RE: Trailer Trash 48 pt B (Patreon)

   The long drive back from Florence was quiet, with Tabitha conceding the Acura’s passenger seat to Elena so that she could sit in the backseat with Alicia and Hannah. The girls were all tired, and Hannah immediately leaned her head onto Tabitha’s arm and nodded off. Aside from a few softly spoken remarks, both of her friends seemed lost in their own thoughts, and Tabitha had plenty to think about herself.

   It was a good birthday party, Tabitha gently combed her fingers through Hannah’s hair. Not PERFECT, exactly, but maybe the best one I’ve ever had. I feel like I’m on the path towards what I want.

   When she’d first transmigrated back into this timeline she’d either lost all of the forty-seven-year-old connections she’d made with others—namely Ashlee—or she had shunned them, building up an impersonal wall between herself and her parents. The seeds of new relationships were planted with her grandmother and her cousins, and journeying into the horrors of high school led her to befriend both Alicia and Elena. Now Tabitha was enjoying an idyllic pseudo-family while living with the Macintires, and her scant few friendships were beginning to bloom into an actual social group.

   Friends to spend time with, lots of them. Girls to jog with the mornings. People to talk with and hang out with at school. Maybe I’ll even date Bobby—who knows? It’s all juvenile teen nonsense, and I’m just so UNBELIEVABLY excited for it. Some of it’s shallow, a lot of it’s stereotypical growing-up stuff… just, it’s incredible how much it means to me. I wasn’t able to appreciate any of it until all these chances were gone, last life.

   Although she knew it was an incredibly minor milestone, it also felt good to finally be fourteen. Thirteen shared an uncomfortable border with preteen ages, while fourteen was more of a solid teenager age. Her more mature sensibilities and perspectives would seem slightly less uncanny and out of place now, hopefully, until maybe when she was sixteen or seventeen no one would find her unusual at all.

   It’s strange the things I want to feel SPECIAL for, and then the areas where I just crave being perceived as NORMAL for. My future knowledge, all of the differences those things make upon me feel UNEARNED. I don’t want to stand out from my peers for being smarter when I’m not actually any smarter. I’m not more intelligent or insightful or quick of wit than my peers, not if you discount my future experiences.

   The big green highway sign for Springton’s exit appeared along their right hand side, and Mrs. Macintire let out a soft cheer. Tabitha and Alicia exchanged glances in the near-dark of the car as they made their turn-off, and in the front seat Elena adjusted the way she was sitting, pulling her knees up to her chest so that she could rub her feet. Everyone but Tabitha had been walking a little funny at the end of the night, sore from spending so much time in the rental skates.

   Which reminds me—I have new shoes to break in! Tabitha thought. I was surprised by those. I thought for sure Elena would give me a blouse or a hoodie or something for my birthday, something… FASHION. I mean, I guess shoes are fashion, but I didn’t expect running shoes? Just like I kind of assumed Alicia was going to draw me a sketch for a birthday gift, and instead she wound up painting a model.

   Most of the gifts were interesting but somewhat inconsequential—the personal CD player, for instance, Tabitha couldn’t think of a use for. Unlike an older Walkman, or the iPods and MP3 players that would appear soon in the future, she couldn’t use the portable CD player while she was out jogging. She’d checked the packaging and confirmed that this early model of player didn’t have ESP—electronic skip protection, so any bounce or slight knock would jar the disk and stop whatever music was playing mid-track.

   I guess if I’m running with Casey and Elena though, I won’t need music? Music in general is a frustrating affair for me anyways, because a lot of random music I might find myself in the mood for just doesn’t even exist yet. Can’t just click up an Evanescence playlist when Amy Lee’s still in high school!

   *     *     *

   “Hey bro,” Bobby called, shucking off his jacket and stumbling through darkness and cigarette smoke of the townhouse.

   Their CRT television set in the entertainment center was showing a paused game of Command & Conquer: Red Alert Retaliation. There, a small bevy of red ore trucks were frozen mid-motion across an ore field pockmarked with craters, under the apparent supervision of a lone soviet tank. His brother’s easy chair was occupying the center of the cluttered room, a borrowed stepladder next to it shelving empty cans of Dr Pepper and packs of Marlboro Reds, his ashtray, and his glass pipe on its steps. Joe twisted in his chair to regard him with a bleary but expectant face.

