American Gothic Passion Play

byline: Anubis C. Soundwave

Prologue B: Dash, what do you think of yourself?

Dash grins as he arrives at Fenton Works, continuing to stare at a letter.

The teen stops at the steps, noting Jack seated on the top step. "Mr. Fenton?" he says. "Where's your daughter?"

Jack laughs. "She's scouting colleges with her mom," he says. "I take it you're here about the letter, right?"

Dash nods, confused; he takes out his cell phone.

"Don't bother, man," says Jack. "I sent it."

"Huh?" balks Dash, trembling. "I don't get it."

Jack beckons to Dash, who reluctantly approaches the top step and sits next to Jack.

"I mean, it's written in cursive and signed 'J. Fenton'," continues Dash, presenting the letter.

"I didn't want to lie outright," drawls Jack. "You're a really credulous guy."

"I don't know exactly what that means," says Dash, sour, "but I'm sure it's some kind of insult."

"Not much of one. I only meant that you're gullible," says Jack, "like most teenagers."

Dash pouts at Jack. "This has her lip gloss on it," he says, noting the kiss mark on the letter. "You're a sick fuck if you did what I think you did."

"That was my first thought," muses Jack, "but putting on Jazz's makeup would just get me in trouble with my wife-and frankly, I'm in enough trouble as it is."

"For ghost-hunting without her and keeping it a secret?" asks Dash.

"That, and doing so for over twenty years," says Jack. "This is why I'm sitting out here, rather than hunting ghosts," he adds, fuming.

"You've...been grounded, dude," says Dash, chuckling.

"Shut up. It's not funny," counters Jack.

"Yes, it is!" grins Dash.

"You shouldn't think so, guy," says Jack. "Every day that I spend bored, I'm thinking of ways to amuse myself. Today," he continues with a smirk, "I've opted to toy with the emotions of the teenage athlete who's spent the past year harassing my son at school."

"I'd say 'fuck you', sir," says Dash dourly, "but frankly, only Mrs. Fenton can handle that full-time job you're packing under your shorts."

Jack smiles. "You see? As bullies go," he says, "you are well above-average. I would have been honored to have you bully me."

Dash stares at Jack.

"I know how crazy that sounds," Jack continues, "but you have to consider my high school reunion. You remember that?"

Dash scrunches his eyebrows. "I remember Paulina being brutally honest about a washed-up ex-cheerleader," he muses, recalling a childhood memory, "and some loser who claimed he was a high school quarterback."

Jack laughs.

"I mean-he didn't even have the dignity and gravitas of Al Bundy," Dash continues, "who at least did something awesome in high school. Four touchdowns in one game is a real achievement, you know."

"I couldn't buy a friend at my high school," snorts Jack. "Not because I didn't want friends, but because the morons in my school's 'A-List' weren't worth the money. They were fucking mouthbreathers."

"So you went to college, breathed in fresh air, and never looked back at high school?" asks Dash.

Jack nods. "I was still picked on by jocks, but those guys were a better breed," he says. "Also," Jack adds, "by then, I had gained two valuable things: friendship, and with that, perspective."

"Wait..." says Dash, studying Jack. "Why don't you just tell Fen-t...your son these things?"

"I thought it'd be nice to be able to say these things calmly," says Jack, "to a kid who will actually listen."

Dash blinks.

"Danny, thankfully," continues Jack, "does have friends, and somehow has stumbled on a bit of perspective as well."

"Getting laid before the chief dude on the 'A-List' at your school will do that, I guess," mutters Dash ruefully. "Being a virgin sucks."

Jack rolls his eyes.

"It has nothing to do with peer pressure," scoffs Dash. "I'm thinking about my grandpa. Do you know that he didn't lose his 'flower' until he put my dad in my grandma's oven?" he adds.

"Could be for religious reasons," says Jack.

"My grandpa: the church deacon who swears like a sailor?" balks Dash.

"He was a sailor," says Jack. "Retired as a Senior Master Chief."

"I don't think I can hold out that long," says Dash.

"You're not foisting your inexperience on my daughter," quips Jack.

Dash pouts at Jack, then glares at the note. "You're still a sick fuck, Mr. Fenton," he says.

"For the record," says Jack, "I had Jazz kiss the letter before she left to scout colleges. And no," he continues, "she wasn't in on it. Jazz kissed the paper, then I wrote the letter."

"Forging your little girl's handwriting," says Dash, "so you could fuck with me."

"It's for a good cause, my man," grins Jack, patting Dash's shoulder.

"This just gets worse..." sighs Dash.

