Belts and Welts

Owen Hall’s silent rage steamed hotter than the mashed potatoes and gravy he was eating for supper. Delicious food, though right in front of him, was the last thing on his racing mind. Sitting across from him at the dinner table was his wife Valerie and his daughter Leila. Both ladies smiled arrogantly at Owen while the father’s expression was dripping with ogre-like hatred. “Come on, old man, smile and make people wonder about you!” said Leila with a mockingly saccharine tone. Owen’s mouth curled even further downward as he tried to eat his dinner.

“Did you do your homework tonight?” asked Owen with disturbing calmness.

“I’ll do it after America’s Next Top Model is over,” said Leila. Her phone vibrated in her jeans pocket and she immediately went into text-messaging mode. Her eyes never left the screen even after Owen waved his meaty hand over her face.

“Relax, Owen,” said Valerie with her hand on his shoulder. “She’s a teenager. You know how they are. I’ll bet you anything you were like that at her age.”

Owen cracked his thick neck on both sides and said, “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“Of course you don’t, because you’re an old fart,” said Leila while her thumbs continued to dance around her smart phone’s screen. The sharp jab got a small giggle from Valerie.

Owen shook his head and put his fork down to address his daughter. His muscular hands formed a steeple underneath his hairy chin as he said, “You know, Leila. I got a call from the school today. They said you haven’t been keeping up with your homework. In fact, it’s pretty much the same song and dance for the last few weeks. Whenever the school has a problem with you, they always phone me and I get the blame for it.”

“Honey, eat your potatoes and we’ll talk about this some more after dinner,” said Valerie as she patted her manicured hand across her husband’s sausage fingers.

“I don’t want to talk about it later,” said Owen. “I want to talk about it now. If we don’t talk about it now, we’ll never talk about it again. You keep saying we’ll have all of these chances and those chances are always squandered. Put the fucking phone down!” The last sentence directed at Leila had some extra bite to it.

Instead of honoring her father’s wishes, Leila mocked his words with a semi-retarded voice and kept texting. Valerie smiled at Owen and said, “Come on, it’s not like this is the end of the world. She’ll figure it out soon enough.”

“No, she won’t!” snapped Owen as he stood up, garnering Leila’s attention at last. “She’s going to keep fucking up and nothing’s going to get done! What about college?! What about a job?! Does she not care about these things?! Last time I checked, sitting on your lazy ass watching TV isn’t exactly a nine-to-fiver!”

“Dude! Chill!” said Leila. “You don’t have to bite my head off! School’s been really hard lately!”

“School is supposed to be hard, you dumb shit!” barked Owen. “That’s how you grow and develop as a human being! If everything was easy, there’d be no fucking point!”

Valerie shot up from her chair and pointed at her husband while shouting, “Owen, sit down and eat your food! You’re acting like an old bastard!”

Owen took off his glasses and rolled up his flannel shirt sleeves. “No, Valerie, you’re wrong. That’s not what an old bastard acts like. This is.” With no trace of high voltage anger in his voice, Owen took off his leather belt and slowly walked around the table to Leila’s side of the table. Both wife and daughter looked up at him with wide, horrified eyes while Leila kept asking him what he was doing with a stutter.

The towering father grabbed Leila by the hair and slammed her torso against the table, not caring if the violent act got food on her T-shirt. Both ladies screamed like they were trapped in a real-life horror movie while Owen smacked his leather belt across Leila’s ass five times, each strike more sadistic and louder than the last. Both women collapsed to the floor and hugged each other while sobbing and screaming simultaneously. Leila could only bury her face in her mother’s chest while the mother looked up at Owen with puppy-dog eyes, asking, “Why?” over and over again in a whispery voice.

“I’ll tell you why, Valerie,” said Owen with trembling jowls. “I’m tired of being the bad guy at this dinner table. I’m tired of being the principal’s scapegoat when this whole shit storm is clearly my daughter’s fault. I’m tired of being disrespected. I’m tired of being walked on. And to think, this is Leila’s first belt whipping and she got to experience it at age fourteen. Too little too late. She’s grown up to be a bigger super-bitch than her mother.”

