Seeds of Tomorrow

Seven

It was after one in the afternoon when Mark rolled his tired carcass out of bed and realized Rocco ain't even come back. He shot him a text asking "Yo, you fuckin smash or wut?" as he waited for his Cup of Noodles to heat up in the microwave.

Fuckin' bullshit, bro, his mom worked all them fucking hours at that chicken factory and still ain't shit to eat in that shitty ass house. Fuck they were doing better when she just worked at the gas station and they at least qualified for food stamps.

Instead, she worked her ass off for nothing but to send money off to that loser "fiancé" of hers,  thinking he was gonna marry her when he got out. Jimmy got 78 months in Walla Walla for vehicular manslaughter when his sorry ass got drunk, beat Mark's mother's ass, and left before getting in an accident that killed one of his old teachers from grade school. Cool, huh?

Jimmy was just one in a long line of abusive, drunk piece of shit boyfriends his mom drug home, claiming each of them was a good man and he gonna be his new daddy. Right.

Some of them started out nice of course. There'd been Cody, the man she married after his dad died. He seemed cool at first, took Mark hunting, fishing, mudding, all the fun redneck kinda shit. It took him a few years for his true colors to come out, he started drinking and tweaking just like his dad had and beat the shit out of Naveah on the regular.

Mark had been around thirteen when he got fed up. Standing 5'10 and in better shape than the old drunk cluck, he'd fucking socked the mother fucker up. Teach him to put his hands on his mom. So Cody bounced out and they got divorced.

And then came Brent, Charlie, Steven, Cory, and finally Jimmy. And those were just the dudes who liked her enough or were desperate enough for a place to stay that they formed some sort of relationship with her. That wasn't counting the various men she brought home from the bar. Every single one of them dudes beat her ass and eventually Mark began resenting her for being so pathetic in her inability to stay alone, thinking she needed a man in her life instead of just focusing on being a mother. Nope, being a dedicated mom without a man? That wasn't for her.

How you supposed to respect a woman who steady letting stray men fuck her with her teenage son in the home? Mark had lost count of the amount of men he'd seen in and out of his momma's bedroom, had lost count of the nights he spent wide awake listening to the headboard slamming off the wall and the sounds of fucking? That's just nasty, bro. And it wasn't like he had headphones or nothing to drown out the sounds because his mom never had the money to buy them.

She'd only known Jimmy a total of four months before the incident happened and Mrs. Snodgrass lost her life. Shoulda been sorry ass Jimmy, the old lady had been kind, one of them teachers who could tell when a kid was struggling at home and wanted to make sure everything was good. Most of Mark's teachers had treated him like stupid white trash, not Mrs. Snodgrass.

Initially, his mom vehemently swore she was done with Jimmy, "Uh-uh, I am deee-yunn!" Until he wrote her some sob story letter promising her the world when he got out. He was gonna marry her, get a good job, and take care of her and the boy. In the meantime, he just needed Naveah to be by his side, and give him a reason to stay focused. And by that he meant, put money on his books, probably send panty pictures, and visit. And so she did.

Naveah started working down at the chicken plant his dad had, busting her ass with overtime for what? Some sleazy prison letters from another balding greaseball with a bad liver and a beer belly while they went without.

Was Mark angry? Hell yeah, he was. He was tired of living in a shit house with a shit mom and a shit life. And he didn't know how to make it any better. So he wasted his youth away as a high school dropout, doing drugs, fucking around with different females that he had no respect for just waiting to die or get caught up in some shit that would send him away.

And that Saturday afternoon was no different. He ate his lukewarm, semi crispy Cup of Noodles wearing some shitty ass white tee-shirt from Top to Bottom and a pair of And1 shorts from Walmart in his dingy wood-paneled kitchen that smelt like stale cigarettes, mold, and rats in the walls.

He was lonely, empty, and mad all the time. Everything felt hopeless. All day. Every day.

Checking his phone, no response from Rocco. Nothing from Brynleigh since she told him to beat feet and walk home. So he hit up his ex, Olivia. He just wanted someone to come fix his loneliness even for an hour or two and even if it meant permanently ruining shit with Brynleigh. Not that there was much left to salvage.

Olivia was down to come kick it, she'd been single a few weeks and knew Mark wasn't trying to commit to anything beyond an orgasm and some bud.

He showered, shaved up his scant facial hair, and dressed in some cheap-ass clothes his mom got him from Ross. He'd lucked out and wasn't ugly, or so he'd been told. He was playing, he knew he at least looked good. A Kelso ten was what he referred to himself. He looked like his dad and older brothers but with his mom's green eyes and a dusting of freckles. Guess god took some pity on him, couldn't make him poor, stupid white trash, and ugly.

Spritzing himself with the Diesel cologne his brother had given him as a birthday gift, the same shit he wore, he stepped out of the tiny bathroom and went to sit on the front porch to wait for Olivia.

"Bring me some food, a mother fucker hungry af," he wrote to her. She came from an upper-middle-class family and had a job, he knew she'd agree.

Olivia pulled up in her mom's Kia, a bag of Jack in the Box in her hands as she stepped out. She looked hella good. Big tits, little waist, and big ol' thighs. He almost forgot why he left her for Brynleigh...oh right, she was a completely unhinged bitch and Brynleigh was a throat goat who did anything he asked of her.

"That's what's up," he told her with an appreciative grin, grabbing a handful of ass as he pulled her into him, "You been missing me or what?"

"I thought you had a girlfriend," Olivia replied.

"Keyword is had. I had one but we done," Mark told her cockily, leading her into his mom's trailer.

"So if I call her, she's gonna confirm that?"

Mark rolled his dark eyes at her, "You play too much, now come over here."