Thresholds - Hardcover

Verbicky, John W III

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1575790815 ISBN 13: 9781575790817

Publisher: John W. Verbicky III, 1997

Synopsis

This book is brand new and sealed, never read or used in any way, PERFECT!!

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Welcome to Valle Vista, California- home of the St. James Red Raiders and Smorgabob's unconquerable buffet. Valle Vista

is home to Jeff Plimpton, an English teacher at St. James High School.

Jeff is angry and frustrated that parents let their children do whatever they choose. The parents claim that teaching their children is his job.

He's angry and frustrated, but (more importantly) Jeff is not whole. You see, Jeff hears a voice. A child's high, lilting voice. The type of voice that should be speaking of cotton candy and ice cream. The voice, however, could care less about these things. It's hungry for murder and revenge!

Hungry And Waiting To Be Fed...

"We could do such nasty things to those kids." The voice cooed. "We could make them pay for what they have done."

"Shut! Up!" Spit dribbled down Jeff's chin as he finished the third drink and he wiped it off with his sleeve. "A hot shower, that's what I need."

He rushed upstairs and turned on the hot water. Steam and water cascaded from the nozzle. Jeff took his shoes off and huddled in the basin, letting the scalding water fall over his clothed body. Life was just getting a little too crazy to suit his tastes. Maybe all he needed was a leave of absence.

"Goddamn right I do." The sound of his voice echoed off the tiled walls. "Maybe I'll go into juvenile corrections."

This idea brought out a giggle. Jeff tried to stifle it (after all, this was a serious career move for someone who would turn thirty-seven this year) but the giggle soon turned into a chuckle. Then, though Jeff fought hard against it, the chuckle turned into full blown laughter.

Uncontrollable, Crazy Laughter...

***

The alarm clock blared that it was five in the morning and time for Lisa Greene to begin her daily routine. Boys had it so much easier than girls did, she thought while rubbing the sleep from her eyes with the palm of her hand. They didn't have to fix their hair, do their makeup, or decide what clothes to wear. And, Lisa was almost positive, some of them didn't even worry about showering. Girls, on the other hand, did. Primping was a ritual women had endured since the beginning of time and Lisa's ritual took just under two hours to complete.

She slapped at the snooze bar twice before the clock shut up and rolled out from under her covers. Next to the clock, on the small nighttable beside her bed, was an eight by ten picture of her sitting on a teenage boy's lap in front of a Christmas tree and a cozy fire. She was wearing a white turtleneck under a red cable-knit sweater and a black skirt that hung down to her knees. The boy, whose hair was almost as long as her own, was also dressed up. Lisa picked up the picture and kissed the lip-smudged glass covering the boy's head.

The boy in the picture was Michael Smrstik- her boyfriend of almost two years. Someday, she was sure, they would be married. That is, whenever he decided to ask, she would say yes. She loved him because he always thought about her first. In fact, he was the only one who cared about how she felt.

Lisa lived in a shitty little two bedroom apartment with her mother and Denny. Her father had died when she was thirteen and her mother bounced from one dead end job to another for the last four years before meeting and marrying Denny. Denny was a real prize.

Lisa tip-toed out of her bedroom into the cramped living room, making a conscious effort not to wake her mother whose latest futureless job forced her to work all night. The living room was a tiny festering pocket where the odor of stale beer and cigarette smoke overpowered the fresh morning air. Denny, as usual, was passed out on the couch surrounded by all his close friends- an entire case of Golden Anniversary beer cans he'd drained and tossed on the cheap brown-orange shag carpet the night before.

She looked down at the slovenly, unshaven man as he snored off last night's alcoholic bliss and shook her head sadly. Her mother's choice in husbands, among other things, all but ended their relationship. Well, Lisa thought, she definitely chose a winner this time. A real winner.

The worst part about the whole Denny situation- the part that pissed Lisa off to no end- was that her mother was convinced he loved her. He got plastered every night and if her mother ever came home late from the bar, even a minute late, he smacked her around until she'd promised him that she would never be late again. Not to mention that she had to literally beg him to have sex with her.

In the beginning, Lisa tried to tell her mother that Denny was trash, but her mother wouldn't hear of it. Especially from a teenager who didn't know anything about how life really was. She was under the delusion that this relationship was somehow better than the one she'd had with Lisa's father. Whenever Lisa spoke harshly of Denny, her mother came to his defense with a well rehearsed line of reasoning that in her own mind was irrefutable; Yes Denny loves me. He'll find work soon. No he doesn't drink that much. And if the abuse he forced her to endure came up, it brought out the special forces of her excuses; You just don't know him like I do. He's been under a lot of pressure lately. He can be so sweet sometimes. Or, the king of all crock-of-shit answers, he swears it won't happen again.

