Strangetown: Chapter Four

[strangetomato]

Warning: language


Chapter Four





Some time before that, the General had hired a maid, after he finally admitting that it was all a bit too much to keep up with on his own. After the Grunt household went through its typical chaos in the mornings as they all prepared for school and work, the place was left in a total mess, and Buzz wanted it to be neat and tidy when he returned home from work in the evening. That way, they could at least start with a clean slate.




All the Grunts were pretty pleased to have a woman around the house again, even if she was just the hired help. None of them could have been any happier than Ripp, who was very pleasantly surprised to see that the General had somehow managed to hire a maid that was obviously the hottest woman in Strangetown.




He tried to be cool about it, but whenever Genesis Lam walked into the room, he melted into a gooey pile of teenage hormones and probably made a complete ass of himself.




Maybe it was the kinky retrograde styling of the housekeeping company's outfits, and how they served up her flawless breasts like a gourmet meal. That certainly didn't help matters any.




Ripp knew he was underaged and Genesis probably wouldn't give him the time of day because of it, but that didn't mean he couldn't try. He was charming, damn it, and he was pretty fucking cute too. He'd been told as much by a number of people. Sure, one of those people had been his Mom, but she was hardly the only one. Plenty of sims said so, and the girls at school basically lined up to get a piece. Besides, Genesis wasn't that much older than him. She was a young woman, and he'd be going to college soon. Well, maybe.




Genesis was really just one more reason that Ripp might not make it to college. How was he supposed to study when Genesis was upstairs fondling his bedsheets at that very minute? He hoped her perfume would rub off on his pillow.




In his defense, he really was trying his best to pass high school. Little Buck was actually pretty bright for his age, and so he had been helping Ripp with his homework lately. Tank made fun of this fact, of course, but they didn't care. Both Ripp and Buck knew that Buck was actually the sharpest tool in the family, no matter what Tank thought.




Ophelia had also offered to tutor Ripp, when he had mentioned his dilemma to his friends. She was a lot more patient than most sims, so it seemed to be working out pretty well. Tutoring Ripp required a lot of patience.

"Ugh. This chapter is so fucking long."

"Just read it one page at a time, and it won't seem so bad, Ripp."




"Why the hell would I need to know about all this shit that happened millions of years ago?"

"Well, it's sort of interesting, isn't it? At least you'll know it if someone brings it up in conversation one day."

"At least I will pass high school, so I can hurry up and fucking forget this shit."

"Let's just shut it and read for a while, okay?"

"Sorry, Phi. I'll try not be such an asshole about it, I promise." He lasted ten minutes, at most.

They spent several evenings a week together, after Ripp got off of his shift. It was always dark by that time, and it really creeped Ripp out to go over there so late in the night.




It was always unsettling to be around the Specter estate, and most people wouldn't go there at all without a really good reason, but Ripp had been there plenty of times with his friends.




They often hung out in the cemetery, since it was the best place to get away from prying ears. The dead might listen, but they were unlikely to spread rumours.




Still, Ripp was always relieved when Ophelia showed up to greet him. It seemed so much safer to be there when she was around. She always seemed very much relieved to see him too.




Ophelia Nigmos. She was an unusual and interesting girl. Though Ripp truly believed that nobody could possibly have a more terrible family situation than he did, he wasn't so self-centered that he couldn't see that Ophelia maybe, just maybe, had it a worse than he did.




For one thing, she had lost both of her parents. She had probably liked both of them, too. Ophelia hardly ever spoke about it, which only seemed to prove how bad that whole ordeal had been. Ripp knew that they had drowned in their own pool, and that Ophelia had found them herself, but beyond that, it was a mystery. He wondered if Johnny even knew.




Now she lived here in Strangetown with her Aunt Olive, who was the caretaker of the local cemetery, and the subject of a lot of ugly rumours. Perhaps the dead could talk, afterall.




Olive's claim to fame was that she had been widowed, over and over again. That's either some seriously bad luck, or something much more frightening was involved. Nobody knew for sure, and any investigations into her husbands' deaths had left her name clean, so maybe it was unfair that she had such a bad name.

One thing was certain, though. Olive Specter wasn't a very nice woman. She was frightening.




