RE: Trailer Trash, 50 pt 2 (Patreon)

   “Mom,” Elena asked. “Do you ever think malls will go out of style? Shopping malls.”

   “Hmm,” Mrs. Seelbaugh pondered, tapping the remote control against her chin. “Out of style?”

   The Muppet Christmas Carol was playing on TV, and each successive group of commercial interruptions got Elena thinking again. Worrying. Would these same commercials instead be playing someday on their family computer instead of squeezed in between sections of television programming? What would make the personal computer, of all things, more attractive and convenient than television? By nature, computers were complicated, while turning on the tube and just letting a channel play was simple and easy.

   Elena had looked up Google—it was a real thing, at least, and seemed to be some kind of third party knockoff of Yahoo! Search. She clicked around on it for a bit, but was not remotely impressed. What would draw people into using Google at all? Yahoo! Search was right there, built into the home page everyone already uses. When she talked to her dad about it, he’d said everyone was rushing to buy up all the dot com stuff. Apparently something called Ask Jeeves was already the most powerful independent ‘search engine’ thing; while Mr. Seelbaugh had also heard of Google, he didn’t think much of it.

   “Out of style how?” Mrs. Seelbaugh asked, sounding distracted.

   “Out of style as in, not the social place to be, anymore,” Elena explained. “Like will malls eventually start to die out?”

   The two were curled up on opposite ends of the couch, with Elena in pajama pants and her hoodie while Mrs. Seelbaugh had a knit afghan blanket draped over her legs. Their Christmas tree was decorated and up on the far side of the room, and stockings were hung above the mantle where their big TV was in lieu of a fireplace. Empty mugs of hot cocoa rested upon the end tables on either side of the couch, and the only other sound in the house was the distant churn of the washing machine running a load of clothes.

   “Hm, maybe,” Mrs. Seelbaugh turned away from the TV to give her a quizzical smile. “You can never really tell how things’ll go.”

   “But,” Elena frowned. “Why would they? They’re malls.”

   “Why wouldn’t they?” Mrs. Seelbaugh shrugged. “Malls are still a pretty new thing, aren’t they? The Sandboro mall wasn’t even around in my parent’s time, and I remember when it was still under construction. It’s not that old! I shopped there soon as it opened, and have ever since, sure—but I don’t know that it was ever much of a ‘place to be,’ for us back then. At least, not like they try to make it out to be on TV. A place to meet up with a few friends and try on clothes, maybe. I wouldn’t consider it a place to take a date, but maybe nowadays you would? In my time, the ‘place to be’, the social scene was parties, or big get togethers out by the lake. Music and beer, that kind of thing.”

   “No, I mean—like the place to be for high school age people,” Elena said, her eyes narrowing. “You wouldn’t have been drinking beer in high school.”

   “Well, no—of course not!” Mrs. Seelbaugh’s smirk immediately revealed that yes, she had definitely been drinking beer at that age. “I mean. Elena. Honey. It was 1980, they were very different times.”

   “You realize this means you can’t criticize me if I drink now, right?” Elena arched an eyebrow.

   “Of course I can, I’m your mother,” Mrs. Seelbaugh rolled her eyes. “Your grandma sure as hell was drinking underage in her time, and she got all over my case about it when I did it. And, do you know why?”

   “Kinda sounds hypocritical to me?” Elena remarked.

   “She got on my case because she cared about me,” Mrs. Seelbaugh’s smile faded a bit. “Just like I care about you. Drinking is fun, yeah, but it is also dangerous. Do you understand? We’re all going to make some mistakes, that’s just part of growing up! But, ‘Lena honey, it fills me with terror knowing now, really knowing how costly those mistakes could be. The idea that, that, you know. Some guy could take advantage of you. Or, you could be out with your friends, and all be killed in a drunk driving accident. It happens all the time, and when you’re young and you’re reckless you understand that but don’t understand that. You know?”

   “Yeah, I guess,” Elena shrugged. “I’m responsible, though. I’ve only ever had wine when I’m with you.”

   “And, I appreciate that!” Mrs. Seelbaugh’s big smile returned. “I really do. I like being able to have a girl’s night with you every once in a while. But… pretty soon, you’re going to want to do that with your friends. Or, with boys, uggh. And, I want to be the cool mom who’s understanding and totally okay with that—but, what if something happens? Whew lord, is it just not fun being on the other side of this, now. Bein’ the mom. Always thinking about all the things that could happen, things that could go wrong. Imagining the worst. I mean, when I heard what happened at the Halloween party…”

   “Yeah,” Elena said.

   The muppet movie special returned, and their discussion lapsed into silence as they both turned attention towards watching again.

   Elena’s thoughts, however, were elsewhere.

