Johnny Cash Story (A Publish as its wrote sort of story )

expatinator

It was inspired by a good few Johnny Cash songs. I wonder can you figure out the biggest inspiration. There's a hint in the very beginning

***

Matchek arrive in Ireland at 6:02 pm.

As he stared at all the open space, the buildings strew like alien ships, he wondered at what was the point of it all. Why did they do this? Why did they meet up like this? He scratched the scars on his neck, hidden by the scarf.

His footsteps crunched on the thin patina of ice. Whit gusts from his mouth hung in the limbo between the ground and the darkness of space.

He shook his head and banished his thoughts. You do what you do not want to do for those you love. No matter the damage, no matter the hardship.

This island had such a strange atmosphere to it. Poland was colder, and set you shivering, but this chill froze you from the inside out. Time froze here. A breath that came in did not come out again, and all the blades of grass turned to glass. The scents were sharp, and slim.

He needed to get over this travel sickness. He met a boy. A cute young man who was enamoured at his masculinity. The training that the military had gave him. He prove willing, or at lease amicable, and went along with what Matchek wanted. The spanking. The gagging. The animal passion that only went skin deep.

When they were done, they went their separate ways. The boy wanted to keep in contact. But Matchek did not. He enjoyed his body as he saw fit, but his heart had already been taken.

And his soul had it’s owner too.

***
It was 7:02 at the Donoghouse house and Christmas Eve had come.

Christmas lights warmed the house. Mulled wine turned the air to flavoured wine, ham boiled on the stove, and outside the horizon went on and on. But the night did not break the threshold of this house.

Alex wanted a drink. He wanted to see his friends, party, make love and not be waiting for family members to come. He barely knew them. And they said they’d be here by midnight. What’s the point of him even being here. **** it, he thought as he put on his boots, I’m not a ****ing child.

He collected the money his father gave him and tried to sneak out. He found his father waiting for him at the door.

‘Where are you going?’

‘I want to go for a piss up.’

He made to move past him and his fathers face flushed.

‘Your fifteen.’

‘And your fifty.’

Alex was now taller than his father and he tried to stare him down. This old man before him had veins on his hand and the bones in his face could be seen in the light. Such a frail old man. Once great. Now stuck to playing music a-midst the ashes of his life.

‘I said you cannot go. For christs sake, we’re family-‘

Alex knew he was going too far. But he had to show him that he was also a man.

‘Your no ****in’ family. Lately all you do is play your guitar and waste away. We all know how you wake up screaming. Face it old man, your losing your mind-‘

Faster than Alex would have believed, the old man’s hand snapped out. The slap still had strength. His head snapped back. His father’s eyes widened and his mouth twisted as if about to get sick.

‘Alex…Wait!’

Alex ran out. He was not crying. There was no shame in his belly. And no injury that the drink could not fix.

Even though it soured him just thinking of it.




That's that. I'll probably post the next bit later on tonight

Thoughts? Also, I've posted here before but I had to re-register as I forgot my password and none of the emails reached my address. Who can guess who I am?

expatinator

Hmmm, it's a shame I can't edit the post above. The spelling is atrocious, and, damn, there's some bad writing : O

Oh well, onwards.

Part 2

Matchek walked into the Irish pub. Cigarette smoke filled the air and the candlelight only heightened the shadows.

Every step he took seemed out of sync. It had been like this since he had come back from Afghanistan. Where was the heat, the spice, the music? Why did everybody keep so far away? The old men drinking in the corners appeared like insubstantial mist. The wood and metal fake and grey.

His mind flowed back to Afghanistan. A man of seventeen tasting his first pint. The pang as their eyes met. The feeling of security that they gave each other…His neck itched and he pushed away the memories.

Robertson was at the bar. He downed a whiskey and slammed it down on the countertop. The light blazed from his bald head and turned his cheap suit to oil on a mannequin. Matchek sat beside him.

‘Hows things, Rob.’

He grinned, intoxicated, dirt and sea salt under his fingernails, ‘Getting better and better. Hows your new job?’

