Chains II: the Links Holding the Chains
By La miseria y la muerte
Author's note:
I know it's been forever since I uploaded a chapter. I had a writer's block and was trying really hard to get out of it. But writer's block is like quicksand- the more you struggle to get out the more it swallows you whole. I just had to write something quick to upload. I wish I could upload chapters to this fic the way people upload scraps at deviantart. That's kind of how I write, short, quick ideas just to get them out of my head. The problem is getting myself to go back and polish them through.
One last thing- Brad and Tuck's last name is actually Carbunkle. I kid you not. But it'd be a pain to go back and change every time I said their last name, so for this fic I'm just keeping it as Magoy.
He tried to find some kind of reader within the people that surrounded him, but with each attempt to find one, he failed.
His mother didn't want to have to bother with her child's wilting genius anymore, and his father never wanted to deal with it to begin with. Brad, because he was his adventurous eleven-year-old self, was bored by reading of any sort and didn't do his brother any help. A few teachers read some of Tuck's stories and gave him little tips along the way, but they really didn't effect him much at all. The problem wasn't his writing. His writing was beautiful by all definitions. The problem was getting people to listen. It was like a sweet, unheard melody. One that hardly reached human ears, but when it did, it touched them deeply.
And so it became that Tuck had to become his own teacher. Every indecision was never settled. Every time he needed a second opinion he had to go without. And maybe, in a way, this helped him. Without the constant thought of watchful eyes, he could just write. There was no worrying about a critic. And though he never received praise or help, he didn't really need either.
But over the years, writing without hearing any feedback grew boring. It began to lose it's excitement and thrill of thinking of characters, their motivations, dialogue, scenary, he began to grow a want for people's thoughts on his work. He couldn't rely completely on his self-confidence. And he might have stopped writing altoghether if it wasn't for that one day in August.
It was a busy, crowded day at the mall. Countless parents dragging their children through stores. Mrs. Magoy was one of those parents.
"Tucker, hurry up. We have to get you and Brad new things for the school year." Mrs. Magoy said.
Tuck stayed close to mom after that warning. He didn't want to get lost in a mall full of strangers anyway.
Mrs. Magoy brought Tuck into another store. She just wanted to make her way through the mall, buy enough school supplies for her sons and then leave. She wasn't extremely happy about being there, but she made an effort to look like she was.
Tucker didn't pay much attention to what his mother was buying. He didn't really care about how many pencils or notebooks he had going into the school year. His mind wandered to other things.
He suddenly caught sight of a poster in the front of the store. 'Writing Contest- children ages eight to thirteen' it read. Tuck smiled. He was nine. There was a writing contest in his age group, he didn't have to know anymore. He wanted to enter.
"Tucker," his mother said, carrying a stack of school supplies to the register, "It's time to go."
Tuck ran over to his mom and tried to get her attention. "Mom," he said, receiving only a glance as a response, "I wanna enter the contest?"
"What contest?" Mrs. Magoy said, annoyed, as she set down her stack of items in front of the cash register.
"The writing contest." Tuck pointed to the poster.
"Tucker, we don't have time for this." Mrs. Magoy said to her son while she pulled out some money from her purse.
"But mom..." Tuck said, trying to think of some logic he could use to persuade his mother. "I need to!" Was all he could come up with.
Mrs. Magoy ignored her son's desperation and was about to drop the thought completely before she saw the odd look the cashier was giving her. It was as if he was saying, "Geez, how can you do that to a kid?"
Mrs. Magoy pasted on a smile, let out a nervous laugh and then sweetly asked the cashier, "Could I have one of those entry forms for the children's writing contest?"
"Sure thing." He handed her a form as her receipt calculated.
"Thank you." She said, still smiling as she gave the form to Tuck.
Tuck grasped onto the entry form. So what if it had been earned through his mother's social paranoia? The fact was that he had it, and to him, it didn't matter how it had been achieved.
Tuck raced into his home and sped past his father on the couch. He ran up the stairs and burst the door to his room open. He turned on the computer and impatiently waited for it to start up.
Downstairs, Tuck's mother walked in carrying several shopping bags. She set them down on the beige carpet as she turned to Mr. Magoy. "Hi, honey." She smiled her big ruby lips.
