Bender

Dinner

It was "family time" in the Bender household. This meant that all of the Benders would sit at the kitchen table and pick at the canned meat and vegetables being served until one family member was the inevitable catalyst of yet another showdown between John and Stan Bender. The air with thick with tension, as well as the smell of Stan's not-yet-unlit cigarette and overheated mashed potatoes. This particular evening, said catalyst was Kitty, the eldest child, who at twenty was a vocational college student moonlighting as a bikini bar waitress.

"Daddy," Kitty began in her lilting tone. "I need a hundred dollars."

Stan looked up from his congealing meatloaf at his daughter. "What for?"

"I don't think I meant to be a businesswoman," she said. "And my boss at the Shake N Quake thinks I'd be a good model. But I need money for modeling classes and head shots and stuff. Daddy, please?"

Stan stared at her warily for a few moments as she pouted. "Fine, Kitty," he replied. "You better pay me back, though."

John immediately slammed his fork into the table. "Bullshit, Dad," he yelled.

"John, shut up," Kitty hissed, but it was too late.

"What if I wanted to be some kind of rock star or some shit? Would you just hand over money like that, no questions asked?"

"No," Stan replied. "But that's because you're a good for nothing piece of shit."

"And Kitty isn't?"

Stan shot her a passing glance. "At least she has looks going for her. What have you got going for you?"

"At least I don't plan rotting away in this hellhole for the rest of my life! At least I'm gonna get out of here, no matter what it takes."

"What does that mean," Stan yelled back. "You gonna be a drug dealer? A pimp?"

Feeling defiant, John shot up from his seat and stared down coldly at his father. "If that's what it takes."

He knew it was a dumb thing to say, but he couldn't think of much else. He was thinking, surprisingly, along the lines of more honest blue collar work, like a used car dealership, being a mechanic, or even some kind of fast food franchisee. But John figured Stan wouldn't understand, so he mouthed off instead. So Stan rose to face John, grabbed him by the wrist, and burned his hand with the cigarette. About three years ago, John may have winced or yelled out in pain. Three years before that, he would have begun weeping. But at eighteen, such an attack barely phased him.

"Nice going, Pops," he spat. "I think you've been wasting my birthday present."

This comment got him a rough slap across the face. "Fuck you, Johnny," Stan hollered. "You lil rat bastard."

"Go fuck yourself," John spat back.

"John. Please," Mabel, his mother screeched. "Shut the fuck up for once!"

John knocked his plate to the ground and tossed his chair down with it.

"Nice temper tantrum," Josie, his second older sister commented.

"Thank you, fat ass," John snapped, knowing how insecure his nineteen year old sister was about her weight. She pushed her own plate away and rushed out through the back door. The baby of the family, Joshua, who was about two, started crying. In response, Noah, who was eight, smacked him on the back of the head.

John, desensitized to the whole routine, stormed up to his room. He looked out of his bedroom window and saw Fallon Morris. Fallon was his cousin, but it had never meant much. She was a richie until her dad went upstate. Even now that they were in the same place, John didn't care. She was just another junior brat, like Claire Standish. He had almost liked Claire, until he heard what she called him that day. A burnout. He already knew she was like the rest of them, but it wasn't solid fact until she said that. John looked back up at the window and Fallon waved. Both windows happened to be open, but it wasn't any kind of invitation. Irregardless,  Fallon stuttered out an awkward hello. John assumed she felt obliged and he flipped her off in annoyance. Then he slammed his window closed, pulled down the shade, and turned his back to her.

Night Plans

Bender ducked out of the house around eleven that night, and took the two block walk to the 7-Eleven parking lot. By the time he got there, he was the last one to make it. Griff, Scully, Sam, Mal, Ned, and Chelle were all leaned against the back wall. Griff and Sam were locked in a explicit embrace (typical for them), while Mal, Ned and Chelle passed around a flask of whiskey, and Scully smoked a cigarette. Bender snatched the flask from Ned and finished it off, causing the three to moan in displeasure.

"Slow down, Bender," Scully said snarkily. "We don't need you heaving tonight."

Bender rolled his eyes. Scully was the oldest of the gang, Josie's age. He'd been held back in sixth grade, and was a senior as well. Scully was referring to the summer before seventh grade, when Bender had been something of a lightweight. By high school, he'd long outgrown vomiting, even when hungover, but Scully still thought of Bender as the kid who ralphed on his good sneakers one summer night.

"What's he talkin' bout, Bennie," Chelle asked, wrapping herself around Bender's free arm. Chelle was a black sophomore girl who lived a few blocks down from Bender. It was obvious that she had a crush on Bender, and while he didn't particularly reciprocate, he thought she was good-looking and a fun girl.

"Nothin', Chelle," he murmured.

