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clvmtines · 4 years ago

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welcome aboard, clementine martinez, student #2. we are excited to set sail with you ! has anyone told you that you look like alexa demie? according to our records, you hail from florida, usa, prefer she / her pronouns, are a cis woman, and are here to study creative writing. we also see you received a spot on the ss university because of your online lottery win — we won’t tell anyone. during your first few weeks here, other students said you were + charming, + free-spirited, but also - restive. it sounds like you spend most of your time at the billiards room. upon checking your luggage, we noticed you packed a casino chip carried around for luck from home. hopefully your roommates don’t steal it!

hi friends! i’m very excited to be here. i’m jay (est, she/her) n i used to play astrid nyland a few months ago if anyone remembers bt i had to leave for personal reasons. i’m so glad to be back now that i hve life sorted and some free time for summer break <3 read on for some details abt this new muse of mine, clementine.

01. biography !

so ! clementine was born in florida. & yes, her real name is clementine. her mom thot it was the cutest name idea ever. clementine mostly goes by clem. she comes from the town [redacted] in florida bcoz i am too lazy to look up a specific town <3 but alas ! it was swampy and humid and she lived in a trailer park.

her parents got knocked up at nineteen. clem was born nine months after a particularly wild 1999 fourth of july. her birthday is march 26th and she’s an aries.

(TW: addiction, child injury) clem’s dad was a gambling addict and petty criminal—he wld steal credit cards n whatnot. he wld gamble away diaper money n it would cause constant fighting until her dad finally left. her mom took this very hard n began drinking a bit too often, leaving clem to to make cereal for dinner n fend for herself. once clem tried to make hot dogs on the stove and spilled boiling water on herself. got a p bad burn on her arm/shoulder and still has a big scar.

the soundtrack of her childhood was cicadas buzzing and stray dogs barking. the sizzle and pop of natty light cans. turning up her ipod to max volume to drown out the sounds of her mother fighting with her new boyfriend.

throughout her upbringing, clem’s dad was always in and out of the picture. he’d blow into town when he hit it big. he’d take her on these little “adventures” like staying in a motel 6 n renting movies at block buster n ordering good pizza nt the dominos shit she ate with her mom lol. ofc he was charging it all to someone’s stolen credit card. he’d always promise to, like, take clem away. n clem was a daddy’s girl so she believed him. the last time it happened was her h.s. graduation. her mom didn’t show ( "overslept” after a bender ) but her dad did and surprised her n said everything wld be different. bt then he bailed on their plans for the next day n when she called his cell, the number was disconnected. tht was the defining “i’m done” moment. clem promised to never be disappointed by her father again.

(TW: racism) her mother has mexican ancestry and clem’s always been called her twin. but clem was raised in a predominately white area and honestly ?? it was really hard without her even realizing it. she’s still unpacking a lot of things today abt her youth that jst weren’t okay bt she thought were normal. like microaggressions, stereotypes, being fetishized by boys in high school. gross shit.

as a kid, clem was rumored to be really poor bc she wore tattered clothes n got free lunch at school. once she invited a friend to her house & the next day they told everyone it’s in a trailer park. that reputation—the “trailer park girl”—was really hard to shake. and clem got almost desperate to shake it. she was endlessly trying to set her old self on fire and emerge from the ashes like a phoenix.

eventually clem became more “popular”. in school she was, like, a straight b student. very average although super creative and quick-thinking. she always had street smarts. problem solving skills. independence. more of, like, practical intelligence as opposed to book smarts because academia bores her tbh. she was like why am i reading these overrated boring books by dead white men or learning abt polynomials when i know nothing abt how to pay a mortage or do taxes. like...she saw the american education system as bullshit and put in modest effort because she didn’t believe it deserved her sweat and tears.

however, she entered the online lottery for the seas program on a whim and got in. so she’s studying creative writing now.

