A cold, dry winter parking lot, commonly hosting some of State College deviants, could only belong to the South Gate residence. Despite its somewhat luxurious title, South Gate is merely a miniature slum within State College, not often busy or exciting despite the consistent and extremely blatant minor drug deals that go on around the apartments. Unfortunately, for two young, arrogant, and ignorant young men, a bitter Monday night starting on South Gate Drive lead to a much more revolting conclusion than a simple pot sale. There is a fine line between drug dealers and fiends, and a scraggily, ill kept Tyler Marlatt fell far beyond its border in an attempt to retrieve what dirty money was schemed from his equally skeptical girlfriend.
‘Are they coming for that G?’ Marlatt’s girlfriend, Fatima shouts to him from the neighboring room in their drug infested apartment. Although not all drug users are unstable and criminally bound, addiction, poverty, and greed can consume nearly anyone fixing for either substance, or cash. ‘So are they coming?’ Fatima inquired again. ‘Jesus I said yes!’ Marlatt shouted back through the wall. Soon enough the faint sound of an engine rattled through the window of the dealers’ bedroom, and a quick peak through the blinds led to the ever so high Marlatt to call out to his lady: ‘They’re here!’ After a slow, somewhat euphoric walk down the steps, Fatima slides out the front door of the Southgate residence and walks in a nonchalant manner to the idling, beat down sports car.
Bursting back into the apartment, Marlatt’s girlfriend frantically begins voicing his name, as she limps to the few doors he could possibly be behind, smoking with a few of his typical self-centered friends. ‘They took our weed babe! They didn’t pay me shit, and when I tried to take it back they just took off while I was still holding on! Ah, and my leg hurts pretty damn bad; I dunno what the fuck just happened!’ After a split second of zoned-out hesitation, Marlatt replied in furry, ‘Wait who did what? You mean Struble?’ Catching her breath Fatima replied ‘Yeah. His stuck up bitch Melinda, or whatever her name is was there too.’ After another few seconds of what seemed to be an out of body moment for Marlatt, he stood up, walked to the door leading to the hallway, turned to the rotted coffee table to his left, pocketed the hunting knife laying atop, and demanded his friends grab his wooden bat from his bed room corner. As the three young, absent minded men and Fatima headed to their ride, Marlatt coldly remarked: ‘Either we’re leaving with our money, or somebody is getting hurt.’
Soon arriving at Struble’s house on a nearly vacant Henszey Street, the aggravated conflict for twenty dollars began to unfold, as did Marlatt’s six inch steel hunting blade.
For me, the writing here is strongest when you write stuff like this: "‘Are they coming for that G?’ Marlatt’s girlfriend, Fatima shouts to him from the neighboring room in their drug infested apartment."
ReplyDeleteIt may not feel as eloquent to you when you write it, but its the most visceral and narrative-like for the reader. When you start giving us general statements about the world, we feel to detached. You want to remember to stay close to the details of the story and avoid making sort of blanket statements about places or people or situations. Let the story show us what is true in the images that you paint. Telegraph us the story.
I'd actually argue that you could start the story from the sentence I just pointed out -- it drops us right in the middle of the action and makes us curious, setting up an instant and intense conflict immediately.