   “If you didn’t get to second base tonight, you’re a homo.”

   “Naw,” Bobby let out an uneasy laugh. “Wasn’t even like that.”

   “Uh-huh,” Joe took a drag from his cigarette and rubbed his face. “You eat?”

   “Pizza, yeah,” Bobby kicked off his shoes into a nearby pile of dirty laundry, knocking over more empty Dr Pepper cans.

   “You bring me any?!” Joe griped in mock indignation.

   “Naw—wasn’t mine to bring,” Bobby dropped onto the sofa. “You waitin’ on me? Bro it’s like, after midnight.”

   “Was gonna make spaghetti for us,” Joe shook his head in dismay, unpausing the game and letting his ore trucks lurch forward and scoop ore, each truck turning left and right and then left again as their rudimentary AI attempted to path. “But, then I figured hey—you must be out gettin’ lucky.”

   “Naw,” Bobby laughed again. “It was some spooky shit though, I tell you what.”

   “No shit?” Joe panned the view across clusters of cliff faces and scattered trees towards a bunch of red base structures. “Well, fuck—put a thing of water on the stove for me, then.”

   “A’ight,” Bobby groaned, heaving back up.

   “So, no second base?” Joe asked again. “Faggot. First base? You two make out at least?”

   “Naw, no bases—I’m tellin’ you, it was spooky shit. Like uh, like first act of an X-files episode, almost.”

   “No shit?”

   “Yeah, no shit.”

   “Well, come on then.”

   “Alright, so—” Bobby shifted the pile of dishes waiting in the sink in search of a pot, then found it in the cabinet. “So, first we went and saw Pleasantville, then we drove all the way over to Floren—”

   “Pleasantville any good?”

   “Yeah, actually,” Bobby filled the pot with tap water. “Kinda like uh, like the Truman Show, except things are switched around so he’s the one in the know and everyone else has no idea yet.”

   “Huh.”

   “But like, Tabitha’s party—it’s her, mom, grandmom, her little sister, a bunch of little cousins, and then like—eight of us teens? I think. And then Officer Williams and his wife.”

   “Anyone I’d know?”

   “Casey was there. Casey and Matthew.”

   “Casey’s cool.”

   “So, anyways,—like everything seems all normal mostly but kinda like, off also, like you’re watching X-files and kinda wondering what’s up and starting to see weird stuff that turns out to be clues and shit.”

   “Right, right.”

   “Well, turns out that like, of all the people invited to her birthday party, only like two of them even knew her,” Bobby said, sliding a bunch of uncooked spaghetti out of its box and measuring out a portion with his thumb and forefinger. He then broke the bunch in half so that it would all fit in the water of the pot with none sticking out, set the pot on a burner, and shuffled back over to the sofa.

   “...Huh.”

   “Yeah,” Bobby ran his fingers through his hair. “But not like, just me—the mom and little sister turned out to not even be her real mom and little sister, turned out to be the family of this other cop guy. Maybe the grandma and cousins, too? I dunno. They were this… whole other separate family who barely even knew her, they’ve been fostering Tabitha for the past week, ‘cause she apparently narced on her real family, in like a drug bust thing? Casey was telling me about it.”

   “Fuck, she’s a narc?”

   “Well, naw, it was like—heroin or meth, so…”

   “Oh,” Joe grunted. “Alright, yeah. Fair. Continue.”

   “So, she has her two actual friends there, yeah, but then everyone else had either just met her that day, or only ever met her once or twice,” Bobby said. “Myself included. This one girl showed up super late, like missed the movie even, and would barely even talk to Tabitha. It was like she was seething at the fact she was forced to be there. This other girl showed up with her boyfriend, looked super pissed off the whole time. Tabitha wound up sitting with her most of the night at the skate thing, so it was hard to just hang out and chill with her.”

   “She was pissed off, too? Tabitha?”

   “No, no she was cool—I think it was like she felt obligated to spend time with the pissed off chick so that pissy chick’s night wasn’t as shitty. To be a good host or whatever, you know?”

   “Still, though. On her birthday? You said skate thing? You guys go to a skate park?”

   “Nah, roller rink.”

   “Pssh. Lame.”

   “It was alright,” Bobby shrugged. “Just—weird. It was this suspiciously normal birthday party, ‘cept from all the people that got invited, pretty much no one even knew her. So, it felt kinda staged and… fake? It was weird.”

