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West Beacon (Contains swearing, violence and sex) on Sun Jan 22, 2012 12:45 pm
Joad
Sexy Beast
This is only a first draft, grammar and spelling mistakes will be there and it might seem like a rough piece of work (because it is a rough piece of work). I only have 2500 words for now, I'll try updating it every day.
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-1-
Jonathan Nashly looked at the sleeping town of Beacon Hills from his balcony. The lights shone, ever so bright in contrast to the darkness of the night. He couldn’t see the stars. His father would always tell him that before, when the town was young, the stars could be seen brightly and that if it wasn’t for that pig mucking mayor, encouraging tourists to come, there would be none of this pig mucking light pollution.
His father always said “pig mucking” instead of “fucking”. Robert Nashley had given his heart to Christ, and he would not tolerate swearing. Jonathan, on the other hand, swore a lot. He liked the sound of most swear words, especially the word “fuck” which he used regularily, unless he was in the presence of his father. As he stood there, looking at the city, his girlfriend came out to join him.
“It’s my favorite song, hun. Let’s dance?” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder and guiding him indoors. She was eighteen, just like him. Anette Smith was a bumbling fool from England, but she was a hottie alright. A slag too. She rarely sticked with one boyfriend for over a week. Jonathan had been with her for nearly a month and that was considered good. Inside, back where everyone was partying, Anette’s favorite song was playing. Wonderful Night by Eric Clapton. Jonathan disliked the song. He disliked every song due to the common migraines that he had been having recently. It was always a steady rhythm that got them started. Still, he’d been with Anette for one month and if he made her happy tonight, he might get to sleep with her. That’s what every boy that went out with her wanted. Not to marry her, she was obviously not the marrying sort, but to sleep with the bitch.
She was the only reason he was at the graduation party. He’d dropped out of school when he was 16 but she had continued and this, he thought, was an opportunity to go get some.
-2-
Jack Woodson walked down West Street. The middle aged policeman had just finished his shift. It had been a long one, what with the break-in at Marlin’s. The old jeweler claimed that he’d lost around one hundred thousand worth but everyone knew that he was bullshitting. No one went to Marlin’s, they went to Nashly Jewelers. Good old Will Marlin couldn’t afford one hundred thousand dollars of jewlery.
Jack reached his home and opened the door. He hoped to see his wife in the kitchen, cooking her speciality roast chicken. She wasn’t there. She’d gone missing a year ago. They’d been sleeping and when Jack woke up, he was alone in bed. He’d gotten out of bed and walked downstairs. He could smell porridge, he had thought that she must have woken up earlier than him for once. No one was eating the porridge. It was there on the table but no one was eating it. There was a spoon in the bowl and it looked as if someone had started eating it but had not finished.
His wife wasn’t in the house. There were no signs of a struggle and it was a Sunday, the shops would be closed. He hadn’t seen her since.
He took a beer out of the fridge and drunk it. He’d started drinking when she went missing. She had been searched for, of course, but the fools that he worked with were useless. Now there he was, a good looking, middle aged man, wasting his life on beer and mourning. He took another beer and drunk it. Things were better when he was drunk. He didn’t care about his beer gut, he just wanted to be happy, and if happy meant drunk, then so be it.
-3-
Richard Patson was on injury leave from the army. He’d been assigned to fight in fucking Afghanistan. He’d been assigned to patrol with some novice. He walked onto a mine. His partner had both his legs ruined. They had to be amputated and he was in hospital. He might not survive. Meanwhile, Richard had just had shrapnel hit him in the stomach. It had been lodged in two centimeters deep. It wasn’t fatal but it hurt and prevented him from fighting. He’d enjoyed two weeks of his leave and would be back in Afghanistan in one week’s time.
He was taking his daily walk through Queen’s Park. He liked it in Queen’s Park, there was a lake that was clear of all detritus. The people here were more respectful than in bigger cities like New York. The only problem was pigeons. They were everywhere in the park, some being bold enough to brush you as you walked. The mayor kept trying to get rid of them with measures that became more and more desperate but each time, they came back.