02. personality !

first thing you shld know abt clem is that she’s a compulsive liar essentially—she tells various stories to make her life seem better than what it was. to one person, she’s an heiress to a real estate company and grew up wealthy. to the next she was raised by nomadic hippies. some of her lies are small fibs while others are grandiose tales. she rarely talks about her actual upbringing. she hates talking abt her family or the v real trauma of growing up in a household where both parents struggled w/ addiction; the uncertainty, the broken promises, the fact that she had to grow up so soon and deal w/ so much. it wasn’t fair, and if she thinks about it too much, she feels this anger. anger at the universe. anger at her circumstances. she doesn’t know where to put this anger. she doesn’t know how to shrink it. so she avoids it.

despite her rough upbringing, though, clem is actually really sweet and kind. she’s adventurous, fun-loving, free-spirited, and bold.

bt ! she can also be closed-off, competitive and restive.

she’s seemingly tight with everyone? like she’s jst that girl who can get along with anyone tbh.

in her spare time you can catch her tanning by the pool, hanging at the bar, playing pool ( which she learned from her dad ), and socializing. she’ll never say no to hanging out with people.

she learned a lot from her little “adventures” with her dad, who was very good at conning others and often involved her in his dumb little scams. clem is suuuper good at pulling the ‘im baby 🥺’ card to get what she wants.

she can be a little selfish, because she grew up looking out for herself.

stubborn and dogmatic as hell !!!

she doesn’t do too many relationships but when she does fall, i imagine she falls hard and fast. she refuses to be made a fool of, tho. when she gets vulnerable she flashes back to being a kid, waiting all day for her dad to show up only to have him bail on her. again. she hates that feeling. so if she, like, senses a shift in someone’s energy she’ll b like, “i’ll break up with u before u can do it to me” and the person wasn’t even tryna dump her lmao.

has a lot of sex. too much ?? sex?? mayb. but she’s v sex positive.

her personal style is v late 90s. hair clips, big scrunchies, neon, fur trim, crop and tube tops, hoop earrings, chokers, patterns, platform shoes, biodegradable glitter cuz it’s good fr the earth *winks*. clothes from o-mighty.......actually jst google o mighty, pull up the images and That is clem. she dresses like a bratz doll. she’s dedicated to the aesthetic.

03. headcanons !

her item brought from home is a hot pink poker chip from a casino. her dad gave it to her. he said it reminded him of her because of the color; he got it during one of his winning streaks and said it was lucky. she has a complicated relationship w/ her dad n doesn’t even speak to him anymore, bt she will never go anywhere without it.

she’s a smol bean—only 5′4

an astrology girl and she reads palms ! she absolutely makes astrology tik toks that people only watch because she’s hot. her flirting technique is to ask you to read your palm.

she doesn’t typically drink to get drunk. but she does love a good sugary cocktail. to her, a drink is like an accessory. a blue fishbowl by the pool, a jack and coke as she stands around a bar. usually she'll nurse the same beverage for a while. if you see her wasted it usually means she’s going thru it emotionally lol. the one thing she does do is drugs tho

pretty much listens to exclusively female artists.

a bit of an activist. environmentalism, feminism and the like, she’s v outspoken. vegan for ethical reasons (TW: drugs) bt still does cocaine. she wears shirts with ‘my pussy my choice’ bedazzled on the front.

loves to rollerblade ! back home she didn’t have a car so she’d bike or rollerblade. now she still has her blades and she’ll use them when the ship docks.

03. wanted connections !

Friends, bffs, ride or dies, friends who are like siblings to her, maybe a friend with an unrequited crush on either side ??

an ex she dumped/cheated on/otherwise self sabotaged their relationship because she was afraid of vulnerability.

an ex friend who realized she lies a lot abt herself n felt betrayed. OH ! ESP if they opened up to her on many occasions abt intimate, personal stuff. imagine the betrayal they felt when they found that everything they thought they knew abt clem is a lie.

someone who she actually opens up to. a confidant. or, maybe, like, a stranger she drunkenly spilled her soul to and now she avoids them like the plague.

a rival. clem can be competitive.

her drug dealer

someone she knows she shouldn’t hook up with and… does it anyways. like a friend’s ex or smthing. spicy <3

i welcome anything !

