But here he was, bound out of legal obligation to take his two kids, Alyssa and Bradley, for the entire three day weekend to go see their retarded-ass cousin, Elizabeth, or Bethie as the little idiot liked to be called. So anyway, the two weekend ruining crotch droppings that were thrown into his life by his cunt of an ex-wife’s divorce agreement just had to have their precious little weekend with Daddy and just had to go out to that gay fucking ranch out in bum-fuck Eastern Washington to play with their retarded little cousin and see the even more retarded old as fucker they called Uncle Clarence.
God, he hated that pathetic old bastard. His whole life that prick had just gotten on his damn nerves trying to teach him all sorts of stupid, useless shit about "the skills you need to make out in the woods alone". Why the fuck did he ever need to learn that bullshit?! There was seriously no foreseeable scenario in life where he was going to need to know how to build a fucking "lean-to" shelter or make a god damn fire out of two sticks. He was of a higher breed of human pedigree than that stupid old man was who tried to pretend like he had something to show him just because he was older. On more than one, actually more than a few occasions, Charley even pissed in the old fucker’s dentures glass when he snuck into his shitty old one story house while Clarence was out doing some stupid sort of farmer work.
So anyway, the two things he hated in life were negativity and his annoying fucking family. He should be partying his ass off for Labor Day Weekend, balls deep in stripper pussy and coked out of his friggin’ gourd, but no, his cunt of an ex-wife refused to give him even that little bit of respect. He supposed he deserved some of the blame for how this all turned out. He was a damn closer, period! But he couldn't even close his ex bitch on keeping the two little shits for the weekend. He was yelling at her over his cell phone as he pulled his shiny, black BMW into the parking lot of George Washington Elementary School where he was picking up Alyssa and Bradley. "This is fucking bullshit, Charlene!" He screamed loud enough that he received a few stern looks from the fellow parents who were standing outside where he was parking, waiting for their children to meet them, "Why the fuck can't you just keep them for the weekend? You have them all the time so it's not like you're not used to them!"
"You're their father!" her tearful voice cried back over the phone, "You only have to take them one weekend a month and you complain every time! These are you children for God's sake and you promised them a trip out to Aunt Charlotte's for the weekend."
"I was fucking drunk and you know that! I get so sick of you using shit I say against me later on, you selfish fucking CUNT!"
Most of the parents were calmly waiting for their children out front, leaving their vehicles parked back in the parking lot just like the signs as they drove in advised them too. Not Charley, however, he whipped his Beamer right up front in between two big yellow busses. This prompted the driver of the bus behind to honk the busses horn at him which caused Charley to roll down his window and stick a waving middle finger up as high as he could reach, "Go fuck yourself, loser! You fucking little punk ass bus driver!" A group of young boys on their way into the bus burst into laughter and some woman he assumed was a teacher or school admin looked at him with her jaw dropped, shaking her head in disapproval. He rolled his eyes at the woman then returned his anger to Charlene.
"You're their fucking mother, and here you are only thinking of your goddamn self!" He shouted into the cell phone as he eyed the door of the school looking for Alyssa or Bradley to make an exit.
Charlene was still in tears when she said, "You know what? I don't know why I even try with you, I shouldn't be letting myself cry over your bullshit!"
"Oh fuck you!"
"No!," she screamed back at him, tears giving way to anger, "FUCK YOU, YOU PATHETIC PIECE OF SHIT! They're your kids and even if you're too sick to care about them the fucking court says you take them this weekend so you can just get fucked if you don't like!"
"Bitch! You don't fucking talk to me like that!" He was enraged! How dare she! "You fucking whore! You wonder why I fucking cheated on you all the time, you fucking make me sick...wait, hold on." Alyssa and her little brother came out from the main front door and were making their way toward him. He laid down on his horn, blaring until he had the attention of just about every single parent, student, and faculty member on the campus, "Come on!" He shouted as he waved the two kids over toward his car through the window he had earlier rolled down to put that fucking bus driver in his place. Both kids, but especially eleven year old Alyssa who was surrounded by almost the entire sixth grade when her father made this scene, looked embarrassed and terrified as they ran up to the BMW and climbed inside, with Alyssa in front and Bradley in the back. Charley didn't even acknowledge them as he floored it out of the school parking lot, he was still too busy giving the ex a piece of his mind.
"God damn it you really are such a stupid, selfish fucking cunt, Charlene! Fucked my whole life up with this shit! I should have NEVER fucked you without a rubber...hello?!" She'd hung up, "Fucking BITCH!" he screamed as he slammed his fist into the steering wheel, setting the horn off once more.
"DADDY!" Alyssa yelled, trying to sound as grown up as possible.
"What?" He replied in a snide tone, "Are you going to try to tell me how to talk, now? You want to be like your mom, that's it isn't it!?"
"Stop cussing," she said, "you shouldn't call Mommy names like that."
"You're just a stupid little kid, you don't know shit! I'm the fucking adult and this is my fucking car so I'll talk however I want to whoever I want! Coppice?"
Now Bradley spoke from the backseat, "When are we getting to Aunt Charlotte's? Is Uncle C. gonna be there? Can I play down in the stables?"
