bury me — r&v / in every universe
Mar 14, 2024 0:14:31 GMT -5
Post by tick 12a / calla on Mar 14, 2024 0:14:31 GMT -5
Halfway through the seventh grade, he ends up in the counsellor's office for the fourth time. The warden waits outside the door, shadow shifting behind the frosted glass as he makes small talk with an officer.
The counsellor's walls are the colour of puke. There's a fan whirring in the corner despite the fact that there's cold slush on the ground outside. Roe's being trying to melt the report on the desk with his eyes for the past twenty minutes.
Cops got involved this time. Must've been someone driving by who'd seen the smoke and called it in because none of the neighbours would've even thought to stick their nose in someone else's business like that.
Thank god for the snow, the warden had said on the way in, tagging his cigar out the cruiser window.
Thank god for the snow, because Roe had set a fire in the house, on purpose this time, and now no one can get the reason for why out of him.
The warden's against incarceration. Roe just scrapes by the minimum age for juvenile delinquency and the size of his bark next to his bite means that he'll be flattened as soon as he steps near a detention centre. They can't prove anything because he won't talk and everyone else in the house was asleep.
The counsellor's arguing conduct just because the cause was so obvious - look at the kid, he's troubled, was probably just playing around, not his fault the curtains caught. She looks at him for a long, long time. Looks at the Scorpions shirt he's got on that's obviously too big for him and obviously not his. She's got the kind of expression that only comes from hating your job.
"Your daddy hit you?"
"Joe's not my dad."
Case closed. There'll be an out of school suspension. Parental notification. He'll be held back a year to encourage mental maturity. They put a little flag on his record and he goes home to water damage and a black eye.
He starts working since he can't do anything else. He can wash dishes in the back of D-Jay's Diner and it technically doesn't trip any labour laws. He's thirteen and skinny, but he's tall already. He starts pumping gas and washing cars when the weather turns. The station lets him pay a quarter less for the cigarettes he has to bring home to his mom and after the first few times it happens she stops getting on him for skimming one off the top as delivery tax.
It's typically known that anyone born in Kinsey dies in Kinsey. Small town, small death. Fucking shithole. There's one gas station and two bars and an old, unused set of train tracks that separates the Good Side from the Bad Side.
It's such bullshit that they get the drive-in.
Roe meets Mateo during the grade repeat.
There's a group of boys that make fun of him for being an Izar, something about his dad and his uncle and his fifty million relatives that are all crammed into one corner of town. The thing is though, Roe's fresh of an almost-juvie bender, and any excuse to start a fight is good enough excuse for him. He's a year older than the boys. And a whole lot meaner. They've never been in an actual fight before, and so Roe punches one of them in the face and it's enough to matter the rest.
It's also enough to get Mateo to glue himself to Roe's side for the rest of the year.
It happens blurry then. Roe can't seem to shake him, ends up kicking his ass too just to make it clear that he wasn't protecting Mateo or some shit.
But Mateo still sticks around, says I've got an Atari. And then, My brother gets a discount because he works at Lanes. And then, My mom's a really good cook, you know.
His dad's a deadbeat too, the kind that sticks around without actually being around. The house is empty while his mom's at work. They hardly see Alfer because he's either smoking out the basement or smoking out Reeder Park. Roe tells Mateo that he's lucky to be so ignored and then practically starts living there.
And his mom does turn out to be a really good cook. Roe's pretty sure she knows about him hitting Mateo, but she still lets him call her Laurel. She sets an extra place out at dinner and she never asks about the marks on him, just eyes one of the cigarette burns once and then wants to know what kind of movies he likes.
It's nice to have somewhere that doesn't feel like a war zone. He goes over and they lay upside down on the couch to watch Hollywood Heartbeat. And when that's cancelled, they move to Video Jukebox, and then finally in the balmy armpit of 1981, MTV hits the air. Their 16th ever track is Wrathchild and Mateo gets so close to the TV that he has to watch Dave Murray shredding cross eyed.
He turns reverently with it, says they're gonna do that.
Roe rolls his eyes and slides off the couch to kick him because his big head is blocking the screen
"How are we gonna do that."
They don't really get an answer until the next summer.
Mom has a new boyfriend. With a Rush collection.