‘Most days are just keeping all the paper in check. Other days, they're a real killer.’

‘I know, I know.’

‘How would you?’

Matchek downed the whiskey and felt it burn. It felt good. Beside him, Robertson’s anger hit him like a furnace. He was like that. Got real, real quite when he felt the need for violence. You never knew what he was going to do. Matchek knew he would never hurt any of them, but he was the angry uncle that could smash a glass across a passer-by’s face. He needed to distract him, and he noticed the half measure of whiskey beside Robertson’s elbow.

‘Where’s the kids.’

‘Around. You know how they are’, he shrugged, ‘Some billy big bollox told me off for having them here. Not the place for their sort, or something like that.’

Matchek knew all about that.

They drank in silence. Outside wood clacked on wood, sharp in the chilled air. A large man sat in the corner and his scowl grew at every clack of wood.

‘Why are we here?’

‘You know why we’re here.’

Matchek’s hands grasped as if searching for the words.

‘But why? Can’t we just leave our family be. We’ll bring nothing but trouble…’

‘You know why we’re here.’

And Matchek did. You do what you have to do.

The ‘kids’ walked into the pub, to their whiskey glasses. They each carried a sword that was a stick. They each stepped in unison, and each had a slim scar that split their upper lips. Their skin was dark, their eyes darker, and they both wore black. Puberty had begun to flower on their face.

They downed the whiskey. The girl with her left hand, the boy with his right. They both smiled at Matchek and he smiled back.

‘What the ****, do you think you’re doing?’

The big man from the corner had come before them. He leaned his weight forward and bunched his fists. Matchek could feel Robertson’s anger heighten.

‘They’re drinking.’

‘It’s eighteen only pal. And what sort of parent are you. They’re ****in’ eleven by the looks of it.’

‘Piss off!’

‘**** you-‘

Robertson smashed the glass into the wall. A second later his elbow snapped into the big man’s face. Blood gushed and the broken bottle went for the big man’s jugular.

But a hand closed on Robertson’s fist. And submerged most of the bottle too.

They all looked up, and up, and up. The man towered over all three of them, making the big man balk at the sight. Dirt coated his fingers as if ingrained in their creases. His knuckles were hardened, his muscles massive, and his shoulders the size of a draft horse’s. A dent caved the top left of his head in. Saul, the biggest man among them, smiled down at them, but his Asian eyes were flint.

‘There a problem her?.’

‘There’s damn right, there’s a ****in’ problem’, Robertson ripped his hand out of the big man’s grasp, spit flying from his mouth. He made a move towards the man again but Matchek and Saul held him back. Barely.

They dragged him out. Saul threw some money on the table and slapped the man’s back so hard that he stumbled to the floor. The kids ghosted behind them. And Matchek knew what would have happened to the kids if they had seen it come to blows.

‘Let go of me’.

‘Okay, Robert. Calm down now’, Saul’s voice rolled forth like the earth itself. A weighty intensity to it that could show rivers of gold, or sharpened steel, ‘Let’s not make a scene.’

‘Make a scene. I’ll ****in’ show that prick!’

The kids held onto Robertson’ cuff and the girl spoke, ‘Please don’t.'

As Robertson looked into those eyes, all the violence left his face. Matchek loved those kids. They all did. But Robertson was their closest companion. They could calm him down, and he could put a smile on their face. He feared what would happen to Robert without those kids. He feared what would happen to them all.

‘Good. He has arrived’, Saul said.

The whole group looked towards the parking lot. A white car idled up to them and the light of the bar blazed like hell-fire from its windshield.

The man had come around.

***

expatinator

Author's Note: Damnnnnnnnnn, that's some stilted dialogue in the last part. This part is the penultimate part.

***

Alex’s world turned on it’s axis. His pores leaked ethanol.

Nobody had wanted to come drink with him. He gulped some more of the Guinness. It left a bitter taste. Nobody had wanted to come with him. They had laughed and said they were with their family. They called him ‘a mad fecker’ or a ‘legend’, but they still told him no.