"How many god damn questions can you ask at one time?" Charley replied back to the fourth grader, "We'll get there whenever the hell we get there. Yes, Clarence will be there, like he’d have anywhere else to be, and I don't want you calling him that, he's not your fucking uncle. And why the hell would you want to play down in the stables? Sounds pretty fucking weird if you ask me."
"He is a little weirdo!" Alyssa teased.
"No I'm not," Bradley said back with authority, "Me and Bethie played hide and seek in the old hay piles last year and Uncle...err, I mean Clarence, said he'd keep it clean and safe for us so we could play in there whenever we came to the ranch."
"I really don't care, you two can do whatever the hell you want, not my problem." It was going to be a long fucking weekend for Charley. He decided he wasn't quite done venting to his ex so he picked his cell back up and began texting her as the beamer swerved in and out of its lane, the driver pre-occupied with more important things.
~
Carla Henderson spent the majority of the car ride from Auburn to the Bear Creek Ranch distracted from the company of her son and daughter in law, and her granddaughter. In truth, she had been looking forward to this car ride for weeks now. Her son Dennis and his wife Paula were always pleasant company and she absolutely adored little Elizabeth. Carla loved all three of her grandchildren equally but she so rarely had the chance to spend with the youngest. She was lucky enough to live close to her other son, Charlie's ex-wife, Charlene, and was always eager to baby sit Alyssa and Bradley every chance she got. She remained close with Charlene even after she divorced Charlie. She loved her son unconditionally, but she knew enough about him not to hold any sort of grudge against Charlene for leaving him. Since Charlie was always busy with his career in computer technologies Charlene had the kids most days and had to work two jobs to keep the roof over their head. Carla, therefore, was allowed to spend as much time as any loving grandmother could ask for with the two little angels, especially during the summer months when they were home from school.
The situation with Dennis and Paula was a one-eighty from her other son's family. Dennis was a great, faithful, husband who worked hard at his law practice and brought in more than enough for Paula to be a full time mom. Which of course meant less need for grandma to babysit l
ittle Bethie. Carla just loved that nickname. She assumed that once Bethie reached Alyssa’s age in five years she be going by a more traditional shortened version of Elizabeth, maybe Lizzie or Beth, but for now it was Bethie. And little six year old Bethie was just about the most adorable little first grader to ever walk God's Green Earth.
Carla put her hand in the child's head and ruffled her hair a bit. Bethie looked up at her grandma and flashed a cute little smile, showing the empty space on her gums where her two front teeth had recently fallen out to make way for grown up teeth. Carla smiled back down at the little tot, but her thoughts soon went back to her worry over the voicemail she'd received from her sister in law, Charlotte. She'd said that something was wrong with Uncle C. This was a slight cause for alarm because for one; in all her years she had never known Clarence Wilkerson to be anything but the pinnacle of good health; and two, Charlotte never did have a pension for the dramatic. She was never the type of person to make a mountain of a molehill so if she said something was wrong then that meant she had real reason for concern.
Now the fact that neither Charlotte nor Clarence were answering her phone calls last night or today made her feel like she had to choke back a panic. Dennis caught his mother's worried gaze in the rearview mirror of the Porsche Cayenne he was driving the family in.
"I can see you worrying yourself sick back there Mom," he said while flashing a reassuring smile, "Aunt Charlotte probably just forgot to charge her cell, or maybe she just gets crappy service way out there."
"Well why isn't Clarence picking up then?" She replied.
"Well I'm sure he just busy getting the place ready for us and the kids. You know that man only stops working when sleeping. We're going to be there in just about forty-five minutes here, and then you'll see that everything is just fine." Dennis flashed a smile over at his wife in the passenger seat but she was fast asleep, she almost always dozed off in the car.
Paula had become very practiced and pretending to be asleep during car trips. She absolutely loathed the thought of being stuck in a vehicle with her husband and daughter for any length of time. Not that she didn't love Elizabeth, but she never planned on being a stay at home mom. She always had bigger dreams for herself that did not include suburban life centered on the "joys" of child rearing. She was lucky enough that Elizabeth was such a cute little kid, and she did relish in the attention she was able to get by dressing her daughter in the latest kids fashions and posting the pictures to her Facebook page for everyone to see how she was such a hip and fashionable mom. That part was good and fine, kind of like having a toy breed dog that she could carry around more as an accessory than a pet. Only this wasn't a dog, it was a small person that would sooner or later grow up to be a young woman who Paula could not help but see as competition.
Paula had always been concerned with staying attractive, and so she harbored resentment for what she saw as the loss of her youthful figure when she had gotten pregnant with Elizabeth. Dennis did his best to reassure her that she was just as fit and beautiful as ever, but she always considered her husband to be a bit of a weakling and she knew he would say anything just to keep her content with the life he had built for them. But all of the kind words in the world were not going to magically disappear the stretch marks or the C-section scar she now loathed to look at every time she glanced her mid drift in the mirror. For the first few years of Elizabeth's life Paula did her best to bury the resentful feelings she had for her daughter. She knew it was wrong to fault a child just for being born and told herself that she was just going through a bit of postpartum depression, not uncommon. For the last couple years, however, Paula gave up trying to convince herself to be a better person. She never asked to get pregnant, she never even really enjoyed sex with Dennis, and he was always trying to make love face to face, staring in her eyes as she laid there while he made his pathetic thrusts with that stupid grin on his face.
