visage sent chills up Scott’s spine. Tattoos on his arms, a short Mohawk, and scars on his face marked Alan’s metamorphosis from childhood brat to demonic tormentor.

Unwilling to let this bruiser shake him any further, Scott descended into bathos by angrily joking, “What the hell were YOU doing at a graveyard anyways? I was grieving my dead father. What about you? You can’t get laid any other way, so you’re going to give necrophilia a try?”

“Oh, you’re hilarious, Scott. You’re just fucking marvelous. It’s especially ironic considering how you got yourself in this jail cell to begin with. Though I do admit, you couldn’t have found a better piece of ass than Adrienne fucking Simpson, I’ll tell you that right now.”

Scott bolted out of his bunk bed and shouted, “Don’t you ever talk that way about her again, you fat piece of shit!”

“Or what? You’re going to strangle me and get me kicked out of prison like you did on that bus ride? Come on, dude, you’ve got way too much to lose and you know it. You throw one punch at me and it’s off to the hole for you. Me? I don’t give a fuck where I go from here. The only thing I’ve got left to lose is my own sanity and even that’s questionable.”

Folding his arms and giving his cellmate the gorgon death stare, Scott asked, “What do you want from me, Alan? You want to keep making my life a living hell? What for? Why me? Why not somebody else? Answer me, damn it!”

Alan stood up quickly and barked, “You want to know why?! I’ll tell you why. I don’t do it because of your skinny ass body. I don’t do it because I can. I don’t even want your survivor’s benefits from your dear old daddy kicking the bucket. The reason I gave you hell all those years is because of who you are.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t, because you’re too blind to see it. Your massive ego won’t let you. Well, I’m here to tell you that you’re a phony. You like to rage against the machine and all that bullshit. Guess what? I’ve always wanted to rage against the machine too. Growing up with Aloysius tends to do that to a man. All this talk about communities and worms and puppets and shit…if I ever do get thrown in the hole, that’s probably what I’m going to think about the most.”

Scott’s expression softened and his arms went limp at this revelation. But he would still hold his ground against the much larger and much more aggressive cellmate.

Alan wagged his finger at Scott and ranted, “Yeah, that’s right. The old Freudian excuse. I can play that card until the end of time. I abuse other people because I too was a victim of disgusting shit. That would be the convenient answer. But that’s not it. Aloysius is just one piece of the puzzle. It’s the whole world that fucks with my mind the most. And you, you’re the biggest hypocrite of them all. You claim to be about individuality and personal freedom, yet here you are sucking up to the teachers so that you can get the best grades. Don’t you see, Scott? You’re doing what they’re telling you to do. They’ve got you by the balls, buddy! Me? I don’t want a pointless career. I want to watch the world burn. Being in jail waiting for my sentence gave me time to think about it and that’s what I want most out of life.”

Scott half-grinned and shook his head before saying, “So that’s it, huh? Because life didn’t turn out the way you wanted, you want to watch the system around you collapse. Well, guess what, lard ass! My life wasn’t exactly a bed of roses either! I too have nightmares that keep me from getting the sleep I deserve! I haven’t eaten a decent meal in god knows how long! And yes, I’m in jail because the world wants me to be here! But I don’t want to watch the world burn! You know why? Because without a world to live in, there’d be no place for people like Adrienne to grow up. I know not everybody in the world is a Mr. Simpson clone. I don’t paint everybody with the same brush like you do. There are good people in this world and they’re the people I’m fighting for! I don’t care how long I have to stay in this cell, because I won’t let jail break me!”

Alan blitzed towards Scott, grabbed his shirt, and slammed him against the wall. “Bullshit!” the bully shouted. “You’re not going to beat the system that easily! Everybody who comes through here turns into the ugliest fucking monster imaginable! You’re no different from the rest of the losers in this jail! You’re going to break one way or another and if I have to be the one who breaks you, goddamn it, I will!”

“Go for it, Alan! Make a move! You’ll be taking those words to solitary confinement! It’s just like you said to me a few minutes ago! That shit works both ways, my friend! You want to take a swing at me?! Go ahead!”

Alan smiled sadistically and bore his yellow demonic fangs while clutching Scott’s shirt tighter than before. “If that’s what you want, then ask and ye shall receive!” Alan dropped his victim with a right hook to the gut, causing him to cough and wheeze violently. Scott even spit up a few droplets of blood. Alan grabbed his hair and said, “You see that? That’s what happens when you don’t eat your meat, let alone your pudding. Yeah, I can quote Pink Floyd too, buddy. Look around you: nobody’s coming to save you because nobody cares. I bet watching the world burn sounds pretty fucking good right now, doesn’t it?”

The next attack in Alan’s arsenal was a knee to the chest, bouncing Scott against the metal bunk bed and causing even more heavy, blood-laced breathing. “Pathetic. That’s all you are, Scott.” Alan turned around and sat down on his bed while watching his victim collected what was left of himself.

Scott sat against his bunk and heaved some more, his lungs and heart working overtime to make sure he didn’t drop dead right then and there. And then he mustered up enough oxygen to get these words out in a clear voice: “Is that all you got?”

Alan’s hamburger face morphed into monstrous rage when he stood back up and shouted, “No, it’s not all I got, you dumb shit!” He pulled a shank from under his pillow and glared down at his prey with venom and fire in his bulging eyes. “You just don’t know when to break, do you? That’s alright. You don’t ever have to worry about breaking ever again. As your daddy will tell you…dead men tell no tales!”