Roe's not allowed to touch the records but he does anyway. It's worth the brief screaming match and the not so brief chase that ends out on the sidewalk. He shoots up three more inches between June and July and Laurel gives him a set of Alfer's hand-me-downs that Mateo will probably never grow into. He's getting big enough to fight back now.
The bass comes from the pawn shop down on McArthur. Mateo’s still in his collecting-old-shit phase and he's got connections on connections because of his billion cousins floating around. 60 bucks later Roe's got a Silvertone piece of shit with a missing string and Mateo's got a favour to hold over his head for the next decade.
It's not all so bad. He's fifteen going into the ninth grade but Laurel's good about letting them use the garage to practice.
Anticipation makes the months tricky by slowly. Roe turns sixteen in dreary February and immediately goes out for his licence.
They've got big dreams. Mateo's going to use that big head to make them big money and then Roe's going to drive them all the way up to California and they'll never have to see Kinsey ever again.
He starts ripping into the school lot in a peeling ‘75 orange Pinto. It's a bit of a shit choice. Something about a string of accidents through the late seventies, rear end collisions that ended up crumpling the fenders and piercing the terribly-placed fuel tank. Bing bang boom. Whoever designed them were stylish fucking idiots. The doors would jam shut and the whole thing would explode and Ford got slapped with like a hundred liability lawsuits.
They put out a recall in '78, but obviously Kinsey didn't get the message. Found it in a lot at 80% off and there was no way Roe was saying no. It’s beautiful and it’s probably going to kill him one day. They start affectionately calling it the Death Trap. It's kind of metal. Mateo refuses to bike anywhere for the rest of high school.
He's getting serious about the band now. He's been searching around, but Roe's picky. The worst thing about Mateo is that he's really good at picking up strays. Thing is though, Roe's stray numero uno. He was the one picked up first.
It's like when Mateo eventually throws a fit over Clive Burr being replaced and then Piece of Mind comes out and he forgets Burr ever existed.
They really do a need a drummer. Roe keeps rejecting everyone Mateo brings up. Not just because they're all shit, but also because Mateo seems to actually genuinely like some of them. Feels a little bit like self sabotage. He makes up some bullshit about the groove not being right, he can't connect with anyone, and that connection is so, so important, god Mateo don't you know anything about music.
He doesn't mean for it to, but it becomes some kind of challenge. Find someone that can actually play, he ends up snapping, make sure they're not as annoying as you.
The counsellor's walls are the colour of puke. There's a fan whirring in the corner despite the fact that there's cold slush on the ground outside. Roe's being trying to melt the report on the desk with his eyes for the past twenty minutes.
Cops got involved this time. Must've been someone driving by who'd seen the smoke and called it in because none of the neighbours would've even thought to stick their nose in someone else's business like that.
Thank god for the snow, the warden had said on the way in, tagging his cigar out the cruiser window.
Thank god for the snow, because Roe had set a fire in the house, on purpose this time, and now no one can get the reason for why out of him.
The warden's against incarceration. Roe just scrapes by the minimum age for juvenile delinquency and the size of his bark next to his bite means that he'll be flattened as soon as he steps near a detention centre. They can't prove anything because he won't talk and everyone else in the house was asleep.
The counsellor's arguing conduct just because the cause was so obvious - look at the kid, he's troubled, was probably just playing around, not his fault the curtains caught. She looks at him for a long, long time. Looks at the Scorpions shirt he's got on that's obviously too big for him and obviously not his. She's got the kind of expression that only comes from hating your job.
"Your daddy hit you?"
"Joe's not my dad."
Case closed. There'll be an out of school suspension. Parental notification. He'll be held back a year to encourage mental maturity. They put a little flag on his record and he goes home to water damage and a black eye.
He starts working since he can't do anything else. He can wash dishes in the back of D-Jay's Diner and it technically doesn't trip any labour laws. He's thirteen and skinny, but he's tall already. He starts pumping gas and washing cars when the weather turns. The station lets him pay a quarter less for the cigarettes he has to bring home to his mom and after the first few times it happens she stops getting on him for skimming one off the top as delivery tax.
It's typically known that anyone born in Kinsey dies in Kinsey. Small town, small death. Fucking shithole. There's one gas station and two bars and an old, unused set of train tracks that separates the Good Side from the Bad Side.
It's such bullshit that they get the drive-in.
Roe meets Mateo during the grade repeat.