Leila pulled her face out of her mother’s hug and tearfully mouthed the words to her dad, “I hate you. I hate you so much.”

Owen slowly crouched down beside his daughter, placed his free hand on her convulsing shoulder, and quietly said, “That’s okay, darling. I hate you too. I hate you so much that I want to get the fuck out of this place as soon as I can. That belt spanking wasn’t out of discipline or even love. It was out of rage. It was out of a whole decade of disrespect and nothing being done about it. I’m done with you, Leila. I’m done with your mother. She better hire a good divorce lawyer, because I’ll be doing the same. Don’t expect a huge custody battle, little girl. Not even that creep Roy Moore will want you after all of this.”

Owen stood back up and his tree trunk knees popped like fireworks. Valerie also stood up, but brought her daughter to her feet with her and continued to hold her in a loving and sorrowful embrace. Valerie sobbed, “You can’t divorce me, Owen. After what you did tonight, I’ll take you for everything you’re worth!”

“Funny you mention that,” said Owen. “Because you probably will make more money off of my child support payments than you will busting your ass at a real job. Same goes for you, Leila. You’re both a bunch of losers. If you’re this disrespectful to me, what makes you think you’re going to be any better to your bosses? Oh, did I say bosses? I meant johns and pimps.”

“How can you say these things to your own family, Dad?” cried Leila. She could wipe her tears and comfort her sore buttocks all she wanted, but the sorrow continued to be painfully obvious.

“Family? What family?” said Owen with shrugged shoulders. “I don’t see a family in front of me. Just because you’ve got my DNA, doesn’t mean you’re anything more to me than a couple of bloodsucking leeches. The ride’s over. I’d tell you both to get your shit together, but you’re not even capable of getting that right, let alone an answer on a fucking math test.” The hulking father turned around and lumbered to his bedroom looking for a suitcase and some clothes.

“I’m sorry, Dad!” pleaded Leila while on her knees. “I’m sorry! I’ll do better in school! I’ll get a good job! Please, don’t leave us!”

“You’re too late for redemption, honey,” said Owen as he nonchalantly packed clothing into his suitcase and rolled it out to the kitchen. “It’s not my job to save you anymore. You can be someone else’s problem now.” He pointed at Valerie and said, “And you! You’ll be hearing from my lawyer first thing in the morning. Enjoy your dinner. I’m going to get a real meal at McDonald’s.” He waved goodbye and proceeded towards the front door with his suitcase in tow.

“Goddamn you, Dad!” shouted Leila as she picked up her dinner plate and threw it across the kitchen at Owen, who ducked down in the nick of time. The plate shattered and the mashed potatoes oozed down the kitchen wall.

But instead of white hot rage, Owen smiled for the first time in forever and said, “Thanks for giving my lawyer more talking points in court. Maybe your mother will start paying ME alimony instead. Bye-bye!” He waved again and stepped outside to the sounds of screaming teenagers and sobbing wives.

The chilly night air felt heavenly on Owen’s skin. The air tasted sweeter than anything on his dinner plate. A singular tear traveled down his husky cheek. He may have weighed well over three hundred pounds, but he felt lighter than a feather. He wasn’t going to just get away from this prison of a home. He was going to fly away like a caged bird.

There was a small moment where he questioned his need for spanking Leila with a belt. But as the screams and screeches from inside grew less tolerable, he shrugged his shoulders and rolled his suitcase out to the family SUV. He figured even sleeping in the back seat would be more comfortable than any fluffy mattress shared with his soon to be ex-wife.

Emoticon Artist

“Whoever left the Eagle Eye of Aragon in this dump should have his head chopped off,” said the brutish orc warrior Knox, who grinned at his war axe in anticipation of carrying out that threat. The odors of shit, piss, and rotten metal in this junkyard assaulted the nostrils of everyone in his adventuring party and made keeping their lunches down a fight to the death. The sight of human and rat bones congregating among the junk heaps did no favors for their nauseated stomachs.

