Created By

gonzo4201

Rate this Story

Embed

  "Get up, you're gonna help me with some yardwork, since you haven't found a job yet,"  Pete looked over at his alarm clock on the shelf in the corner.  "Ugh, it's 7:30,"  he groaned, as he pulled the blankets back over his head.  This was becoming alot less fun than he had anticipated, plus he had a roaring migraine from the night before.  "Had a little too much to drink last night, huh?"  Randy chuckled, as he walked to the bathroom cabinet to get Pete some aspirin.  It was strange, Pete thought, as he climbed out of his bed, and started to get dressed.  Pete had spent the last three years in a drunken stupor, but never did he remember ever getting a hangover.

  "This is your free card," Randy was coming back from the bathroom, "Until you turn 21, you are not going to be drunk under this roof, and you better not bring any illegal substances in here either. If you get in trouble with the cops, we will not bail you out, you'll just have to do your time."  This was fine with Pete, since he didn't like depending on other people for anything.  It's not that he didn't appreciate it, he just felt like he was a waste of everyone else's time, and he would like to just take care of himself. 

  The yardwork went pretty quick, once the pounding in his head subsided, so Pete went with Glenn to the seafood restaurant where he and his sister, Crystal, worked with their mom.  Allen, the owner of the restaurant, lived right down the road from them, so they were all pretty good friends.  Glenn was in charge of checking the traps for crabs twice a day, so Pete went out with him and they pulled in the four traps. There were six crabs in the there, so Allen let the boys keep two of them, since Pete had never eaten fresh crab before, and Glenn wanted to show him how to fix the meat. 

  "Ya just put your foot here and," Glenn explained, as he placed the toe of his shoe onto the bottom lip of the crabs shell, and the handle of the broom up under the top lip. The crab continued to pinch away at his shoe, but it was to no avail.  Glenn then proceeded to pry the shells apart, and it let out a loud "Plop," as the shell came open.  Glenn bent down and pulled back some gray colored meat, "We don't eat this," he told Pete, as he cut it away, "This meat is poisonous, it can cause paralysis, if you eat it." 

  The crabmeat was delicious, as Pete loved it anyway, but fresh crabmeat was so much better.  Too bad there isn't more, Pete thought to himself, as he got ready to go out to walk, possibly find somebody with a joint, so he could calm his nerves for tomorrow.  Tomorrow was the big day.  Gwen was going to take him to enroll in school. and the butterflies were already acting up.  He had been the new kid at school before, but not since the first grade, when his family moved back to Indiana from Arkansas, after his stepdad, Fred was transferred for his job, where he drove a loader for a coal mine.  Pete and Fred had never gotten along, possibly, because they were too much alike.  Both were stubborn, but Pete was very rebellious, while Fred was very authorative.  This caused them to butt heads on more than one occasion.  They argued so much, that Pete had many times wished for harm to come to him, and he always felt like Fred felt the same way.  So much, in fact, that when Pete was six, Fred and Pete's mom, Angie,  took Pete and his brother and sister up in the mountains to a lookout point for a picnic, but Pete wouldn't go anywhere near the edge, simply because he felt that Fred would try to push him off.  Angie would try and convince him otherwise, but it did no good. 

  Exactly how far back this paranoia went, no one could truly know, but Pete has always had trouble trusting what people say.  Whether it is because of the countless broken promises that have plagued him through his life, or maybe it was hereditary.  His own father had been diagnosed as a paranoia schizophreniac, when Pete was just eight, but it didn't occur to Pete what that meant, until the last day of school, his seventh grade year.  Pete came home from school, same as any other day, but something was different.  Pete could feel it.  That's when it happened.

  "Pete, turn on the T.V., to the news,"  A familiar voice told him.  It was Pete's aunt, Bobbie, and she sounded really worked up about something, so Pete decided to humor her, and check out the news.  When he flipped the channel he soon learned that his dad was involved in a hostage situation with the police for the last six hours.  He had barricaded himself in his brother's house, along with Pete's younger cousin, and a shotgun.  He was threatening suicide, and had fired a shot into the basement, before finally coming out peacefully.