#seasintro #addiction tw #alcohol tw #drugs tw

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wrestlinghasmelike-blog · 7 years ago

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Monday Night Raw Review- June 11th, 2018

Hey gang, happy Monday. I didn’t do much today, mostly because my mom took my car this morning so I couldn’t go anywhere. I was mostly watching E3 stuff today and catching up on all the good good game announcements. I wanna be excited for the show tonight, but I don’t think my heart is in it. We’ll see, though, since Money in the Bank is on Sunday.

What did you think of the show tonight? Good, bad, loved it, hated it? Let me know! I’d love to hear from you! I’m always accepting feedback and comments, anything is welcomed!

Opening- The Ladders

Everyone standing on top of the ladders again is a goddamn dream. Also, Finn smiling at the top of his ladder is amazing. I love when they do this.

CONSTABLE BARON CORBIN SHAVED HIS HEAD FINALLY HOLY JESUS

Kevin Owens is amazing in this bit.

Yikes, Alexa and Braun.

FINNNNNN

Beans, I wish this segment was longer.

Women’s Fatal Four Way

It’s Sasha Banks vs. Alexa Bliss vs. Ember Moon vs. Natalya

There’s a lot of betting that either Nattie or Ember will be taking the briefcase this Sunday, and if I could have them both win, I would wish for that. I think that would have to mean that one of the men from Smackdown would win, so each show could have the case, or it could be the other way around. Or Raw will get both briefcases, whatever.

After suffering a knee injury in her match last week against Nia Jax, Natalya has been cleared to compete in tonight and Sunday’s match.

Ember Moon and Sasha exchange a moment in the ring. Ember sends Sasha flying outside the ring, and then suicide dives between the middle rope, knocking Sasha head-first into the barricade! Ember is so exciting to watch. Her red hair flies around with her, and she just looks like a silhouette of fire dancing around the ring.

Alexa Bliss tried to capitalize on this move by Ember and pinned her to the ground. Sasha was back in the ring and Alexa tried to pin her, but she kicked out at a two-count.

Natalya and Alexa are the last two women standing, but not for long as Sasha looks to build momentum. Recently, Sasha’s character has hit a wall. She hasn’t done anything since Elimination Chamber with her “feud” with Bayley. Personally, Sasha should not win the ladder match. That is not the way to build her back up. A win on Sunday would help, but it is not something I don’t think a lot of people would care to see.

Sasha and Ember tried to double-team Alexa and send her flying with a suplex from the top rope, but Nattie swooped in and slammed Sasha and Ember instead. Alexa realized what was happening and tried for a twisted bliss, but Sasha got her knees up just in time to stop Alexa from executing the move.

The match continues with each of the women trying to get a pin. Ember hasn’t been seen in the match for a bit, and Sasha was just thrown out of the ring. Natalya capitalizes on Alexa and picks up a win by getting her to tap out to the sharpshooter. This is a big win for her heading into Sunday.

-Drew McIntyre and Dolph Ziggler took on Fandango and Tyler Breeze in a fast tag team match that, although was very short, was very fun to watch!

-ugh, that Roman “match” was a wasteeeee

-The B-Team vs. Rhyno and Slater was another short and fun match to watch. I really don’t care for the B-team because I’m so confused by the idea of it and why they are so over right now. The tag division needs to be cleaned up, like real bad

-I like the idea of Bray vs. Bo! Brother and Brother

Elias and Seth Rollins

I think that was the first time that Elias has gotten through a concert!

This Sunday, Elias will face Seth Rollins for the IC title. I have really enjoyed Seth’s title defenses as of late, as well as all of his other matches. He’s such a good wrestler right now. I just think he’s fantastic. The latest rumor for Seth is that he will be the one to face Brock at Summerslam, and while I think that’s a cool match, WWE would not have Seth win that. I would like to think he would, but he won’t. If this rumor is true though, he would essentially drop the title to Elias on Sunday, most likely.

