Random Character Sketches by Ebonlight
These are some random character sketches I wrote while
thinking up plot-lines for a creative writing class. There are more (longer
ones), which I’ll add here as soon as I get them off the school database; which
I can’t access from my dorm due to… issues… with my PC. (This is the
same set of characters found in one of the earlier scene’s I posted, in case
you happen to care).
Char #3 Happy
For thirty-five years I’ve been sweeping the
same stretch of worn grey-white concrete, cleaning the same white porcelain
toilets, and emptying the same wood-sheathed black plastic garbage cans. I
never really grow bored of it- this place is Home, and I like to see it well
cared for. But after three and a half decades you really start to appreciate
the small things. You see someone pick up a piece of stray litter and toss it
into a waste bin, and it cheers you up; its one less that you’ll have to get
before the days done. Sure, finding the
So, yeah, I try to forget the big things,
high or low. I forget about winning the lottery, and I forget about falling in
love again, and I forget that my baby girl doesn’t return my phone calls
anymore. I get by on that little bit of happiness in seeing a pair of young
lovers holding hands as they walk onto the subway. Or the
tiny bit of joy in finally seeing the guy in the wrinkled grey suit with the
coffee stain, actually catching the Silver Line (Express) to South Herald one
morning. It’s only in the small, unimportant, things where I can turn
for smiles, now.
Char #3 Frustrated
Working here gets frustrating, sometimes. I
love this place, and the people who walk through are like a big extended-family
to me. But sometimes, there are people whose lack of care for this place annoys
me. I mean, I work thirteen hour days here, and I try to make sure that people
can really feel this is a safe and sanitary kind of place. Most people seem to
feel the same way- I see them tossing trash in the garbage cans and cleaning up
their messes.
In fact, I don’t even usually mind the
occasional litterer too much- I mean, no one’s
perfect, and everyone has days when they’re just too stressed, worried, or busy
to think about where they toss their coffee cup.
Other times, though, I get really worked up
about it. Maybe it’s just because I get out of the wrong side of the bed, but
it just gets to me more on some days. It seems silly, but it can really make me
mad. It’s like yesterday, when I saw some guy in an Armani suit tossing his
burnt out cigarette on the floor and softball-pitching his sandwich wrapper
into a nearby corner, when there was an ashtray and trashcan not three steps
from him I felt the anger boiling up, but it’s not like there was anything I
could really do about it. I couldn’t yell at him, or make him clean up his
mess- I’d be unemployed before the day was out. So, instead I cleaned up his
garbage, and swallowed my anger up quick as I could, while keeping my head
down.
Char 3 Sad:
I try to keep my head down, and mind my own business. After all, I’m just the janitor. People don’t
even see me as I go past sometimes, sweeping away their scattered newspapers and food wrappers, or
unloading bags full of their trash into the
dumpster. People don’t like to see me, I guess: a fifty-three year old
life-long janitor. So, for the most part, I try to stay invisible, and get the
job done, and done well.
Sometimes, though, I can’t help but see things. There’s that kid again, laying
across the subway bench in the farthest corner from the stairs. He hasn’t moved
for a half hour-
maybe he’s asleep… or unconscious. I bet he’s just lying there, though…
staring. He’s in here at least twice a
week, from 8 to 3. God, he can’t be over fourteen, and he looks
closer to twelve. I wonder
if he’ll even pass the grade next year, or if he’ll be a drop-out like me. At least he has his book-bag today, a filthy
brown and many- times stitched thing. He just sits there, rocking back and forth. Sometimes,
he’ll buy a cola from the machine, or grab a bite from the “Food 2 Go” stand. But usually he just sits, staring at the people passing by. It’s
even worse on days like
today. A beautiful Tuesday, and all I can see are the bright
purple bruises on his face, the split lip, and the
swelling angry red patch about his eye. I
wonder who does it to him, sometimes, when he comes in bloodied and covered in
bruises. His father? The
neighborhood kids? Some family friend or neighbor?
God. Someone should do something,
it eats me up inside every time I see him just
lying there. Actually, I know I should do something. But what can I, the
invisible Janitor, do? I ask myself that every
time I pass his bench, even as I keep my head down, and continue sweeping past.
Char #2 (Audrey): Happy-
Every Saturday night in December my Youth
Choir goes down to the old Nursing Home on
The absolute best part of it,
though, is when we actually start singing the Carols. And last Saturday was
even better then normal: I had actually gotten a solo part in “Silent
Night.” I had to audition for it and everything. I couldn’t believe it when I
beat out Meg for Saturday’s solo. I was so excited! I’ve been trying for this
solo since I started doing this (that priss, Meg, had
beaten me out on every single one of my other try-outs). It was so
awesome to finally trounce her out of a part.