But he was a successful defense real estate lawyer who was able to provide her with all the material possessions she could ask for, and she never had any trouble finding other men to satisfy her sexually. She felt like she won a little moral victory every time she stepped out on him. It was as if she was sticking it back to him for ruining the life she'd wanted. She was going to leave his ass and take half in the divorce before she got pregnant, and now she was too proud to have a child in a broken home, that would just be embarrassing and her allowance was satisfactory in her current situation. Of all the guys she slept with behind his back, none had the financial means to keep give her reason enough to do anything but fuck them on the side. Plus, the courts always gave custody to mothers and the last she wanted to do was be stuck all day and night with an annoying six year old. At least now she could pawn her off on Daddy every day when he returned from work.
So now she sat there in the passenger seat of the Cayenne, facing out her window, pretending to be asleep again just to spare herself from having to converse with her present company. At least her mother in law was staying quiet for once in god damn life, Paula thanked Jesus for whatever was keeping the old woman worried and, as a result, much less talkative. As they made their way over the mountain pass she dreaded the thought that soon they would be at the stupid ranch and she would no longer be able to maintain her ruse. The thought of having to interact with these people made her want to scream.
~
Alyssa Henderson spent most of the car ride from her school in Kirkland ignoring her obviously very agitated and always very annoying father. He threw these silly temper tantrums just about every time they would see him. She was sure this would turn out just like every single other time, he'd scream and yell at Mom for about half an hour until she stopped answering his calls and then he would send text message after text message saying more mean things until finally cooling off and taking them to ice cream or something.
Sure enough, after about an hour of driving while texting while yelling at his phone via voice text and getting pissed it wouldn't spell the word "cunt" he tossed the phone down onto the center console and said, "Fuck this, you guys want to stop at the Dairy Queen in Ellensburg or what?"
"YES!" both children replied excitedly.
"Fuckin-A," Dad said as he pulled off, across two lanes without his blinker, causing a hail of blasting horns and squealing tires as cars braked suddenly to avoid colliding with the BMW as it veered onto the Canyon Road Exit #7.
"DADDY!!! Don't drive so crazy!" Alyssa screamed at him while her little brother laughed hysterically in the back seat. Then she looked at him in the most serious looking face an eleven year old sixth grader can muster and said, "I'll tell mom, ya know."
"Like hell you will! Snitches get stitches, sucka!!!" He reached over and tickled her, causing an instant eruption of giggles and high pitched shrieks, as he spend down the off ramp and floored it in an attempt to beat the yellow light to make his left on to Canyon Road. He wasn't even close, not that that would ever stop him. The tires of the car squealed as his whipped through the left turn, completely blowing the red left arrow and the other cars that had already began moving through the intersection. More horns blared at them and Alyssa saw two different drivers flipping him off.
"You're going to get a huge ticket for running that red light, Daddy." She warned him.
"Relax," he said, "Your Daddy's invincible!"
Now Bradley chimed in from the back, "Nah-ah! I can see you!"
"That's invisible, stupid!" Alyssa said to Bradley, rolling her eyes dramatically.
"I know, you're stupider! Invisible means you can't see him!" He slammed both of his hands thdown on the leather seat to make sure he was being taken seriously.
"Daddy said he was invincible! In...VINCE...ible!," God, it was so hard to explain smart stuff to nine year olds, she hoped when he was her age she wouldn't have to spend so much time on this stuff, "It means he can't die."
"No it doesn't!" Bradley yelled back with defiance, "Because if he just couldn't die, that doesn't mean he can't get a ticke
t!"
Daddy started laughing and said, "What in the holy fuck are you guys even talking about?"
Alyssa shot him a stern look to show her disapproval of using bad words.
"I swear," Daddy said, "If you two are fucking retarded or something, you got that shit from your mother!" He thought he was hilarious, Alyssa didn't appreciate such language but she was used to it and he almost never said curse words to her in anger, just when he was trying to be funny.
"Shit," Daddy said as hit the brakes and jerked the wheel around to make a U-turn, causing more squealing tires and blaring horns behind them, "Wrong way! Dairy Queen's behind us!"
Alyssa let out another ear piercing shriek as they made the turn and yelled, "Crazy driver!"
"God, I hate when you scream like that!" Daddy said, "Why do girls your age always made that sound? It's nerve grating! You know, someday you'll be in real trouble and when you scream for help nobody is gonna come running because they'll think you're just fucking around again."
"I want a blizzard!" Bradley yelled from the back.
"Me too, buddy." Daddy said back to him.
~
Bethie started clapping and cheering as they arrived at the entrance gate of The Bear Creek Ranch. "Yay! We're here! We're here! We're here!" She cheered as she bounced up and down next to her grandma in the back seat.
Becoming the Gateway Page 6