Seth and the guitar! Oh no! I loved this, but this also legitimately hurt me because music means a lot to me and seeing instruments trashed like that is awful.

COACH CALLING JOHN MAYER A HIP HOP ARTIST IS GOLDEN I LOVE COACH

-Bayley vs. Ruby Riott was not for me, but the crowd seemed to be awake during the match.

Ronda Rousey and Nia Jax: Face 2 Face

...I thought it would be funny if I used the number 2 in that for some reason...

As I’ve been saying since she joined the roster and the company, I hate Ronda. She is a great fighter and I would not question her ability at all. She did her work in UFC, but she lost one match and exploded, essentially. I think she needs to take a step back and work on her skills for wrestling. She is not good on the mic, and she needs to stop paying attention to the crowd the whole time. I’m really hoping that Nia can keep the title just a bit longer, I’m not done seeing her with the title just yet.

...I’m gonna improvise your arm off?? Is Ronda ad-libbing?

Ronda not speaking directly to Nia is bothering me, but having her list her accomplishments like that is probably the realest thing I have seen from her.

Ronda and Nia throwing down...ok I kinda can see this being a thing.

Ok, so after this, I do kinda wanna see this. Ronda against someone who isn’t her size is interesting, I see it now.

THE TRAILER FOR THE HARDY BOYS’ EPISODE OF 24 Y’ALL KNOW I’M WATCHING THAT

Sami fucking Zayn did THAT. I thought him describing the obstacle course was hilarious. Sami is doing the best he can with a shitty script and storyline.

...Bobby actually doing the course was maybe a waste of time? Again, doing the best they can with a bad storyline.

Men’s Fatal Four Way

It’s Bobby Roode vs. Kevin Owens vs. Braun Strowman vs. Finn Balor.

Well, the ladder match on Sunday could go to anyone. I am, of course, hoping it goes to Finn, but there’s a lot of guys in the match who could take the briefcase. It could go to Bobby Roode, because they wanna build him up and change his game a bit. It could go to Kevin, because he’s so damn good. It could go to Samoa Joe, because I’d love to see him and the next WWE champion go at it. The Miz could win, because he’s the Miz. It’s really a toss up, I can’t call it.

...or WWE could fuck us over and just give it to Braun...

Kevin has been trying all night to rally the other guys in the match to help him go against Braun, and while it didn’t work at first, it might work now. Braun is clearly the guy to take out tonight, will the three other guys stick together to take on Braun?

The men finally gang up on Braun, but he instantly explodes and swats them all away. Kevin tries to run away, but Braun catches him and throws him back to the stage. Bobby and Finn come after Braun, too, but he smacks them before they can even do anything.

Everone finally gets up, and now Finn and Bobby are working together to get Braun laid out on the announce table. Kevin drags over a ladder and sets it up. It turns into a cute moment with Finn cheering him on and encouraging him to jump off the top. Kevin nails a frog splash to Braun, crashing through the announce table.

WOW

Finn and Bobby have made their way back to the ring and have started to try to win for themselves again. Bobby’s got a good grip on Finn’s arm, but finally, Balor counters with an overhead kick.

Finn is giving it his all for these last moments in the fatal four-way. He’s about to hit the Coup, but KO comes back and knocks him over. Bobby comes back to his feet to knock Finn down again.

OH MY GOD A HUGE SUPERPLEX INVOLVING BOBBY, FINN, AND KEVIN AND FINN LANDED HARD OH GOD

...Braun is back...

Finn is going right after him, which was a huge mistake because Braun just punched him and he knocked him down.

Braun did that running around thing and he tripped on his way to Finn! Thank god he did because I am so worried Finn is going to get hurt.

Then again, when am I not worried about Finn getting hurt...

Finn is doing his best out there! I’m so proud and happy!

FINN HIT THE COUP ON BRAUN BUT FUCKING BOBBY RUINED IT

...Unsurprisingly, Braun picked up the win.

I didn’t think this was a bad show! I thought there was a lot of wasted time, but this was an okay show before the pay per view! I think my matches of the night were the fatal four ways. I can’t wait for the ladder matches on Sunday! I love MITB matches, to be honest.

