My Best Friend

[GarconBlanc]

Well that is the current title anyway. Enjoy my 2 hour first chapter of my coming epic, taking into account it was 5 AM when I started this and 7:15 AM when I finished. Enjoy, and critique:

Chapter 1 – The boy that lived (teehee)

Samuel Crit didn’t have an easy life, by anyone’s standards. At the time we peruse his story, he has very little money. His parents weren’t dead, no, but worse; they had ditched him. In a dumpster. He was born on the prom night of 1990, Merrigold High school. He didn’t know them, and he never wanted to. He was brought up by the homo sexual garbage men who had found him, crying in a garbage bag, a garbage bag which exactly resembled the thousands they had encountered in their careers together. Their names were Marcus Crit and (changing his name after their marriage) Lance Samuel Crit. They adopted the boy after no one at the high school admitted paternity, though there were many shifty eyes when prom night was mentioned, all of them belonging to boys who must’ve had something very interesting in their wallets.

Whilst Lance and Marcus weren’t bad parents – at the very least better parents than his biological parents -, they were a little camp for Sam’s tastes. The couple insisted on Samuel flourishing in his feminine side as they did, but he was one for the Diehard flicks where all men were shining beacons of machismo. At the age of 8 he was emasculating them with his ideas of what should be a man, they preached hyperbole and ignorance, and he in turn, shunned them. At the age of 14, Samuel ran away from home. Whilst his lodgings were indeed a humble location, they were umpteen times better than his new home in the alleyway which separated the diner “The Old Timers” from the garages of “Steve’s Repairs”. A couple times Sandy, the 30 something waitress, wife of the owner of The Old Timers threw him some leftovers. A couple times she even threw him a book or two, such tales as “Life of Pi” his all-time favourite, or that
one Stephen King novel, ‘Salem’s something.

Sam was not a stupid boy; in fact he was remarkably sensible for a boy of his age, on top of being quite the intellectual. As such, he realised the best course of action - he realised this 6 months after the running away - was that he should return home to (as he so eloquently puts) “The Gays”. Still 14 and thinking he’d seen it all, either on TV or a block from his own room. Rape, thievery, vulgarities, violence, cruelty and once he even walked in on his guardians “doing it” as he blabbed the next day at his school to anyone who’d listen - but Sam (being the gangster nerd that he is) didn’t have much credibility, or many friends – before being reported to the principle for using a few too many details. But when Sam returned home, he was still shocked to see his home aflame. He dialled 999 and 5 minutes later (he couldn’t help thinking “record time”) they arrived. They told him that it was all an accident, that Lance decided to whip up some popcorn a la the microwave, but after some unfortunate series of unlikely events, the house went boom. Sam knew a liar when he saw one – he was a great reader of both pages and people – and later heard the firemen discussing the possible accelerants when they thought he couldn’t hear them. Sam left, feeling dejected and belittled.

It is now that we join Sam on his journey, August 4th 2004 Trashton (very aptly named), England. Sam was not a very religious boy, but he was still a boy, matured and smart as he was, he couldn’t help but break down and cry in the dirty little alleyway and pray that Jesus, Allah, Vishnu, Buddha, whichever deity existed in the minds of their followers and possibly beyond, that he would survive. Not just survive, but prosper, in this unkempt little alleyway, and move on to bigger and better things. But Sam realised a lost cause was indeed a lost cause before fully conceived. Sam was very good at Maths, among other subjects, and he knew the chances that he wouldn’t end up either dead, or hoping he were, were slimmer than Eminem, his second favourite artist, the first being Lupe Fiasco. Still, being merely an adolescent, he couldn’t help but hope. He couldn’t help but think that there was a chance that some billionaire would drop his wallet on his jaunt through Trashton. Alas, Samuel was a predator at heart. He wouldn’t wait for life to be handed to him on a platinum platter; rather he would adapt, he would learn the ways of the street and, when ready, he would seek out this platter and take it. Samuel realised action was necessary. Samuel realised, action was imminent.

Thusly, Samuel set out from his alley at daybreak. After witnessing the many of the cities sleaze balls go to work on the smaller stores – always the stores that had little to no security – Samuel believed he’d be able to successfully take what is rightfully some merchants. He decided pawn shops would be the easiest, taking into account that they tend to have frail old men behind the counter. The fateful morning of August 5th, Samuel picked the pawn shop not 4 blocks away from his alley: Wan Lo’s Pawn Shop. It belonged to the 80 something Chinese man who spoke nothing but 2 languages, one of them the only language necessary to survive in Trashton, scumbag.

