Strangetown: Chapter One

[strangetomato]

Warning: some strong language



Chapter One





Ripp Grunt considered himself the most unhappy person in Strangetown.

Strangetown. It sounded a lot more interesting than it was. Boredom beat down on you almost as hard as the merciless sun. Who could explain why sims would choose to live there, in the harsh desert? It certainly seemed to attract a host of deviants and weirdos, and now the Grunts were among them.




Buzz Grunt had moved the family there shortly after his promotion to General. That was normal enough. The Grunt boys were typical military brats, so they were well used to moving. This time, though, they stayed longer than usual. In fact, Buzz had no intention of ever leaving Strangetown. His new area of work, dealing with "the alien situation", required him to remain there.

Moving around so much, the Grunt boys rarely made close friends. Tank didn't seem to be capable of making them at all. Ripp usually made a couple of easy, throwaway friendships, but never got too close. Buck, still a child, didn't have the same teenage issues to deal with as his older brothers, so it didn't bother him yet. However, This lack of outside friends had failed to create any sort of comradery between Tank and Ripp.

Put simply, they hated each other. The truth was much more complicated than that, but to a casual observer, they couldn't have been more different, or more contemptuous of each other.




Tank Grunt. Tank, Tank, Tank. The firstborn. The favourite. He was being groomed to follow in the General's footsteps. He accepted this fact, not without a certain amount of joy, but very rationally and seriously. Tank couldn't possibly be any more serious than he already was. He really was his father's son. Neat and tidy, punctual, and distrustful of anything outside of his worldview. He spent a lot of time training with Buzz, and had already begun working with the military part-time.




On top of this, he got straight A's in school.




Ripp was failing most of his courses at school.




Ripp Grunt was everything that Tank was not, and nothing that he was. Lazy, messy, lacking in focus or motivation, but also charismatic and sensitive, and, in his opinion, much better looking too.




He also had a part-time job, because the General insisted on it. Not that Buzz thought much of what Ripp had chosen for employment. He'd applied for a job at the gas station with the sorriest excuse for a resume that the world had ever seen, but had somehow been hired. He hated his McJob with a passion, but he was glad to make some money of his own. The General would never give him a single simoleon, at least not to buy anything he would actually want.

What he wanted more than anything was a guitar. He'd always been musical, and had played in the school band forever, but he needed his very own guitar. A cool guitar. A sexy guitar. He was going to become a rock star, become rich and famous, and get the hell out of Strangetown forever.

He wouldn't even look back.




Buck fell outside of this rivalry. As the baby of the family, he was able to do more or less what he wanted. What he wanted to do included baking, playing with dolls, and leafing through the Holy Simoly design catalogue, which, after some insistance from Ripp, he had the sense to hide from Buzz.




"What you readin', there, Buck?"

"Oh, nuthin'... just one of mom's old design catalogues."

"Better not let the General see it."

"Why not?"

"Because he'll throw it in the fucking trash can, that's why."

"Oh, yeah... right. I'll hide it under my bed." The Grunt boys hid lots of things under their beds.




Buck was too naive to realize the danger in displaying such interests at first, but he quickly caught on. Buzz mostly ignored him, but he occasionally worried about his youngest son being too soft. Both Tank and Ripp spent time with Buck, and each hoped he would be an ally to them, though Ripp was doing a much better job.




Buck thought Ripp was cooler than cool, and Ripp loved his younger brother very much.




Buzz Grunt went about his life with military precision, and dealt with his sons the same way he dealt with his troops. "If someone has a better way to raise three boys, I'd like to hear it." he was known to say. For Tank, this approach worked well, but the other two really suffered as a result.

It hadn't been so bad when Lyla was still around.

Lyla had been the consummate army wife, at least on the surface. Behind that outward image, was a very different story. The love had gone out of their marriage somewhere between Ripp and Buck, and Lyla had gone looking for it elsewhere. After months of cold silence, followed by weeks of shouting, Lyla finally left him. That wasn't surprising, in itself, except she never came back. At all. She didn't even call.

Months later, General Buzz was questioned about her disappearance by the Strangetown Police Department (SPD), but, of course, he knew nothing. A missing person's report was filed, and Buzz didn't think too much about it afterwards, except to suggest that she'd probably run off with some asshole, or had gotten abducted by "those damn aliens". To this day, her whereabouts were officially unknown.






The loss of their mother was hard on all of the Grunt boys, but they each learned to cope with it in their own way.




Buzz had no time for dwelling on it, so they dealt with their grief in private. Some took it much harder than others.

Ripp viewed his father with nothing but contempt. His list of the General's crimes against him included naming him Ripp, chasing his mother away, and, in his own words, being a "complete fucking asshole."




An early attempt at molding Ripp in his own image had gone sour for the General.




It had occurred in the wake of Ripp's teen transition, when he so boldly rejected his father's aspiration for that of his mother, which was simply unacceptable in the eyes of the General. His retaliation, the haircut, resulted in one of the biggest flare ups in family history, and had created an endless supply of bad blood between him and Ripp. Ripp had sworn that he'd never cut his hair again, and, to date, he hadn't. "Over my dead body... you can cut it for my funeral," he had said, and prayed that the General would die before him.