“Yeah, I’m not happy about being here either, Knox,” said the scrappy, dust-covered gnome thief Christopher. “But my sources tell me the Eagle Eye is somewhere among these piles. Somebody wanted to get rid of it in a hurry to avoid being caught by authorities. They didn’t do a good enough job of it.”

“Let’s just get the cursed thing before Lord McCain shows up,” said the heavily armored cleric Bradshaw, who held his spiked mace with confidence and passion. “Then again, I wouldn’t mind throwing down with that creep.”

Each adventurer took separate routes in digging through these trash piles so as to expand their search. They dug with quickness and strength so as not to spend too much time getting dizzy from the shitty odors. Once one pile of trash was sorted through, another was and the cycle of dirty clothing and shivers of disgust continued all over again. Christopher gagged and coughed as he dug to the bottom of his pile and found a used sheepskin condom. He threw it off to the side and nearly hit Knox in the face with it, to which the savage orc barked at him to be more careful.

“Looking for this?!” said a deep, ominous voice at the junkyard’s mesh fence entrance. The adventurers got in their fighting stances and pointed their respective weapons at the dark robed figure covered in glowing red auras known as Lord McCain. The Eagle Eye of Aragon glowed a brilliant shade of yellow that rivaled the morning sun itself. The adventurers shielded their eyes with their arms so as not to be blinded by this beautiful gem.

The snake-faced wizard grinned at the party while bearing his fangs and slithering his tongue. As if swallowing a pill, Lord McCain gulped the Eagle Eye down and sent a storm of electricity through his own body. The party watched in wide-eyed awe as McCain’s robes disintegrated and his green scaly body was growing with bulging muscles until he had morphed into a full-fledged dragon. The partiers swallowed saliva and nearly shit themselves at the sight of this transformed mega-demon, who screamed so violently at his foes that a gust of wind blew past them and sent Christopher rolling backwards.

Knox quickly pushed the fear to the back of his mind and smiled like a slasher, long tongue, drool, and all. “Is that how we’re going to do this?! Fine by me, McCain! I’ll drink your blood like a cold frosty beer!” With his gigantic axe raised to the sky, Knox charged at the dragon with bloodlust in his eyes, slobber flowing from his chin, and train-like power in his legs.

Fantasizing about slashing the shit out of Lord McCain would have given Knox a bulge in his fur shorts the size of an elephant’s trunk, had it not been for the sudden ringing noise interrupting his bloody thoughts. He looked back and saw Bradshaw texting on his cell phone and not paying attention to the battle at hand. “Hey! Moron! Put the phone away! There’s a pissed off dragon in front of us!” shouted the orc brute.

That momentary distraction allowed the vicious beast to grab Knox by his ankles with one massive, razor-sharp claw and drag him across the dirt ground, causing him to leave his axe behind. “Bradshaw! Put the phone away and help me!” The cleric continued to text on his cell phone like he was writing the next great novel. “Bradshaw! No!” shouted Knox as he was hauled up into the air and had his entire upper body chewed off by the blood hungry dragon, like his massively muscle-bound body was just a corn dog to the transformed beast.

Bradshaw was left all alone to text on his phone and to potentially be eaten by this drooling monster. One earth-shaking step at a time, the dragon stomped his way over to the cleric, who never took his eyes off of his phone and whose thumbs were moving at the speed of light. With one powerful whack, the dragon knocked the phone out of the holy warrior’s hands.

“Hey! What was that for?!” whined Beth Bradshaw, a chubby young lady with a ponytail and a Star Wars T-shirt barely covering her tremendous features.

While Cody Knox and Brenda Christopher sat at opposite sides of the dinner table with their faces in their hands, Colin McCain, the Dungeon Master, pointed his sausage finger at Beth and said in a hushed, angry voice, “You know full well that I don’t allow texting during D&D sessions! It’s fucking rude! If your internet life is more important to you than playing with your friends, then go the fuck outside and do that shit!”

