A Life To Waste Read online

  Andrew Lennon

  A Life To Waste

  ANDREW LENNON

  Copyright © 2013 Andrew Lennon

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1492346180

  ISBN-10: 1492346187

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  For Hazel

  Hopefully this is the first of many

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to my wife for the encouragement and help she gave me while writing this.

  Chapter 1

  What’s the plan for tonight then? Playstation? No, movie? No, hmm oh maybe....nah, just sleep. These are the hard decisions that a 35 year old lazy-ass waste of space that lives with his mum has to make. Meet Dave, he is the lazy waste of space, not bad looking, not completely out of shape either, which he should be with his lifestyle. The sort of rough and ready looking kind of guy. A bit like “Kieffer Sutherland” in “Lost Boys” or “Stand by Me”. If he made any effort at all he could probably have his pick of a fair few girls. He made no effort, none whatsoever. He will change his clothes, including underwear and socks, maybe once a week, twice if you’re lucky. So the smell from him is terrible, His clothes are always a big baggy t shirt, and some jeans, never anything different. He doesn’t shave until his facial hair annoys him, even then he just quickly trims it. So he always looks at about that five day mark, not quite a beard, but not stubble either. All in all, he is a scruffy bastard.

  He likes to live life at his own pace, which appears to be as slow as possible. His daily routine consists of waking up, eating, sleeping, waking up again, maybe eat more, play something or watch TV, sleep again, wake up for the third time of the day then drink or smoke bud, depending on how much money he could talk his mum into giving him that day. Yes he still lives with his mum, well how could he afford not too? He eats enough for two men, drinks enough for three and lets not get started on the amount he spends on weed. That all costs a lot of money! It’s hard to keep up with work each day if you’re constantly hung over. That’s why Dave decided it would be better all round if he just didn’t work. Besides his mum makes enough money for both of them, so he thinks.

  Dave treats his mum like she is a maid, no wait, that’s too much of a compliment, maids get more respect. I can’t quite describe just how Dave treats his mum. Maybe somewhere between a convict and a leper? To say he has no respect for her is an understatement, he leaves his clothes on the floor where he takes them off, granted sometimes he may only change once a week but still, he will leave what ever plate or bowl he has eaten off wherever it was placed when he eat. As you can imagine he doesn’t do much cleaning around the house either. When is mum gets home she is expected to walk round and clean this mess up. If she doesn’t he will start insulting her, “dirty bitch” he will say “look at the state of your house, how am I supposed to live in this mess” and this will continue the whole time she cleans it up, he will stand next to her and lay in with the insults the entire time she cleans up after him. To avoid this ordeal, it is the very first thing she does when she gets home.

  Margaret, Daves mum, is 65, she looks it as well, maybe closer to 75, time has not been kind to her. Maybe it is the fact she has had to take care of a fully grown man for the best part of 20 years. A fully grown man who she is completely terrified of! However, she is fit as a fiddle, she can run rings round any woman, or man, at the factory where she works. She can lift boxes twice her own weight, which is a constant shock to other workers because she looks so old and frail. What they don’t know is that on the inside she is far more old and frail than she appears.

  When Margaret has finished cleaning up after Daves daily activities it is time for her to make dinner. She only has very small meals as she cannot afford to eat a lot, with the amount of food that Dave eats, and the amount of money she has to give him. It doesn’t leave much left for her. She will make Dave what ever he has requested for tea and just give herself a little child size portion of that. She could afford to get more food if she refused to give him money, she was too scared though, she had done that before.

  When she refused he threw an almighty tantrum. It was like a child in the shop being told that he couldn’t have the toy he wanted. Only a child will maybe kick and scream. Dave wasn’t a child, he was a fully grown man and he wouldn’t kick and scream. He would punch and shout! He wouldn’t punch his mum, although she didn’t doubt that he had come very close and was very capable, he would punch doors and walls. He was very big and quite strong so as a result of these tantrums there are reminders left around the house of what happens when she says no. Holes in walls and doors, broken furniture etc.

  After dinner she will do the normal house cleaning, dishes, hovering, dusting etc. Then if Dave didn’t tell her to go to the shop for him, it was time to relax. If that is what you can call it. She would sit in her bedroom with a book or with the TV on. Sometimes she would read, sometimes she would watch the TV. Most nights she would just lie in bed. Just lie there and wish something would come and take her away from this endless routine.

  Dave hated when his mum was home from work, he enjoyed the daytime when she was not there. When she got home she would be in the way picking up clothes or plates or something, it didn’t matter too much though as she was never around for too long. After dinner she seemed to disappear off to bed. He didn’t really know what she did, he didn’t really care. He was fed and she has tidied, that’s all that matters.