There's a group of boys that make fun of him for being an Izar, something about his dad and his uncle and his fifty million relatives that are all crammed into one corner of town. The thing is though, Roe's fresh of an almost-juvie bender, and any excuse to start a fight is good enough excuse for him. He's a year older than the boys. And a whole lot meaner. They've never been in an actual fight before, and so Roe punches one of them in the face and it's enough to matter the rest.
It's also enough to get Mateo to glue himself to Roe's side for the rest of the year.
It happens blurry then. Roe can't seem to shake him, ends up kicking his ass too just to make it clear that he wasn't protecting Mateo or some shit.
But Mateo still sticks around, says I've got an Atari. And then, My brother gets a discount because he works at Lanes. And then, My mom's a really good cook, you know.
His dad's a deadbeat too, the kind that sticks around without actually being around. The house is empty while his mom's at work. They hardly see Alfer because he's either smoking out the basement or smoking out Reeder Park. Roe tells Mateo that he's lucky to be so ignored and then practically starts living there.
And his mom does turn out to be a really good cook. Roe's pretty sure she knows about him hitting Mateo, but she still lets him call her Laurel. She sets an extra place out at dinner and she never asks about the marks on him, just eyes one of the cigarette burns once and then wants to know what kind of movies he likes.
It's nice to have somewhere that doesn't feel like a war zone. He goes over and they lay upside down on the couch to watch Hollywood Heartbeat. And when that's cancelled, they move to Video Jukebox, and then finally in the balmy armpit of 1981, MTV hits the air. Their 16th ever track is Wrathchild and Mateo gets so close to the TV that he has to watch Dave Murray shredding cross eyed.
He turns reverently with it, says they're gonna do that.
Roe rolls his eyes and slides off the couch to kick him because his big head is blocking the screen
"How are we gonna do that."
They don't really get an answer until the next summer.
Mom has a new boyfriend. With a Rush collection.
Roe's not allowed to touch the records but he does anyway. It's worth the brief screaming match and the not so brief chase that ends out on the sidewalk. He shoots up three more inches between June and July and Laurel gives him a set of Alfer's hand-me-downs that Mateo will probably never grow into. He's getting big enough to fight back now.
The bass comes from the pawn shop down on McArthur. Mateo’s still in his collecting-old-shit phase and he's got connections on connections because of his billion cousins floating around. 60 bucks later Roe's got a Silvertone piece of shit with a missing string and Mateo's got a favour to hold over his head for the next decade.
It's not all so bad. He's fifteen going into the ninth grade but Laurel's good about letting them use the garage to practice.
Anticipation makes the months tricky by slowly. Roe turns sixteen in dreary February and immediately goes out for his licence.
They've got big dreams. Mateo's going to use that big head to make them big money and then Roe's going to drive them all the way up to California and they'll never have to see Kinsey ever again.
He starts ripping into the school lot in a peeling ‘75 orange Pinto. It's a bit of a shit choice. Something about a string of accidents through the late seventies, rear end collisions that ended up crumpling the fenders and piercing the terribly-placed fuel tank. Bing bang boom. Whoever designed them were stylish fucking idiots. The doors would jam shut and the whole thing would explode and Ford got slapped with like a hundred liability lawsuits.
They put out a recall in '78, but obviously Kinsey didn't get the message. Found it in a lot at 80% off and there was no way Roe was saying no. It’s beautiful and it’s probably going to kill him one day. They start affectionately calling it the Death Trap. It's kind of metal. Mateo refuses to bike anywhere for the rest of high school.
He's getting serious about the band now. He's been searching around, but Roe's picky. The worst thing about Mateo is that he's really good at picking up strays. Thing is though, Roe's stray numero uno. He was the one picked up first.
It's like when Mateo eventually throws a fit over Clive Burr being replaced and then Piece of Mind comes out and he forgets Burr ever existed.
They really do a need a drummer. Roe keeps rejecting everyone Mateo brings up. Not just because they're all shit, but also because Mateo seems to actually genuinely like some of them. Feels a little bit like self sabotage. He makes up some bullshit about the groove not being right, he can't connect with anyone, and that connection is so, so important, god Mateo don't you know anything about music.
He doesn't mean for it to, but it becomes some kind of challenge. Find someone that can actually play, he ends up snapping, make sure they're not as annoying as you.