It was sort of embarrassing how much Scully knew about him. While he hated to admit it, Bender had cultivated something of a tough, careless image, and having some guy calling him out on being a punk as a kid was tarnishing that. Chelle gestured to Scully, who handed her a Marlboro.

She placed it in between her lip and lifted her head towards Bender. "Light," she murmured softly, pushing her ample cleavage towards him. Bender lit her cigarette and she grinned. A few minutes later, the cigarette hit the ground and the pair were competing with Sam and Griff. They didn't even hear the BMW park so close to the wall.

"Ewwww," a prim, feminine voice hissed loudly.

Chelle pulled away and Bender turned to see Claire Standish staring at the two in disgust from the passenger window. "Come on, Claire," some rich boy teased. "Burnouts need love too." The boy snickered and Claire grimaced as the car pulled away.

Chelle shrugged it off and continued to kiss Bender's cheeks and neck, but he never leaned back towards her. Of all the things that had happened, having Claire Standish blow him off was the most annoying. He couldn't get that stupid prep girl out of his head.

Brian

Night Plans

Maggie stroked her dark brown curls and grinned. "All right, Brian," she said, squeezing his shoulder and grinning. "Every single one."

Usually, Brian's mother Joan, never would have allowed a friend, much less a member of the opposite sex, to stay the night. But Maggie was cut from the same cloth as her. She wasn't much of a girlfriend, or even a friend. More of a second mother, but with a different motivation. Joan wanted Brian to be the valedictorian next year based purely on the prestige of the title and the secondhand pride she would receive. Maggie wanted the title for Brian because she couldn't have it (only getting a D in Girls' Phys Ed) and she didn't want any of the rich but "undeserving" kids to have it either. She and Brian were definitely upper middle class, but Maggie had as much resentment for the richies as anyone on the wrong side of town might have. She was determined that a "real" brain would take the title for their class, as opposed to a rich girl with a 4.0 because "some teachers have crushes on her." And as Brian maintained his grade point average, he earned a few quick pecks on the cheek in the hall and occasional under the shirt action in his room. Despite the fact that Brian had asked Maggie out and even bought a Valentine's card once, everything was on her terms. And Maggie's terms were not a relationship. At first, it had bothered him, but now Brian was used to it. In fact, he was so used to Maggie's disinterest that he thought it would be okay to ask more questions about the pretty girl from outside Room 241. Fallon Morris. It wasn't your typical teenage crush. Brian could stop thinking about her. He just couldn't stop letting her slip into his mind. So he figured he fulfill his curiosity and asked Maggie what she knew.

"Maggie," Brian asked. "What else is there to know about Fallon? Other than the football team rumor?"

Maggie rolled his eyes at him. "It's no rumor," she corrected with an exasperated tone. "Fallon really hook up with all of them. It's fact. And besides, all you have to know is that she is the poster girl for what you have to look out for. She's a richie with good grades, even though she barely spends a night in her own bed...alone, that is. She's probably got a few teachers seduced. She could take valedictorian from you, easy." Maggie narrowed her brown eyes. "What's it matter to you? You're not interested, are you?"

Brian bit his lip. "No," he lied.

"Good," Maggie went on. "It would be awful if your trajectory to head of the class was halted by someone as shallow and promiscuous as Fallon Morris."

"Of course," Brian agreed solemnly.

Maggie turned to the digital clock by Brian's bed. It read 11:12. "We should turn in," Maggie declared.

Maggie O'Sullivan, Brian thought. The only high schooler who sees past eleven as late at night. Meanwhile, girls like Fallon Morris and Claire Standish are taking rides in nice cars, and they're not on their way home.

Brian sighed to himself as Maggie pushed herself off of his bed. "I'm going to change into my pajamas," she declared with a flirtatious smile. "No peeking."

Brian would have been excited by this about a year ago. But now he knew that with Maggie, this was as sexual as it got. After all, the army cot in the corner had taken up permanent residence in his room, and it never went empty. Maggie wouldn't even sleep in the same bed with him. And she didn't have even the slightest of crushes. She was a mother figure, albeit a weird one. But motherly none the less. And not in a good way.

Dreams

Brian was in the basement alone, sitting on the couch and doing homework. Maggie was dressed in a leather dominatrix outfit and standing guard at the door. He looked up and stared at her with lust. In response, Maggie growled menacingly and her face distorted into that of Satan. "Do your work, Brian," it hissed.

He looked back down to focus on his homework. What was it again, trig? Easy peasy. At least, until the numbers and letters began to blur together and become indecipherable symbols. "Ten minutes," a familiar voice tsked. Brian looked up and saw Mrs. Applebaum, the Trigonometry teacher glaring down at him. Next to her stood his own mother.

"Hurry up, Brian," she snapped. "Or you won't be valedictorian. You won't be shit."

"W-what about salutatorian," Brian stuttered.

The Satan thing, which had morphed back into Maggie, cracked its whip at his back and he cried out in pain.