The bully jerked Scott up by his neck and held the blade to his throat, drawing a tiny droplet of sweet red juice. “You see that, Scotty boy? That’s what jail is really like. You haven’t been here that long and you’re already knocking on hell’s gates. Say hello to your dear old daddy for me!”

Scott’s rage glowed a brighter shade of red than the goop pouring out of his mouth, nose, and throat. A night in solitary confinement would have been a welcome time to rest his bones if it meant he could live another day. He forgot all about the possibility of losing his sanity in a dark room. Did he really have it to begin with?

Scott swung his leg backwards and made Alan a permanent cast member of the Nutcracker Suite, causing him to drop the blade and leaving him open for a sharp elbow to the nose. Alan’s already demonic face looked like it went through a wood chipper after that blood-curdling blow. Both combatants lay limp on the floor floating in and out of consciousness while the sounds of boots pounding the cement floor flooded their ears.

Scott could hear the cacophony of swear words and authoritative threats as both he and Alan were being dragged out of their cell, though in different directions. He could distinctly hear one of the guards threaten, “You’re in a lot of trouble, little boy!” Although, he couldn’t discern who it was being said to. Either way, Scott knew he was up shit creek without a paddle, judging from how roughly he was being dragged away from the scene of the fight.

Was it this easy to break in prison? Was there anybody out there truly strong enough to withstand such a torturous grind? Scott couldn’t think of one person that fit the bill. Even superheroes would go crazy in this shitty place if they didn’t get brutally murdered. Getting out on a sweetheart deal didn’t mean shit either. The prisoners were dead inside by the time they tasted freedom, thus ensuring this place’s status as a graveyard rather than a real housing facility. At least when death or insanity washed over Scott, he would be reunited with his father, which wasn’t much of a silver lining considering he would also lose Adrienne forever. Scott took a temporary vacation from the ultra madness when his vision faded to black.

Silent Warrior, Chapter 20

With the sun’s gentle rays caressing their skins and the ocean’s waves to lull them into comfort, Scott and Adrienne strolled along the beach together hand in hand without a care in the world. Scott’s tan cargo shorts clung to his hips like he actually had the body of an athlete. Adrienne’s purple bikini revealed her best physical features, though none could match the beauty of her smile as she pecked her boyfriend on the cheek.

Somewhere in one of the straw huts, a portable stereo played the underrated Sting classic “When We Dance”. And by god, the couple was going to do just that. Scott spun his girlfriend around and leaned her backwards while she lifted one of her gorgeous bare feet in the air. The two lovers shared another kiss together, this one much longer and more passionate than the first.

The two hugged each other and slow-danced to Sting’s lyrics. When Adrienne asked him why his face grew serious all of the sudden, Scott said, “Can we never leave this beach? Do we have to go back to Perkins City?”

“Trust me, babe, I’d love nothing more than to spend forever with you on this beach. We have everything we’ll ever need here: good food, gentle waves, and enough sunshine to keep us warm until the end of time,” said Adrienne in a seductive voice. Her face also grew serious when she finished her sentiment with, “Unfortunately, we have to go back soon. Vacations are only temporary as we both know from going to school all the time. It seems like time is just flying by and we can’t catch up with it.”

Scott embraced his girlfriend tightly and begged, “No, I’m not going back! Please don’t make me go back. I fucking hate that place. It’s like a reverse fucking Disneyland!”

Adrienne pushed him to a close distance and said, “I know, Scott. Trust me, I know. If I go back to Perkins City, my dad is just going to make my life a living hell, just like he did yours. Reality sucks, but that’s what life is.”

“I don’t want this life anymore,” confessed Scott. “I’ve waited all this time to be free and I’m not going to just have it snatched up from underneath me.”

“But then who’s going to pay the bills, honey? What will we do for money? This beach isn’t paying our rent. It’s just an escape from our responsibilities. Whether we like it or not, we’re part of a community.”

“No, don’t say that word! Don’t say the C-word!” snapped Scott as he dropped to his knees and covered his ears. “Don’t say that fucking word! I hate that word! Oh god, oh god, oh god, I hate that word!”

“Scott, please! You’re scaring me! I didn’t mean to trigger you!” said a frightened Adrienne as he gently rested her palm on her boyfriend’s shoulder. The minute Scott’s tears splashed on the soft sand, she hugged him around the head and comforted him with, “I’m sorry. I’ll never say that word again. We can stay here if you’d like. It’s not like this island is in short supply of jobs or anything like that.”

“Jobs?” wept Scott. “Who’s going to hire me? What boss in his right mind wants to hire a guy who falls to pieces after every little thing?”

Placing both hands on her boyfriend’s shoulders and giving him a stern look, Adrienne said, “You have to take responsibility to wake up from your nightmares. You can’t live this way forever, my dear. I can only do so much for you. Now it’s your turn to fight back against the world. You can’t let these people beat you so easily. Fight for me, Scott. Fight for us. Fight for our child!”

The two of them stood up slowly together and Scott’s watery eyes were now staring lovingly into his girlfriend’s sweet face. “You’re right, babe. You’re absolutely right. I’m sorry I acted the way I did. Can you do me one last favor before we leave here? Kiss me. Kiss me as hard as you can. If I’m going to fight for what’s right, then I’m going to need all the strength I can get.”

“Of course I’ll kiss you, silly. Come here.” Just as promised, the two of them locked lips and swirled their tongues in each other’s mouths. Adrienne’s lips became much more aggressive as Scott held her closer.

