Post by eliot greaves on Aug 7, 2010 9:50:01 GMT -8
eliot carter greaves
[/i]-
name: megan
age: 19
gender: femme
writing experience: a while now
how’d you find us?: in silence sealed
a favorite book: the sweet far thing by libba bray
name: eliot carter greaves
age: twenty
citizen? upper or lower schooling?: upper
previous residence: houston, texas
eye color: blue, like a favorite pair of jeans
hair color: dark brown
height: 6’2
distinguishing features: various tattoos especially the one emblazoned proudly on his chest and bite marks on his hand when a dog bit him
four good personality traits
four bad personality traits
three quirks
important people
nate fleming, twenty-five,, step-brother {activist
[/ul]
history
Diana Greaves never knew an easy life. The only home she knew until she was sixteen was a constant battleground where cruel words were are always standard artillery besides the occasional fist, shoe , wedding china, ceramic figurine, and once a hammer aimed at her father’s groin. Following the footsteps of her older brother, Diana and Lila, her best friend since the two girls fought over the same doll in kindergarten, ran away from their homes situated in one of the many suburbs surrounding Chicago. Even with its freedoms, the life of a runaway was hardly easy and never if ever glamorous but Diana and Lila survived and better yet they were no longer the innocent bystanders who took the brunt force of the abuse that lurked behind seemingly perfect lives.
For a year, they traveled the country quickly learning what they needed to know to survive whether it was deciding which drivers were the safest to hitch a ride from- women, liberal young couples and elderly grandparents on their way to see their children. Or deciding which It didn’t take long for the girls to quickly learn what they needed to survive. Money was made through several avenues; odd jobs, bad checks, playing Diana‘s guitar to a captivated crowd, or a clumsy fall onto a man’s lap on a bus allowing the other girl to lift his wallet quietly. Parties, especially those thrown in affluent areas always brought them more five hundred dollars each. While adolescents around them partied to oblivion, the girls rummaged through bedrooms, closets, coats, jackets- anything that might contain currency. Yet, the one thing they promised each other they would never do was sell their bodies for a profit. Both had known and pitied the hardened and lost stares of young women, desperate and without support who through circumstances in life had no other option but to prostitute themselves.
But Vegas tore everything down.
Visiting every major city from Washington D.C. where the two swam the width of the Lincoln Memorial pool naked before they were chased off by security guards to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. A year and half since they first left Chicago, they found themselves in Las Vegas. In the city of sin, the two friends began to drift apart slowly. It began once Diana found playing music in a bar more enjoyable than hustling though she earned less money. With her friend occupied with her own dreams, Lila kept at their money-making schemes soon finding it difficult without her friend at her side to look out for her. When it seemed they would be kicked out of their cramped apartment, Lila found another means by stripping. When Diana found out, whatever influence she once had on her best friend vanished as they fiercely argued over Lila’s new profession. According to Lila, she wasn’t going to stop and didn’t want to stop. “ I make at least two thousand a night Di. That’s enough to get us out of this shitty apartment and into somewhere nice!” she explained in earnest. Sighing deeply, Diana turned to her friend asking herself why didn’t she notice, “ It’s not about the money, Li.” It was never about the money. Although Lila considered her exponential increase in income a sign she made the right decision; it was about a man. A few days and several arguments later, Diana learned Lila’s relationship with a man reverentially called Everett Red kept her in the strobe lit rooms of his gentleman’s club. Whatever hold the enigmatic character Everett Red had on her friend was strong and could not be undone easily. Their parting of ways was inevitable and painful. Without Lila by her side, Diana no longer had ties to the city that had done so much in destroying their bond and left without a glance.
Completely unlike her, Carter Davis knew nothing of true hardship, his greatest trial was announcing to his parents that he no longer intended to attend their alma mater, University of Southern California Berkley. They met at a bar filled with artists and musicians in San Francisco on open mic night where they both performed. A week later they saw each other again, speaking for the first time as they waited for their turn on the small black stage. "Nervous?" she practically shouted above the death metal rendition of Over the Rainbow. "You have no idea." The following week, they exchanged more words, mostly sentiments about writer's block and the best way to cure a sore throat. Each week they met, the more they talked and the more they both looked forward for open mic night. After two months of friendly conversation, Carter awkwardly asked Diana out on a date. From then on they soon began to date regularly.When Carter suggested they embark on a trip, Diana agreed without any hesitation.