Lisa couldn't count the number of times she'd heard her mother say that each round of beatings were the last. Those arguments usually ended with Lisa storming out of the apartment. Maybe her mother thought she couldn't find anyone better. Maybe she thought Denny was her punishment for what happened to Lisa's father (which, by the way, wasn't the case.). The truth was Lisa didn't know why her mother endured Denny, only that she endured him silently- almost reverently.

Her mother wasn't always silent, though. There were times when she would beg him to get a job in order to make paying the bills easier. These outbursts, it seemed, only gave Denny another excuse to whip her. After her face was swollen and bloody, he would ask her how he was supposed to get a good job with his criminal record. Sometimes she would answer and sometimes not- it all depended on how badly he'd beaten her.

On those nights, Lisa would listen, crouched behind her door, holding herself while she cried. Someday Denny would get tired of beating on her mother and come after her- Lisa didn't question that. The only question was when.

If her mother wasn't too beat up to argue back, her answer usually was to ask him about getting a job as a laborer. Then, invariably, he'd beat her some more and shout at her that he wasn't no fucking boy. Denny would say boy, but what he meant was nigger. Any job that involved dirt, physical labor, and sweat was a job meant for the blacks. That was the way it had been in the past and that was the way it should be now. They were too dumb and weak-willed for anything else.

"If that's true," Lisa whispered down at the sleeping monstrosity before her. "what did you do? Bleach your skin?"

Denny grumbled and rolled over on his side. His arm swung over the side of the couch cushion and knocked over a half-filled can. As his snoring resumed, the golden liquid poured out onto the carpet where it fizzed and foamed. As the bubbles of beer rose and fell, Lisa had to quell the near automatic urge to clean it up. No, she decided, it was better to let him soak his stocking feet when he stood up.

"A real winner." Lisa swatted her hand in his direction as if at a bothersome gnat, walked to the bathroom, and squatted on the toilet.

When her business was done, she turned on the shower and brushed her teeth while the water heated up. She stepped into the warm steamy shower and let the burning water soak into her skin when, even though she'd just gone, the need to urinate hit her again. Wet and slippery, Lisa stepped out of the shower and shuffled cautiously over to squat on the toilet again. Some people would have just emptied their bladder in the stall, but Lisa was not some people. She thought that was the ultimate in grossness.

An hour later, Lisa was in front of the mirror making final touches on her hair and makeup. She adjusted the 'v' of her angora sweater to accentuate the swell of her medium sized breasts. Her cleavage wasn't really as impressive as it appeared to be. The bra she was wearing pushed her breasts up and together to make them more prominent. She twisted her hips so that she could look at her backside in the mirror. The denim skirt she had on hugged her round hips and the curve of her bottom like second skin. Perception was definitely in the packaging. Everything was perfect.

Denny told everyone he met (the number was thankfully few.) the reason Lisa dressed this way was that she was a tease and a slut. As far as he knew, she was turning tricks under the bleachers. At times Lisa was sure she heard a note of jealousy in his tone. The truth behind the way she dressed, however, was that she enjoyed seeing the spark of adolescent lust in Michael's eyes when he looked at her. His visual fondlings made her tingle all over.

Lisa pouted out her bottom lip and winked at the mirror. "I'm ready for you Michael, are you ready for me?"

Lisa tossed her lipstick and eye shadow into her black plastic purse, slung it over her shoulder and went to the kitchen. It was six forty-five, time for her usual breakfast two frosted cherry Pop Tarts and a can of diet Pepsi. Her life wasn't brie and grapes but it was life. Soon, she would be eighteen and that meant she could get her own place. Then life would be much better.

Lisa day-dreamed about living in her own great apartment. It would be her own and nobody else's, except maybe Michael. She would have the coolest furniture and the best parties. The best part would be that there was no Denny leering at her or slapping her or her mother around. And there would be no yelling. Yes sir, she pined, that would be something.

The toaster popped up at six-fifty, snapping her out of her reverie. The honk of a car horn outside signaled Michael's arrival. He was right on time, as usual. Lisa wrapped the hot pastries in a paper towel and rushed outside.

Whenever she saw Michael a smile as bright as a full moon would light up her face. She smiled now, as usual. At this point in her life Lisa couldn't think of anything worse than death, but she would soon experience them all.

