Mr. Barker

“Quit it.”

“No.”

The brothers glared at each other, their eyes full of mutual menace and disgust.

“I hate you.”

“So’s yer face.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense, you dingleberry.”

Marcus, the driver, simply gave his brother the finger without looking at him. Matthew, riding shotgun, slugged his bicep. They shared a stare full of knives and unheard death threats. Their friend, Barrett, let out a long sigh in the backseat.

“Guys…for the love god. You’ve been at it for like four hours now…”

Matthew turned around in his seat. “He keeps changing the station!”

“It’s my car, dillhole!” Marcus retorted. “I’ll put it on whatever damn station I want!”

“Assclown!”

“Ham-wrangler!”

Barrett cupped his face with his hands. “God, kill me now…”

Little did he know that God did, in fact, hear his request and decided to answer his prayer.

Marcus dead-legged Matthew. Matthew spit in his palm and slapped Marcus in the face. Marcus yelled and smacked his brother across the face with a Moutain Dew bottle. And finally, with the assistance of the hand of God, Matthew slammed his fist into his brother’s genitals.

The force of the divine blow instantly destroyed all of Marcus’s basic functions. In fact, he had even forgotten he was driving. The only thought that was racing through his head wasn’t revenge or that they were driving on the side of a very large mountain. He pondered with what few remaining brain cells that weren’t occupied with assessing damage or pain (mostly pain), where his testicles had disappeared to.

Matthew and Barrett on the other hand, were far more occupied with the direction they were going and what Mother Gravity had in store for them.

The car shattered right through an old wooden safety guard and plunged engine first down the side of a nine hundred foot cliff.

Matthew concentrated on not soiling himself. He didn’t want to be that guy.

Marcus continued his desperate search for his boys.

Barrett cursed once, twice, and then punched both the brothers in the back of their heads, causing Matthew to lose his concentration. Marcus didn’t notice; he was already quite occupied.

The car, propelled by its velocity, struck the ground nose first at over one hundred and twenty miles per hour. The force killed all three men instantly and shortened the car by almost half its length. This infuriated Barrett to some degree.

He sat cross-legged on a stone and watched as several buzzards circled the vehicle. The brothers weren’t in sight…well, aside from their bodies in the front seat of the car.

Barrett knew he had died. He didn’t see a light or flash of his life as the car met the earth; he only felt irritation, a brief moment of pain, and black. He then “awoke,” around twenty feet away from the wreckage. Barrett knew he was dead because:

A. It would’ve been impossible for the car to eject him to this particular spot. The angle was all wrong.

B. He didn’t have a scratch on him. One doesn’t fall nine hundred feet without injury.

C. One doesn’t fall nine hundred feet, period.

D. His body in the back seat of the car was quite obvious.

So he sat and fumed and cursed and shook his head. He asked himself why he had decided to ride with the brothers in first place. He answered his own question with the appropriate amount of logic that it required to sound reasonable and cursed himself for doing so. He didn’t notice the eleven foot tall figure approaching him from behind; he was too busy trying to invent new and multi-syllabled curse words.

The figure moved silently and didn’t seem to cast a shadow. It was dressed in a long, inky black robe that covered its head and feet and dragged along the ground. It reached out and settled its hand onto Barrett’s shoulder. It hissed, “Barney Elliot Cunningham…”

“Holy balls!” Barrett yelped. He whipped around and punched blindly. His fist buried into the dark opening of the hood and met flesh with a resounding thump.

The creature stumbled back, its hands clutching its face.

“Ow! Son of a bitch! Crap, it’s bleeding. I think its bleeding…”

“…what?”

“Owwwwww…why in the hell did you do that?! Who friggin’ does that? Crap! I know it’s gotta be broken…”

It tossed back its hood and Barrett nearly swallowed his tongue. He had just punched Bob Barker in the nose. He found this to be far stranger than dying.