"Of course," says Jack, a canny smile on his face. "You think that I'm basically about to reiterate what your parents have said to you...and their words: you, as a typical teenager, have dutifully ignored."

Dash rolls his eyes.

"Lucky you, though," continues Jack. "I won't do that. I've just got a few questions for you."

"Okay..." says Dash, touching his chin.

Jack studies Dash a moment. "Dash," he says, serious, "what do you think of yourself?"

"I'm...me?" says Dash, confused. "Honestly, sir: I don't know."

Jack gazes at Dash.

Dash snorts at Jack, unnerved by the latter's behavior. "I haven't exactly priced myself on the open market, you know," he says.

"That's a fair answer," says Jack. "Okay, one more: why did you take that risk with me?"

Dash strokes his chin. "You mean where I had to distract your evil Southern good ol' boy ancestor long enough for you to get a clear shot?" he asks.

Jack nods.

"I guessed that one: it was impossible for you to miss a target as big as you are; and two: that you really wanted to shoot that guy," says Dash.

"A calculated risk?" asks Jack.

"Pretty much," says Dash. "This dude probably knew everything about you-ever since you were born. That means he had to learn about me at some point," he continues, "and know how much you couldn't stand to hear your boy curse my name. I figured that of all of us, I was the only one who could pull off being an asshole without it raising red flags to him."

"Do you realize," says Jack, calm, "that if Jackie had overshadowed you, I would have had to shoot you to kill him?"

"I...didn't really think about that too much," says Dash, trembling. "But hey," he adds. "Since ghosts are real, and most of them are people with unfinished business; then if I had died, I'd be a ghost trying to relive my glory days at school."

"Actually, no," counters Jack curtly. "The bullets in that gun are designed to destroy spectral matter," he continues, in a hard, clinical tone. "Of course, it would have been a bullet shot through your heart, and you would have died with Jackie."

Dash blinks.

"Then, in essence," says Jack, "your soul would have disintegrated with Jackie's. You would have ceased to exist...in any form."

"Whoa..." shudders Dash, tensing his fists as he tries to control his trembling.

"Frankly, Dash," says Jack, "no one hates you that much."

"Not even...?" wonders Dash.

"Danny doesn't hate you at all, man," scoffs Jack. "There are days when he thinks he does," he continues, "but he doesn't."

Dash scratches his head.

"Even you don't hate yourself that much," says Jack, "and most bullies hate themselves-not their targets."

"That's harsh," says Dash. "There are things I hate about myself," he continues, "but shit: everybody hates something about themselves."

"Exactly," says Jack. "The reason bullies are effective at all is because the target has a much bigger, meaner bully inside: reinforcing whatever bullshit any given jerkass flings at the target."

Dash stares at Jack.

"The bully inside every person's head," says Jack. "You're your own worst critic," he continues, "so I just imagine that your real reason for targeting Danny is to drown out the noise from the internal jackass cramming you into a psychological hurt locker."

"Dude, if someone wanted to bully me," snorts Dash, "I'd just beat the shit out of them. And if they're bigger than me," he continues, "I'd make him earn the beating."

"Unless they're both bigger and smarter than you," quips Jack.

"That would be Grady," says Dash ruefully, "and the day before he graduates, I'm just going to beat the shit out of him."

"Why?" asks Jack.

"You probably think I hate myself so much that I was willing to grant you the win-win chance to kill Jackie and get rid of the jerk," says Dash, giving Jack a wry grin, "who keeps giving his son shit at school. Two birds with one stone."

Jack frowns at Dash.

"But, while I'm well-aware of my sad role as the bad kid in a typical Butch Hartman cartoon," Dash continues, "you can relax. I had-and have-no actual interest in dying, as I refuse to die a virgin."

"Damn," grins Jack. "I was about to use that one."

"That was the reason I was pissed off at Grady: I had a strong shot at getting laid with a girl I really like," Dash fumes, "and he fucks it up. Then he reams me and the rest of JV while he and his flunkies head to the mall to pick up their girlfriends and get laid-while we were being beaten to a pulp by Mendelsohn and the Dire Wolves."

"But you won that game!" says Jack.

"That was us redirecting our collective rage at Grady, Mr. Fenton," says Dash. "As we're incoming sophomores, we can't really prank him...yet."

"So you'll go easier on Danny this year," says Jack quizzically.

"...I respectfully decline to answer that," says Dash.

Jack rolls his eyes. "Yeah: there's the tell that you're from a family of lawyers," he says. "You do favor your mom."

Dash shakes his head at Jack. "I sure hope the missus forgives you soon, Mr. Fenton," he says. "I don't think the town can take much more of you being bored."

Jack chuckles.


NEXT: Unnecessary roughness.