Strangetown: Chapter Eleven
Warnings: language, sexual situations, violence
Chapter Eleven
"I am so sick of Ripp!" Johnny exclaimed.
"He just gets lazier, and scruffier, and greasier all the time! It's like a curse! He gets sleazier and sleazier all the time too, and he just gets more and more play! He's like sim crack. They can't just get enough of it! He has to beat them off with a stick! That is, he would if he ever turned anyone down!" Johnny huffed. "If I saw him walking down the road and didn't know him, I would say, now there is a man that has way too much sex. He's like a walking hard on!"
"Just relax, Johnny." Ophelia sighed. "What are you, jealous?"
"Jealous?! Of Ripp?! The man whore?" He roared. "Oh, please! Like I want to be afflicted by that curse!"
"It sounds like it to me, Johnny." Said Ophelia. "Why are you so concerned about it?"
"I'll bet you find him hot too, don't you?" Johnny snarled.
"Oh, please, Johnny. We aren't really going there, are we?"
"Why not?"
"I really think I'm better off keeping quiet."
"Oh, so you do like him!" he mockingly imitated her. "Oh, Ripp - just take me! Let me drown in the pools of your big dreamy blue eyes!"
"Now you do realize that you're the one who's gone and said it, Johnny, and not me." Johnny just scowled.
"Ripp's our friend, Johnny. It's not our job to judge him, you know." Ophelia said, firmly. "Just give him a break, okay?"
"If you keep taking his side, I will lose my mind." Johnny had been close to losing his mind for weeks now. First, there were the baths.
"Ripp! Are you in the bathtub, again?!"
"Yeah, why?"
"Oh my god, Ripp! You can't be serious! You're going to shrivel up like a prune. Didn't you already have a shower today? How many baths does one person need?"
"What's the big deal, Johnny? Just relax. We can't all take fucking sailor showers like you do."
"It's a waste of water! We have to pay for that, you know!"
"We pay a rental fee based on the value of our possessions, and you know it, Johnny! Now kindly fuck off and leave me alone!"
"Well, it's bad for the environment, at any rate. We live in a desert, you know! God, do you always have to be such an asshole?" He raged on. "Why are you taking another bath, Ripp? You're not even dirty!"
"I'm dirty on the inside, okay?"
"Gross! I don't even want to know what you meant by that!"
Ripp sighed. He'd been enjoying that bath. So he liked taking baths. Was that really such a crime?
Taking a bath gave him a chance to get away from everything, including manic Johnny, and just reflect on his thoughts for a while. He was still thinking about the sight of his brother kissing Ophelia, and how that had made him feel. He had his loyalties to Johnny, of course, and his general disgust for Tank, but he also had his own feelings towards Ophelia. If Ophelia was going to cheat on Johnny, then why had she chosen Tank? The obviously question for Ripp was, why not him? He had no intentions of coming between his two best friends, but she hadn't even asked him, had she? Surely, he cared much more about Ophelia than Tank ever could. She barely even knew Tank. Ripp would do anything for Ophelia. Anything. He liked her more than he even liked himself.
Outside the door, Johnny continued his rant.
"I swear I will lose my mind! You're driving me insane! They're going to come and get me and put a straight jacket on me and take me away!"
"Good."
"Just hurry the hell up, okay?!"
"Why? Do you have to take a crap, or something?"
There was also the constant manipulation. Ripp always managed to talk Johnny into doing things for him, despite Johnny's protests and his better intentions. These things usually revolved about Ripp's extreme laziness and his marked lack of survival skills.
"Make me an omelette, will you, Johnny?" Ripp would be, of course, just lazing around with nothing better to do. These days, Johnny wasn't having any of it.
"Do it yourself, you lazy asshole!"
"Oh, c'mon... please? I can't cook for shit, and you know it."
"What am I, your mother?" Ripp just frowned and remained silent. "Okay, I'm sorry. That wasn't a very nice thing for me to say... Ripp?" Ripp wasn't speaking to him, or maybe he'd just nodded off, since his eyes had been closed the whole time. Still, Johnny couldn't tolerate the idea that Ripp might be upset with him.