Jack and Coke on the Rocks

He sees with a sort of clarity; a hazy sort of interpretation not known to anyone or anything else in existence. He understands that a multiverse is simply a universe seen through the eyes of a trillion different beings: an individual and unique reality to every different person. He knows and comprehends this, but also knows that his truth is more than opinion. His is more along the lines of how the universe wanted it to be. He doesn’t know why. Only that’s its true. This singular being, this nearly all-knowing man.

He sits and waits for the bartender to notice him so he may order his jack and coke on the rocks.

He’s bored. Quite bored. He’s come to realize that knowing the answers to the all-important questions, such as life, the universe, and everything, isn’t nearly as wonderful as everyone makes it out to be. On the contrary, it is his greatest wish to simply wonder about said questions like the rest of the dullards surrounding him with their cigarette smoke and idle speculation.

To his right:

“I wonder if aliens exist, man. That’d be ballin’, hurr hurr.”

“Smokin’ hot green honeys crusin’ the cosmos. Yeah, man…”

To his left:

“I just don’t know, Cindy. Sometimes I just wake up asking myself why I was even born, ya know? Like…what’s the point of all this?”

“To get hammered!!! Come on, girlfriend, MORE SAKI!!!”

Christ.

Simple people with simple problems. People with delusions of wisdom and grandeur. Innocents who try oh-so desperately to label themselves corrupt.

He wants his drink, but the bartender is flirting with a man with pink hair and white plastic sunglasses. He sighs. These are the questions he doesn’t understand. He knows the meaning of life; it is actually not nearly as complicated as one might think. He even understands the universe and the infinity that comes along with it. Hell, he’s one of the few beings in existence who even truly comprehend infinity without going insane and dressing up as a purple Christmas tree. But he wonders what is attractive about a man with pink hair. It confounds him.

He taps his fingers on the bar in an attempt to gain notice. Nothing. The air is far too loud with pop/rap music and drunken exclamations, such as, “No, man! Hasselhoff is a god! You hear me?! A GOD! What? No, I’m not German!” He settles for stealing a Camel light from the young man sitting to his right. He sticks the smoke in between his lips and lights it with a Zippo he’s stolen from the girl to his left. He exhales through his nose and ashes on the bar out of spite.

“Hey!” The bartender yells at him. “Don’t ash on the bar!”

Before he can rebuttal with a drink order, she turns back the pink-locked man with a smile and a flutter of eyelashes.

He sighs once more.

I know, I know...

I haven't posted in forever, forgive me.

This those of you who liked His Resume, you'll probably like this; it's a version of the story I'm writing for my Screen Writing Class, although this is only Act I. Give's a little bit of back story, so enjoy.


SCENE ONE EXT. GARAGE OF HOUSE IN A SUBURBAN NEIGHBORHOOD

A young man is hunched over the engine to a SUV. He’s wearing cheap clothing and has average brown hair. His hands emerge from the innards of the truck and are covered in grease. He slams the hood shut and turns to the owner who is watching from the door way to the house.

PROTAGONIST

All done, sir. Just a blown piston.

SUV OWNER
I’ll be damned. Thanks, kid. You know, you should go to that ITT tech or a mechanical college or something like that. You’ll be wasting your talent at Redford!

The young man grabs a rag from the toolbox next to the car and wipes off his hands.

PROTAGONIST
Redford’s for me, sir. I’ve been pretty convinced . That’ll be eighty dollars, by the way.

The owner winces.

SUV OWNER
Aw hell, kid, I forgot to go to the bank...can I pay ya Monday?

PROTAGONIST

Sure, that’ll be fine.

SUV OWNER
I apologize, I’m just getting forgetful. You want something to drink?

PROTAGONIST
I’m gonna have to take a rain check on that, school is about to start.

SUV OWNER
Well don’t be late! I’ll talk to ya later, kid!

PROTAGONIST
Bye.

The Protagonist tosses the rag back into the tool box and walks out of the garage and onto the sidewalk. As he exits the suburbs, he lights a cigarette and continues walking as the sun rises.

SCENE TWO EXT. OUTDOOR EATING AREA AT THE HIGH SCHOOL

The Protagonist is sitting on one of the picnic tables with his two friends, LARGO and BOBBY. The Protagonist and Largo and sitting across from Bobby and they’re eating their lunches.