Tears stained Beth’s jowls and fogged up her glasses. “I’m sorry, Colin. I just…” Before she could finish her sentence, her surprisingly durable smart phone vibrated on the kitchen floor. Instead of honoring her DM’s wishes, she picked up the phone and texted rapidly some more. The tears were really pouring from her eyes at this point.

Colin pulled his ponytail tie out of his hair and with one sweep of his bulky arm brushed the character sheets, rule books, and potato chips off the table to snap Beth out of her trance. Cody yelled, “Hey!” as some of the potato chips ended up in his blue jeans-wearing lap and on his Sepultura T-shirt.

Beth looked up at Colin with pleading, damp eyes and softly said, “I’m sorry! I really am! I have to take care of this or else…”

“Or else what? Your online buddies will have to go without goofy emoticons and poorly-spelled words for ten more seconds?!” shouted Colin while his palms were firmly pressed against the table.

“Come on, Colin, leave her alone! Can’t you see she’s in tears?” said the skinny brunette Brenda, who held her arms in front of Colin like a failed attempt to shield Beth from the DM’s wrath.

“Tears? Tears?!” yelled Colin. “What does this crazy bitch have to be sad about?! The latest edition of Pokemon Go hasn’t come out yet?! The coffee machine is jammed?! Banana Republic ran out of khakis that don’t cut off the circulation to her brain?! You know what?! I’m putting an end to this crap once and for all! Give me that stupid phone!”

A tug-o’-war ensued between Beth and Colin over the former’s phone with Cody and Brenda trying to separate them. The two obese nerds nearly pulled each other across the table as they shouted incoherently over the reasonable-minded Cody and Brenda. One powerful jerk yanked Beth onto the table, which broke in two upon bearing her weight. She cried relentlessly into her arms while Colin scowled down on her with an animalistic fury. Brenda scowled back at him and said, “Now look what you’ve done!”

It was the baldheaded Cody who ended up with the phone in his hands. His expression changed from urgent rage to a saggy frown when he actually read the text message war in front of him.

“Cody!” shouted Colin. “Give me the goddamn phone!”

Mr. Knox held out a hand in front of the GM’s face and somberly said to the gaming group, “Beth’s grandmother just died in the hospital.” Beth continued to flood the broken table with tears and assault the ears of her friends with painful sobs. Cody and Brenda leaned down to pick her up to her knees before engaging in a loving, emotional group hug.

Brenda looked up at the stone-faced Colin and asked, “Are you going to hug her or what? She needs us right now, Colin. For the first time in your life, quit being a selfish ass and be there for your friend!”

Colin solemnly looked down at Brenda, Cody, and Beth and shook his head before walking around them and strolling into the living room. Feeling abandoned, the remaining three friends continued to hug and rub each other’s shoulders while Beth unloaded more tears and snot onto the shattered wooden table. “How can he do this to us?” she asked. “We’ve been his friend since high school. We’ve been through everything together. We rescued him from bullies. And all he cares about is his stupid game!”

The group hug was tighter and the hand-holding was firmer. Cody even planted a gentle kiss on Beth’s forehead. It had nothing to do with romance and everything to do with Beth losing two people in one night: first her grandmother, and then her friend of so many years.

And then the group huggers heard the sound of car keys jingling behind them. The keys belonged to Colin, who told his friends, “If you want a ride to the hospital, the car’s parked out back. We’ll even stop for some McDonald’s along the way. I’m buying.”

All three brokenhearted friends slowly stood up while Beth weakly smiled at Colin and said, “Thank you for understanding. Let’s go.”

Take It Back

***TAKE IT BACK***

There seem to be a lot of stories in the news lately about environmental disasters, the most prominent one being about the North Dakota pipeline that the Standing Rock Indian Nation is protesting. Not only would the pipeline poison their water supply, but it would desecrate sacred burial sites. During these protests, the oil company’s private security beat the protesters and unleashed attack dogs on them. And still the Indian Nation remains stronger than ever. Instead of inserting my own political dialogue into this matter, I’m going to have Pink Floyd do it for me with their 1994 hit “Take It Back”. And no, it’s not about an overly emotional chick. It’s about Mother Nature, an even more emotional chick with the power of geomancy. Look the song up on You Tube. Or you can read these lyrics, one of the two.