"Okay, I'll do it," he gave in, "but you know that I hate the smell of eggs."
"Can you put bacon in it too?" Ripp was suddenly wide awake.
"That might be pushing your luck, Ripp! Just slightly!"
"Oh, c'mon... please?" Puppies had less pleading eyes.
"Fine! Just don't ever say that I never do anything for you!"
"Thank you, Johnny!"
Ripp had always been like that. He'd never been very considerate of Johnny's vegetarianism. Ripp had gone through a vegetarian phase himself, or rather, he had stopped eating meat in front of the General because it meant too much to his father to see him consume the daily requirement for protein. So, naturally, once they were out of sight of Ripp's house, he would gorge himself on every piece of meat he could get his hands on, to Johnny's endless disgust.
"That's just disgusting, Ripp."
"Have you ever even fucking tried one, Johnny? How the hell would you know?"
"Ripp, I can't eat meat. Remember?! I'm a vegetarian. I only have to tell you that, like, every single day! Besides, why would I want to eat something as questionable as a hotdog, anyway? Do you even know what that mystery meat is?"
"Look, Johnny... it could be just lips and assholes for all I care..." Ripp smiled and gazed off into the distance. "Delicious lips and assholes." Johnny's face twisted in disgust, but he had to admit that it was pretty funny too.
Johnny was also annoyed by the countless hours of television that Ripp watched every day, instead of studying. Sure, it had been fun when they were kids, but now they had responsibilities to attend to. Ripp could use that time for something useful, like say, washing a dish or two. Since the world hadn't ended yet, Johnny wasn't going to count on it.
Then there was the guitar. The incessant guitar. Johnny couldn't tell him to stop playing it, since it was actually something productive, but it was also driving him batty. Most of the things that Ripp was practicing for his band just sounded like pure noise to Johnny. He did suppose, though, that he might just be envying Ripp's talent. Johnny wasn't used to being the one with less talent at anything, so this must be how Ripp had felt towards him all those years.
Maybe Ophelia was right about him being jealous, at least in some ways. He did sort of suspect that Ophelia liked Ripp. He had suspected that since high school. Now every time he went to class and found Ripp skipping it, he'd assume the worst. He had constant mental pictures of Ripp and Ophelia lost in the throes of passion.
In Johnny's mind, they'd be back home, tearing off each other's clothes with a haste that Ripp could never muster for much else. The idea of it drove him to distraction. Johnny even sometimes scanned Ophelia's pillow for suspicious strands of long brown hair, but he never found any.
Even worse, he'd imagine that it would be a touching, romantic moment, and then Ripp would propose to her, and they'd start picking out china for their new home. Johnny was making himself sick just thinking about it.
Of course, it wasn't completely lost on him that he was being just a little bit of a hypocrite. He was the one who was actually, sort of, dating someone else too.
He had been meeting up with Jayne Doe, not with any sort of regularity, but often enough. He still hadn't mentioned that to Ophelia.
If Johnny was being honest with himself, he'd have to admit that Jayne had been factoring into his mental landscape too. He had been having some very unwholesome thoughts about her. Still, it wasn't like they were doing anything. He was still dating Ophelia, and he was just hanging out with Jayne. Right?
Just last week, he had met up with her to play pool.
They had been doing a lot of talking, and getting to know each other, which seemed like a good first step when you were trying to decided whether or not you wanted to marry someone. "So, Johnny, tell me more about your friends. Will I ever get to meet them?" Jayne asked.
"Yeah, maybe..." He tried to decide whether that was a good idea or not. Would it be too obvious?
"Oh, come on, Johnny! You're not embarrassed of me, are you?"
"Embarrassed?"
"Yeah, embarrassed of hanging around with me. I'm not that weird, am I?"