  Anyway now he could continue with his night, there was a Nightmare on Elm Street marathon on, this was perfect for Dave. He could sit and drink and smoke and laugh at all the cheesy lines that Freddy would make. “Freddy” was the killer in the Elm Street films, they were terrifying as a child, when Dave and his friend Trevor were younger they had sneaked the film from Trevor’s older brother, they went to Trevor’s room and watched it. Dave didn’t sleep for a week! Every time he closed his eyes he would see “Freddy’s” scarred face. He didn’t dare tell Trevor though, he couldn’t let his friend know that it had scared him. He was a tough guy you know. No way a twelve year old got scared by silly movies.

  As he grew older he thought those films were a little bit cheesy, he was almost embarrassed thinking about how much it at scared him.

  Now that he was a drunken stoner he found these films utterly hilarious, every cheesy line, or every cheesy killing he would laugh at the top of his voice. A really loud horrible laugh which was followed by chesty coughing and spluttering. Then take a few more sips, maybe a few more tokes, then laugh and repeat.

  Dave was set for the night with this film marathon on, there was at least ten “Freddy” films. That could last him the entire night. Then he could make sure he was sound asleep in the morning so he wouldn’t have to speak to his mum before she left for work.

  This really was the highlight of Dave’s week, he didn’t have friends anymore. He didn’t go anywhere, he didn’t go to any bars or clubs. He didn’t go to any sports events or movies. He didn’t go to any friends houses. He didn’t have any friends come to his house either. Nobody called or asked about him. He did sign up to a few social network sites but he got sick of how happy everyone was. He thought it was all fake, they just took happy pictures and posted them online, that wasn’t their real life. Their real life was sat in the dark every night watching TV just like him. That’s what life if like he thought, dark. Everything
else is just a lie.

  He wasn’t always this horrible lazy loner. He used to be happy, he used to have ambition, he used to have a girlfriend, Claire, wonder what happened to her? He used to have friends, he had a best friend, Trevor.

  Watching the “Freddy” films made Dave think about Trevor, he thought about watching it together when they were younger, back when he was happy, back when life still seemed bright. “What happened to Trevor?” he said to himself. He paused had another sip of beer then thought. “What happened to me?

  Chapter 2

  Dave had been just like any other child, he was happy, had friends, he liked to play football, he liked to run, oh boy did he like to run. He could run like the wind blows, none of his friends could get anywhere near him. When he was 9 he used to race the kids that lived in his area. He even gave them a head start sometimes, he always won. The only person that was anywhere near Dave’s pace was Trevor, his best friend, and he was still left for dust.

  Quite often grown ups walking past would stop and watch him in astoundment. They had never seen a child run so fast. “Wanna get him on the track” they would tell his parents. “that boy will be running at the Olympics one day”. Obviously his parents didn’t think that, they knew he was fast but the Olympics? Come on be serious. Dave believed it though. “I’m faster than any kid I know” he said “and they said I’m faster than any kid they know”. That was when his dream began, his dream of being an Olympic sprinter!

  When he started senior school at the age of 11 things were a lot different for him. Lessons were a lot harder, days were a lot longer, and girls were a lot prettier. A few things stayed the same though, Trevor was still his best friend, and he still loved to run!

  He couldn’t contain his excitement when he found out the school had an athletics club. He was bouncing up and down, shaking with excitement. “Jesus, calm down before you spurt in your pants” Trevor told him, they were both still waiting for the day they actually understood what that meant, but they had heard people say it, and it sounded funny. “I can’t help it” Dave said “an actual athletics club! Don’t you know what this means? This means I can actually compete! I can show people how good I am, this is my ticket to the Olympics.”

  “yeah sure, the Olympics” Trevor humoured Dave and carried on walking to class.

  Dave joined the athletics team, needless to say he was the fastest in his year. He noticed though, even though he was still winning races, he wasn’t winning by quite as much.

  The competition got tougher as it got older. This was when he realised that he couldn’t just take for granted that he was faster than people. With hard work and with training, they could improve and end up being faster than him. So to stop that happening, he decided to start training himself, he went for regular jogs doing mini sprints at different markers he had set for himself. He went to the gym after school, the gym was actually attached to the school and seen as he was an attending pupil of that school he could go for free, which was great because he wouldn’t have been able to afford to pay.

  He kept this routine up for two years, until he reached year 9 at school, that would make him 13. Now he could actually compete against other schools. Not just his classmates and friends at athletics club. Now there was actual competition! Again he was overwhelmed with excitement, on the way to his English class he was telling Trevor how much he was looking forward to racing against stronger opponents, Trevor just nodded and humoured him. He was still friends with Trevor but with all his training all the time plus homework, which seemed to grow rapidly in year 9, and athletics club, they didn’t seem to see much of each other anymore. They would chat to and from class, and a little bit in class, until they were caught and told off by the teacher.

