Tin Universe Monthly #6

by Brian C. Williams

  ‘Joanna...’

  That’s fear.

  Joanna left the room but before she did so she left with a thought for the school out of place Guidance Counselor, ‘Maybe I could help you earn some understanding points.’

  CHAPTER 17

  Karen asked Jeff to give Gail a ride home because she has something she wants to do, even if she knows this would not help the pains coming from the ulcer geistating in her stomach.

  Maybe there is a flight to Houston she could catch instead, be about the same to her because the urge to fight, flee, or fly to a city under martial law seemed about the same to her stomach.

  There were only two vehicles remaining in the studant portion of the Ryan-Mart parking lot, making it the perfect movie style showdown setting. One of the remaining vechiles was Karen’s beat up, light blue, Cowley plant mini, and the other vehicle was even older, and barley holding itself together 1982 GMC pickup truck.

  Karen was sitting on the roof of her car as Fox came walking across the parking lot from the school to her truck.

  She jumped off the roof of the car and started walking over as Fox was putting her keys in the door of her truck acting as if she didn’t see Karen.

  Fox sighed as Karen got closer, ‘You planning to kick my ass again?’

  Karen speed up her pace towards Fox with anger and questions in her steps, ‘Why didn’t you fight back! You didn’t throw one punch? You fought better than that in preschool?’

  ‘I thought you had something you needed to get out of your system thus making me a punching bag. You can write me a therapy check later.’

  Karen grabbed Fox by the arm and spun her around so they were now face to face with each other, ‘Bag Bitch, you could have called!’

  ‘Your mom had our number also. Don’t go all shits with me. No one around here made effort one to see if we were ok.’

  ‘I had to live here with the fall out, you didn’t.’

  Fox shoved Karen almost knocking her on her ass. As Karen got her footing stumbling backwards a couple of steps her eyes woke up and noticed the bruises she had beaten into the face of her former best friend.

  By now Fox was boiling over with emotions, all red faced, ‘Fall out?! You have no clue about having to deal with what happen. It wasn’t your Goddamn family! We had to move to another country for Christ’s sake. CANADA! Have you ever watched Canadian porn? No fun.’

  Fox got into Karen’s face like an angry bulldog, ‘At this moment you’re being a real monkey ass.’ Then she opened her truck door and climbed in.

  Karen’s face turned blood red, ‘You lied!! I was a kid, those lies have followed me ever since. There hasn’t been a week were someone didn’t bring it up to me or someone in my family.’

  Fox started her truck, ‘Poor you, try dealing daily, I was a kid also, a kid who by the way was being raped by her father! My father!! That sort of exsperince may stray a kids brain a little, don’t you think?’

  They stared at each other for a few minutes in silence.

  Karen spoke, ‘Why did you even come back? Why bring all this bullshit back into m…our lives?’

  Fox slammed the truck into reverse and peeled out of the parking space nearly hitting Karen before slamming her brakes to a sudden short stop.

  Karen ran up to the driver’s side window, “You bitch!”

  Fox, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I came back to bury my mom, is that fine with you?’

  The trucks tires screamed as she left the parking lot.

  Karen had been doing a standing still statue like impersonation in the parking lot for going on an hour after Fox got into her truck and left. She was in an emotional pause.

  A typical Florida rainstorm had started, stopped, and dried up in the time she stood in a trance like state by her car thinking about all the rage and other variations of feelings racing through her mind.

  The night shoppers were arriving and the only other car now in the school section of the superstores parking lot was the school janitor’s truck. Sitting in the truck was Albert waiting on his father to get off work. He watched the whole scene between Karen and Fox and now starring at a soaked to the bone Karen he looks around wondering if he could get off before his father does.

  Finally noticing how wet her cloths had gotten was what finally shook Karen from her trance and she started flailing away with her arms and legs at nothing, almost falling a few times in primal screams looking like a mixture of pictures of a wet cat and a dog with fleas.

