• Chapter 1
    Soft Rock Star/Bad Grammar


    “Al…Al! Wake the ******** up!” “What do you want Mamimi?” “You’ll be late for work…AGAIN.” Al slowly rises out of bed. Mamimi walked out of the room with a worried look on her face. Alphonse a 17 year old boy just out of high school, “the long haired, no good, piece of s**t liar, NOT EVEN LOVED BY HIS MOTHER!” Plancarte gets ready for his day job which he doesn’t seem to care about all too much. He walks out of his room, heads down the hall and after passing two rooms he reaches the bathroom, undresses and walks into his shower turning the hot knob first. Searing hot water sprays onto his chest but he doesn’t seem to flinch. At the young age of 17 Al has already started growing grey hairs which he likes but most young adults his age seem to find it odd. Al is a boy of Mexican decent so after his showers he comes out with red steaming skin. Otherwise he is a light brown but for some reason his mother says people could mistake him for a person of Dutch or German decent.

    Al is 6’2” and his sister Mamimi is 5’10”. He returned back to his room in a cruddy neighborhood on a cruddy part of town and lived in his cruddy two bedrooms, two bathroom, and one den (Converted into a room) apartment. Al returned to his room, it had two doors, a latch on the top left corner of the door of the right door and the left had a doorknob. Both doors are about 6’10” height and 2’9” width. With a towel wrapped around his waste Al looks at his clock, it was 9:30 A.M. and he only had fifteen minutes to get to work. This didn’t bother him. He looks for a shirt in his closet which isn’t too big itself. It’s about five feet wide with a shelf and bar for his cloths. He stacks his books on this shelf as well as other miscellaneous items. After putting on his black dress shirt with his previous employer (Goodwill) and dark blue Anchor Blue pants he decides to enter the kitchen. His sister of 16 going-on-17 years has already left to her local high school Wisteria High. Looking upon the table he spots a plate with two Pop-Tarts and some Orange Juice.

    As he walks up to the plate and takes one Pop-Tart off the plate and takes a bite and picks up the orange juice and dumps it into the sink. “********, man.” No matter how many times he tells his sister he prefers chocolate milk if they have it she keeps pouring him orange juice but he’s thankful she thinks of him during her busy schedule. After finishing his Pop-Tart and making a glass of chocolate milk and polishing it off he heads out the door to his 2003 BMW. The driver door opens, “Look Carl, if you want to stay in my car just ask. You don’t have to keep breaking into it.” “Aw sorry brother, you know how I am.” Carl is a homeless man that Al has become friends with over the two years that Al has moved to Colorado and has been a bum since the moment he met him. They’re good friends and Al tends to let’em stay in his car every now and then and occasionally lets him take a shower at his house as well as feed him. Carl adjusts the seat the way Al likes it and waves goodbye, returning to the alley behind the apartments. While driving to work Al turns on his CD player, “It’s not you fault! That’s the way it is! I’m sick of you and that’s the way it is!” Al had first heard The Strokes his sophomore year and had loved them ever since. As he arrived at the second stop light on his way to work he noticed a homeless man, dirty and possibly sticky, holding a dog and a sign. “Please help me feed my puppy of six months. He is very hungry. God bless you.”

    The homeless man turned and saw Al, a shocked look lit across his face. The light turned green and Al gave him the finger while rolling down his right window and screamed “******** you a*****e!” It is now 10:13 A.M. and Al had finally made it to work. The Soft Rock Colorado School District. Stepping into the district office he hears a faint “Hi Al.” It was his shy but very cute co-worker Tawney. “Hi Tawney, how are you?” “Pretty okay I guess. Fio and I have been getting into fights again.” “I’m sorry to hear that, we’ll talk about it on our lunch break?” A smile appeared on Tawney’s face, “If you want.” Al leaned over and put his hand on her shoulder and walked away. Al has had a lot of time to get to know Tawney and has come to like her but has not been able to act upon his feeling because she is already taken. She was shy, sweet, intelligent and just about the most enjoyable person in the office.

    The first thing Al noticed when he arrived at his desk was a note from his boss Dawn. It read “You’re going to have to stay a little late today, were a bit shorthanded.” Al groaned and slumped onto his chair facing his computer and picture of his little sister. He powered up his computer and waited for it to load his user screen. During this time he thought about friends on Skype from Canada and California. He thought of maybe pulling his flash drive from out of his pocket and installing it with onto his work computer and maybe talking to them during work. They were still in high school but were about to graduate. One of them is a boy named Donte and the other Dylan along with Mitch, Mirah(Mere-uh) and a whole lotta others. He decided against it for the time being since he didn’t have his mic with him.

    After his computer had started up Al got to work. Whether it was dealing with screaming parents bitching about how autistic kids were being under funded or trying to figure out a way to balance out the district credit that Dawn keeps ruining by somehow getting a hold of the high schools money and spending it selfishly for her own “needs”. “Umm…Al?….Al?” “Oh hey Tawney, what do you need?” Al had been spacing out for the last hour of work before his lunch break. “I was wondering if you still wanted to talk since it’s our lunch break.” Tawney said with a sweet smile on her face. “Of course.” And they walked to the staff lounge. The staff lounge was located in a different building, a portable. Inside was a salad bar where the ingredients were replaced daily and Nurse Ashley always seemed to bake just enough of her homemade banana bread for everyone. Al took his usual piece of banana bread and a napkin to place the banana bread on and walked next to Tawney as she began to make her salad, “So about Fio. We’ve been going out for about two and a half years now and recently he seems to be losing interest in me, in my entirety really. Every night I stay up thinking about how he never does what he says he’ll do and how he’s always gone visiting family and he’s never really at the house anymore.” Her eyes became glossy and tears start to form in her eyes. Al takes the plate out of her hands and walks her to the table placing the plate on a green table and pulls out the chair out placing her on it. He knew she wasn’t going to eat today and so it didn’t matter if she was going to finish making her salad or not. He pulls the chair on the opposite end of the table over next to her and sits down. Now Tawney is trembling and is on the verge of crying, “Lately he’s been drinking and he’s never around the house. When his family comes to visit he goes to hang out with his cousin Michelle and he never even thinks about me. He hangs out with other girls and doesn’t even consult me about my feelings. I know it seems silly but it seems like he never EVER thinks about me anymore. When I’m sick I ask him for small favors like making me something to eat and he gives me the exact opposite of what I want so he can eat it himself when I tell him I don’t want it. Then he gets mad at me for not eating it. He neglects me and always runs off and never invites me anywhere.” She bursts into tears. Al, not knowing what to do, goes off his instincts and hugs her. She grips his waste tight and cries profusely onto his shirt, his chin on her head and her head on his collar bone. He then says in a sort of raspy voice in his attempt to make a soft, sweet voice “Tawney it’s going to be alright. I’m not going to leave; it’s going to be alright.” She felt a bit of comfort after he said that and the tears began to stop. After a few minutes she looked up at him and smiled, “Thank you so much for being here for me Al.” Al smiles back at her, “It’s no big deal really.” He releases his grip on her and she stand up and looks around the room. “I’m sorry about your shirt…you can have my salad if you want. I don’t think I’m going to eat it after all.” Tawney says nervously. “Oh it’s okay and thank you very much.” Al scratched the back of his head and looked at the floor. His eyes then wondered up her leg, torso, and then up to her face again. She was stilling standing there, smiling. “I’m gonna go wash my face and get back to work… bye.” She exits the room and Al was left alone. Feeling pathetic and idiotic, Al stares at the salad and piece of banana bread. He looks at his watch after awhile and gets up to throw both their plates away and head back to his desk. Like every other day.