Scott closed his eyes and enjoyed the passionate kiss…until he felt some strange presences crawling around on his tongue. He forcefully pulled away and his eyes shot open in horror at the face he was now gazing into. The visage of Aloysius Striker sang her operatic “Good Morning” song while Scott desperately spit out worm after worm, maggot after maggot. He stuck his index finger in his mouth and barfed the last of the worms onto the sand below, turning his body nearly inside out from the deadly force.

“Good morning to you! Good morning to you! Good morning, dear Scotty! Good morning to you!” Mrs. Striker’s voice became progressively deeper and more demonic as she sang her whimsical tune. Her teeth looked more dangerous than those of a great white shark. Her evilly-slanted eyes glowed with orange neon. The worms in the back of her throat slithered down her jaw and all Scott could do about it was scream his head off.

“Order! Order in the courtroom!” commanded the judge as he smashed his gavel and awakened Scott from his nightmare. Drenched in sweat and still wearing his hospital scrubs, he found himself back in the defendant’s chair with his lawyer by his side. Scott’s breathing grew deeper and deeper while his lawyer tried to calm him down with shoulder pats.

“Has the jury reached a verdict?” asked the judge.

“We have, your honor,” said the lead juror. Scott’s hazy vision was now laser focused as his heart beat quickly and adrenaline flooded his nervous system. Even though his “vacation” with Adrienne was only temporary, he had to take that lesson to heart: fight for what you believe in. Fight for what’s right. Never give up. This internal monologue steeled his raw nerves to where he could focus on the verdict. No matter what the jury decided, this fight wouldn’t be over by a long shot and Scott showed that with his eyebrows furrowed.

“In the case of The People vs. Scott George, on one count statutory rape, we find the defendant Mr. Scott George…guilty as charged.”

“No!” cried Adrienne from a far corner of the courtroom while the judge’s gavel banging restored order to a chaotic situation. No amount of mallet whacking could drain the tears from Adrienne Simpson’s eyes as she hugged her mother tightly.

“Bail set at five thousand dollars. Thank you, members of the jury. Bailiff, please take the defendant away. I’ll hand down his sentence soon enough. Case dismissed,” said the judge before banging the gavel one last time.

The bailiff grabbed Scott’s arm and brought him to his feet before cuffing his hands behind his back and pulling him away. The defendant’s eyes watered as his lawyer mouthed the words, “I’m sorry for everything.” Scott nodded at him as he was being half-dragged down the aisle.

“Scott!” shouted Adrienne as she rushed to the center, stopping the bailiff and his charge in their tracks. She placed a hand on her boyfriend’s shoulder and whisper-sobbed, “Promise me this isn’t over! Promise me you’ll fight through the pain!”

“I promise you, Adrienne. We will see each other again.” He tried to kiss her, but was immediately pulled away by the scruff of his neck. He never took his eyes off of his beautiful, yet sorrowful Adrienne Simpson, even when she turned away to hug her mother once more.

Before Scott could cross the threshold leading to the outside world, he distinctly heard his girlfriend shout, “I’m not a goddamn victim, you assholes!” The uncaring judge banged the gavel even louder in order to shut her up.

The one thing that raced through Scott’s mind as he was being hauled away into the police car was anxiety over whether or not he made a promise he couldn’t keep. Maybe the two of them would see each other again…in the next life. Maybe there could finally be justice in a political climate where there was none…in the next life. Maybe the world would finally pull its head out of its ass…in the next life.

Such a funny phrase for someone as atheistic as Scott George: the next life. He had only heard about its beauty through the Pop Evil song of the same name. Even without his trusty MP3 player, he could still hear Leigh Kakaty’s golden voice crooning that lovely rock tune to him. Scott was surprised that his mind was cooperative for a change instead of trying to force-feed him worms, or worse yet, the philosophy of a conformist community.

In many ways, the prison system was a “community” of its own. Everybody wore the same clothing. Everybody did the same activities. Ate the same disgusting food. Lived with the same disgusting people. Lived by the rules of the same disgusting prison guards. Lived under the thumb of a warden who could only be described as Aloysius Striker on steroids. And to think, that woman was actually a real person instead of a traumatic Floydian ghost.

That reminded Scott of something that brought out even more wormy feelings in his stomach: would he see Alan Young in prison too? What kind of person would he become after such a short time of captivity? Alan was already a nasty son of a bitch. What would he look like in an orange jumpsuit? Would he be covered in prison tattoos? Would he look twice as ugly as when he went in? Would he actually be good at fighting this time around? Scott somehow took solace in the idea that the other prisoners wouldn’t put up with his rotten attitude. But even that modicum of solace wasn’t enough to shut up the worms in Scott’s belly and brain. Where was a gavel when he needed one?

Silent Warrior, Chapter 10

Scott George could have stayed locked up in his own imagination for a thousand years and he would’ve been happy. Even in a fictional dream, holding Adrienne Simpson in his arms was a warm experience that made him tingle all over his body. But eventually the real world caught up to him and it was time once again to go to Perkins High School a.k.a. hell on earth. Not even fictional escapism could free him from his responsibilities. At eighteen years old, he wasn’t a kid anymore. This shit had to be done.

But instead of catching the school bus and surrounding himself with laughing troglodytes, Scott woke up just before dawn and walked the whole way in solitude. Instead of starving his already pencil-thin body even further, he grabbed two unheated Pop Tarts and nibbled on them gently like a hamster. And instead of looking like a homeless Power Ranger with a rat’s nest for hair, he combed his hair backwards and wore blue jeans and combat boots with his obligatory black shirt.

