Lucky Girl

The first story I wrote for Creative Writing Class years ago. Not well-recieved, the professor called it gimmicky and loaded with cliche. Now, it's dated as well!

  

                                 

Lucky Girl 

 

          Once upon a time, there was a very happy little girl. Lucinda was her name. As she grows up, she hears the joyful suburban sounds fill the air, for children’s voices echo up and down Idyllic Lane in happiness of play. Swings creaks as children sway back and forth like pendulums in old clocks passing time, and bicycle wheels spin like seconds on a stopwatch. People go about their way tending their hedges and gardens with rows of flowers blooming so brightly, in shades of classic blues, pinks and yellows, their smiling colorful faces spreading wide for all who pass. We hear sounds of lawn mowers that neatly trim the chemically enhanced eternally green lawns rippling in the sun like a lake sculptured by a warm summer breeze. Bright and cheery, the sunlight filters through the young trees on more days than not with white billowing fair-weather cumulus clouds usually marking the crisp blue-sky, lifting the spirits of the contented people who live here. Standing like sentry guards outside an open window, the young, sturdy maples spread their leaf-enshrouded boughs to rustle in the gentle breezes, reaching to embrace and absorb the warmth of the sun. 

            So here in this blissful existence, we find the teenageprettylittlehappyrichmallgirl Lucinda still living her perfect existence in suburbia. She has shimmering locks of gold, glowing cheeks of pink, and twinkling eyes of blue. Her home is among the other beautiful, handsome houses that line the tidy cul-de-sac Idyllic Lane. Behind the open window is Lucinda’s room where she lives with a mother and father who love Lucinda so very much. They are the most successful of parents, she an elementary school teacher and he an executive in a thriving business in the big bustling city. Lucinda’s mother and father buy Lucinda nice clothes, toys and pretty, shiny things they think she likes. They give her freedom that she never abuses. She sports the many signs of her freedom with many studded body ornaments and tiny tattoos. Mother and father know because of all their love and gifts that Lucinda is such a lucky girl.

            Lucinda attends a stylish upscale high school.  In school, she has many friends that wear the right clothes, listen to the right music, and flaunt their woman-child charms for the right boys. All around Lucinda, the boys think she is way hot and the girls think she is way cool. Even the teachers think she is very pretty, well behaved, and smart.  Everyone in school knows Lucinda and knows she is such a lucky girl.

            No one sees the once beautiful cumulus clouds growing tall and graying as Lucinda’s face grows less contented, uneasy, and unhappy and so slowly, so slowly, she becomes a prettylonelyunhappyrichgirl.  She grows tired and bored of her handsome home, proud and doting mommy and daddy, and all her chic friends. Lucinda grows tired and bored of the teen princess music she and her friends listen to and love. Inside her room, behind her open window, she needs a change, an alternative to this blissful life. As she ponders her life, rosy-red robin hip-hops across Lucinda’s lawn in search of repast, but in the chemically treated lawn finds none. Undeterred, the robin flies up to one of the trees near her open window, and sings its sweet song of happiness long and steady to all who will notice. With a swish and a bang, Lucinda closes the window. Lucinda wonders what she can do, where she can go, whom to see to make a needed change she yearned. Patiently she waits�"searches�"thinks; perhaps the change will occur to help her feel like such a lucky girl.

            Soon, changes occur. She hears different music, samples other activities, and researches other cultures. She decides music is the key, but it is difficult to select and transform to what the different music types represents. Heavy metal is too hard and heavy.  Rock and roll is too old�"like her parents. She didn’t want to worship Satan, so she avoided death metal. Soul is too deep. She sampled them all, and the cultures that surrounded them. She made a choice and decided to abandon her suburban life.

            One day after her choice, there came a rap on the door. Lucinda excitingly knew that it was for her. There at her door Mr. Brown stood with a package for her. Mr. Brown tried not to let his eyes wander to Lucinda’s pink tight top and pierced navel ring but could not help it, and she didn’t seem to care or notice his thorough, lewd inspection. She eagerly signed for the package, tore open the paper, tape and box as Mr. Brown waltzed back to his truck, trailing his empty rocking and rolling dolly behind him.    

            Lucinda laid out the Rap compact discs on her pretty-ruffled bed sheet covering the tall four-poster bed. She had eight discs in all and immediately began to listen, drinking in the rhythms, voices, tones, and stories the rappers told. A bonus, demo disc was included free of charge with the set recorded by a newcomer to the rap scene, Ree-Sez Pee-Sez.  She began to listen to Rap whenever she could, all the time, day and night. She changed�"slowly. Noticing the changes her friends and teachers feared she was turning to drugs or had a sugar daddy taking her out to the city, but Lucinda ignored them all. She listened to the rappers as they told their stories of the excitingly dangerous lives they led in the ‘hood.  Lucinda dreamed of being there, living that life with them.  She thought that kind of life would be so much more exciting  than her monotonous suburban scene and that kind of life would make her feel like such a lucky girl.

            Lucinda had the chance to see her now favorite rapper, Ree-sez Pee-sez in concert.  Ree-sez was different from the other rappers. He dropped out and grew up in the rough ‘hood, fighting his way up and once being addicted, hurt, arrested, beat up, and shot, he now rapped of improving oneself, to fight off the evils of drugs, violence and poverty, and embrace a world of peace and tranquility. His raps were changing the rap scene with most of his profits going to schools and the education of the poor. 

