The Family Curse
Kennedy sits at the bar, mildly distracted by the rolling news on the TV screen and the young, good-looking barmaid, whilst outside the rest of the world loses their minds in the usual carnage of their regular bouts of consumerist madness.
“I’ll have another round of these” he finally tells the girl as he sits with nothing to do but drink and wait. Sometimes it feels like this is all he ever does, sits waiting on his god-damn brother. His no-good god-damn brother who, as usual, couldn’t bring himself to name a specific time just a vague reference to ‘afternoon’ which could literally mean anything up until about 9 and as Kennedy looks up at the clock he spies it slowly ticking around to half-past-2 and he knows he could be in for a long wait, a very long wait maybe.
“God-damn him!” he spits as the barmaid brings his latest round of a double Jack and ice and a cold half-pint beer ignoring his obvious annoyance about something but as a ravishing beauty walks through the door Kennedy no longer cares. He no longer cares about the time, he no longer cares about his brother all that matters is walking right towards him as his eyes devour her enticing body. Standing tall and slim her attitude is of someone who’s been there and done more stuff than some squeeze into a lifetime but somehow her beauty has remained intact.
“Hi there beautiful,” Kennedy says as she sweeps his boredom away as she struts right past him before leaning into the bar.
“So how about you let me buy you that drink if you like?” he offers.
“What? Do I look like I can’t afford a drink of my own?” she responds, her voice an angry buzz of words whilst a grinning smirk spreads across her face.
“Oh no, I didn’t mean it like that…I just saw you walk in alone and, well… I’m alone and I thought, maybe, we could keep each other company if you like?”
“Well, as long as you don’t expect anything beyond the talk… I’m not that kind of girl I’ll let you know and trust me you wouldn’t want to make me angry” she retorts before turning to the barmaid and asking for a large glass of the best red wine they have. As she slides onto the stool next to Kennedy her long green dress parts at her leg and Kennedy can’t help but soak in the view of her beautiful slim legs.
“Well, how’s it going today? I’m Kennedy Monroe by the way,” he says by way of introduction as the barmaid brings over the huge glass of wine and Kennedy, desperate to not have any interruptions, passes her a note of some description.
“You can just call me Becca, alright?” she responds.
“Sure,” Kennedy says allowing a quiet moment to fall between them and, for the next hour, the quiet is all consuming. Any question he might ask she knocks away with a one or two word response until, finally, and Kennedy isn’t sure he’s ever been happier to see his god-damn brother, Kaufman walks into the bar. A brief nod of the head is all he gets as his brother disappears off to the toilet and Kennedy knows that means just one thing; the old Bolivian marching powder is back and Kaufman is going to be nothing but a god-damn pain in the arse to his younger brother.
“Hey there little bro,” Kaufman shouts across the bar as soon as he leaves the toilet, “how’s it going?” he asks as he slides in between Kennedy and Becca.
“Well it was going just fine,” Kennedy responds already knowing just where this afternoon is going to go and, sure enough, over the next couple of hours Kaufman will dazzle Becca with his American Express Gold Card, his knowledge of fine wines and his burgeoning cocaine-fuelled confidence. For Kennedy though time just struggled on as Kaufman moves in for the kill as his inevitable crash slowly comes to consume him.
“So, how about we take this little party back to mine?” Kaufman asks but Kennedy has other ideas.
“Why does it always have to be your place?” he retorts.
“Well little brother, I think we should ask sweet little Becca here where she wants to go from here don’t you?” as both sets of eyes turn to her. As she finally turns her head towards them a smile beaming across her face she teases them both.
“Enie, Meanie, Minni, Moo, tonight we’re going to go to this one’s home!” she says with her finger pointing right back at herself.
“Well I’m sorry guys it looks like you’re both losers!” she says unsteadily climbing down from her stool in her wine-addled state laughing all the way.
“Say what now?” Kaufman responds.
“You heard me loser,” she taunts doing a L shape on his forehead to confirm her feelings.
“But, but…” is all he can say.
“But nothing loser,” she says suddenly seeming to sober up in the blink of an eye before moving off towards the door of the bar but today something seems to have caught Kaufman in a rare mood.
“Hey beautiful, you can’t just walk out on us like this,” he says climbing off his stool and walking towards her by the door.
“Why can’t I?” she retorts, “I told your brother exactly what the deal was, no funny business I said didn’t I?” she asks turning to Kennedy who simply nods his head in agreement.
“But, but… But that was him, this is different…” Kaufman responds.
“Why is it any different?” she asks before he desperately lunges for her arm. “What the fuck are you doing?” she demands.
“I want you…” Kaufman slobbers feeling the rare sensation of rejection hitting hard.
“Well you can’t have me!” Becca responds but as Kaufman makes one last feeble grab for her dress something miraculous happens, something beyond belief, something that no one would believe unless they saw it with their own eyes and even then they would struggle to comprehend.
Becca starts growing inexplicably, bigger, higher and taller than anyone has ever seen before and as her head busts through the roof of the bar the brothers can barely believe their eyes. Like a gigantic feminine Hulk she majestically sweeps her green dress causing a gale to sweep through the bar and send all the customers running for the door. As they run screaming from the bar she lifts her foot up and Kennedy knows just what is coming and he’s sure it ain’t going to be good for him, for his brother, hell for anyone within stomping distance and sure enough as he turns on the street corner she wails like a banshee before stomping her god-knows what size boots down flattening the bar in one swoop.
“What the fuck now big brother?” Kennedy asks as Kaufman joins him on the corner.
“Don’t ask me!” Kaufman responds before running as if his life depends on it which he soon discovers it very well might.
