A Life To Waste

A Life To Waste

Copyright © 2013 Andrew
Lennon

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-1492346180

ISBN-10: 1492346187

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For Hazel

Hopefully this is the first of
many

Thank you to my wife for the
encouragement and help she gave me while writing this.

Chapter 1

What’s the plan for tonight
then? Playstation? No, movie? No, hmm oh maybe....nah, just
sleep.
These are the hard decisions that a 35 year old lazy-ass
waste of space that lives with his mum has to make. Meet Dave, he
is the lazy waste of space, not bad looking, not completely out of
shape either, which he should be with his lifestyle. The sort of
rough and ready looking kind of guy. A bit like “Kieffer
Sutherland” in “Lost Boys” or “Stand by Me”. If he made any effort
at all he could probably have his pick of a fair few girls. He made
no effort, none whatsoever. He will change his clothes, including
underwear and socks, maybe once a week, twice if you’re lucky. So
the smell from him is terrible, His clothes are always a big baggy
t shirt, and some jeans, never anything different. He doesn’t shave
until his facial hair annoys him, even then he just quickly trims
it. So he always looks at about that five day mark, not quite a
beard, but not stubble either. All in all, he is a scruffy
bastard.

He likes to live life at his own
pace, which appears to be as slow as possible. His daily routine
consists of waking up, eating, sleeping, waking up again, maybe eat
more, play something or watch TV, sleep again, wake up for the
third time of the day then drink or smoke bud, depending on how
much money he could talk his mum into giving him that day. Yes he
still lives with his mum, well how could he afford not too? He eats
enough for two men, drinks enough for three and lets not get
started on the amount he spends on weed. That all costs a lot of
money! It’s hard to keep up with work each day if you’re constantly
hung over. That’s why Dave decided it would be better all round if
he just didn’t work. Besides his mum makes enough money for both of
them, so he thinks.

Dave treats his mum like she is
a maid, no wait, that’s too much of a compliment, maids get more
respect. I can’t quite describe just how Dave treats his mum. Maybe
somewhere between a convict and a leper? To say he has no respect
for her is an understatement, he leaves his clothes on the floor
where he takes them off, granted sometimes he may only change once
a week but still, he will leave what ever plate or bowl he has
eaten off wherever it was placed when he eat. As you can imagine he
doesn’t do much cleaning around the house either. When is mum gets
home she is expected to walk round and clean this mess up. If she
doesn’t he will start insulting her, “dirty bitch” he will say
“look at the state of your house, how am I supposed to live in this
mess” and this will continue the whole time she cleans it up, he
will stand next to her and lay in with the insults the entire time
she cleans up after him. To avoid this ordeal, it is the very first
thing she does when she gets home.

Margaret, Daves mum, is 65, she
looks it as well, maybe closer to 75, time has not been kind to
her. Maybe it is the fact she has had to take care of a fully grown
man for the best part of 20 years. A fully grown man who she is
completely terrified of! However, she is fit as a fiddle, she can
run rings round any woman, or man, at the factory where she works.
She can lift boxes twice her own weight, which is a constant shock
to other workers because she looks so old and frail. What they
don’t know is that on the inside she is far more old and frail than
she appears.

When Margaret has finished
cleaning up after Daves daily activities it is time for her to make
dinner. She only has very small meals as she cannot afford to eat a
lot, with the amount of food that Dave eats, and the amount of
money she has to give him. It doesn’t leave much left for her. She
will make Dave what ever he has requested for tea and just give
herself a little child size portion of that. She could afford to
get more food if she refused to give him money, she was too scared
though, she had done that before.

When she refused he threw an
almighty tantrum. It was like a child in the shop being told that
he couldn’t have the toy he wanted. Only a child will maybe kick
and scream. Dave wasn’t a child, he was a fully grown man and he
wouldn’t kick and scream. He would punch and shout! He wouldn’t
punch his mum, although she didn’t doubt that he had come very
close and was very capable, he would punch doors and walls. He was
very big and quite strong so as a result of these tantrums there
are reminders left around the house of what happens when she says
no. Holes in walls and doors, broken furniture etc.

After dinner she will do the
normal house cleaning, dishes, hovering, dusting etc. Then if Dave
didn’t tell her to go to the shop for him, it was time to relax. If
that is what you can call it. She would sit in her bedroom with a
book or with the TV on. Sometimes she would read, sometimes she
would watch the TV. Most nights she would just lie in bed. Just lie
there and wish something would come and take her away from this
endless routine.

Dave hated when his mum was home
from work, he enjoyed the daytime when she was not there. When she
got home she would be in the way picking up clothes or plates or
something, it didn’t matter too much though as she was never around
for too long. After dinner she seemed to disappear off to bed. He
didn’t really know what she did, he didn’t really care. He was fed
and she has tidied, that’s all that matters.

