by Wred Fright

After college, Brian moved back to his shitty hometown.
Slept in his shitty old bed in his parents’ shitty old house.
His parents got upset every time Brian called their town “shitty”.
He didn’t need a college degree to know this life sucked.

He got a job working nights at the convenience store.
So he got reacquainted with all the local fuckups.
Like himself.
Between shifts, he beat off in his shitty old bed a lot.
Some of his old friends were successful, he imagined.
At least they weren’t here.
The smart ones had all gotten away.

There were no women, but there were girls.
He deflowered a high school punk rock girl.
But when she thought it was love, he felt bad and broke it off.

He went downtown and read his old comic books on the steps of the old post office.
80 degrees at midnight and sweating.
Hotrodders burning rubber in the center of town.
The cops didn’t give a fuck.
No one gave a fuck, except Brian, and he gave it to the underage girl.

One day he walked through the bad side of town carrying a big walking stick.
Some thugs hooted at him from the basketball court.
They said, “Hey, you, what’s the big stick for? Motherfucker’s scared. He’s carrying a big stick.”
He quickened his pace, but one ran over and grabbed him by the throat.
“Yeah, that’s right, I thought you’d be like that. That big stick ain’t shit.”
The thug dropped his grip, and Brian walked away.

He got angrier and angrier, and then he walked back.
The thugs hooted some more.
He walked up to the one who had grabbed him by the throat and broke the stick over the thug’s head.
“She-it!” the thugs said.
One ran away.
One watched.
One bled.
One jumped on Brian’s back.
One pulled a gun.

The police arrived in time to see Brian bleed to death.
He was right.
His hometown is shitty.

16 March 2012

Wred Fright is the author of the novels The Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus and Blog Love Omega Glee. For more information about him, please visit wredfright.com.