Anyway, the solo
when marvelously. I could tell everyone in the audience was “wowed.” I
could tell even Meg was surprised, not that she congratulated me (like I always
did when she gave a solo). But even her bad manners can’t bring me down,
today- I’m practically walking on air.
Char #2 (Audrey) Depressed-
God, I wish I hadn’t gotten up
today. I should’ve known it when I first rolled out of bed thirty minutes late, I slept through my alarm- something I never do!
I should’ve just gone back to bed, or maybe stayed wrapped up in my comforter
and read a book or watched TV all day, with a cup of hot tea or something.
Actually, the day started out okay.
It was Wednesday, so I only have to work a half-shift in the morning. Work goes
off okay, and afterwards I picked up a few things at the grocery shop (I’m
trying to learn to cook, and needed a few spices and fresh vegetables). Anyway,
then I get back to my apartment, and before I head up I check my mailbox, one
of two dozen identical little metal boxes in the front lobby of my building.
Anyway, I get my mail and I see
there’s a little envelope from
I tear one of them open. I did it so
fast that I’m surprised I didn’t rip the letter in half by accident. It was
I mean, I guess there’s still my
admission letters to my safeties:
Char # 1 (Blake)- Sad-
Sitting on that god-damn stool day after day, the seconds of your life
just ticking off into screaming oblivion, and eventually funny thoughts start
crossing your mind. Or maybe that’s just how I keep sane. My little way to keep
myself from going up to all those bums and businessman, socialites and
scholars, who insist on tottering past my little booth day in and day out, and
personally slugging all of them one. That’s right, each and every one
those busy-bodies and wasted nothings, right down in a row; like hitting ducks
down in one of those carnival shooting game: Rat-a-tat-tat,
and they all fall down.
But you can’t do that, lawsuits,
assault charges, and so forth. So, instead, you sit listless and dreary, dully
staring out at nothing from your little window, until some little thing comes up
and catches the corner of your eye.
Like a few minutes ago. Some little kid, a bratty shitter,
was bitching about not having some latest “action figure,’ or toy, or whatever-
it was hard to tell exactly what he was screaming about in-between the whines.
Anyway, he was wailing about this to his mommy, she was one of those
‘power-moms” you see waltzing around from time to time with purses the size of
suitcases (you know the type). So she reaches into her bag, which was probably
the size of my closet, and pulls out some little stuffed bear she happened to
have with her.
Big mistake.
That spoiled little toddler just flung the bear down onto the tracks
and started crying harder about how he didn’t want just any doll. He
went on wailing and crying even as his mom (her face now red as she glanced at
passer-bys to the scene) tried to shush him, and lead him up the stairs and out
of the station.
Anyway, back to the point. That bear caught my eye, with its tired
black bead eyes, happy thread-bare smile, and the worn loving look to its make.
It wasn’t one of those super-plush mass-produced bears you see in department
stores. In fact, the damn thing was probably hand-made. It had been so clearly
used and loved that I could practically feel it from across the station. Maybe
it was that “power-mom’s” favorite toy when she was still a little girl,
probably the one she had carried everywhere and couldn’t be without. The one
she had always wanted to pass onto her child, so he could love it as much as
she had. And now- Fuck, that damn little kid had just tossed it onto the
tracks.
I would’ve killed to have had a
bear like that when I was a kid, or anything with that kind of love in
it. Hell, I would’ve killed for it now. And here, this little six-year old, who
in six-months will probably be hocked up on enough Ritalin to ensure he never
makes a whiny noise again, had just tossed it onto the fucking subway tracks.
I started out of my stool. I don’t know why. What was I going to do?
Leap onto the 10,000 volt tracks to save this perfect little bear, now
thoughtlessly thrown away like so much garbage? Or maybe I was going to leap
down and die with that little bear.
Anyway, I was too late. The scream of oncoming train
brakes and the funeral dirge of the intercom, announcing, “Warning!
Oncoming Train,” stopped me short, still only half-out of my stool. I could see
in my minds eye that little bear, beautiful and unique, crumpled and mangled by
a ten ton steel subway car, filled with a hundred people with identical blank
stares painted on their faces. And that one perfect little bear, alone and
dying; forgotten by anyone but me.
