Reality Sucks
House book
Reality Sucks!
© 2015 by C. D. Moulton
all rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder/publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to actual characters or events is purely coincidental.
Every once in awhile, life can get to be a pain in the ass.
Contents
That Did It!
The Journey Begins
A Little Reality
Back to Reality
About the author
CD Moulton has traveled extensively over much of the world both in the music business, where he was a rock guitarist, songwriter and arranger and in an import/export business. He has been everything from a bar owner to auto salvage (junkyard) manager, longshoreman to high steel worker, orchid grower to landscaper, tropical fish farmer to commercial fisherman. He started writing books in 1983 and has published more than 250 books as of January 1, 2015. His most popular books to date are about research with orchids, though much of his science fiction and fantasy work has proven popular. He wrote the CD Grimes, PI series and the Det. Nick Storie series, Clint Faraday series and many other works.
He now resides in Puerto Armuelles, Panamá, where he writes books, plays music with friends, does research with orchids and medicinal plants – and pursues his favorite ways to spend his time: beach bum and roaming the mountain jungles doing his botanical research. He has lately become involved in fighting for the rights of the indigenous people, who are among his closest friends, and in fighting the extreme corruption in the courts and police in Panamá.
He offers the free e-book, Fading Paradise, that explains what he has been through because of the corruption.
That Did It!
Harrison Horatius Twilterwaller (What a name to be stuck with!) stood on the jetty, looking over Lake Phonihatchoo, his yacht moored across the wharf, thirty feet away, as the magnificent sunset blazed across the sky.
Okay. So his yacht was a twelve foot Bassman with an old five horse Mercury outboard engine that would start a third of the time and the wharf was an old rickety wooden dock and the jetty a sandy spur. The sunset was also rather blah. There may be a slight touch of pink somewhere up there.
He sighed and took a sip of the Chateau Rothschild 1964 ... he swigged down a gulp of Budweiser.
His knockout ex-supermodel wife, came to the door of the hide-away cabin on the low grassy knoll by the lake in her revealing low-cut dining gown to smile brightly at him, love fairly radiating from her deep violet eyes, and say, in her sexiest voice, “I think the staff has outdone themselves with the cuisine tonight! Dinner is served, if you please?”
Madge (nee Pitts, which she was definitely from) came to the door of the old frame house to screech at him that she wasn’t calling him to supper anymore. Brenda (his lovely ... get over it ... fat, sloppy, vicious, drudge daughter) had burned the pizza, but it was all they had, so eat it or cornflakes ... again ... and shut the hell up before you start your bitching!
The sun was below the horizon. A cloud of mosquitos descended.
“Get your ass in here right now or I’ll lock you out!” Madge screeched.
He went to the door and started inside. The place looked like it had been hit by a tornado just after the earthquake and mudslide. His two hundred thirty pound daughter in the dirty pink dress was sitting at the table with a large pizza that smelled like burning hair and garlic in front of her.
“You want I should slice it?” Brenda asked. He shook his head.
“Well! Then what? What should I do? Tear off a piece for you? What do you want me to do with it?”
That did it! He finally snapped!
“Shove it up your lazy fat ass!” He felt in his pocket, turned, walked down to the dock, got in the boat, cranked it (for the first time in months, it started with the first yank), and headed out into the lake.
He had his wallet. He didn’t want to see anything else from that place again. He had the secret bank account he’d managed to save a little at the time, originally to surprise his wife with actually living their dream life. Then she had the daughter (he was never sure she was actually his. The doctor had already told him he had a very low sperm count and he had almost zero chance of becoming a father) and started getting fat. Ass first, then boobs, then fill in the middle. She was what he could only describe as “grotesque.”
He had married her when things were still pretty good, if not perfect. The economy was okay, he had a good job, he was educated a year past high school, he’d inherited the little farm on the lake. It was picturesque, if not profitable
Then the bottom fell out. He still had dreams for when things got better. He started the bank account to be able to surprise Madge with a dream castle, fine car, designer clothes, jewels ... all of it.
She was never a real beauty, but had a very nice body. She tended to be lazy, but he would make that meaningless when he could hire a maid for her.
Then she ended up pregnant. He’d known since he was sixteen that he didn’t have a very good chance of ever becoming a father. His father had been a little weak in the sperm area, but it was still fifty-fifty. He definitely was the spitting image of his father. He was tested. Not likely. Almost a miracle if he ever fathered a child.
Well, she got fat and even lazier. She raised the girl to be a fat lazy slob, deliberately, it seemed at times. Like mother, like daughter.
He was going to demand a DNA test – if he ever saw them again. He had an idea about that, too!
He could hear her screech over the engine noise. “Harry! What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get your ass the hell back here right this minute or you’ll regret it! I promise you!”
“What I regret is not doing this ten years ago. Make that twenty four years ago!” he mumbled.
He had his ATM card and more than thirty thousand dollars – and a new life, as of that moment!
He ran out of gas about half a mile before Shoreville, but didn’t give a damn. He paddled to the little dock by the Lakeside Restaurant and Lounge, tied up, and went to have a dream meal and to book a room for the night in the hotel next door.
He had a beer on the lakeside deck bar and was talking to a tourist who was wailing that he had come here because of the ads and that there was nothing to do! This was a nothing spot on a nothing lake with a lot of nothing to offer!
Just before he went over the edge and smacked the obsequious asshole in the puss, Sam, the bartender, called to say the phone was for him. His wife. “She said to tell you to turn on your goddamned motherfucking phone. Not quite that elegantly.”
He took his cellular out of his pocket, saw that it was discharged, turned, and threw it as far out into the lake as he could. He had a pretty good arm. Probably a hundred fifty feet. It hit flat and skipped three times.
“Gimme a shot of Tequila. And another beer.”
Sam did a palm slap and poured him a shot of José Cuervo Especial. “On me. How can you live with someone like that?”
“I can’t. Not anymore.”
The Journey Begins
Harry packed the clothes and stuff he’d just bought into the suitcase, looked into the full-length mirror, and smiled.
He was really not all that bad looking. He’d always taken care of himself, even when he was the only one in the house who did, and was, if no Mr. Universe, fairly well built. His hair was a mite long, but was still a rich mahogany brown. His teeth had always been good. His 42 year old skin was unwrinkled and smooth. It was an even light
tan. His deep brown eyes didn’t yet need glasses.
All in all, not bad! He actually looked a little elegant, as he’d always dreamed.
He checked out of the hotel, after getting five hundred from the ATM there, and went to the bus station. The girl at the counter asked where he wanted to go. He asked where the next bus leaving went. She said Atlanta, Georgia, but it made stops in several cities. It had plenty of room. An hour and ten minutes.
He got a ticket. He said he might decide to stay somewhere before Atlanta, but that was yet to be seen.
It was three days to Atlanta, which was a long time on the bus, but he really did enjoy it. He’d never seen much of the country and they went through all kinds of places. He talked with the people in the closer seats at times.
The bus stopped for an hour in all the major cities, so he walked around a bit and got to know a little of what a city was like.
Face it! Shoreville was a little hick town compared to anything like he was seeing now! He’d seen pictures of all of it on the news or in magazines, but they didn’t match the reality.
Well, reality, so far as he was concerned, was a load of shit. His life ... the dream part ... was great. Reality sucked.
He saw a ring in a store window. It was platinum with a diamond set in onyx. Six hundred bucks. He bought it.
Atlanta was too much. It was all so impersonal and dirty. And noisy. Everyone seemed suspicious of everyone else. Too many police. The nightly news, while he was preparing to go to a