BY: CHRISTIAN HOLMES (@HOLMESYWRITES)
DISCLAIMER: I wrote this short story in my creative writing class. Since then I have edited it quite a bit. I received one of the highest marks I have ever gotten in my high school career on this piece. The story was inspired by the song “Bob” by NOFX. I won’t ruin the plot line but I will say this… The original idea with this short story was to paint a picture that sometimes life flat outright sucks and because of that, we as humans make shitty decisions that alter the courses of our lives forever. Originally the way I ended the story was rather sad, because everybody in the class was ending their stories with a “they lived happily ever after” vibe and I just wanted to go against the norm, well encouraging the reader to contemplate the protagonist’s overall decisions. But as time has progressed I have changed the ending to a “feel good” one. I also changed it so if I ever got bored one day, I could write a sequel. The whole point of posting this short story is to lead up to a blog that I will release on Friday, August 10.
So if you like the story, please let me know and if you would be interested in reading a sequel, please give me a heads up!
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| This is an ideal picture of Bob. |
It was a cold lonesome day in West Hollywood, California in Los Angeles County. The streets were noisy and cluttered as usual. It was not hard to tell who were townies and who were tourists. The townies knew all the streets and where to go if they were looking to have a fun night out. The tourists, not so much. The westside of Hollywood was quite the place to walk around for a person visiting for the first time. Big and vast and full of cultural diversity and filled with endless possibilities. The bars were nice, but the drinks were expensive. The best bar in West Hollywood, The Whisky a Go Go, was a must visit for any tourist and for any towny that loved to listen. Bob would probably have to agree.
Bob had lived with his parents in Los Angeles, not to far away from West Hollywood, on Sherman Oaks in a small but luxurious home with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a nice living room, and an amazing kitchen for his entire twenty-nine year life. He had a few good meals in that kitchen. Maybe that would explain why he got gout later on in his life?
Bob always liked his parents’ house on Sherman Oaks. The neighbourhood was big and filled with many kids his age that, when they got older, loved to party, and live the life of O’Riley. Bob enjoyed the green grass, and the safe nature of his life long whereabouts. He knew the world was a dark and scary place, so he could not live with the thought of moving from his home. So it never happened, and his parents gave him a hard time on the situation, but they knew Bob had a problem with drinking and they feared for him, so they never kicked him out of the house. Bob would never last on his own, even if they did.
Actually, Bob’s Mom dreamt eventually about Bob dying from alcohol poisoning and his Dad had way too many dreams about being the pallbearer at his funeral. Bob’s alcoholism was a major burden on his family, to say the least. If there was ever an elephant in the room, Bob’s drinking was it.
Bob was never the best kid in school. In fact, he did not really care about it at all. In high school, Bob discovered girls, ‘Jack The Bottle’, Budweiser, and glam metal music. Four things that his life would revolved around for many years to come. Bob always liked the way ‘Jack’ tasted. “Strong, sweet, and damn well good,” as Bob would always say. Bob drank ‘Jack’ like a fish drinks water. He was often drunk, but luckily not obnoxious.
Bob’s friends would always tell him that he was stuck in the eighties. He would always have long blonde hair like Vince Neil in his heyday. Bob rocked the denim jeans and the bad boy leather jacket. He tried hard to have that ‘bad boy’ persona, but everyone knew Bob was too polite for that. The girls did not seem to care, either way they were all over him. Bob was always looking for ‘nothing but a good time’. He had no worries in life. His parents were loaded, his bank account was full and he was trenched in an endless sea of women. What else could the lucky bastard want? Tax exemptions? Give me a break.
Since Bob’s glory days in high school, a lot of things have changed in his world. All of his friends have gotten their education and have grown up, unlike his privileged ass. Some of his friends are starting families and some of their families are starting to grow. Bob, on the other hand, really has not done much with his life. He currently works at Permanent Records on York Blvd. He has no love life once so ever, if only dreams counted. On his spare time, he likes to watch John Wayne movies and get drunk. Maybe jerk off on the odd day when his parents weren’t home. Nothing too spectacular.