BOBBY
I got your text, man. Did that old fucker pay up?

PROTAGONIST
He forgot to get some cash.

BOBBY
Sonnova bitch! That jackass! How are we gonna supply Eric’s party now? That money could’ve bought us like...10 cases of Pabst!

LARGO
More like six cases of Natties and a pint of shitty vodka. How’d the fuck you pass algebra if you can’t even add, dipshit?

BOBBY
Heh, I cheated off that slut, Mollie Ringwood. God, I’d bang her.

LARGO
She wears too much fuckin’ makeup.

PROTAGONIST
She’s kinda cute. I’d wear a rubber, though.

BOBBY
Fuck that, man! Rubbers can suck a big fat dick! Raw-dog’s the only way to go!

LARGO
You really are the dalai lama of all fucking morons.

BOBBY
Pssh, whatever, man. I gotta bail, the lacrosse team’s having a meeting. Figure this money thing out, guys, I believe you two! Later dudes!

Bobby exits the lunch area.

LARGO
I still don’t know why we hang out with that fucktard.

PROTAGONIST
He can get us booze.

LARGO
So can people who aren’t stupid.

PROTAGONIST
Name one.

LARGO
Oh shut up.

The Protagonist looks around for teachers, sees none, and pulls the pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He lights two and hands one to Largo.

PROTAGONIST
I think we should convince him to use protection.

LARGO
Fuck him. You can’t cure the stupid.

Largo looks at his watch.

LARGO (CONT’D)
Shit, we’re late.

The Protagonist sighs and stumps out his smoke. Largo does the same. They gather their things and walk into the high school.

SCENE THREE INT. PROTAGONIST AND LARGO’S ART CLASS

The two friends walk in just as the school bell rings. The teacher glares at them, more directed at Largo, but says nothing. Largo flips her off as soon as her back’s turned. The class is filled with about a two dozen students sitting on stools with an easel in front of each one. In the middle of the desks is a bull’s skull on a pedestal. The art teacher claps her hands to get everyone’s attention.

ART TEACHER
Alrighty! Today we’re using mixed media so just go crazy! You’re subject’s the skull; notice the starkness, the loneliness of its color and nature. Get to it!

The students mull around the room gathering supplies from drawers and cabinets. The protagonist is grabbing a set of colored pencils as Largo gets his attention. Largo nods his head towards a two other students in the corner of the room. The larger student dressed in ratty clothing seems to be holding the other smaller student’s hand, the larger student’s back is blocking their view. The smaller student’s face is visible and he seems to be in pain. The friends watch for a while before Largo grunts and begins to work on his painting. The Protagonist moves over to a stool and easel closer to the two others. He hears:

COAL
Don’t you cry, fucker. Don’t you make a fuckin’ sound...

The other student just whimpers. Before long, Coal laughs and walks away. The smaller student shuffles over to the stool next to the Protagonist. He is covering his right hand with the other.

PROTAGONIST
What’s up with your hand?

ROBERT
N-nuthing. I’m fine.

PROTAGONIST
Bullshit. What’d Coal do to you?

ROBERT
He told me not to say...

PROTAGONIST
What’d he do?

Robert doesn’t say anything, but uncovers his hand. The skin has been rubbed raw and is bleeding through in several places.

PROTAGONIST (CONT’D)
(grunts)
Eraser?

ROBERT
Yeah.

PROTAGONIST
Dick head. Tell the teacher.

ROBERT
No! He’ll get back at me and it’ll be worse!

PROTAGONIST
Then what are you gonna do about it?

ROBERT
(moans)
I can’t do-

Robert suddenly gives the Protagonist a long look over.

ROBERT (CONT’D)
Hey...didn’t you win the inner city golden gloves earlier this year?

PROTAGONIST
Yeah. And last year too.

ROBERT
I thought that was you! I’m Robert!

PROTAGONIST
Hi there. Go tell the damn teacher you’re hurt.

