This is the current draft of the first chapter of Alienated.
(Manuscript is a YA novel, complete at 68,000 words.)
Comments, feedback, likes, dislikes-- any and all would be greatly appreciated.
Synopsis:
Nate is a loner with anger management issues. He gets sent to a special school for troubled teens. It's full of interesting kids-- there's a quirky autistic, a brooding pyromaniac, an overly chatty schizophrenic-- Nate finally fits right it. He falls for a beautiful girl named Alexia who tells everyone that she's an alien from outer space. Nate doesn't believe she's really an alien. And she doesn't believe he's really a homicidal maniac. (One of them turns out to be wrong.)
♫ ♫ Pennywise- "Alien" ♫ ♫
Chapter 1
Nate's
fist slammed into the guy's face.
There
was a crunch.
The
sound, the ominous crunch of breaking bone, seemed to echo like the snap of a
final straw. (It was a useful, multitasking sort of sound.)
Clearly,
it was not the moment that Nate's
final straw snapped, as he was already in the process of beating some nameless
guy's face in. Nate had passed the point of restraint. But it was usual for his
contempt to be thinly veiled and weakly reined; he snapped easily and often.
No,
the final straw in question would come to belong to Nate's father. The punch was
really not going to go over well with him. (Nate's father had had it with his
son's lack of restraint.)
But
Nate wasn't worried about that yet. The present was taking up all of his
attention. Nate felt hyper-aware; flooded with adrenaline; his nerves sang and
danced, thrilled to be drowning in the rush. His thoughts felt distant but
clear. The present moment was not happening in slow motion, but a pocket of
time had stretched out in his head, giving him the illusion of enough space for
his racing clarity to seem leisurely.
The
some-guy's head rocketed sideways from the impact. No blood dramatically spewed
from his mouth; no blood whiplashed wetly in a graceful arc through the air.
There was, however, some drool. Some of the people in the hallway were
screaming, and Nate distantly wondered if it was due to the violence or the
drool. (It was mostly due to the drool, which had not actually landed on
anyone, but it had come close enough, that several girls were insisting that it
"literally" had.)
Nate
felt disoriented by his heightened senses, the surreal sound effects. It was as
if his current actions were just background music to the larger movie of his
life-- a glib soundtrack of sickening snaps, all straw and bones and...
whatever other things made snapping noises. Noises that only existed for the
future cueing of memory-- prophetic glimpses later to be remixed. (SNAP! Fingers! Ah yes, that was it.
Memory recalled!) Memory recalled and reshuffled. Every glitch of sound was the
mark of a clever editing device-- right now, something to punctuate the moment
that straw broke the back of the cantankerous camel (the camel, in this case,
being his father). A small herald sounding impending doom.
Nate
considered punching the guy again. There was a little blood now, just a couple
of drops. The guy was testing it with his middle finger. Nate waited to see if
he was going to hit back.
The
guy had called Nate a crazy psycho. That would have been fine. But then he had
gone on to make a disparaging comment about Nate's mother. Nate was very
sensitive about his mother. That was when he'd decided to hit the guy. More
accurately, it was when he decided to stop preventing
himself from hitting the guy.
It
was the five-minute break between classes and the hallways were full of
students. Nate hated the crush of other people milling around him, the laughter
and causal touching of happy people. He was not a fan of crowds. He also didn't
like the whine of the fluorescent lights in the hall, they egged on the black
rage in his skull, made him feel like he couldn't think.
Even
when people were not insulting his mother, his thoughts were scrambled with
blood and violence. He had wanted to stab the overhead light in the eye socket.
Short-circuit it. Fry its brains out. Then some guy had irritated him, said
things, and knocking the guy's lights out instead had sounded like an
acceptable substitute.
But
apparently, the guy did not want to fight. His nose was now bleeding profusely.
He held up his hands, palms out, in a gesture that indicated cessation and
said, "Whatever, Man." It seemed to be over.
But
then it wasn't.
A
slender girl ran up to Nate and slapped him across the face. Nate stared down
at the top of her head. She was a blur of pink shirt and black mascara.
Apparently, Nate had just punched her boyfriend. For some reason, this made her
go berserk. She slapped, hit, and screamed at Nate.
Nate
was a chauvinist in the sense that he had reservations about punching a girl
full in the face, or, at all. He did not treat her as an equal. He just stood
there.