Stay tuned for more during the week!

Casey

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mendo-r · 7 years ago

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Kenneth Branagh: 'I want you to smell the steam of the Orient Express'

A new article about Murder on the Orient Express from The Guardian

The actor-director’s latest film, Murder on the Orient Express, boasts a stellar cast, including Branagh himself as Poirot. He discusses magnificent moustaches, moral brooding and the passion of Agatha Christie

“Women in wild places and mental instability run right through things, don’t they?” says Kenneth Branagh, leaning forward, earnestly. “She’s very, very sensitive, and I see the ghost of her as a heroine in what she writes, in terms of keeping body and soul together, and of being an adventurer.”

He’s talking about Agatha Christie, and giving a reading of the detective novelist’s fiction that is a long way from the more traditional view of her as a comfy West Country matriarch who churned out mysteries to support her family. “I think people have been pretty tough on her,” he adds. “They’re suspicious of the volume of her output. She herself admitted that sometimes she wasn’t proud of a book when she had finished it.

“Personally I admire the prolific nature of what she does … her ability to grab the audience’s attention is really striking. The surface of what she writes has led people to dismiss her as a second-rater. But I think she is far more than that.”

Branagh is talking about Christie as he gets ready to unveil his big-screen versionof her classic Murder on the Orient Express (the first cinematic interpretation since 1974), her story of a group of passengers and a dead body trapped in a luxurious train in a snow storm. He stars as the legendary Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.

“I think people often feel this about Shakespeare – they’re annoyed by his bourgeois credentials,” he says.

“He retires at the normal age, goes back to Stratford, buys houses, gets involved in disputes about rent. It feels as though there’s a sort of middle manager quality in there; he was a businessman, a shareholder, yet he wrote all these plays. That makes people suspicious.

“With Christie, people essentially have her down as a sort of Miss Marple – a sexless, removed, bookish, woolly, very English sort of individual. And they are not aware of the intrepid, pioneering, passionate woman that she was.”

The lineaments of her life back this view. Christie had such a desire to travel – and to keep her first husband, the dashing Archie Christie, happy – that she set off on a year of travel with him in 1924, leaving her daughter Rosalind at home with her mother. She left Rosalind again when she famously vanished for 11 days after discovering Archie was having an affair; she underwent psychiatric treatment in the wake of the incident. After their divorce, she travelled alone on the Orient Express, to Istanbul and then on to Damascus and Baghdad. Her family worried about her on the trip but for her it was a way of discovering new worlds – and, coincidentally, a new companion in life since she met her second husband, Max Mallowan, on a dig in Ur. Despite her writing commitments, she worked alongside him, often in difficult conditions and exotic locations.

Branagh and I talk at Twickenham Studios. He is tired because of an exhausting schedule which is whisking him around the world, but he’s here to put the finishing touches to his film, which boasts an all-star cast: Judi Dench, Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, Olivia Colman, Penélope Cruz, Johnny Depp, Derek Jacobi, Sergei Polunin …

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The way the trailer is framed, with captions that reveal the type of character each star is playing, takes both the film and its director back to his youth in the 1970s and early 80s, when the posters for movies such as The Towering Inferno and indeed Sidney Lumet’s 1974 version of Murder on the Orient Express, starring Albert Finney as Poirot, were plastered across the streets of Branagh’s home town of Reading. To the boy who had moved there at the age of nine from his native Belfast, they represented a sense of possibility. “My first encounter was with their sense of glamour,” he says. “I was pretty intrigued by all the names on those posters.”

This liking for good performers coming together to make popular entertainment is perhaps what links the two contrasting sides of Branagh’s current career. There is the actor and director who is regarded as one of the best of his age; an eminent Shakespearean, the first man to film Henry V since Olivier, a talent who can gather a top-flight company of actors to perform a season in the West End which included heavy-weight productions of The Winter’s Tale and The Entertainer. Then there is the Hollywood film director, best known for the comic-book movie, Thor. And Cinderella. He grins when I point out the strange collision between Hollywood and serious stage productions.