Richard exited the park and made his way towards the town center. He needed to buy fishing gear and none was available in west Beacon. As he reached the unofficial boundaries between west Beacon and the Center, he saw what at first sight, looked like policemen. A closer inspection revealed that they were not policemen but what they were wearing alarmed Richard. They were wearing riot gear.
-4-
Jonathan’s head pounded with pain. The music had got his migraines going again. All because of Anette, the bitch. He had to keep reminding himself why he was inside, with the music. He was there because he wanted to rut his girlfriend but as the migraine got worse, he started wondering if he really wanted sex. He was a virgin, it might not be as good as people made it out to be, hell, it couldn’t possibly make up for this fucking headache of his. He couldn’t hear the words to the music anymore, just the rhythm, a thumping sound that made him wince. Anette didn’t seem to notice, or if she did, the bitch didn’t care. Maybe she was just toying with him for shits and giggles. If she did that, he’d stop giving a shit and would just beat her till she cried for mercy, then he’d beat her some more. He wasn’t usually angry like this, he usually never had thoughts of violence. He only had them when the migraines came. His father had refused the pills that the doctors had prescribed. “God will make the migraines stop, not some pig mucking pills.” He had said. Easy for him to say, he wasn’t the one that felt like committing suicide. Jonathan had considered doing it a lot, but each time he thought of all the things he would miss out on, mainly sex and drugs. He would buy drugs, some day. Shit, he’d sell them too.
He stepped back from Anette.
“I’m not feeling so well.” he said.
He left the party and made his way home. The street lamps weren’t powerful enough, giving the streets a gloomy look. The air was fresh and the night cold. Jonathan should have taken more than a T-shirt and some ripped jeans. He took a Woodbine cigarette pack from his pocket and slid it open. He drew a cigarette then took out a lighter and lit it. He put it to his lips and inhaled slowly. It made his headache feel better but the lights from the lampposts, while not bright, still made his head throb with pain. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temple with his free hand.
He got home at one in the morning. His father was asleep on the couch. Jonathan walked past him, not caring if he woke him up. He was halfway up the stairs when his father spoke up.
“Shouldn’t you still be at that party?”
Jonathan stopped walking and looked at his father through the slits in the banister.
“I wasn’t feeling well.” Jonathan answered.
His father stood up and walked up the stairs. He put a hand on Jon’s shoulder. Jonathan flinched. It made the pain worse.
“It’s those headaches again, isn’t it?” he said “Son, be good in life and God will make the pain go away.”
Jonathan nodded and made his way upstairs. He entered his room and slumped to the floor. It was dark in here, but not dark enough. He went to the window and closed the shutters. It was pure darkness now. Jonathan stuck his hand in front of his eyes. He could barely see it.
Then the pale man came back.
-6-
The bar was still busy as Julie Sears ended her shift. She’d done exactly what her boss wanted her to do: chat up the customers, make them feel special and get them to buy drinks. However, the boss still thought that she was incompetent, which was true, but her definition of work was better than his. She worked in Central Beacon due to the abundance of jobs there but she now dreaded the walk to work. Her driving license had been confiscated by the police, or, as she called them, the pigs.
As she reached West Beacon, she saw a line of policemen in riot gear. She walked up to them.
“I live jus’ down the road, can you let me pass?”
The policemen withdrew and she walked into the west part of town with an ominous feeling.
-7-
Richard jogged to the policemen.
“Hey, what’s going on? Is there a manifestation of some kind?”
An overweight, middle aged policeman looked at him with hard eyes. He stroked his stubble but did not answer. Richard repeated his question and this time, he elicited a response.
“There’s no riot.”
