Cemetery Drive (FOB Imagine Story)

Part 1

Pete's sitting in his room at his desk, tapping his pen on the notebook he's been scribbling words into all morning. Having hit a writer's block, he sets the pen down and looks at the picture of his mother he has positioned in the corner of the desktop. He heaves a sigh and bites his lip, wordlessly trying to communicate with his mother and give him some inspiration.

Most of the time she responds to him. However, it's mostly in his sleep, well after he reaches out to her. He doesn't have time to fall asleep though, not when his racing mind keeps him awake, lyrics spewing out of him all the time. He wants to be a songwriter, a lyricist, but with his family heavily involved in law, his dream seems foolish and stupid, so he keeps his passion to himself.

And his mother's responses usually aren't good ones. It's almost always "Beware of Cemetery Drive", which doesn't make any sense to him.

"Peter!" His father calls out to him, making his way down the hallway to his son's room with the sign that reads Leave Me Alone posted on the door. He wraps his hand around the brass doorknob and pushes the door in, making Pete jump. "Peter, my boy, what are you doing? I have a court case today and I want you to come with me."

Pete groans. "Do I have to go?"

"Yes. How else are you ever going to be able to take over the business?" He replies before turning around and retreating back down the hallway, refusing to give his son the chance to answer. Pete heaves a sigh and picks himself up, bringing himself to follow after his dad.

*****

Sitting in the back of the court room, Pete watches the trial that doesn't have many observers proceed. There's two men at each table, his father with the plaintiff and another lawyer with defendant. The wannabe lyricist has a notebook in his lap, for the sole purpose of taking notes, however, the only notes the man's taken are various phrases that will help him in no way whatsoever if and when his father hands the business over to him.

The judge is listening to Pete's dad as he tries to provide evidence that the defendant stole the plaintiff's song. The plaintiff was a younger man, with brown hair and brown eyes. He doesn't look to be a day over nineteen or twenty. The defendant? Also a young man, but slightly older, with blonde hair and bluish green eyes. They were different in appearance, the younger man seeming more well off, dressed very nicely in a suit and tie, whereas the older was only wearing a pair of worn dress pants and a slightly wrinkled button-down shirt. Pete loses his focus while staring at the blonde man who was being accused of stealing the brown haired man's song.

After a grueling three and half hours filled with many arguments and a couple of brief recesses, the decision is made and the defendant is found guilty - thanks to Pete's dad. The punishment is to pay the plaintiff the desired amount of money. When the decision was made, the blonde haired man put his head in his hands and the girl who had been sitting behind the short, wooden barrier the entire trial walks around and hugs him from behind. From the expressions on their faces, and the relatively normal clothes on their backs, that isn't the decision they wanted, nor the one they could afford.

Pete's father makes his way over to his son and asks, "So what did you learn?"

"Huh?" The distracted boy replies, breaking out of the daze he'd fallen into and looking up at the man standing over him.

His father's eyebrows furrow together and he snatches the collection of papers from Pete's grasps, seeing the random phrases scribbled all over the paper and the doodles accompanying them. "What is this?" He inquires angrily.

"Dad, please-"

"Father, please," The lawyer corrects his son, "And how many times do I have to tell you, Peter? You're wasting your time writing these stupid little phrases."

"They're called lyrics." Pete sighs, rolling his eyes.

"Whatever. No one's going to see them other than you, so why don't you stop messing around and do something productive with your life? Like actually pay attention to these court cases? I don't bring you to them for you to work on your stupid fantasies. I bring you here to learn, so you better start doing it." And with that, he throws down the notebook and walks out of the room. Pete groans and puts his head in his hands, his back hunching over like that of a cat's.

The only one left in the room, everyone else having already left, the blonde haired defendant makes his way over to Pete, sitting down beside him and picking the notebook up off of the ground to take a look at the work himself.

"Don't," Pete mutters, stealing the book from him before he could even get a glimpse at anything, "It's all garbage anyways."

"I beg to differ," The man challenges him, taking the papers into his possession once again and looking over them. The lawyer's son watches the defendant carefully, trying to interpret the look in his eyes as they scan over the words that came from Pete's mind and were put down on paper. "I don't know what you're talking about," He finally says after a few silent minutes pass by, "These are incredible, in fact, I bet you I could even put some of them to music, if not all."

"Really?" Pete inquires, surprised by the man's response.

"Most definitely." The defendant sticks out his hand, as if to make a deal. "I'm Patrick."

"Pete," He replies, placing his hand in his and shaking it up and down.