“No one, quite frankly, is more surprised than me that I have been allowed to get away with it,” he says. “I had not anticipated or planned for suddenly finding myself in this studio groove. It is unusual, I must say. But it’s fun.”

Shot on 70mm film, his version of Murder on the Orient Express gleams as the camera dwells on the crisp table linen, the polished wood and the glistening glasses. “I wanted you to feel the snow and smell the steam – I wanted to have all the advantages of classic material and none of the disadvantages of over-familiarity,” he says.

For Christie fans, there are some changes – to characters, to locations, to motivation – that may surprise. But all the essential ingredients are faithfully reproduced, and Branagh has added considerable depth to his portrayal of Poirot, making him more active, more passionate and more lonely. “The screenplay caught a hurt and a more tangible isolation in Poirot,” Branagh explains. “There is a kind of vulnerability about this man who appears in The Mysterious Affair at Styles with a touching gratitude to England for looking after Belgian refugees. There’s the sense of someone who has already felt the bruises of the world.”

Did he not feel any trepidation about taking on a character who has already been portrayed by 20 actors, including Orson Welles, Peter Ustinov and, on TV, David Suchet? “It’s a lot isn’t it?” says Branagh with that disarming smile. “I guess that’s where my thickish skin comes into it. You do understand that the reason so many people have played him is because he’s a fantastic character.”

He stopped watching other incarnations when he knew he was about to deliver his own (“I wouldn’t want to get caught copying the other boys”), but recognises the various ways that the detective has burrowed into the collective consciousness. “With the amount of source material in the novels every actor is going to bring something unique and unusual, in the same way as would happen with a famous classical part. David Suchet is a fantastic Poirot, so is Finney and John Moffatt on the radio is excellent.”

Discussion about his own characterisation will, I suspect, be dominated by conversations about his moustache – grey and flourishing and twinned with a natty beard. “We probably spent about nine months on it. We started with something thinner than Charlie Chaplin’s, then something that went up, that went down. We looked at famous moustaches in movies and paintings. The luxury as an actor – and I had this before when I was playing Wallander – is that you can go back to the books and trawl for details.

“I loved Christie’s phrasing – ‘the most magnificent moustaches in England’ – and I enjoyed the fact that the risk you were taking was that you would potentially produce the impact that the moustache has on characters in the novels, who often dismiss or ridicule Poirot, or are embarrassed by him.”

That mention of Wallander – whom Branagh portrayed in the British television adaptation of Henning Mankell’s detective books, feels significant. Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express in 1933, on an archaeological dig at Arpachiyah in Iraq. Published the following year, it was rapturously received, though the audacity of its plot caused Raymond Chandler to remark that it was “guaranteed to knock the keenest mind for a loop. Only a half-wit could guess it.”

His damning view of the British golden age detective novel – “futzing around with timetables and bits of charred paper and who trampled the jolly old flowering arbutus under the library window” – and his preference for psychologically based novels where a “perfunctory mystery element [is] dropped in like the olive in a martini” underlines the division in the thriller market that has existed ever since.

But the dichotomy between the advocates of clever plotting and the lovers of a story that reveals a deeper truth about society or character is misleading when applied to Christie. She may write in simple sentences, but it is the way she imagines character that has ensured the longevity of her books.

Branagh, a fan of both schools of thriller, points out that there is not so much difference between them. “I enjoyed the meditative qualities of what the Wallander novels were doing. But there’s quite a moral brood in Murder on the Orient Express as well.

“There are not only the questions of who did it, how did they do it, and why, but also the question of what now represents justice. And that issue of what justice is – when concerning crimes born out of revenge – goes quite deep in analysing whether an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth ultimately is a way to order civilised behaviour.”

He worked on the film at the same time as he was directing Hamlet, starring Tom Hiddleston, as a fund-raiser for Rada. “Curiously, both stories seem to me to contain the poison of deep grief, and that idea of loss and the death of innocence. I think there is a passionate depth to Christie, even though she sometimes said her writing is merely entertainment.”