            Afternoon came in suburbia, time for the flock to return to the neighborhood in their pretty, shiny four-wheel drive suburban boxes. Lucinda’s mommy and daddy came home in theirs to greet their sweet, sweet daughter. Whom they found appeared quite different for they just noticed the change. Lucin’s pretty hair hung in strangles from under a baseball cap turned sideways, a torn tee shirt revealing a bright-colored bra and torn cotton short skirt.  High, hard leather strapped sandals showed off her toes devoid of pretty polish. She told Mommy and Daddy she had changed her name and she needed to see a concert.  Of course, Mommy and Daddy disapproved, but they let her go because they loved her so.  

                                   **

            The sky grayed as storm clouds swarmed the horizon. The dark, hard lines of the city’s unforgiving concrete buildings and streets lay before her as she snaked her way through the city to the concert.  The completely different Lucin drank it all in and soon came under the power of the harsh sights, strong smells, and loud sounds.  The hard foreboding concrete buildings, black, cold pavement; smells of hot exhaust, old food, and sweat enticed her. The sounds of cars, sirens, and buses, and the voices, radios, and babies excited her. The city people did not know her, notice or care about her for no one smiled at Lucin.

            At the concert, Lucin stood right up front from the start and knowing all of Ree-sez’s songs, she rapped each one aloud along with the crowd and danced, jumped and thrusted to the hard, urban rhythms.  During one song, Ree-sez made eye contact with Lucin and liking her look, he waved her up onto stage.  Together they sang his hit, “Ah ’m yo’ man, yo‘m ma lay.”  As she rapped and danced on stage, the audience envied her and knew that she was such a lucky girl. Lucin shed tears of joy when Ree-Sez took her backstage, thinking that she would live the excitingly dangerous life in the ‘hood.  Ree-sez though knew that Lucin would be such a lucky girl that night.

            Lucin abandoned her suburban life, mommy and daddy and chic friends to follow Ree-sez.  Eventually he accepted her as an assistant. Together they toured and shared everything, his music and his love of life�"for Lucin and Ree-Sez lived happily ever after�"well, not quite really. Actually, only four months, two weeks and a day.  That last night together, they walked out of the back of his favorite ‘hood concert hall and right into, up face to face with Rat-Toosie a rival rapper.

            “Wha’s up Rat?”  Ree-Sez asked with a nervous voice that caught Lucin by surprise.  Rat pulled out a dark, shiny forty-five pistol that glinted off the streetlights. 

            “We can’t tolerate wha’ you do no more.  We tol’ you ‘bout what would happen, if you don’ quit.  You and that nicey, nice stuff you throw to these here ‘burbers.”  Rat nodded toward Lucinda.  “The go to school, get smart, get your free downloads and all that stuff. We can’t make a buck ‘cause you don’t want ta, and they love ya.  We can’t take no more.”

            Lucin looks at Rat’s straining knuckles gripping the forty-five as Ree-sez grips her hand tighter. Lucin sees Rat’s forefinger tendon twitch and hears the swish of Ree-Sez’s hand pulling his nine-millimeter from out of his pocket.  Lucin shoves her body as hard as she can against Ree-Sez’s body, aside and away from the menacing gun.

 

Click! Forty-Five trigger squeezed�"Chamber  turns�"Firing lever trips�"Moves spring�"Spring  releases�"Strikes firing  pin�"Bullet ignites�"Fire leaps�"Bullet separates�"Accelerates down barrel�"Emerges from muzzle�"Flame and smoke erupts�"Ree -Sez’s body moves�"but too late! Bullet punches�"Nylon�"Cotton�"Skin�"Flesh�"Rib�"Bursts into fragments�"Tears Left ventricle�"Rib breaks�"Perforates Flesh�"Bullet stops�"Report sounds: Bang! 

 

            Lucin spins and looks at Ree-Sez to see his surprised look that shows no pain, his nine-millimeter gripped in his hand, wavering in the air, still pointed toward Rat. Ree-Sez’s chest blossoms as his knees buckles. His finger spasms and a shot explodes from the gun harmlessly over Rat’s shoulder. Ree-sez’s hand grips Lucin’s in near-death throes as he falls slowly to the pavement. Ree-Sez’s elbow strikes the pavement while dragging and turning Lucinda’s body down toward his falling body. She looks down into the dark, deep muzzle of the nine-millimeter and sees the bullet exiting the barrel. With a resounding bang! Lucin’s world slams shut.

            As the gunshot echoes die in the surrounding alleys, the tiny tickity-tick-tick�"tick of three shiny, gold ear studs tap-danced away down the dark street. 

   *****************************************************************                  

            The hot bullet had sliced Lucin’s pretty pink cheek and brutally tore off her ear taking the three gold ear studs with it.  As she lay over Ree-Sez’s dead, limp body large warm drops of her tear-thinned blood dripped off her golden locks and mixed with his blood, pooling out onto the coldblackdampunforgivingasphalt.   

            Rat-Toosie looks down, grinning at his own good luck and as he roughly grabs Lucin’s bloodied shoulder, he laughs, “Yo’ ma lay now!”  Pulling her up to her feet and turning her to look, he adds, “Oh man, damaged goods!”

            Lucin could not hear what he said because of the ringing and deafness in her ears from the gunshot. Though despite her pain, tears, and blood in her stinging eyes, she manages to curl her still-pretty lips into a weak, thin smile. For now she, now again Lucinda, knew she was such a lucky girl, just as everyone else around her had always known.