A Life To Waste

by Andrew Lennon

  A few weeks after he had won his first competitive race he was pulled aside by the teacher that ran the athletics club. “You really have some talent you know Dave, with some proper training I think you could go really far”

  “I do train, all the time” said Dave “I train really hard”.

  “I don’t doubt that” teacher said “well in fact it’s evident by your performance the other week. But when I say proper training, I mean proper athletics training. There is a local athletics club, trains up good young prospective like yourself. Well one of the coaches there saw you run at that school competition. He wants to know if you want to try out for the club?”

  “wow, oh wow, umm hell ye... sorry I mean, yes I would love too! Where is it”

  “well actually its only about ten minutes drive from the school, hell you could probably run there”

  So that’s exactly what Dave did, he ran there, he ran there that day just so he could double check exactly where it was. When it came to the day of his tryout he had asked his dad if he could give him a lift. Of course being so proud of Dave his Dad didn’t hesitate in saying yes. He drove Dave to the local college, where the athletics club were allowed to use their facilities to train, he hung around and watched while Dave ran different sprints and exercise. “Jesus, son you sure do run fast” he said to himself “you definitely don’t get that from me or your mum” then he gave a little chuckle under his breath. Needless to say, Dave was accepted into the club with no questions asked, “training will be Tuesday and Thursday nights” he was told “your coach will be Phil, Phil Davies, don’t be late, he hates it when people are late.”

  The following Tuesday Dave’s dad agreed to drive him to training again, in fact he agreed to take him every Tuesday and Thursday, Dave had said he could run there and back but his dad didn’t want him getting injured. Especially not now that he realised just how good he was. When Dave arrived at training, early, he met Coach Davies. Or Phil as he said to call him. He instantly became Dave’s idol, and Dave’s dad was no longer his hero anymore, he became, just a dad.

  Dave’s mum and dad were a happy couple, they always seemed to be having a great day, big smiles on their faces, completely in love with each other, and just to top it off, they had the perfect son as well. What more could they ask for? There was one thing more that Dave’s dad would ask for, he wanted to be his sons idol.

  Maybe it sounds a little bit selfish or self centred, but he didn’t think so. What is so wrong with wanting his boy to look at him and say “when I grow up Dad, I want to be just like you.” Dave used to say that when he was younger, he didn’t say that anymore. Now all he wanted to do was please the coach. All day every day it seemed to be the only thing he would talk about. “Phil said I’m coming on really well” or “Phil said if I can just push a little harder then....”

  “Phil said this, meh Phil said that neh” Dave’s dad said to himself in a childish little tone. He didn’t mean to be jealous, but he couldn’t help it. After all, you can’t control your feelings, and jealousy is one of the strongest.

  Dave went to training every Tuesday and Thursday without fail, he never missed one session, he always wanted to please Phil. Every day he would push himself more and more, train harder than the day before. Phil could see the amount of effort he was putting in and accordingly gave him the constant praise that he had earned for these efforts. Phil pushed him to his boundaries and sometimes beyond them in training, when it came to competitions he tried to pick out the ones he thought would have tougher opponents. Be more of a challenge for Dave. Dave still won all the races, but again there were quite a few close shaves.

  By the time Dave turned 15 he was rumoured across the country to be the next big thing. He was going to make Team GB without any problems, so everyone said. He was still undefeated in all his races, which Phil told him, was a first as far as he had heard. Dave and Phil were more than just runner and coach now, after the amount of time they spent together training over the past couple of years, every Tuesday and Thursday, plus additional one on one sessions Phil did especially for Dave. They were practically best friends now. Phil really was Dave’s hero, after every race his first thought would be “Phil will be proud of me for that run”. Dave wasn’t far off being Phil’s hero either, Phil had never seen a boy with such dedication and ambition. He had made him into his own little project, his own little prodigy. He was sure that Dave was going to be the first person he would ever train to compete at the Olympics.

  Dave’s dad grew tired of hearing about Phil all the time, Dave seemed to notice this, but he never said anything to him. His Dad never tired of hearing how well Dave was racing though. His face still gleamed with pride when he watched him cross the finish line, or when he would come home and tell them “first again”. He really couldn’t be any more proud. Plus Dave was doing well in school, he wasn’t the smartest kid in his classes, but he certainly wasn’t by any means dumb or falling behind. His teachers said he was guaranteed to get at least B’s, but most likely get a few A’s as well. He really was the perfect son.

  While driving home one day from a competition, Phil and Dave were chatting away. Their usual talk about “this is what you did well today, but we need to improve this” and “keep this up and there is no stopping us.” Then they were discussing maybe going to grab to get something to eat, it was already past six, Dave had told his mum he would most likely grab some dinner on the way home with Phil. His mum said that it was fine, it was quite a common thing for them to do that, sort of a post race bonding feed or something weird like that.