"No, of course not." He thought about how strange it would be for Jayne to suddenly intersect with Ophelia and Ripp. Would he even know how to act around all of them at the same time? And would Jayne act like she was his girlfriend, or something? It was a frightening thought.
"Well, what are they like?" She continued. "I know that you have two close friends, a guy and a girl, and you all live together now. How's that going?"
That was a good question. How was that going? Johnny had to take a step back for a second to consider it. How could he really explain the situation to Jayne? All the irritations and internal drama that had been building up in that shared house. Living with people wasn't easy, but they were still his friends.
"Earth to Johnny." Jayne laughed. "You're kinda spacing out, ya know."
"Sorry."
"Well, fine. Be secretive about it. You can be so elusive, Johnny." Could he? It was always unusual to hear what a pair of unclouded eyes could see. He was sure that Ripp and Ophelia's opinions of him were coloured by everything he had done since junior high.
"Am I really like that, Jayne?"
"Yeah. You kinda are." She smiled. "Now watch me sink this in the corner pocket..."
"My friends? Well, It's hard to explain them in just a few words, but I'll try." He said. "First, there's Ripp..." Where should he begin? Sluttiness? Lazier than a sloth? Leaves a chaotic mess in his wake? All that came to mind were negative qualities, and he suddenly felt really guilty about that. Ophelia was right. He was fixating on the negative, and forgetting why Ripp was his friend to begin with.
"Ripp's a really funny guy. If it wasn't for him, I'd probably end up being way too serious most of the time." There, that wasn't so hard. "He's in a band. The Shifting Paradymes. Hmm, what else? I don't know... he really likes omelettes for some reason."
"Wow. Useless trivia, Johnny!" Jayne laughed. "He sounds like a lot of fun."
"Yeah, he is fun." Johnny smiled. "and then there's Ophelia..."
"That's a nice name."
"Yeah... Well, it suits her. Ophelia is a really nice girl." It felt so weird to talk to Jayne about Ophelia.
"Yes! Got it. I'm totally kicking your ass, Johnny."
She really was, since Johnny's mind was hardly on the game. He had a lot to think about. Trying to decide whether you wanted to marry someone, while not actually cheating on your current girlfriend, was hard work. Johnny didn't want to mess things up with Ophelia either. He thought he might really like Jayne, but what if they didn't get married? Then Ophelia would have moved on, and he'd be left with nobody. He really did like Ophelia too, it's not like it would be easy to break up with her. He really did care for her.
That's why he was playing so badly. His mind was just racing. That, and he was very distracted by the sight of Jayne as she bent over the table to make a shot. Johnny felt guilty about it, even though it was all innocent enough. He wondered if cheating with your mind still counted as cheating.
Yes, it was all innocent enough, as were things between Ripp and Ophelia. The times that they spent together were hardly as graphic as Johnny often imagined them.
"I think that Johnny's getting really pissed off at me, Phi." Ripp sighed. "He's so fucking uptight lately."
"Well, maybe you should try to do the dishes more often..." She suggested. "Or keep the bathing to a minimum?"
"God, what is his fucking problem with the baths? Johnny is a maniac."
"Johnny is Johnny, Ripp. Just suck it up, and try not to be a total ass about it, okay?"
"Well, that's pretty easy for you to say, Phi. I really am a fucking ass. How am I supposed to change that now?"
"There! Finally!" Ophelia stood back from the work bench. "I've done it. It's not perfect, but it's close enough." The masterpiece in question was a red rose bouquet, and it was deceptively simple looking. Ophelia had been trying to get it right for ages.
Ripp got up to take a closer look.
"They're beautiful, Phi." Ripp smiled. "Very, very nice."
"Well, the flowers themselves did most of the work, now, didn't they?"
"Stop backing away from taking any credit! You do it every fucking time." He reached out to touch one of the blooms, and rubbed one of the soft petals between his fingers. They smelled very nice.
"You're going to ruin them if you paw them over like that." Ophelia said. "They bruise easily."
"Sorry. I couldn't help it."
"Well, I think we did a very good job."
