I appreciate the support…I try hard to make you feel part of the story line.
Young Adult / A World Of Words - Chap 3
[Knock-Knock] “Reggie…you coming to dinner?” The sound of his mother’s voice barely able to break through the solitude of the wooden door and what it brought to his world. No sound was expelled or allowed to escape for that matter from the fortress of Reggie’s room. With the door locked and shackled in a sense or at least barricaded in the dillusionary thoughts of Reggie’s mind. With no sounds present it still did nothing to help calm the fears inside his mother’s gut and her mind.
[Knock-Knock] Trying once more to reach the attention of her son, this time catching an ear of music though faint and in the background. “Reggie you okay?” Still no reply came from the closed off room of Reggie Miller, “something happen today at school again? You want to talk about it?” Silence still the main character in his mother’s moment of dramatic uproar. “Well…suppers ready if your hungry and want to talk about whatever it is that’s bothering you…(pausing) or we could just eat,” standing silent outside of Reggie’s room, just hoping to hear something other than the subtle signs of music playing in the background. Minutes passed by slowly, feeling like hours to her troubled and panic filled mind. Feeling the sting of failure, all Reggie’s mother could do was to walk away and hope that if for anything she maybe got through to him and that he knew she was there to listen and to be a friend as well as his mother.
Inside the solitude of his dark room, back behind the flickering of the multitudes of burning candles and the constant movement of lights on the stereo’s equalizer. Tucked neatly in the back part of his bedroom, back next to the window where Reggie glanced back over his shoulder at the ramblings in which his mother spoke of. His mind chuckled at her words and concerns, playing with them like a puppy tugging away at his new toy rope. Little time would be spent reminiscing on the immediate drama at hand before turning his eyes back towards the cold feeling that the window offered. The cracking sound of the chair that helped to hold up his weight was not enough to shake Reggie from swimming in and out of his delusionary state, it was like some kind of safe zone for him when the days would get rough and rough most of them were.
Through the speakers you could hear Roger Waters and his band Pink Floyd playing their maddening tunes off the album called “The Wall.” Reggie’s eyes were slow to fix, nothing in particular that would catch his eye other than just watching the night and the calmness it seemed to bring over his world which felt like it was spinning dangerously out of control. With a bottle of hundred proof Smirnoff on the windowsill and a gallon of orange juice tucked just under his chair Reggie drank continuously of the vodka and orange juice. Raising his right hand in a shaking motion to and from his mouth. So many things filled his mind just like they always had in the past with thoughts of regret and dreams long since past now simmering a slow burn on the back burner, fueled by a growing anger. Words circled around inside his mind, drowning in a pool of alcohol and the anger that was inching its way through his system. Reggie tried desperately to place a label on the mood and moment:
In the still of the black night
As it was inside of my heart
I’ve walked along their crooked halls
And been hated from the very start
My eyes have teared and been dry
Though they seem to go unnoticed
I may smile or I may frown
Still I go unnoticed
With a cut to the wrist I can finally feel
Through the ugliness of my day
With a bottle at hand I can hide
To a place they can’t hurt me in any way
I walk and move among them
And yet I’m still all alone
A target for all their cheap shots
Till they leave me crying here at home
Reggie’s eyes stared coldly out into the night, wishing or just a dream of escaping out among the clouds like a bird free to roam wherever it liked too. Thoughts began to be his enemy as well as his source for amusement. The pain and anger that flowed inside worked to keep Reggie warm even into the coldest of winter nights. Remembering the laughter and the pointing expressions upon every kid’s face that took part in the latest onslaught of mockery.
“Why is it that some were blessed with the ability and rewards of going through life lifted upon the shoulders of others? Why some like that of myself were forced to taste the slap of anger and hatred that another human could evoke on one another?” Reggie sat motionless at the window, now clutching tightly to the bottle of Smirnoff, the delicate veins of his forearms jumping out above the surface under the mighty pressure that he put towards the glass bottle.
“Your just looking for sympathy,” Reggie’s mind spoke with sarcasm, its teeth biting deep into his conscience and feelings. Sensing the warmth of the would be blood as it drained from his life giving veins down the side of his neck. A fear of sorts washed across his face and body that was both alarming and second nature in some areas. Not enough for Reggie to call out the National Guard over, just enough to get them to send out a probing information team before any alarm would be wasted in haste.