  Phil was looking in his rear view mirror “I’m sure I saw something a second ago that looked like a cafe” he said “I haven’t seen an exit yet though? Maybe I missed it” He turned round to look out of the back window itself, to get a better view than from the mirror.

  “LOOKOUT!” Dave yelled, Phil quickly turned round to see what was coming, but it was too late. The drivers side of the bonnet caught the tail end of a lorry driving in the middle lane. The car spun out of control. His was hit, hard, by another car that had been driving behind them. The wreck was awful. The car looked like it had been put through a giant vice and then ripped through a shredder.

  Dave was trying his best to get out but he was stuck, something was pinning his legs, he shouted “Phil! Phil I can’t move my legs! They’re pinned by something, Phil!” but Phil didn’t answer, in fact Phil didn’t even move, “Phil!” Dave shouted again. Still no response, maybe he was unconscious, maybe he had banged his head hard and been knocked out. Dave carried out shouting Phil’s name while trying to free himself, then just for a second, he stopped. He stopped all the struggling and wriggling and he looked at Phil. He knew instantly then by looking at his face. Phil wasn’t knocked out, Phil wasn’t unconscious. Phil was dead.

  He didn’t struggle to free himself anymore, he lay his head back on the chair and cried.

  Chapter 3

  Dave gave up running after the crash and the death of Phil. His coach, his friend. Besides which he had some pretty extensive muscle damage and a few fractures in his legs from the crash himself. Even when he fully healed he was never as fast as he had been. His dreams of running in the Olympics had died with his coach. He didn’t just give up on running that day, he gave up on life as well. He stopped all his training, with no running what would he be training for?

  He didn’t put in half as much effort on any of his school work. By the time his exams came round he could only just give enough effort to actually turn up to them, let alone study. He ended up getting mostly D’s, a couple of C’s and an E. Not terrible results some could say, but he had been told he would easily get B’s and if he pushed himself, could count on A’s. He used these bad results just as another excuse. “Well there’s no point in trying for anything now anyway” or “who is going to give me a job, I’m useless”. He knew that these were just excuses and there was no reason he couldn’t go to college or get a job. But he was happy with using thes
e excuses, he had become lazy, he had become lazy and happy at the fact that he didn’t have to go to college or work.

  A positive thing I guess you could say is that Dave was spending a lot more time with his friends now. Since he wasn’t spending every minute training or racing, he was left with time to do normal stuff, things that normal kids his age did. He started hanging out with Trevor again, within no time they were the best of friends again, it was like they never stopped hanging out at all for the past five years.

  They went to bars and clubs mainly, they were only 17 now but both looked a lot older. Dave had grown to be quite tall and due to his natural frame and previous years of training, he appeared quite muscular. Underneath the image though he wasn’t half as strong as he was when he was 15.

  Trevor had quite long hair, down to his shoulders and a beard that could make Chuck Norris look twice. They each probably looked about 22 or 23 so getting served was never a problem. Trevor worked Monday to Friday, he was some form of apprentice, Dave didn’t really know what Trevor was an apprentice in or for, he didn’t really care either. He just knew Trevor worked Mon to Fri. So while Trevor worked Dave would sleep, or wait at home playing computer games, waiting for Trevor to finish work. Then they would both meet up and get stoned, they would usually sit outside somewhere to smoke as neither of their parents would allow it in their house. Then afterwards they would go into Trevor’s to play video games or watch some comedies. They didn’t get stoned on a Friday or Saturday though, Friday night was pub night, Saturday was club night.

  Trevor could never understand how Dave could afford to keep up with him every week, seeing as Dave didn’t work, where did he get the money from? Trevor knew Dave would be getting job seekers allowance, but that wasn’t anywhere near as much as they spent each weekend, he just assumed his parents must still be giving him “pocket money” for helping round the house or something.

  Every Saturday when they went to the club, they would try and pull a few girls, mostly they weren’t very successful, Dave probably could have pulled every time but Trevor’s appearance, being the long haired bearded man, seemed to repel the females. There were a couple of times they got lucky though, managing to convince some University students that they were older than they really were. Go back to the girls student flats and “get the job done”. This overall was quite a rare occasion though.

  Dave never expected to meet a girl on a Friday night, Friday night was pub night and they never went on the pull on pub night, that was more about getting drunk than looking for girls. But he did, it was Friday night getting drunk in the pub with Trevor when he met Claire. Dave had never seen Claire before, she had recently moved to the area with her parents, she was a little bit older than Dave, having just turned 18, she looked older than 18 though, probably about 21, but all girls do. Claire had been having a few drinks in the pub with a couple of her friends, she hadn’t really noticed Dave, she had just been happy chatting away, it was her friend, Stacy, who noticed Trevor. Stacy was into the bearded types, Trevor had reminded her of “Dave Grohl”.

  “Come over and talk to his friend for me while I get to know him.” Stacy asked Claire.

