Chapter 1: Lost

For three weeks now Red has been sitting in his stinky basement, on his ratty old couch, holding the Loud One. As she cried yet again. You would think that after three weeks she surely would have run out of tears by now. Sadly as he looked down at Jackie, he realized that the young girl would not run out of tears anytime soon tonight.

That first night was a real doozy. Jackie had shown up in the middle of the night looking for Steven. She was yammering about how Kettlehead run into her hotel room in nothing but a towel, causing the other dumbass to just up and leave. She had told him and Kitty what had really happened and that Steven had left without giving her a chance to explain.

The Loud One had run straight to his house to make sure Steven didn't do something stupid like he did last time Kettlehead had caused problems. He just can't understand why she runs to him. In the end Red realizes that if Jackie cannot depend on him and Kitty than really who can this poor girl depend on?

Everyday Red hoped that that dumbass Steven would show up, but he never did. At first he was worried that something bad might have happened to his adopted son, but as the days passed on he became aware that if something terrible had indeed happened he would have heard by now. Bad news travels fast. Now he was getting angry. The least the dumbass could do is call Kitty and let her know that he was all right, after all she had been more of a mother to him than Edna ever had. He had two very upset women living in his house, and he couldn't fix any of their problems until the dumbass made it home.

Kitty made sure Jackie ate something every night before Red got home from the muffler shop. Every night after his own dinner Red would walk down the stairs to the basement, sit on the couch and hold Jackie as she would cry herself to sleep. It would be late by the time Jackie would be asleep enough for him to lay Jackie down and cover up.

As Red made his way up the stairs he looked back at the sad girl who had been sleeping in his basement for three weeks now and wonder how much longer could she keep this up? How much longer was the Loud One going to wait for the dumbass to come home.

He had a feeling that whatever was going to happen between Jackie and Steven was going to be hard on them all, but especially Jackie.