A smirk of sorts developed along the cracked texture of Reggie’s dried out lips, “no…I’m not looking for anything like that!” Anger was now quite evident as Reggie fought back at the snide and unfair words of his mind. The song “One of my Turns” leaked through the speakers and into Reggie’s senses, causing him to turn his head back towards the source of the maddening chants that programmed and churned every nerve and cell inside his battered body. A smile crossed his lips for perhaps the first time that night if not for the day. The song was almost fitting for the awkward moment that Reggie now found himself trapped in, face-to-face in a sense against the biggest foe he had in his life and that was his own mind. Reggie was up against the ugly side of the human spirit, human nature as some would like to refer to it as. That dark shadow that we all walk these streets with clinging to our backs with every step, most never sensing its presence and than theirs those such as Reggie that are in constant battle with the beast inside, the beast that in the end is that of themselves.
“Just one of my days…” The voice spoke as if it was to him and all those that were similar to him.
“Ooh god it’s so like you to wander off on some little tangent of bullshit or one of your psycho trauma trips.”
“Why is that there are some that seem to be the chosen ones…the ones that get the girl…make the grade…have all the friends?” Reggie stared coldly out into the darkening sky. “Maybe it’s the curse that pushed Kylee from my life?”
“Not that damn Kylee thing again…we’ve been over this time and time again, it’s a worn out path that we don’t need to revisit. She’s not coming back, you do realize that…right? From where I stand I would have to say that she never ever cared for you!” Reggie’s mind bit back hard once again at the paper-thin walls of his world of make believe or at least the present world that Reggie prayed and believed it to be just a dream.
Through all the ranting and raving Reggie managed to keep his cool while listening to the harsh and uncaring words that his mind slung at him like an old west mudslinger but this was made up of words and the mud in the sense was a metaphor and not the dust and bullets that would be associated with the old west.
“I know…I can dream though, remembering the good times we had, even if they were few and short lived…it’s still a straw of hope that I could hold onto or a grasp at some form of reality that I could use to get me through the lonely nights.”
“Your pathetic…”
“It just might be what you say it is,” Reggie thought to himself, staring with heavy eyes out his dirt-coated window. The sun now completely engulfed by the hillsides of the west side of town. “Still can remember the way her hair would always seem to lay in just all the right places. Bad hair days I don’t really think she had ever seen one of those, but perhaps I’m just a little basis on the subject to give any opinion.” Reggie pulled a picture of Kylee from the side of the old cracked blue painted chair, placing it gently on the windowsill. The frame was made of oak or at the least a fake oak of some sort, not that it really mattered to the scope of thoughts at war inside Reggie’s mind; it was just all part of the process. His mind at times could be a little bit anal and perhaps at times just a little bit maddening, boarding the edge of psycho. The three by five frame contained a simple looking picture, a school photo of Kylee.
“Ooh brother…can we get on with it already? Or would you like us to order out for room service and prepare ourselves for an all-nighter down what some would call memory lane? We’ve been here too many times already…we’ve done this over and over again…it’s all so old and yet we seem to find ourselves right back to this place. The only difference being that you have drifted a little further into an isolated trance, pushing the envelope pretty close to a comatose state if you ask me,” his mind left no misunderstanding or space for misinterpretation of its displeasure for the thoughts over Reggie’s ex. It was a weakness that it greatly disapproved of in Reggie and how he yearned for a woman that so easily turned her back and walked away without a tear or a look back over her shoulder, not even a glance was given.
“Why did you leave? Without a reason, without a word when you walked out of my life and left me here to face the ugly face of bitterness,” a tear rolled down the right cheek of Reggie as he stared at the picture of the girl that he was ready to give everything up for. Not only his heart had fallen under attack and bleeding helplessly, though at times it felt as if it was being ripped from his chest. “It all felt so right…you said forever. You said that you loved me…”
[Bang Bang] The weight of Reggie’s father’s hand sent the flimsy door rattling on it’s copper coated hinges like a rattlesnake in the high grass awaiting to strike, “Reggie! Get your little wimpy good for nothing ass out here to dinner!” His words were firm and stern and Reggie knew just where he always stood with his father just by the tone of his voice at times.