Sensing that darkness beneath the surface sheen means that he has been anxious to avoid what he calls “heritage movie-making”. “I wanted to remove excessive theatricality – a sense of the sort of fluting, shrill shriek, of so called ‘larger than life’ characters. I wanted to feel that people were talking not much louder than we are now.”

Assembling his cast – consisting of old friends and colleagues and young talent – was a moment to remember.

“When they all met for the first time, they were very shy and excitable. And one of the things I was determined to do was to try to capture that energy as soon as possible. I wanted a quiver of real guilt and uncertainty when they are interviewed by Poirot, to feel as if they were people for whom the prospect of him getting it wrong and accusing them was a matter of life and death.”

Murder on the Orient Express is in cinemas from 3 November.

#Kenneth Branagh #Murder on the Orient Express #agatha christie

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slashingdisneypasta · 2 years ago

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Watch "NATTY KNOCKS Official Trailer (2023)" on YouTube

NATTY KNOCKS Official Trailer (2023): https://youtu.be/TCVFVCiqGvA

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I'm so looking forward to this! It looks so good!

#the excitement i get when renglund narrates something XDDD #and BILL MOSELEY TOO!#2023 gets points for this #Natty Knocks #Natty Knocks Trailer #Trailer #Horror Movie #Horror Movies #Youtube

