Describing a Setting to Show a Character

Jason slumped down in his black leather recliner. He peered across the room through the slits that were his eyes. Noon, and his head still hurt. He thought back to the night before at the clubhouse. He’d finally made full member. It was one hell of a party as he remembered it. He didn’t know how many bottles of Thunderbird they went through, but he was pretty sure a few cases had been opened.

He lit a Camel straight and tried to clear his head. He took his first drink of coffee with a handful of aspirin, hoping something would help. The phone rang, sending shards of glass through his head. He shut his eyes tightly against the pain. It was Maria. They’d only been together since last year, but he thought she might be the one girl he’d actually hang on to. He couldn’t talk to her now, though. Not now, after last night. He didn’t know the girl’s name, and now he was having trouble even remembering her face. His brothers set it up, of course, as they always did for guys when they became full members. He tried to rationalize it in his head. He didn’t have a choice. He had to do her. That’s what was expected of him. He hit “ignore” and the phone went silent.

Maybe a shower would make him feel better. He stood up and tripped over the glass end table next to his chair. The lamp went over backwards and a picture in a frame fell to the floor, the glass breaking as it hit the spur of his engineer boot.
“Shit!” Jason bent over to pick up the picture, thinking his head would surely explode with the pressure. He turned the frame over carefully without cutting himself. At least I did something right, he reasoned. He sat back down in his chair and stared at the picture for a minute.

“I know, Gramps. I don’t know how it all got like this, either. But I didn’t have a choice, ya know? I mean, I had to leave. And I just wound up here… like this. In this shit. But my brothers take care of me, Gramps. We take care of each other.” Tears welled in Jason’s eyes, and he wiped them away quickly, as if someone might see them.

He thought back to the days when his grandpa was alive. Jason would run home from school to do his homework, hop on his bike and peddle as fast as he legs would take him, to his grandpa’s house. He wasn’t sure if he was in more of a hurry to get to grandpa’s or to get out from under his dad’s scrutiny. Nothing was good enough for Jason’s dad, at least where Jason was concerned.

He looked around the room. His small apartment wasn’t well adorned, or well furnished. He’d gotten his recliner and couch at a garage sale. The kitchen set was straight out of the 70s. The only money he’d spent on the apartment was for his big screen TV and home theatre system. He thought the Pabst mirrors on the wall were a good accent for the neon Harley Davidson sign. He knew his father would hate this place. Maybe that was part of the reason he lived like he did. But now, looking at Grandpa’s picture, he wondered what his childhood hero might think of the life he’d chosen for himself. He pushed the thought from his mind, downed the rest of his coffee and headed for the shower. He’d clean up the mess later.