Picture Imperfect 3

(A/N: Yup... the next chapter! Well, this probably bores the patns off you... but I hope you can withstand it... it's kind of important to the plot. What do you think of my cahracters now? Dialogue? Writing style?)

Chapter Two: Ratchet

Ratchet was one of those quiet little Minnesota towns that people would tell you about all the time. With a population not exceeding six hundred, it gave off that fuzzy warm feeling of acceptance; everyone knew everyone. Nearly everyone also seemed to have something in common; for one thing. About ninety-nine percent of Ratchet’s population had some Norwegian blood flowing through their veins. Being namely Norwegian, this also meant that many people were tall, with blue eyes and fair hair. And some of the elderly people in Ratchet could even speak the Norwegian language, accent included; “Ya sure you betcha!” was a common phrase not just in Ratchet, but also in most small Minnesota towns.

I’d always felt a little out of place. Even though I did have some Norwegian blood in me, I had never resembled the rest of the fair-haired population, probably because the German and Bohemian genes in me prevailed. My hair was a rich shade of dark brown, bordering closely on black, and my eyes were a muddy brown color instead of the constant sparkling blue. I was also shorter than the rest of the common populace, and had always secretly longed to be like everyone else.

“How about we cruise around for a little while, before we head for the hills,” I said to Donovan, looking past him, out the driver’s side window, into the quaint panorama of Ratchet.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Donovan shrugged, shaking his blonde hair out of his face. Oddly enough, though Donovan was both blonde-haired and blue-eyed, he claimed not to have a drop of Norwegian blood in him; he was German, just as his last name suggested.

“Let’s see what’s happening in the exciting town of Ratchet today…” I could detect a tone of boredom in his voice as he sighed, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel.

Nothing ever happened in Ratchet, simply because there was nothing in the town. Ratchet harbored no fast food restaurants, just the low-scale Ratchet Café. There was a theatre that was only open certain weekends, playing shows that had previously been out of the theatres for a few weeks, or even longer. The city gym was a large white building that had seen better days; its paint was peeling, the basketball court needed resurfacing, and one of the outside doors didn’t shut. The old basketball court was on the main floor, while the basement contained a small weight room, and a lot of open space.

Ratchet also had two gas stations, a city hall, a school, and five miles away was Ratchet Lake. Ratchet Lake was a small lake, one of Minnesota’s ten thousand, that attracted fisherman and campers on weekends in the summer. In the winter, a few fearless people braved the arctic temperatures and came ice fishing, but besides that, there really wasn’t anything to do at the lake.

And Ratchet had Detlef, Incorporated.

Ratchet was a dying town. When kids graduated, they went to college somewhere bigger and better, never to return, except on weekends and holidays. They found better jobs in better places, and made more money. Due to lack of jobs in ratchet, some families had been forced to move, in search of work.

The only thing that kept Ratchet alive was my father’s business: Detlef, Incorporated. It manufactured and engineered computers and other forms of technology for companies like Microsoft. My father, Wade Detlef, had created this business when I was four, and it was his pride and joy, his real passion in life.

It also employed many people in the town, and brought business to those who were not employed. When people came to Detlef, Inc. in business they used the gas stations and ate at the café, keeping things alive. Everything was centered around Detlef, Inc. If not for my family’s business, Ratchet would be virtually non-existent.

“I wonder if your parents are at work,” Donovan nodded out the window as we passed the Detlef, Inc. building. About the size of our school, it was one of the largest buildings in the whole town. Its stone colored walls seemed slightly foreboding with a callous sort of look to them; yet that was probably just something that seemed to be so in my mind antagonistic mind. Pathetic patches of dying flowers were planted in small beds on the lawn; you could tell my mother had chosen the design and landscaping.

“My parents are always at work,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “They practically live there.” My father being the head of the corporation, and my mother being the secretary, business took up large chunks of what would have been their free time.