They really had. It was quite a transformation. Kristen might not have even recognized herself if she passed by a mirror.
"Now, Kristen... are you completely clear on the plan?"
"Yes, Lola, I am."
"Well, let's run by it one more time, just to be sure, okay?"
Kristen would be posing as a writer for a magazine called Rat Race, the office of which was located in Sim City. The magazine focussed on the lives of the rich and famous, and she would be pretending that the Beakers had been selected as the subject of a feature article, complete with a tour of the inside of their expansive mansion.
Circe, no doubt, would be aware of the magazine, so they paid a great deal of attention to detail. If she knew the authors well enough to notice, they had that covered too. They had given Kristen the name of one of them, and modeled her after the photo in the index, down to the very last detail.
Kristen Loste was now Ingrid Sims.
She had called the Beaker's place using a cell phone to avoid suspicion, and explained the situation to them. Everything was working out according to their plan, and the Beakers had invited her to drop by for an interview.
Once there, she was greeted by a very enthusiastic Loki. "Well, hello, Ms. Sims! I'm Loki Beaker, the renowned scientist."
"Nice to meet you, Loki! I've heard so much about you!"
"Yes, I do have quite the stellar reputation, don't I? And just between you and me, my greatest discovery is right at my fingertips..." Kristen considered the information that Pascal and Lola had passed on to her, and wondered if Loki was referring to the activity on the rooftop.
"Would you be willing to share some of your latest research with our magazine, Mr. Beaker?"
"Well, I don't know about that. It's top secret. I wouldn't want any of my competitors to get wind of it, until I've developed the prototype."
"Who's our guest, Loki?" Circe had descended the staircase, and entered the foyer.
"This is Ms. Ingrid Sims, Circe. She called earlier, remember?"
"Oh yes, from Rat Race magazine." Circe grinned. "Let me tell you, Ms. Sims. I just adore your publication! I'm a subscriber, you know. I've always enjoyed your articles. They're simply the best in the magazine."
"Thank you, Ms. Beaker."
"Please, call me Circe."
"Well, thank you, Circe. I'm very flattered."
"I just loved your article on the Worthingtons. So very tragic about Linda, isn't it?" Circe's wry smile revealed the fact that she wasn't so much bothered by the tragedy as amused by it. "Well, she's in rehab now, anyway, the poor thing."
"Yes, that was unfortunate, wasn't it?" Kristen bluffed.
"Well, it's no wonder." Circe smiled. "If the deary had more of a spine and actually got herself a career or something, and stopped pushing out all of those useless girls, she might have felt like less of a failure."
Kristen forced a smile that she hoped was convincing. "Yes, certainly."
Nervous was listening from the pit, sick with worry. He had a very bad feeling about the whole thing. His initial relief, that the person at the door had not been Pascal, had quickly faded. It didn't matter who that was up there. They were still in serious danger. Nervous didn't want to see anyone come under an attack by the Beakers. He, at least, was used to it. He, at least, had seen much worse.
Upstairs, he could hear them talking. "Well, let me get the family album." Circe was saying. "I want you to see our wedding photos. We had such a lavish event. I'd love for old Worthington to put that in his pipe and smoke it."
"I'll go get us some refreshments." Loki said. "Is fois gras acceptable, Circe?" Nervous shivered.
"Yes, Loki, darling."
"You can wait in the parlour, Ms. Sims." Circe cooed. "I'll just be a minute."
Nervous could hear the heel of a woman's shoe clicking across the stone floor as she entered the room next to him. He wanted to yell out to her to leave now, while she still could. Of course, doing so would seal her fate, and his too. He prayed with all of his might that the Beakers were not planning to do anything to her, but since they usually refused to entertain guests, Nervous thought that the fact that they had let her in was a very bad sign.
The footsteps had stopped, but then they continued, lightly, towards the laboratory.
Kristen had seen into the lab, of course, and was shocked by the appearance of some of the equipment contained inside of it. She also noticed the railing, and could tell that there was some sort of pit in there. That would be a good place to keep a test subject, if one was hiding such a thing.