Richard, realizing that this guy wouldn’t give his a good answer, looked around for a younger policeman. He spotted one, on the other side of the road, in front of the Come & Go fast food place, unloading crates from a bus. Richard walked over to him, hands in his jean’s pockets and smiling.
“Hey, I was wondering if I could know what was going on? The cop with a beer gut gave me no response.”
The policeman grins, revealing white teeth.
“That’s Sergeant Siggs, he always acts like he’s on some kind of secret mission. I guess this is kind of secret… Anyway, I don’t really know what’s going on, I just know that we mustn’t let anyone out.”
-8-
The pale man had left. Jonathan groaned: The man had always been nice to him, had always made the pain go away. Not this time. This time, he just laughed, a rhythmic laugh that made Jonathan’s head pound with pain. His laugh sounded like coins falling from a slot machine, a sound that Jonathan didn’t consider pleasant.
Jonathan stood up and sat on his bed. There was another scar on his wrist. He couldn’t remember doing it, but he knew when it had happened. It always happened when the pale man was with him.
Jonathan had tried something called the butterfly project. He drew a butterfly on his wrist and named it after someone he loved. The principle was that he wouldn’t cut himself, because if he did, the butterfly would die and he would have betrayed the person that he named the butterfly after.
He had cut it. It was when the pale man had come, but that time, he had stayed for the whole night. Jonathan had called his father, but his father didn’t see the pale man, couldn’t see him. The man had explained, he had said that his father was too old to see him. Jonathan didn’t understand the explanation but he believed it: he believed everything that the pale man said.
He put his hand under his bed and took a bottle of pain killers. He put one in his mouth and at the same time, wondered if he should just overdose and end the pain completely. Each time, he didn’t do it, because he wanted to see the pale man again.
It was when he contemplated suicide that he realized that the pale man was like a drug. Once you met him, you never wanted to stop being with him. When Jon was away from him, he felt a longing, an ache of the heart similar to the one felt when away from a lover but with one crucial difference: The longing for the pale man was much stronger than the longing for a lover.
Jon took hold of his necklace, his mother’s necklace, and put it into his mouth. It had a dull taste. Just like his life: dull.
-9-
It was 2:00 am by the time Julie realized that she had left her phone at the bar. She went outside wrapped in a thick, fur coat that her ex had bought for her. Her ex had left when he found out that her job involved flirting with other men.
The police was still there. They were standing in a straight line, all completely still. A man that wasn’t police seemed to be talking to two cops. Julie hurried over to the pigs and talked to the first one she saw.
-10-
Richard heard a voice boom.
“Jenkins, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
It was Sergeant Siggs, his beer gut bouncing lazily as he walked towards Richard.
The young man that Richard was talking to stood straight as the sergeant arrived.
“Sorry Sarge, won’t talk to them again.”
Richard heard a door close further down the street. He looked backwards to see an attractive looking young woman walking towards them. He turned back to the sergeant.
“Who the fuck d’you think you are?” the sergeant asked.
Richard looked him in the eyes.
“I’m Major Patson, on injury leave. It’s my fault that this man talked, I ordered him to.”
The sergeant laughed a loud, deep guttural laugh. As he laughed, Richard heard the woman engage another policeman in conversation.
“Well, Major, we don’t have to take orders from nobody except for one colonel and the president. Jenkins knows that. Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.”
Richard was about to answer when he noticed the woman try pushing past the police. She was pushed back and fell on her arse.
“This is not respecting my right to circulation!” she shouted “you can’t disrespect human rights!”
Sarge looked at her before stomping towards the interference and lifting her into the air.
“Look woman, don’t make me angry, the president himself said that we didn’t have to respect your fucking rights, so stop bitching.”
The woman wriggled out of his grip and pushed him away. She opened her mouth but was silenced as his fist broke her nose.
From where he was standing five meters away, Richard heard a definite cracking sound. The woman’s glasses shattered, the glass piercing her skin and entering her eyes. Her upper teeth fell out of her mouth onto the cold, granite floor.