"What's with that boy?" Mr. Magoy asked, "He ran up those stairs faster than I've ever seen him run in his life."
"Some silly writing contest. He begged for an entry form at the store. I figure this is all just a fad and if we play along he'll grow out of it."
Tuck, still upstairs and oblivious to their conversation, hurriedly starting typing away at his keyboard. He started typing incredibly quickly; he didn't want to think about the words just yet, he wanted just to get them out.
Tuck was so caught up in his writing that he hardly noticed when Brad walked in.
"Hey Tuck," Brad said, "Playin' some computer game?"
Tuck shook his head. "Writing."
"Writing?" Brad said, almost in disgust. Then he noticed the entry form laying on Tuck's bed. "For this contest thing?" Brad asked.
Tuck just nodded.
"Hey, slow down Tuck," Brad sarcasticly said, "It's hard to understand you when you talk so fast." Brad picked up the form and started reading it.
"I'm trying to finish this." Tuck said.
"You've got a month, what's the rush? You're typing faster than.... hmm, don't really have anything I can compare that to."
"Brad! I'm trying to concentrate here!" Tuck said, angrier than he had hoped to sound.
"Sorry," Brad said sarcasticly.
Tuck just sighed and kept writing. Brad didn't matter, he was in his own world.
Three weeks later, Tuck finished his story. He read it through over and over again. Everything was just the way he wanted it.
He printed out all the pages and stapled it to the entry form like the rules said. He flipped through the pages one more time. There was something inside of him bubbling with excitement. He knew that never before had he written something this good. He ran downstairs as quickly as he could. He had another week before the entries were due, but he wanted to get his in as soon as he could.
"Mom!" He shouted.
"What is it Tuck?" Mrs. Magoy shouted from the kitchen.
Tuck walked into the other room. "Mom, I need to go the mall. I finished my writing contest entry."
Mrs. Magoy grabbed his entry and turned through the pages. "Geez Tuck, six pages! Don't you have anything to do?" She sighed.
Tuck brushed aside her comment, "When can we go?" He asked.
"Augh, we might as well go right now. The grocery's store is across the street and I need to buy something for supper." Mrs. Magoy grabbed her purse and handed back to Tuck his story.
"I'm taking Tuck to the mall, honey!" She shouted to Mr. Magoy in the living room. "We're gonna bring something home for supper!"
"Fine!" He shouted back.
"C'mon Tuck, let's go before the grocery store closes." Mrs. Magoy
Tuck wasn't quite sure of what his mom meant, the grocery store closed at seven and it was four-thirty.
Tuck ran into the same store he had been at weeks ago. He was several steps ahead of his mother.
"Tuck, quit rushing like this. We have plenty of time." His mother said.
He stopped for a second. Wasn't she the one that had just minutes told him to hurry before the grocery store closes? He shrugged. He didn't know what his mother meant, but he convinced himself that it wasn't any big deal.
Tuck walked with his mother slowly, but excitedly, into the store.
Mrs. Magoy leaned over the counter with the cash register. The clerk behind it looked at her and said, "Can I help you?"
Tuck waved his entry over the top of the counter. Nine years old and he could hardly see over the top of the desk.
"My son finished his entry for the writing contest." Mrs. Magoy said, taking the papers out of Tuck's hand again. "Do we turn it in here?"
"Yeah, I'll take that." The clerk took Tuck's story from Mrs. Magoy.
"All right, thank you." Mrs. Magoy said as she gave Tuck a slight push out of the store.
Tuck looked out the car window as the scenery rolled by. He was excited, and nervous, that day. It was the day when the awards were announced for the writing contest. Tuck had convinced his entire family to come with him, and so Brad, his father and mother were all in the family car all on the way to the small center where the winner would be announced. Tuck had a huge smile on his face and a swarm of butterflies in his stomache. He could hardly stand on his two feet by the time his father parked the car in front of the center.
The rest of his family unenthusiasticly got out of the car and walked a few paces behind Tuck to the inside of the center. Tuck rushed to the doors of the building with his family still behind. Brad just groaned and sighed. He had better things to do on a Saturday. Mr. and Mrs. Magoy were irritated that their son was participating in something as frivolous as this.
No one wanted to be there except Tuck, and he didn't want to be anywhere else.
Tuck sat with his unamused family in the bleachers. In just a few minutes, they would be announcing the winners.
