Untitled Novel

Prologue A
FUNERAL OF MR. DANIEL MORRIS
January 27, 1978





A dark gray overcast of clouds covered the sky in Haleglen, Alabama. Rain was predicted to start late morning into the afternoon. It was a stereotypical day for a funeral. In fact for Derek Morris, it was a reality. Derek was at St. Benedict’s Catholic Church in downtown Haleglen. The old, decorative church had stood the test of time for almost 50 years. It was one of the only buildings that still stood after numerous riots in the 1960’s destroyed half the city. Though it survived, it still wasn’t maintained properly and it was starting to show now more than ever.
A black hearse and limo waited outside the concrete gray steps that led up to the church. Inside, the funeral of Derek’s father, Daniel Morris, was being held. Friends and family all across the country came to pay their respects. Many of the men were former soldiers who served with Daniel during the Vietnam War. Like most Vietnam veterans, he sometimes suffered cases of post-traumatic stress syndrome. They weren’t as serious as other reported cases, but it was enough to bring him into depressed emotional states. Eventually his depression caused him to take his life on January 25, 1978 with a gun shot into the temple of his head.
Derek was standing in the front pew of the church with his mother Denise, and his older brothers Greg and Daniel Jr. He looked behind and around where he was standing. He saw aunts, uncles, cousins, people he knew and those he didn’t. A good number of the men were decorated veterans from Vietnam all dressed in their service dress uniforms. Derek wasn’t pleased to be there amongst the teary eyed. He had common differences with everyone here. When it was his time to give his speech, he intended to let those differences be known.
“Derek,” Denise Morris silently shouted as she smacked his arm. “Stop looking around and face front.” Derek, despite his hatred of taking orders, turned around and faced the front of the church.
A gray haired, middle aged priest in a white robe rose from his seat on the altar, walked over and stood behind an oak podium. He spoke, “Family and friends, we are here to wish final farewells to our dearly departed brother Daniel. Though Daniel took his life in an ungrateful and dishonorable way, we gather here to celebrate his life and remember the man before that fateful night. The man we all knew as a father, a husband, a brother, a son, an uncle and of course a hero to his nation. I wish to invite his three sons, Greg, Daniel Jr. and Derek up here to reflect upon memories of their dearly departed father.”
Three young men all dressed in black headed up towards the altar where the priest stood. The first one, Greg, was the oldest and was the first to speak. Greg was 18 years old with dirty blond hair and deep blue eyes. He was about 6’1” and skinny as a pole.
The priest turned the microphone over to Greg and he began to speak, “My father was a great man. My earliest memory that I can remember was with him. I was about two years old around this time. My father and I were alone in the house. I sat on his lap in his chair in the family room as he read me some children’s story. As he was reading it, I eventually dosed off to sleep. The next morning I awoke, I was tucked in under the covers of my bed. That was the first of a long line of those nights.
“He wanted nothing more than to see me and my brothers succeed in everything we wanted to accomplish. He helped me with school, sports, girls, you name it my dad was able to give some advice for. Though life threw him curveballs, he was still there for me. It pains me to think that my father who I loved so much would leave us like this. Leave us all wondering millions of questions that will never be answered. But as long as I know that my family will be beside me for the times to come, I will be ok.”
After Greg finished his speech, those sitting in the pews gave him a warm round of applause. He graciously thanked everyone and then turned the microphone over to his younger brother Daniel Jr. Daniel was almost if not equally as tall and skinny as Greg. He was 17 years old with dirty blond hair and grayish blue eyes.
“What can be said about my father?” Daniel Jr. started. “My earliest memory with my dad would have to be one morning when I was two. My brother Greg and I were sitting on his lap watching our usual Saturday morning cartoons. At the moment, it happened to be Looney Tunes. My dad being the big kid that he was began to impersonate Bugs Bunny. His impersonation sent Greg and I into fits of laughter. We eventually wound up rolling on the floor still laughing. I remember that just about everyday before he left for Vietnam, Greg and I would follow him around asking him for the Bugs Voice,” Danny said chuckling at the memory.
“But anyway, everything Greg said was true. He was the one person I knew I could always go to for any sort of advice. Again, like Greg said, whether it be school, sports, girls, my father was a man of great intelligence. We all know how terrible the Vietnam War was on those who were apart of it. Fortunately, my father was one of the lucky ones who were able to get out of that mess alive. But, because of the huge impact that it had on his life, it caused him to be in terrible pain and constantly have random and frightful memories come back to him. Memories that those who weren’t involved in the war couldn’t even imagine. It got so bad that he started wishing he had died overseas so he wouldn’t have to remember the sights and sounds anymore. It got so bad that what he did causes us all to be here today. Its quiet a sad way to go especially when it’s someone who was such a great and important person in my life. He will truly be missed.”
