What Ails You, Humphrey Long?

by Mojotheomegawolf

Yet another amongst the many stories about when Humphrey goes to high school, but I promise you that this one will be worth your time if you decided to read it. Rating may change as story progresses.

1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: A Long Line of Losers.

The first three years of high school were exactly as my parents had intended them to be, even if they may not have necessarily gone the way I had wanted them to. I was the star pupil, straight A student, set to graduate in the top tenth percentile in my class, band geek, anime fanatic, what everybody would typically call the nerd. I was a meek being, had thin, grey fur, blue eyes, and a slight limp due to an accident I had when I was young that never properly healed. I was a socially awkward individual, one who can comprehend a clear thought silently, but falters as soon as any attempts are made at turning such thoughts into words. Therefore, my expressions of thought came from my hands rather than my mouth. I became a writer, a poet, and I became an artist. While school, writing, art and band were my game, people were not, but I did not always start out this way. I did not always have an unaffected scorn for those who wander so ambitiously, yet so aimlessly around me, but I learned quite quickly that my interests differed from those with whom I tried to affiliate myself, so any words that passed my lips went unheard or ignored and those that did seem to fall upon open ears, were met promptly by an open mouth of scrutiny. Therefore, I became a silent, reserved individual, one who sits surrounded by the countless masses and yet remains completely alone. I found it amazing, this intangible loneliness that befell me in consequence to this, this crushing and unidentifiable sense of meaningful uselessness which loomed over me constantly, yet always remained aloof. I stopped caring about anybody, not my parents, for they did not care for me anyway, nor did I care for myself; but my mind and my physical appearance I kept sharp because if I showed up to work looking like some worthless hippy I would surely be fired, so my fur remained kept, my face clean, and my clothes presentable to public eyes. One may wonder why I would even bother, why I would even care if I lost my job, but I needed money to get out of the hellish town in which I lived and it really was not such a bad job. It was not too berating or overbearing, and, most importantly, here was the only place it seemed that I had friends.

They were far from what anyone, myself included, would expect to call me their friend, honestly. Jacob "Salty" Ramirez was a linebacker for the varsity team of our rival school about six miles down the highway, but during his final years in school, he had suffered a developing addiction to marijuana, something that ultimately led to bigger and badder drugs, consequently ruining his free ride to college, so he now found himself here, working with the other misfits of society; though recently he has been attending the local rehab facility downtown in an attempt to regain control of his life. Thomas "Shaky" Williams was an anxiety wreck, hence the nickname, but when he was actually using his medication, which was very seldom, he was the coolest, suavest guy in the world, one who could get inside of a girl's pants quicker than anybody else the world had ever seen. He also had an aspiration to join the Marine Corps just as soon as he got out of school, but he received only scrutiny and accusations of selfishness from his parents, something far from the pride and admiration that he thought he would receive from them. I guess that on occasions such as this, people just don't know what to say. Tyler "Mooch" Buckman was a big kid, in all honesty fat, and the free fast food from the restaurant where we worked didn't help him much, but recently he has been taking better care of himself, watching what he ate, and attempting to exercise regularly. I've noticed that he's done quite well with his ambition to lose weight. Mooch was far from being a bland individual and was in fact quite gifted in the ways of musical arts and in the art of comedy. He could master any instrument he touched, played a wicked bass guitar, and could make even a dying man laugh, but school was always a struggle for him. Dyslexia, ADHD, and a slight autism at birth attested to this, practically setting him up for failure. His background exacerbated his situation even further, for his family had been nothing but a long line of losers. His grandfather was a drunkard, his father killed a man and was now condemned to spend the rest of his life behind the bars of the county jail, and his mother was a drug ridden hoarder who trashed her home and spent her nights out on the corner or on the pole at the local club. I guess you could say he didn't have anybody else besides us.

His teachers had practically given up on him as well and not a single one of them expected anything out of him, but he was determined to make something out of himself, to prove that he could be better than what everybody made him out to be, to show everybody who doubted him that he could be better than the name that his family had given him. Out of all of us, he had the most reason to dream, to believe, to scrape his knees and blister his hands so that he may prove his worth to the world that doubted him so. Out of all of us, he was the only one who truly wanted to go to college, so I would help him out with his school work, tutor him in his chemistry and his geometry, hell I'd spend more time, in fact, at his apartment than at my own home. Not that my parents cared. They were never home anyway, and when they were, there was no peace, only constant altercations between my old man and I, so I stayed away from there whenever it was possible, my only reasons for going being merely to eat and to sleep.