   “Yeah,” Joe took another drag. “That’s pretty weird, bro. So, no nothing? You shoot your shot?”

   “Wasn’t any shot to make,” Bobby shrugged. “It’s like uh, like I’ve got the ball, yeah? Turn to make my shot, and—no hoop on that side of the court, yet. Nothin’ set up, no hoop, no net, no backboard—pole’s not even there. No shot to even make. Nada.”

   “Shit,” Joe blew out smoke. “Was she all freaked out about it?”

   “Naw, she was—it was like she was trying to have a good time,” Bobby shrugged again. “Sat next to me for the movie, seemed like she liked it. Couldn’t skate though, doctor’s orders or whatever. She’s got her hand in that cast, and all. I think… I think she’s just like in a super weird spot, and Officer Williams and them just kind of set up this whole thing today to try an’ give her something normal?”

   “Sounds like a bunch of work,” Joe said, turning again to regard his brother. “You sure about this chick? How old is she?”

   “I like her,” Bobby found himself getting defensive. “It was alright. Weird, but alright. I figure if I can get her alone or to like—where it’s just her and her actual real friends, she’d be more herself. At the party she was kinda on edge, ‘cause she barely knew anyone.”

   “That’s fuckin’ weird, bro,” Joe shook his head in dismay. “Her own damn party. You put water on the stove?”

   “Yeah, yeah,” Bobby said. “Didn’t see any spaghetti sauce or nothin’, though.”

   “Fuck it, I’m hungry,” Joe scoffed, leaning forward in his chair and gripping the controller. Yellow enemy tanks had suddenly rolled into his ore field, and were making a beeline for his ore trucks. “Youuu dirty fuckers—”

   “Gave her your copy of Willow for her birthday present.”

   “Shut up—!” Joe said in indignation, pausing the game again so he could search for the familiar VHS tape he normally had displayed on top of the entertainment center. It was gone.

   “Bro, listen—”

   “You fucker,” Joe groused, returning to his game in irritation. “That was still mint condition and everything. Still in plastic. Mint condition. Was gonna pass that down to my grandkids.”

   “Bro—this way, it’s like I’ve set up a date to watch it with her sometime,” Bobby explained. “I’ll buy you a new copy. I’ve got it all worked out, trust me bro.”

   “Fuck,” Joe shook his head. “Yeah, like you can even find one. You know how long it took me to come across that one? Fuck.”

   “Swear to God, I’ll get you another one. Mint condition, just like that one was.”

   “Little bro… listen, she’s cute and all, but—”

   “She is pretty cute.”

   “—But, if she doesn’t like Willow? If she watches with you, and doesn’t like it? That’s like, the deal breaker. She doesn’t like it, you say okay, you walk out and never talk to her again. Willow is the ligmus test for whether or not she’s the one for you, bro.”

   “Ligmus? Litmus?”

   “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s ligmus,” Joe said, swearing and tapping buttons on the Playstation controller in aggravation as his red soviet tank finally succumbed to the persistent fire of two yellow tanks and an APC. “Fuuuck. You ligmus bastards.”

   “No worries there,” Bobby had full confidence. “How can she not love Willow? She’s cool, she’ll like it. I think she’s the one, bro.”

   “If you say so. You put my shit on the stove?”

   “Already said I did.”

   “Alright, cool,” Joe heaved a sigh as he used the cursor to shepherd his ore trucks back towards his base—yellow deciding to harry them with potshots the entire way. “Well, she did invite you. That’s something.”

   “Yeah,” Bobby nodded to himself. “I was—actually, I was the only other guy there who wasn’t already with someone. Other dudes were just Matthew, and he’s with Casey, and then this guy Michael, and he was the boyfriend of the pissed-off chick. I sat next to Tabitha through Pleasantville.”

   “Hold hands or anything?”

   “A little bit,” Bobby hedged.

   “Niiiiice,” Joe said, quickly pausing the game so he could extend a fist bump. “Bro.”

   “It was just a little bit,” Bobby tapped knuckles with his brother. “But, I mean—still.”

   “Yeah, still.”

   “That’s something. And, she did invite me. Like, personally came to Mickey Dees to see me, invitation with my name on it an’ everything.”