She looked around, and since the Beakers were temporarily distracted, she quickly snuck in to take a better look.
There he was. That would have to be Nervous Subject. He looked up at her with an expression of horror, but he didn't say anything. He didn't look happy to see her at all.
"Are you Nervous Subject?" Kristen whispered.
"Please..." Nervous said as quietly as he could. "Run. Just run. Run away. Now!" Kristen sensed someone standing behind her.
"Are you lost, my love?" Kristen turned around to find Circe at her heels.
"I'm sorry, ma'am. I just wandered in here... I was looking for the washroom. This is quite an impressive laboratory you have... might we be able to mention this in our article?"
Circe just laughed. She was holding a strange object in her hand.
"Why don't you mention this in your article?" She smiled.
Circe lifted the contraption and proceeded to suck Kristen dry of every hope that she had in the world.
Kristen attempted to run, but Circe caught her and cornered her.
Circe hummed a lively tune. "Oh, what a beautiful day this is going to be! I can just tell." She laughed.
"Loki, my love! Go ahead and make us a nice little lunch, won't you?" She yelled into the next room. "I'm going to relax and enjoy myself after this. Just two portions, of course. Our guest won't be staying for long."
"Of course, Circe, darling." Loki went into the kitchen.
After what felt like hours, Circe shut the machine off, and released Kristen. She immediately began to run, but in the wrong direction, and only for a few steps before her legs gave out and stopped moving.
Kristen felt an overwhelming sensation that something was very wrong with her brain. It felt like a window in the side of her head had opened up, and then the last thing that she heard was one big "Whoosh".
She fell to the ground, convulsing. She was in the beginning stages of an aspiration failure.
"What a crazy bitch!" Circe laughed. "She was obviously lacking in basic sanity to begin with, or else she wouldn't have come here! The poor little darling! It's going to be a long road to recovery for this one, I can tell!"
Kristen's frenzied laughter echoed through the Beaker mansion.
"Don't worry, honey." Circe cooed. "You won't remember a thing about it in the morning. You'll have a mind that's as fresh as a pair of new shoes."
"Well, Nervous!" Circe spat. "Your little friend has become rather careless, now, hasn't he? I wonder if Pascal Curious will be so quick to send another fool into the lion's jaws, once he sees what happened to this little darling!"
Nervous didn't respond, since he obviously wasn't expected to.
"Well, go ahead, Pascal, you little freak! Give it your best shot! I'll take whoever you can throw at me! Next time, it'll be be more than their mind that I break! Who's next?!"
Later that evening, a cab pulled up to Lola's house and dropped off Kristen. Lola hoped, briefly, that this was a good sign, since the Beakers shouldn't have known who Kristen was, and where she lived, but she was wrong. The cab door opened, and the driver rolled Kristen out the door. She fell directly to the ground.
Lola rushed to her side.
"Llll... Lllll... Llllll... Lllla...dy..." Kristen managed. "Where... my... mommy..." Lola felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.
This was not good. It wasn't a normal aspiration breakdown. Had the Beakers done something else to Kristen's mind? She ran to get Chloe, and together they carried Kristen up the hill to Pascal's place, where they would try their best to revive her. Lola prayed that whatever had happened to her could be reversed.
"Well, I'm not sure what to think of it, Worthington." Tank said. "It's a little odd for my father to invite us all over for dinner like this. I can only assume that he has something important to discuss with us."
"You don't get together that often?"
"Well, we haven't done it since I moved away to university... and our family dinners were always uncomfortable at the best of times. There has to be some good reason for it." Tank continued to eat his mac and cheese. "How are you liking that, by the way?"
"Oh, it's great." Frances said, not completely honestly. It was awful, but he did appreciate the thought. After he was finished, Tank waited by the kitchen window for the cab.
"Is the cab here yet?"
"No, not yet." Sighed Tank. "They went to pick up Ripp first, so chances are good that he wasn't ready when they got there. What a hopeless cause..."
