High Class Trailer Trash | Teen Ink

High Class Trailer Trash

January 29, 2009
By rararararararar BRONZE, Mesa, Arizona
rararararararar BRONZE, Mesa, Arizona
2 articles 0 photos 6 comments

October 8, 2008
5:46 PM

So today's been pretty uneventful. Really the highlight of my day was Chuck bringing out a mooshed pink cupcake from the depths of his backpack during lunch and handing it to me with a lopsided smile. "Happy birthday, Oliver," he said. Which was really a big deal, because in all the years I'd known him (fifteen) he absolutely refused to do any "gay crap". The cupcake was too salty, but I ate it all. I almost cried, if you want the truth. I don't mean to sound like a sissy or anything, but it really was the sweetest thing I'd ever seen him do.
But now I'm home, the fuzziness of that moment gone. Home. My home, for lack of a better word, is a tiny, dilapidated trailer with peeling green paint that shows the sick cream color beneath. Weeds and wild grass sprout up, surrounding the trailer like some pitiful militia. Yellowing lights hang on either side of the door, spotted with the black silhouettes of dead bugs. A tattered green couch sits outside the trailer, pushed up against the front. Around that couch lay empty crunched beer cans in the dirt, the casualties of my step-dad Harry's drunken nights with friends. We're so white trash it hurts.
I sit outside on the carpeted steps, breathing shakily in the frozen, still air. "Happy birthday to me," I mutter, my words coming out on a burst of vapor. I can feel the rotting wood sink beneath me, the hard, weed-choked dirt under my thrift store shoes. I strain my gray eyes against the coming darkness and peer out across the trailer park. Trailers pushed together two by two. Tacky lawn decorations and attempted and forgotten flower gardens. The occasional above-ground pool (the rich bastards of Oak Acre Trailer Park). Scrawny cats and dogs roam freely and no one knows when hunger will drive them crazy, when Animal Control will come for them at last, and keep the cycle going. It's all so damn depressing.
I feel a frown tugging at my red lips (red because that's what happens to them when winter comes around) as I stare at the plastic, hollow gnomes on either side of me. Two unseeing pairs of eyes. Two bearded smiles. Two pointy hats and two sets of hands folded over two round bellies. I reach down and pick up the one on my left, the one with red pants and a green shirt instead of green pants and a blue shirt. I set it down cozy-close next to the other one. Their smiles get bigger. I watch them for a minute, then get up to give them time to talk, figuring that lawn gnomes work like those toys on Toy Story and can't move in front of humans.
I walk around to the back of our trailer, standing just outside the circle of light cast by the dim bulb at the back door. The back isn't much better than the front. A window box full of plastic flowers is drilled in under the minute bathroom window. I remember crawling in through that window, using the flower box to boost me up when I forgot my key once. Other than that our trailer may as well be reversible.
I stand very still and very quiet, my mouth hanging open just slightly, my ears straining to hear the gnome's tiny voices. I think I can hear them, then remember that they're plastic gnomes, and step in through the flimsy green door. I enter the house from the cramped laundry room and pick my way around the white plastic baskets full of dirty second-hand clothes. I remember digging through these baskets this morning for today's outfit. My lazy mother hasn't done laundry in just over two weeks. I hate her. Not for refusing to do the laundry'I'm not that bitter. It isn't her fault, actually. Up until my father died, she had maids and butlers. Then she pissed away the family fortune. Not that we were billionaires, but it was still a lot of money to spend in three years. My dad never would have let that happen, especially when he had me to take care of. That's why I can't feel anything positive about her. I mean, who just gets married and then lets themselves get so useless? But'I digress.
I stumble out of the laundry room and spill onto the tacky orange carpet, stained and matted with cigarette burns and food spills. "Spazz," I hear, and look up. My stepsister Leila is sitting on the squalid orange plaid couch with boyfriend #3. Or #2. They look very similar. "Slut," I retort, getting to my feet.
As I stand up, so does #3 or 2, a guy in his late teens or early twenties (dating and probably screwing my fourteen-year-old sister). He's not wearing a shirt, and he's all tattooed up in black and white and every color imaginable. There's the Virgin Mary on his abs, and I can't help but contemplate how Christianly jailbait is.
"What'd you say to her, asshole?" he snarls at me in deep voice thick with a Mexican accent.
I stare at him blankly, unseeing, then move to go around him, heading towards the stained white door at the other end of the couch. He puts out a huge brown hand, pushing me hard on the chest. I look down at his hand as it falls to his side, curled in a fist. He has a tiny sparrow on the flesh between his thumb and index finger. When I look back up, it seems like it's been an unusually long amount of time. #3 or 2 is still glaring at me with dark, hard eyes. "You better apologize to her, you little prick," he spits.
"I'm sorry Leila," I say automatically, feeling very confused. What did I even do?
"It's okay, Ollie," she says, and I look at her quickly, because she sounds scared. Her light brown eyes are glassy and wide. My sister. Her pink lipstick is smeared, her shining brown hair is wild, and her knees are scraped from climbing trees in a nearby park. I realize how pretty and miserable she is, and my heart breaks a little.
"What's wrong?" I ask, and #3 or 2 gets back in my face.
"Leave him alone!" Leila shrieks, too quickly, too shrilly. #3 or 2 and I look at her. "Come on, Mario, it's his birthday," she says, quickly regaining her composure. "Let's just go back to your place. This place stinks anyway." She gets daintily to her feet. I start thinking how this life isn't for her; how she was meant for such a different and better life. Poor kid.
She walks out the front door and I see her pause at the top of the steps, staring down at the oddly placed pair of gnomes. She starts to turn her head to look back at me, but #3 or 2 puts a massive hand on the small of her back, urging her forward. They leave, with only a cold draft to take their place. I hear their footsteps receding. Leila's soft, hushed voice against #3 or 2's hard, angry words.
Soon I'm left alone in an eerie silence, standing still. I stare forward but don't see anything. After an unknown amount of time passes, I slip out of my shoes and walk into the tiny bedroom behind the dirty white door. I get on the floor and feel my way into the sleeping bag on the floor, next to the twin bed that my older stepbrother Don sleeps in. I turn on my side, close my eyes, and fall asleep, ending my sixteenth birthday.