I felt an emptiness deep in the pit of my heart, like I had never been loved before. I could remember being little, asking the babysitter where my parents were. More often than not, it was either business or publicity that had taken them from me. I always felt like my parents scarcely knew me, yet they could tell you every last detail about the latest Detlef computer.

“Don’t look so disappointed, Alice,” Donovan said softly. “Your parents just want to make your life nicer for you.” How did Donovan always manage to catch a positive fish in the vast sea of negativity? It was one of the many enigmas about Donovan that I would never figure out. If a serial killer held a knife to Donovan’s throat, Donovan would probably comment about the killer’s perfectly straight teeth, minty fresh breath, or how perfectly sharp his knife was. I could see Donovan telling a serial killer to have a nice day, waving as he walked down the street.

“No, Don,” I sighed. “They just want to make their lives nicer. Me, Spence, and Whit are just side salads on their plate of life. We’re there to make the main course look nicer, and to be the healthy, guilt-free part of the meal.”

Donovan wheeled the car around a corner, and Detlef, Inc. faded out of view. Sighing deeply, Donovan relaxed, and sank deeper into the fading maroon driver’s seat.

“Your family is saving Ratchet, Alice. At least be grateful for that, because so many people have jobs. If your father hadn’t given that opening in management to my father so many years ago, I wouldn’t be here. Your parents could choose to take their business to Minneapolis or St. Paul anytime, where it would be much more profitable, but they’re staying here, supporting Ratchet.”

Why did Donovan, the personified voice of reason, always have to have a point that I could not counter?

“Okay, so ratchet needs my family,” I shrugged. “But I need my family, too.”

“Of course you do,” his voice comforted me. “That’s why you have me and Lynn when they’re not there. And Spence and Whit look up to you, and the whole school thinks you’re great, and…”

He stopped there, and looked over at me.

“Don,” I whispered. I could feel the faint thumping of my heart against my ribcage. “Thanks.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I don’t know how you always manage to find good things to say, but you do. And I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Donovan said nothing in reply; sometimes, silence said things better than any words could. Just seeing the town of Ratchet pass before my eyes at twenty miles per hour brought forth in my soul some feelings of serenity. Everything was so peaceful, and laid back.

Elementary children still lingered on the school playground, their young minds still not corrupted by the complexities of growing up. They looked so happy, still thinking that the opposite sex had cooties, squealing and laughing as they chased each other around the jungle gym.

I could recall my own childhood; it was never quite as blissful as the childhood that most kids experienced. I had always been the bossy child, the one that everyone wanted to push in the mud and throw worms at. Yet they still respected me enough to deem me one of the “cool” kids, because I had the coolest toys and gadgets that a child’s mind could imagine. For the most part, they also let me rule the playground. Yet I never was completely happy. I just wanted to break down into tears every time some kid’s mother or father would pick them up from school, hugging them as they squirmed away, embarrassed.

I was always the last one to leave the playground. If my parents picked me up, they were always late. Sometimes I even walked over to the Detlef building, or went home, lonely and forgotten. Even to this day, I still feel like that little girl, just wandering and wondering why mommy and daddy weren’t there.

I was still waiting for the innocence of childhood to come.

“Don…” I hesitated, wondering if Donovan would think my question would be a stupid one. “What was it like to be a kid?”

“Well,” he frowned at first, his eyebrows narrowing seriously. Then he smiled, and I could practically see the good memories flooding his mind, overtaking the bad ones. “It was nice. I didn’t have to worry about much. I was happy just pretending to be a knight in shining armor on the playground, riding a stick for a horse.”

I laughed. I had memories of that, too.

“I remember those games. I was always the evil queen. I even had my own army…”

“I was a good knight,” Donovan reminisced with a grin. “I was the one saving the princess while the rest of the good knights fought your minions.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed suddenly, jumping up in my seat, startling Donovan. “And remember that Dusty and Ryan got yelled at by Mrs. Larson for hitting each other? Then they told her that they were knights, and Dusty said how he was fighting for me because I told him that he should take out Ryan… Then I got yelled at as well, and we weren’t allowed to play that game anymore…”

It was a sad day; it ended what little bliss I had known in my childhood. I could remember setting my dandelion crown aside for the last time, giving up on that surrealistic land of make-believe forever. From then on, life seemed to lose its fun, as maturity started to settle in.