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lipstickhick · 8 years ago

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As she pawed through an endless rack of second hand, collared shirts Shay noticed they were oddly organized. All arranged by color, but not size. The rainbow chaos seemed ominous somehow and she stopped scooting and scraping hangers across the rusty, metal, bar and took a deep breath. And then another. She rose above the musty thrift store smells to focus in on the court-day countdown she’d created in her head. Seventy two more hours and her baby Daddy would undoubtedly be back in the pen and out of her house. Technically, it was a mobile home. But it was hers. And a two-bedroom trailer out in Christy Creek, Kentucky was a long, green, stretch away from the cracked concrete she had grown up on in the Detroit projects. Shay found herself in the backwoods by accident, but she took root fast. She made herself at home. She couldn’t help but smile, thinking of the clean carpets and the washer and dryer and the well-stocked kitchen cabinets and no man to get in her way. Soon. Seventy two more hours. The dreamy curve of her mouth dropped as she felt his eyes creep up her backside and she turned her head and took a good, long, look at him. He was all sprawled out across a beat down lazy boy over in the furniture section. The grimey material made her shiver from all the way across the room, but he looked completely comfortable. He was grimey himself. His jeans were too tight and his bulging beer belly peeked out from under a stained t-shirt. The father of her child was glaring and pouting in the Goodwill furniture section. Shay snatched a shirt that was a size too big for him with awkward, unflattering, stripes and paired it with puke colored cargo pants and started across the room with her patented huffy quick stride. “I’m ready!” she chirped, smacking his cracked cowboy boot down off the arm of the chair. He heaved a gruff sigh and rolled his blood shot, slate blue eyes and she bounced quickly towards the register. Moving forward and thinking back. Things were different when they met. He was driving a bright, yellow, big rig for Dollar General and he liked his job and made good money. He wandered into a truck stop where she stood behind the caged in counter, feeling claustrophobic and bored with her feet aching. His step seemed light and he clicked across the concrete in his worn boots. She loved that accent, something she couldn’t place. It wasn’t a southern drawl, it was born in a holler. It was quick and confident and so was he. He smiled easy and talked sweet and before long, she was climbing into the cab of his truck without looking back. They lived together at first, in the spare bedroom of his aunt’s trailer. Jack kept on driving and the road kept him happy. She didn’t much care if he flirted with other girls at other truck stops. She was busy settling in. Mary Jack took to Shay, which was unusual for Mary Jack. Jack’s favorite aunt had a reputation for being bristly. But everybody took to Shay pretty quick, she was downright lovable and eager and she learned fast. First and foremost, Mary Jack taught her how to grow a garden. That’s where the roots first took hold for Shay. In a patch of ground that had been in her husband’s family for generations. Back then, Jack would join her of the evenings and smile that smile at her in her cutoff jeans, sweating, hoe in hand. Back then, they talked and worked. She asked all the questions that came to mind. He told her all about the things they were growing. Explained about heirloom tomatoes as big as your fist, started from seed saved by his Granny’s Granny. She marveled at the little bitty stalks of corn struggling up out of the dirt and how quickly they became something sturdy. For the first time in her life, she saw results. Her work was rewarded with peas and potatoes, cabbage and mustard greens. Sweet watermelon, right off the vine. She sat on the rickety back porch attached to Mary’s tiny trailer and broke beans for hours, giggling and trying to point out a whippoorwill or stoned and struck dumb by the show the fireflies put on. When she found out she was pregnant, she insisted to Jack that they get their own place. Mary Jack helped pay the deposit and gave her a puppy as a housewarming gift. She helped Shay find the perfect place while Jack was off driving. And then she slipped an extra hundred dollar bill into that landlord’s palm and insisted that Shay be allowed to plow up at least half of the acre around the rented trailer and grow whatever she wanted. Jacqueline was born and Jack was out near Bowling Green and beyond, driving through a double shift. He cried over the phone. Shay knew the road hypnotized him, but back then, he always came home. For five years, in her pretty little place next to the creek, Shay’s garden grew abundantly and her baby girl grew smarter and stronger and her husband grew more distant. When he lost his job, he lost his easy smile somewhere at the bottom of a bottle. He got discouraged and then he got arrested for fighting and driving around drunk. All of a sudden, he never wanted to stay home and pot made him paranoid. Shay and Jacqueline shared a king size bed and he was out all night, shooting up road signs and deer and filling the bed of his pick-up with empty beer cans and plastic, Kessler, half-pints. The game warden pulled him over one night and he knew him by name. He wanted to go easy on Jack, write him a ticket since he was almost home anyways. With her new job, Shay could’ve managed to pay off the poaching fines. Only Jack snapped. And he came around with a hard right haymaker and knocked that game warden out cold and left him lying on the side of a gravel road, right next to a dead deer. It was a wonder he got out on bail at all. At the hearing, the game warden shook his head and smiled at Shay through his shiner. He patted her arm in a pitiful way, like she was somebody to feel sorry for. She thought for a split second about blacking his other eye for him. Instead she faked a sad smile and inquired as to how long they might lock her husband up. For two months since the hearing, Jack had been sulking around the house awaiting trial. Drinking harder and getting quieter. Brooding. Sometimes she forgot what his voice sounded like until he hit the moonshine and started yelling and hollering. At her. At Jacqueline. Shay couldn’t stand it, she couldn’t stand living on edge. She tried to put him out. She tried to put him out after she came home and found him in the yard, throwing bread crumbs to the crows, watching and laughing like some kind of damned maniac as they ripped her tender new garden out of the ground, devouring sprout and seed alike. Shay turned on her heel and went into the trailer to fetch the shotgun Mary Jack gave her for protection, back when she was home alone. The way she liked it. She stepped out on the rickety porch and leveled the gun, blasting off both barrels just shy of his shoulder and scattering blood and guts and black feathers and buckshot. He didn’t even look at her. Just got in the truck and drove off. She hollered and blubbered and cried as he kicked rocks up. Shay tried to put him out, but he came back. With tears in his eyes and alcohol on his breath and a dashboard stuffed full of job applications. She started staying at the hotel where she worked, where her sympathetic manager let her share an empty room with Jacqueline, who thought the whole thing was an adventure since the hotel had a heated pool. Shay went to the trailer and cleaned up, and checked in on the garden she replanted. She made a scarecrow and made Jack a meal here and there. She bought him a decent outfit that didn’t smell like shit and vomit and stale Natty Light. And she counted down to his day in court. And her felony-sized freedom.

#prose #flash fiction #felonies #gardening #Appalachian literature

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