“Yes sir,” Reggie’s voice was weak and defeated, his eyes and thoughts shattered and detained from the photo. Upon cracking knees as well as the sound of his chair, Reggie lifted himself to his feet and made his way slowly towards the stereo. The song had long since ended without Reggie even realizing it previously.
“No…” The visions brought our little reader quickly awake, a half drank beer can hitting hard against the unfinished wooden floor that in its day must have looked spectacular. Working hard to calm the nerves that now were twitching in unison from the uneasy images his mind played with. Reggie’s dad had always had the ability to leave such an impression on people and Reggie was no different than any of them. His heart beat like a true thoroughbred digging its hooves into the fine dirt of turn number four, making its way into the home stretch and the winner’s circle at the Kentucky Derby. The weight of the notebook began to take its toll on his worn-out tired body, the metal rings cut deep into the soft tissue of his fingers. Turning yet to another magical carpet ride or some stoned out LSD trip that hopefully this time would not go astray. It was a ride that nobody knew where the final stop would end, no one including the reader of the notebook or whoever came upon the words scribbled within it. Reggie often joked about how only the brave of heart and gut would be able to read the thoughts in which he talked of on those pages. It wasn’t for everyone, this book of sorts wasn’t just for everyone to pick up and understand. You had to know the pain in which he spoke of, you had to know what that pain felt and tasted like. Unless the reader of the notebook had, they would not know the hell that Reggie felt inside towards the rest of the world. The isolation that consumed his life and soul was all he had to snuggle up to at night. That was a lot for such a young boy to have on his plate day in and day out. Perhaps in the end the words should and only be understood by Reggie, but he could not help to feel that maybe his words could only help those that felt the same as him. If he could only reach one person and than it would all be worth whiled.
“I remember her very well even to this day, “ the words seeming to lift up off the page and take him into yet another world of fantasy, but this would be different, it would be happier.
“How you doing Reggie?” The voice of his grandmother was always as soothing as a slow moving stream. A smile that was always an inviting and forgiving time for Reggie one to never let you down or present disappointment behind every turn. Just the thought of her, even the whisper of her name would bring about relaxation, the kind that left a warm fuzzy feeling deep within. One of a new mother’s touch or the feel of a lover in a way and just as relaxing as that stream out behind of Reggie’s back yard. Many days and nights as a kid Reggie could be seen sitting next to that slow moving water that split the town of (town name) in half. It was the divider point of the small but populated town. Much of who you were or classified as a person depended greatly on which side of that stream you grew up on. It was how the town perceived you around here; sooner or later you start to see yourself along those same lines no matter how hard you fought it. Right or wrong it was still going to be there and it was something you couldn’t really fight here in (town name). It was in the culture and heritage, dating back to Reggie’s parents and there parents and so on. With Reggie it was always a class struggle, born on the south side of the river made him not worthy enough to hang out with the other boys and girls from the north side because his parents lacked the financial portfolio to be classified as someone that mattered to the one’s that Reggie dreamed to hang with or imitate.
The other problem was that his parents made more than the average for the south side so they were looked at as uptight and stuck up for those that lived in the same neighborhood as Reggie. Perhaps this one was one of the strongest reasons why Reggie was picked on and why Teddy had parted ways with him, after all it was high school and the lines were well defined at that level. Who you were for some reason was to be determined or figured out at such an early age. It was a reasoning that Reggie found to hold no salt other than that from some crack head or delusionary insane post hippie point of view. Reggie was who he had always been no matter what side of the damn river he grew up on, even if his house sat in the middle of the damn river he was still the same over sensitive and shy chubby boy that he had always been. No geographical placement was going to change that as far as he was concerned. Reggie was picked to be the town loser and that was how it was going to be and that banner would be carried with him until the day the last shovel of dirt has hit his casket.
“So how’s that nice girlfriend of yours Reggie?” Her voice jolting Reggie from his daze, making him realize that he never did answer his grandma’s original question.
“Well…” Reggie’s lips were dry and talking was taking a toll on his raspy torn throat. Staring into her eyes made it just that much harder to say the words he needed to say, the words that Reggie knew his grandma didn’t want to hear for that matter.
His grandma continued to stare up at Reggie as he stood in front of her shaking a bit in fear of the possibilities in which the course could be taken by Reggie in the words that could be spoken. Her hands picked at the dry wrinkled folds of her hands, tearing at the loose dead skin that seemed to make up the confines of her fingers and the back of his hands all the way up to his wrists.