This
seemed to make her more upset because she started hitting him harder. She was a
surprisingly strong little thing. Nate had to concentrate on not flinching.
He
kept his arms at his sides woodenly-- no deflection, no self-protection, just
absorbing it all in, taking everything she had to give. Nate wished his chest
and arms were as numb as his facial expression. Pain and swear words crowded in
on his thoughts.
Nate
wondered if there would ever come a point at which he could count on numbness.
He imagined his life continuing like this indefinitely-- being pummeled.
Perhaps he would reach an age where he was nerveless and unbreakable.
Having
absorbed so many mental and physical blows, year after year, his skin ought to
get thicker. Roughened and beaten into one huge callus. Skin aged and
strengthened, weathered into proper armor. Skin trained to take anything. A
deadened outer shell keeping everything vaulted.
But
for now, Nate was all chinks and cracks.
Something
was always splitting through-- his eyes, his lips-- something would always
crack and give him away.
Instead
of fighting this weakness, Nate occasionally tried to use it to his advantage.
He let things slip though on purpose. He let some of the crazy shine through
the cracks, so that people would back up, so that they wouldn't peer too
closely at the rest.
He
focused on doing this now.
Nate
knew he made people uncomfortable. People mock what makes them feel
uncomfortable. They attack what makes them feel upset and unsure. Nate thought
this was perfectly reasonable. He made people feel angry. They verbally
attacked him because he was a threat to them. Nate understood the need to
attack threats. He wanted to be a
threat.
He
let his thoughts bleed into his eyes.
I'm not secretly a nice person, Girl. Or
even if I am, my patience is running out, and I may punch you in the face after
all...
Nate
let her see that he thought about killing her. He hoped it would make her
uncomfortable enough to stop hitting him.
Luckily,
it did.
The
girl held his gaze for a second too long. She was spitting mad one second and
stuttering to a stop the next. She backed up, grabbed her boyfriend's bloody
hand, and fled.
Nate
had thought of the girl as tiny, but she wasn't. She had been of average size.
Nate was just tall for his age. At sixteen, he stood at a decently filled out
six foot two. Even thought he wasn't overly skinny, he gave the impression of
being all angles-- a wiry creature made of elbows and sharpness. His eyes were
dark and so was his hair. He rarely slouched but often kept his eyes down; he
didn't shrink from people but he didn't find most of them worth looking at.
Administrative
authority had finally been roused by all the commotion. A fat beast of a man
was walking purposefully toward Nate, coming to collect him and deliver him for
punishment. He was speaking into a walkie-talkie. Nate went with him quietly.
The
school year was almost over; there were less than two weeks left. Nate wondered
if he would be suspended or expelled. He glanced down the hallway that
contained his locker, trying to recall if he had left anything in it that he
wanted.
The
man ushered him into the principal's office, holding the door open and
gesturing for Nate to walk in first.
"Here
he is. The boy he attacked is with the nurse-- she says his nose is
broken."
"Thank-you."
the principal said in a clipped voice.
The
man left.
The
principal was wearing a gray dress with a matching jacket. The dress was tight
through her middle, producing finger-sized fat-rolls that outlined her sides in
links of gray sausages. She straightened the large walkie-talkie that was
sitting on the corner of her desk and indicated that Nate should have a seat.
He
sat across the desk from the principal and watched her make phone calls. She
didn't call his Dad right away, she took care of other inconsequential
business, making him wait.
Nate
thought she was trying to make him sweat. She was. She wanted him to grow
restless, uncomfortable, to ask what was going to happen to him. Nate did not
oblige. He waited her out. They both wanted the other to be the one to speak
first.
However,
Nate had all the time in the world and the principal did not. She did have an
actual job to do. She could afford to waste a little time trying to assert
power, but not all day. Finally, she turned her attention to him and nastily
told him that he would be expelled.
Then
she called his father.
Nate
cringed, inwardly. Outwardly, he tried to look unconcerned. Part of him felt
bad. He couldn't hear the other side of the phone conversation, but his
imagination unhelpfully filled in the gaps.
"Yes.
I'll be waiting with him in my office." The principal said, itching her
chin on the left shoulder pad of her jacket. "There is paperwork you'll
need to sign... No, I'm sorry, he most definitely can not be sent home on his
own recognizance. You will need to come and pick him up."
