Dock är inget direkt redigerat, men jag hoppas att ni gillar detta medellånga första kapitel.
Noah's age: 11?
”Noah! Get your hands off that! That's your daddy's.” She slapped his hand hard. “I don't have time for this.” She started fumbling with her fake Luis Vuitton purse and got hold of her wallet. “Here.” She reached him a dollar without looking at him. “Be good to dad/father now okay? He's tired.”
He's filled with shit. He wanted to say but left it unspoken. Instead he nodded in response. She put her hand around his neck and kissed his forehead. Then she hurried out of the kitchen dressed in her cafeteria uniform, leaving him with a pot of cold porridge on the oven and a drunk father in the living room.
He should love her, shouldn't he? She was his mother after all. Wasn't it morally incorrect to not/not to love your (own) mother?
The walls stared blankly at him expect for the door which was covered with a large Led Zeppelin poster he'd gotten for his last birthday by his brother. He wasn't really allowed to put things on the walls, it would be easier and less expensive to sell the old shanty if he didn't ruin the wallpaper.
He sat down on his bed, an military one his dad had bought lose from the days of his military training. He picked up his cassette tape player, covered his ears with the yellow headphones and shut his eyes as the music danced through him. The words streamed inside of him, brought him with them to another space and time where only he himself could decide what would happen (to him).
“So.. how's school (today)?” His dad said with a newly awoken voice when/as Noah accompanied him in the living room.
“It's summer-break dad.” He said, but tried not to sound too disappointed about his dad's lack of knowledge, it would only trigger him. It was not worth it. He sat on his hand in the sofa from the 70's.
“Oh.. yeah, (of course) I knew that.” He put down the empty beer bottle on the table beside the armchair and tried to sit up straight.
This was how they interacted with each other, all the time, short sentences, no care in either of their voices. In the background Jerry Springer talked about how people should not forget to love those they call family.
“So when's she comin' home?”
“Late.”
“Mhm..” He grunted and got up from the armchair. Noah noticed his dad looked older and more miserable than it had been, dressed in those ragged clothes, as he headed for the bathroom.
Noah had loved him once as only an innocent child can love his father. When he was younger, when his father didn't drink so much, then he had been Noah's hero. The summer days spent fishing by the lake, learning how to ride his bike, falling – getting up again, listening to his father playing the bass. He missed all those things, but he had a feeling he'd never get all that back again.
When they'd eaten the porridge, or mostly Noah had, since his dad counted the calories in what he was drinking rather than what he was eating, the front door opened with a low shriek. Jesse stepped into the hallway dressed in a pair of tight jeans and a jeans jacket. His hair was pitch black and too long for a boy('s). He'd once mentioned that the cause of the long hair was the rebellion in him trying to revolt/fight back against their parents.
He walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge, looked at the content for a while before grabbing the last milk and placing it to his mouth.
“Mum won't be happy about that.” Noah said.
Jesse closed the fridge and put down the milk packet on the worktop behind him.
“She isn't here is she?” He smirked.
“No.”
“Then it's totally fine.”
“Why?”
“Because we're only allowed not to drink directly from this when she can't see us, get it?” He held up the milk (package)
“Kind of..” Noah said with a strange face.
Jesse laughed.
“Everything okay here?”
“Dad's sleeping.”
“Great.” He took one last sip from the milk(package) before he put it back on the top shelf in the fridge. He turned his back on the kitchen and walked out in the hallway.
“Where'r you going?” Noah yelled after him.
“To my room.”
“You're not gonna watch porn/naked women/ladies are you?”
He heard Jesse laugh.
“No.”
“Can I come then?”
“..Sure.”
Noah left the unfinished/dirty dishes on the (round) table and trotted to the stairs.
His brother's room did not follow the set down rules of naked walls, instead they were totally covered with all kinds of (legendary) rock bands like Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, Gun's and Roses, Queen, etc. Noah stared at the black electric guitar placed on the wall above Jesse's bed. It had Curt Cobain's autograph on it.
“How did you get that again?”
Noah never got tired of asking, and Jesse, even though he was (he) never showed, that he was tired of explaining.
(Later Jesse will give the guitar to Noah as they grow older, in the first chapter Jesse's about 16? and Noah's 9-10?)
Jesse took down the instrument and placed himself on the bed. Noah climbed up beside him to listen to his brother re-citing the story of the how he'd gotten when he was at (band) concert.
When he had finished explaining Noah said:
“I wish I could be in a band...”
“Why do you think I practice everyday?” Jesse said with a smirk, placing the guitar neatly in his arms. Jesse closed his eyes and shut out the world around him. Quietly he started jamming on the guitar, humming along with its gentle melody. Noah sat quiet, listening, trying too to shut out the surroundings that suppressed them both. He tried to feel the music dance inside of him but to his disappointment he didn't feel it.
He thought about how much he hungered to learn, how envious he was over/about his brothers talent. How he two wanted to learn, to be taught how to not only play but how to actually play with his heart and so it poured out of him:
“Could you teach me?”
He had longed to say it, to ask the question he'd carried like a burden for so long. His brother was everything to him and he didn't want to seem like a carriage to him, and if Jesse said no Noah would feel more than just sad(ness), it would be like the end of the world.
“Really? I mean.. you'd like that?”
Noah nodded.
“Okay.” Jesse placed the large guitar in Noah's lap. “Put your fingers here.”
“Here?” Noah said, looking carefully up at his brother, while he felt the blood rush and the adrenaline pump in him like he was on fire.
“And then you just...” He put his hand on top of Noah's and together they pulled Noah's small fingers over the metal strings.
When it was all dark outside they started arguing in the kitchen again, yelling at each other to shut up. Noah sat on top of his bed, listening to his cassette bands to put out all the noise. He tried to sing along to Nirvana's (?) as quietly as he thought was possible, sounding only like a low whistle or a whisper in the wind. He wanted nothing more than to sing, to become a rock star, to get away from everything.
The door burst open and his mother stood in the doorway, panting and staring at him with furious eyes. Her blond hair was a mess and so was her makeup.
“The dishes! Why would you leave the freaking dishes on the table, Noah! I've told you...”
She started crying. He just looked at her blankly.
“Give me that!” She yelled, stretching out her arm to him while she stumbled into his room.
He squeezed the player tightly as he tried to hide it from her in his arms.
“Stop it Noah! Give me.”
She was close now, too close. He crawled up to the wall with his knees pressed to his chest. She put her hands forward and tried to bend his arms open.
“No!!” He yelled, feeling the lump of cry thicken(ing) in his throat. “Let me go!”
She could hit him as hard as she wanted as long as she didn't touch the cassette band-player. It was all he had, it made him be able to escape to where ever he wanted.
“Give me that useless thing!” She shouted. He felt her saliva on his face and then he felt the hard thud as he fell headlong to the floor with her on him. His head started aching, the blood rushed through it and it felt like his brain would explode any minute.
“No—Noah?” She whimpered. “Noah?”
He looked to his left, his arm outstretched with the cassette band-player not far from him. It didn't play any music but he heard the song in his head as he closed his eyes. There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold. And she's buying a stairway to heaven
He was rushed to the emergency and later his mother gets mad at him again for costing her money.
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