  After a few minutes of channeling Yoko Ono she walked back to her car and grabbed her cell phone and dialed Jeff’s number while the open door to the car bounced back and forth to the strength of after storm winds.

  ‘Jeff I need pizza… things are really messed up.’

  CHAPTER 18

  Lisa time after time has found herself walking through a high-end clothing stores with Joanna snapping her fingers at clerks and pointing out things they will have wrapped for arrival to her house before she arrives there herself.

  This store was the type that if you have never walked into you would think about how surprisingly bare in the actual amount of merchandise they have within view. Most clothing stores would have racks upon racks of clothes hanging around for browsing but this type of store is in visuals a couple samples of clothing neatly folded upon pedestals that makes the setting more resemble an art gallery showing that a clothing shopping experience.

  This type of store has a method to its madness and that method is you come into the store and being seen there is just as important as actually buying anything. And if you buy something it’s as much about how much your ass is kissed than what you bought and how much quality the product contains.

  Basically snobs own it, work there, buy there, and talk about shopping and being there.

  Joanna stopped just inside the entrance door and Lisa could swear she saw her sniff the air to test to see if she liked the smell of the place before moving into the heart of the store.

  She stopped again in the middle of the store seeing that one of the sales clerks noticed her out of the corner of her eye. Notice in the way she knew who she was, ‘Bring me a rack of winter coats.’ Joanna demanded to whoever should be listening to her bellows.

  ‘Winter coats please’, Lisa added without hesitation but without as much venom. “Tart it’s the middle of freaking Florida,” was what she had wished she had whispered where Joanna could have heard.

  ‘I do think a winter coat is a great fashion choice.’ Joanna was agreeing with her own thoughts.

  ‘Find out what is taking them so long Lisa.’ She prompted even though they had just got there.

  ‘I will try and speed things up Joanna’, with a bit of desperation that Joanna as usual did not notice.

  The sales clerk who noticed Joanna as she entered the store was already in the back picking out some of their newest coasts and another had radioed back to her about what Joanna wanted.

  ‘You would think Queen Bess herself was here today’, another customer said grinning to a friend out of ear shot of Joanna or anyone else besides her friend.

  As Lisa was talking to one of the sales clerks Joanna received a text on her cell:

  YOU HAVE BEEN GRANTED A GROUP OF LU XUN SWORDS.

  She deleted the message and watched Lisa walking back to her from talking to the staff in the back. Lisa could see in her eyes how much she was judging every movement she made.

  Lisa stopped in front of Joanna with the thought of kicking her in the cunt but as usual it was just a thought, ‘It might take a week for them…,’ Lisa began, but Joanna finished her sentence, ‘But it won’t because father owns the shares that pay their salaries.’

  ‘Ok.’, Lisa suppressed a smile to how stupid Joanna could be sometimes and downed a container of Tic-Tacs in one shallow to suppress a day by day without withdraw battle.

  In other words she really needs a drink bad.

  ‘We are not a publicly owned company,’ A sales clerk standing be
hind them made the mistake of correcting Joanna.

  Joanna spun around in the graceful way that always reminded Lisa of a spin kick, ‘If my father decides to buy this place today, on my word to do so, you will be nothing but without a job.’

  Lisa sighed as the sales clerk walked off tearing up.

  Joanna turned her head to Lisa seeking a target she could get away with abusing in a different way, ‘If I had higher expectations for you I might be disappointed. Sighs are weak Lisa.’

  Lisa started playing with the pack of cigarettes in her pants pocket to keep from killing someone, with the someone being Joanna.

  Joanna on her part decided once again to just ignore what she had just said to someone and goes on talking to the store as a whole, ‘I was ready to spend at least several thousand here today. Maybe if I get word that mouthy bitch is fired I will come back,’ and she shouted that so the whole store, including the dressing rooms, and especially in a way the clerks boss could hear from her office.

  ‘Joanna please…’ Lisa said but then she hesitates before also saying, ‘I think we should just leave.’

