Chapter 21: The Woodstick Festival
Late July finally arrived in Gravity Falls, and it was a hot one, reminding Stan of the summers back in New Jersey.
Just like every day Stan goes and opens the Mystery Shack, just like every day he stood there and greeted his tourists with an enthusiastic manner, and just like every day tourists left with some Mystery Shack item. For some reason there seemed to be a lot more people this time around…
A group of teenagers walked in, them dressed like back when some people Stan's age used to during the late sixties early seventies. It is 1982… why are they dressed like it was over a decade ago.
"Welcome to the Mystery Shack!" Stan greets. "What's with the getup?" he then asks as he gestures to them.
"For the Woodstick Festival," one of the girls replied.
"The… what!?" Stan exclaims in shock, his brown eyes widening.
"The Woodstick Festival… you know, music, food, just hanging out," one of the boys said.
"So… like Woodstock." Stan muses. When he was a kid he had wanted to go, New York was just a simple drive away from New Jersey. Of course his father never allowed him or Stanford to go there, saying that it was too filled with hippies, drugs, and… other things.
"Yeah, I guess… but it is a lot safer for the younger people than that," another girl explains, giving a slight shrug. Both the girls were wearing long white dresses and flower crowns of white daisies in their hair. The guys dressed in bell bottom pants with simple white shirts and wore tie dyed headbands with simple brown sandals.
Oh… I highly doubt it. I was a teenaged boy once too. Stan thought darkly as he gives a slight glance to the boys that were high-fiving each other. The sight of that made him think of "High-Six"…
"So, what brings you kids here then?" Stan asks the girls as the boys went around looking for something.
"We're just killing time… mister…?"
"Well, here they call me 'Mr. Mystery'," Stan tells the girl.
"Oh… okay," she then glances at her friend for a moment, then her gaze goes back to Stan, him noticing they were a bright blue, almost like the sky. "I'm sorry, I just didn't know. We are from the neighboring town Wood Barrow."
The boys then looked like they were about to snag something, but Stan caught them quickly. He knew how to steal… he'd been doing it since he was four years old, but these kids were making a mockery of it. "Alright you two, out of my shop!" Stan then growls, feeling his expression hardening into a scowl. The boys raised their hands, a few items falling from them, and they backed away from Stan towards the exit. Once they left Stan glances at the two girls, both their eyes wide with shock. "O-" he was about to say, but was immediately interrupted by the bright, blue-eyed girl.
"I'm so sorry! We didn't know they were going to do that!" she exclaims loudly, her voice shaking with fear. She looked like she was terrified.
Stan was a professional conman, he had been for years. He knew liars very well, his own mother was a professional liar, and by looking at that young girl he could instantly tell she was telling the truth. He raises a hand, showing that he means no harm, or yelling, to them and he goes behind the counter and grabs a couple of cylinders from the bottom shelf. Stan then hands each girl one, them looking curiously at them.
What they were given was mace, or pepper spray. Stan kept a few of them in case some wise guy tried to rob him. Of course Stan had a few guns as well, and a few knives… but pepper spray brings less attention. He felt bad that the girls were alone with those two knuckleheads of boys, he couldn't just send them off without some way to defend themselves.
"If those two try anything funny with you two… something you don't want…" Stan began, him feeling extremely awkward that he was telling two girls who he didn't even know what to do if they were attacked in some way. "Just spray them in the eyes with those. It'll blind them temporarily and you can run and get help. Or… just in general, if anyone bad is messing with you just spray and run." He put a hand behind his head, scratching nervously, the two girls giving a small grin.
"Thanks, Mr. Mystery," the bright-eyed girl sincerely said. "We will heed your advice." Then with a small wave they go to the exit. "Oh… and I noticed your sign says you close at six, the first set of bands begin playing at seven, hope to see you there!" The bell dings as she opens the door, her and her friend leaving. Stan had went to the window and saw the girls immediately start yelling at the boys, them looking terrified beyond reason.
"They'll be fine…" Stan mused with a smile, him giving a small chuckle as he went and put the almost stolen items away in their rightful spots.
Six came and right on cue Stan closes up the Mystery Shack, flipping the open sign to close. He glances at the clock and gives a shrug. What the hell, he'll go to the Woodstick Festival, he did participate in the other ones after all so what was the harm?
He gets dressed in more casual wear, a simple white t-shirt and long, thin material pants to stay cool but also not get eaten alive by mosquitoes, and a pair of hiking boots to walk through the muddy landscape from the recent rains. The event was being taken place in a large plot of land that was about a mile away from downtown Gravity Falls, it being an amphitheater that had enough land for two football fields. Despite being a small town, especially a town barely no one has ever heard of, the place was practically packed to the brim, filled with every kind of person imaginable.
Stan didn't go into the crowds, he preferred not to. Instead he stayed at the edge, listening to band on stage. It wasn't his taste in music, but he can't knock the people as they had great talent. He did see the bright-eyed girl again, him giving a wave and she returned it with a smile, her left hand gripping the pepper spray tightly as her right held onto her friend's hand. This kind of event wasn't his kind of thing as it was indeed geared to much younger audiences, but he still enjoyed himself.
