Destroyed-Ch. 1

Chapter 1

The back tire of my bike was flat, which left me stranded on the side of the road. The night air was cold, and there was a lack of light which made it hard to see anymore than four feet in front of my face. Headlights from passing cars caused me to flinch and the bright light caused me to go blind. I began to walk my old broken bike down the side of the street and was met by the sight of an old red pickup truck with the paint peeling and the back window filled with cracks. As the truck began to slow I grew more and more frightened and when it finally came to a stop-I was simply terrified. My heart was racing and I was frozen in fear, but my fears were soon demolished when the driver reviled himself to be my buddy, Scott. His long brown hair was soaked with sweat and he reeked of whiskey and gin. He stuck his head outside of the car window and shouted to me, “What are you do’n here?”
“Don’t know,” I said.
“Well you want a ride?”
I stared into his blood shoot eyes and thought about my answer for quite some time. I don’t know if it was the cold frigid weather or my lack of judgment or maybe it was my pure laziness, but I almost answered yes. Then I rethought my answer and replied, “Naw man, I’ll just walk.” He rolled his eyes, “What ev’r, se ya latter.”
         “Alright see ya.” The car drove off leaving me once again alone on the side of the dark street. I continued my long walk home, and when I finally got there I realized how late it actually was. My father was sleeping on the couch; I tried to sneak in all quiet like but I was unsuccessful in my endeavors.
         “What the fuck are ya do’n out so late!” the tone of his voice was nothing less than a shout and as he yelled a single tear fell from my eye, which made him even madder for some reason, “What are you cry’n for boy, Huh?” in fear I mumbled, “I don’t know,” “What ya too good to answer me you little brat!” more tears fell. My father pushed me outside and shouted, “Since you too good to answer me, you too good for my house.” He opened the screen door and I walked down the steps and around the block, hearing my father slam the door as I left. I kept walking till I came to an old abandon park. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out a silver flask. Now, before I continue I don’t want anyone to think my father was always like this, but his drinking was so bad-it caused him to become angry and aggressive. The flask was almost empty, but I managed to take a small sip. Another one of my friend walked into the park too, and called out to me.
         “Why the fuck is y’all here?”
I gave a quick chuckle and answered, “Dad’s been drink’n.”
         “Same, except it wasn’t my dad.” He laughed as he took a swing from a bottle of whiskey. Blake was like that, a jokester. He had pure black hair, which he wore in one of those old army buzz cuts. He wasn’t very tall but the tight shirts he always wore made him look a lot tougher than he actually was, but don’t get me wrong. Blake was a tough kid, though his bright blue eyes said differently.
“Pass that bottle ov’r here,” I said. Blake handed me the bottle, I took a swing then he did then I did. He took the bottle and laughed, “Guess it’s gonna be one of them nights.” He couldn’t stop laughing and whiskey fell from his mouth. We kept passing the bottle back and forth all night. We didn’t want to drink it too fast, since Blake’s maw would have killed him he ev’r come home drunk.
         “Dalton?” he asked with a more serious tone.
I looked up and answered, “Yeah whatcha need?”
          “Why do you drink?”
“I don’t know cause it fun,” his question was strange to me, so simply but I couldn’t help thinking there was a deeper meaning to it.
         “No, I mean do you do it cause you sad, or to look tough?”
I thought for a moment about this, why did I drink? I mean I hated when my dad did it, am I just a hypocrite for do’n what I condemn him for. “I guess I’m just try’n to get away from life. I mean I don’t know, all I know is when I drink there’s a little bit of time where I don’t have to worry about anything.”
         “Yeah I know what ya mean, but I don’t know why I do it, you know? It’s just something I do.”
I shout him a quick grin that meant; yeah I know what ya mean.
         “Dalton,” he continued in a serious voice with his head down in a sort of nervous way, “I got to stop this. My dad is do’n six years for drink’n too much. I don’t want to end up like him. I mean he hasn’t been with me since I was less than three. He’s been in and out of jail about six times. Every time I got to see him it was like for a couple of weeks, maybe for a month if I was lucky. I can’t…I…I won’t end up like him, leaving me family behind try’n to make up for my mistakes, making them suffer for the crap I do. I just want it to stop.”
Tears began to fall from his eyes, and we finished off the whiskey. When we were done we chucked the bottle ov’r a fence and heard it broke against a brick wall that was covered with graffiti. I hadn’t realized it before, but Blake was really upset. His eyes were all red, and I knew it wasn’t from the alcohol. He didn’t cry a lot, the last time was four years ago when his dad went to jail, now Blake was a reputation of being a tough kid and he didn’t want anyone to think otherwise. He wiped the tears from his face, but he could still tell he had been cry’n.
         We left the park, I could tell it was late, but we really didn’t care. We kept walking. I wasn’t going home, not after what my father did and chances were he was still pounding them drinks down. So, we started walking around town. We came to an old alley in between an old abandon factory and some school that was partly torn down since the town had become pretty bad the past couple of years, the lucky ones got out and the ones who stayed were the criminals, the drunks, the druggies, and the poor people. We hoisted ourselves up on a few tin garbage cans and lit up a couple of cigarettes. As I was tak’n a puff I noticed a couple of kids look’n for a fight. I mean I didn’t like to fight, but I would if I had to. Blake was different, he loved to fight, said he loved the rush of it. Told me it was the only thing that felt better than the warmth of alcohol travelling down his throat on a cold winter’s day. The two kids started walking towards us, brining their faces into the light and reviling who they were. “It’s Curtis and Jeremy,” I whispered to Blake, he gave me a quick but serious nod in recognition. Curtis and Jeremy were brothers. They basically looked like twins, they both had shorter black hair and grey eyes, but Curtis was slightly taller and two years old than his brother who was sixteen like me and Blake. I could already tell by the look in their eyes and the smell of their breath that they had been drinking and were roaring drunk. Curtis was the first to walk over and as we stumbled towards the ground in a bit of drunken mess; I couldn’t help but laugh, which made him awfully mad.
         “What the fuck are y’all laug’n at?”
Blake just kept laughing hysterically.
         “You shut your mouth Blake!” Curtis and Jeremy shouted in unison.
“Make me you piece of shit,” Curtis took out a switch blade and Jeremy pushed me onto the ground. He was strong, but I managed to get him off of me. I had him on the ground and just started throwing punches to his face. I went insane and didn’t stop, even after I saw blood pouring from his nose and mouth. He managed to get a couple of shots on me, but I didn’t have too much damage. Blake and Curtis had his switchblade to Blake, but Blake managed to get it away from him. After that they were both tied up, evenly matched in strength, pushing and shoving back and forth. Curtis thrusts his leg up and kicks Blake in the stomach, when they broke their grip Blake punched Curtis straight in the eye, leaving it all black and swollen and causing Curtis and Jeremy to run away, stumbling from their massively high blood-alcohol level.
         “Man what a fight, Huh?” Blake cheered as he ran down the street pumping his fist in the air.
I liked that we won, but I really didn’t want to fight if I didn’t have to, I do it for self defense.
         “I just love the rush of it, don’t you?” Blake was still shouting and cheering but I soon realized that he was a lot more upset than he looked. I mean how could he look and act so happy, yet still seemed sad. There was just something in his eye that just made me think something was wrong. “Don’t you like the rush Dalton?”
I didn’t know what to say so I just looked around nervously, causing Blake to just say a quick and lazy, “Whatever.” Then we both lit up a cigarette. We watched the red amber tip of the cancer stick glow in the darkness of the ghetto we lived in and as we smoked we made ideal conversation, but as we spoke all I could think of was what was making Blake so upset.