It was in Houston when Diana realized she was pregnant. With a child on the way, the couple decided to stay in the city to raise their child. On a day when the city of Houston was enveloped by a thick cloud of smog which crippled the city to a standstill, Eliot Carter Davis was born in the back of an ambulance, ten minutes away from the hospital. Afterward, life for Diana and Carter changed dramatically. With a child, they could no longer be the couple who could sleep in till late afternoon when their shifts started at a small boutique for Diana and a factory that manufactured fire extinguishers for Carter and on weekends travel from party to party with other exuberant nineteen year olds.
In Diana’s mind, they had settled happily into a semblance of a family but she never knew how Carter felt about the sudden change of a carefree nineteen year old to someone who had to be a thirty year old burdened down by responsibilities.
One evening she arrived in their modest apartment her arms loaded with groceries from a recent shopping trip to find a strange couple in her home. Struck mute by her shock, she watched a very well-dressed woman incite peals of laughter from her one year old son while a man, obviously her husband conversed amiably with Carter. “Carter, what the hell?” Seeing the growing anger in his girlfriend’s eyes, Carter knew better than to make excuses that Diana would quickly disprove in a minute and hurriedly ushered the couple from the apartment with promises to “keep them informed” about their decision. Before she could utter another word, he launched into a spiel that Eliot deserved more than they could give him. By giving their son away, they could “start living the way we want to live our lives Di. Don’t you remember when we didn’t care about which diapers are cheaper and what formula won‘t make him spit up?” Fumbling through his pocket, he pulled a once crisp check for her inspection. “ Look, they gave me this check for twenty-thousand and if we give them Eliot we’ll get another thirty-thousand. Just listen to me Di, we can’t give Eliot as great of a life as them. So let’s be unselfish for our son and seriously think about giving him what he really deserves.” Trembling, Diana calmly walked into the living room, setting her child in the colorful playpen that dominated the small space. Turning to her boyfriend, her voice even she innocently asked “Twenty thousand?Really? Can I see that?” Beaming as he handed her the slip of paper, Carter felt assured that Diana would certainly agree with him. Expecting to hear a gasp of awe, he almost didn’t realize that the loud rip he heard was in fact from Diana angrily tearing the paper to small shreds. “ I’m not selling my son,” she stated calmer than she thought she could muster out of the anger that sparked at the first mention of his plan. A week later, the couple which many upon sight believed would stay forever were gone as was Carter from their home.
Carter Davis may have been the first man she ever loved but her love soon vanished the moment he offered to sell her son. A fierce love born from a childhood devoid of love overcame Diana the moment she was handed her child that April morning and not even the love of her life would keep her from remaining his mother.
As best as she could, Diana tried to support her son with her meager salary but finally nothing she could do could save them from losing the small apartment where Eliot learned to walk and speak English sounding gibberish. Eliot was four when they packed all of their belongings into every available crevice of their Ford Taurus and checked into the Regent motel, living there for a year until Diana moved them to another. By the time he was ten, Eliot had lived in a grand total of twenty-six motels, forty-five different motel rooms, four bed and breakfasts for the past four summers,attended eight different schools, swam in thirteen different pools where each and everyone either had too little or too much chlorine,packed and unpacked more times than he could count, amassed a collection of thirty-three matches all from different motels, used approximately two thousand one hundred and ninety bars of motel soap, learned fluent Spanish from spending time with housekeeping, launched seventy water balloons from his balcony window at unsuspecting guests only to run inside before they could catch a glimpse of him; from complimentary breakfasts set out each morning in the motel lobbies he had eaten five hundred sausages and pieces of bacon, six hundred bagels smothered in a concoction of peach and grape jelly with a tiny bit of cream cheese, six bananas at his mother's behest, and sneaked three cups of coffee when she had her back turned.
It was never the life Diana wanted or intended for her son but circumstances pertaining to her work kept her constantly changing jobs. Nevertheless, mother and son were content with their ever-changing scene of life. Steady work and a stable home only appeared when after being hired as a waitress in a upscale restaurant in downtown Houston, and she replied to an ad for a roommate put out by a demi chef working in the same restaurant.
Before long another change arrived in their lives. From a young age Eliot always wondered the identity of his father but his mother's blank expression at the sound of those two syllables spoken together convinced him he would never learn about his father from his mother . Scarce were other father figures that he could look up to. After Carter betrayed her trust, Diana never fully trusted the men who showed interest in her no matter how persistent they were. Yet, Jack Fleming was different. A constant fixture in the restaurant on Wednesdays at two, never once did she see a ring on the finger of the forty- something year old or a absurdly pretty but vapid young woman on his arm like all the other men who came to La Nuit for other than business. When he mustered up the courage to finally talk to her, she rose a hand for his silence cutting off his carefully planned casual speech that he practiced in his mirror for three weeks every Wednesday while he shaved. " Look I'm thirty years old with a twelve year old son. I'm a high school dropout. I don't care for dating or men, in fact. I am usually a bitch and I lack most feminine qualities to be any type of trophy-wife or girlfriend. I have baggage. Oh yeah, I couldn't care less about how much money you make in a year. So if you'll excuse me, I'd like to wait for my cab alone." Right as she finished her speech, her cab pulled up to her great relief.