It was the end of my childhood’s innocence, the day that pretending came to an end. I was thrust forward into the harsh world of reality, realizing that nothing was perfect, and that I couldn’t escape my loneliness by pretending to be a queen; it just wasn’t real, and I gave up on my childhood hopes and dreams. It all seemed so silly, and I didn’t want to be a silly little girl at that time.

Yet in reality, I had never stopped pretending. I was pretending to be perfect, living a perfect life with perfect family and friends. I pretended to be happy with myself, and the stoic I had become; all I really wanted was to be that silly little girl again.

I shook the unhappy thoughts out of my mind, and stared out the window. A few teenagers were prowling the streets, waiting for the sun to set, so their evening could begin. It was what everyone in high school did: lived for Friday nights.

I sighed, and noticed that Donovan was already giving them the stare-down. “In a few hours,” he said to me, throwing a rather disdainful look at the group. “They’ll all be wasted out of their minds. A few of them will probably be high.” He sighed, and shook his head to finish his thought on their choices.

I nodded. It was true.

To be completely frank, there was nothing to do in Ratchet. It wasn’t the city, where there were places to go and people to see. There was no great abundance of restaurants in Ratchet, nor was there anyplace to shop, go for entertainment, or all the other great things larger cities have to offer. All Ratchet had was the city gym, and on certain weekends, the theatre would play a movie that was outdated by several months, or longer.

So in Ratchet, we had learned to make our own fun. For instance, I spent my weekends with Donovan, usually at the Fortress, because there were things to do there.

But the vast majority of teenagers didn’t have the luxuries I have. Harboring a pool table, ping-pong, air hockey, foosball, mini-basketball, and a surround sound entertainment center, my basement could have been the neighborhood hot spot if I’d invite people over. But I didn’t want my house trashed.

So the common populace resorted to another method of excitement: alcohol.

What could be more fun than losing grasp on reality, doing crazy or stupid things, and watching others do them, as well? It was nice to let loose every now and then, forget your troubles until the next morning, when you would wake up wondering where you were, and trying to come up for a plausible reason that your head was throbbing.

In small towns across the nation, no one could find anything better to do.

Out of sheer boredom, the thrill of defying parental units and gathering with friends without adults present, the teenagers of Ratchet engaged in the acts of anything that involved alcohol.

It was something that happened in all small towns, wherever you went. In Ratchet, it had become an accepted way of life. It wasn’t a huge deal if the adults knew you were drinking; they had done the same thing when they were growing up. Yet no one would talk about it to the outsiders. It was just a known and accepted lifestyle that no one pointed out to others, lest they ruin the squeaky-clean image of Ratchet.

I was rather neutral on the topic. Quite honestly, there was nothing to do in Ratchet. Admittedly, it was nice to escape some problems for a few hours. But I wasn’t a big drinker, mostly because I wasn’t fond of the flavor of beer or Captain Morgan, the most common beverages served. And some of the “mystery concoctions” tasted worse than the tongue of my shoe. Sure, once in a while I would brave the flavors and let loose, but not nearly every weekend.

Donovan, on the other hand, didn’t engage in drinking at all. In Ratchet, this set him apart from nearly every other teenager. People often made fun of him for his decision not to drink, but Donovan stood by his decision to stay sober. No one ever bothered to ask him why, they all just went straight on to calling him a goody-two-shoes wimp, unperturbed by their harassment.

But I had asked Donovan, and he had relived painful memories when he told his story. Who knew, maybe if people did ask, he wouldn’t tell them anyway, so he didn’t have to dredge up things from the back of his mind.