I felt the hint of dampness filling my eyes. God
damn. I hadn’t cried in almost two-decades, and I was about to get weepy
over some stupid little bear. I tried to hold it in, repress it along with
everything else. The tears came anyway.
I could feel eyes on me. Audrey was looking over from the food-stand
across from my booth. I could tell that she had seen the trickling tears slowly
creeping down my cheeks, and wrapping their salty-sweetness along my lips. Her
over-bloated and fat lips pursed like the mouth of some kind of stupid fish,
and I could tell she was going to treat me with some little axiom of false
sympathy. I quickly ducked my head down, scrubbed my face with my grimy and
wrinkled shirt, and pretended I had gotten dust in my eyes. Fuck her, with her
“I-gotcha-now” fake concern.
I took another bite from my half-empty bag of “Lay’s Sour-Cream and
Vinegar” potato chips, which I always keep underneath the desk to munch on when
I work. My eyes turned back outwards, blankly watching nothing, even as a
thousand similarly vacant faces passed me by. It was
Char #1 Enjoyment/Pleasure/Quasi-Happiness:
There’s a department store that’s
open late-night on the way back home from work. Actually, it’s a few blocks off
the beaten-trail, but I’m in no hurry to get to my apartment and find my daily
“welcome home” of dead rats in the traps, roaches crawling amidst the decaying
carry-out Chinese in my refrigerator, and over-due bills in a scattered pile on
top of the cardboard box that doubles as my desk. So, instead, almost every
night I find myself browsing mindlessly underneath the artificial lights of
this store, all alone save for a few bums and half-drunken teens and college
students who are too trashed to know where they were, much less how or why the
hell they’re here. Anyway, this Department Store is one of those no-brand crap
fests, a poor man’s K-Mart, Safeway, and Sears rolled into one chaotic mess.
You can get your microwave dinners in the same aisle as discount “diamond”
jewelry. Hell, they probably sell cigarettes and porn right along-side their
kiddy toys.
Really the best part about this
shit-hole is the low security. One lousy camera in front of the main entrance,
and some fat and sleepy security guy who probably wouldn’t get out of his
over-loaded wooden chair for anything less then a beer and a sandwich (I like
to call him “Gus,” because it reminds me of bus, but that’s another story. I
think his real name is “Willard” or some other trite British
wannabe-intellectual title that seems entirely inappropriate to be worn on such
a fat, stupid, animal). Add to that the easy to tear-off security devices hastily
taped onto merchandise, and the under-staffed and over-worked night shift and
you’ve got yourself a shop lifters paradise. Hell, I bring in my backpack, and
I can come out with a few hundred bucks worth of shit, easy. And I don’t go for
the big or expensive crap either. Just stuff I need, or that catches my eye for
some reason. I might maybe grab some toilet paper here, or a bag of chips. Or
maybe I’d snatch some over-stocked piece of shit Bestseller that caters to
disillusioned, too-stupid-for-college, stay-at-home mothers; just so I could
tear out each and every page and flush it like the shit that it is.
Sometimes, I even buy a few parcels of cheap crap just to keep them
guessing- though usually my backpack is laden with a few filched pieces even when
I decide to make a purchase. Anyway, I try to be subtle and small about my
thefts. Never take too much or too fast. If you do, they’ll eventually bother
to kick security up a notch and bust your ass.
Not that I’m some klepto-nut job. Hell, its not some
bat-shit crazy voice in my head that tells me “Steal This, Stupid.” No, this is
a conscious decision. I guess, its my little way of
paying back for eight years of minimum wage in gutter jobs. Jobs that are
really only fit for big unshaven guys who only own one pair of urine and liquor
stained clothes. Jobs for guys like “Gus.”
So this is my “Fuck you,” right back
at all the employers who said I just wasn’t fit for their god-damn “ten-dollars an hour plus benefits” jobs. This is what I do for fun on my time off, or
when I have a few spare hours on the weekend. It’s my hobby, my recreation… and
my salvation.
Risky? Probably.
Stupid? Undoubtedly.
But there’s no feeling of ecstasy
quite like getting back at all those shitters who
turned you down for good jobs, or kicked you out of your home because you were
one god-damn week late on your rent. You don’t steal because you have to, it’s
because you want to. It’s absolute freedom, no price or strings attached. It’s
what passes for happiness around here.
You can say to yourself: “I don’t fucking need
you either! I don’t need your job, or your apartment- so go fuck off!” And, for
a little while at least, you can finally smile.
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