Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 09:59:53 MDT From: Robyn Meta Herrington Subject: SUB:CONTEST: A taste of teen hell A Taste of Teen Hell The young man stood in front of the full-length mirror and admired his handsome reflection. "No chick's gonna pass me over this year. You just wait and see, Joey-Bob. Nobody likes a loser." Joey-Bob, or, JB as he was known to his redneck family in Edmonton, Alberta, had worked diligently and painstakingly to carve a new image from melting soapstone. JB's face, once a plethora of oozing, pus-filed acne, acne that gotten so severe at one point that the desperate seventeen-year-old had used a large chunk of his school funds to see a dermatologist. You see, JB's family didn't believe in that "new-fangled, expensive doctorin'" that should have been every citizen's right in the 1950's, particularly in a progressive city like Edmonton. But the Hendersons were adverse to methods of modern medicine, spent nothing on dentists and optometrists, and as a result, JB's sister was severely myopic and couldn't see the blackboard at school, and both she and JB had never been inoculated with any serum that could prevent serious illnesses. The Henderson family were not exactly backwoods hillbillies, but they were stuck in a kind of time warp that they believed shielded them against anything "impure" that might come from "them wrong places where we good Christians fear to tread". Tonight was Halloween, a tradition that Harold Henderson loathed. "Bunch a damned kids, soapin' up your windows if you don't give 'em candy and other such crap. JB, you ain't plannin' on going out on this Devil's night, are you?' JB, his clear, vibrant blue eyes darkening somewhat, said, jokingly, "hey Dad, don't get so hung up on stuff like that. Devil's night was *last* night, not October 31st. i just need to get away from the house tonight and visit a few friends. Is that evil or something?" Just then Sarah Henderson sauntered in, her long skirt billowing around an ample body. She was stirring up batter for a chocolate cake and had raw chocolate mix smeared all over her face. "Sarah, you be keepin' away from that sugary stuff. You know it puts weight on". His dad, JB thought bitterly, could be unnecessarily cruel. "Aw, she ain't doin' anything wrong, just tastin' some of the desert before it's made, is all". The boy walked by his parents, now more convinced than ever that this entire family was living on the back lot of some Beverly Hills mansion and talking about the "cement pond". The year was 1966, and the world was right into the chaos and confusion of the world, with its peace movements, rock music, go-go dancing and the sexual revolution. But you couldn't explain any of that to either Mr. or Mrs. Henderson. They preferred the past, and refused to acknowledge that their golden boy might succumb to drugs and "wild women". JB wasn't exactly sure when he extricated himself from the mausoleum that he lived in and found himself in the midst of a wild Halloween party several blocks away. Jenny Peters, JB's love interest for many months, smiled curtly at her newest party guest and remarked, "Looks like your face is clearing up. Just don't scrape or scratch the pimples. Then you'll be left with these ugly little craters in your face". JB really didn't want to talk about zits, so he casually walked over to a table where a bunch of teens were playing with a Ouigie board. JB regognized it as something his parents once told him wold send him straight to hell. "Wanna play?" Rita, raven-haired seductrice as she was, smiled wryly at JB and winked. "You look like you need to talk to someone, maybe start up a conversation with the board. Don't worry. It won't hurt you. It's just a little dip into the world of the occult. Join me?" The next few hours were nothing but a blur to JB. He had been steadily drinking heavily-laced punch and was bobbing his head moronically on his hand. He stood up, wavered and then fell with a heavy thud onto the floor. Next, the boy was aware of being pulled toward the front door, completely against his will. "Wait! Please, where are you takin' me? What happened in there with the devil's board? Let me go, damn you!! I gotta get home to my family!" Rita smirked as she roughly clamped JB into the back seat of her land rover. "Get your arm out of the way so I can strap you in. You don't want to get killed if this machine rolls into a ditch. I am drunk as a skunk you realize". "What I realize is that you and that board did something to me tonight. Tell me what happened?" Rita's eyes snapped excitedly. "Okay, you want it, you got it. When you were asking the "devils' board" as you call it, what you should do to be free of your parents' bondage, well, it helped you find the answer". JB felt his insides melting into the bottoms of his shoes. It was slowly coming back to him. While intoxicated, he had wished that he could be free of their backwoods lifestyle forever. Apparently, the board had co-operated. "Hey, I didn't want anything to happen to them! Dammit they're my folks! I just wanted to be able to move out and live my own life, go to school and be somebody! You didn't hurt them, did you?" Rita smiled that neverending cheshire grin. "No, JB, *we* didn't hurt them. You did. You set things up so that it would look as if an accidental fire engulfed your home while you were with us Remember now?" "But it was a game! A stupid, sick little game that kiddies play!!" "Well, JB, you weren't with ordinary kids tonight. They are my underlings. They do my bidding". "T-then....you, uh, then you're..." "You now know, and will know for all eternity, the devil incarnate. You know that old cliche: Don't wish for something in case it comes through?" JB nodded, feeling sick and dizzy. As the devil's black VMW sped off to the great desert to recruit more raw talent, JB mumbled to himself, "What I wouldn't do to be sitting with Dad around the cement pond, talkin' about fishin' and summer sunsets. God, why is it that we don't know we've had everything until we lose it all?" end -- -------+++++++-------+++++++ +++++++-------+++++++------- Robyn Herrington Operations Manager, Microforms Services University of Calgary, MacKimmie Library Ph: (403)220-6903 http://www.ucalgary.ca/~rmherrin rmherrin@acs.ucalgary.ca -------+++++++-------+++++++--------------+++++++-------+++++++-------