She
hung up the phone and sent Nate into an inner room adjacent to her office. She
watched him through a large glass window. She continued to make phone calls but
Nate could no longer make out what she was saying. He considered learning how
to read lips-- not that he was all that interested in what the principal was
saying, but just because it seemed like a useful skill to have. He stared back
at her through the thick pane. He wondered if any student had ever broken that
tempting window. He fingered the seat of his chair thoughtfully and imagined
throwing it through the glass. The window was crosshatched with thin black
lines; Nate didn't know what the lines were (Wire perhaps?), but he assumed
they prevented the window from being easily broken by a casually tossed chair.
Nate
spent a lot of time staring at the window while he waited. Two hours and eleven
minutes passed before his father arrived. When he finally did, he barely
glanced at Nate through the window; he immediately got into it with the
principal. Nate very much wished he could read lips at this point. His dad was
talking heatedly, but not loud enough for Nate to catch what he was saying. He
argued with the principal for a few minutes and failed to sign papers that the
principal pushed across the desk at him. He walked toward Nate and opened the
door.
"Let's
go. NOW."
As
Nate had anticipated, his father was not pleased. He looked sweaty, red, and
breathy. His father did not wait; he turned and stomped out of the office. Nate
scrambled to grab his stuff and ran out after him.
The
car ride home was tense and silent. It was an absolutely beautiful day outside;
the sun was shining in a cloudless sky of deep and brilliant blue; the trees
and plants lining the street were lush and alive; birds were singing; squirrels
raced along power lines-- not a single one getting electrocuted.
Nate
sourly watched it all rushing past the windshield.
Nate's
Dad unlocked the door and let them into the house. He threw his keys noisily
into the bowl by the kitchen table; He poured himself a drink; He loosened his
tie and sighed.
Nate
hovered, wondering if he was going to be yelled at now or if he would be
allowed to escape to his room for a while. His Dad did not look like he was about to start yelling... he looked somewhat
defeated.
Nate's
father sat slumped in a chair pushed back from the kitchen table. He took his
glasses off. The bridge of his nose was shiny and red where his glasses had
been.
"I
don't know what to do with you, Nate. I really don't." Dad sighed.
Nate
laughed without humor, a short bark of sound. "I don't either, Dad."
"Fighting
again? Why can't you make more of an
effort to get along with people? Why can't you just adjust!?" Dad said in frustration.
Equally
frustrated, Nate replied, "Why? I don't know. Apparently, humans can get used to anything, so
maybe I'm not human. Apparently, people
hear the wail of constant sirens screaming in their ear and they learn to smile
and hum and not lose their concentration. People
get their hands chopped off, over and over, and then stuck back on, and chopped
off, over and over again, every day, and they learn to smile and nod and plod
along without screaming. Well, screw that! I do not understand that. I cannot
do that. I happen to find intense amounts of pain and annoyance painful and
annoying! And when the stupidity of other people happens again and again and
again and AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN!!! It doesn't become less so. I just feel more
annoyed. I feel more pain. I do not adjust
to it. Insanity is adjusting to it.
Why don't I adjust?? Because I don't want to adjust!"
"EXACTLY!"
Dad yelled, "You don't WANT to."
Nate
paced the room, feeling sullen and alone. He wished his Dad understood. He
hated his Dad for not understanding. He hated himself for caring so much what
his Dad thought. Nate's thoughts were chaotic, he couldn't put it all into
words, he didn't know the right words to reach his father.
He
tried again, speaking more softly, "Dad, it's like there is too much
disconnected knowledge in the world, too much red tape, too many steps of how
and why and what department do I have to go to have that filed... and there is
no way to keep all of it in one head, so no one really knows how to do
anything, no one knows how it all works, the world is all just ants and pieces
of ants, each one a little fraction of another piece, this carried to that, and
place that bit here, and it's not cohesive, it's not a unit, it looks like a
machine because there is so much bustle, but it's all this mindless frenzy of moving
parts that don't quite connect up, that never GO anywhere or DO anything as a
whole, it's all just the nicks and snips and sniping bits of circling
rats..."
"Yes.