So, he was forced to drink in this children’s park. Where the reds turned to blood beneath that great big purple sky. The sides of the world became a cyclone. Alex at the centre. And the rusted hinges of his mind screaming.

Is this what he came out for? Feeling sick. Feeling low. Feeling for his family.

He remembered the look on his father’s face and all the poison came up from his stomach. It shined like mercury in the night. He needed to go home. To rest. To eat…to apologize.

***

expatinator

Author's note: There's two more very small parts:P I'd love to hear your opinions on it.

***
The group walked towards the man in the car. He opened the door. Smoke and light burst out from the vehicle.

Matchek shook his hand, and it was oh so warm.

As they all bent down to look within the car, the air turned dusty and filled with molecules. The man within the cab had eyes that burned like jade flame, and his hair had filaments of grey that shone like stars in the great-dark sky.

‘Get in the car. We’re late’.

They got in the car. Matchek in the front, Robertson between the kids, and Sual taking up the whole two seats in the very back of the car. The heat coursed down their faces as they spread through the chill land. Phantom light showed the land from horizon to horizon, and the edges of the sky touched the ends of the earth.

Usually, they would drink. Laugh. Egg each other on in the throes of passion. But now…they headed on to their destination in a silence that was deeper than a still-chilled pond.

The road narrowed. Trees blocked out the light and trailed their fingers on the roof. They passed beneath a steeple that blocked out the ambient light of this world. With a whoomph of sound, they burst from beneath the trees and the world exploded before them. Stars so high in the sky that they made you dizzy just to look up, and, beneath that great dome, a house lay on the hill. They parked outside its halo of light.

They all got out. The man from within the car went to the booth and they all stayed silent as he took out a bag.

‘Gifts for the little children’, he handed them to the kids.

‘Gifts for his teenage son’, he said to Saul.

‘For the wife’, he handed it to Robertson and Robertson winced in sympathy.

‘And, finally, for the loving father’, their leader handed Matchek a syringe filled with clear liquid, ‘Lets get this done.’

The group’s shadows clawed over the houses walls. The machetes blazed in the kid’s hands, and Saul’s hammer had filaments of rust that burned like the sun. Robertson’s knife had a curve that would be used to gut fish.

They walked into the light, and it gave way before them.
***

expatinator

***

'Dad where are you!?'

The door got in his way and he kicked it. It crashed open and swung in the wind.

'Dad, I'm sorry! I shouldn't have done that...'

Tears streamed down Alex's face. Shadows seemed to watch him, lurid marks scurried along the walls and pale fingers reached towards him from the corners.

'Please...please, just', he fell into the couch and it felt wet to the touch. And warm, 'Forgive me.'

With those last words, as a prayer from the damned, he fell into darkness.

And the darkness reached for him.

***

The group circled him.

They all had new lines on their face and shadows under their eyes. Their tools were red, their hands were slick with sweat.

Not even their leader had felt satisfaction at what they had done. They had wanted resolution, an end, an supsurge of emotion that would leave their legs weak. But they had just gone through the motions. The taunts had no venom. The pain they inflicted no malice. And the screams, the many, many screams, fell on their dear ears.

Matchek was the first to talk. It took effort to get the words out of the ice inside him, 'Do we kill him?'

'That's what we came for', their leader said and Saul's hand clenched on his hammer, 'But...'

The kids stepped closer. Scimitars at the ready. Robertson had dropped the blade as soon as he was done with the wife. He kept wiping his hands, even though they had no dirt upon them.

Their leader spoke, and it stopped everybody in their tracks.

'No, we let him live'.

'...But, what if he figures out what went down here tonight.'

'Then I guess we'll find out whether he's his father's son.'

The matter was decided and Matchek just wanted to go back to bed. He felt as if his thoughts were distant. As if the focus point had shifted, displacing him to become a secondary character.

All of them stepped outside the house to bleed into the shadows.

A/N: End of part one.

So, what do ye think? Little bit melodramatic, imo.