Star-Head (Short Story)

Star-Head

  Denzel Haynes

  Copyright 2012 by Denzel Haynes

  Star-head

  Introduction.

  From where he stood in the hallways during his high school years, he never expected to be a loser or anything. His parents weren’t losers. Expectations were high in life, he had no friends, or enemies, but people who simply walked past him. It was the beginning of something he didn’t quite understand. “All right class, we’re going to see something today.” Travis sat at his desk in front of the butterfly field behind him. The school was a sacred foundation of memories that he planned to store in his mind forever. The rest of the students in the class never paid him any attention or tried to harm him. However, the constant silence in the room was deliberately terrible. Looking back on those times, he was small and fragile. Those particular times in his youth were nothing less than beautiful in itself. That butterfly field stayed still every now and then. Travis never mentioned to anyone about it. He just liked to stare at it from a distance. The teacher taught the lessons regardless of the weather. She was awake with the other kids in the room. He was something more than a boy with eyes of broken stone. He was common and loving, but it wasn’t enough for the others.

  Chapter One

  After It Happened

  “I remembered how they used to talk to me when I was in school.” His cousin listened. “Do you like being older now?” Travis swung his legs over the cement blocks where he sat. It was present day with all of the trees and grass growing in front of him. “I don’t know anymore. The girls back then were so funny with their smiles and everything else. I miss it every time I go to sleep at night.” Erin smiled; he knew that he had to watch his brothers who were running around the house. “What are you going to do now since you’re getting older?” Travis looked away at the ground. Sadness approached him in a calm matter. Streets were cracked in front of him. Sometimes when you listened closely of the sounds at night, you could hear a nice whistling noise that the trees made. “I want to be young again,” he said. “I want to be older Travis. I want to be older because I want to do things that I would want to see like drinking beers with my dad and having sex with all the hot chicks like in the movies.” Travis couldn’t laugh because he wanted that too. Too bad he did half of them already with his college buddies. “What do you miss more than anything in the world,” he finally asked his friend? Erin was dying to know. He had to think for a moment. “I want to be great like those people in my school. They walked tall. They definitely walked tall. Erin continued to think about things to ask his questions, but he didn’t know where to go in the conversation. “What about the teachers though? How were they like?” He looked at Erin. Despite the fact that he was near the age of stardom, Erin had a large amount to learn before he would grow older as his cousin. Travis began to smile. “They were all nice and beautiful,” he said in a comical manner. “I remember one of them Ms. Lloyd. She had long hair cousin. Her smile was great too. She taught me so much about history. I was almost ten or eleven years old when I first met her. She liked to keep me after school because I was a bad child to everyone.” Erin gave a couple of sniffles from his nose. “That’s funny man. I hope my brothers will be more like you Travis. We all love you and think of you constantly in our mind.” Travis was down thinking of how his future would be. Large windows appeared in front of him. They appeared to be the exact image of a staircase from the water marks leaking from the corners. “Anything else you want to ask me dude?” Erin licked his lips on the staircase and thought of it for a moment. “No, I don’t think so. I just wanted to get away for awhile.” “That’s cool man. You should always want to get away,” he replied. “I remember when those years that passed me, I just to think….I think of where the fuck did all those people go?” Images appeared without discretion in the back of his mind. Neither Erin nor his brothers could snap him out of this daydream in his mind. The future just gave him a clue of what to expect. His parents, friends, or anyone else couldn’t figure out the nonsense about him. He wasn’t old, but he was getting a bit wise in age. White marks flashed on his skin as a waking call. He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t cold, but he was waking up into the reality sense of his mind. The window in front of him closed and the awful cry of babies roared from each street corner. Here it was. It was shining through everything, the cars, vehicles, restaurants, houses, and the streets stayed still. It would only take a second. Travis tried to cry, but from the sun. He was only smiling because of complete joy.

  Chapter Two

  Travis, it’s me?