“I’m blind, I’m blind!” she screamed as she fell down, landing on her backside once more.
The sergeant put a foot on her left breast, not exactly a kick but hard enough to hurt.
________________
-1-
Jonathan Nashly looked at the sleeping town of Beacon Hills from his balcony. The lights shone, ever so bright in contrast to the darkness of the night. He couldn’t see the stars. His father would always tell him that before, when the town was young, the stars could be seen brightly and that if it wasn’t for that pig mucking mayor, encouraging tourists to come, there would be none of this pig mucking light pollution.
His father always said “pig mucking” instead of “fucking”. Robert Nashley had given his heart to Christ, and he would not tolerate swearing. Jonathan, on the other hand, swore a lot. He liked the sound of most swear words, especially the word “fuck” which he used regularily, unless he was in the presence of his father. As he stood there, looking at the city, his girlfriend came out to join him.
“It’s my favorite song, hun. Let’s dance?” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder and guiding him indoors. She was eighteen, just like him. Anette Smith was a bumbling fool from England, but she was a hottie alright. A slag too. She rarely sticked with one boyfriend for over a week. Jonathan had been with her for nearly a month and that was considered good. Inside, back where everyone was partying, Anette’s favorite song was playing. Wonderful Night by Eric Clapton. Jonathan disliked the song. He disliked every song due to the common migraines that he had been having recently. It was always a steady rhythm that got them started. Still, he’d been with Anette for one month and if he made her happy tonight, he might get to sleep with her. That’s what every boy that went out with her wanted. Not to marry her, she was obviously not the marrying sort, but to sleep with the bitch.
She was the only reason he was at the graduation party. He’d dropped out of school when he was 16 but she had continued and this, he thought, was an opportunity to go get some.
-2-
Jack Woodson walked down West Street. The middle aged policeman had just finished his shift. It had been a long one, what with the break-in at Marlin’s. The old jeweler claimed that he’d lost around one hundred thousand worth but everyone knew that he was bullshitting. No one went to Marlin’s, they went to Nashly Jewelers. Good old Will Marlin couldn’t afford one hundred thousand dollars of jewlery.
Jack reached his home and opened the door. He hoped to see his wife in the kitchen, cooking her speciality roast chicken. She wasn’t there. She’d gone missing a year ago. They’d been sleeping and when Jack woke up, he was alone in bed. He’d gotten out of bed and walked downstairs. He could smell porridge, he had thought that she must have woken up earlier than him for once. No one was eating the porridge. It was there on the table but no one was eating it. There was a spoon in the bowl and it looked as if someone had started eating it but had not finished.
His wife wasn’t in the house. There were no signs of a struggle and it was a Sunday, the shops would be closed. He hadn’t seen her since.
He took a beer out of the fridge and drunk it. He’d started drinking when she went missing. She had been searched for, of course, but the fools that he worked with were useless. Now there he was, a good looking, middle aged man, wasting his life on beer and mourning. He took another beer and drunk it. Things were better when he was drunk. He didn’t care about his beer gut, he just wanted to be happy, and if happy meant drunk, then so be it.
-3-
Richard Patson was on injury leave from the army. He’d been assigned to fight in fucking Afghanistan. He’d been assigned to patrol with some novice. He walked onto a mine. His partner had both his legs ruined. They had to be amputated and he was in hospital. He might not survive. Meanwhile, Richard had just had shrapnel hit him in the stomach. It had been lodged in two centimeters deep. It wasn’t fatal but it hurt and prevented him from fighting. He’d enjoyed two weeks of his leave and would be back in Afghanistan in one week’s time.
He was taking his daily walk through Queen’s Park. He liked it in Queen’s Park, there was a lake that was clear of all detritus. The people here were more respectful than in bigger cities like New York. The only problem was pigeons. They were everywhere in the park, some being bold enough to brush you as you walked. The mayor kept trying to get rid of them with measures that became more and more desperate but each time, they came back.