ROBERT
Coal will kill me if I do! He’s not afraid of them...but maybe he’d be afraid of you.

The Protagonist raises an eyebrow and begins drawing on his canvas.

PROTAGONIST
What are you getting at?

ROBERT
Coal’s not afraid of the school because he know’s they can’t really hurt him. He’s not going to graduate and he knows it, so he’s just hurting everyone he can. But you were a golden gloves boxer! And he knows it!

PROTAGONIST
Ok, no offense, dude, but its not my business to get involved in your trouble.

ROBERT
Please don’t say that! He’s been torturing me all year! Look, I’ll pay you! How about twenty bucks?

PROTAGONIST
Dude...

ROBERT
Fifty! Seventy-five!

The Protagonist gives him a hard look.

PROTAGONIST
Lemme see the cash.

Robert pulls out his wallet and shows the protagonist a wad of money.

ROBERT
Seventy-five. Please, I’m begging you.

PROTAGONIST
Coal goes for a smoke in the bathroom everyday in this class. I can smell it on him. When he leaves, I leave. You give me the cash when I come back, alright?

SCENE FOUR INT. THE BOY’S BATHROOM

Coal is leaning on the sink, smoking a cigarette. He shouts at a younger student who opens the door. The student quickly shuts it back. Coal smirks and ashes in the sink. The Protagonist enters the bathroom and walks towards Coal.

COAL
What the fuck do you want?

The Protagonist doesn’t even reply. He grabs Coal by the shirt and slings him into an empty stall. Coals lands on the toilet roughly and has no time to react before the Protagonist grabs him again and pushes him up against the back of the toilet and the wall.

PROTAGONIST
No more fucking with Robert.

COAL
Get the fuck off-

The Protagonist slams his right fist against the tiled wall beside Cole’s head. The tile shatters and fragments fall onto Coal’s head. The blow cuts the Protagonist’s knuckle, but he just rears back again.

COAL (CONT’D)
Oh fuck! Ok, ok! Don’t hit me, man!

PROTAGONIST
If I ever hear that you’ve hurt him again, I’ll pound your face into that wall. Got me?

COAL
Y-yes! Never! I swear!

The Protagonist tosses him to the floor. Coal crawls under the separators and into another stall. He begins to weep.

PROTAGONIST
(mutters)
Pussy.

The Protagonist walks over to the sink and runs water over his hand.

CAMERA FOCUSES ON THE FRESH CUT ON PROTAGONIST’S KNUCKLE

SCENE FIVE INT. LARGO’S BASEMENT

The Protagonist is in Largo’s basement, sitting on the couch, and nursing his bandaged hand. The audience can hear Largo pounding down the stairs. He enters, looking triumphant.

LARGO
I finally got rid of that retard.

PROTAGONIST
What’d you tell him?

LARGO
I didn’t tell him shit. I gave him fifty of the seventy-five and told him to get beer. He didn’t know about the other twenty-five and what we got with it.

PROTAGONIST
Then let me see it!

Largo pulls a baggie full of marijuana and a pipe from his hoodie pocket.

PROTAGONIST (CONT’D)
You’re a true friend. You know how to use it?

LARGO
Looked it up on YouTube.

The boys start to smoke. It isn’t long before they’re baked.

PROTAGONIST
So how’d you figure it out?

LARGO
I’m not an idiot. I saw you talking to the art fag. I saw you follow Coal into the bathroom. I saw you come back with wrapped hand. I’m not an idiot.

PROTAGONIST
Yeah. So what do you think?

LARGO
About what?

PROTAGONIST
The whole thing. It wasn’t tough. And the money’s good...

LARGO
You telling me you wanna keep doin’ this shit?

PROTAGONIST
Yeah.

LARGO
(shrugs)
Why not?

PROTAGONIST
That’s it? No kind of moral advice?

LARGO
Just don’t tell Bobby; I’ll fuck a walrus before he can keep a secret. But they’re your hands, man. Do what you want.

PROTAGONIST
Yeah. Yeah, I will.

The Protagonist inhales from the bowl and exhales through his nostrils.

