Saturday, December 14, 2013

"Rehab: The Fake Tales of a Real Asshole" Scene 7


I hate going first. The only time its okay is during an orgy or car crash. Otherwise you are forced to suffer or see a bunch of crap that you don't wanna see. Mr. W. Scott is standing there waiting for me to get up and walk to the center of the Shame Circle. Sad Sack won't even make eye contact with me. Boobs does and I taste the last thing I ate earlier again. I can hear Beef sniffling behind me. I look to the right a few seats over and Softy is sitting there staring at her father like she is trying to make him burst into flames.

I consider saying how shy I am about public speaking and then I hear Beef blow his nose into his sleeve and think better of it. I clear my throat and walk to the center. Mr. W. Scott steps aside as I pull the microphone closer to my lips. I wait for Mr. W. Scott to go sit down somewhere but he doesn't. He just stands there waiting for me to start.

“Hello” I say. No one responds. Rude, much? “My name is Alan Thompson and I'm kind of a big deal.” Silence. “How am I supposed to start this?”

“Start with when you first became the pathetic mess that stands before me darkening my soul with each moment you are allowed to exist” Mr. W. Scott says.

“I had my first drink when I was--”

“Earlier.”

“When I was about 11, I stole--”

“Earlier.”

“Okay...” I mutter. “My parents never wanted a kid?”

“There. Continue” Mr. W. Scott says and checks something off on his clipboard.

“My dad had just started his accounting business and my mother was fresh out of college when she found out that she was pregnant. Uh, like I said neither of them had ever wanted a kid. They both had bad parents and knew that they'd be pretty shitty parents. And they were.” Someone raises their hand. Some chick with half her head shaved and tattoos all over her arm. How in the hell did I not notice her before? Mr. W. Scott nods to her.

“What made them so bad?” Inky asks. “Did they molest you?”

“Christ, no!” I say. “They just didn't pay attention to me. They kinda just left me alone. They'd go to these huge parties and just leave me at home. If company came over they would put me in my room and lock the door, hide any photos of me, things like that. I didn't really mind until I got older.”

“Not yet” M. W. Scott says. “How did you talk to your parents? Were you as disrespectful as you are with everyone you have come across here?”

“First off, I don't think I'm disrespectful to anyone here” I tell him and I hear quite a few people scoff. Sad Sack raises his eyebrow. “I called them mother and father for a while. My mother hated when I would even talk to her. My father gave up on hating me and started to groom me to take over his business so he could retire early. I was just a kid. Literally a kid. What did I know about accounting?!” My hands start to shake so I grip the podium. “Can I move forward now?” I ask Mr. W. Scott. He nods. “One day when I was by myself, I was about 10, I saw a bottle of gin sitting on the kitchen counter. I figured it was water in a fancy bottle. I opened it and took a huge swig.”

“How did it taste?” someone I can't see asks. Mr. W. Scott doesn't interject so I answer.

“Amazing!” I say. “Like, I had never even been around booze before but as soon as it hit my tongue it was like 'This is what I have been needing my whole life and no one gave it to me.' I took the bottle to my room and polished it off under my Care Bear blanket and passed out. I woke up, like, the next morning and my head hurt like crazy.”

“Baby's first hangover” someone says and everyone starts laughing. Mr. W. Scott, like some kind of fucking Office Depot ninja, starts lobbing pens and pencils at everyone. They start shouting and screaming until he slaps the podium.

“Another interruption and bones will be broken” he says. “I know who spoke out of turn and I will deal with you soon.” Someone gasps. “Continue.”

“At some point during the night my parents took the bottle out of my hands. But it wasn't like suddenly they started hiding the shit. No. Every day when I come home from school there'd be another one sitting in the same spot. And every day I would drink it.”

“Are you saying that they enabled you?” Mr. W. Scott asks me.

“Well...yeah.”

“So you are saying that if they left a gun out in the open and you shot yourself that it would be their fault?” he asks.

“Of course!” I say. “That's just shitty parenting.”

“But you just said that they just left the alcohol sitting in the 'same spot.' They never forced you to drink it. You made that decision yourself.” He checks something off on his clipboard.

“But I was just a kid” I say. My hands start shaking more and I swear there's a giant ant sitting in the third row. I don't mention this. Maybe if I ignore it it'll go away. “I shouldn't have been allowed to have access to booze.”

“As a child you had access to the outdoors, did you not?” he asks me. I nod. “Why did you not play in traffic? I take it you knew where the cutlery was located in your home? What kept you from harming yourself?”

“I'm not stupid” I say. “I'm not gonna run out in traffic or cut myself.” When I say the part about cutting myself Softy looks at me.

“But you are stupid, Mr. Thompson” he tells me. “No one forced you to drink. You made that decision. You told yourself and continue to tell yourself that you are not stupid enough to run into traffic or cut yourself. But you freely admit and even boast about the liquor you have consumed throughout your life. Is this true?” He holds his hand up before I can even answer. “Experts have said in recent decades that alcoholism is a disease. I, of course, find this to not be true. I say that it is a symptom of the very weak. A very weak mind, body, and individual. Do you know what does not exist in nature, Mr. Thompson?”

“Cookies?” I ask.

“Pity” he says. “Now get off of my stage.”  

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