I'm sorry to be such a post hog! Cal's contest wraps up soon, though, so I shan't be posting quite so frequently. This is a short story using characters from my NaNovel, D is for Diphtheria. Dramatis Personae, for the uninformed, follow the spoiler.
[spoiler] SUKIE JOHNSON-KARAMACHI: half-Japanese New Girl In Town who is, by stereotype, too smart for life and finds good behavior boring.
CARL MALLOY: life-long resident of New Prague, Nebraska, population 300.
TODD DELANEY: fallen Catholic schoolboy/lifeguard.
TEH SEXX0RZ MACHINE: Sukie's rowboat, which she builds and docks, illegally, in the trailer park.
BABCIA: Carl's fresh-off-the-plane Polish grandmother.
KURRY: Babcia's pet chicken. [/spoiler]
[048, Need]
“Can you explain yourselves?”
The Sheriff was tall and jowly—tall enough to cast a shadow in the flickering fluorescent light, and jowly enough that when he spoke waves of flesh rippled about his neck, trapping hapless insects and delinquent teenagers in its folds.
“I solly,” Sukie said, bowing her head. “I speak rittle Engrish prease.”
He turned toward Carl.
Carl felt betrayed.
“Can you explain little miss Kawasaki Toyota?”
He gulped. “She’s…she’s only been in the country for two weeks, sir, she doesn’t know how Americans act, she’s new to the whole ‘don’t paint other peoples’ property’ rule, they don’t do it that way in Japan--”
“So it’s your fault?”
A garbled shriek came out of the back of Carl’s throat, which he quickly choked down. “Eeer, no, that’s all a matter of perspective, sir, I mean--”
“She staying with you?”
He bowed his head in identical subservience. “For another week, sir.”
“Good. Call your parents and have them pick you up.”
Carl felt a little piece of him die. Since Sukie had come to town, he’d gotten in trouble with various modes of authority for various reasons at various hours of the night. If Babcia got wind of where he was, she would personally see to it that Sukie ended up—ground or diced—in the next evening’s stew.
His mind shriveled. “B-but, sir, my parents are in Madrid, on business, my grandmother’s dying--”
“So I get to take you home?”
A spider the size of Carl’s thumbnail dropped down on a thread of silk behind the Sheriff’s head.
“Uhm, no, that’s okay, my brother can come pick us up.”
“Your brother?”
“His…his name is Todd.”
The Sheriff sighed. “Go call ‘im up, then.”
There was a payphone in the back of the room, cobwebbed and slightly sticky. Carl held it with two fingers and punched in the Blessed Number. His heart did not flutter in the way it normally did—instead, it churned.
“Uhm, who’s this?”
“Brother Todd, dear, this is Carl--”
“Carl, I’m not a fucking monk. Where are you?”
“Uhm, well, it’s funny you should ask.” He could feel the Sheriff staring at him, his neck-flesh rippling as he swallowed. “Wait, where are you?”
“Standing outside your window with that copy of The O.C. on DVD that I stole from my brother’s midget girlfriend. Tapped the window with pebbles and everything, Carl—Christ, you must have cuddle-sense. Like, I want to, so you leave.”
“Todd, brother, that’s sweet of you. However, I must ask for a favor.”
“Let me guess,” Todd said, forcing a laugh. “You want me to bail you out of jail.”
Carl squeaked. “Uh, I need you to pick me up from the sheriff’s office, brother, since our parents are in Madrid.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Carl.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
Carl laughed nervously. “So you’re coming to pick me up, brother?”
_____
Even through Todd’s car windows, the moon was bright and full; blinding to pupils dilated by the dim, flickering Light of the Law. “My, what rather injurious albedo,” Sukie said, squinting up into the sky.
Carl snorted in the way he did when he was nervous and had paint on his clothes, and said, “Your mom has rather injurious albedo.”
He was still trying to figure out what he had meant by that as he stared into dead cornstalks flying by on either side of the window—broken halfway down, like soldiers with their torsos hewn off.
Todd shook his head and chewed on gummy bears, pensive. “I can’t believe you told them I was your brother. It’s like a bad porno or something.”
“Like Children of the Porn,” Sukie said.
Carl poked Sukie in what seemed like a mature fashion at the time. “There are laws against that.”
She stuck out her tongue.
It was still bothering him after they dropped Sukie off at her house and turned back onto US 96. “Todd,” he said, quietly, “Does ‘albedo’ sound like it rhymes with ‘libido’ to you?”
Todd frowned and shook his head. He was Not Amused.
“It was Sukie’s fault,” Carl said, pleading. “She wanted to paint Teh Sexx0rz Machine—and you know how she gets when she wants something, Todd, she gets clingy and cute and Asian and you just can’t—“
“Grow some balls, Carl.”
Carl sighed. “But Todd—“
“I haven’t seen you in two fucking weeks. I can wait a little longer for you to become a man.”
He balled his hands in despair. “Todd, I’m sorry Evan got a staple stuck in my lip. It was an accident, but now the stitches are out and you can kiss me, I promise—“
Todd drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he turned onto Carl’s cul-de-sac. Something inside of Carl relaxed as he noticed that all of the lights in the front windows were off. “Staples are like chastity belts,” he said. “They’re uncomfortable and have been used in ages past to oppress women.”