PROTAGONIST (CONT’D)
We’ll get more of this, anyway.

Largo grins.

Out to Lunch

Yesterday, in my Journalism class, we discussed a topic that always makes my teeth grind: violent games and their effects on "impressionable" teens. Bleh. Being a gamer myself, I followed the news casts, the documentaries, the studies, and Jack freaking Thompson's unholy crusade about games. Frankly, I'm getting tired of the subject. Why? Because it always reverts to the same thing; video games made me do it.

Every.

Friggin'.

Time.

But its not only video games; its the media, books, crap on the internet, your mom, your dad, your weird uncle Ernie who has the unibrow and a fake leg. It's their fault you never became a success, their fault you don't have a girlfriend, and their fault you went to jail for holding up a 7-Eleven at four in the morning for a burrito and a roll of lotto tickets.

What I'm trying to express is that people never take responsibility anymore. Never. The formula goes:

"Why'd you do it, Bill?"

"Joe told me to!"

"What's up, Joe?"

"Andy told me a story about it happening one time to a friend of his!"

"Andy?"

"I saw it on YouTube!"

"...sigh...YouTube?"

"Don't blame me! It was a clip on the Daily News!"

"..."

"We're the News. We just report, we don't have to take Personal Responsibility!"

"...Personal Responsibility?"

*Out to Lunch*

C'mon, guys and girls. Maybe its time to man-up and throw in a, "my bad," every once in a while. I swear it won't kill ya.

Rock On, Ladies

Yes, I know I haven't posted in a good while; school's been keeping me busier than I thought it could.

But allow me to introduce these three ladies before ya'll start to complain.

And proceed to head-bang

Boys and Bars IV

It was at this point that Calvin joined the rest of the crew on the bar to catch up or as he put it, “Full Vodka!” Approximately eight minutes later he was reduced to a drooling mass of flesh.

In those eight minutes, the ladies of the group went to the bathroom to do whatever ladies do in the bathroom, and a pretty girl wandered into the bar and sat in between Aiden and Hollis, who were both feeling more than a little buzzed. At the same moment, both men took out their respective cigarettes, plopped one in their mouths, and lit them. If one had been paying attention, one would’ve notice that their movements were one-hundred percent synchronized to the point where they seemed like mirrored images of each other. This phenomenon is known as “Smoker pack mentality,” and it involves decades of research to completely understand.

As they exhaled together, the young lady wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Don’t you know that’s bad for you?” She asked.

Largo suddenly felt a chill run through his bones. He glanced towards Jake, who was pale, Keegan, whose eyes expanded to the size of dinner plates, and Calvin, whose hair was wet from the drool he was napping in.

Hollis’s eyebrow rose.

Aiden’s expression soured.

The world shuttered.

Hollis started off. “Really? I mean, no shit?”

Aiden felt the rhythm and joined in. “I hope you’re not serious, cause I’ve been smoking for years and I’ve never heard that it’s bad for you!”

“I know, right? I mean jeeze, you’d think they’d put a warning label on the box.”

“Or you know, maybe not allow cigarette ads on TV.”

“Or better yet, have commercials warning people not to smoke!”

“Oh-ho! That, sir, is genius! But think about this: what if the there were a bunch of antismoking groups who went around elementary schools and held events and passed out fliers and such that warned the kiddies too!”

“Holy shit! That’s perfect! Cause nobody else does that! At all!”

The young lady looked at them both with suspicion in her eyes. “…You two aren't being serious, are you?”

Writing down what the two friends replied to the girl would be unethical, a crime against humanity, illegal in forty-eight states, and would put the author in moral jeopardy with both his mother and God. So, he’s not doing it.

Needless to say, after the girl finished vomiting, she fled the bar clutching her skull and begging for the voices to stop. Largo, a little frizzled, took a long pull from his beer and felt much better. Jake managed to shield himself by reciting every line from the Dragon ball Z series in reverse order. Keegan seemed to be fine until a massive amount of blood gushed from his nose.

“Aww, damn it! Every fucking time!”