<

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Julie Hamilton ran for her life through the mists of a pine forest. The prickled branches stung her face as they whipped by. She could feel his cold, stale, panting breath on the back of her neck. He was right behind her. She raced over the soft damp mossy earth, occasionally stubbing her toes on intermittent rocks, but she dare not stop. He wanted to kill her. She didn't know why- just that he would do it once he caught up with her and that she wouldn't go quick and easy. Julie dared to look back, forcing herself to run on, blind. There, behind her in the misty night, the shadow of the man who was chasing her was gaining ground.

Julie pressed on, faster than she ever thought she could run, when the ground disappeared under her feet. She was falling. Far below, the jagged rocks were rushing up fast to meet her. She flailed her arms and kicked her legs in an awkward, futile attempt to fly, but she continued to fall...

Julie's eyes snapped open and she sat up in her bed, looking around her bedroom to reassure herself that her nightmare had been just that- a dream. The sweat-soaked sheets stuck to her clammy skin and the alarm clock blared out reveille from the nightstand. Wiping at the crusted saliva around her mouth with her hand, Julie squinted at the clock.

It was six forty-five, but it felt three hours earlier. This was the third nightmare this week and it was only Thursday. As she blinked away the cobwebs in her head that the dreams had left behind, Julie thought about her son and shook her head. Jimmy was probably still in bed, asleep. Sometimes she wondered if the boy would ever be able to get up without her.

Sluggishly, Julie rose from her bed, put on a robe, and, yawning all the way, left her room for the bathroom. Leaning her head in her hands, she squatted on the toilet and wondered why six forty-five seemed to come earlier and earlier each day. The nightmares, she decided, probably had something to do with it.

While the dreams were disturbing, she wasn't about to let them affect how she felt when she was awake. Julie wasn't the superstitious type. Dreams were just dreams. Once her business on the john was concluded, she wiped, flushed, and went to wake Jimmy.

The boy was sprawled out in his bed , snoring quietly, with the bed sheets tangled in his hairy legs. A pile of dirty clothes was under his feet and the pillow covered his head. Beside him lay the high school varsity football playbook. Jimmy referred to it as "the Bible" and studied it with about as much reverence. Photos of various football heroes in action covered his walls. Julie could hear the faint buzz of Jimmy's alarm clock coming from under a pile of clothes (presumably clean) on his desk.

Three years ago, the summer before Jimmy started high school, she had picked up that desk at a swap meet in Oakland so that Jimmy would have someplace to do his homework. Jimmy, on the other hand, obviously thought it made a better laundry basket. She stepped gingerly around the scattered books, dirty dishes, dumbbells and dirty clothes that littered the floor on her way to her sleeping son. "Jimmy," she called. "time to get up."

Jimmy grunted, huffed, and rolled over, but didn't wake. He was a heavy sleeper, just like his father. No, Julie corrected herself, his father wasn't a heavy sleeper. He was a drunk. She reached over and shook the boy. "You're going to be late Jimmy."

"Whu-huh-what?" Jimmy rubbed his eyes and looked at his mother before rolling over again. "Oh. I'm up mom, I'm up."

Julie folded her arms across her chest, tapping her foot while she waited. "I'm not leaving until you get out of bed."

"Jesus ma-"

"Excuse me!?" She asked in a stern voice.

"I mean c'mon mom." He moaned. "I'm up already."

Jimmy rolled out of bed and crouched on the floor, rubbing his face until the dormant energy inside him kicked in. Satisfied that he was up, Julie went downstairs to make break- fast.

Julie put two slices of bread into the toaster and reached into the cupboard for two bowls. Upstairs, the shower was turned

on. She took the orange juice from the refrigerator and poured out two glasses. The toast popped up. She grabbed the butter and a butterknife and went to work. The shower was turned off. Once the bread was buttered, Julie took out the box of Raisin Bran and took both the cereal and the toast to the table. Just as she set the milk on the table, Jimmy bounded down the stairs. Being a single mom wasn't hard, it was just a matter of good timing. "You're going to be late, if you don't hurry up."

Jimmy sat down at the table and nonchalantly poured the cereal and the milk into his bowl. "I got plenty of time. I'll just do about sixty to school. No sweat."

"It's 'I have', not 'I got'," Julie scolded her son, pointing at him with the corner of the toast she'd picked up. "and I don't want to have to pick you up at the police station this morning."

"Right ma! They don't arrest you for speeding." The teenager shook his head and gave her the patented adolescent look of patient patronization. "They give you a ticket."

"Just what I need!" She laughed. "Another bill."

"Relax ma. I have plenty of time."

They exchanged smiles. "Are you staying after school again today?"

"Of course." Jimmy said between bites. "I've got practice."

Edition details

• Publisher: John W. Verbicky III
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1575790815
• ISBN 13: 9781575790817
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 232