He toed the line between love and war with his new dress code and eating habits. If he wanted to make his dream a reality, he had to fight for what he wanted. “Heart Shaped Box” by Nirvana wasn’t exactly war music, but the MP3 soundtrack powered Scott through his early morning walk to school. Not one shitty human being bumped his shoulders or cursed him out the whole way. Either that was a good sign or the calm before the storm.

Scott had taken his last hamster bite of breakfast by the time the sun bloomed in the sky and he arrived at school. To his surprise, not one student locked eyes with him or even gave off a hint of a mocking smile. Still, he had a knot in his stomach that wouldn’t stop pounding. He had to swallow hard to keep his Pop Tarts in his stomach, but he finally trudged up the stone stairs and past the front door. So far, so good. A sigh of relief escaped his frosting-covered lips.

“Mr. George. Can I have a word with you in my office,” said Principal Williams, who stood at the entrance with her arms folded, probably expecting Scott this whole time.

“Uh…,” stammered Scott as he looked like a deer in the headlights. “Can it wait until after history class?”

“Are you really that eager to put up with Mr. Simpson for another day? You didn’t seem to mind bailing out on him yesterday when you crept out of detention. What makes you so happy to see him this time around?” Lingering students let out their “ooo’s” and Miss Williams barked at them to shut up and keep walking. She then motioned for Scott to join her in her office before shutting the door behind her and instructing him to have a seat.

Scott’s face was aimed low at his boot laces, studying the various patterns as some kind of excuse to avoid eye contact with yet another authority figure. “Listen, Miss Williams, if you’re going to punish me, do it already and spare me the lecture. I know what I did was wrong and the sooner I get this crap over with, the better.”

Miss Williams lifted Scott’s head with a singular finger underneath his chin and said, “There’s more to it than that, my friend. Skipping detention is a serious offense on its own, but I’m more interested in the whys than the whats. I know about your lack of love with Mr. Simpson. I know this because pretty much every student he has says the same thing about him: that he’s senselessly cruel and doesn’t care one way or another about their fates.”

As soon as the Principal removed her finger from Scott’s chin, he asked, “If he’s really that much of a pain in the ass, why don’t you just fire him already? I don’t think there’s a single person in this building who would miss his sorry ass.”

“Duly noted, Mr. George,” said Miss Williams as she folded her hands across her chest. “Trust me, I’d love nothing more than to tell him not to let the door hit him on the ass on his way out. But it’s not that easy. It never has been. Teachers and other authority figures can’t just get fired over disagreements with the students. In other words, you don’t have to be a friendly person in order to qualify for the job. It’s screwed up, but that’s the way things go sometimes.”

A frustrated Scott slapped his own thighs and said, “It’s beyond screwed up, Miss Williams. School is supposed to be a place where kids can grow and learn things. What are they supposed to learn from having a bad teacher? That’s not a rhetorical question. I’d actually like to know the answer to that. Sure, there are bosses out there who never get their comeuppance, but that’s the very thing we should be avoiding when we have the chance.”

“I’m sorry, Scott. It’s out of my hands. What happens to you from this point on is up to Mr. Simpson since he’s the one who assigned you to detention in the first place. If you stiff him again, I’ll have no choice but to expel you.”

Scott folded his arms and said, “That’s right, Miss Williams. Punish the victim. Punish the guy who’s been laughed at for his whole high school career. Punish the guy who has few opportunities to stand up for himself. Punish the guy who actually knows what justice is supposed to mean. I knew it. I have no fucking allies in this school. Nobody really does. That’s why they’re acting out the way they do.”

“There’s no joy in this for me, Scott,” said Miss Williams as she leaned forward in her chair. “Even with students who deserve punishment the most, there’s no happiness in dishing it out to them. I also know what justice is, but I’m also wise enough to know that justice doesn’t always get served. Whatever Mr. Simpson has planned for you as punishment for ditching him yesterday, you’d better follow through with it.”

“Got it,” said Scott while sarcastically nodding his head. “Any other dreams of mine you want to crush while you have me here?”

“No, not particularly. But in order to make one of them come true, you have to endure a little bit of the suck for just a few minutes.” When Scott formed a confused look on his face, the Principal explained, “I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but there’s a video of you being circulated on You Tube. It has thousands of hits already and the comments are cringe-worthy at best.”

Reality smashed Scott in the stomach with a sack of bricks. He bent over in his seat and fought like hell to suppress vomit. Principal Williams rushed to get a trash bucket underneath his face, but after moments of intense breathing and body pulsations, it turned out Scott didn’t need it. He leaned back in his chair with pinprick feelings in his face and chest. He swallowed more saliva and it tasted like warm, bitter tea. Tears barbecued his stinging eyes as he struggled even harder to keep himself together.

“You already know about it, don’t you, Scott,” said Principal Williams with a hand on her student’s shoulder. The two of them hugged it out while Scott’s fiery tears bathed the Principal’s suit jacket. “You don’t have to tell us any more about it. We know who filmed that video.”

Scott broke the embrace and shouted, “So what?! You said yourself justice doesn’t always get served! So what the fuck are you going to do to that bitch-ass Alan Young?! Does he get to slip through the cracks or do only teachers get preferential treatment?!”

“If you’d stop bawling for a moment and see for yourself, you’d have the answer!” Miss Williams retorted while pointing her finger towards her office window.

Scott’s waterworks were cut short as confusion took over. Miss Williams pointed again and again until he pulled himself together and humored her this one time. His eyes widened as he watched two police officers talking to Alan Young. He couldn’t tell what they were saying, but whatever it was, it couldn’t have been friendly. The two cops spun Alan around and slammed him against the wall while cuffing his thick wrists behind his back. Straggling students screamed in horror at what they were witnessing. Even Alan himself couldn’t help but shed a few tears as he was being hauled away.