"Don't let me down," Joan growled heavily.

All of a sudden, he felt a light tap on his shoulder. Brian looked up and saw Fallon, who was stretched across the back of the couch, wearing a silky white negligée similar to the one from 'The Boys of Summer' video. "Need some help," she asked, her voice a whisper amongst the nags of the other women.

Brian nodded. Fallon nearly floated down to his side. In some inexplicable manner, she explained what the strange symbols meant and Brian actually understood. He even managed to finish in time.

He handed to the paper to Mrs. Applebaum with a wide grin. "Inaccurate," the tightlaced woman snapped.

"It-it can't be," Brian stammered. "She helped-"

He looked up and saw Fallon smirking evilly. "Wow, you trusted me. Smooth move, Ex-Lax," she chirped cheerily. Brian felt beads of sweat on his forehead as he turned to face his mother and his math teacher.

"Six words," his mother growled. "Do you. Want fries. With that?"

Sure enough, Brian found himself shrunk to the size of an ant in a fast food restaurant. Two carefully manicured fingertip plucked him from the ground. He was soon faced with a gigantic Maggie, who was wearing one of the paper fry cook hats. She pressed a huge kiss to his tiny body before pulling away and shrugging. Finally, despite his screams in protest, Maggie unceremoniously dumped Brian into the fry vat.

Andy

Dreams

Claire Standish and Allison Reynolds were in cheerleading uniforms. Well, very strange cheer uniforms. Ones out of a porno, with crotch-high skirts and wet t-shirts. They were jumping up and down in slow motion, chanting his name. "AN-DEE, AN-DEE, GO! GO, GO, GO!"

Andy was waiting on the mat for his opponent to enter. "And from West High, four-time wrestling champion.....Samantha Mercer!"

All of a sudden, Andy was pinned to the mat by Sam Mercer, the sexy burnout girl from his history class. Dark strands of her hair were dangling in his face. "I want you," Sam purred, before planting a quick kiss on his lips. Andy relaxed and closed his eyes as Sam kissed his neck, chest, lips, arms, and nearly his entire upper body. But then, when he opened them, the sexy outfit she was wearing was replaced with a baggy gray Virginia Tech sweatshirt.

"I want you," Sam went on. "Virginia Tech wants you, Andrew Clark."

Claire and Allison's outfits morphed into Penn State sweatshirts. "Penn wants you more," Allison hollered.

"We want to give you three thousand dollars," Claire added. "A half sports scholarship."

"UCLA had more academia and more rigorous athletics," another girl in a sweatshirt shouted from the bleachers. It was Sloane Peterson, a cute sophomore Andy knew from parties. "And we'll give you more money! A full scholarship!"

Andy blinked and found himself in the midst of some insane college circus, with all sorts of girls doing trapeze acts and somersaults in the sweatshirts of his various recruiters. The ringleader was Jerry Clark, Andy's father. "Look at 'em, Andy. Look at 'em! They all want you, Andy! They all want you."

Then, the bright lights dimmed until there was a spotlight soley on Andy. "Until you lose," he heard his father growl. Suddenly, Hulk Hogan appeared and knocked Andy to the ground with one of those staged-for-TV bodyslams. Andy groaned in pain. Hogan rolled off of him amidst loud booing. The girls began to leave, each one pulling off her sweatshirt and dropping it on top of Andy. He moaned as finally, one last shirt was dropped, eclipsing his vision and trapping him under the pile.

Waking Up

Andy awoke in a cold sweat. He saw darkness and was afraid that the dream had real. He shoved away the sweatshirt above his head and was greeted to the sight of his room. His own, nice, safe room. Andy grinned in relief and looked down at the shirt. It read 'Shermer.' Good ol' Shermer High. Andy felt all of his muscles relax. He looked over at his clock: 4:12 AM. A pretty indecent hour. Andy quickly went over his schedule. It was Wednesday morning, practice was on Thursday, and the meet was on Saturday. Good. He had a decent chance of managing to slog through the day with no hassle about his lack of energy. His dad might not notice a thing. He debated doing something to pass the time before seven, unsure that he could go back to sleep after that dream. Andy considered taking a jog, but he still felt too tired for that. Listen to the radio? Too noisy. Finally, in his sleep deprived stupor, Andy thought it would be a good idea to call up that one girl from his last party. The brainy one. Margie. Andy dialed the number on the slip of paper she'd given him, and after seven rings, someone picked up.

"Who is this," a gruff, masculine voice asked.

"Is Margie there," Andy asked, avoiding the question.

"Do you mean Maggie," the voice went on. "No, she's not. She is at that nice Johnson boy's house. And, for your information, she doesn't take personal calls after ten, even at home. Now, who is this? Hello? Hello?"

Mr. O'Sullivan never got an answer to his question. Instead, unsurprisingly, Andy had fallen back to sleep.