Upon entering the store, a gust of wind knocked an antique black cat emblazoned china. Ominous, if nothing else, thought Samuel.

Wan Lo had known trouble had walked through the door. No way in hell would a raggedy little punk like the terrible example of hygiene that stood before him would have enough scratch to buy any of his worldly goods. But he could taste the desperation in the air; this meant one of 2 things: either the punk was looking for the other Wan Lo who gave a crap about the scum of the streets, or he was going to attempt to rob him. And something about this kid told him he wasn’t stupid enough to believe the latter. He placed his hands nonchalantly into his back pockets - like he sees the hoodies in the street doing when they’re fishing for cash that they won’t find - and lets the fingers of his right hand curl over the gun in pocket located over his right buttock. It was a revolver; he decided to keep it because of its supposed ease of use. Places of origin: Belgium & Russia. The Nagant M1895, seven cartridges. He had plenty of bullets in plain sight; this was meant to be a warning since they weren’t blocked by a glass barrier like the rest of his wares. He received it from the shadiest man ever to grace his threshold with his shady feet. The man wanted no more than £10 for it, but Wan Lo dismissed the man as an idiot. That was mistake number 2, mistake number 1 being allowing the hustler entrance. It felt nice in his hand, but each time his fingers brushed over the trigger, he thought he could hear and see the tears of his mother and sighs – of relief – of his father in what looked like a hospital ward. Thought he could taste his favourite dish, Xiao Long Bao, smell the rubber of his new school shoes, feel the lips of his late wife. These feelings were very unsettling to him.

Samuel had seen the man, and had to work to stifle a laugh. He was even more fragile looking up close. He seemed to be caressing his right buttock; this didn’t entirely matter to Samuel, after having two homosexual parents, you’re open to a lot more things whether you know it or not. Samuel moved closer to the octogenarian, and extended his left hand, supposedly in greeting. The man pondered for a moment, then extended his left hand and took Samuels. Samuels grasp tightened before yanking all 110 pounds of this man halfway over the counter, then pulling him off and throwing him to the floor of his shop. The man, miraculously, lived, and wasn’t all too surprised at Samuels attack on his personage. The old man got up at a speed that was quite extraordinary for a body like his, probably adrenaline driven. He then extended his right arm, didn’t bother to aim, and fired.

Samuel had a lot of questions. One being, what the HELL was a geezer like this bag of bones was doing with a revolver? Another consisting of, was he alive? And the third being, why did that revolver intrigue him so? The answer to the first would be security reasons; the second would be answered with a simple yes. The answer to the third, Samuel would learn eventually. At the moment thought, he found there were more pressing matters at hand. One was exiting the store, hastily. Before that; check for bullet holes. After affirming his well-being, check on the old man. It was during this half-hearted process that Samuel saw the tiny oddly jagged holes that littered the man’s chest. At a whim he looked down and realized that whilst trying to kill him, the merchant had slipped. After his super quick recovery, the old man had misjudged his footing and slipped on a fragment of the aforementioned plate, the black cat emblazoned plate which had before been whole, had saved Samuel by offering the old man one of its 9 fragments as level ground from which to shoot from.

After slipping, Wan Lo fired, more of a knee-jerk reaction than his own desire to end Samuel. The bullet ricocheted of some antique and broke into many pieces, all of them finding their way back to sender; after a little more bouncing & shattering.

Samuel regained composure, he darted in the direction of the door, but something inside his head objected, and Samuel didn’t want to displease his own psyche. He turned around and instantly saw the object of his desire: the revolver. Upon grabbing it, he couldn’t help but take a few moments marvel at its beauty. It felt good in his hand. It felt right. He proceeded by pocketing the bullets and taking some cheddar from the cash register. He would later count it up to a total of £89 pounds. Samuel sprinted from the doorway and was back at his alleyway before he could even hear the sirens. Somehow Samuel had succeeded, somehow Samuel had lived and somehow Samuel felt much, much more...purposeful than before. He felt that in acquiring the pistol, he had assailed the first step of destiny’s stairway. He was in turn one step closer to fulfilling his life, which he knew that was destined for greatness. As long as 2 conditions were met: He lived, and more importantly: he had the gun.

[GarconBlanc]

Ignore the typos, as many as there are. I've not edited it and don't plan to further edit this post. But please critique.