That's life." Dad said unsympathetically. "You seem to think that
this is some profound thought of yours alone-- it's not. Life has been called a
'rat race' for decades. Being angry and disaffected is only going to make your
life, not to mention mine, that much more unpleasant. Suck it up."
The
muscles in Nate's jaw twitched in response. (This was not out of desire to suck
something.) Nate took a couple of deep breaths and visibly tried to swallow his
temper. It struggled rebelliously, straining against his attempts to choke it
down.
Nate
had always had a bit of a temper. He had been born an impatient child but not a
homicidal one. That had come later.
When
he was eleven, Nate had been relatively normal. Life had been relatively
normal. He had had friends. He'd lived with both parents. They used to live in
a two-bedroom apartment. It wasn't a dump, but it was small. At the time, they
had been waiting for their house to be built.
His
mom used to complain about how thin the walls were. Nate remembered listening
with her, standing next to her, grinning at each other, each of them with one ear
pressed to the wall. But even without trying it had been easy to hear the
neighbors. In the bathroom, lying in bed at night-- the apartment had always
been rustling. Neighbors clanging around, everything distorted into odd echoes,
fractured and muffled like cockroaches scuttling around inside the walls.
That's what his mom used to say-- They're
like cockroaches scuttling around inside the walls! She had seemed so
excited to move into the new house.
But
his mother had never moved in. She'd never lived here; she'd never sat at the
kitchen table that his Dad was currently brushing free of crumbs. She'd never
even come to visit. She wasn't dead. She was just gone. Nate hadn't seen her
since he was eleven. Apparently, she couldn't be bothered with being his mother
anymore.
Nate
and his Dad had moved into the house anyway. They had lived here four, almost
five, years. The house was quiet and cockroach free. Neither of them had made
an effort to meet the next-door neighbors, who stayed properly behind a tall wooden
fence and had no interest in meeting Nate and his father either.
Nate
woke up sometimes in the stillness and found himself missing the apartment. The
desire annoyed him. It had been a space that pulsed-- it was never quiet-- it thrummed. It had been filled up with
those restless walls, the hum of electronics, and traffic from outside. Nate liked quiet. When he awoke to these
thoughts, he stubbornly yelled at his subconscious to stop displacing his
feelings.
Nate
was homicidal, not suicidal. Mostly, he imagined guns blasting into other
people's skulls, not his own. But sometimes he imagined a gun blasting into his
own skull. He liked the image. He loved the thought of the shocking ringing
silence afterwards. The idea of that silence was peaceful.
Things
had not been peaceful after his mom left. Nate temper deepened. At first, his
teachers had nodded sympathetically and pretended to be knowledgeable. They
spoke in grave voices about 'acting out'. Back when he was eleven and twelve,
his Dad had still been in shock. He had also been surprised; it was hard for
him to discover that his wife couldn't be bothered with being his wife anymore.
Nate was given a lot of slack, allowances were made for his behavior. It was
only to be expected. His father was adjusting to being a single dad and had his
own issues.
But
as time went on, teachers quickly grew less tolerant. People stopped blaming
his actions on hormones, puberty, or the fact that his mother had abandoned
him-- they held Nate accountable for his own behavior.
It
had been the gun that got him in trouble. (Not a real gun.) A mannerism that
stemmed from his imaginings-- a gesture to go with the image of a gun blasting
into his skull and leaving a giant silence. He had started making a gun with
his finger and putting it to his head. He did this whenever he wanted to block
everything out, which was often.
People
noticed.
People
were disturbed.
This
resulted in Nate being sent to see a psychologist and a psychiatrist when he
was thirteen.
He
didn't fixate on the idea of gun-blast silence much anymore. The gesture made
his dad upset. Nate, who knew his dad hated it, cheerfully did it now. His dad
ignored it while continuing to sweep away crumbs that no longer existed.
"Actions
have consequences, Nate." Dad said tiredly.
Nate
was aware of this. However, he had not yet been able to work out the actions
that would result in all of his ideally desired consequences.
"Yeah.
But like, say I want some cake, right? And you're trying to tell me-- Nate,
don't punch people because that will not get you any cake! Fine, I get that.
But sitting in class doesn't get me any cake either. Going for a walk or doing
my homework doesn't get me any cake either. Not
punching people in the face doesn't get me any cake either! So, the
consequences are all the same! I still don't have any freaking cake. The cake
is a lie! So sometimes, I feel like I might as well punch someone about it,
because, at least that's something." Nate said darkly.
