Brass Knuckles, or "My son's beard is super sexy."

Starting stories is always the hardest part. So, I’m going to just skip ahead a bit. Screw beginnings. They’re overrated.

So this one time (I should preface this by saying that I was home-schooled during high school and had little contact with normal kids my age), I was at this lady’s house. She taught a writing class in her home and I was a student but also helped out with a class of younger kids as well. This lady, and her three strange kids, was weird. Like, seriously. While I was waiting on my mom to pick me up, Mrs. [redacted] were making small talk. Like you do when you’re waiting in someone’s weird house for your mom, who lives, like right down the road. I mean, come on, mom. Hustle. Mrs. [redacted] tells me that her son, David, who is two years older than me (making him 18), has grown a beard. “It’s really sexy,” she said, looking intently at my face while I strained to keep my lip from curling up. This kid was weird. More than his mom or his creepy sisters. Like, psycho weird. At 16, I was interested in, well that’s not important. What is important, telling a young girl that you think your son is sexy and that his new beard is sexy is weird and not ok. “You’re so alike. You and David,” she said. Then I realized, “Aw, crap. She’s trying to set me up with her creeper kid! Damn it!” “It’d be so nice. Well, I’d really like it,” she stammered, “if David brought home a girl like you.” Ummm, no. Just no. Feeling my pulse quicken and a terrible embarrassing heat rise in my chest, my mind began to race. How do I get out of this? What kind of excuse do I give? He’s too pale. He’s weird and wears too much black. He’ll kill me in my sleep. No thanks, Mrs. [redacted], I’d like to live to see 25. “He isn’t home though, right? I mean, I didn’t see his Trans Am,” I asked, trying to reassure myself that I would not be kidnapped by these people and used as a breeder. “No,” she laughed, “but he’ll be home soon. I’m sure he’d like to see you.” Great. . .

My mom finally arrived but so did David. And while Mrs. [redacted] was talking to my mom about god-only-knows, she suggested David show me what his father had just bought him at the police auction. Oh yeah, his dad was a cop, who admitted in a rather cavalier manner that planting evidence was cool as long as the perp was guilty. Which they totally were. *wink* David sidles up next to me and in an extra deep voice typical of teenaged boys who feel the desperate need to prove to the world that yes, their balls have dropped, says, “Come on.” He’s totally not into what’s happening. Does he know his mom is fantasizing about what kind of Aryan children we’ll have with her matching blue eyes, blonde hair and pasty skin? We walk down a dark hallway. Modular homes always have poor lighting, partially due to the craptastic paneling. He opens the door to a room full of weapons. He’s got friggin ninja swords, Viking swords. He had (I’m totally not kidding) a mace on his wall. Awesome. . .  Before I can absorb his stunning arsenal, he swipes something out of his weapons case where the smaller knives, nun chucks and other miscellany is kept. “This is what my dad got for me. It was a present,” he says this as he cocks his fist back in, aimed at my face. Brass knuckles. But not just any brass knuckles. Oh no. I was face to face with a pale, clenched fist bearing a set of brass knuckles emblazoned with swastikas. “Um, those are really. . . something” I said, groping for something to say other than the obvious “Are you a Nazi?” “You wanna try ‘em on?” he said as he took them off and held them in his fleshy palm. “No, I don’t. I don’t think they’ll fit. I have, um, small fingers” and I really don’t want to touch anything that belonged to a skin-head freak, which obviously, those did.

We stood there for a bit. He showed me some more weapons. Then he asked if I wanted to borrow the CD of a Tolien tribute metal band. They wrote songs in Tolkien’s Elvish. Neat-o.

As my mom and I walked to our car, me clutching a CD in my sweaty hand, my mom with her eyebrow cocked said, “What was that about?” “Um, wanna listen to some music.”  

Also, I will be drawing more pictures. I have ideas. Big ideas. But I've been dead for a while. I may or may not be a zombie or a vampire right now. Zombies are out, I think. So, I'm going with vampire (god, I have got to stop watching True Blood).