“Invasion of privacy, cyber harassment, you name it, this kid has done it all in that one video,” said Miss Williams. “If the other kids can pay attention to a stupid video, then they’ll damn sure pay attention to Alan’s arrest. He needed to be made an example of, Scott. Sooner or later, Mr. Simpson will get his. I can’t tell you when or how, but the domino effect is already in place.”

For the first time in what seemed like ages, Scott’s tearful smile seemed genuine instead of looking like a psychotic killer. He spun around and embraced Principal Williams once more while thanking her over and over again in a high pitched squeal. Feeling awkward, the authority figure returned the hug ever so slowly and noncommittally. “You’re welcome, Scott,” she said. “Please let go of me and get back to your classes. I believe second period is about to begin anytime soon.”

Silent Warrior, Chapter 8

By the time Scott gathered his wits about him for the thousandth time that day, the orange hell across the sky darkened into a starlit night complete with a full moon. He didn’t know whether to be offended or relieved that his mother didn’t try to call him on his cell phone. He didn’t burst out of the house all this way just to think about her any more than he had to. Instead he tried to find relief in the cold night air blowing against his still red hot skin. Maybe a rainstorm would have been nice, but at this time of year, it was highly unlikely.

Rows upon rows of marked graves lay before Scott. This wasn’t the start of another trippy nightmare; he was wide awake as he humanly could be. Every stone cross, every marble angel, and every tombstone reminded him that life was short even though he had his own future ahead of him. Did he have much of a future left after high school? What college was going to take a damaged young man like him? Why should anybody care? He guessed he would be dead or in jail long before he had the chance to find a real job.

The soundtrack of “Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 1” by Pink Floyd soothed Scott’s battered eardrums as he approached the grave of his father, Carter Clifford George. The tombstone wasn’t anything fancy, but the sentiment of remembering a simpler life was the same. Scott touched the gravestone with his fingertips and allowed a singular tear to soak the grass beneath.

“Dad…I love you,” he whispered, his voice growing shakier with every word. “If you were here today, none of this would be happening. You were what a real father should be. Not that I would know anything about that, because I don’t plan on having kids. I might not even live long enough to know if I’ll ever be a worthy father. You and I can be together again, Dad. Won’t that be great?”

Scott dropped to his knees and the tears welling up in his eyes turned into a winter storm of emotions. His eyeballs stung like a motherfucker from holding all of this back at school. Even while sharing this moment with his deceased father, he wanted to keep holding it in. But the tears kept rolling. The rage kept bubbling. Adrenaline pulsated through his body. With nobody here but the spirits of the dead, Scott finally cracked and splintered while shouting “DAD!” to the dark heavens above.

He pounded the gravestone with clenched fists and shouted, “Why the fuck did you leave me here to die, you motherfucker?! I need you, damn it! Come home! Come back home and teach my bitch mother a lesson in what it means to be a good fucking parent! Dad! Come back!” Tears moistened his knees like a lawn sprinkler while he struggled to swallow the snot building up in his nose. No matter how many times he pounded that gravestone and begged his father to return, Scott George was still a broken man with nothing to live for.

The crying and screaming session left his legs feeling spaghetti-like and his ribs feeling like they’d been punched in by a heavyweight boxer. Scott breathed so heavily that his voice dropped a few octaves. Using the gravestone for leverage, he hoisted himself up and struggled to stay balanced. He could have easily passed for someone who was just tossed out of a bar for being too intoxicated. His blurry vision was proof of this, but with one hard blink, he could clearly see Alan Young holding a smart phone up to him and grinning from ear to ear.

“I got to say, that’s some Oscar-worthy shit right there, buddy,” Alan mocked. “You’ll be a You Tube celebrity in no time at all once this goes live. Hell, you might even have fifteen minutes of internet fame as a meme. I’ll have to think of a good tagline, though.”

Still breathing like an enraged grizzly bear, Scott held up a finger and warned, “This isn’t the time or the place for your bullshit, Alan. Give me that phone so I can shove it up your ass and lose it forever!”

“Too late, crybaby,” said Alan as he put his phone back in his shorts pocket. “Uploading that shit was as easy as one, two, three. Your ass is on TV!”

The question wasn’t how far Alan Young would stoop. It was how far Scott would run towards him if it meant giving this moron the beating of a lifetime. The chase was on throughout the graveyard. Scott shouted every curse word he could think of at Alan while threatening to, “Punch a hole through [his] big fat chest.” The bully turned around and laughed at his assailant while keeping a long distance between the two of them. Alan even zig-zagged between rows of graves, but the red-visioned Scott stormed towards him like a stampede of rhinos.

Scott had his target in sight and was ready to pounce on him at any moment. Oh, the punches he could throw. The knees that could connect to Alan’s jaw. Maybe Scott could devour this uncaring human being as though this really was the African wild. He could taste the blood on his tongue and feel the moistness of brains sloshing between this teeth. Maybe this would be his permanent cure for anorexia.

And then the high school senior accidentally pounded his own knee against one of the stone crosses and plummeted to the ground, allowing Alan to get away with the evidence and wave goodbye in the process. The cries of pain and the curses that followed filled the night air like a wolf’s howl at the full moon. Scott clutched his bruised knee and pounded the ground with the fist he wanted to use on Alan over and over again.

“Hey, kid!” shouted a middle-aged man not too far from Scott’s location. The crying came to a screeching halt as what appeared to be an undertaker shined a flashlight in Scott’s eyes. “I think you better go home, kid. You and your friend have had enough fun at the dead’s expense for one night.”