“She’s…well grandma…she’s no longer around,” Reggie’s voice was heavy and obviously it was hard for him to breathe.
“Around?” His grandma questioned, still the look in her eyes was that of acceptance and love.
“She left…” The essence of a tear that was trying its damndest to escape its concrete prison walls of desolate loneliness that made up his pitied life.
“Ooh…I’m sorry,” the words might have been short in quantity, but they were effective non-the-less. Than again no matter what his grandma would have said the fact that she was willing to listen was enough for Reggie to start down the road to recovery. It wasn’t necessarily what she had to say as it was that she was willing to just listen to the ramblings that plagued the inner workings of his mind.
“No reason’s…no explanations…just gone,” Reggie began to circle the small sitting room at his grandmother’s house. The whole time Reggie worked to shuffle his feet, his grandma sat poised upon the multi-checkered sofa. A sofa that looked like it must have been purchased some years earlier or perhaps picked up at some roadside yard sale along the way.
“Her loss if you ask me…you don’t need a girl like that if you ask me,” the voice was soothing as Reggie knew it would be. What could she say about the situation, no matter how hard or the choice of words it still wasn’t going to cure the empty feeling Reggie had occupying his gut. The sinking feeling that raged in his stomach was going down faster than the Titanic. The high heel of reality dug its cleat deep into the soft tissue of his stomach.
“I needed her I guess you could say…she was sort of an inspiration in a sense or a made up reason that I could firmly grasp a hold too, a bit of hope or a wanna believe fantasy that walked lost among the many hollow and empty hallways inside of my heart. Kylee was also my reason to wake up to the next morning, to take in the crisp morning air with a deep breath and say damn it’s good to be alive. To be wanted by more than the vultures that I felt circling my body above like some half dead corpse walking against the hot desert sun in the middle of the afternoon. The sands of their breath kicked up and scratched at the fragile surface of my face, burning its coarse fingers deep into the heart of my soul. The whole time feeling its ridicule of rejection just as life has presented me, but still I walk with timid steps amongst the ruins I see before my worn out path!” Reggie’s head dropped low, slicing his right arm through the air like exclamation points to each of his statements. Stamping his signature mark of disapproval or approval in the fact that hey it was going to happen whether he liked it or not so he had better be prepared to deal with it whatever its bite or sting recoiled back his way. Settling to a stop finally at the sofa, next to where his grandma occupied. In turning Reggie’s legs which had been battered by lack of sleep started to buckle a bit, lack of sleep combined with the stress of everything that has happened in the near past days and weeks, “perhaps I was just stupid…”
“Don’t say that,” interrupting Reggie’s little feel sorry for me speech, her eyes casting the glare that all grandma’s seemed to possess. Perhaps it was wisdom, but whatever it was it sure had an effect on Reggie bringing at least a hint of relief for the moment or until the next crisis came along whether it was authentic or made up.
“Words…no one when you were a child told you about the truth about them. Through all the crap of how you could be president and your going to make a difference someday. Through all that shit they forget to tell you about the whole meaning behind those words, the shadows that lurk behind each of their individual letters. It’s the real meanings behind what people are trying to say, what they really mean inside. Many nights I have sat awake…” Reggie fell silent, his hands collapsing to his side in internal frustration. Perhaps lost along the way where words no longer worked to depict just what he was thinking or feeling inside. Finding it harder and harder, teaming up with another growing problem that was the ever-watchful eyes of his grandma as she looked on.
“You know you can tell me anything…right Reggie? I’m here to listen and will always be there for you no matter what happens in the future,” a smile leaked across her face, trying her hardest to make Reggie feel at home or relaxed.
“You ever just have one of those nights? You know…when no matter how tired you were…no matter how exhausted you felt you just couldn’t seem to get yourself to fall asleep? The sand man must have gotten lost or just simply misplaced my entry into the human race,” perhaps that little sleep light switch like in your refrigerator had gone on the fritz or just burned out. Whatever it was or whomever it was Reggie needed to blame, the end result was that Reggie wasn’t getting any sleep and it was beginning to show as cracks in the masonry started to break free. Climbing to his feet, Reggie was once again on the move. Dancing about the tiny wooden coffee table, which sat in front of the sofa. Eyes flashed back and forth around the room, obviously nerves were twitching like a jackrabbit on a hot skillet plate and the world was a much-needed sight before meltdown took complete control.