  Joanna gave her a slightly disgusted look but turning and walking towards the doors, ‘I have enough to do today. Enough idiots to get in line, dealing with shop workers who think they are anything different than Ryan-Mart floorwalkers is wasting my time.’

  Lisa follows her once again questioning her life in many ways.

  After Joanna and Lisa left one of the stores sales clerks turned to another customer, ‘All of that money sure bought someone a gigantic ego.’

  CHAPTER 19

  Gail clicks on her laptop as she sits down, in her room, on her bed with her computer sitting in front of her. Also on her bed was a bottle of water and a bag of salt & vinegar chips. She stops what she was doing, puts her finger in the center of her forehead as if a light bulb has just appeared over her head, ‘I need some Who.’

  ‘Are we still going to talk about comics tonight?’

  ‘I can do both.’

  At one time Gail’s room was all cheerleading competition photos and Disney live action show posters but times have changed. And so has Gail from those times.

  ‘…so your actually getting rid of a lot of your back issues?’

  ‘Yeah, we plan to give a lot of them away instead of candy for Halloween this year. My room stacked over with long boxes as it is. My comic shop said they would trade me trades for a lot of them.’

  Taking a camera look around the room as it is now from her bed found under her bedroom window you will see corner stacked almost to the roof in long boxes in both sides of the corner.

  Then you will spot her closet which is for the most part crammed with more long boxes but also with clothes thrown in. Literally, thrown in, not hanging, thrown in on top of the boxes.

  Another corner has a huge skinny lamb that resembles octopus arms.

  The inside of her door is decorated in comic book trading cards poster putted to the door.

  ‘…do you think your mom would share her recipe for Monster Hamburgers on her website?’

  ‘I’ll ask but if it’s not in one of her books her agent gets pissy with her letting them go for free.’

  In the corner on the other side of the door a bookcase of action figures. For the most part stuff Jeff has given her.

  A whole wall of her room is nothing but bookshelves.

  Gail walked over to one of those many bookshelves and picked off a dvd. The simpler times of everyday life moments like this are coming to an end soon but no one knows this.

  And no one will for a few books.

  Gail sat back down on her bed with DVR remote in hand.

  She has been talking to one of her online friends by internet video, ‘…they would have to eat their poop like any other potential box of fish fingers.’

  ‘Everyone takes shots at Aquaman. What did Aquaman do to deserve this mass of hateful feelings?’

  CHAPTER 20

  The Osip’s estate is the largest house in all of Melbourne Florida. The local people who were alive at the time the family moved to the area from Boston say the Osips came in like an invasion buying up land. Others say one of the ways they got so stinking rich was forcing Disney to pay large amounts for shitty land. They got in right before the mouse and they made a pretty penny because of it.

  No matter how you want to address the home of the Osip family the house defiantly sits on the largest personally owned for dwelling piece of land. One of the largest personal dwellings in the state you may ask? Oh, yeah, there is that other house on Lake Washington but no one likes to speak about that family. There is a sorrowful story there for another point in time.

  With her father in and out all the time Joanna usually has the run of the place by herself, for the most part, but the majority of the time with Lisa around at least until she gets all of Joanna’s activities, appointments, and plans stream lined and addressed.

  Tonight besides five servants Joanna is alone with stacks of free coats in nice boxes with apology notes attached. She has always seen shopping as a hunting expedition, the way her father taught her, “You get what you want if you leave others behind in your steps knowing who you are and who they are not.”

  The head butler and man in charge of the entire house staff is called Fennell, who Joanna calls Butler. It was cute when she was three, not really, generally vulgar spits from a crude way of seeing the world from a spoiled child who still acts with similar actions.

  Fennell is from Great Britain of course, as all good butlers and spies are, and once was a famous horse trainer but that was a deep cover job. Besides being Butler, he is the grounds keeper, and controls the family stables on the property. He finds himself where he is now because of black mail and if we went into that we would have to also explain why he once used the codename Travesty.