"Ripp is the one that's closest to you in age?" Frances asked.
"Yeah. Buck is younger. He still lives at home, with Dad."
"What are they like?"
"They're like any brothers, I suppose." Tank said.
The cab pulled up. Tank opened the door and got in. Well, he thought, it seemed that Ripp didn't think the ocassion was important enough to warrant a shave or anything. He bit his tongue and just nodded, saying, "Ripp..." Ripp shot him an extremely dirty look, seemingly for no reason at all, but returned his greeting. "Tank..."
That was the last thing they said to each other for the entire cab ride home.
General Buzz had been preparing for this dinner for quite some time.
Tank was the first to arrive, and Buzz greeted him warmly. He knew that Ripp had shared a cab with Tank, but he could imagine that Ripp would be slowly sauntering towards the house, with no great hurry. Buzz took a deep breath. He could do this. It wouldn't be so bad. His best intentions faded as soon as Ripp darkened the doorway.
One look at Ripp wiped the smile from his face completely. It was all just a little bit too much. The hair, the stubble, the wrinkled shirt, and the look of general contempt. For a couple of seconds, they just stared at each other.
Ripp thought about how he really should have taken one more hit off that bubble blower before he left LFT.
"So, you have no money for a haircut, eh, Ripp?" Buzz began. "Or is it just that you're choosing to spend your money on more important things? You really need to get your head on straight, son! You look like a vagrant." Ripp didn't say anything.
"Nothing to say to me?" Buzz frowned. "You'd expect a theatre major to be a little more expressive, wouldn't you? Or do you only get that way if you actually go to classes?" Again, Ripp said nothing.
"I'm not sure what you're problem is, Ripp, but it's about time you got over it. Your life isn't getting any longer. Do you really want to waste it with all of this nonsense?"
"My life is just fine the way it is, Buzz."
"Well, that's part of your problem, isn't it? God, where did I go wrong?" Buzz threw his hands up and left the room. Buck came in from the living room.
"Hey, Ripp. How are you? Don't let Dad get to you, okay?" That was easy for Buck to say, Ripp thought, but then thought better of saying it. Buck had to live alone with Buzz, and that couldn't possibly be a picnic. Buck had his own issues to deal with, surely.
Tank came into the room. "Well, you've managed to stir shit up pretty quickly, Ripp! It only took you five minutes. Not bad..."
"Shut the fuck up, Tank."
"Dad is right, you know! You could have at least gotten a shave! God, do you have to be such a dirtbag?!"
"I don't know, Tank... do you have to be such a fucking douchebag?"
"Give it a rest, guys!" Buck said. "Can't you just try to get along for a couple of hours?" They glared at each other for a couple of moments, and then Buzz entered the room again.
"Well, I'm glad you boys made it. I have something important to tell you."
"Yes, I figured that." Tank said. "What is it?"
"Well, I've been dating someone." Buzz said, cautiously. "And since things are getting pretty serious, I wanted to introduce her to you all." There was a moment of silence between them.
"Well, come on." Buzz said, more to Tank than anyone. "She's in the kitchen." He lead Tank in with him.
Buck followed behind them, but Ripp hesitated.
Buzz made his introductions. "Tank, this is Elise Pearson."
"Hello, Tank." She smiled. Tank returned her smile.
"Hello, Elise. It's nice to meet you." She was very pretty, and Tank thought she seemed nice enough. He should at least be polite, right?
Buck, then Ripp, entered the room. Elise approached them.
"You must be Ripp, right? Your father talks about you all the time."
"I'm sure that he does." Ripp said, flatly. He could just imagine the nature of those conversations.
Elise didn't really know what to say. Buzz had warned her to be careful around Ripp, so she decided not to press on. Instead, she led them in to dinner. "I've made us some lime prawns! My specialty."
They all entered the dining room.
It began as awkwardly as any other meal in the Grunt household, and it was quite some time before anyone said anything.