It's quite obvious that Bob’s job does not pay much and to be honest, Bob feels no fulfillment from the job. And Bob knows that knowing how many times Ronnie James Dio says’ “OH YEAH” in his records does not qualify as a ‘workplace skill’. Bob does not care what people think of him living with his parents. He says, “Living with my parents is a smart economic decision!” What Bob really cares about (and works for) is the weekend. The weekend is when Bob can ditch work and go get drunk as a skunk on Sunset Boulevard and forget about his life for a few hours. Something he had been doing for as long as he could remember.
One Saturday in September of nineteen-ninety-one, nightfall was coming and with that Sunset Boulevard was starting to fill up with people looking to have a good night going bar hopping. Bob was back up to his old tricks. He wanted to have a good time after he had a big argument with his ‘dear ol’ Dad’ on his lifestyle choices, and how his Dad disapproved of him. Well, not him, more so Bob's choices that led him down this path to being the ‘deadbeat son’.
This argument got heated quick and things were said drunkenly on the fly. Bob kept remembering what his Dad said to him earlier, “Take a long look at yourself, son. You have so much potential. You could have went to college and gotten a nice job. You could have met your special someone and had kids by now. You are twenty-nine, Bob! You do not have to keep feeding off your Mom and I. But no, Bob can’t stop doing that, you gotta keep drinking and chasing after women that want a real relationship with a mature man. That’s not you, Bob! And at this rate, it’ll never be you! No grown ass woman is going want a man whom’s favourite hobby is jerking off and drinking Jack Daniels! Honestly, Bob, you just better start sniffin your own rank subjugation jack, cause it's just you against your tattered libido, the bottle and, the mortician, forever man. And it wouldn't be luck if you could get out of life alive!”
Bob, without thinking of what he was going to say and how he was going to say it, said to his Dad in a frustrated manner, “I could be a rocket scientist, making millions of dollars, and raising a healthy and happy family and you still wouldn’t be proud of me! I know my life has not turned out the way you and Mom would of hoped it did. I know that. I don’t have to be reminded of it each and every single fucking day! Do you honestly think I want to get up in the morning and go and work at that record store? Listening to the same old crap everyday. Dealing with customers that get pissed off because we do not have the deluxe edition of Back In Black?”
With rage Bob kept on talking, “And than to come home and be told, day and day again, that I’m basically a ‘disappointment’. So what, I have a couple of drinks on the weekend? It’s no worse than smoking your ‘medical’ marijuana and sitting on the couch all day listening to your old Beatles records and talking about how good the sixties were when you could still get high on LSD without having an epileptic seizure and still stick it up without a blue pill!”
Taking a deep breath, Bob continues, “You see, Dad? You and I are a lot alike and I’m not talking about the shared DNA. You have always wanted to be something big, who knows maybe you could have been, and the same thing goes for me. And than along came Mom and ‘wala’ here comes, Bob! The kid you never wanted, but boy oh boy, you got him! Man did I ever put a wrench into your plans of world domination. The next thing you know, it’s ‘Bob this’ and ‘Bob that’. And for an egocentric guy like you that was absolute fucking torture! You could not wait for the day that I grew up and left the house so you could ‘get your life back on track’.”
Bob started to think about the past and how his Dad always seemed to blame him for things that he had no control of. “So than I become the scapegoat to all your problems. Mom got mad at you, blame Bob! Had a bad day, let's take it out on Bob! Your car won't start, complain about Bob! Well guess what, Dad? It's not my fault that you turned your life into what it is today! It's not my fault your life is miserable! You say I'm not that far from going six feet under, but have you ever taken a moment to look at yourself in the mirror? Have you? The fact that you take more time to complain about your problems rather than trying to solve them is pathetic! Not only do I know that, but deep, deep down you know that as well! They say, ‘everyone learns faster on fire’, but man things have really taken a turn for you, Dad. You lost all your desires and now you live and you burn. So, it's not ‘Bob’ that's the problem, it's your own pathetic, hypocritical, deadbeat self!”