“Friend? Friend?!” chuckled Scott through his tears, progressively growing more insane with every cackle. He used the gravestone to pull himself to his feet and limped over to the undertaker, staring up at him with wild bat shit eyes. “If that fat fucker was a friend, I’d hate to meet my enemies. You saw the whole thing, didn’t you? And yet, you did nothing about it! You’re just like every other client you’ve got buried six feet under: you’re dead to the world around you!”

“You want me to do something about this, buddy?” asked the undertaker. “How about if I pull out my cell phone and call 9-1-1 right now. Does that sound good to you? Maybe I’ll tell them a couple of necro-nuggets were looking to get their freak on with the dead bodies.”

Scott ripped the undertaker’s cell phone out of his overalls and asked, “You mean this piece of shit? You want to know what I think of your little 9-1-1 call? Do you, bitch?!” The teenager threw the phone against one of the stone crosses and shattered it into slivers. “If you to want call someone that badly, you should probably howl at the moon like all the other doggies. Woof-woof! Hahaha!”

“You are bat shit crazy, my friend,” said the undertaker while shaking his head. “I’ll be sure to send you the bill for my cell phone once I figure out who the hell you are.”

Scott pulled on the undertaker’s overall straps and grinned at him like a comic book villain. “You do all the detective work you need to do, Dick Tracy. In the meantime, I’m going to just fly away and leave you to…whatever it is you like to do with dead bodies. I’m sure it’s a healthy hobby. If not, then fuck you. I’m flying away! I’m flying away!”

The watchman shook his head yet again as Scott flapped his arms like bird wings and skipped his way out of the graveyard. He sang a little high-pitched tune for the undertaker’s musical enjoyment. “Get some help, asshole!” shouted the watchman as Scott George “flew away” into the night.

“Are you getting this, Alan?!” shouted Scott in a quasi-feminine tone. “I’m going to be a runway diva! I’m going to be a You Tube star! Who’s going to please me today?!” He giggled like a sassy schoolgirl all the way home that night while listening to “I’m Going Slightly Mad” by Queen on his MP3 player. He didn’t bother to see if anybody was spying on him or if any pedestrians were scrambling to get out of his way. That kind of thought process required a brain that didn’t explode like a bag of popcorn.

As soon as Scott reached his doorstep, the divalicious insanity was replaced by another round of him dropping to his knees and bawling his eyes out. This was what it meant to hit rock bottom. Any further down and he’d truly be walking the nine circles of hell for all eternity. He didn’t give two shits if his mother was listening to him agonize or not. The closest he’d get to sympathy was looking it up in the dictionary between shit and syphilis. That seemed to be the general consensus among the people of this god forsaken city. 

Lunatic Justice and Silent Warrior Announcements

***TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS***

I prepared two speeches tonight. Hopefully, I’ll get to use the one in my left pocket. No, I have no idea what that means either; I just heard it on an episode of The Shield. Let’s get started, shall we.

***LUNATIC JUSTICE***

First and foremost, it finally happened. My third collection of poetry, Lunatic Justice, is currently online in paperback and (soon to be) Kindle format, though it’ll take a few days for the book to actually be buyable. The poems cover a wide variety of topics whether it’s politics, anger, violence, drugs, bullying, or even something as simple as being stuck in traffic. There are a few comedy songs in there too whether it’s the David Bowie parody “Ground Control to Uncle Tom” or the ridiculously put-together “Conspiracy Theory”. This book is geared towards mature audiences due to the abundance of cursing, sex references, and delicious bloody violence.

Good Reads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38324494-lunatic-justice

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1984137816/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1517543240&sr=1-1

***SILENT WARRIOR, CHAPTER 7***

Remember how I said a few blogs ago how I would never post sex-oriented chapters of Silent Warrior online? Well, my lovely beta reader Marie Krepps suggested that I post them to a safe haven for this kind of content, Wattpad. I wrote chapter seven two days ago and it’s there now if you want to read it. I should warn you all that it’s not all hot and spicy action. There’s some heart-wrenching drama shortly after Scott George gets done stroking his meat. Your hard-on will be dead by the time this chapter is over.

Wattpad Profile: https://www.wattpad.com/user/Garrison-Kelly

I’d give you all the direct link to chapter seven, but I’m exercising a little caution with this one since this blog entry is going live on my non-mature social media accounts.

***SILENT WARRIOR SIDE NOTE: TITLE***

The further I get into writing this novel, the more I question whether Silent Warrior is the best title for it. Sure, it sounds cool and all, but Scott George is neither silent nor a warrior. He’s very outspoken about his opinions and the most violent thing he’s done in this story so far is strangle Alan Young over the back of a bus seat (not to mention that Alan lives through the whole thing). Maybe something I can do tonight is brainstorm a list of possible alternatives for titles. One that I’m thinking about is “A Community of Worms”, which is a reference to the nightmare Scott has in the opening chapter. And yes, that nightmare and its characters will factor into the novel later on, in case you were wondering. I can’t think of any other title ideas at the moment, so I’ll leave it to you guys to let me know what you think of all of this.

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking at the barrel of an Armalite. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days keeping out of trouble like the soldiers say. I don’t want to spend my time in hell looking at the walls of a prison cell. I don’t ever want to play the part of a statistic on a government chart. It’s dark all day and it glows all night. Factory smoke and acetylene light. I face the day with my head caved in looking like something that the cat brought in. And they’re only going to change this place by killing everybody in the human race. They would kill me for a cigarette. But I don’t even want to die just yet. There has to be an invisible sun. It gives its heat to everyone. There has to be an invisible sun. It gives us hope when the whole day’s done.”

