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They Live in the Mall (prolouge)
By SeanArcher
The following thread was originally posted on Dan's JP3 Page message board on 7/2/2003 at 10:04:03 AM:
Subject: "I'm back... with a weird story"
Text: "Hey guys, I've been gone for a few days. My asshole dad kicked me out of the house and I haven't been able to get online for a while. You might not believe this, but I've been staying in an old abandoned mall and some really weird shit has been happening. I'm beginning to think this place is haunted or something. The other day I saw what I think are "orbs" floating around. It was these white balls of light I kept seeing down the mall every few minutes. I've also been hearing shit at night. It's freaking me out but I don't have anyplace else to go. Well I'm at a public library and I want to do some other stuff before I have to get off, but when I can I want to tell you all about it. It really is weird.
Peace out guys. Be back soon, hopefully."
One week earlier...
My six-hour shift ended and I sat down at the outdoor table, exhausted. It was well past midnight and I just wanted my dad to hurry and pick me up so I could go home and go to bed. I had a lot on my mind though. For one, that was the last day I would ever sit at that table and wait to be picked up, because that was my last day working there at Sonic Drive-In. Eight months of hard work and devotion hadn't paid off, instead all it got me was $5.30 an hour and a grueling job making sundaes and drinks and taking orders from assholes non-stop. I hated it. What I really wanted to do was Carhop, where I'd just be bringing food out to customers and making tips. I had done it a few times before and loved it - half the work for twice the money. For eight months I tried to work my way up to a full-time Carhopping position and for eight months I watched as people started long after me and carhopped before me. I thought about quiting for a long time - the job I was doing just wasn't worth it. The final push came when a girl who started eight months after me worked there for two days and was allowed to Carhop. What the FUCK? I got pissed. How could they... I asked the manager what the fuck and at the end of the day I told him I quit.
I had also just finished my last day of high school a few days earlier and was out for the summer. The coming fall I would start college at LSU. Yep, my life was certainly changing... but I had no idea just how much it would soon change. I finally recognized my dad's truck pull into the lot and I gave a final goodbye to my friends that I had met there and worked with - all of whom I've never seen since - and got in the truck. As we rode down the desolite highway I told my dad about me quitting and wanting to find another job. We got it a bit of an argument about it. He thought I was stupid for quiting but I really didn't care what he thought or said. Thirty minutes later, I was asleep in my bed.
Before I go any further I need to explain something. I was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. When I was nine, my parents divorced and my mom moved to Florida with her relatives. I stayed with my dad and two-year older brother. I haven't seen my mom since, I don't even know where she lives exactly, I've only talked to her on the phone a few times. I've never had a good relationship with my dad or my brother... partly because I'm a strait-A student and they're, uhh, poor rednecks. I couldn't wait to start college and get the hell out of there.
I woke up late the next day... 2 p.m. maybe. I hung around the house being lazy, surfing the net, watching TV. It felt good I didn't have to go to work anymore. Around 6 or 7 p.m. I took my brother's car to drop off my uniform at Sonic. I didn't ask him to take it but he always let me take it whenever I wanted to, and he wasn't around to ask. Apparently he needed it though and when I got back he was pissed...
My brother (who has a bit of a drinking problem) came up to me with two drunk, ugly ass girls at his ass. He probably just wanted to show off so he tried fighting with me, but I knew he was just drunk and walked away. What happened next, I still find it hard to make sense of...
When I was in the bathroom I heard a crash in my room. I went in my room and saw the glass tube of my 27-inch TV completely smashed in and laying on the floor, my DVD player's coverings broken off, my PS2 broken. I couldn't believe it... I worked for months to buy that stuff, which together cost probably 800 dollars. Now my baby was dead. And all I did was use his car for 10 damn minutes. I got pissed and found my brother in the front yard where we fought until we were broken up by my dad.
Apparently someone called the cops and a few minutes later they showed up. I explained to them how my brother broke about 800 dollars of my stuff and that he better pay for it, and my brother said I "stole" his car. The two cops (50-60 year old women, if you can believe that) seemed not to care about the whole thing, like they had something better to do. By then, about 20-30 nosy goddamn neighbors were standing out on their lawns to watch the "excitement" like they had nothing better to do. After arguing with my brother, my dad then said something I still can't understand... "If you're going to cause trouble around here and pick fights with people, I don't want you around here anymore. You're 18, get your shit and get out of here."
Say what? I just graduated high school with a 3.5 GPA, I hang around the house minding my own business waiting to start college, then my drunk, asshole, high school drop-out brother breaks 800 dollars of my stuff and I get kicked out on the street with nowhere to go?! I just couldn't believe it.
Anyways, the cops said my dad had the right to kick me out and so they told me to get whatever I needed that was mine and to leave. For a long time I was like... What? Where am I going to go? My dad didn't care, but he never cared and had probably been waiting for years to kick me out and was just waiting for something to happen to use as an excuse to kick me out, even if it was bullshit.
I went in my room with the cops, passed my shattered stuff, and started packing some stuff in my duffle bags, clothes and socks and stuff. I also took my laptop and a script I was reading. The whole time I was trying to think where I could go. I didn't have any relatives living near me or friends that would let me stay with them, not like I would ask anyway though. I had about 2,000 dollars saved and was old enough to rent an apartment, but that money was for college and I definately wasn't going to spend it on an apartment or hotel.
I said bye to our pet dog, knowing I probably wouldn't see him for a long time, and was escorted off the property. The last thing my dad said to me was, "You clean up your act and I'll think about letting you come back." What an asshole. I got in the back of the cop car and they asked me where I wanted them to take me. I had no idea. I ended up asking them to take me to the Greyhound bus station (in New Olreans). We pulled away and I saw my friends looking at me as I passed them by, then saw my house fall out of sight. I felt my whole world come to an end. I had hit rock bottom. I knew my dad was an asshole but how the hell could he do this?
Half an hour later we were in front of the Greyhound bus station. Before I left they told me that I couldn't go near my house or contact my dad in any way, or I would go to jail. They then let me out and pulled off, leaving me standing there clueless. I walked in the station and sat at a bench. I don't know how long exactly but several hours passed. Night finally came. I felt pissed and depressed, and clueless as to what I could do. I thought about going to some relatives' houses in Texas but I hadn't seen them in years. Just months before then I had gone to Los Angeles to tour USC and I loved it. I loved the city and I thought about staying there for the few months I had until I would start college in Baton Rouge, LA. But an apartment alone would cost 1,000 a month. I didn't want to spend the money that I had been saving for almost a year in just two months. It was the only real choice I had though. I got up and started walking towards the ticket counter to buy a one-way ticket to Los Angeles. I came so close to buying a ticket... but then I turned away.
I needed more time to think so I rented a locker in the bus station for 20 bucks that I could put my stuff in for a while. I walked through downtown New Orleans to the nearby Riverwalk mall just a few blocks away, where I ate some seafood and just walked around, thinking about everything. Then, as I looked down the mall, I thought, 'What if I had my own big place like this as my home? That would kick ass. Even if I just had a place to put a sleeping bag, I'd be set.' Then I suddenly remember something... Belle Promenade, an equally grand shopping mall, had closed down just a few months earlier and was now sitting there completely empty and abandoned. I dismissed the idea right away, but the more I thought about it, the more cool and exciting it felt. My own mall... better than sleeping on the street at least. It was around midnight then and I had to find someplace to sleep soon. Though it would turn out to be a bad idea, I forgot about 'going Greyhound' for the time being and took a city bus towards Belle Promenade, my new home.
8/2/2003 5:42:36 PM
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