Although I have a feeling when I'm older I'm gonna hate this… I'm gonna turn into Dad I swear… Stan thought to himself as he headed back home. The thought of his dad made his stomach churn, him feeling sick, and the second part about him ending up like his father made him almost vomit on the spot. His father was always a strict man, Stan knew this, but that didn't mean that Stan didn't try to push limits…
As a kid Stan would always just try to push a little harder just to see what his father would do when very angry. Sometimes it wasn't the best decision as it left a young Stan the inability to sit properly for an hour or so. But Stan still pushed…
Of course his father had some good points to be strict, after all Stan was stealing since he was four, so he was obviously a lot tougher on Stan to try to correct the boy's behavior. Stan was even put in boxing along with Stanford, something that cost quite a pretty penny so the two complied, so he would toughen up but also hopefully be using his time to not steal.
But how that situation was handled over ten years ago… that wasn't being strict, that was straight up abuse.
Stan made a mistake… he caused Stanford's big time project to break, even though he made sure it was still running before he left thinking it should be fine, and cost him admission to a high technical school. Stan didn't mean to do break it… he just wanted to sail with his brother just like they had planned since they were children. He didn't want to imagine a future without his twin just yet… but at age seventeen, just a few months shy of graduating high school (although barely) and turning eighteen.
For over ten years Stan was going across the country trying to make a fortune like his father wanted him to for costing Stanford his dream college. But whatever Stan did… it blew up in his face. He went to jail on multiple occasions, he's been in trunks of cars and truck beds and had to figure a way out or he was going to be killed, and he's seen the bad sides of doing drugs and alcohol when things were almost too unbearable.
Stan knew he didn't have as bright of a future as his twin, but that didn't mean that he couldn't get a nice steady job at some factory on the assembly line after doing his sailing. He felt that he had to make a lot of money quick or that his father would never let him back in the family.
Why should I care anymore? Stan thought bitterly as he slams and locks the front door behind him of the house. The man obviously never really cared for me… I'm the screw up, they were expecting Stanford, not me… He didn't even hold a funeral service of any kind for me when I killed myself off! Stan's hands were in tight fist, shaking, and his jaw clenched so tightly that he thought his teeth might break. If he dropped dead tomorrow I wouldn't give a shit!
With his eyes narrowed angrily he gets ready for bed and settles for the night. Even in his sleep he was still fuming, him waking up every couple of hours to work on the portal only to leave after fifteen minutes to go back to bed.
The morning light wasn't what woke Stan up the next day, or his alarm, but it was the sound of the phone ringing. Once the ringing ended it would pick right up again, a never ending cycle it seemed like. Stan looked at the alarm clock and it was seven in the morning, about an hour early that he would normally wake up.
Finally after the third time hearing the cycle of ringing repeating, Stan goes to the kitchen and answers the phone gruffly, as he was still tired.
"Hello?" he mumbles in the receiver.
"Stanford?!" immediately Stan recognizes his mother's voice, so he clears his throat to try to sound more like his twin. "Are you there!?" her voice was very alarmed sounding, her sounding as if she was going to cry.
"Yeah, Ma, I'm right here." Stan replies.
"For a moment you sounded just like Stanley…" her voice then crack and Stan could hear her sobs over the phone.
"Mom!?" Stan shouts into the phone, him panicked. "What's wrong? Did something happen!?"
"Your father had a heart attack last night and passed away this morning."
Stan drops the phone, it hitting the ground with a thud, then bouncing back up from the cord and it banged uselessly against the side of the counter. His hand was still in the position of being by his ear, but he was oblivious to the lack of phone. He felt is blood run cold, his eyes were wide with horror and disbelief, sweat on his brow and his hands trembling.
No… that's not right… It's just a bad nightmare…
Filbrick Pines was dead, there was no way to try to amend for past mistakes. Stan hadn't spoken to him in over ten years, and he had no idea how out of touch Stanford was with them. Guild gnawed at Stan, him feeling terrible of what he had thought about his father the night before. He also felt guilty that his mother was going through all of this heartache… first Shermie stopped talking to them, then Stanley got kicked out and lost contact, and then Stanford went to college and cut everyone off to study in the woods…
He caused his mother so much grief all these years, and now he was hitting the nail on the coffin. Stan made his mother lose a son and a husband to death, and there was no way he could help her without blowing his cover of stealing Stanford's identity.
Stan didn't want this day to continue, instead he just wanted to be back at the Woodstick Festival and listening to music he didn't even like, watching people have fun and be full of life.
It sure beat him feeling like a useless piece of shit as he stood in the middle of the kitchen, a frozen statue as there was the distant sound of sobbing from the phone, and silent tears falling down his face.
A/N: OOOOOOOOH, you guys were expecting to see if Layla was okay, huh? WELP. I'm evil so I did this instead.
Finally I got internet at my new place, so now I will try to do daily updates again going off and on between the two stories. If I miss a day it's probably because of work or I'm getting stuff for my new place done (like cleaning... ugh).
Thank you guys for being so patient with we and this story! And thanks for reading as always!
~Skye Hendersen~