  “Oh come on Stacy I don’t wanna be stuck making awkward talk with the friend, while you and Charlie Manson go and screw each other” Claire was never shy about sex and things like that.

  “It’s not going to be like that” Stacy said “plus look at his friend, he’s cute”

  Claire turned around to have a look. Stacy was right, he was cute. They both went over to talk to the boys, it took all of about ten minutes for Stacy to realise that she really wasn’t into Trevor, the problem was, it took less than those ten minutes for Claire to fall completely head over heels for Dave. So Stacy was stuck for the night humouring Trevor with small talk. Dave for the first time in his life had just gotten his first real girlfriend.

  Dave’s parents knew that he had a girlfriend, not because Dave told them, he didn’t tell them anything. In fact he hardly spoke to them at all, when they spoke to him the best response they got was a grunt or a mumble. If it was something which actually required an answer then they got a yes or a no. That was it.

  Dave had never been the same person after the crash, he had drifted further and further away from them as time went by. They knew that there was pretty much no day in the week Dave was sober. They knew that every day he was either drunk or stoned. They didn’t know what to do though, he didn’t talk to them or show emotion or anything, so they didn’t know how to approach him. They just kept speaking about it between themselves hoping the one of them would figure out what to say to him. There was another problem as well. Money was going missing from around the house quite regularly.

  At first they thought they were misplacing things, after a while though it happened too often to be coincidence. They couldn’t prove Dave was taking it though and they didn’t want to accuse him. He was already so distant that they didn’t want to push him away.

  This constant tension started having its effect or their marriage, they had been arguing quite a lot more and snapping at each other for no reason. They were always apologetic later, they both knew it was just down to stress and were quick to forgive each other. After all, they still loved each other, that hadn’t changed, had it? Or was it strength in the love they shared for Dave that had bound them to each other for so long? This bind was starting to weaken, and although neither of them wanted to admit it, they could feel it. They both started drinking more, it started off just the one drink after dinner, just to settle down and relax. Then it became just a drink for when they got home from work followed by a drink after dinner.

  It wasn’t long before it was just drinking from when they got home until they went to bed. This usually led to many drunken conversations and like most drunken conversations, it didn’t take long for them to transform into arguments. These arguments started happening quite a lot, three or four times a week. They had already had a couple this week, tonight was Friday, they had both drank quite a bit more than most days because they were off work tomorrow. It wasn’t until they were both getting ready to go to bed that their argument started. It hadn’t long started when Dave walked through the front door, also drunk. In their intoxicated state, all his parents nervousness and anxiety about approaching him had disappeared. The second Dave walked in the door they invited him to join in.

  “oh here he is now!” his dad shouted, like he was an announcer or a presents “the fastest boy around! Fucking fastest fingers around more like, ya thieving little bastard”

  Dave stopped in his tracks, more shocked than anything else, he hadn’t really spoken more than a couple of sentences with his parents for the past two years and then he walks straight in this. He hesitated for a moment, but only for a moment, then it was time to say his piece.

  All the rage and anger he had suppressed over the past few years, all the hatred he had for himself for how he was letting his life go to waste, all the hatred he had for some so called god or fate that snatched everything away from him. All of those things had been lumped together inside him like some ever growing ball of fury. He released it, he unleashed all those feelings straight into his father’s path. He roared at his dad, about how he hated him, how he felt he was never there when he had problems, how he had to go to Phil as a father because his Dad just wouldn’t understand him. All this release was a hell of a lot for Dave to take he started to break down. With tears in his eyes and a lump in his throat he said “you always hated Phil, you hated how close I was to him, I bet you were happy when he died!”

  “Now come on Son, you know that’s not true, I”

  Before his dad had a chance to finish his sentence Dave’s tears had dried up. The rage and anger returned.

  “Who the hell do you think you are, Dad! You’re no better than me. All you do is sit round and drink and fight with Mum! What? You like to shout at her because she is smaller than you, big tough guy picking on his little helpless wife.”

 
Dave’s mother was looking at his face with terror, she didn’t recognise this person that was stood in front of her. A face so angry, so frightening, she wanted to get away from him.

  “Well you won’t pick on me!” Dave screamed.

  The stranger his mother saw stood in front of her jumped forward, he charged at his dad lunging up and thrusting his hands into his dad’s chest. Dave had caught his dad off guard and sent him tumbling over onto the floor. He quickly jumped on him.

  “Dave, Son! I didn’t I love Y mmmphhh”

  His sentence was cut short with a punch to the mouth.

  “Please Son don’t mmmmphhh”

  Another straight in his mouth, he felt his mouth fill with blood, he could feel his lips swelling immediately.

  “Dave, don’t!” His mum screamed.

  But Dave didn’t stop, he lost control, punch after punch thrown, lefts and rights flying one after another each and every one landing all over different parts of his Dads face.