“Pictures…” His mind spoke.
Walking towards the comfort of the fireplace and the mantel that held up the pictures of the past and what they had to offer him, most consisting of Black and White photography, perhaps taken back during the war that had been engulfing the world at the time. Reggie remembered the talks of World War One at night sitting around the dinner table from his grandfather and how they were surrounded in town just outside of Hamburg, low on ammo and short on nerves. Many other delusionary talks were brought to the forefront at those memorable family dinners. Lifting the heavy fake metal picture frame up off the mantel with his right hand, placed suspiciously in the center of the ancient looking mantel. Reggie was quite surprised at the weight of the gold tinted frame. A family portrait in the Black and White style in which so many of the photos were along the mantel, but this one in particular contained his grandmother as a child and her family. She was just a poor young girl from a bankrupt mining town, never having more than two nickels to rub together to do all the things they had hoped or dreamt of doing. They had one thing though that was more important than that of money and that was strength of the family unit. Her dresses were nothing more than hand-me downs from her two older sisters, defiantly showing the signs of wear and age, but that didn’t seem to matter because they were at least something to keep her at least a little warmer when the sun set to the west and the cold breezes of the night time come a calling, unlike some of the less fortunate in town. Four or five to a bed just trying to hard keep out the bite of the midnight air, sharing the only blanket that the household was able to save and sacrifice in order to purchase.
“We all have those days and nights Reggie, its was all just part of the growing up process,” his grandma spoke gently.
Reggie was out along a thought somewhere, caught between the here and now a point located along the side of time and the past in which it holds in confidence. Never hearing the loving tone of his grandma’s voice. The picture entrapping Reggie into some kind of trance and propelling him back to a time when all seemed so easy and planned out for you. Not easy in the sense of fiancés but in the manner of everything being a little clearer of your place in society, honesty and morality ruled and your word was as good as any contract that some shady money hungry lawyer could have drawn up awaiting your signature.
“Hey cry baby…your grandma’s talking to you!” His mind ululated out to him, trying to breach the coma like state that Reggie had found himself packaged up in. Tried and true would defiantly be the test here though trying his hardest at the same time to ignore the words amplified by his mind and against every flashing light and warning buzzer from the consultation of his grandma. Which in the end would probably be just what he really needed to hear at that particular time. No matter how hard we might try and convince ourselves that it wasn’t what we imagined being a better person than what exactly stood before the mirror of reality. It was just that Reggie needed a moment to himself, a moment to reflect on the pain he was trying to relive, to get all his thoughts in line. It was going to take a miracle perhaps but what else did he have left to prove? What did he have left inside to live for, something, anything to help him to awake in the morning and scream out that he was glad to be alive?
Reggie returned the heavy framed portrait back once again to the hand carved mantel fixated above the well used fire place where Reggie could remember as a kid roasting marshmallows on a Sunday night visit. For the first time in all plausibility Reggie had finally become conscious to the fact that a fire had been burning inside the red brick inlayed fire place the whole time he had been there. The wood surface of the mantel appeared to be of oak, stained dark by the builder or just maybe over the years of neglect and thousands of fires later had darkened the fibers to look like the way Reggie was seeing it today. Never realizing as he stood there in dreamland that the front surface of his blue jeans were heating up like a thanksgiving turkey. With his head held crouched between his shoulders, Reggie stared out at the line of portraits or perhaps it was at nothing in particular. Perchance it was just out along and into that imaginary world that Reggie found himself living in so often. It was just a world that he has become all too familiar too as of late. At long last turning his left foot out and around, Reggie came slowly rotating back into the direction of his grandmother. “Yeah…but you know what? There are those times…”
“Lights…” The mind of our little sleepy reader screams out. Car lights out in the street, but none that appeared to be coming his direction by the way that it looked. Checking the temperature of the can of beer that stood half crushed between his legs. Scrutiny was in play as he reviewed the make-up of the living room. Two chairs placed across from each other, a love seat and the recliner in which he found himself nestled up so comfortably in. No one to usually dabble into such boring activities in the past, it had just been one of those unexplainable moments that we all have from time to time in our lives where we just say why the hell did I care about that? The feeling was quick to pass though as he began to flip back through the crispy and soon to be brittle pages of the notebook. Shuffling his callused covered thumb along the pages and heading towards the back or at least as close as you could without arriving to that destination. Back to the place where most of the poems were kept, just meaningless dribble as Reggie liked to call them, but it was still something that needed to be said and expressed or else Reggie felt his head would begin to leak at the cracks. One in particular seemed to catch his eye; in fact a small yellow college ruled tablet page was stapled to the top of the page. It’s appearance seeming to be dated from some time back; grease stains lined the page like an auto mechanics garage floor. The stains made some parts a little harder to follow than others were but still the words were legible enough to get to the jest of what Reggie was trying to get across to the world. The words were quick to flow fluently across the reader’s lips:
I’ve walked across the bitter grass of your distrust
Sipped from the venomous cup of your diseased filled soul
Through the storms and acid showers I still remain
Upon tip toes in a minefield, the fight for survival the goal
Entombed inside this box, a mimes world I live
Vacant of all speech and feelings that kept me warm
Survival now a thing of the past or at least it seemed
Up to my knees in blood and flesh of those unwarned
Even though I’ve seen the writing on the walls
Seen its yellowed colored stare haunting my night time dreams
Still I find myself walking that crooked path to your door
Upon bent knee, feeling the sting of the thorns within my knees
Do they hear the screams that I shout from a high?
Feel the scratches of my broken nails against my skin?
Through the empty promises of to always be by my side
Just to lose them before anything did begin
Caught up in the cross hairs of their venom tasting bite
Recoiled and hidden within the darkness of its lair
Slithering upon the floor I feel its cool rough skin across my toes
Anticipating its deadly bite I stand tall without a care
The words were dramatic and defiantly soaked with the writer’s emotion to that of the common person. In the eyes of our reader there would be no tears, no pools of consolidated joy, happiness or any of the other emotions that an ordinary man would express. Weakness as thought by him and that just will not be tolerated or accepted in this one-man army against the world and those that sought to harm him physically with violence or with the wounding words of a fellow human being.
Notwithstanding the icy blue eyes and the color of the sky above, the pages were once again being snapped to attention as our reader searched the contents of the notebook in his aimless journey to a destination that only he knew of. No order was obviously being adopted as in the past, just random selecting, a close your eyes kind of an approach, like stabbing a wandering finger in the dark at the pages if you will.
“Grandma…”
“Yes Reggie,” coming to a stop at the kitchen table where Reggie had been sitting for sometime.
“Have you ever or did you ever question things about your life?” Reggie’s eyes failing to make stable eye contact with his grandmother, instead his eyes were irrevocable out along some mystical place.
“Perhaps…I think we all have at one time or another…depending on just what it is your asking me exactly,” her face lost in confusion somewhere along the way.
“Well…from a woman’s point of view you may not understand. It could just be growing up in this time and age or I’ve just lost my way beside the road of life. Confusion…that could be all that it is…just confusion,” continued fidgeting, fingers working overtime like puppets upon a lighted wall, displayed and packaged up in a pretty red bow for all the world to take notice and his nerves to mock.
“I guess I just don’t follow what it is you are in search of, or what you want me to say here? What is it that you need me to help with or try and help you to figure out?”
“That makes the two of us, I just wish sometimes life didn’t have to hold so many mysteries, why couldn’t we just be handed a manual at birth and told here you go kid…good luck out there?” The look of confusion returning to his face once again, like an old favorite re-run on one of those the late night movie channel’s. You know the ones with the strange music and the ones where you wondered why people ran around naked for most of the movie doing things that at such an early age you only saw the dogs doing it on the local corner.
Reggie’s face wasn’t the only thing illustrating confusion for his grandma who at the moment felt like a drowning victim in search of a life preserver. With aching arms she worked to lift herself from the maple-coated chairs, the wood making that all to familiar creaking sound of wood on the verge of snapping like twigs in a windstorm. Feet encased in pink colored fake fur coated slippers, Reggie’s grandma shuffled her aging and arthritis feet across the cold linoleum towards the sink like a toy army solider from back in Reggie’s youth. A pea green colored countertop and a yellow banana peel shaded sink was something that Reggie had found himself chuckling about from time to time again. Coffee cup in hand, she played at the controls for which seemed like an eternity to Reggie, but just like anytime when you had something important tickling away at your mind it was never easy to just sit there and wait. The whole time Reggie’s grandmother played with the faded black colored knobs until the automatic coffee maker started its dripping action of the brown mud colored stuff that seemed to make her so happy every morning, well that and the shot of Baileys Irish Cream sure didn’t hurt the cause none to much.