   Thought malls would be a bigger deal to mom, Elena crossed her arms in her hoodie. Malls were always a big deal for us. Her and I. Spending a day together at the mall was as important as—I don’t know. It was IMPORTANT. It was always the activity I was most excited for in the world. Not counting like, Christmas.

   When she was a kid pulling her mother around the mall, seeing the glamorous teenage girls going around with their cliques of friends, or even seeing a girl holding hands with a teenage boy—that had made a huge impression on Elena. Because, she wanted that. How could she not look up to that kind of thing? And, malls just were amazing and incredible. It was a fact. She’d always had fun with Carrie at the mall back in middle school. Walking around with bubbly glee and barely any adult supervision, trash-talking the other girls they knew from school and babbling on and on about how things were going to be once they were just a little bit older.

   It was super fun just going around with Tabs and Alicia, too, Elena thought. Malls are IMPORTANT. They’re not just gonna die out. When I was kind of having my personal identity crisis, where did I find the NEW me? Hot Topic; the mall. I’m sure it’s basically the same with a lot of girls, whether they’re preppies or geeks or goths or—you know, whatever.

   Elena lost track of the muppet antics playing on their TV as she tried to pinpoint what exactly in her mother’s words had bothered her so much.

   I guess it’s just… Elena scowled. Her perspective?

   To her mother, the teenage high school years where malls were hugely important was a passing blip. But, for Elena, she knew that these high school years were basically her entire life, they encompassed her entire reality. Beer, parties? Sex? Those were still distant, intangible parts of life for way, way in the future. College Elena. It was hard for her to even picture that future Elena, sometimes. Most of all, it was unpleasant and incredibly chafing having the high school experience—that was her whole world right now—belittled or made out to be insignificant in some dumb parents and old people context.

   Because, it’s just massively significant, Elena argued her own point. It has to be; these are literally my formative years. They shape who I grow up into, basically. It’s why me cutting off the friendship with Carrie was so huge—I feel like doing that, going and being friends with Tabitha and Alicia instead, I feel like that changed who I’m set out to be. Carrie’s not even a good person. I AM a good person. If just a few things had gone differently, I’d be a stuck-up preppie girl who bullies outsiders.

   “Well, I don’t think malls are ever going out of style,” Elena grumbled.

   “Who even said that they were?!” Mrs. Seelbaugh laughed. “Honey?”

   “No one,” Elena pouted. Feel bad enough about snitching on the whole 'Julia' situation. And, I haven’t even heard how any of that went or if anything got found out.

   “I know you love the mall, and I feel like we’ve always had a great time there,” Mrs. Seelbaugh remarked. “But, I can completely understand why people don’t love the mall, too.”

   “Like, why?” Elena frowned. What’s even their problem with it?

   “For one thing, it’s expensive,” her mother pointed out. “Everything there’s got an awful markup compared to Target or Ames. When I think of hanging out with friends back then, it was driving around and stuff. Everyone from high school used to drive out to the lake on weekend, swim and sunbathe and play music real loud. That’s where the scene was, back in my day. We would—”

   “Wait, like the same lake over by where the Halloween party was?” Elena interrupted.

   “What? No, that over there’s all gated community stuff,” Mrs. Seelbaugh waved Elena away. “The lake I’m talking about was towards the Fairfield side, almost the whole way to the interstate.”

   “Have we ever been there?” Elena was puzzled.

   “No, they went and fenced it all off, that’s someone’s private property now,” Mrs. Seelbaugh made a face. “But. My point is—the stuff we did for fun when I was your age was like that. Or, five or six couples going out and having a bonfire and then setting up tents so we could camp out way out on the edge of this one kid’s field, old kinda abandoned farmland. Malls? The kind of stuff they want to sell you on as ‘the place to be,’ they’re consumer traps, ‘Lena. Look at all the pretty little things, with all the pretty little price tags! It’s all about luring you into spending as much money as possible, and then making you want to come back and do it again.”

   “That’s… not true,” Elena protested with a weak smile. “You don’t even—wait, have you been talking to Ziggy?!”

   “Ziggy, your friend who works at said mall, selling pretty little things with pretty little price tags?” Mrs. Seelbaugh arched an eyebrow.

   “Oh, c’mon—you know that’s different,” Elena huffed. “Don’t know why I even brought it up, it’s not like you know anything about all this.”

   “Uh-huh.”

   “Do we even have a tent?” Elena scowled. “I think I just have a sleeping bag. And, where are me and my friends supposed to go out and swim and stuff, if the lake is closed off now? If no other kids go out to a place, it is no longer a social scene!”

   “Fairfield Fire Brick Works,” Mrs. Seelbaugh answered.

   “That’s—what?” Elena was confused.