  Outside of school they had different friends, Dave had his running and gym “buddies” and Trevor had his own friends or “mates” as he called them. It’s not cool to have friends when you’re 13, you have mates

  Outside of school Trevor couldn’t be more different from Dave, he and his friends weren’t what you would call bad kids, but they were not necessarily good either. Certainly not the white collared ideal teen that Dave appeared to be.

  Trevor would smoke, he wouldn’t be able to tell you how many a day he smoked as that all depended on how many smokes he and his friends could bum or buy from other people. 20 pence a cig was the going rate. Other than that a few of his friends has parents who smoked so they would sneak the odd one out of their boxes. They had to be careful though, they could get away with the odd one, as that wouldn’t be noticed. If they started pushing their luck they were sure to be caught. So it total after all that hard work getting the smokes, Dave and his friends probably smoked between half and one cigarette a day. That didn’t matter though, they smoked! They were proud of it, felt cool and grown up. Some of them even went as far as to give the cliché “I need to pack in, it’s killing me” to which a few of the others laughed, “yeah sure, you pack in your half fag a day”.

  On top of smoking, Trevor drank every Friday night. He didn’t care what he drank just as long as it would get him drunk. His friends all had the same aim. A Friday night sober was a boring night. They would go through their parents bottles, taking a little bit out of each, not enough to be noticed from each bottle. But combined you could maybe fill a Lucozade bottle with it. Little bit of vodka, little bit of gin, rum, brandy, whiskey, whatever this green stuff is, whatever this other stuff is. Put all that together and you have created a “shit mix”. No two shit mixes tasted the same as they all had completely different amounts and types of alcohol in them. There was one thing for sure though, they all tasted equally disgusting! Taste didn’t matter though, the aim was to get you drunk and that is exactly what it did.

  Once he and his friends had down their shit mixes, their Friday night adventures could begin. The would set fire to bins outside shops, egg houses in their area, one time someone suggested to egg “that running kid’s house” but Trevor had managed to talk them out of it. He still liked Dave, even if they were both a little different from each other.

  Finally the day was here! Dave was going to a regional athletics competition to run against people from other school. He almost skipped to the school bus, then realised just how ridiculous he look so he tried to calm himself down. The competition was about fifteen miles away from his school, not too far but enough to require transport there. They were competing against seven other school from local areas, all of which Dave had heard of but he didn’t really know anyone who went to any of them. As Dave was warming up he watching some of the other events and looking at some of the kids from the other schools. Some of these kids were huge! Granted a lot were older than him, the age range of kids competing that day was 13-16, Dave being 13 obviously made him in the youngest group. There was one kid though, wow, he looked like Lou Ferrigno! Seriously, 16 years old and he could give the Hulk a run for his money. Dave wasn’t worried about him though, apart from being a few years older than him, he was far too big to be a sprinter, he was probably doing hammer throw or shot put or something.

  The competition was a full day event, so there was a lot of waiting round, Dave wasn’t racing until 2.15. This pleased Dave, it was after lunch so he could make sure he got some good energy food down him, but it was also long enough after lunch so that his food would have settled and he wouldn’t be feeling too full to run. He sat round looking for other kids that he thought he might be competing against, he couldn’t guess though. Besides the freakishly big guys most of the kids looked the same, oh well he thought, we’ll see them at the start line.

  When it was Daves turn to race he walked toward to track, he looked at the six other kids he was sprinting against. He was first choice for his school to run the 100 meters, the races were split between first, second and third choice, so he knew that the people he was running against were their schools first choice. He looked again at them, they didn’t look so fast, they certainly didn’t look scary, which for some reason he was expec
ting they would, they looked, like him. Just normal kids.

  He walked up to the start line and stood, waiting, “on your marks” he leaned over touching his fingers to the ground “get set” he bent his knees and toes in position getting ready to spring when he heard the “BANG” he was off! He was running faster than he had ever ran before, he was sure of it, the wind was blowing against his face, his cheeks and his mouth seemed to be flapping around his race uncontrollably, he thought he must look like one of those astronauts in a G-Force exercise, when he was coming to the finish line he glanced left, he glanced right, he couldn’t see anyone, he was sure he had won. Just as he crossed he noticed that second place finished almost at the same time. Almost. “phew” he sighed catching his breath, no one had ever come that close to beating him before, he was happy he had won but he was even more happy at this new feeling he had. He had finally had some real competition, and he had beaten them as well! But this was just local schools, the competition would be harder in other places, he needed to train more.