Ophelia didn't complain about living with Olive to anyone, but that didn't mean that she liked it there. Ophelia had quickly learned that she should never complain, because she knew that things could always get worse.




Ophelia spent a lot of her time worrying. It was hard not to worry, when a ghost might jump out at you at any given moment and literally scare you to death. She also worried about other things. Her health, for one. She figured that the cold, damp, brick building they lived in couldn't be doing her any good. She often imagined that horrible things were happening to her body, just under the surface, and spent more energy than anyone would ever know on trying to prevent them.




She worried about doing enough around the house and the cemetery. Olive required that she pull her weight when it came to chores, and with the number of angry ghost in the yard, these quickly added up. Tending to the grounds took up a lot of her spare time, but the work helped to take her mind off other things, so she didn't really mind doing them.




She worried about getting in Olive's way, so she remained as silent as a mouse most of the time. The house was unnaturally quiet when the ghosts weren't howling. Ophelia didn't dare to make a peep while Olive was afoot in the house, since she seemed to prefer to forget the girl's existence entirely. Once, Olive had caught her whistling to herself and scolded her, saying through her teeth, "A whistling woman and a crowing hen, is a sound not fit for god nor sim." It was an archaic saying, but the look on Olive's face had been very clear. Ophelia hadn't whistled since.

The Specter estate was a like dark, silent tomb. Even smiling made too much noise.




It might have been all of this darkness that surrounded Ophelia that had attracted her to Johnny, who basically lit up the room when he entered it, and filled it with his incessant chatting. In the Specter home, his animated voice echoed off the stone walls. Ophelia was careful to invite him over only when she knew Olive would be out.

Johnny's general cheer, and lightness of being, really cut through the gloom and darkness in her life.




It was hard for her to feel lonely when she was in Johnny Smith's arms.




Unlike Ripp and Ophelia, Johnny had a picture-perfect family, complete with a perfect green lawn and a white picket fence. Something like that might be easy to take for granted, but Johnny wasn't the type of person to do that either. Sure, he was cocky and sometimes sounded like he thought he was the King of Strangetown, but he wasn't a big green idiot about it. Johnny knew well enough that he was lucky to have a fully functional family, especially given the greenness of his skin. It was what helped him stand his ground when people pointed and whispered.




He held his head high. He had to. If he lowered it for even a minute, who knew what might happen?




He did well in school, but he also put a lot of work into it. He often told Ripp that he could get better grades if he would just focus his attention on it for more than a minute or two each day. Ripp informed him that it must be easy to find so much time for homework when you don't have a part-time job, and Johnny couldn't really argue with him there. Johnny hadn't worked a day in his life, not for money, but that didn't mean he wasn't also busy. He had so much of his time taken up by school and extracurricular activities, and all the other stuff too. He had family activites, sports, and having a girlfriend took up a lot of his time too.




Ophelia was Johnny's very first girlfriend. He was able to make friends easily enough, but he didn't feel as confident about dating as Ripp did. Not that what Ripp did was dating, really. Johnny was nothing like him that way. He didn't really think he had much of a clue about kissing and stuff like that, but Ophelia seemed to like it well enough. After a bit of practice, he thought that they weren't really half bad at it.

And then there was Jill.




He spent a lot of time with his little sister, and it wasn't all voluntary. He had to babysit her all the time, and even when their parent's were home, she followed him around like a shadow. Johnny didn't really mind. They got along well enough. Baby sisters did have a tendency to be bratty at times, but he was pretty good friends with Jill, all things considered.




Jill was usually a bundle of energy...




... but so was Johnny, so it worked out well.




They really were a lot alike, despite the obvious genetic differences.




Then there were the other times, when Jill pushed his nerves to the limit. Giggling, and squealing, and jumping off the walls. It was like she was from another planet or something.


She also annoyed him by nosing in on a lot of his business. If Johnny's friends were involved, Jill was usually there.

Her intrusions ranged from listening in on the sidelines...




... to moving in right where the action was. She thought her brother was really cool, afterall, and she thought his friends were even cooler.




Especially Ripp Grunt. Johnny got really irritated when Jill tried to hog Ripp's attention, telling him jokes and showing off, when he was really there to hang out with him. Ripp was his friend, not Jill's, afterall.