"Welcome all to the announcement ceremony of this year's writing contest held by the local mall." The speaker announced to the entire auditorium.
Brad rolled his eyes. This was beginning to sound a lot like a speech.
"I remember when we first started this contest we just hoped to bring up some artistic interest into young citizens..."
Yeup, this was a speech.
Tuck eagerly sat through the speech, awaiting the announcing of the winners. He was nervous enough to start biting his fingernails, and he waited, bright-eyed and anxious.
"...And even through all of that, this contest stayed." The announcer droned back in, "And so without further ado, let's reveal the winners."
Tuck felt his palms sweating.
"We'll start by naming off the third place winner." He said.
A blonde girl named Elizabeth won the third place prize- a medal and twenty dollar gift certificate to the mall. The second prize winner would get a pint-size trophy and fifty dollar gift certificate. The first place winner got a trophy and a one hundred dollar check.
Tuck tapped his fingers against the bleachers, trying to calm himself down before they announced the second place winner. He had chewed his fingernails down to stubs.
"And the second place winner is," He announced, "Fred Thompson."
A short, red-haired boy walked to the front, shook hands with the announcer and accepted his prize. Several cameras flashed and hands clapped.
"And now to announce the first place winner," The announcer said.
The butterflies in Tuck's stomache were flapping crazily. He hadn't won anything yet. Could it be that he was...
"First place is Tucker Magoy." The words rang through the auditorium. Hands started clapping like crazy. Tuck was sweating and trying to comprehend what he had just heard. The words had reached his ears, but somehow, he hadn't heard them.
He asked himself, did I just win?
"Get up there, Tuck." Brad said.
Tuck walked to the front of the auditorium. His legs felt like jelly.
He shook his hand with the announcer and then he was handed a trophy and a one-hundred dollar check with his name on it. He smiled as a few cameras flashed in front of him. It may have been just a small local writing contest, but Tucker Magoy looked like he had just won a pulitizer prize.
After it was all said and done, Tuck still had that wide smile on his face. People were coming up to him just to say, "Congratulations." And people were even approaching his parents.
"You must be very proad of Tucker." One woman said to Mrs. Magoy.
"Oh yes, yes, we are." Mrs. Magoy smiled and said, "We've always known he was meant for something like this."
Brad walked up to Tuck. He had that big stupid smile, what'd he think he won a state-wide contest? So he wrote some story and beat out a few local nobodys. Big deal.
"How's your fifteen minutes of fame going?" Brad asked his kid brother.
Tuck turned around to look at Brad. "What?" He said, a little unaware of what Brad meant.
His older brother shook his head. "Nothing"
"Come on Tuck, I have a million errands to run." Mrs. Magoy said through her pasted smile.
"Wha?" Tuck started to get confused as his mother grabbed him by the hand and dragged him through the auditorium.
His mom seemed angry at something, but he had just won! He thought she would be proud.
"But mom," Tuck said, "I won this trophy, and the check-"
"Give me that Tucker," Mrs. Magoy said as she swiped the check straight out of Tuck's hands.
"Mom that's mine-"
"Shush!" Mrs. Magoy said sharply. She had a migraine and was not in the mood for this. "The family budget's running low this month. Honestly, every time you kids go back to school I have to spend all this money on new things and this hardly accounts for half of it." Mrs. Magoy shoved the check in her purse and put her hands on her hips as she walked out with the family behind her.
"Brad," Tuck said, "Did you see what-"
"Augh," Brad moaned, "Would you quit whining? You drag me all the way out here on a Saturday and get bored to death by some guy's twenty-minute speech, and then you complain about some little detail. Well cry me a river!" Brad sarcasticly said.
Tuck just didn't understand. Everyone else there had thought it was good that he won. They all clapped for him, he could still hear that sound in his head. But his mother... his whole family... they weren't proud of him.
Why?
He wanted to win. He was happy that he won, but his mother thought it was something terrible. He couldn't figure it out. He didn't know what he had done wrong.
He didn't care that his mom had stolen his hundred dollars. She could have it all. He didn't even need a victory. All he needed was her to be proud of him. Her approval; for his mother and his whole family to know that he was doing something right. But he didn't even get that.
As he got back into the car, there was a tear coming down his face.