“That was a really bad metaphor.”
“It’s late, and my boyfriend’s a vandal. What more do you want from me?”
“I can has kiss please?”
Todd sighed and the car coasted to a stop in front of Carl’s mailbox. “But only because your cuteness owns Asian cuteness.” He held up a finger as he finished chewing his gummy bears.
It had been a long three weeks without a cuddle.
Before Carl had time to express his approval, something very loud with feathers slammed into the windshield and slid off, flapping and squawking and scraping against Todd’s hood and onto the sidewalk.
Todd startled and hit his head on the rearview mirror. It broke off and fell into Carl’s lap, leaving Carl’s painted jeans terribly disappointed—they received not a pretty blonde boy, but a smudged piece of plastic tied to a smelly cardboard tree.
“What the hell was that?” Todd breathed.
“I don’t care, Todd, can you please just—“
“Something just hit my windshield, and God knows what it did to the paint job—“
“Todd, it’s been three weeks, I love you, I need you, I—" He gulped. "What...what if it is some kind of--"
He was about to say 'corn creature', but Todd ignored him and stepped out of the car, his arms shaking slightly as he did so. He craned his head around the rim and quickly slammed the door shut and turned the key in the ignition, hyperventilating. “Holy fuck,” he breathed.
"Todd?"
Todd was unresponsive. Carl reached over and shook his shoulder, not exactly certain what one should do when faced with a normally testosterone-inclined boyfriend and the possibility of agricultural phantasms.
"Todd, what was it? What did you see?"
“It’s your grandma," he squeaked.
“Babcia?” Carl peered up the driveway. “Babcia didn’t hit your windshield, I mean, my mom’s been feeding her South Beach and she’s lost some weight but not that much—“
“Carl, shut up. Your grandmother just threw a chicken at my car.”
“Kurry? She loves that thing; she’d never—“
“Little Pig, I am needing an explanation.”
Carl gulped.
They looked at each other. “You’re on your own, Staple-lips,” Todd said. “Get out of the car.”
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
This sisn't make as much sense to me, because I haven't reas the novel. I am going to read it now.
I really liked how you could tell that carl and todd were a couple from the first time they spoke. I don't know how you did that. I'm envious.
Oooh my goodness Carl!
This is why I miss D so much. This is one of the funniest stories you written - and details like this make your secondary characters as well as your primary characters most enjoyable.[/love]
I really don't know what to say to this other than I love Sukie.
This is as good or possibly even better than Sukie being Koreanese.
Churned: you have amazing diction, missy-Sam.
ewwww-ew-ew-ew
Alright, so, I completely and absolutely love any interaction Todd and Carl have. They completely should not be together, but the fact that they are is cute and hilarious and so wrong but so write and hilarious.
Non Sequitur comment for the day: I bet Chen would say something like this.
OK, I love corn, but this line still makes no sense. Perhaps: He was still trying to figure out w hat he had meant by that when they were in the car and... But still, it makes no sense. It's not the sentence, but rather the sentence structure and what not. The first phrase, "he was..." and the second "dead cornstalks..." don't go together in a nice and pretty way.
I hate this line. But I love Todd. *snuggles Todd*
I can't figure out if this is Engrish for "Child Porn" or a pun on "Children of the Corn" (great Nebraska comment), or maybe it's both, but I love it.
Instead: After they dropped Sukie off at her house and turned back onto US 96, "Todd," Carl said, quietly, "Does 'albedo' sound like it rhymes with libido' to you?" The dialogue tag is funny, mostly because quietly is crap and it's hard to attach adjectives to dialogue tags and not sound stupid. I put the "After" part before so we get an idea of what is going on and again you said "He" without us knowing who he is. Ok, true, we could assume it's Carl. But still. It bothers me.
This makes sense to me, but only because it made sense in the first draft, so I know what he is trying[i] to say. But you need a "I can wait longer" or something.
Ok... I don't know. The plural of lip there sounds strange from the phrasing. "I'm sorry Evan got a staple stuck in my lip" is what you expect him to say. Maybe try "I'm sorry Evan stapled my lips together." Which leaves even more room for comedy. I just... can't make that phrase sound right in my head, the one you have. I'm not sure why.
Todd startled is one of the weirdest phrases in the world. I think "Todd spitled" or something, I suppose because you usually see "Todd was startled". Ah! That's it.... "It startled Todd and..." Yeah.. uhm. I think that works better. I'm not sure.
This could be Carl [i]or Todd. I'm pretty sure I slapped you about this exact one in the rough draft. Additionally, I really hate "breathed" as a dialogue tag. Besides, Todd would be screaming it I think - he's all car obsessed. Have you seen someone yelling about their car?
This sounds ridiculous.
I know this is Babcia, but that's because I'm amazing and I've already read some of this story. You might want to add something explaining it's Babcia. They could make the inference but... I don't know. Up to you.
Mmm I do love Carl. I'm still mad at you for not making more of an effort for this to survive on it's own. No, instead you give us a Dramatis Personae, lazy jerk. I'll pester you about this for time to come. In any case! I can has (2/2) plz? You know how much I love these guys, and how much I miss them! It's amazing, and funny, and the first part is much better than the freaky brief you gave in the first draft. It's great, stuff actually happens, instead of you telling me it happens. Fab!