The Bully

[demonic790]

Something I wrote for my English teacher a little while back. We had to mimic the writing style of Catcher in the Rye.

What do you think? Better than my other style of writing?

The Bully
By: Sean Laird

...I nodded carelessly. I couldn't understand why, but I knew god damn right then and there that this ''guy'' was going to beat the hell out of me if I didn't.

I took a second to think about all the other s**t that I've experienced in my life. Like the time when I was beat by my mom for losing one of my shoes. It was an accident for Christ sakes. Parents are such phonies, especially my mom. You'd have hated her and all the crap that she dished out at you. Does your mom walk around with a backscratcher in her hand everyday? I didn't think so. It's intimidating as hell, as if she's getting ready to look for a reason to beat the s**t out of you with it. Yea...she's mean like that.

You know guys, I just realize something. Adult's don't understand crap about us. They couldn't give a rats a** about how we feel or what we think, but when we try to make the attempt to listen to their feelings, we get a shot right in the back. Fix your bed, clean your room. Why don't you go fix you freaking bed mom? Respect your adults? I say respect your children. Yes, you're so much smarter and more trustworthy than we are. Excusme, last time I checked we were all god damn human beings here and deserve to be treated like one another.

The bully rose up his fist. I got a good look at it, man was it dirty. You can see rocks, dirt, and specs of blood. You would have thought he would wash it after every one of his victims. Maybe he's just trying to make it worse for me.

He reminded me of my mother. He was mean, disgusting, and that fist looked like the front end of the backscratcher. Yea, I know, this is going to f***ing hurt...

[J.D. Sparks]

I love Catcher soooo much. To be honest, though, your writing style doesn't much remind me of Salinger's. But that's not a bad thing!

I'm guessing that the profanities are in the piece in an attempt to mimic Holden's speech, but I think they might be more effective if you reined them in a bit. Expletives, generally, seem to be more powerful when used more sparingly. (And there's already a lot of power in this short piece).

I like the way you frame a narrative about the protagonist's mother with a narrative about his bully. The juxtaposition is very effective. The only real issue I have is that this piece seems a bit one-dimensional. Your narrator is in a very trying situation, but I don't feel a lot of empathy for him because he seems to have no emotional reaction except blind anger. (Understandable in the situation I suppose, but I still think you could round him out a bit more?)

[Pierre k31]

There's just enough there to make me wonder how much of the vitriol might exist in your own parental relations.
Maybe not........ but the mere thought process indicates that it might be.

P