"Oh
yes, it is something. Now you do not
have what you want, but you do
possibly have an assault and battery charge! That's brilliant. Very well
thought out. How did I raise such a clever son?" Dad said sarcastically.
Nate
scowled. Actions and emotions notwithstanding, Nate was quite clever. He didn't always sound as intelligent as he
actually was, because his thoughts tended to become disorganized when he was
angry, and he was angry a lot of the time. Being smart was part of his problem.
Part of his officially diagnosed 'insanity' resulted from his ability to hold
opposing ideas in his head. He was always at war with himself. His mind
flip-flopped logic, keeping him at loggerheads.
He
did try to look at things from every
angle. He did try to question
everything, even himself. Because of this, he knew his dad had a very good
point. Part of him even completely agreed with his father.
He
understood there were going to be all kinds of unpleasant consequences because
of his actions. But, at the same time, he really wanted to know how to get at that
cake. He was angry his dad did not know, or would not tell him, this secret. He
was angry his dad refused to acknowledge the point Nate had been trying to
make.
Nate
was seized with a strong and sudden desire for some actual cake. Thinking about
metaphorical cake had made him hungry. He investigated the contents of the
refrigerator and discovered half of a red-velvet cake. He cut himself a large
piece, poured a glass of milk, and sat down at the table.
Nate
chewed.
His
dad stared at him.
Nate
chewed some more.
"I
can't deal with you anymore today." Dad finally said, "We'll talk
more tomorrow, once I figure some things out."
Nate's
father left the kitchen and went to his room, shutting the door. It was a pity;
he left just as Nate was creating dozens of new crumbs for him to fuss over.
Nate finished his cake, he gulped the last of his milk and set the glass back
down on the table.
A
few drops of milk sloshed over the side, nothing to cry about, just enough to
slowly drip down the outside of the glass and pool at the rim around the
bottom-- crescent like. When Nate picked up the glass again, a wet slice of
moon was revealed. Nate grabbed a napkin to blot the milky smile.
He
stared at the milk-stained napkin, the shape of the moon preserved in negative.
He turned the napkin around, making the grin into a frown. He bared his teeth
at it.
That
night, Nate dreamed of werewolves.
His dad spent the next couple of
days on the phone, arguing with the school. They finally agreed to let Nate
pass his sophomore year, which they had not wanted to do, even though it was so
close to the end of the school year. They were firm about not taking him back;
he remained permanently expelled.
The
parents of the boy with the broken nose also had to be dealt with. They wanted
to press charges, but Nate's father managed to talk them out of it. Nate ended
up having to pay for a ridiculously expensive doctor's bill (a plastic surgery
consultation). His father had offered to pay this bill on the condition that
they would not take any legal action against Nate. In addition, Nate would
complete twenty hours of community service each
week for the entire summer. Nate thought this was excessive. His father
disagreed.
It
was not an enjoyable summer. The mood in the house stayed tense. Nate worked
mowing lawns, earning money to pay the outrageous doctor's bill.
On
the first day of his 'volunteer' community service, Nate listened patiently to
his dad's speech about helping others and getting his priorities straight. He
secretly resolved to try to have a good attitude while maintaining a look of
disgust. He shrugged noncommittally at his father when the speech was over.
Nate
was slated to assist in the civic beautification of a local park. This meant he
spent the next four hours picking up trash, planting flowers, and painting over
the graffiti on the racquetball courts.
There
were four other people beautifying the park with him. He tried to be friendly.
He attempted to strike up a conversation with the boy who was planting flowers
next to him.
"Hey."
Nate said optimistically. He was trying to think positively. He was holding out
hope that this guy would actually be interesting or funny, and not fill him
with an overwhelming desire to punch his face in.
"S'up."
The guy said.
"My
dad is making me do this because I don't play well with others." Nate
volunteered.
"Oh,
yeah?" The guy chuckled. "I don't either. People? Man, people are
pricks."
Nate
felt encouraged by this. He nodded in agreement. They both stared solemnly at
the people in the park, as if contemplating humanity.
"Yeah,
it's like-- whoa-- so weird! People's heads? Weird." the guy said.