Anyway now he could continue
with his night, there was a
Nightmare on Elm Street
marathon
on, this was perfect for Dave. He could sit and drink and smoke and
laugh at all the cheesy lines that
Freddy
would make.
“
Freddy”
was the killer in the
Elm Street
films, they
were terrifying as a child, when Dave and his friend Trevor were
younger they had sneaked the film from Trevor’s older brother, they
went to Trevor’s room and watched it. Dave didn’t sleep for a week!
Every time he closed his eyes he would see “Freddy’s” scarred face.
He didn’t dare tell Trevor though, he couldn’t let his friend know
that it had scared him. He was a tough guy you know. No way a
twelve year old got scared by silly movies.

As he grew older he thought
those films were a little bit cheesy, he was almost embarrassed
thinking about how much it at scared him.

Now that he was a drunken stoner
he found these films utterly hilarious, every cheesy line, or every
cheesy killing he would laugh at the top of his voice. A really
loud horrible laugh which was followed by chesty coughing and
spluttering. Then take a few more sips, maybe a few more tokes,
then laugh and repeat.

Dave was set for the night with
this film marathon on, there was at least ten “Freddy” films. That
could last him the entire night. Then he could make sure he was
sound asleep in the morning so he wouldn’t have to speak to his mum
before she left for work.

This really was the highlight of
Dave’s week, he didn’t have friends anymore. He didn’t go anywhere,
he didn’t go to any bars or clubs. He didn’t go to any sports
events or movies. He didn’t go to any friends houses. He didn’t
have any friends come to his house either. Nobody called or asked
about him. He did sign up to a few social network sites but he got
sick of how happy everyone was. He thought it was all fake, they
just took happy pictures and posted them online, that wasn’t their
real life. Their real life was sat in the dark every night watching
TV just like him. That’s what life if like he thought, dark.
Everything else is just a lie.

He wasn’t always this horrible
lazy loner. He used to be happy, he used to have ambition, he used
to have a girlfriend, Claire, wonder what happened to her? He used
to have friends, he had a best friend, Trevor.

Watching the “Freddy” films made
Dave think about Trevor, he thought about watching it together when
they were younger, back when he was happy, back when life still
seemed bright. “What happened to Trevor?” he said to himself. He
paused had another sip of beer then thought. “What happened to
me?

Chapter 2

Dave had been just like any
other child, he was happy, had friends, he liked to play football,
he liked to run, oh boy did he like to run. He could run like the
wind blows, none of his friends could get anywhere near him. When
he was 9 he used to race the kids that lived in his area. He even
gave them a head start sometimes, he always won. The only person
that was anywhere near Dave’s pace was Trevor, his best friend, and
he was still left for dust.

Quite often grown ups walking
past would stop and watch him in astoundment. They had never seen a
child run so fast. “Wanna get him on the track” they would tell his
parents. “that boy will be running at the Olympics one day”.
Obviously his parents didn’t think that, they knew he was fast but
the Olympics? Come on be serious. Dave believed it though. “I’m
faster than any kid I know” he said “and they said I’m faster than
any kid
they
know”. That was when his dream began, his dream
of being an Olympic sprinter!

When he started senior school at
the age of 11 things were a lot different for him. Lessons were a
lot harder, days were a lot longer, and girls were a lot prettier.
A few things stayed the same though, Trevor was still his best
friend, and he still loved to run!

He couldn’t contain his
excitement when he found out the school had an athletics club. He
was bouncing up and down, shaking with excitement. “Jesus, calm
down before you spurt in your pants” Trevor told him, they were
both still waiting for the day they actually understood what that
meant, but they had heard people say it, and it sounded funny. “I
can’t help it” Dave said “an actual athletics club! Don’t you know
what this means? This means I can actually compete! I can show
people how good I am, this is my ticket to the Olympics.”

“yeah sure, the Olympics” Trevor
humoured Dave and carried on walking to class.

Dave joined the athletics team,
needless to say he was the fastest in his year. He noticed though,
even though he was still winning races, he wasn’t winning by quite
as much.

The competition got tougher as
it got older. This was when he realised that he couldn’t just take
for granted that he was faster than people. With hard work and with
training, they could improve and end up being faster than him. So
to stop that happening, he decided to start training himself, he
went for regular jogs doing mini sprints at different markers he
had set for himself. He went to the gym after school, the gym was
actually attached to the school and seen as he was an attending
pupil of that school he could go for free, which was great because
he wouldn’t have been able to afford to pay.

He kept this routine up for two
years, until he reached year 9 at school, that would make him 13.
Now he could actually compete against other schools. Not just his
classmates and friends at athletics club. Now there was actual
competition! Again he was overwhelmed with excitement, on the way
to his English class he was telling Trevor how much he was looking
forward to racing against stronger opponents, Trevor just nodded
and humoured him. He was still friends with Trevor but with all his
training all the time plus homework, which seemed to grow rapidly
in year 9, and athletics club, they didn’t seem to see much of each
other anymore. They would chat to and from class, and a little bit
in class, until they were caught and told off by the teacher.