The Apartment Complex
#1 of The Apartment Complex
This story and it's characters (to come in next chapter) is copyrighted to me. Please do not redistribute without my consent. And for you dirty perverts, there's no yiff in this... yet...
The Apartment Complex - Ch. 1
5:51 am and I'm fucked up again. So, here's what's going on. I'm a bit tipsy, really high, and there's four people in my apartment that I really don't want there. Tensions inside are so tight that a knife could cut through it. And I want to choke one of the bitches in there myself. And to add on to that, the power has been shut off for two days. Maybe that's one of the reasons we're at eachother's throats.
There is nothing to distract us from how we feel about each other, and it's all coming to a head tonight. No music, no television, no lights besides the two candles sitting on the floor, no heat, and nothing to stop us from tearing out one another's throats. There was no other option for me but to step out on the front balcony and have a cigarette. Sure, it may be freezing outside, but a cold wind isn't as painful as a cold stare.
The wind was stinging my face and freezing my fingers, but I just didn't care about anything at the moment. If you've ever had a moment where you felt emotionless, then you know how I felt. Empty and full at the same time. You feel like you're in hell, and everyone and everything is with you. You don't care about any of it, either. And afterwards, you can't help but to shake just thinking about how it felt. The worst emotion to feel is none at all. So let me explain to you how I got into this situation.
The wreck was what started it all.
After a rather unsucessful year of college, I decided that I wanted to go back to the place I called 'home.' Yes, it was a year of college, wasted (and in more ways than one). My grades were fantastic. I made it on the National Dean's List, for fuck's sake. But the places I went, the people I met, the things I started doing... I was walking down the right academic road, but the wrong road on life. And it had to end.
I put my foot down on that pedal going through Houston, and it wasn't long until I was weaving in and out of traffic on the highway. 70, 75, 80, 85, 90... And halfway through the city, I wrecked. Going 80+ miles an hour, I spun out. As I skidded right, I hit the wall, and it sent me through two full spins on the highway. But not once did any of my tires leave the ground, and noone else became involved in it. I should have died, but something, someone, was looking out for me. I never told anyone about this being an attempt at suicide. I would tell anyone who ever asked that "I fell asleep at the wheel." But that was far from the truth. That was attempt number four. I walked away with only a scrape to the knee. Sometimes, I think that I actually did die in it, and I've just been in Hell since.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be in hell? What if it's not all fire and brimstone? What if it's a place where you can't escape from your past? What if it's like life, but none of your problems get any better, and you can't find a moment of happiness ever again? That's my personal hell; It's a point in life where I can't leave; I'm trapped in my apartment unless I'm at work, I'm trading glares with the people I've known as friends for so long, and I can't go back home.
It's true, I have yet to go back home. In fact, I haven't been there since the 'accident.' Instead, I was taken to a place I did not want to go; My grandparents picked me up and took me back with them to the northeast corner of Arkansas. Welcome to Corning! It's a small farm town. Guess what their main export is yet? That's right--corn. My name is real big in the town, of course, because a part of my family owns one of the bigger farms on the outskirts of town. And the community is so racist, I have yet to see a black family live there. That's not to say that it isn't a good place to start a family. The education system is fairly decent, it's a modestly rich community, and everyone there has great family values. But there's just something terribly wrong with the town. It's not a place I'd ever be able to call home. And for the next two months, or until school started, I was forced to stay.
Time crawled slowly by. Day after day, week after week, I felt tortured and humiliated by my grandfather. And every few hours, my grandmother would have to take her nerve pills. Truth be told, I had to steal a few of them to put up with him myself. It got to a point where I couldn't stand it any longer. Without a second thought, I bought me a replacement car, which I'm still driving: a Ford Windstar. I drove a soccer-mom's van 600 miles to Midland, TX on bad tires, bad brakes, and bad transmission, just to get a part-time job for a month and get some money together to last through the school year.
The greater percentage of the money I earned went to 'mood elevators,' while the rest went to gas to drive the 300 miles to the college I was going to. But I finally arrived, unpacked, moved in, and started going to my classes. The only time I have ever missed a class in my college career was during the second semester of my freshman year; I had food poisoning from the meal I had at the Texas Roadhouse the night before. My grades were still decent this year. But one day about two weeks into class...
The front desk had called my dorm room and asked to speak to me. They then put me on hold while the police came up to my room. They knocked. I answered. They wanted to speak to me personally, so I asked to step out in the hallway with them. I knew why they were there. They knew that I knew. They could see the fear. I was so nervous, I was shaking. One of the officers told me that they had been on a narcotic task force for a number of years. At that point, my throat turned dry. They wanted to come in and take what I had peacefully. I complied. In fact, I led them to my room and gave them what I remembered having from inside my locker. I was so shaken at this point, I had forgotten I had another smaller bag of 'a green, leafy substance' and a couple of pipes in one of my travel cases in the same locker. After finding it, the officers searched the rest of my room. When they finished, one of the cops went to question my roommate. The other stayed with me in my dorm room and told me about the tip they received. I led them to my car afterwards and I told them to search the ashtray for my roaches. They plucked them out and searched the rest of it. Finally, they put the cuffs on me and took me to the jail.
The first day and a half was hell. I only got to sleep for about 15 minutes at a time before they brought someone else into the drunk tank. Yeah, that's where I was kept for two full days--the drunk tank. It reeked from the stench of piss and sweat all over the floor. I had to take my shoes off and use them as pillows. And imagine the shock when I came to find that there wasn't toilet paper at the stainless steel commode.
I was a sardine packed into a tiny tin can, along with 11 other scumbags. But the prison was nice.
For the rest of my 4-day stent in the big house, I got fed three lukewarm meals a day, a thin-woven blanket, an almost-as-thin cot to put on my bunk, one roll of toilet paper, one spoon, one cup, one toothbrush, and of course, an itchy orange jumpsuit. Joy... After showering, I was thrown into the F block with nearly a dozen other men. But at least it wasn't as crowded as it was before. And the people weren't all that bad. In fact, one of the men said he'd help me find a place to stay after I got out, if I got kicked out of school, that is.
And I did get kicked out of school. Not two weeks after my own mother bailed me out, I was suspended from the university and found myself in thousands of dollars in debt at just age 19. So I moved in with one of my friend's ex's from last semester. She'd apparently turned lesbian over the summer, which came as a great shock to those of us who knew her last year. And watching her and her girlfriend make out whenever they were around... Well, it made me horny as all hell. But it wasn't going to last. After about six weeks, she eventually stopped coming back to the apartment... then she stopped paying her half of the rent... then she stopped paying for the electricity. And this is how it's been. Me, stuck with a dead-end job at a fast food restaurant, making barely enough to pay rent, let alone eat. Once in a while, on nights like tonight, my friends would come over and chill for a while. But this is more than a chill. It's easier to face a cold wind than it is a cold stare.
And as I finished my cigarette, my mind felt a little clearer. I stepped back inside, ready to face the crowd...