Chance Renard (one_last_chance) wrote in rrinitiative, @ 2012-09-15 20:37:00 |
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Entry tags: | chance, flashback |
Not as clever as you think.
Characters: James, Aunt Spiker, Aunt Sponge Chance, NPCs
Setting: Fairfax, Virginia; 21 years ago
"What can I do for you, dear?" The woman's voice was gentle.
"I need a ticket to Lansing, Michigan, please." Chance's voice was clear and firm, despite the fact that he could barely see her.
"Sweetheart, how old are you? Where are your parents?" Concern was showing visibly on the clerk's face as she looked down at the young boy standing across the ticket counter from her.
"I'm seven. Mount Hope Cemetery, 225 Garden Way, Noel, Missouri. One ticket for Lansing, Michigan, if you don't mind. I'm in a hurry."
---
He'd been kept at the police station for five hours while they tried to contact his guardians. Eventually, they'd found his address and brought him "home" in the back of a squad car. Blue eyes glanced up at the police office as the man reached out to hit the doorbell with a single, gloved finger. The sound was like a death knell in his ears. Almost immediately he could hear his aunt, Arlene's raspy, grating voice calling out "Francine! Door!" Immediatly, there were thundering footsteps. It sounded like an entire pack of hyenas coming down the stairs as an angular woman threw the door open, wailing dramatically. Her mascera was wet and running.
"Oh, Chance! Where have you been! I've been all over the neighborhood looking for you!" His other aunt, Francine gushed as she wrapped him up in her arms. He got a thick, burning lungful of her cheap perfume and struggled to cough through the chokehold she had on him as she looked up at the policeman, "Thank you, Officer! Thank you so much for finding my nephew!" The man nodded awkwardly before he stepped off the porch.
Like an alligator dragging its kill into the water, Francine pulled him through the door. "And just where did you think you were going?" Her voice changed into a shrill, accusatory shriek as soon as she was satisfied that the cop wouldn't hear her through the door.
"Michigan." Chance answered through coughs as she released him from her arms. The woman's hand was still cinched around his upper arm, and he could feel the ends of her cheap plastic nails pressing against his skin.
"And just who do you think is going to take you in up in Michigan, hm?" She pitched her voice lower, mocking him in patronizing baby talk, "Did you think ol' Grandpa Frank would take you back? Not likely now that Grandma Georgia's dead!" She swung him around, propelling him forward into the living room. He flew forward from her grasp, hitting against the arm of the chair Arlene was sitting in. She shot him a condescending glare from underneath a curtain of greasy hair.
Arlene and Francine were his father's older, twin sisters, as far as he could tell. Arlene was a consummate alcoholic and a lethargic waste. He had yet to see her move from her seat in front of the TV. Francine, the eldest by five minutes, was a hyperactive busybody. Chance saw her once a day if he was lucky, once a week if he was having particularly good fortune. If she wasn't trading snippets of juicy gossip at the local sewing circle, bad mouthing the Johnsons at bingo, or sticking her obscenely large nose into the neighbor's business, then she was always jumping head first down Chance's throat.
"There's more people in Michigan than just Grandpa Frank." Chance muttered as he rubbed his arm.
"Always with the smart mouth! You think you're so smart, don't you? So big and bright like that smart talking mother of yours. Not so smart now, is she?" Francine pushed at her greying blonde curls. "Now give me back the money you took!" She stuck her hand, fingers knobbed at the knuckles from an onset of early arthritis. Reluctantly, Chance pulled the few folded bills from his pocket and put them in her palm. Her fingers closed around his smaller hand like the jaws of a predator.
"Next time you want to run away, how about you try the circus? They always need more food for the lions!" She cackled like a witch with delight at her own humor as she turned and strutted her way into the kitchen.
"Next time I run away, I'll try the mafia. And then they'll bury you under a house like a real witch." He grumbled under his breath.
He exchanged a look with Arlene before he ran back to his room.