Tina filled out the model application for the Barely Ripe web site, started at it for a few minutes, and then reset the screen. “This would be so cool,” she though. “I could make a few bucks for sticking things in my pussy and freak out all those tight asses at school. But then someone would tell someone who would tell the Rents and it would be Desert Storm all over.”
Tina clicked down her favorites menu and called up her favorite personal ad site. She was cruising the Men Seeking Men ads when an Instant Message popped up on the screen:
“Hey Squirt! How’s the home front?”
“Quiet with both you and Mom out of the house,” Tina typed back.
“Mom’s gone?” Christy typed back.
“She and Dad kept arguing and she took off to see Grans,” Tina IMed back. “Dad’s been moping a lot.”
“What!” Christy shot back.
“He’s been sitting in the basement listing to his old records and drinking a lot,” Tina wrote back.
“Oh shit,” Christy wrote back. “All this is happening because I fucked him.”
“Dork!” Tina zipped back. “I was watching and you definitely didn’t fuck Daddy. You sucked him off and he ate you out. Mom doesn’t know about that. They’re still fighting about the piercings.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” Christy typed back. “Why is Mom so weird?”
“That’s Mom,” Tina wrote back. “Tina you’re going to burn in hell if you keep misbehaving. Why can’t you be a good girl like your sister? If I’d gotten my titties pierced, Mom would have just called the Priest for an exorcism. She’s already convinced I’m evil.”
“Sorry about that Squirt,” Christy wrote back. “Hey, gotta go. Check on Dad for me. Don’t let him beat himself up.”
The message screen indicated that Christy was gone before she could reply. Tina logged of her computer and went downstairs. Christy was right about one thing; the ‘Rents had been acting stranger than usual. For as long as she could remember, her parents had been this cool, distant entity. Mom was trying so hard to be the ideal church lady that she almost didn’t seem real. Dad would sometimes take the kids to horror movies or museums Mom didn’t approve of. They hardly ever fought though. Now they were going at it all the time. Mom was a working herself into a righteous frenzy and Dad looked miserable.
Tina padded down stairs. “Might as well check on the old man,” she thought. She looked around the immaculate living room, the spotless kitchen, the well kept master bedroom. All empty. She went to the cellar door and heard faint music coming from down there. She opened the door and padded down the wooden stairs. From somewhere in the musty lots of discarded junk, she heard a tortured voice bellowing, “Love, love will tear us apart.”
Tina reached the bottom of the stair and looked around the gloomy room. The concrete floor was cold on her bare feet. Piles of old clothes bundled for the mission store. Seasonal decorations gathering dust. Forgotten furniture in children’s sizes. She never liked the cellar. It always seemed haunted. Since Mom got her new washer and drier installed in the garage, hardly anyone came down here anymore.
“Radio, live transmission…,” moaned a tortured soul.
Tina crept around the massive old furnace. Back where the washroom used to be was a strangely clean corner. On a battered old metal desk, an out of date computer screen flickered. A battered old stereo sat on top of shelves straining under the weight of hundreds of old record albums. Dad sat on the sofa that used to be in the TV room. He was lying on his back; an arm covered his eyes, an open beer next to him.
“This sounds really depressing,” Tina said.
Dad startled and struggled to a sitting position. Seeing Tina, he relaxed a little. “Yeah,” he said. “We used to make fun of Ian Curtis for being such a morbid sod. Then he went and hung himself. I guess he was depressed.”
“Why are you playing it,” Tina asked. “And where did all these records come from?”
“Ah, Joy Division just seemed appropriate given the way things are,” Dad said. “Nothing like a little doom and gloom for the glum.” He paused and looked around this dismal corner of the cellar. “This,” he said gesturing at the piles of stuff around him, “this is my secret life. The stuff Mom doesn’t want to know about or remember.”
Tina was looking at the spines of the records. She recognized some of the bands from Green Day and Sum 41 interviews. “Dad, what are you doing with all these punk rock records? Do you really listen to Black Flag?”
“It’s my past,” he said. “Pull out Damaged.”
Tina pulled out the old record. Scrawled across the skinhead’s face on the cover it said, “Greg and Maggie, Fuck off!! Greg Ginn.”
“Who’s Maggie?” asked Tina.
“Mom,” Dad said with a sigh. “Things were different then.”
“Mom wasn’t always a frigid bitch?” Tina asked scornfully.
“Tina!” Dad said sharply.