  There are several personal servants, one apiece to each member of the family: Courtney, Leslie, and Page are their names. The kitchen staff is master chef Damon and his crew is: Desiree, Nancy, Neka, Melinda, and Nadine.

  The cleaning crews are lead by Mrs. Barber and her crew goes by the names: Malina, Cristina, Marlena, and Sara.

  I speak of these people because they daily, like in, day in and day out, put up with Joanna Osip and they at least deserve to have their names known though I hope to do with them more later in the book.

  Just returning from the kitchen Joanna is sitting at the desk in her bedroom eating a cold plate of chopped vegetables; while watching an old news report on her laptop. Now your normal laptop would die of embarrassment if placed beside this laptop on a table.

  Joanna’s father has many contacts within the business and governments sectors all over the world and recently he gifted his daughter with a tool that will be of great use to her.

  Her laptop is a MirrenGlass laptop. The only people who have these computers are certain individuals involved in government black operations and business who do not want anyone get a hold of even a drop of their information. It’s never an overstated how much power comes from the control of your information and the ability to obtain the information data from others.

  The MirrenGlass have keys which only operated to the finger prints of the user the laptop who built for. It runs at faster speeds and has more storage space than commercial computer can even dream of reaching. With built in programs for cracking passwords and hacking systems with an invisible nature to almost all forms of online tracking this laptop is not only a tool but a weapon.

  The only way a MirrenGlass is not an assist to its owner is that if you do own one people then know you are into some deep shit and you’re protecting your digital footprint from the eyes of others.

  A messenger window pops up on Joanna’s desktop which was a photo wallpaper background of a cave painting of The Spider God Cupisnique, which is an image of large spider mixed into the body of a humanoid cat. The image is from a temple discovered recently in the Lambayeque Valley of Peru.

  NOIL134: I’M CH
ECKING WITH A CONTACT ABOUT GETTING THAT POLICE REPORT YOU ASKED FOR ABOUT.

  JOSIP1: GOOD. ANYTHING ELSE YOU CAN GATHER ON THE ACCIDENT THAT PUT HER IN THE HOSPITAL WOULD GO TOWARDS THE CONSIDERATION OF YOUR SEAT.

  NOIL134: I’LL SEE WHAT I CAN DO.

  JOSIP1: BRB

  Shut up, everyone types BRB because it’s now part of our fathered in vocabulary now.

  Joanna puts the empty plate on her desk and walks over for her cell phone which was sitting on her bed and she dialed a number. Her cell phone is similar in class to her MirrenGlass laptop but is so new no one has even given it a name yet, codename or otherwise.

  I would do a series of “ring, ring, ring, rings” here but that would be a really bad way to end this section of this chapter with some things that I quite like. And anyways I took it out while writing the 1st draft.

  A very long way away from Melbourne on the balcony of a hotel in Paris, on a table on that balcony, a phone is ringing. The phone is vibrating against the metal of the antique table sending out sounds into the night air.

  Two people are standing on the balcony sharing a bottle of wine. A woman and a man who very much look like they belong in the type of places most of us will never get a chance to set foot one in.

  The woman is dressed in a long black party dress with her blonde hair and unfair naturally beautiful features; which would match up beside any runway model if it was not for two scars cutting across her face from each ear.

  A human being who has been through a lot in her life she is smiling like a cunning jackal at what the man learned earlier in the day.

  ‘It will be amazing if this is truly a factual case of Absorption.’ He said to the woman.

  ‘Your family is preparing to start testing her right away?’ She asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  The man stood in his perfectly fitted suit almost a stone statue of emotions with small, crisp movements to everything he did, including his breathing. Everything is measured, everything sending out signals he wishes to send. Layer upon layer to mask, hide, and reveal, but never let on which is really the truth.

  The phone continued its ringing and the people on the balcony below are starting to get annoyed and voicing that announce.