We each had our specific duties at the restaurant. I worked the frier, Shaky worked one of the three registers, Mooch handled the skillet, and Salty ran the drive through. Our boss, David, was a kind man, and honestly, we were the only of his employees that he could tolerate, but he did not come from the same backgrounds as we did, so our acquaintanceship to him remained more of a mutuality than anything else. We were it, all any of us really had. We were like brothers, the four of us. We had each other's backs no matter what. If one of us was knocked down, the rest of us would be right there to pick him up onto his feet again.

"Hey, Humphrey, whatcha doing?" I heard Salty ask, realizing that he was standing directly behind the chair on which I sat, peeking curiously over my shoulder

"Nothing," I lied, frantically flipping my notebook closed and promptly stuffing it into my pocket, "it's nothing."

Salty gave me an incredulous look, arching an eyebrow.

"Didn't look like nothing," he commented.

"What didn't look like nothing," Mooch asked, walking out of the restroom, wiping his paws on the front of his shirt.

I felt my face begin to heat up beneath my fur, for if there was one thing I hated, it was being put on the spot.

"Guys, don't worry about it," I said, turning anxious eyes between the two of them, "it's just something I have to do for English."

That was in fact a lie.

I always took time during our lunch break to get a little writing done in the pocketbook that I carried, be it personal thought, ideas for stories that I may or may not end up writing, musings, philosophies, whatever; but I had always done it so indiscreetly that nobody had ever noticed, at least up until now, anyway.

Both Salty and Mooch stared silently at me for a moment and then Salty shrugged, breaking the tension that had begun to build.

"Well, I'll leave ya to it then," he said, cuffing me on the shoulder and then sliding out from between the tables, stumbling slightly inside of the confined alley between the chairs, of which were fixed soundly into the floor.

Mooch was evidently confused, but when he opened up his mouth to speak, a call came from the other side of the restaurant.

"Break's over guys," David called less than enthusiastically then ducked his head back around the corner.

I sighed, wiped my paws on my black denim jeans, then stood, collecting my tray of half eaten food, then walked it over to the trash can where it was dumped. I shook the paper advertisement from the bottom of it then pulled the tray out of the trash can and deposited it on the half table beside it. Mooch had followed by my side until I reached the trash can then continued on to the kitchen, grabbing the brim of his cap and then using it to scratch the crown of his head. A few flakes of dandruff fell from his head fur, fluttering like snow to unknown destinations and then ceased to fall as he placed the cap back onto his head, tugging on its brim until it was adjusted properly on his brow.

I yawned tiredly and then made my way over to the kitchen, finding Salty already at the window and Shaky at the register, both of them in the process of taking somebody's order.

I paid no attention to the exchange, only reassumed my position in front of the fry bat and pulled out a bag of thin cut, frozen fries. I tore said bag open and then dumped its contents carefully into the fryer, taking extra care to not splash any of the scalding liquid onto my paws or arms and then stared down at the viscid, yellow entropy that I had created. There is nothing quite like the smell of boiling fat and grease balling up into your nostrils, especially when it is as hot as it gets in front of the bats, and it's such a smell that no one simply gets used to as it seems to change every day.

Beneath the dull, yellow lights of the overhead vent, the grease continued to boil, sizzling loudly as the once frozen potato strips became flash fried. I gripped the handle of one of the four frying baskets and shifted it around, rocking it back and forth, side to side, up and down, so as to assure that each potato was fried evenly, then did the same with each of the other three baskets beside it. After another thirty seconds or so, I pulled the steaming baskets from the boiling oil and turned them over onto my work counter, dumping their contents out along its surface. I waited a few moments for them to cool then grasped a large shaker filled with salt and coated them with the crystalline substance. After this had been accomplished, I set the shaker aside and mixed the fries together with a tool that was like a spatula with a wide funnel on the back, then scooped some of the fries into it and finally dumped them into a container size that was proper for the customer's order. David turned and took the fries from me and placed them into a bag then filled a medium sized cup full of soda and snapped the lid on.

