Chapter Text
CHAPTER 1:
AMERICAN IDIOT
The television is always on.
It flickers in the living room, even when no one’s watching. The volume drifts between news anchors shouting at each other and commercials selling fear in wrapping paper. The house smells like reheated dinner and carpet cleaner. Outside, the neighborhood is full of identical roofs and trimmed lawns.
Jimmy sits on the floor with his back against the couch.
The screen flashes war footage, politicians smiling with plastic shit-eating grins, breaking news banners screaming a catastrophe. A ticker runs along the bottom like a pulse that never slows down.
His mother says that it’s important to stay informed. His step-father says the country’s going to hell.
JIMMY
I don’t remember when I saw the TV glow, or when it started feeling louder than the house itself. It used to be background noise; gameshows, sitcom laughter. Now it feels like someone left the door open and the whole world is yelling through it. I sit on the carpet because it feels more stable than the sagging, lumping couch, cloaked in fading peach floral fabric. The couch sinks… the floor doesn’t. The static hum presses against the back of my skull. Every headline feels urgent… like they’re warning me personally.
They talk about threats like they’re already inside the room. I watch cities I’ve never been to burn in high definition. I watch the men in suits argue about freedom like it’s a brand name. There’s always a flag somewhere in the frame, sometimes foreign, sometimes our own... There’s always music underneath the footage. It’s so low and dramatic, like a trailer for the end of everything.
They say we’re under attack, say we’re stronger than ever. They say the future depends on what we do next. But then again… they say that every night, and every time we do something. I look at my reflection in the black parts of the screen, and try to figure out where I fit inside of it all.
THE MEDIA
Good evening. Tonight, a nation divided.
Tonight, fear on the rise.
A new kind of tension, all across this glorious nation.
Tonight, a choice that will define your future.
Stay with us.
MOM
I leave it on because silence makes the house feel hollow. When the TV is on, I know what’s happening. What to worry about, what to pray for. If I turn it off, I feel blind.
I tell him it’s important to stay informed. I really mean it y'know.
The world feels so unstable around us. Every week there’s something new, something worse. God, I just want to be prepared. I want to know what kind of country my son is growing up in.
I watch him sitting on the floor, watching the tube, wondering what he’s thinking. He never reacts, doesn’t gasp, or shake his head. He just… stares. Sometimes I think he’s absorbing too much of it, sometimes I feel like he isn’t absorbing nearly enough.
That violent music he’s always listening to… it’s desensitized him.
The house smells like TV dinner and cheap cleaner. The TVs chatter makes the place feel occupied. Without it, I don’t know what we’d say to each other.
I think I’m losing him.
JIMMY
The anchors speak like they know me. They talk about my generation like we’re statistics waiting to happen. I feel smaller every time they say “Young people”.
At school the same arguments echo across the hallways. They repeat phrases they’ve heard at dinner, phrases their parents have heard from this exact screen. It’s like the whole town is… synced to the same frequency. They’re all idiots.
Sometimes… sometimes I imagine smashing the remote against the screen just to see what silence feels like.
I fucking hate this town.
It all feels so… choreographed. Like there’s a script everyone has memorized except me.
I read the words on the screen until they blur together.
Threat. Crisis. Victory. Loss. Repeat.
I lean my head back against the couch and close my eyes, but the voices keep going. I feel like I’m losing myself… Why does it feel like I’m the only one in this town who wants to change something?
MOM
He thinks I don’t notice when he stares at it too long. I want to tell him that when I was his age the world felt dangerous too. Different headlines, same fear. But maybe that’s what growing up is… realising the world has always been on fire somewhere. But what can we really do about it?
I work the same job with boring, repetitive tasks that I’ve been at for the past six, almost seven, years. Without a single raise in sight. I’d like to put some money into Jimmy’s college fund… but we all know he isn’t getting into a college, at least one worth paying for. It’s not like we could afford it even if he got into fucking Harvard or something.
So I blow it on drugs to take the edge off.
Brad’s never around, and when he does decide to show up, it’s not like he wants to help us out financially or anything.
Why am I still with him? Why do I want him?
I fold the laundry on the coffee table and listen. I wave a handkerchief in front of his face, but he has no reaction.
God, why is he so numb now? Must be the meds or maybe it’s because he hasn’t eaten anything today…
I open our fridge that barely cools anything anymore, a half empty jar of pickles, and a couple cans of off–brand soda being the only things in there. I didn’t get enough tips this week for groceries.
I glance back at him, only to see the light from the tv reflected back in his eyes. It makes him look older than his years. Sharper around the edges.
I turn back to the fridge. Pickles, leftovers and soda it is.