With the argument still stuck in Bob's mind, Bob decided to continue his journey to Sunset Boulevard. Bob wanted to get wasted. He did not want to feel the guilt he was feeling anymore. He was sick of his life and all the stuff he had to put up with on a daily basis. He really, really needed a release, an escape. If it had to be a bottle of Jack and a drunken conversation about life with a woman who goes through spouses faster than Bob goes through booze, so let it be. Bob just made it into the ‘dirt bar’, The Gift of Alcohol: Drink It In Man for happy hour.
Bob said to the young transgender woman manning the bar, “Bring me a new beer and a shot of Jack every ten minutes please.” Much to Bob’s delight [s]he did, and Bob was starting to get that buzz in which he longed for. He started to feel like he was at Woodstock. He was fucked up.
A couple hours start to go by. Six drinks start to turn into twelve, twelve drinks start to turn into sixteen. Finally the bartender tells Bob that he has had enough. As the bartender walks over to Bob, he seems to be passed out… But The bartender noticed something unusual with Bob. His face was pale and his eyes were dimmed. His pupils had dilated and his lips were starting to lose colour. Without hesitation, the bartender called 9-1-1.
When the paramedics got to Bob, they realized that he was suffering from the ill-effects of alcohol poisoning, and began to give him medication that would attempt to help save his life, until they could get him to the hospital to pump out his stomach. Luckily, the medication did its job and Bob started to regain consciousness on the way to the hospital. At the hospital, the doctors examined Bob thoroughly. What they would discover about Bob’s health was something that would change his life forever. The doctors told Bob that his ‘liver was on the verge of exploding’ and if he did not stop consuming alcohol his ‘days on this Earth were numbered’.
Startled by the news, Bob had a serious reality check. You what have thought he found God or some shit… But luckily, Bob’s the kinda guy he knows just what to do... Bob knew he had to stop his drinking. So Bob went to rehab and tried to get rid of his lifelong addiction. Which to his delight, it seems he did. It was hard, but Bob did it. The problem was though that Bob got depressed. The only thing he enjoyed doing was being taken away from him, although he made that choice. Day after day, month after month, it was the same story; another shitty day in Bob’s life. Just living the ‘same damn life’ as his parents would say. Until one day at his weekly Alcoholics Anonymous meeting…
At the meeting, there was a new face which Bob did not know. This gentleman was short and fat with blonde hair and bits of red hair. This man looks like he skipped out on shaving for a few days, and it looks like he hadn’t changed his clothes in a week. When it came time for this gentleman to speak, he stood up half drunk looking and prepared to introduced himself. He said, “Hi my name is Fat Mike and I am a punk. I like to get drunk on the weekends. I’m only here because of my parole officer. Keep drinking kids! This shit never gets old.”
The lead counselor then said to Fat Mike, “That was very insightful. Now please take a seat, ‘Fat Mike’.” Mocking Mike’s nickname.
Intrigued by Fat Mike, Bob went up and asked him if he would like to hangout one day and talk about life and being a ‘punk’. Fat Mike agreed, and they met up the next day outside of Paramount Records where Bob was still working. The two started talking about life and their love for ‘the bottle’. Fat Mike accepted the fact that Bob had quit drinking, but the more and more they talked, Fat Mike got the feeling that since Bob stopped drinking his whole life went to shit, which for the most part was true.
Bob was curious about being punk and simply asked Fat Mike, “What does it mean to be a punk, Fat Mike?”
Fat Mike said without hesitation, “Well, it means that you go against the mainstream beliefs that you have grown accustomed to. It means that you stop trying to be like everyone else, and just be yourself. Screw it, if you want to shave your head, do it! Punk isn’t just a genre of music or form of expression, it’s a lifestyle!” Fat Mike looks walks towards a garbage can and kicks it over and then says, “That’s punk!”
Bob than runs to the garbage can and kicks it again and asks, “Is that punk?”
“No, Bob, that’s trendy.” Thinking of an easy way to put it, “It’s basically everything punk is against. Kids nowadays become punks because it's the ‘trendy’ thing to do. Not really knowing what being a punk is truly about, which is individuality and challenging the societal norms that we have been grown to accept by the government and the powers that be. Punk is the new hipster. Possessions and appearance don’t mean anything when you are punk. Be who you wanna be. Fuck the rest.”