The bag and drink were then handed to Salty, who took them and opened the sliding window, handing them out to the customer.

"Thank you sir, have a nice day," he said and then closed the window, pressing a button on his headset, "Hi, welcome to McDonalds, may I please take your order?"

And such was an average day for me, though boring most of the time, my job offered me friends, money, and an excuse not to go home after school until around eight when I got off, and even then, Salty, Shaky, Mooch, and I would hang out until ten or so, mainly at Salty's place seeing as that he was nineteen and already had an apartment of his own.

I remember that we clocked out of work that night, a Saturday, at around 7:50, for our replacements had arrived, and we all headed out to the door, dispersing to different places in the parking lot where we were parked.

"Hey, Humphrey!" Salty called.

I paused and turned to him.

"What up," I answered, lifting my head slightly.

"Come meet over at my place tonight," he said, "we'll get you and "Mooch drunk."

I nodded and turned once again toward my car, for this was something that we had been planning for a while now, but now I was beginning to have second thoughts, for I was not one to violate the law. Therefore, I had never had a drop of liquor in my life, and I was pretty sure that Mooch hadn't either, so one could expect that I was just a little bit nervous about the whole thing. My main concern, was making myself look like a fool in front of my friends, or saying something that would lower their opinion of me. I was afraid that I would not be able to control my tongue, would say something that I would never tell anybody, not even God, and what would happen then? I was not very keen on finding out. Maybe I could talk myself out of it later tonight.

I unlocked my door and got into my car, engaged the ignition, and then backed out. I rolled toward the exit driveway and turned to my right when I heard a horn blaring into my ear, finding Shaky to be in his truck waving his middle finger out of the driver side window.

"Hey fuck you too, you little whore!" I yelled playfully in response, flipping him a bird of my own.

He acknowledged by blowing his horn at me again and I replied with a blast of my own then turned out onto the street, heading home so that I could get a shower and grab a quick bite to eat, for the preservatives in the fast food never satisfies for more than an hour or so, and I needed to get the smell of the bat off of me.

I was extremely happy that night as I drove home, for whatever reason it may have been, but as I turned down the street on which sat my house, I felt those feelings quickly wash right out of my body, being replaced promptly by a sense of foreboding as I saw the grey pickup truck, illuminated dimly by the pallid, yellow light of the street lamp, sitting inert in my driveway. I sighed deeply and wrung my hands around the top of the steering wheel, slowing the car down and stopping parallel to the curb in front of my house. For a moment, I sat silently in my seat, staring at my house, at the light that bled through the bedroom window where my parents slept, and I put my car into park. I considered not even going inside, simply pulling away from the curb and driving straight over to Salty's where I could hopefully find a place to stay for the night, but after a short debate, I disengaged my engine, pulled the keys from the ignition, and got out of my car, pushing the door closed.

Heavy feet carried me toward my front door and as I stepped up onto my porch, littered with leaves, dirt, and cigaret butts, I paused, taking a deep breath before I reached out to the handle. I pushed the door open and stepped inside, pushing it closed quietly behind me then looked around at the filth that was the inside of my house. Groceries that had been purchased a week ago still lay inside of their bags where they had been left in the entry hall way when they had first been brought in, but at least the cold items had been put away and in the living room, dirty dishes lay on the coffee tables and on the dilapidated hard wood floor around the furniture. The oriental throw rug in the center of the room was twisted in an obscene angle and covered in dirt and other unsightly particles of matter. The smell of dirty dishes left to fester in the sink was beaten only by the smell of piss which radiated so strongly from my parents' bathroom that one could almost taste it on the back of their tongue and the flies zinging back and forth throughout the rooms of the house were almost impossible to miss. On the old, raggedy green couch, a pile of clothes lay, by now probably filthy and in need of being washed again, and sitting directly beside it, regarding it only with the arm that lay draped over it, was my father. He sat motionless on the couch, his eyes fixed on the television that blared loudly into my ears, but after a moment, he must have sensed my presence, for he turned toward me and regarded me with the bloodshot eyes of a coke-head who was coming down from a high.

"How was work?" he asked me passively, his voice portraying more annoyance in my presence than interest.

I shrugged.

"It was okay I guess," I answered flatly, then turned and began to walk toward my room.