Calvin suddenly rose from the bar. He looked around all the while shaking off strands of drool. “Why am I sober?”

Boys and Bars III

Kellie rolled her eyes at the exchange and moseyed next to Largo. She ordered a drink (much to Aiden’s dismay, her beer arrived a full five minutes before his shot) and sat down. She said to Largo, “How do, Jew?”

A half-smile crept on his face. “Oh, I’m a Jew? Please. I heard ‘bout that dirty Jew gold you keep in your dirty Jew cave.”

Hollis, who had been staring off into space, muttered, “Gah-damn dirty Jew gold…”

“Damn right, Hollis.”

“Almost as bad as those friggen’ Canadians. Sarah Palin can rot in hell.”

“She’s Alaskan.”

“Same difference.”

It was at the point the little group decided unanimously that now was the appropriate time to get trashed.

The beer flowed like a golden river of ambrosia.

Shot glasses were stacked into glorious pyramids of reflecting light, then knocked over and stacked again.

Hollis started ranting about how stupid teenagers were becoming.

It was perfect.

After Largo’s eleventh beer was decidedly finished, he heard:

“You asshole! You tried to trick me!”

Largo peered over towards the pool tables where Calvin was being confronted by a tall frat guy. As the guy continued to shout, Largo couldn’t help but notice how everyone in the bar immediately gave him the, “That asshole needs to shut up,” look. The frat boy actually seemed to radiate an aura of dislike; the way his face was a little too bland, the way the circles around his eyes, no doubt obtained from countless nights partying with his…bros, made him look like a mediocre scientist tried to combine a retarded man-child and a raccoon only to fail miserably and resulting in the scientist becoming an alcoholic. Basically, he resembled a crime against God and humanity. And a dick. What little did the frat boy know, as well as the rest of the residents of the bar, was that the aura he seemed to generate was not their imagination; in fact, he was living avatar of the douchebag god, a shady character by the name of Bro-lin. It was this aura that disgusted everyday decent folk, and attracted guidos, frat boys, and men who feel it’s always appropriate to wear pink shirts.

“You swindled me, bro!”

“Ok, I know you’re mad. Probably furious. I know I would be too if I sucked at pool as bad as you. And you lost a hundred dollars. That must really suck,” Calvin replied nonchalantly.

“Fuck you, bro!”

“See, that’s your problem; always yelling. Nobody likes that. And don’t call me bro. I’m not a part of your weird voodoo cult.”

“I’m Kappa Alpha Beta Delta Psi Epsilon!”

“Does that mean you’re shitty at pool?”

The raccoon mutation/Bro-lin gritted his teeth and reared back his fist.

Calvin noticed and dropped into an odd fighting stance. “Don’t make me Muay Thai your ass.”

Just as Largo thought things were about to go to hell, Hollis suddenly muttered loud enough for his voice to carry over to the pool tables, “Figures. I didn’t wanna do it, but he’s being that guy.”

This, for one reason or another, attracted the Bro-lin’s attention. “What the fuck did you say?”

Hollis let out a long, drawn out sigh; artfully perfected by years of practice. “There he goes. Being that guy. I’m gonna have to do it. Again. Jesus.”

It was then and there Bro-lin made a terrible mistake. He turned back towards Calvin and managed to say, “What the fu-“before the entire bar heard:

“HADOUKEN!”

And a full beer bottle exploded against the back of Bro-lin’s head. A look of confusion filled his eyes before he passed out to the floor and the aura he exerted faded away. The residents of the bar were at first filled with shock, but as the douchy aura faded, shock turned to “Piss on him, the asshole,” and they resumed having a good time.

The rest of the frat guys, appalled at the defeat of their leader, hissed and scurried away with him on their shoulders.

Largo and the rest of the little group rested their eyes on Hollis with amazement, who simply stared at where his ice cold beer used to be. He let out another one of his long sighs. “What a waste. I should’ve enjoyed that beer. But he was that guy, and those guys have to be Hadoukened on a regular basis.” He managed to catch every one of his friends’ eyes at once. “Right?”

And oddly enough, his statement seemed totally suitable.