  Travis walked into the restaurant with the paparazzi clinging onto his shoulders. One man barely missed hitting him with his camera, but that all changed once he got inside. All of his classmates were cramped into one table. Some of which were not full human. The whole supply of food was at the table, the turkey stood high on the side of one of the woman whom he recognized with all of the makeup in the world couldn’t seem to hide. Erin walked behind him in a long black suit. “Hey cousin, what are you doing here?” He heard the tapping of the forks and spoons tapping on the glasses “I don’t think you should go over there. It’s pretty dark. We don’t have any lights and shit over there.” He wanted to leave and wash his face. He didn’t have a house though. There were no washcloths or soap for this man. Erin stood close towards the doorway talking to the hostess. She looked firm from the neck up. She wasn’t going to take any shit from him or Erin for the matter. Travis didn’t exactly know any of the people in the room, but they eventually turned on the lights on and Erin would just try to amaze him again by being that same little crazy boy sitting on the porch with him that one Friday morning. “Go over there man. You need to talk to them; they’re not going to hurt you.” He paid attention to Erin’s posture. His hands were full of redness from the chicken wings. They sparkled in a low light from the hostess’s necklace. He felt his face again and when he looked down at his feet. He noticed that he was barefoot. Shoeless, he walked towards the table. The loudness was great. It was obvious of how it dramatically changed. The whole group smiled picking up their cigarettes with their thumbs. “Hey Timonthy, how’s it going?” He couldn’t even find where the voice come from. “What are you doing here Tim?” “My name is Travis, and who the hell are you?” He stood up and invited him to sit down with them. His initial thought was of leaving, but he didn’t know where else to go. Erin was blocking the fucking doorway. “Just take a seat and we’ll talk some things over.” “What’s your name,” Travis asked? The man shook his head. Laughing with the other girls at the bar table. “My name doesn’t matter anymore. I treated you like shit dude.” He began to remove his shirt slowly. Grimacing in pain, the white hairs of his chest poked out and the scars of bullet wounds presented themselves. Another hand presented itself. It was a female’s touch this time. “My name was Leah when you met me.” Erin watched with the hostess in the back. He was still chewing on those same chicken bones with that tall lady hostess chick in the back. “What’s your fucking name now?” “Hey, you don’t fucking talk to her that way!” The man was growing angry; he still couldn’t find the rest of his playing cards. With a table the size of a minivan, there were probably hundreds of people sitting there looking at him.

  Chapter Three

  Three Stacked Plastic Cups

  “We’re just fucking with you bro. We all remember you. We love your work.” Even the girls nudged a small smile from their faces.” Travis’s tears ran down his face. “What about the rest of you? You guys miss me too?” The man shook his head. “Stop looking over okay? They don’t matter to you anymore.” “Hey Travis, I didn’t forget you okay?” He searched for the source of the voice. He looked wher
e Erin was standing before, but he was gone. The hostess left with him. He didn’t even say goodbye. Travis took a breath and saw her. Hannah Course, the only girl that mattered to him in school. “You still were blinking over there?” “Yes,” he replied. “Can I feel your face,” she asked. He focused again on the man across the butterfly field. “Don’t look over here Tim. You need to focus on what she’s saying” He swallowed some sense and sat down with his feet dangling over the chair. She just laughed again, not noticing the seriousness on his face. She applied some force on his cheeks and giggled in her sweet body. “How are you,” she asked. He didn’t know how to respond. “I’m fine; I just wanted to know where you’ve been at?” “I’ve been here the whole time dude, smoking with my friends here.” Travis just saw that she was laughing away all of her sorrow. “I’m sorry Travis. I didn’t mean to harm or make you feel small.” Erin returned to the restaurant with some more chicken bones. Travis’s nose perked up at once. The confusion was too great for him at any cost. These were the children in which he raised over the years, his classmates. He being a student also, he did not realize that he was teaching them besides the obvious choice, the teacher. He noticed all of the piercings and tattoos on her skin. They were all dragons and scriptures that she loved to see once she got out of bed every day. “I used to be a model after High School. It was great.” He smiled. “Your hands are getting so sweaty boy. Are you all right?” The beating of his heart raced even harder each second. “Are you still modeling?” The man left the table again to refill his cup. With no lights, every time he departed from the table. He imaged the man was a ghost flying into the place from nowhere. “No, all of the modeling shops in the world closed down. I was out of a job then Travis. You get that?” “You want some tea Travis,” the man asked. He ignored the man’s sarcasm and continued to listen to the woman speaking to her. “I thought you were going to be great,” he said. She was ashamed of what she brought to the table and to the others. “I don’t know what happened. It all started awhile ago. I was just a little girl no more than fourteen years old girl and it was like a dream.