Over time, Bob and Fat Mike became great friends. Fat Mike eased Bob into the punk lifestyle. To pass the time, Bob had somebody shave his head, and help him develop a new sense of identity. He fell in love with socialism and wore red suspenders daily to symbolize his socialistic beliefs. Bob traded in his glam metal records for punk rock and ska records, and his laziness for political activism. Bob learned that sometimes it is best to do his own thing. And with that got him to think about drinking again.
When talking to Fat Mike, Bob asked, “Is it okay to do something that will kill you, knowing by doing it, it’ll make you happy?”
“Bob, it’s all in the suit that you wear, my man! Don’t hide away from things because of fear. Do what makes YOU happy! Society will say you shouldn’t. Your parents will say you should not. But let’s be real man, death is imminent. We all going to die someday.” Pausing for a moment, “The question is, though, do you want to go six feet under miserable with a life full of regret or do you want to go six feet under happy as hell, having no regrets in life and only found memories of good times? If so, do what makes you happy and drink it in man! Forget about your Dad for once. It’s obvious the old bugger will never approve of you. Move on, live YOUR life!”
With that being said, Bob, who was wearing a white muscle shirt, red suspenders, and sixty-two hole air cushioned Doc Morton boots, cracked open a can of Budweiser and poured himself a glass of Jack. For once in his life, Bob actually felt a sense of happiness. Not that happiness he felt when he could go out on a Friday night and get wasted. It was a sense of happiness much greater than that. Bob felt a sense of fulfillment in his life. Bob’s Dad’s self-righteous demeanor could finally, for once in his life, take a hike. Finally, Bob had found himself. Finally Bob did not care about what others said. The counterculture was his culture. That is when Bob knew he was a punk. Now Bob could finally, for the first time in his life, could boast in his weakness.
Thirty Six years later when Bob is on his deathbed....
To my loving family and friends who made this life worth living
All is fair. It starts off shitty and it ends well. If you’re reading this, I’m more than likely dead. I have lost my battle to cancer and now I’m going six feet under! Shit, eh? I guess I’ll finally get to know what the rent is like up in Heaven! Maybe well I’m at it I can finally figure out where the river goes!
So if you’re reading this and you’re crying, don’t shed a tear. I lived my life. I learned a lot. I’ve learned from my mistakes and I have made immense with those whom I have forsaken. Yeah, maybe I wasn’t exactly the greatest person at times, but nobody is perfect, and I’m no goddamn exception! In my younger days, I was lost in my own selfish ways. But as I have grown old, I learned to love life, and to treasure every breath I take. And because of that I finally quit drinking. Fully and completely. For the record, I am twenty five years sober, and those have been the best twenty five years of my life!
I’m not going to the grave cold and alone, like everybody thought I was. I figured shit out and got my act together. I found the love of my life and I married her. We had two beautiful children named, Charles and Sadie. I patched things up with my father, and I stuck around to take care of my mother. I realised that life is too short to last long and I shouldn’t hold grudges against the people that loved me and supported me when nobody else did. Maybe we didn’t see eye-to-eye, but at the end of the day, they still loved me. And for that I owed it to them to make peace.
So slap my tits and call me Sally, because I’m not going to the grave with any regrets. No, I didn’t find God, I just found some common fucking sense and put it into forward motion. I learned a valuable lesson and that lesson is: don’t get lost in your own pride. I’m glad I learnt that lesson because otherwise, I’d probably wouldn’t have been able to make it to 65 years young. Honestly, there’s no glory in your pride. It’s just that simple. Take it from me and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. It’s all in the suit you wear, kid.
So if there’s any advice I could give to the next generation, it would be. For fucks sakes mate, live your life to the absolute fullest! Be innovative! Don’t sit on your ass all day! Do what you love and fuck the rest before it fucks you. Find your one and only and start a family. Just greet the world with arms wide open!
Finally, I just want you all to know that I love yous all to pieces. You all gave me hope and for that is something I can never repay you for. This isn’t goodbye, it’s see you later! So have a drink for me and sing Bro Hymn! Live your life in peace and harmony. ‘Cause this old motherfucker is going in the ground one happy son of a bitch!
Love yours truly,
Bob
The End
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