Delighted,
Nate said, "Yeah... people's heads! What goes on in there? I'm always
wondering. Not just whether they are thinking about lunch or politics or porn
or something like that, you know? Not just content, but what it all looks like. Does the inside of their
head look like watching a TV? Images pouring in smooth and clear? Or is it just
all murky and stupid and filled with big globs of nothing-- thoughts unformed,
like they are-- impressionable sheep. Do sheep people just KNOW stuff, without
thinking, like how you sometimes just know things in dreams, without words or
landmarks? Sheeple instinct? Or is it all words laid out neat like a book? And,
if it is, then why are they all so stupid? And why don't people ever TALK about
stuff like that? People never talk about anything interesting. It's all just--
How are you, how are you, fine, fine, a guy threw a ball, a team won a game,
smile, laugh, how nice, goodbye, goodbye. Heads without evident substance.
Weird."
The
guy blinked. He had been referring to the actual shape of people's heads, which
seemed weird to him because he had dropped some acid before coming to beautify
the park.
"I
think I'm thinking about lunch and
porn." He said.
"Wow.
Deep." Nate said despondently, stabbing his dull spade viciously into the
earth. Turning the dirt over, he discovered he had severed a worm. Its two
halves writhed painfully. Nate sadly scooped dirt back over it and patted it
down. (The worm went on to beat the odds. One half did end in a piece of dead
worm, but the half with the head grew a new tail. The worm lived happily ever
after in the flowerbed Nate was replanting.)
Later
in the day, while painting, Nate half-heartedly tried again with a man who was
painting the neighboring racquetball court. That conversation was even less
successful. Nate's faith in the human race was not renewed.
Some
of the graffiti Nate was painting over contained swear words, and some of them
were misspelled. Nate though that was just bad vandalism. If you wanted the
whole world to know how F-ing tiny Red Dawg's genitalia was, you ought to do a
proper job of it. The hyphen in F-ing was kind of important. The writing on the
wall did not have a hyphen. The wall informed Nate that, "Red Dawg was a
bish with a fing tiny pienis." Better yet, lose the hyphen and spell the
word out properly. Nate was struck by the irony of a person who didn't mind
committing a crime, but didn't want to spell out a swear word. He made this
observation to his fellow painter, who failed to appreciate it.
Nate's
brain went to war, arguing with himself since no one else seemed up to the job.
It helped to pass the time. Nate argued that swear words were just words, there
was no need to get so upset about them, words only have power because people
freak out about them, they don't really have power on their own. The devil on
Nate's other shoulder countered that words have power for exactly that reason, people
give them power, and so they become infused with the strength of ages, backed
by decades, encrusted by society, like barnacles on the bottom of a boat, a
crust entrenched and scraped into the brains of every new generation, becoming
more and more impossible to remove.
Nate
stepped back and stared at the freshly painted wall. It was blank as a newborn
page. Nate left it naked, empty as raw words in a dictionary-- something clean
and clearly defined, before future usage tacked additional things on. For now,
its situation was free of connotation, aggravation, arguable interpretation, gutters
and deviant penetration. Sadly, for now
was always momentary.
Nate
was happy to see his dad when he came to pick him up, but the feeling soon wore
off. (Nate did have a driver's license, but he did not have a car and his dad
was not allowing him to drive. Driving was a privilege.)
"How
did it go?" Dad prodded.
"Red
Dawg is a bish with a fing." Nate shrugged.
"What
the hell is a fing?" Dad asked suspiciously.
"That
is an excellent question."
His
dad was silent for a minute. Nate stabbed at the buttons of the radio.
"Is
it, perhaps, a thing?" His dad
went on, still puzzled.
"There
isn't any fing I can do?" Nate asked skeptically.
It
was the best conversation they had had since Nate got expelled. Unfortunately,
it did not last.
Summer
plodded on. Nate continued to be depressed by humanity while performing
community service. His father continued to try and find a school that would
accept Nate for his junior year. Nate had been suspended several times before
he was expelled and he had a long history of fighting. Nate suggested he get
his GED instead of going back to school, but his dad would not hear of it. His
dad was going to have to put him in a private school, since none of the public
schools would take him. Nate felt guilty about this because he knew private
schools were expensive.
Nate
was miserable.
(Luckily,
this was not a permanent condition.)
