You Can’t Prick Your Enemies.
(January 6, 2006)
Writing practice and nothing more. A bit of silliness, really.
Prick, they call her. Though her real name is Lucia-Maria Marcella Carasello (“Which is a gorgeous name, Prick! I’d kill for it!”), she still prefers to go by the silly nickname she’d fashioned in eighth grade in order to send her unsuspecting boyfriend through a loop. He’d been camped out on her front porch, waiting for her to get home from a babysitting job, and asked her where she’d been.
“Oh, out with my girlfriend Prick. You know how it goes,” she’d said nonchalantly before planting a kiss on his forehead and twirling into the house.
“Prick,” he’d stated, puzzled, following behind her. “I’m not familiar with that one. Want to explain, Lu?”
“No,” she grinned, dropping her purse and hopping onto the couch. “Wanna make out?”
He’d broken up with her the next day, the excuse being that she moved too fast for his taste. And quite frankly, “That chick is queer.” It wasn’t before long, however, that the two were dating again and have been ever since. David is his name.
Back in reality, Prick gives reason for adopting her imaginary girlfriend’s name as her own. “Prick!” she bellows, a grin playing at her lips. “It’s something unusual, something people will remember!” she announces before swatting me with a pillow and hollering for me to get her some Oreos while I’m up.
“I think people will have enough trouble forgetting you without the nickname,” I offer through the swinging kitchen doors.
The two of us are spending an evening embedded into fabric of her marshmellow-y living room couch, armed with a stack of magazines, dvds, and most importantly, food. After snarfing an entire bowl of popcorn and stomaching the complete Season One of Boy Meets World, Prick declares a hunger for Oreos, milk, and “intelligent conversation.”
“Do you believe in God?” Prick asks, grabbing a couple coasters and carefully setting down the brimming glasses of milk that I’d fetched from the kitchen.
“Yeah.” I open the package of cookies and dive back into the puffy couch, which practically swallows me whole. “Why do you ask?”
“Well David has been talking a bit about theology lately,” Prick grabs a few Oreos and screws the top off one. “He’s all, ‘You know, Lu, there is a God.’ And I’m like, ‘Why Dave? Why do you think that?’ An’ he’s like, ‘I dunno, Lu, but why wouldn’t there be? Doesn’t it make sense?’”
“Sure,” I add, taking a bite of my own cookie.
“Well, I thought it over last night and, I mean, it’s overwhelming stuff. I after awhile, I was just like, ‘Give me a couple Roseanne reruns and a bowl of leftover spaghetti, because I’m sick of thinking!’ And so I went downstairs and watched TV and ate leftovers and fried brain cells and, Mattie? It was good. So so good.”
I don’t have an interesting name like Lucia or Prick or Topanga. Mattie’s the name, though some people know me as “Weasel” after some incident that happened last year. I’d rather not talk about it.
“Dave’s a pretty smart guy, though,” Prick muses, taking a swig of her milk. “Smarter than I am. He’s probably going to end up at some big name university discussing philosophy and science! And I’ll be stuck here at Lakeland Community College in old Cleveland—home of the Lebron and God knows what else.”
“No you won’t, Prick!” It’s my turn to smack her with a pillow. “Besides, Lebron’s going to be out of here in a year or two anyhow. Because no one wants to be stuck in Cleveland—even if they are being paid 10 billion!”
“Lebron?” Prick’s brother, Thom, pokes his head into the room. “Are you two actually discussing something of merit? Sports?” He files into the room and falls onto the couch between us, stealing a few Oreos from me.
“Sports?” Prick takes on a superior, nasally voice. “No...I’m not quite familiar with the term. Mattie?”
“You know what, Prick?” I say, matching her ‘smarter-than-thou’ tone, and adding a British accent for affect. “I do believe I’ve heard of it. Something about wild barbarians racing around after a ball. Sounds primitive.”
Thom grins, and my stomach shatters into a million pieces. Did I forget to mention I’m in love with him?
Well, yeah. I am.
“My dear Weasel, I trust that you’re correct!” Thom sings. And though I would usually melt upon his acknowledgment of my existence (and pristine falsetto), I shoot him daggers . . . and knives, and swords and practically an entire artillery instead.
“Oh shut up, Thom,” Prick growls, nailing him square on the forehead with the remnants of her latest Oreo.
“Weasel!” I fume. “Weasel! Is that the best you can do? We talk trash about your sports and you call me Weasel! As if that’s going to hurt me!”
Okay, okay. If you’re just dying to learn the complete story behind “Weasel”, I’ll have you know that it involved a few boys, our girl’s locker room, and a fair lack-of-clothing on my part. Oh. And a digital camera.
Thom rubs the spot on his forehead where he was pegged with the cookie and meets my glare uncomfortably. I raise an eyebrow at Prick and she nods back at me. Thom’s eyes grow huge with horror when he notices our silent exchange. He desperately struggles to get up from the suffocating couch—but it’s too late. We jump on him and pin him down before he can move another inch.
“Prick?” I resume the arrogant voice and stuff my head in Thom’s face, my nose just inches from his. “I think we can have some fun with this, don’t you?”
I watch a small smile spreads across her face out of the corner of my eye. “What do you have in mind, Weasel?”
“Something that involves a the two of us, this here living room and a fair lack-of-clothing on his part.”
“And a digital camera?”
“Precisely.”
Her malicious grin mirrors mine. “I’ll go fetch it.”
But we don't necessarily want our pieces to be perfect, because that would be creepy.
Mabe that's because I'm only eleven. I liked the parts that I understood though. Keep writing!