-The Police singing “Invisible Sun”-

Sex Scenes In Silent Warrior

***SEX SCENES IN SILENT WARRIOR***

I don’t like to give spoilers for my stories or anybody else’s, but in this case, an exception has to be made for my current work in progress, Silent Warrior. Two future chapters of this novel will include sex scenes between Scott George and Adrienne Simpson. The first of these two chapters features Scott masturbating in his bedroom to Adrienne’s bare feet. The second of the two chapters will feature a full-blown sex scene between the two high school sweethearts. Because of various social media sites’ prohibition of sexual content, these two sex-based chapters will not be posted online and will instead be kept on my computer in a private folder.

This next statement is not a knock on any online groups I’m a part of, but is instead an indictment of society in general. You can show people getting their heads blown off with shotguns. You can show people getting their hearts ripped out of their chests. You can set people on fire. You can beat the shit out of attack dogs. But whatever you do, don’t show two high school students having consensual sex. In that respect, it would be less offensive if Scott George hacked off Tom Simpson’s limbs with a machete, or if Alan Young ripped Scott’s brain out of his skull through his eye sockets. John Lennon famously pointed out the hypocrisy of violence being less offensive than sex, but he was assassinated in 1980, so we’re pretty much deprived of his wisdom in this day and age.

And in case you couldn’t tell already from the chapters I’ve posted, yes, Scott George has a foot fetish. It’s a common fetish to have, particularly for men. There’s nothing weird or repulsive about it (unless you want to ruin it by pointing out foot odor and toe jam). If you wear flip-flops around a foot fetishist in public, don’t panic, because he’s not going to hump your feet at a million miles per hour right there and then. That’s what molesters do. Being a foot fetishist is nowhere close to being the same as being a molester. In the same way gay people don’t hump every guy they see at random, foot fetishists have perfect self-control in public, because most of them are, surprise, surprise, decent people. I know this, because I too have a foot fetish, which is my own little self-insert for Scott George’s character.

Of course, another part of this controversy is the age difference between Scott and Adrienne. Scott is an eighteen-year-old senior and Adrienne is a fifteen-year-old freshman. While I won’t divulge how their age difference will factor into later parts of the story, I will say that it’s a central part of my novel, especially towards the end. Some of my readers will think nothing of a three year age difference while others will say that Adrienne is too far below the age of consent, which is sixteen. It could be a matter of simple math or it could be anal retentiveness towards the rules and regulations, depending on your personal opinion.

In conclusion, if you’re searching the internet for two lost chapters of Silent Warrior, you now know why you’ll never find them. I’d love to be able to share them with you all, but it’s just not in the cards. I’ve been in trouble plenty of times in my internet surfing days for posting offensive content. It’s the reason why I’m banned from Play By Web forever and why I no longer have a website called Macaroni & Ownage Productions. I’m enjoying my internet freedom as of today, so I’m going to err on the side of safety and refrain from posting those two sexual chapters of my story. Thanks for understanding and have a great day.

***MOVIE DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

RANDAL: So what you’re trying to tell me is that I’m no more responsible for my own actions than, say, a death squad soldier in Bosnia?

DANTE: Oh, now that’s stretching it. You’re not being asked to slay children or anything like that.

RANDAL: Not yet.

-Clerks-

Silent Warrior, Chapter 2

Scott didn’t even bother trying to look presentable for his classes that morning. His chestnut Sideshow Bob hair jutted in every direction humanly possible. His gray sweatpants overflowed with bagginess, thought they managed to stay above his waist. The holes in his plain black T-shirt didn’t reveal much, but they were noticeable to anybody with at least twenty-forty vision. He didn’t even bother to grab a bite to eat before he left the house. Even a strawberry Pop Tart would have resembled worms after that screwed up dream. Plus, it would have probably tasted like stomach acid and oral shit.

Without saying goodbye to his single mother, Scott popped his ear buds in and scrolled through his MP3 player looking for a good song. He kept his chin tucked the whole time and bumped into a few fellow students along the way to the bus stop. No apologies were necessary, because the hostile cursing from the other kids made reconciliation futile. By the time the bus arrived and Scott took a seat devoid of human contact, he finally found the song he was looking for: “Say Goodnight” by Gemini Syndrome.

“It's time to say goodnight to the nightmare as it gently falls asleep. / Another restless night, another show plays in my head. / It seems to never end. / Another hopeless plight, another cold and empty bed, / And the solitude again. / How can I live this lie again?”

It was always amazing to Scott how a voice normally used for screaming heavy metal lyrics was capable of taking the edge off every now and then. Despite knowing what the subconscious theater had in store for him, Scott allowed Aaron Nordstrom’s golden voice lull him into such a relaxed state that he rested his head against the seat in front of him. This was the major difference between being exhausted and being at peace. His eyelids grew heavier even as the mildly intense guitars hummed in his ears.

Scott could have fallen asleep on this bus and stayed here for all eternity. Let the truant officers drag his ass out kicking and screaming. Let the police handcuff his wrist to the desk. One man’s truancy was another man’s peaceful resistance. It was peaceful enough for Scott to snore rather loudly on the bus and attract the attention of the other students. If they did giggle at him, he couldn’t tell because of Aaron Nordstrom and his godlike passion for music.

