The Best Thing He Ever Wrote

Chapter One

I brush my teeth three times over. I spit in the sink several times. I rinse my mouth four times. I can still taste straight whiskey at the back of my throat.

I can still taste cigarettes.

I haven't done either of them.

I can hear Johnny's words spiral my head in a never ending twirl of stagnant water; “Listen here Mawbray, you're a worthless piece of steaming hot- argh! You're nothing.” He'd said hotly.

Steaming hot - ? When he'd said it, millions of words popped into my head of what type of 'steaming hot' was I? In fact five-hundred thousand words still do. One by one they exit my mind, even after forty-five minutes. One million words is a lot. They take time to leave.

Of course the first word to finish that sentence was ‘shit’, the second would be 'crap', the third maybe 'bile' or 'poop'. But once all those obvious words have come and gone and you're left at five-hundred thousand words like 'meadow muffins', you wonder just how bad number one will be.

Four hundred thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine.

If you could shift the words around to make it count I'd use, “You're a useless piece of steaming hot -” But I don't think it actually does count.

I fill the sink with warm water, I wash my face. I pull on stained denim jeans that have passed their expiry date. I button my shirt. I continuously slouch and tug at my white cotton t-shirt until it clicks that the crinkles are not going to come out without an iron. And then, after all that, I finalize on how I look, being the best that I will get.

My mother plops another goop of instant mash potato onto my plate. She doesn't look up at me; in fact she hasn't spoken a word to me since Monday. That's five days, counting Monday as one. It isn't a world record, but I think it's the angriest I've ever made her – no, disappointed. She sits down, she jabs an overly full spoon of mash into her mouth so she has reason not to speak. Cindy glances at me, and then mum, and then over to my father who gets the hint. With a raise of an eyebrow and clear of his throat he says, “What did you do with yourself today, Brandon.” He pauses, wiping his mouth with the little we have as dignity- a napkin. “Other than the obvious.”

I feel sickened at his distasteful words, “Not much.” I say.

“Doesn't seem too much of a surprise these days.”

“Huh.”

“Could be learning at school.”

I feel my mother’s cool gaze scan for a reaction. I'm hungry; I stuff a hunk of steak between my teeth. I suck it in letting it sit on my tongue for a moment before slicing it between my vicious jaws. Cindy is looking at me, waiting for me to reply and for a brawl to take place. She stands and reaches for the bowl of corn. She is slim and her black hair bobs around her face in a perfect frame. Her teeth are perfect too, except her bottom left has a chip. She's fifteen now, or maybe fourteen. She wants to be a model and refuses to eat a decent amount of food.

I don't tell her that she will never be a model. She's too short.

Mucus – three thousand eight hundred and four.

“What about you Cindy?” My father asks.

She sits, nibbling the cob of corn as though a mouse, “I auditioned for the end of year play. I've practically got the part. Mrs Whatson told me, I'm not meant to tell anyone though.” She shrugs her shoulders absentmindedly.

My mother smiles broadly, “Well done, Cindy!”

“You're gonna' make this family famous!” My father marvels.