Ripp was especially quiet, and Buck was worried about him. He thought that maybe he should have told his brother about Elise beforehand, but he had been afraid that Ripp wouldn't have showed up at all, and he really had wanted to see him.
Finally, Elise spoke up and asked Tank about college. "So, your father tells me that you're studying political science."
"Yeah, that's right." Tank said. "I'll be going into the military after college. You know, following in Dad's footsteps..." Elise smiled.
"How nice."
"Yes, I'm very proud of Tank." Buzz said.
There it was. The implication that he was less than proud of the other two. Nothing new there, but it still hurt. Ripp and Buck looked at each other, then drifted off into their own state of uncomfortableness and disappointment. Buck looked hopefully at his Dad, and Ripp just bit his tongue. After a moment, he couldn't resist.
"Well, you should be proud of Buck too." Ripp said. "Isn't he getting the top marks in his class? And I hear that Buck's been doing some nice decorating around here too."
"Is that right, Buck?" Elise smiled. She was, of course, happy that Ripp had bothered to speak at all, and happy to exchange pleasantries with Buck. Buck smiled with his shy smile.
"Well, I've been doing okay, I guess. Dad was nice enough to let me decorate my bedroom, which was nice."
"Buck has more class in his pinky than the rest of us combined." Ripp said.
"Well, I don't know about that." Buck said. "But I think it turned out pretty well. I'm really interested in interior design." Tank rolled his eyes.
Buzz jumped in to change the subject. "Boys, Elise and I are getting pretty serious, as I said. That's why I wanted to introduce you to her, of course." He said. "In fact, we are thinking about getting married." Nobody said anything.
"I really do love your father." Elise said. "I think that things could work out very well between us." She smiled.
Then, Elise made a terrible mistake.
"I'd really appreciate it if you boys would welcome me into the family like Buzz has."
"Who knows? In time, you might even come to think of me as a mother..." That silence was longer, and more menacing, than all of the others combined.
After some time, Ripp slowly, calmly, stood up from the table.
"Well, this has been really lovely, everyone." he said. "Elise, it was nice to meet you. If you'll excuse me, Buzz, I really do have to go now..." He turned to leave.
"Ripp, wait..." Buzz said. Ripp stopped, but did not turn around.
Tank and Buck exchanged a very similar nervous glance, and then just stared stoically ahead. Buck thought, but didn't say, "Please, please just let him go..."
"Would it kill you to call me Dad, just one time?" Buzz asked. He had meant it like a peace offering, but it sounded much more like a criticism.
"This is the army, right, Buzz? And you earn your rank and title. Is that correct?" Buzz said nothing. "Of course, that's how it works, right? We should know..."
Well, the last time I fucking checked into it, the only title you've earned around here is motherfucking General!"
"You watch your fucking mouth!"
"Fuck!" Ripp yelled at the top of his lungs. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!"
"Fuck this! Fuck all of you! Fuck you. Fuck Tank. Fuck me."
"Fuck that skinny little blond bitch over there. Fuck all of this shit!"
With that, Ripp turned and ran from the house.
Once outside, he completely broke down. Every cruel thing that Buzz had ever said to him, every disappointed look, every item of neglect, was all there before him, as fresh as the day it had happened. His mother's disappearance, too, was a fresh wound in his heart.
Buck was behind him, silently watching him from the door.
"I'm so sorry, Buck!" Ripp sobbed. "I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"
And then he was gone.
Buck stood in the doorway, stunned.
"Please forgive my brother." He sighed. "He can be a little dramatic at times..."
"He's such a jackass!" Tank snapped. "God, I hate him."
"Please excuse me for saying so, Dad," Buck began, "but did you really expect this to go any differently?"
Buzz wasn't sure what he had expected. Did he really think that Ripp would ever come around, and turn up on the doorstep like some sort of prodigal son with a fresh haircut? He certainly wasn't about to hold his breath.
He had hoped, though, past all reason, that they might have a nice, peaceful dinner like a normal family, just this one time.
( Continue to Chapter 12...)