Ripp based his life around what would anger the General the most, it seemed. He watched TV all day, ate poorly, took long lazy baths, and swore constantly. He wore the same pair of jeans every day for weeks without washing them, and used tape on his bedroom walls instead of the designated putty. He kept his own schedule and it wasn't even remotely based on military time.




His sole military practice was short-sheeting Tank's perfectly hospital-cornered bed, and he fooled him almost every time. That was the one piece of information that he gladly retained from all of the General's long-winded army rants.




Seeing the rage of Tank as he sputtered and fumed was well worth the effort. It's not like Tank treated him any better.




Ripp also often cried alone in his bedroom, or any room that was out of earshot of the General and Tank. This was more of a necessity than an attempt to garner disapproval, though that would be guaranteed if he was ever discovered. Tears were not an option for any proper Grunt man, or any man period, in the General's opinion. Knowing that he would be scolded or mocked rather than consoled always seemed to make the tears come even harder and faster.

Ripp's crowning achievement in getting back at the General, however, was his best friend, Johnny Smith.




Not that the friendship had been his idea. It had been Johnny who first approached Ripp, that summer the Grunts had moved to Strangetown.




Ripp had never met anyone quite like Johnny. Sunny and warm, just like his golden blond hair, Johnny always exhibited a comfortably assured presence, as if he never doubted the validity of his existence. If Johnny ever cared that his skin was green, Ripp never noticed. This fascinated Ripp.




"I'm Johnny," he had said with a smile, "John Smith. I'm guessing that you're one of the General's sons."

"Yeah... the normal one. My name's Ripp Grunt - don't laugh."




"Why would I laugh?" It didn't occur to Johnny that someone would find the name odd. "Welcome to Stangetown! I've lived here all my life. I'm the 4th generation of Strangetowner on my mom's side. Dad's from out of town, obviously." That much was as plain as the nose on his face.




"Strangetown's not such a bad place to live. It's a bit boring, at times, but you can make your own fun..."

Ripp tried not to stare, but even Johnny's fingernails were green!




The two became fast friends. For a while, it was just the two of them, and Ripp couldn't have been happier. He didn't even mind playing second fiddle to Johnny, who seemed to be a born all-star at life, even though he detested this role in his own family. Johnny never rubbed it in his face, unless it was beating him at videogames, which he always did.




Then Ophelia arrived.




A mysterious, quiet girl, with intense eyes. Johnny, of course, was quick to chat her up. Ripp liked Ophelia. She had a certain way of making you feel like the most important person in the world when she spoke with you. They quickly became a trio, and did almost everything together.




Yes, Ripp had the best friends anyone could ask for.




Then they fell in love.

Ripp tried not to resent them for it, but it was hard.




It's not like he was jealous, though he wondered how Ophelia could think Johnny was more attractive than he was, or why Johnny found Ophelia's company preferable to his. No, he wasn't jealous at all. There were plenty of fish in the sea, and if he had been born with any talent at all, aside from music, it was "fishing".




His reputation preceded him.














General Grunt worried about his middle child. Ripp's resemblance to his mother, both physically and mentally, disturbed him greatly. Ripp's eyes bore judgement down on him like they were Lyla's own. Indeed, they had the very same eyes. When he finally noticed that Ripp was burning his way through every girl in Strangetown, without so much as a second glance, that was the last straw. It was like a slap in the face.

The Grunts were enjoying their daily exercise in awkwardness and tension, the family meal, when Buzz brought up the subject of college.




"So, Tank... you really need to get to work on that college application soon." The General started, "You'll be going to LFT too, right, Ripp?"

"Ummm, I dunno... " With the caliber of his grades, it hadn't exactly occurred to him.

"Well, you ought to at least attempt to make something of yourself. I'll pay for your first year's tuition, you know."

"You will?! ... what's the catch?"

"No catch, son."


"You mean, I won't have to study military assholism like Tank?"

"Watch your mouth, Ripp!"




"Sorry."

"Sorry, what?"

"Sorry... sir." He thought about it. "So I can actually study whatever I want?"

"As long as you study something, anything, other than T&A and the inside of a toilet bowl, I couldn't care less. As long as your lazy ass is off of my couch and out the door..."

"Not a problem."




There it was. His ticket out of Strangetown, out of that house, but first, he would have to pass high school. It wasn't impossible, but it was definitely daunting. Still, he could find a way. He had to find a way. Ripp, despite his terrible grades, considered himself smarter than most other sims. There was one thing, however, that he was dead wrong about...




He was definitely not the most unhappy person in Strangetown.












Continue to Chapter Two...

 

Comments

[kin-thalas.livejournal.com]

Aww, poor Ripp. I like your introduction of the Grunt family.
And I like the last sentence ver much, even with the picture!

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

That means a lot to me, since I know you're a true Grunt fan. Yeah, Ripp and the General make life hard for each other. It's a two way street (or a divided highway, like in Strangetown itself).

Thanks. I was happy with that last sentence, how it leads into the next chapter. I always did like closing by return as an exit strategy too. I'm glad it worked for you.