VERSE 1

Her love rains down on me as easy as the breeze

I listen to her breathing it, sounds like the waves on the sea

I was thinking all about her, burning with rage and desire

We were spinning into darkness, the earth was on fire

CHORUS

She could take it back, she might take it back some day

VERSE 2

So I spy on her, I lie to her, I make promises I cannot keep

Then I hear her laughter rising, rising from the deep

And I make her prove her love for me, I take all that I can take

And I push her to the limit to see if she will break

CHORUS

She might take it back, she could take it back some day

VERSE 3

Now I have seen the warnings, screaming from all sides

It's easy to ignore them and God knows I've tried

All of this temptation, it turned my faith to lies

Until I couldn't see the danger or hear the rising tide

CHORUS X3

She can take it back, she will take it back some day

***WEEKLY SHORT STORY CONTESTS AND COMPANY***

Once again, the WSS admins use a prompt suggestion of mine (Eagle Eye) and I am eternally grateful. But before I can do my official happy dance, I have to write “Emoticon Artist”, which goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

Colin McCain, Authoritative Dungeon Master

Cody Knox, D&D Warrior

Brenda Christopher, D&D Rogue

Beth Bradshaw, D&D Cleric and Texter

PROMPT CONFORMITY: The D&D characters are searching for a magical gem known as The Eagle Eye of Aragon.

SYNOPSIS: An exciting game of Dungeons & Dragons is taking place in Colin’s kitchen and involves the three players trying to defeat a metallic dragon at a robotic junkyard. Just when the climax of the battle is drawing near, Beth’s phone goes off and she gets in a text-messaging war with one of her relatives. As the Dungeon Master, Colin strictly forbids text messaging and/or crying at his table, but Beth isn’t so easy to comply. This angers Colin to where he dives across the table in an attempt to pry the phone away from Beth while Cody and Brenda are restraining him.

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

If Cain Gutwrench wasn’t scary enough for you, hopefully G-Pac will be. No, G-Pac doesn’t have much fighting experience beyond barroom brawls, but he’s a Dark Fantasy Warrior anyways due to his uniqueness. It’s not every day you see a hooded monk in a clown mask drumming away to a heavy metal tune. You kind of see that with Slipknot’s Shawn Crahan, but I don’t think Mr. Crahan would appreciate me using his likeness in Demon Axe. Thus, we have G-Pac. Before you ask, yes, G-Pac was named after me, Garrison Kelly, even though I don’t play the drums.

***DEMON AXE***

Now that we’re on the topic of Demon Axe, the torment is far from over for Daniel Mercer a.k.a. the Lord of the Pit. It’s bad enough Detective Shawn Henry asks him a bunch of stupid questions for the sake of fulfilling his “bureaucratic nightmare”. Now he gets a visit in the night from Raven Triscloud, an elf warrior who tries to warn Daniel that Roger Zee is far from finished with him. Of course, being the drugged out dunderhead that he is, Daniel thinks that Raven is full of crap and is just another traumatic hallucination. Is she?

***FACE BOOK STATUS OF THE DAY***

“If you ever get bitten by the world travel bug, it won’t be because you used to play Final Fight 2 for the Super Nintendo. It doesn’t matter what country Haggar, Carlos, and Maki do all of their street fighting in, because the stages look just as ghettoized and impoverished as the first level of the original Final Fight. For Christ’s sake, Holland looks like it had a nuclear bomb dropped on it. If the Mad Gear gang has the funds to travel overseas, you’d think they could get some nicer digs. Then again, getting a spinning piledriver from the top of Big Ben isn’t appealing no matter what your gang’s budget is.”

-Me-