  “Definitely something,” Joe agreed, returning to his game. “Weird shit too, though.”

  “Yeah,” Bobby sighed. “Damn, though. Definitely crushin’ on her bad.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Think I just need to make sure I can hang out with her again,” Bobby stared up at the dark ceiling. “Have it to where it’s just with her and her two friends so that it’s real. I dunno if I was just gettin’ spooked, or if it was the movie we saw or what, but. Was kinda like I was getting worried I was just put into a role, instead of really there, you know? With the way things kind of seemed fake or staged or whatever. Like, it’s like this time they cast me as a potential love interest, and it’s cool and all that I was their number one casting choice for that, that’s… a positive sign? I think? But, I want to be her interest for real, you know?”

   “She seem interested?” Joe asked.

   “I… man, I dunno,” Bobby shrugged and quirked a smile. “I hope so?”

    *     *     *

   Mrs. Moore couldn’t help but feel the pressure of her inferiority darken with even deeper humiliation as she clutched the bucket in her lap. The bucket was one of the few things Tabitha had asked for, so of course they made sure to pick it up for her birthday. However… it was a bucket. She had made sure to accompany her husband to the Home Depot in Sandboro to make sure he picked up the best one, but Mr. Moore and the sales associates there had simply given her helpless looks.

   “There’s some little pink play buckets for taking to the beach or, or playing in a sandbox, but Tabby was sayin’ she wanted one for composting,” Mr. Moore had explained, instead hefting a horribly plain five-gallon bucket. “Trust me, this is what she wants.”

   “I—I can understand that,” Mrs. Moore had colored. “It’s just—it’s very—it doesn’t look very nice.”

   “It’s a bucket,” Mr. Moore explained with a patient sigh, exchanging a glance with the Home Depot employee.  “If’n she wants, she can decorate it with pretty li’l stickers or whatever she decides, hon. Composting is—well there ain’t no other way to say it, compostin’ is dumpin’ in all sorts of kitchen scraps and leavings and what have you, lettin’ them rot down into compost. Coffee grounds, banana peels, egg shells, whatever’s biodegradable an’ll break down. S’not gonna wind up pretty, hon. S’gonna smell like a trash can.”

   “I—I realize that!” Mrs. Moore had snapped at him, a little more harshly than she’d intended. “But it’s not JUST for composting—it’s for her birthday.”

   The worker in his orange apron had shown them the actual official composters Home Depot had for sale, but the smallest one they had available right now was an eighty-gallon one, and she couldn’t imagine how anyone would even begin to fill it. They settled on the five-gallon bucket, just a plain unassuming white plastic bucket with a wire bail to hold it by. The design was so simple and utilitarian that Shannon Moore found herself growing upset, and picking out a nice set of gardening gloves and a cute little gardening trowel to put in the bucket for now hadn’t been quite enough to mollify her.

   She’s turning fourteen years old, this is—this is no kind of present for a teenage girl, Mrs. Moore had felt suffocated by her own inadequacy. We’ll try the other big stores.

   Braving the overcrowded holiday season aisles of the Walmart for a more appropriate ladylike gift had turned into a disaster. It was mortifying for Shannon to realize her fashion sense savvy seemed to have been left in the dust of 1985. Although she was passingly familiar with modern trends from television, the popular style of the late nineties she witnessed now across the racks remained incomprehensible to her. None of this womenswear seemed cool or larger than life or even visually interesting—it was all flannel in dull earthy tones, denim, unbearably plain shirts and tops in basic colors that at best featured a single boring stripe or some such artsy minimalist design Mrs. Moore didn’t care for.

   The ones Tabitha put together with her grandmother were a million times better than any of this overpriced nonsense! Mrs. Moore told herself with a frown, shaking her head in disappointment.

   In the end, she had picked out a rather smart-looking light gray scarf and winter hat set. Every other purchase throughout Walmart gridlocked her with indecision, all of the cute things like stuffed animals she suspected would be too childish for her daughter, and likewise all of the more practical kitchenwares she picked through weren’t good enough—Tabitha would like them, but they seemed droll and unexciting for a teenage birthday party. Flipping through a plastic display of posters made her realize she knew little about Tabby’s taste in music, and then slowly shuffling her way past the other customers down the bedding aisle and seeing that decorative pillows were in with teens gave her pause.