Just like the puppet strings in his latest nightmare, Scott was jerked awake by the sudden impact of thick fists slamming down on the backrest in front of him. His heart thumped like a war drum and his bloodshot eyes nearly popped out of his skull at the sight of Alan Young, a kid he knew since middle school, emphasis on kid. With a stocky frame, the world’s meanest eyes, a drill instructor haircut, and fists covered in scars, he could easily be Scott’s worst nightmare, Aloysius Striker aside.

“Wakey-wakey, little bitch!” Alan mocked. “You look just like a little bitty baby with a thumb in your mouth! Does the big baby want his bottle? Does he need to be burped? Or maybe you need to have your big smelly diaper changed! It must be all that shitty music you listen to! I bet you’ve got some Justin Bieber on there, you little fairy!” That last line got a few chuckles from the other students.

In no mood to take crap from anyone, Scott fired back with, “You know what I’m listening to right now? A thirty minute track of your mother having an orgasm. Guess who gave it to her.” The kids on the bus gave their obligatory “ooos” to the response.

Alan also gave off an “ooo”, but only out of sarcasm. He even wiggled his fingers at Scott to show how “scared” he was. “Look at you, Scotty-Potty! The big baby’s using big boy words! You’d better be careful with that mouth of yours or else I might have to spank you!” Another chorus of laughter echoed throughout the bus.

“Look, if you want to grab my ass that badly, you should probably take me out on a movie date first,” said Scott. After another string of “ooos”, he punctuated his insult with, “Not that there’s anything wrong with it!”

Alan’s joyful bully expression morphed into humiliated anger, his jowls drooping like a Bassett Hound. He grabbed Scott’s cheeks and squeezed them together tightly. “Seriously, you little cunt, you’d better shut that big mouth of yours. Don’t forget who the real bitch in this relationship is. Maybe instead of giving you a spanking, I’ll give you a free colonoscopy.”

Scott grabbed Alan’s thick wrist and clamped down so hard that the bully was forced to let go. Mr. Young’s jowls wiggled in pain, but he wouldn’t allow a scream to exit his mouth so easily. Scott’s face also trembled, but only because he scalded with rage. “You put your hands on me one more time and I’ll rip your fucking head off. You aren’t using it anyways, so it won’t be a big loss.”

Alan jerked his hand out of Scott’s anaconda grip and attempted to throw a punch. The victim ducked down far enough to avoid having his face turned into Floydian sausage. Scott responded by grabbing the back of Alan’s pug-like skull and forcing his throat over the backrest, cutting off his oxygen to the point of having purple jowls. The more the other students chanted “Fight! Fight! Fight!” the harder Scott squeezed, until the bus driver slammed on the brakes and everyone fell on their asses. The chokehold was released and Alan gasped and coughed for fresh morning air.

The door flung open and the middle-aged female bus driver shouted, “That’s it! I’ve had enough of this crap! Get off my bus! Move it!”

As soon as he could talk clearly without wheezing and hacking, Alan pointed his sausage finger at Scott and said, “You heard the lady. Off the bus! Beat it, kid!”

“Not him, you creep! You!” belted the bus driver. Alan’s eyes bugged out with confusion and horror. “You were the one who was picking on him this whole time! I saw you throw that punch! You’re the one who’s getting off the goddamn bus! Get out! Don’t make me call the damn police!”

Alan’s breathing intensified for more reasons than just regaining lost oxygen. “This is bullshit!” he yelled while punching every backrest on every seat on his way off the bus. He made sure to snap, “Fuck you!” at the bus driver as he marched down the stairs and into the lonely streets. The doors slammed shut and the bus was in gear once again.

“Are you alright, Mr. George?” asked the driver.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine, I guess,” huffed Scott. He too took the deepest breaths he could muster as he fidgeted his buds back in his ears. Even without music at first, his world was quiet due to the other kids settling down, obviously not wanting to join Alan Young in the cold and desolate streets.

With the peace that Scott once had gone forever, he cycled through his MP3 player looking for something a little angrier and a little heavier than before. “World Scum” by Soulfly always did the trick with its machinegun-like double bass drums, thumping bass guitar, roaring guitars, and leonine screaming of Max Cavalera.

With gritted teeth, tight lips, and a bobbing head, Scott got into the groove of his newfound soundtrack. Any anger he had before this bus ride would be bottled up so tightly that it could blow like an atomic bomb. His first class of the day was with the dreaded history teacher Tom Simpson. Aloysius Striker and Alan Young would have made a lovely power couple in another life, but Scott’s igneous temper would be reserved for the one man who could potentially set him off.

Tucking his head down so nobody would see him, tears poured out of Scott George’s eyes, splashing on his sweatpants to where somebody could mistake those stains for misaimed piss. He didn’t make any sobbing noises, because that would attract more attention than he wanted at this point. His lips quivered, his heart thumped like crazy, he couldn’t hold his fingers still as he slid them across the MP3 player, but he still remained invisible to the other classmates, who were off in their own world after witnessing Alan Young getting strangled nearly to death.

The bus had finally arrived at Perkins High School. The door flung open, the bus driver yelped, “Everybody out!” and true to form, the students filed out of the door one by one, not necessarily in the most civilized fashion. Scott peeled off his ear buds and shut down his music, his fingers still trembling as he placed his MP3 player in his backpack. Even after the final kid got off the bus, he still remained. Getting off this god forsaken vehicle would have been more tiring than Navy SEAL hell week training. Every day was hell week for Scott George.

“Hey!” the bus driver belted. “It’s time to get off the bus!” Scott sighed and unhinged himself from the seat before trudging down the aisle with a hung head and wiped away tears. The driver asked, “Are you sure you’re going to be okay? Do you need to see Principal Williams?”

“Not today. Maybe someday, but not today.”