The author's comments:
People have told me Oliver reminds them of Holden Caulfield... (:

Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 13 comments.


emattox SILVER said...
on Dec. 6 2011 at 11:27 am
emattox SILVER, Onancock, Virginia
9 articles 1 photo 28 comments

Favorite Quote:
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. -Ghandi

I watch them for a minute, then get up to give them time to talk, figuring that lawn gnomes work like those toys on Toy Story and can't move in front of humans.
^Favorite sentence of life :)

on Aug. 18 2011 at 7:43 am
Ayushi_austen BRONZE, Kolkata, Other
3 articles 0 photos 54 comments

Favorite Quote:
I love my past. I love my present. I’m not ashamed of what I’ve had, and I’m not sad because I have it no longer...

i completely loved it!!! Leila sounds so helpless that one wants to comfort her...and to offer some solace to poor Oliver..really nice!!

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!


on Jul. 27 2011 at 9:22 pm
eram1029 BRONZE, Hialeah, Florida
1 article 1 photo 15 comments

Favorite Quote:
Human potential only goes as far as it is challenged.

This story is amazing! The character is honest and real. 

I would love to read a part 2 to this story, or atleast another episode in his tough life. The way it's written makes it funny and witty, but personal and witty. Great job :)


on Mar. 17 2011 at 11:01 pm
DoodlezTheScribe BRONZE, Keswick, Other
4 articles 2 photos 17 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne."
— Dorothy Parker

I think this story has excellent potential to become something more. As it is now, it's simply a very nice, descriptive fragment. Don't get me wrong, it's very well-written (save for a punctuation mistake) and the character developes well considering the length, but I think you have so much opportunity to blossom this piece into something more complex. I agree that not every story has to have an immediate point, but this one has the potential to mean much more than a simple vignette.

on Mar. 17 2011 at 8:24 am
laurelli BRONZE, Powell, Tennessee
4 articles 0 photos 5 comments

Favorite Quote:
" If we couldn't laugh. we would all go crazy" -Jimmy Buffett

wow you did an excellent job at your imagery. the picture you painted with your words made me feel like i was truely there and seeing this first hand. keep up the great work. :)

on Oct. 15 2010 at 2:37 am

Rararararararar, has so many great stories!!  I only wish she would post more!  She is truly a gifted writer and awesome young lady!  I love you so much!!

-Faja ;-)


on Apr. 5 2010 at 6:33 pm
rararararararar BRONZE, Mesa, Arizona
2 articles 0 photos 6 comments

thanks, i love comments! :D

everyone who reads this should leave a comment, good or bad.


on Apr. 3 2010 at 12:07 am
loveisblind GOLD, Tenino, Washington
10 articles 0 photos 71 comments

Favorite Quote:
This world, it ends as you believe it to end; yet it'll live on to the actuall end, where then you admit yourself wrong.


~Me~

I think that the point of this story was the this guys 16th birthday sucked. The one person that recognized it was his friend. His own sister was to busy making out with one of her boyfriend # whatever, and i think it was his parent that was out drunk on the couch.

Good story! I loved it!


on Feb. 13 2010 at 6:26 pm
DallysGrrl PLATINUM, Middlesex, New Jersey
20 articles 0 photos 199 comments
This story was really great but sad. it made teary-eyed and i really luved the whole thing. Great job.

on Feb. 13 2010 at 6:25 pm
DallysGrrl PLATINUM, Middlesex, New Jersey
20 articles 0 photos 199 comments
Honestly, idont think that there has 2 b a whole epiphany at the end-I dont think it needs 1.

on Apr. 27 2009 at 5:49 pm
Denae Worcester BRONZE, Castle Rock, Colorado
1 article 0 photos 31 comments
It was good writing, but I couldn't find the point in your story. Did the main character learn anything (besides that his step sister deserves better)? There was no change, resolution, or realization, nothing to make a conclusion. If you want to write about someone's poor and miserable life, tell the reader more, give the reader a reason to read the story.

Your descriptions were good, easy to picture and gave the setting that gloomy, hopeless, ashamed feel.

on Apr. 11 2009 at 3:42 am
rararararararar BRONZE, Mesa, Arizona
2 articles 0 photos 6 comments
ahhh thank you! you have no idea how happy that made me :D

have_a_heart said...
on Apr. 10 2009 at 10:56 pm
that was extremely well written when it ended i found myself wanting to hear more about oliver