   Tabitha had held onto that Flounder pillow that had been part of her Halloween getup, but would she have any interest in a round one that was simply a big smiley face? Would she care for the swanky retro one that simply had the words Let’s Go, Girls! in bold curling font? It didn’t seem likely. A fluffy faux-fur pillow in horrific shades of either bright blue or bright pink? Tweety-bird from Looney Tunes was inexplicably popular along the shelves, but Mrs. Moore simply couldn’t imagine the gaudy toon face sparking her daughter’s interest.

   The shopping trip felt like a crisis, and with each passing minute she was acutely aware of how little she really knew her daughter. This deepened the sense of dread and loss she felt, and despite the crowds of Christmas shoppers and her husband beginning to fret over her discomposure, Mrs. Moore felt herself having another small breakdown. Part of the difficulty here in choosing things for Tabitha was the simple proximity of the girl’s birthday to Christmas—several months ago they’d picked out those presents, a nifty sportswear outfit so she didn’t have to wear ratty old clothes when she was out running, and a new pair of shoes for her.

   What on God’s green earth did that leave for them to get her for her fourteenth?

   Her writing means the world to her, Mrs. Moore found herself sinking deep into thought. I’d love to get her a personal computer, but good heavens that’s just too big of a price tag! These electric typewriters are going for ninety-nine dollars—which is still a lot to spend, but at least she would be able to get her story properly transcribed so that it’s more official and fit for a publisher. If she was heading into college, we would definitely get her one. But, she might see a typewriter as too clunky and old-fashioned, and by the time she DOES get to college, they say everyone will be using computer word processors!

   They couldn’t afford either right now, and so a fuming Mrs. Moore led her husband away from the electronics department and over to where the school supplies and stationery was. It was all too easy to get riled up and feeling furious all over again at her sister-in-law Lisa Moore—if they hadn’t given that damned junkie most of their savings in exchange for that worthless beater of a car, their family would at least be able to get Tabitha something to learn to type on!

   It felt absolutely paltry after browsing through the electronics, but Mrs. Moore finally settled on buying an impressive-looking name brand Trapper Keeper, so that Tabitha would be able to replace the cheapo blue binder she kept her Goblin Princess draft in. The choice of covers were mirror-surfaced marbles with checkerboards and a racecar, or a cartoon unicorn and a half-moon with a face in kiddie colors, or a computer wire-frame patterns with palm trees, dolphin, and a sunset, and then finally, a painted van art style rendition of a nebula and planets done up in fantastic airbrushed purples and blacks.

   When she remembered Tabitha had remarked on van art style paintings in her story notes, she felt that this was the one. The painted clouds, stars, and solar system of planets seemed beautiful in a romantic sort of way, but also struck Mrs. Moore as stylish and cool, and so she returned the others to the display and hugged her pick close, satisfied with it. The Trapper Keeper was five dollars, so she was then able to justify searching around the aisle for every possible accessory to go with it; gel pens, color-coded page tabs, blank label stickers, a pack of plastic page protectors, more college-rule notebook paper, and even a few folders with holes punched through them that would fit within the Keeper itself.

   It still wasn’t enough, but Mrs. Moore suspected that nothing ever would be. Their daughter had left them to live with another family, and that hurt wasn’t something that could be band-aided over with well wishes or gifts of any kind. Tabitha had needed them to be proper parents, for them to stand up to Lisa as that nasty woman pushed her way into everything with reckless abandon. Instead, when Alan put his foot down on the issue it was on just the exact wrong side of things—he put his foot down and just might as well have stepped in dogshit.

   She’d screamed and sobbed and argued him down after the fact until her throat was sore, but it was too late. She’d cursed and sworn and seethed vitriol about the Lisa situation to her husband, she’d hit him more than once—she was ashamed of striking him, but also unable to bring herself to actually apologize—but it didn’t matter. Tabitha was gone to stay with the Macintires. Worst of all, Mrs. Moore knew Tabitha would have a better time there.

   They’d failed her as parents, and not for the first time.

/// Some pre-Applebees dinner fragments I thought might be interesting. Will probably drop the Tabitha one, it may feel redundant after the past few chapters of having deep Tab POV. Oddly attached to the Bobby one, maybe iffy on the Mrs. Moore shopping. Rough month writing, nothing seems to be come out the way I want it to lately.