Radioman (A 2/19th Spinoff) - Complete

Like, Totally

"What do you want, Gail," I asked, staring at her.

All the warmth that I'd felt inside vanished into emptiness.

why can't you just leave me alone

"We need to, like, totally talk about the house and junk, Paulie," she said, straightening up. She was still slightly taller than me and she made a point to tilt back her head so she could look down her nose at me.

That just meant I could see up her nostrils.

"What about it?" I asked, putting my hands behind me.

"Your mother, like, totally said, like, if anything like happened to her, it was like totally mine," she said, just the right amount of steel and anguish in her well trained voice.

"Unless you have it in writing, I don't care," I told her.

The cold wind swept over us again, lashing us with rain. Lightning flickered in the distance and I caught myself counting the seconds. That led to me scanning the front yard. The distance from the shut door behind me to the sidewalk, how far it was to Dave's truck, my car, the street, the white picket fence that had shown up a few nights ago. How much light I had, wind speed, rain density, cloud cover distance, lightning frequency.

Gail was a step away, looking down at me from her five-ten height, dressed in expensive stone washed Levi's, an expensive peasant blouse under an unzipped windbreaker, and expensive shoes. Dave was wearing expensive jeans, a Levi jacket buttoned up, and work boots. Both were obviously unhappy being out in the rain and wind, but honestly, I didn't care.

My hand practically itched in desire for my pistol.

"Let's, like, go inside, Paulie," Gail tried.

"No," I told her, my voice flat and hard.

She frowned. "Paulie, why are you, like, acting like this? You're being, like, totally very rude and junk," she said, reaching forward like she was going to brush me aside.

I stood there, ignoring her hand. "Because this is my home and I don't want you inside of it," I told her.

Her hand touched my shoulder and she tried to push me aside with a gentle pressure. I just stayed planted, shifting my center of gravity instinctively thank to Stokes's endless hours of hand to hand combat training. She frowned and tried again, but still I didn't shift.

"Paulie!" her tone was sharp, the same tone that used to make me physically cringe away from her when she used it. The same tone my mother used on me when I was a child. Usually right before she struck me.

"What?" I asked her.

She pushed on my shoulder again.

"Stop touching me," I told her, reaching up and brushing her arm away. Her eyes opened in shock.

"Paulie, that... that hurt," she said, her large and expressive eyes welling up with tears.

I just shrugged, staring at her as one tear artfully spilled over and tracked down her cheek to get lost in the rain on her face.

"You, like, totally hurt me," she said, her lower lip quivering.

I just shrugged again. The idea of that just brushing her arm away had hurt her was laughable.

sky ground sky ground pain sky ground sky

"Don't you, like, care or anything?" she wailed.

Dave had started to step forward before she even had started to speaking and I wanted to shake my head.

This was all choreographed.