He usually told her to take a hike. Not that she listened to him very often.




Ripp, of course, only encouraged her. He loved it whenever someone paid attention to him, especially if that someone was a girl. Even a little brat like Jill would do. It was annoying enough for Johnny when it wasn't his little sister, but infuriating when it was. Ripp was so easily distracted.




His friends were almost always there. The Smith house was so welcoming, it had become their main place to hang out. Jenny mothered well enough for them all, and Ripp and Ophelia were both eager for a mother's attention. They sought out her compliments and questions like two addicts looking for their next fix.




Buck Grunt was there a lot too. Buck and Jill had become friends almost as quickly as Ripp and Johnny had. They usually spent a lot of time playing with her dollhouse. Jill didn't really bother playing with it without Buck there, in fact, since he was way better at concocting plots for the dolls than she was. Buck had always wanted a dollhouse, but it wasn't something his father was ever likely to buy for him.




The only Grunt that wasn't welcomed into the Smith house with open arms was Tank. Johnny and Tank did not see eye to eye.

General Buzz was not afraid to express his disapproval of aliens, and had famously fought with Johnny's own father, P.T. shortly after his arrival in Strangetown. He had become even more resentful of them since, and Tank shared his father's feelings. Johnny's dislike of Tank stemmed from that fact, but it was also more deeply personal. He heard Ripp's stories about how Tank treated him, and it made him really mad that Ripp's own brother could be like that.




Occasionally, Tank would come by to find Ripp to drag him home or generally cause him grief in some way or another, and this usually led to him turning on Johnny too. It sometimes led to a shoving match. Both Tank and Johnny were incredibly stubborn and neither liked letting the other have the last word.




Ripp and Tank usually just yelled at each other and cursed each other out for a while, until Ripp finally begged Tank to just leave him alone. Johnny could see that Ripp just wanted some peace from Tank. That's why he spent so much time at his house. To get away from his awful brother.




Tank was always so hostile to Ripp. Sure, Ripp said a lot of really mean stuff to Tank too, but Tank always seemed like he wanted to rip his brother limb from limb. His own brother. Johnny couldn't understand it.




While Johnny was around, it wouldn't be happening. Johnny promised himself that much.

Johnny was having a party later that week to celebrate his upcoming transition to college. They all looked forward to it. Tank, of course, wouldn't be invited.




Things weren't going too badly on the homework front, and Ripp was feeling a little more hopeful. He was also very excited. He'd finally saved up enough money from his job to afford a guitar. It might not be the best one ever created, but it would be a guitar. His very own guitar. He almost buzzed with excitement as he went over to the shopping center, but then, something happened. He walked into the store and saw a beautiful blue dollhouse. It was exactly the type of thing that Buck had always wanted, and his eyes always lit up when a commercial for one came on TV. Ripp knew that Buck would never own a dollhouse, not unless Ripp bought him one himself.




So he did.




It was much better than having a guitar, at least for now.




Little Buck had never been happier. At least, not since Lyla had disappeared.




The dollhouse was definitely something to hide under the bed, though. The General certainly didn't think that playing with dolls was something that little boys ought to do. Ripp couldn't really see the harm in it. What was playing with a particular type of toy going to do to Buck? Would this turn him into a girl, somehow? Besides, it was pretty fun to play with dolls, and he joined Buck and Jill every now and then, when they asked him too.

Then, the day of the Johnny's party finally arrived.




Tank knew about Johnny's party too, and he knew that he was definitely not invited.

He tried to convince himself that he didn't care, but he really did. It really bothered him that Ripp had friends and he didn't. What was so much better about being around Ripp than being around him? He wasn't that unbearable, was he? He didn't get what they even saw in Ripp. He was so irritating to live with. But Ripp was nothing like that when he was with his friends. Tank had seen him. He was funny. He made people laugh. He knew what to say and when to say it. Tank could never be like that. Everything he said came out wrong, and his timing was all off when he even attempted to tell a joke. When he saw Ripp and his friends together like that, he wished he could join them. He wished that Ripp would talk to him like that, even just once.




When Tank showed up at Johnny's house that day, nobody really knew what to do. If Johnny felt bad about not inviting him, he didn't let on. Tank was the only other sim their age that lived nearby, so the ommission was pretty intentional and obvious.