“Where’s that bastard!?” the giants voice demands and as Kaufman ducks into an alleyway he struggles to comprehend what the hell is going on; less than a few minutes before he’d been quite happily doing his usual routine on the latest woman to have stumbled into his path and now, well now, he’s hiding from a giant beast whose just flattened the bar they’d been sat in.
“I see you fucker!” she hisses as one of her giant hands disappears up Kaufman’s alleyway desperate to grab his puny little body to be her plaything but they both know it’s inevitable and as Becca picks him up Kaufman can do nothing but scream.
“Help!!” he pleads but no one can do anything to stop the attack of the two-hundred foot tall woman and as she pulls him up to her eye-level he’s convinced that not even cocaine has got him as high before.
“I told you didn’t I?” she booms covering little Kaufman in spittle, “I ain’t that kind of girl, I told your brother that and we got along fine but you… well… What you got to say for yourself?”
“I’m sorry, I’m really, really sorry!” he responds whilst balling his eyes out.
“I don’t believe you!” she hisses in response as suddenly the area is flooded with emergency vehicles; the cops, a number of ambulances, a fire engine and finally an army battalion appear on the scene with their sirens wailing but even the fire engine’s longest ladder barely makes it to the giants’ knee and the army’s bullets merely bounce off her.
“She’s got my brother!” Kennedy tells the lead cop who is still looking up stunned at the giant beast of a woman now working her way down the narrow tree-lined street and towards the towns’ ancient old pier.
“We’re trying everything we can sir,” the cop responds but as the bullets keep bouncing off her he knows they’re running out of ideas and quickly and if the army battalion can’t come up with something, well to put it bluntly, everyone is going to get fucked and not in the good sexy kind of way.
An army helicopter flies into the scene and suddenly a huge net descends onto Becca and covers her back and head and suddenly she slips and falls crashing down onto the towns’ Aquarium. Even more chaos ensues as sharks ride the waves right up onto Marine Parade and as day-trippers and street-dwellers are devoured the chaos grows ever more wild. Water is flooding the streets all around the pier and is returning a large part of the beach to the sea with a whole load of very exotic and in some cases very dangerous additions.
Kennedy turns onto Marine Parade as the army helicopter drops its net and as he spies its manouvres he knows as soon as he sees Becca falling that somehow he’s got to get in there and save his god-damn brother. Running full-tilt like he hasn’t in years, hell decades even, he is on the scene in a matter of seconds and as he witnesses the carnage the sharks are bringing to the party he spies his brother flapping around in a deluge of water. Arriving on the scene a fleet of ambulances pull up to the disaster zone and a horde of paramedics come piling out desperate to get on with their job of saving some lives.
“Can one of you help my brother?” he asks as he walks on through and straight up to Kaufman. “How’s it going big brother?” he asks as a paramedic appears at his side.
“It, it ain’t good…” Kaufman responds struggling for breath as the medic diagnosis at least two broken ribs.
“We’ll need to get him to the hospital to help with his breathing,” the medic tells Kennedy as they pile Kaufman into the back of the ambulance.
“Can I get a ride?” Kennedy asks before the medic nods his head holding the door open for him. As the ambulance hurtles the short distance from pier to hospital the quiet is a blessed relief after the carnage especially as Kennedy knows his brother is going to be fine.
Wheeling him into the hospital in a wheelchair and down a passage straight pass the dreaded A&E Kennedy follows until finally he is told to wait as his brother is wheeled into a private room. As Kennedy sits back he notices a tiny TV in the corner and as soon as his eyes focus he can see they’re talking about the incident he’s just escaped and the scene ain’t pretty, it ain’t pretty at all. The pier pounded to pulp, hundreds of homes and at least a dozen bars destroyed, flattened, including the one they’d originally all met in. The beast, and Kennedy still can’t believe it is Becca, is currently doing more damage to the ravaged beating heart of West Street than any Saturday night crowd, going off like a bomb and bringing nothing but destruction in her wake.
“Kaufman!” her voice booms through the tiny TV set in the corner of the room, “I know you’re out there somewhere watching this and I want you to know I’ll find you and I’ll crush you yet!” she booms before suddenly lowering her voice to a whisper, “And if I don’t I’ll put a curse on you and your whole bastard evil family, in fact anyone named Monroe!”
“Sir,” a nurse says arriving at Kennedy’s side, “sir, I’m afraid…”
“Oh no,” Kennedy says recognising the tone, “he’s gone hasn’t he?”
“Yes sir, we just couldn’t save him!” she confirms as a call comes in from the front office.
“A telephone call for me?” Kennedy asks as he walks on in, to which the admin clerk confirms holding the reciever out for him.
“Yes, yes this is Kennedy Monroe, yes… my parents…” he says as news is delivered before the inevitable comes again and he drops the phone and falls to his knees.
“Oh no!” he sobs suddenly more alone than he’s ever been in his life and as the clerk leans in all Kennedy can hear, in the distance, is the ominous thud of the biggest feet in the world.
“I know you’re in there!” she booms a few seconds later and Kennedy knows, he just knows, the only way out of this mess is to confront the situation.
“Here I am!” he declares walking out the exit a few minutes later, “Now you don’t have to kill or injure anyone inside, you’ve got me! Your damn curse has killed my entire family you bitch and let me tell you, right now I ain’t got much to live for so if you want to finish the job go right ahead!”
“Oh no Kennedy, it’s always been you that I liked!” she whispers for only half the town to hear and suddenly, just like that, she shrinks right back down to her normal size. A lone policeman suddenly appears from nowhere and arrests her, placing her in hand-cuffs and walking her the short distance to the police station and all Kennedy can do is try and forget it all. As he walks off in the direction of his home he spies a bar and walks on in as he realises the madness of the day finally needs drowning in an ocean of booze.
