[Today’s Fiction Free Write – I woke one morning about a month ago with the last line of this free write in my head and this is what it became.]
I hated Uncle Dean and didn’t want anything from him.
He was my mother’s brother, the oldest – and shortest – of five. But his lack of height didn’t stop him from bossing people around. I think it bothered him that he couldn’t tell me what to do like he did everyone else in his life.
“You’re a bum, Scott,” he snarled at me more times than I can count. “Get a real job and stop wasting your life on idiotic dreams. You’re just like your mother, except she was smart enough to finally listen.”
I guess I could have fought back or believed him, but that’s what he wanted me to do. Instead, I just ignored him, shook my head, and took my board out to the ocean to watch the sun set on the surf.
My uncle was bad enough when he was bitter and poor. I didn’t think he could get worse…until he won the lottery. Somehow, money made it okay for him to be a mean little gnome-man. Family members who feuded with him for years forgave him as fast as it took him to press hundred dollar bills to their palms.
They became his possessions.
I wasn’t going to be one of them.
He couldn’t buy me like one of his ten cars or three houses. I would tell him as much, if he ever asked. But I think he already knew how I felt. He didn’t seem to care. Material shit never mattered much to me. I had my friends, miles of ocean, and lots of time.
That’s why I asked the lawyer to repeat himself when he read Uncle Dean’s will a week after the bastard choked to death on an olive in the master stateroom of his yacht somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.
I couldn’t believe he left everything to me.
I bet you’re thinking this must have been the best thing that ever happened to me. I had all the money I’d ever need. I never had to work again. I could do whatever I wanted to do for the rest of my life. And so on. All the thoughts you’d think when you imagine having millions.
But leaving me everything turned out to be the cruelest thing that damn Uncle Dean ever did.
There was no place to go when I had it all handed to me. No motivation to find something I loved - to strive and try and fail. Sure, it made things a hell of a lot easier in many ways. I’m not complaining. But it didn’t give me purpose. For a long time, I didn’t see the point in putting one foot in front of the other to go in any direction. I wondered if people liked me just for my new money.
He sucked the life right out of my life.
I’m sure he was laughing out loud in his fancy grave.
And I wasn’t about to let him have the last laugh.
So after about a year of floundering and partying, squandering money and time, and becoming the bum my uncle always said I was, I woke up on a poolside lawn chair after a night of heavy drinking with a wrinkled paper menu stuck to my arm that changed everything.
On the back of that menu was a plan I’d scrawled out after a few too many brews with the four friends I trusted most – Jake, Kev, Eli, and Olivia, the girl I’ve loved for almost twenty years, although I haven’t ever told her.
The five of us planned to travel the world on my dead uncle’s dime, surf the best waves, and feed our souls with the culture and kindness of strangers. We’d take my uncle’s cursed millions and have the adventure of a lifetime. We turned my paper menu vision into three dedicated months of preparation and research and anticipation that led us to the deck of this boat I chartered, complete with captain and crew.
But you know what Burns and Steinbeck said about the best laid plans.
I guess we should have known better when we set out that blustery April morning to begin our two year journey. We should have known we couldn’t escape the things we tried to leave behind – our problems, our families, ourselves.
We had each other, which seemed to be enough at the time.
The boat was stocked, the money endless, the tide high, and our spirits even higher.
Pelicans flew in v-shaped flocks pointed out to sea.
And away we all went to darkening waves.
I hated Uncle Dean and didn’t want anything from him.
He was my mother’s brother, the oldest – and shortest – of five. But his lack of height didn’t stop him from bossing people around. I think it bothered him that he couldn’t tell me what to do like he did everyone else in his life.
“You’re a bum, Scott,” he snarled at me more times than I can count. “Get a real job and stop wasting your life on idiotic dreams. You’re just like your mother, except she was smart enough to finally listen.”
I guess I could have fought back or believed him, but that’s what he wanted me to do. Instead, I just ignored him, shook my head, and took my board out to the ocean to watch the sun set on the surf.
My uncle was bad enough when he was bitter and poor. I didn’t think he could get worse…until he won the lottery. Somehow, money made it okay for him to be a mean little gnome-man. Family members who feuded with him for years forgave him as fast as it took him to press hundred dollar bills to their palms.
They became his possessions.
I wasn’t going to be one of them.
He couldn’t buy me like one of his ten cars or three houses. I would tell him as much, if he ever asked. But I think he already knew how I felt. He didn’t seem to care. Material shit never mattered much to me. I had my friends, miles of ocean, and lots of time.
That’s why I asked the lawyer to repeat himself when he read Uncle Dean’s will a week after the bastard choked to death on an olive in the master stateroom of his yacht somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.
I couldn’t believe he left everything to me.
I bet you’re thinking this must have been the best thing that ever happened to me. I had all the money I’d ever need. I never had to work again. I could do whatever I wanted to do for the rest of my life. And so on. All the thoughts you’d think when you imagine having millions.
But leaving me everything turned out to be the cruelest thing that damn Uncle Dean ever did.
There was no place to go when I had it all handed to me. No motivation to find something I loved - to strive and try and fail. Sure, it made things a hell of a lot easier in many ways. I’m not complaining. But it didn’t give me purpose. For a long time, I didn’t see the point in putting one foot in front of the other to go in any direction. I wondered if people liked me just for my new money.
He sucked the life right out of my life.
I’m sure he was laughing out loud in his fancy grave.
And I wasn’t about to let him have the last laugh.
So after about a year of floundering and partying, squandering money and time, and becoming the bum my uncle always said I was, I woke up on a poolside lawn chair after a night of heavy drinking with a wrinkled paper menu stuck to my arm that changed everything.
On the back of that menu was a plan I’d scrawled out after a few too many brews with the four friends I trusted most – Jake, Kev, Eli, and Olivia, the girl I’ve loved for almost twenty years, although I haven’t ever told her.
The five of us planned to travel the world on my dead uncle’s dime, surf the best waves, and feed our souls with the culture and kindness of strangers. We’d take my uncle’s cursed millions and have the adventure of a lifetime. We turned my paper menu vision into three dedicated months of preparation and research and anticipation that led us to the deck of this boat I chartered, complete with captain and crew.
But you know what Burns and Steinbeck said about the best laid plans.
I guess we should have known better when we set out that blustery April morning to begin our two year journey. We should have known we couldn’t escape the things we tried to leave behind – our problems, our families, ourselves.
We had each other, which seemed to be enough at the time.
The boat was stocked, the money endless, the tide high, and our spirits even higher.
Pelicans flew in v-shaped flocks pointed out to sea.
And away we all went to darkening waves.
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