   “There’s an old brick factory right on the edge of Fairfield, closed up in the late sixties,” Mrs. Seelbaugh explained. “It was all overgrown back in my time, and nowadays you can barely even see the buildings anymore from the interstate. Buncha cool old abandoned stuff, it’s real spooky. Kids used to go out there and smoke pot and stuff.”

   “Hold on, let me get this straight,” Elena put her fingers to her temple in disbelief. “You’re encouraging me—your daughter—to go breaking and entering out in some dangerous old—”

   “Oh, c’mon,” Mrs. Seelbaugh scoffed. “No one owns any of that stuff. At best it’s trespassing on random county land, and no one will even care.”

   “Mom.”

   “I’m just saying—ever since you got into the whole goth thing, I’ve been racking my brains trying to think of, I don’t know, whatever might help you with that. Spooky old ruins, way out in the woods? Be a totally cool place to hang out. Or camp overnight, tell ghost stories, have a seance—”

   “I’m still a Christian!” Elena pointed out with an incredulous stare. “I’m not going to try to summon demons or spirits or anything like that. And—wouldn’t it still be dangerous out there?”

   “Elena, live a little!” Mrs. Seelbaugh laughed. “What do you think you’re going to do, climb up one of the buildings and then jump off? Find broken bottles to cut yourself on?! You’re way too smart to get yourself hurt doing something dumb out there, and even if you sprain an ankle or something, you’re never going to be out there alone. It’s plenty safe—or, it was fine enough last time I went out there.

   “I just keep thinking, you know… the mall? It’s not very goth. The mall’s all commodified. You even said yourself the other day, that most of the stores there are preppy places! It’s not the super cool secluded spot in town, where outsiders go to hang out.”

   “It’s—it’s not even in town!” Elena stabbed her hands out in a gesture of frustration. “Neither is the mall! Neither of them are nearby! One is in Fairfield, and the other is in Sandboro!”

   “Well hon, I tried to find you a cool goth scene in Springton, but Springton, well, it isn’t exactly a huge place to begin with.”

   “You’re not even supposed to be finding me cool goth scenes!” Elena threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. “You’re my mom! That’s the last thing you should be doing!”

   “Even besides that, you have all sorts of friends, I know some of them drive already,” Mrs. Seelbaugh muttered. “You’ll have your license by next year, too.”

   “I still can’t even believe you’re encouraging this!”

   “How ‘bout, the next nice warm day we have, you and I can swing out that way and take a look?” Mrs. Seelbaugh proposed. “It’ll be like—like a cool hike. Out exploring. We can make it a picnic. I want to see how overgrown everything’s gotten. Last time I was out there, this tree was pushing up partway through one of the walls of one of the buildings. Ooh, we can bring spray paint, too!”

   “We’re not vandalizing anything!” Elena leapt to her feet. “That’s totally—”

   “Totally what?!”

   “It’s—it’s disrespectful!” Elena scowled.

   “Elena honey, it’s been abandoned since the sixties. No one is going to care.”

   “You don’t understand,” Elena huffed, marching past her mother and out of the living room. “I just—I can’t even believe you. Whatever. I’m going to my room.”

( Previous, 50 pt 1 | RE: Trailer Trash | Next, to be continued... )

/// You tell her, Elena.

I want to have a future section sophomore or junior year where everyone looks up to Elena as the badass rebel who snuck out of her house and led a bunch of the local punk scene out to have a bitchin' late night party out at the abandoned brickworks. Then see if random readers connect the dots and are like "wait a minute, Elena's mom actually helped plan this didn't she?"

Mostly just want to set up some cool somewhat nonstandard teen exploration fare so that everything isn't coloring inside the lines of school and malls and supervised and chaperoned activities, which can feel stifling. Growing up in FL, one of the places I lived was a twenty minute bike ride from a super cool overgrown junkyard that my older brother took me out to a few times.

Then, when we lived in KY we explored through the abandoned brickworks up there, hiked all around the hill above town, found a cave (sort of, it was more of a big rock overhang and then a super long claustrophobic tunnel we were too afraid to try squeezing down very far). LOTS of forts and stuff out in the woods we built, tiny creeks we dammed up or bridged or whatnot. We at one point attempted to lash together a wooden raft to cross the Salt River (the logs DID FLOAT, but barely, they were never dry enough or light enough to actually keep riders above water LMAO), and we also once found an old fiberglass dinghy partially buried in the bank of the Ohio. I want to say we excavated it and took it out on the river, but despite its small size, four of us kids couldn't even flip it over to upright it. It was heavy af. It's probably still there.

Just a big aspect of NINETIES-ERA childhood I really want to put into the story but haven't quite had a chance to yet. Back then a lot of those years were us kids running around exploring the area, free but just knowing we'd be in serious trouble if we weren't back home by the time the streetlights came on. Nowadays by contrast kids are a lot less free range.