Richard exited the park and made his way towards the town center. He needed to buy fishing gear and none was available in west Beacon. As he reached the unofficial boundaries between west Beacon and the Center, he saw what at first sight, looked like policemen. A closer inspection revealed that they were not policemen but what they were wearing alarmed Richard. They were wearing riot gear.
-4-
Jonathan’s head pounded with pain. The music had got his migraines going again. All because of Anette, the bitch. He had to keep reminding himself why he was inside, with the music. He was there because he wanted to rut his girlfriend but as the migraine got worse, he started wondering if he really wanted sex. He was a virgin, it might not be as good as people made it out to be, hell, it couldn’t possibly make up for this fucking headache of his. He couldn’t hear the words to the music anymore, just the rhythm, a thumping sound that made him wince. Anette didn’t seem to notice, or if she did, the bitch didn’t care. Maybe she was just toying with him for shits and giggles. If she did that, he’d stop giving a shit and would just beat her till she cried for mercy, then he’d beat her some more. He wasn’t usually angry like this, he usually never had thoughts of violence. He only had them when the migraines came. His father had refused the pills that the doctors had prescribed. “God will make the migraines stop, not some pig mucking pills.” He had said. Easy for him to say, he wasn’t the one that felt like committing suicide. Jonathan had considered doing it a lot, but each time he thought of all the things he would miss out on, mainly sex and drugs. He would buy drugs, some day. Shit, he’d sell them too.
He stepped back from Anette.
“I’m not feeling so well.” he said.
He left the party and made his way home. The street lamps weren’t powerful enough, giving the streets a gloomy look. The air was fresh and the night cold. Jonathan should have taken more than a T-shirt and some ripped jeans. He took a Woodbine cigarette pack from his pocket and slid it open. He drew a cigarette then took out a lighter and lit it. He put it to his lips and inhaled slowly. It made his headache feel better but the lights from the lampposts, while not bright, still made his head throb with pain. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temple with his free hand.
He got home at one in the morning. His father was asleep on the couch. Jonathan walked past him, not caring if he woke him up. He was halfway up the stairs when his father spoke up.
“Shouldn’t you still be at that party?”
Jonathan stopped walking and looked at his father through the slits in the banister.
“I wasn’t feeling well.” Jonathan answered.
His father stood up and walked up the stairs. He put a hand on Jon’s shoulder. Jonathan flinched. It made the pain worse.
“It’s those headaches again, isn’t it?” he said “Son, be good in life and God will make the pain go away.”
Jonathan nodded and made his way upstairs. He entered his room and slumped to the floor. It was dark in here, but not dark enough. He went to the window and closed the shutters. It was pure darkness now. Jonathan stuck his hand in front of his eyes. He could barely see it.
Then the pale man came back.
-6-
The bar was still busy as Julie Sears ended her shift. She’d done exactly what her boss wanted her to do: chat up the customers, make them feel special and get them to buy drinks. However, the boss still thought that she was incompetent, which was true, but her definition of work was better than his. She worked in Central Beacon due to the abundance of jobs there but she now dreaded the walk to work. Her driving license had been confiscated by the police, or, as she called them, the pigs.
As she reached West Beacon, she saw a line of policemen in riot gear. She walked up to them.
“I live jus’ down the road, can you let me pass?”
The policemen withdrew and she walked into the west part of town with an ominous feeling.
-7-
Richard jogged to the policemen.
“Hey, what’s going on? Is there a manifestation of some kind?”
An overweight, middle aged policeman looked at him with hard eyes. He stroked his stubble but did not answer. Richard repeated his question and this time, he elicited a response.
“There’s no riot.”
Richard, realizing that this guy wouldn’t give his a good answer, looked around for a younger policeman. He spotted one, on the other side of the road, in front of the Come & Go fast food place, unloading crates from a bus. Richard walked over to him, hands in his jean’s pockets and smiling.