Daniel, like Greg received a round of applause from those in the church. He thanked them and stepped aside in order for Derek to give his speech. Derek was 16 and the youngest of the three brothers. He, unlike his brothers, was a little shorter. He was 5’11” and was on the huskier side. He had brown hair and gray eyes.
Derek stood behind the podium and stared out at the mass of people staring up at him. He rested his arms on the angled piece of the podium as his hands gripped the top of it. He was going through with it. There’s no turning back now.
“My father…was nothing like my two brothers just described,” said Derek. He looked around the room and saw looks of shock. He had gotten their attention, but he was far from finished. “My real father, the one I and the rest of my family saw everyday was not like how they just made it seem. My brothers shamelessly covered up my real father. My father was a lazy, no good, drunken failure who took his anger, depression and frustration out on my brothers and I. Am I right guys?”
Derek turned around and looked at his brothers. They lowered their heads in shame. Greg shook his head. Everything Derek was saying was true.
Derek continued to speak, “He even abused my mom; being the fucking princess she was; would then take her frustration out on us too.”
The priest walked towards Derek. “Son, please were here to remember the good things about your father. Please don’t sully his final farewell with vulgar language and untruths. Remember you are in a house of God.”
“Stop your bullshit. I lost my faith and maybe if you weren’t whipped by your non-existent God and pulled your head out of your ass, maybe you’d see the real truth,”
Derek stopped for a second to recollect himself. He then shot out his finger angrily at the priest and with an angry expression on his face, continued yelling, “ALSO, DON’T YOU DARE TELL ME THAT WHAT I’M SAYING IS UNTRUE! I lived with that disgusting drunk of a father. You want to hear my first memory? I was four. He had come home from Vietnam and this was the first time I had ever seen my father. I had no idea who he was. He completely ignored me, the son who had no father for the first three or four years of his life. The first three years of my life, he was off being the president’s bitch in another country. When he came back, my presence was hardly acknowledged unless he needed a punching bag. Otherwise, I was just the mistake he had to deal with now that he was home.
“I know what happened. He called me the runt of the family. He said I was worthless. He never cared for me. Most of the things Greg and Danny said are true, but he only did it for them. He favored my brothers over me. Even with his favoring, they still got the shit kicked out of them every night. Him being nice to me is coming home from work and not beating the shit out of me.”
Derek’s mother, Denise, a 5’10” blond haired blue eyed woman in a black dress stood up in the front pew. She screamed, “DEREK, I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS! GO OUTSIDE!” She pointed towards the back of the church towards the door.
“FUCK YOU, YOU HEROIN SHOOTING BITCH!” Derek screamed back, still wearing the angry face he showed the priest.
Denise’s face got angry. She walked up to the altar and grabbed Derek by his hair and pulled him out. The people in the church started up conversations of disbelief as they watched the scene unfold. All the way he shouted, “THIS IS WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT! MY FATHER DID MUCH WORSE! DON’T MOURN FOR A CHILD ABUSER!”
She dragged him out through the church doors and outside. “YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE BASTARD! YOUR FATHER WORKED HIS ASS OFF SO YOU COULD HAVE FOOD, CLOTHES AND A PLACE TO LIVE AND THIS, THIS IS HOW YOU THANK HIM!”
Derek kept the cold hard look expression on his face as he looked at his mother. Denise, looking for him to say something got angry and slapped him hard across the face. Derek fell to his legs onto the concrete. He didn’t cry. He’s had to many similar encounters like this from both his mom and dad. Even at school. He was sick of crying. He kept the cold, hard look from where he sat, staring at his mother, unaware that his lip was starting to bleed.
Denise continued, “I don’t want to see you back in there or anywhere that has to do with the funeral for the rest of the day. I’m not gonna let you disgrace your father’s name more than you already have, especially when those people in there just want to pay their final respects to him.”
After Denise finished speaking, she turned around and walked back into the church, leaving Derek sitting on the concrete stairs.
“Don’t worry,” Derek said as he got himself up off the ground “I wasn’t planning on it.” He turned around and walked down the church steps. Finally realizing he was bleeding, he wiped the blood away with the back of his hand. On the way down, he pulled a box of Marlboro and a green Bic cigarette lighter out of his pocket. He stuck the cigarette in his mouth, lit it and took a deep drag. He wasn’t sorry for what he did or how he acted. No matter how hard he would get beaten tonight, it was worth it.
Alongside the church was an uneven sidewalk. It has gotten worse over the years as the roots from the adjacent trees have extended and grown. Derek, still puffing on his cigarette knew these sidewalks well. Just about everyone in Haleglen was this way. The way the town has become is similar to his life; depressed, destroyed, dead. Still walking on the sidewalk that’ll eventually lead him to his house, Derek walked through his hometown of Haleglen, eager to get home and take a break from his life in peace. At least, until his mom got home.