“Maybe I’m not the one you really need to talk too…sometimes there are times when a kiss and a band-aid on a cut just can’t seem to make it all better. I wish I could, I wish it all worked so easily like that. There would be no better pleasure in this God made world than when a grandma can take all the troubles away from the heavy hearts of her loved ones…”
Reggie looked on as if his grandmother had just been dropped off by the paddy wagon. One missing at the ole loony bin tonight that was quite evident or was it just something that Reggie wasn’t all that accustomed to and that was how someone could care so much about his feelings and how they would eventually be affected. It was a cute and appreciated deep down that was for sure, it was just an emotion that Reggie really wasn’t quite ready to deal with at the moment. On the other hand though could Reggie really afford to have his heart out on the line like that? Never wear your emotions or heart on your sleeve unless you were prepared to have it stained and smashed was how Reggie preferred to live his life or at least that was how he viewed things such as these. Would he or should he for that matter speak of the thing that should not be spoken of? Voodoo was the art of this little walk down sarcasm street, the sacred ground of the unspoken. Perhaps it would be better to just keep the whole damn thing a secret from his grandma. Even his friends though few in numbers would have to be excluded, especially the world if that was the way it was going to come down do it. It was a secret that Reggie felt he probably should take with him to his dirt-covered grave. No grieving soul around his casket needed to know what horror lurked deep down inside one Reggie Miller, or the uncertainty that had plagued him his whole life. Though the secret may have contained a bit of truth but on the other hand the truth just maybe more of a false alarm and that of not knowing what the face of that horror would look like in the morning light. It would all have to wait, the secret must go with him to the grave and that was final. The fake smiles and the persona must continue for the time being until Reggie could figure out what his next move would exactly be. What direction he should take or if he was to just let life take him where it wished, not that Reggie usually had a choice. It added a little sense of safety in the feeling that he had at least a little control over his life and what happened within it.
“So what is it that you are trying to say Reggie? Just say what’s bugging you…don’t worry about what it may sound like, just stand back tall in the heels and shout it out from the top of your lungs what’s on your mind,” his grandma sat poised at the end of the kitchen table, her fingers flicking at the surface of the coffee cup like a child playing with his fingers in a nervous twitch. All the time watching Reggie circling the room like the pace car at Indy, but in the not so happy merry-go-round of Reggie’s world there would be no defiant turn off time to the pit. Nope this would all be in Reggie’s hands, he was the pit leader but in need of direction, but direction from where was certainly the key question to this insane circus of clown antics that the mirror sometime like to show him.
“It was nothing…I thought it was something but the more I thought about it, the more I see it was all just silly foolish dribble. I’ll be fine…thanks for listening to a rambling boy,” a smile spread across Reggie’s face like a plague creeping across the land, but this was a smile that held little in the way for someone to believe or take it to heart like so many other things in his life. Reggie knew that he couldn’t take everything so seriously; it was just something he couldn’t help like trying to keep the sun from rising in the east.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes…yes it was nothing…I promise,” as with the smile of before these words reeked of that same unbelievable tone that Reggie was becoming known for of late.
“Okay than…” His grandma’s voice was overflowing with understanding and belief. “If you do need to talk, just remember I am always here for you…no matter what happens.”
The more Reggie stood in the kitchen of his beloved grandmother the more he knew that the secret he kept inside would have to stay there. Reggie was never really sure if it was true, but the feelings inside were hard at work slapping him from side to side, up and down. It was all starting to become a blur the more he sat there thinking about it. This would all have to wait for another day; the answers maybe one day would be there for Reggie. Maybe one day he could finally close his eyes in peace and relaxation. Perhaps calmness that has for so long eluded his grasp would now finally come to him? Patience had to pay off for Reggie in some kind of good way and soon for that matter, it just had too. At some point life had to start to pay off in dividends in the teens as far as Reggie was concerned. Though in reality this would be just another one of them waiting games. The cards of the dealer would have to wait to show its bluff or its full house before Reggie would know the true scheme of all that revolved around him. That day was quickly approaching whether he was ready to except it, there would be no hiding from this ending…not at all.