  Chapter Four

  Bones of Chicken

  “Travis, I was happy when we graduated from High School, being made out to be the most popular girl in the school was not an easy feat for anyone. Those years were so hard and reckless for me. I was only a girl like I said before, but I started having this dreams of mine.” She had to pause, looking over at the mysterious man drinking the tea out of his cup. “I had dreams just like you and your friend over there.” Travis peeked over again for the tenth time seeing Erin devour the bucket of chicken bones. He must have been the savage of the town running around, but to him that was cousin, and of course his friend. He was someone that he couldn’t lose for anything in the world. “What happened in your dream?” She adjusted her chest. Her legs were gone from under the seat. “I don’t know where to begin, but it all started when I was a girl walking in the woods with a boy of my age. He was dragging me into the woods and told me to take off all of my clothes. I immediately listened and threw my dress into the river. To be honest Travis, it was a delicate feeling in my heart when he asked me to do that. Not even my own father asked me to do that when I was a little girl.” He began to hurt again. Those same dreadful tears fell onto his cheeks. “Did he rape you Hannah?” He was dying to hear her answer. It would complete him for the day where he could finally go to sleep in peace. He always wondered of her intentions and the way she walked down the hallways in school. The blue makeup and tortured hairstyles that she wore, the question had to be answered. “He didn’t...he couldn’t rape me because he thought I was special from the other girls. All of my dreams were unique in their own way.” Travis wiped the tears from his face. Peeking at the reaction of the man across the table, he was clearly bored from her story. Travis signaled for her to continue, but she looked warped and tired. Her hair hid her ears. He was surprised that she could hear perfectly fine despite the large curls of her brown hair. Erin slowly walked over before he dropped the bucket over the counter where the hostess would usually sit. He heard the steps of him walk behind him. He eventually collapsed on the ground. An immediate heart attack and he was dead in the middle of the floor in darkness. Travis could not see his eyes anymore, but Hannah tied her hair in a tight knot and resumed with the story. “He took to his house where his buddies were staying at. Cameras were all over the bed and the floor was filthy brown. The blacks stood it the front of the house laughing and giggling. The whites were all inside drinking cans and watching TV.” “What happened inside the house,” he asked. “The boy took me to the bathroom and threw me into the bathroom and nearly drowned me. His friends nearly killed me that night.” Travis grinned at her reaction while she spoke. Erin remained on the ground. He had to be dead from the bones. “You want some lights in here?” Smoke emerged from the ceiling and the man opened his mouth wide and his teeth were big as a dog’s paw. “Are you sure he didn’t hurt you?” The man immediately stood up from his chair. Throwing his shirt back on, he walked to the radio in complete darkness and threw on some mellow music. Travis noticed the tension in the room change. The man stuck his nose out in from out the darkness and the lights flicked on with no intermission. Hannah raised her hands into the air. “We’re here for you. You’re not going to be alone anymore.” Travis nearly stepped over his dead friend and everyone at the table shouted with joy. “We’re going to have ourselves a meal today and you’re invited. He coughed. “It’s real…it’s really real guys.” Hannah clapped her hands together. Her legs were gone; she done had a freak accident a couple of months ago. Her abusive boyfriend ran her over with her car and she was alone with no one on her side, but Travis sitting in front of her. Moaning peeked from the ground, a long, hurtful moan from something large. Everyone, even the mysterious man looked down that the floor. The light hit the man’s head. It was Erin. He wasn’t dead at all, just a couple of chicken bones that clogged him up. “W…we need to get up out of here,” he croaked. Travis felt his feet burn on the floor. Hannah’s smile disappeared and Erin ran out with his pants nearly falling down.

  Chapter Five

  Tree Reflex

  The trees continued to sway with a loud whistling noise while they sat on the porch. Hannah wasn’t much this time of day. She was probably in the woods while he spoke to Erin. While the brothers jumped and ran around the porch. The kids screamed while the sun went down. Travis wanted to smile sitting on the steps, but instead he looked at the sky. His father and mother were somewhere gone in the wind. Erin was young, he would have no problem getting old and wise again. He could tell some of his grandchildren of where to go and who to be once he was a young lad. “What’s wrong with you man?” Erin had to be concerned; it was complete nonsense for anyone to be gone for more than two minutes. Travis was still thinking about what happened. “I was just thinking, I just want to be young again,” that’s all. Erin took a sip of his ice bottle and walked down the street towards his friend’s house. Meanwhile, Travis thought about it. His father’s car was in front, he could have been safe with his thoughts. The kids wouldn’t even care to call the ambulance. He blinked his eyes once. Anxiety was pouring again. He saw that the keys were still inside. His feet immediately moved and he ran towards the driver side of the truck. It was all in there. He could end it with no sorrow or pain. Erin would never care to call the ambulance; he would have assumed that it was someone else in there. Travis just wanted to leave for awhile. He’d be back soon. Hannah wouldn’t mind it; she would have a partner up there on stand-by. The world could continue and everyone could enjoy their lives.