So they did the only thing they could think of. They ignored him.




At first, Tank didn't know how to react. He just stood there feeling sorry for himself. The feeling quickly turning into embarrassment and anger, when it became clear that nobody was even going to say as much as hi to him. His mind raced until he selected the obvious target for him, which was Ripp. He could tell that Ripp thought leaving him out of all the fun was extremely funny. Ripp just loved it. His greasy grin drew Tank to him like a heat-seeking missile.




"You little shit! You think you're so much better than me, don't you?"

"What the fuck are you talking about, Tank? These are my friends. You weren't invited! What are you even doing here?"

"Why shouldn't I be here? My whole family is!"




Johnny was having none of it. "Listen, Tank. I know you think you can just push Ripp around like that, but this is my house, and I'm not going to let you get away with it here. It's my party, and I really didn't invite you!"

"It must be nice for Ripp to be able to hide behind your skirt all the time!"

"Whatever, Tank! If you weren't such a psycho to be around, he wouldn't have to avoid you! Did you ever consider for a minute that the reason we don't want to hang out with you is because you're a huge asshole, and nobody can stand to be around you? You're just like your father! He's always getting into arguments and shit too. Always thinking he can beat someone up to prove a point!"




"You stupid green dick! It's impossible for you to just shut up, isn't it? If you don't take that back, I'm going to grind you into a minty paste and brush my teeth with you."

"Gee, Tank," Ripp mocked, "that was really fucking funny. Have you been practicing that line?"

"Shut the fuck up, Ripp!"

"Oh, grew some balls, I see."

"Go on! You know the only reason you're brave enough to say that is because your boyfriend, Johnny, is here to protect you."

"Tank," Johnny cut in, "It's obvious that you're not welcome here, so why don't you just leave already!"




The party resumed, and they went back to ignoring Tank. Ophelia grabbed Johnny for a kiss, impressed by his bravery. Ripp went back to dancing with Jill, pleased by the outcome.

Tank got the message, but he wasn't content to just leave it at that. As he walked away, he muttered something to himself, but loud enough for Johnny to hear it.

"Bunch of stupid inbred alien freaks..."




"Haven't you said enough, already?!" Johnny demanded. Tank had found the right wound to rub salt in.

"I can say what I like, Johnny! You certainly do, don't you? I'm not the only one who knows what a fucked up family you have! Everyone in Strangetown thinks you're a bunch of sick, green, disgusting weirdos, and we'd all be a lot better off if we just ran you out of town!"

"That's my family you're talking about!"




It wasn't going to be a typical fight between Tank and Johnny. It was war.




Johnny's father had always said that the aliens were a peaceful race, but it sure didn't seem that way during the fight. Johnny found himself attacking Tank with the intention of killing him, or doing as much damage to him as he possibly could.

It was a brutal fight, at least by teenage standards. Both Tank and Johnny were pretty strong, Tank from all of the military training, and Johnny from his involvement with sports. They were very evenly matched.




In the end, though, it was Tank who had his ass handed to him. Perhaps the aliens were just stronger, or maybe it was the advantage of having all of his friends there to cheer him on. Perhaps Johnny had just been that much angrier. The reason eluded Tank. How could he have lost to anyone? How could he have let Johnny Smith, of all people, defeat him?

Johnny ran his mouth off at Tank some more, rubbing it in and gloating, and Ripp joined in too. Of course. Ripp couldn't resist hitting Tank when he was down. With his asshole friend there to protect him, he must have felt invincible. There was nothing more for Tank to say or do. All he had left to do now was to pick himself up and go home, defeated.




Tank wouldn't apologize. He wouldn't cry. He'd keep his pride, and just leave without saying a word.

And that's exactly what he did.









(Continue to Chapter Five...)

Comments

[jessicus.livejournal.com]

I love the pictures you've taken and how the writing matches up with it so well. I always feel a little niggle of sympathy for Tank. He works so hard for his daddy's approval.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I love getting feedback on the photos, the more specific the better. I love how half of the story can be told through the photos, like in graphic fiction (I suppose this is a form of graphic fiction, really).

I think Tank is a sympathetic character, for sure. He's really is just trying to be a good son. He's not so different from Johnny in that way.