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RufusReid reviewed Version 1 -
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Starting with the second sentence, “The sound of his mother’s voice barely able to break through the solitude of the wooden door and what it brought to his world,” you have a tendency to string together clauses that don’t quite add up to complete sentences. While this may be a style choice, it makes the piece very difficult to read.
Similarly, some very stylized(?) sentences and sentence fragments, like “Silence still the main character in his mother’s moment of dramatic uproar” or “Why some like that of myself were forced to taste the slap of anger and hatred that another human could evoke on one another?” are hard to parse for meaning.
While including poetry is another interesting style choice, it does not do much to make the piece clearer.
I think this would be especially difficult for a young adult reader to get through. If your goal is truly to attract an agent or publisher, I would strongly recommend doing some serious workshopping, and possibly enrolling in extension writing classes.
Best of luck-
Cheers-
RR
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December 14, 2006
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This was a well written chapter of your book, and you really create a deep sympathy for Reggie. Everything was done well, sentence structure, grammar, etc., and the story reads at a good pace, neither trailing nor confusing at any point. I especially liked the way you worded the very last bit of this, leaving it wide open, beckoning for the page to turn…
baggypants reviewed Version 1 -
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I like your writing style. You use words to paint a picture. I think you use “reggie” too much through out the story, try substitute it with pronouns or something similair. I was really impressed by this. The story is good, it reminds me of Desolation Jones (a comic) and I like the use of music in your story.
WorkingPrince reviewed Version 1 -
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stereo’s equalizer… This line builds up to something but never delivers. You describe him and the setting but never give a purpose. I think you meant to do a comma.
Tucked neatly.. In this line you use back 3 times. Your really want to avoid that or else it gets tedious for the reader. After a while your eyes just pick up the repeat words.
the album called “The Wall.” It’s not really called the wall it is named the wall. Maybe you could rephrase the end of this line as.. from the album,“The Wall”.
world which felt like.. I think a comma is needed after world
long since past now.. This line is a little choppy and very long. There are a few parts where I want to say use a comma but I think it’s best if you broke this into two lines.
a dream of escaping.. I’d drop a and change dream to dreaming. Also same line at the end, I think too should be to.
that we all walk these streets.. I didn’t like this switch of POV here. The we . It’s just the walking those streets etc and including the reader into it. It’s really hard to switch to engaging the reader if you haven’t from the get go, I’d rephrase to 3rd pov.
that were similar to him. Why not shorten it up to just Like him. The story is dragging just a little here so you may want to look for ways to shortend up some lines to move it along faster.
I could be mistaken but I thought thoughts were written out with just ‘like this’ instead of “like this” with a quotation mark. Also you can Italicize thoughts on urbis Just use an underscore_ right before the line or word and one right after. No spaces.
rattling on it’s copper coated hinges.. great imagery
his voice at times. AT the beginning you said he always knew but at the end you say at times. At times to me sounds like its not always.
You know the ones with the ..Again I disagree with talking to the reader but this line needs some work. I think you wanted to write it as. You know the ones with the strange music. The ones where you wondered why people ran around naked for most of the movie doing things you only saw dogs do on the corner.
This is really a dark and depressing piece. Kept thinking hell just take and anti depressant lol. I think your goal was to play with the readers emotions and bring them into Reggies state. You did that very well. There is a lot of comma work that is needed. I didn’t comment on a lot of it as this review started growing too long. I really think you could shorten this piece up a good bit and keep the intense darkness about it. I felt it’s lacking a lot of detail. Places and people and things. I really would like to see what you do with it with a revisions. There is potential in this but you just have to give it a few more layers of texture.
Thanks, Anthony
Raz reviewed Version 1 -
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I love how the dialogue reflects the age groups. I feel it did a better job in this chapter than in chapter two.
The slight mysterious mood is a nice touch. Quite refreshing.
I loved the second chapter, and I feel this was overall better than that one.
The finishing extended metaphor was great, and makes me want to read the next chapter.
GothicRayne reviewed Version 1 -
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I really enjoyed this peice there was an amazing sense of actually being there.
You did a really great job; sure there always seems to be a need for improvement but this seems great the way it is.
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