"You gonna stick around tonight?" he asked me indifferently, "your mom ordered a pizza."

"I'm actually goin' over to Mooch's place," I lied from the hallway, "there's a huge test comin' up that he needs help studying for."

I heard a snort of displeasure as I opened up the door to my room and groaned.

"Here we go," I thought bitterly as I turned away from the door.

"Ya know, you spend an AWFUL lot of time over there," he mused strenuously, this made so by his rising from the couch, "if I didn't know any better, I'd say that you would rather live there than here," he concluded accusingly.

He rounded the corner to the hallway and approached me, pausing just a few feet before me.

I said nothing, for I was not in the mood to listen to anything that he had to say, and turned once again toward my room, closing the door behind me.

This, I had expected, made my dad furious.

"Get out here you little prick," he demanded through the door.

I rolled my eyes, opened up a drawer and got out a clean pair of underwear then turned and walked to my door again.

"Yes?" I asked incredulously as I opened up the door.

I felt my father's pudgy paw digits land into my chest then felt them curl around my shirt, and next thing I knew, he had pulled me in until our noses were only about two inches apart. I grimaced and tried to pull away, for the putrid stench of sour meat forced its way invasively into my nostrils, but I was held fast.

"Why do you spend so much time with this guy? You two butt-buddies or something?" he accused, pulling me in once again, "is that it? You two little fags? Who's the pitcher and who's the catcher?"

Again, I said nothing, for I learned early in my teens what happens when you talk back to dad when he's angry or high and allowed the venomous words that tingled on my tongue to be repressed down my throat where they burned and churned deep inside of the base of my stomach. In my silence, my dad continued.

"So what's it gonna be, huh?" he demanded angrily, "would you rather be somewhere else than at your own home?"

I don't know what compelled me to do it: maybe I felt brave, a little bit adventurous, perhaps; or maybe I had finally had enough, but I swallowed hard and opened my mouth, thus allowing the hateful words to flow into his ears.

"Of course not," I answered sarcastically, boring my cold glare directly into his, "what could possibly be better than living with a jobless druggie and a fucking worthless wh-"

He didn't allow me to finish, for as soon as the foul word regarding my mother began to pass over my lips, he threw me forcefully to the ground, causing the side of my head to slam into the wall and once I had come to rest, he delivered the point of his shoe directly into my side. I cried out and immediately curled my body in as an attempt to shield myself from him, wrapping my arms around my sides in an effort to sooth the pain that seared so deeply in my body. My head fur was then grabbed and my face lifted, being turned roughly toward the ceiling. I stared up at my dad with hatred boiling out of my blurred eyes and he loomed over me, pressing his face close to mine again.

"You would be wise to remember this lesson," he warned, jerking my head fur and then releasing it.

My chest fell to the floor and I lay, hearing his heavy footsteps slowly beginning to fade as he sauntered farther down the hallway.

"Now get out of here ya piece of shit," he said flatly, not stopping or even turning his head.

For a moment I lay, waiting for the pain to subside, and after the dull ache in my side had finally faded enough for me to move, I picked myself starkly up off of the floor then proceeded to dust myself off. I looked down at my shirt, finding that he had stretched the neck and torn the stitching beneath the collar and sighed, for I should have expected this to happen. I pawed my side where my dad's foot had made contact and grimaced as the tenderized flesh cried in protest to the touch and then walked into my room. I skipped my shower, for right now I had not the desire to be at my house for the time that it took to wash myself, but I at least changed my clothes. I tugged a fresh shirt onto my body, sprayed on some deodorant and some cologne and stood for a moment, my thoughts regarding a box that lay under my bed, something that happened quite often on nights such as this, but after a span of a few seconds, I shook such thoughts away and grabbed my keys off of my dresser then exited the room. Normally I would use the front door, but tonight, as a means to avoid another confrontation with my dad, I decided to go out through the garage. I took a few paces down my hallway and turned right, clambered over the clothes, baskets and empty detergent bottles that lay piled in my messy laundry room then stumbled out into the garage where I had to climb over yet more junk before I could make it to the broken metal lifting door which hung about half way closed. The moonlight that bled through the gap beneath the base of the door was not much, but was at least enough to guide me through the dump that was my garage without stumbling on some unseen object and once I had reached the opening, I ducked forward at the waist and stepped out into the night.