The next time they crossed paths, Jack was ready with a response for her. " I'm forty-one with a seventeen year old son who has a mind of his own and rarely listens to me nowadays.I'm a lawyer but I always wanted to make furniture like my dad did but this is what he has always wanted for me. I don't care for trophy wives or girlfriends either- most are in it for the money.I'm afraid of dating. I'm divorced and haven't so much looked at another woman since but with you I did. Now... I want to see if I could do more." Slowly, her lips stretched into a warm smile. " Will you keep me company while I wait for my cab?" After a year of dating, they were engaged and married in a small ceremony witnessed by their two sons.
In many ways, life certainly improved for Diana and her son. She no longer worried about how she would pay the bills or whether or not she was terrible and selfish person for deciding to keep her son so many years ago when he could have lived a comfortable life from infancy. As the step-son to Jack Fleming, Eliot quickly and easily adapted to the new lifestyle. He loved his new home,the spacious bedroom he had all to himself, the private school he attended and especially the perpetual presence of joy on his mother's face that he had only seen milliseconds of here and there.
Always an amiable person, Eliot found it relatively easy to fit himself into many of the established groups of friends that peppered the school grounds during lunch. Although acquaintances were plenty, very few people crossed the line between casual acquaintances and a good friend. Bennett Gray did.
Eliot always speculated that perhaps they were separated at birth only to be brought back together by fate . And together they spent most of their high school years known as the inseparable duo responsible for many of the pranks pulled,being shameless flirts, and constant companions of the assistant vice principal . Boys will be boys as the saying goes. For the best friends, life was a game to be enjoyed not planned step by step as it was for many who attended the prestigious school known for sending most of its graduates to the best universities in the world. Consequences for their actions were only taken serious when it was too late.
When they first experimented with prescription pills, it had been because they were together. Each were one half of a whole, mirroring each other in dress, sense of humor, personality, likes and dislikes. What one did, the other was sure to follow. After discovering a euphoric high from the small white pills left in his father's medicine cabinet, Bennett quickly shared his find with his best friend.The rest, as they say, is history.
In the beginning, it had been relatively easy- just a few here and there and two were riding a large wave of bliss that in their minds could only go on forever. Everything became second-place then third and fourth until nothing much at all mattered. To everyone who knew them, they readily recognized that changes were occuring. Their friends, most of all saw the changes far better than their parents but hesistated to say anything lest it caused the two boys to withdraw from them completely. Ultimately, when they did crash from their arttificial highs, they certainly felt its devastating effects. It continued this way until they were about sixteen. Sophomore year was coming to a close and summer was fast approaching. One afternoon a call awoke Eliot from a drug-induced haze. As he brought the receiver to his head, the frantic and high-pitched voice of Bennett's sister Lydia blared through the phone setting off alarms in his head yet he couldn't understand why. A millisecond later he fully understood. "Bennett is in the hospital, Eliot! He overdosed!" The risky mix of jack daniels and valium had crippled the teenage boy's lungs till he blacked out in unconsciousness. The only thing that saved him that day was the fact that it happened to be the day when the cleaning service arrived to clean his home. If the young woman sent to clean his room had not come in, he, without a single doubt would have died.
Soon after, Eliot could no longer look at the innocuous looking pills the same, now that they had adopted a real and dangerous consequence. Though he tried to limit his dependence by himself, it proved harder than he could ever imagine. Ashamed, he finally mustered up the courage to admit to his mother and step-father his problem. Anger ,disappointment, shame, even guilt marked their faces as they listened intently to their teenage son reluctantly explain the details behind his drug abuse from when it began, how it escalated, and why he finally decided to end it. Aided by his parents, with time and proper medical treatment he was able to remove himself from the vise-like grip of prescription pills. Life had regained balance. The future, now seemed promising and Eliot no longer thought to escaping into drugs, instead he chose to live life without them.
if you could be anywhere, where would you be? “I like where I am. France is gorgeous and more than I ever expected to see in my lifetime. And it’s far from Texas with the memories and all...”
character’s play-by: cole mohr
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brideau
arcséne
jeremy court, andrea colby, and myja bennett