“Hey, I was wondering if I could know what was going on? The cop with a beer gut gave me no response.”
The policeman grins, revealing white teeth.
“That’s Sergeant Siggs, he always acts like he’s on some kind of secret mission. I guess this is kind of secret… Anyway, I don’t really know what’s going on, I just know that we mustn’t let anyone out.”
-8-
The pale man had left. Jonathan groaned: The man had always been nice to him, had always made the pain go away. Not this time. This time, he just laughed, a rhythmic laugh that made Jonathan’s head pound with pain. His laugh sounded like coins falling from a slot machine, a sound that Jonathan didn’t consider pleasant.
Jonathan stood up and sat on his bed. There was another scar on his wrist. He couldn’t remember doing it, but he knew when it had happened. It always happened when the pale man was with him.
Jonathan had tried something called the butterfly project. He drew a butterfly on his wrist and named it after someone he loved. The principle was that he wouldn’t cut himself, because if he did, the butterfly would die and he would have betrayed the person that he named the butterfly after.
He had cut it. It was when the pale man had come, but that time, he had stayed for the whole night. Jonathan had called his father, but his father didn’t see the pale man, couldn’t see him. The man had explained, he had said that his father was too old to see him. Jonathan didn’t understand the explanation but he believed it: he believed everything that the pale man said.
He put his hand under his bed and took a bottle of pain killers. He put one in his mouth and at the same time, wondered if he should just overdose and end the pain completely. Each time, he didn’t do it, because he wanted to see the pale man again.
It was when he contemplated suicide that he realized that the pale man was like a drug. Once you met him, you never wanted to stop being with him. When Jon was away from him, he felt a longing, an ache of the heart similar to the one felt when away from a lover but with one crucial difference: The longing for the pale man was much stronger than the longing for a lover.
Jon took hold of his necklace, his mother’s necklace, and put it into his mouth. It had a dull taste. Just like his life: dull.
-9-
It was 2:00 am by the time Julie realized that she had left her phone at the bar. She went outside wrapped in a thick, fur coat that her ex had bought for her. Her ex had left when he found out that her job involved flirting with other men.
The police was still there. They were standing in a straight line, all completely still. A man that wasn’t police seemed to be talking to two cops. Julie hurried over to the pigs and talked to the first one she saw.
-10-
Richard heard a voice boom.
“Jenkins, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
It was Sergeant Siggs, his beer gut bouncing lazily as he walked towards Richard.
The young man that Richard was talking to stood straight as the sergeant arrived.
“Sorry Sarge, won’t talk to them again.”
Richard heard a door close further down the street. He looked backwards to see an attractive looking young woman walking towards them. He turned back to the sergeant.
“Who the fuck d’you think you are?” the sergeant asked.
Richard looked him in the eyes.
“I’m Major Patson, on injury leave. It’s my fault that this man talked, I ordered him to.”
The sergeant laughed a loud, deep guttural laugh. As he laughed, Richard heard the woman engage another policeman in conversation.
“Well, Major, we don’t have to take orders from nobody except for one colonel and the president. Jenkins knows that. Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.”
Richard was about to answer when he noticed the woman try pushing past the police. She was pushed back and fell on her arse.
“This is not respecting my right to circulation!” she shouted “you can’t disrespect human rights!”
Sarge looked at her before stomping towards the interference and lifting her into the air.
“Look woman, don’t make me angry, the president himself said that we didn’t have to respect your fucking rights, so stop bitching.”
The woman wriggled out of his grip and pushed him away. She opened her mouth but was silenced as his fist broke her nose.
From where he was standing five meters away, Richard heard a definite cracking sound. The woman’s glasses shattered, the glass piercing her skin and entering her eyes. Her upper teeth fell out of her mouth onto the cold, granite floor.
“I’m blind, I’m blind!” she screamed as she fell down, landing on her backside once more.
The sergeant put a foot on her left breast, not exactly a kick but hard enough to hurt.
