John Bender sat on his bed and observed his room. It was sparsely decorated, only containing his bed, a work desk—which was his final project for Shop last semester—a radio, his dad's old record player which was a halfway decent shot at giving John Jr. a birthday gift, and a small TV.
John Bender, Sr. was a rough guy. He was a machinist at Shermer Metal Works. It was one of the handful of industrial businesses that employed those of the middle class and those who weren't so well off. This section was cutoff from the rest of the town by The railways that went onto Chicago and further outbound, hence the popular phrase: "The wrong side of the tracks." The Bender family happened to live on the less-fortunate side.
In his heyday, the elder Bender was much like his future son. He hung around with the local gang of hoodlums, had a few drag races, shoplifted when money was tight, had scuffles with the Jocks, bullied the geeks, and tried getting lucky with many a female. After getting through high school with D grades, he started off doing odd jobs at a few local stores. After that, he started as a parts cleaner and machine operator at Shermer Metal Works. He eventually became a topnotch welder by his mid-twenties.
Eventually, John Bender, Jr. would enter his life (more so by fate than his actual wanting of a child at this point). Sheila and John tied the knot shortly after that. As he got older, John started showing the traits of his old man. Deciding this was inevitable, he just let it slide, figuring that his son would just follow the motions and end up a C or D student.
At present time, his father had grown intolerant of his son's behavior. After racking up about two weeks worth of Saturday detentions for being smart with the vice principal, he increased his already hard discipline. Luckily, John knew when to quit—A man with a toolbox was nothing to mess with—the wort he ever got was a cigar burn at this point in time.
His father would be coming home from work soon smelling of oil and grease from the shop. His father really liked his son's work in Shop class. It reminded him of himself, and that his son wasn't a complete fuck-up. He figured he would make something this week for his dad, maybe just to get him off of his back for a bit.
He walked over to his record player, blew the dust off of his dad's ancient copy of Paranoid by Black Sabbath and played the album's title track. He sang along with the loud music coming out of the worn out hi-fi system. There was a loud banging on his door.
"Johnny, turn that down!" He opened his door and tried yelling over the stereo
"What?" His mother walked in and turned the volume down until it was muted.
"Your father's coming home, and if he hears that racket he'll break your nose!"
"Why not? Dad digs Sabbath."
"Yes, but at a reasonable volume!"
"Yes, ma'am." His mother went back to cooking dinner and John raised the volume slightly nd resume sitting on his bed. He figured the slightest thing would start another episode at the family dinner tonight. He just relaxed in the tranquility of his room, with a slight lull of Ozzy in the background.