When Donovan had turned five years old, his four-year-old brother, Daniel, was killed in an accident involving alcohol. Though he never looked straight at me, I could still see the painful look in Donovan’s eyes when he voiced his memories to me.

It had all started in North Dakota, on Donovan’s birthday, when Donovan and Daniel were playing on the cement driveway with colored chalk and toy tractors on a pleasant September afternoon. Many of Donovan’s relatives were visiting his house, using his birthday as an excuse to gather with the other adults to open a case of beer and relax, catching up on missed sagas in their lives.

In the driveway, all the relatives had taken a few minutes from their busy schedules to add their “Happy Birthday!” comments to Donovan using colored sidewalk chalk on the driveway, creating a colored mural for Donovan to enjoy. After admiring it for a few brief minutes, they all headed back inside.

Except for Donovan’s uncle Robert.

Uncle Robert, then a rather rotund man, had a few too many beers, and decided it was time for him to head home, before he got too drunk to drive. Just as Donovan ran to get his new pastel colored chalk (Donovan could still remember exactly what the package looked like, and how he tried to read all the colors to himself, stalling on the lawn), when Robert fired up his truck.

Daniel had been sitting on the pavement, tracing over the words, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY DONOVAN!” with his vivaciously blue chalk, when Robert started to back out of the driveway. And as Donovan turned around to show off his vibrant new chalk to Daniel, he was just in time to see one more color added to his birthday mural: the scarlet of his little brother’s blood.

I could tell that Donovan could remember Daniel’s last piercing scream, and the crunching of his bones as Robert’s truck squished the tiny child against the pavement. Even I got a disturbing mental picture of a boy resembling a young Donovan crushed on the pavement, blood oozing everywhere, as the truck rolled on. It sent shivers down my spine, and I couldn’t imagine how Donovan must have felt when the thought crossed his mind.

And poor Daniel was dead, long before Robert had realized what he had done. Only after he backed out of the driveway did Robert see the tiny, demolished frame of Daniel, and Donovan standing shocked and motionless in the grass with his sidewalk chalk slipping out of his grasp. Robert had run over his nephew without realizing it, and with the alcohol impairing his reasoning, he backed into a mailbox, threw the truck into drive, and sped off to his house, as fast as he could.

Unable to cope with his actions, and what the rest of the family would think of him, Robert downed a bottle of whiskey, and the last of his reasoning left his system like the way he had run away from the crime scene.

The cops found Robert hanging out his bedroom window, from a clothesline wire. A broken bottle of whiskey lay broken on the ground below him.

And that had been too much for the Jakob family. Kim and Aaron, Donovan’s parents, packed up, and took Donovan from North Dakota to Ratchet, Minnesota. Several years after the pain had healed (though not completely, it would always be there), David was born.

Perhaps the loss of Daniel made Donovan so close to David, who was currently fourteen years old. He didn’t want to lose another brother, especially to the accidental evils of alcohol.

And I really hated to think of it, but it was because of alcohol that I had Donovan in my life. If not for the incident with Robert and Daniel, Donovan and his family would still be living in North Dakota.

I suddenly felt selfish, like I had wished for something like that to happen. I couldn’t have been glad that Daniel and Robert were dead! I was just glad that Donovan had moved to Ratchet… that was all.

And Donovan… well, he just didn’t want another accident happening to anyone. So he refused to take part in drinking. It made me wonder what I would do if I were in his shoes. Would I do what my heart told me was right, or would I let other people con me into going with the bandwagon?

Maybe Donovan wasn’t as shy and reserved as I thought he was. Maybe he was a stronger person than anyone else I knew, after all.

“Don, I think I’m ready to head home,” I said, leaning against him.

I felt him sigh. “I am too, Alice,” he replied. “There’s nothing happening here.”

And in a few minutes, Ratchet seemed smaller and smaller, as things often do when viewed through the rear view mirror. I realized that even though I didn’t turn my head, I was looking back. I knew that I would always look back, to see what I had always known fading away.