The Modern Family
Gary hates his wife. He doesn't just hate her a little bit, either. No, he hates her so much that he has a drawer full of elaborate murder schemes locked inside a file cabinet in the office where he works. The drawer is labeled "The Baryshnikov Account" because Gary couldn't think of anything more repulsive than Russian Ballet. Each of his schemes is broken down into dozens of small steps. Each step is assigned a time down to the minute, a precise location down to the meter, and a hand-drawn diagram of the scene. They account for where she is likely to be on her daily routine, the materials he'll need at hand including where to procure them and their expected retail price, how to avoid detection, a planned alibi, and what to do with the body. Sometimes he'll draw what she'll look like afterward, grin at his creation, and then file it away with the others. Gary hates that he doesn't have the balls to act on any of them.
Oh sure, Gary hates other stuff too. He hates leafy vegetables, vegetables with seeds, and vegetables that get mushy when you cook them. He hates ice in his drinks, wrinkles in his pants, and hair on his back. He hates when people ask about his job, or his family, or his plans for retirement. He hates sports, music, art, dance, parties, books, and other such base forms of entertainment. He hates television programming, documentaries, and the popularity of independent films. He hates Ratface, the squeaky-voiced kid at the cineplex who refuses to acknowledge that the six-haired mustache is not a good look and who smiles and says stupid things like, "Why don't you just buy the theater?" Gary really hates that guy.
Then there's his job. Oh, don't get Gary started on his job. He detests it, but who doesn't hate their job, right? Gary hates that he's just like everyone else in that regard. Some nights Gary works late just to avoid going home to his dreadful family. "I'm way behind," he says to his wife over the phone. "Work's piling up and I have a deadline to meet. Bye, hon," and he hangs up before she can respond. Then he closes the door to his office, shuts the lights, and watches a movie on his computer. His company makes plastic materials for various products including optical discs, so he calls this quality control when his nosy boss inquires about work priorities.
Gary hates his coworkers too. He hates everyday eagerness, and happy they appear to be leading their dead-end lives. Gary pretends to smile at them and care about how their whore of a daughter is already reading at age three. He bears the pain of looking at the dozens of pictures of her dressed up in ridiculous outfits, all of them staring back at him from the walls and the desk of the repulsive office like the omnipresent leader of some kind of twisted Fascism. Gary littered his own office with pictures of his kids at age toddler just to make everyone else as uncomfortable as he is. His coworkers work late sometimes too, and they pop in and complain about how they're just dying to get back to their family, and how work is such a pain in the ass and all. Gary nods and agrees and tries to get them to leave him the hell alone so that he can get back to his movie.
Occasionally Gary leaves work an hour early and stops off at the strip club. He gets there before they charge for entrance and sits in the back with the other lonely men where he won't be called upon to spend any money. He picks out the closest girl and watches her slide up and down the pole methodically, as if her arms and legs are inspecting it for scratches. He focuses on the disinterested look in her eyes as she gets on all fours and slides towards the man who is trying to give her a single dollar bill. He hates her because she reminds him of his wife. He watches a man in a seat nearby receive a lap dance with a serious expression on his face, a tired one on hers, and then he's finally be ready to leave for home.
That's not the full extent of Gary's voyeurism, however. On weekends, and nights when his wife is out fucking her psychologist, he drives to the cineplex and takes in a movie, any movie, as long as it comes from Hollywood. "I'm out with the girls tonight. Bye, hon," she says to Gary on the phone, hangs up, and is gone before the awkward moment when he arrives back at the house. Gary picks something he hasn't seen before, he hates watching movies twice, and he waits for the inevitable romantic arc of the story to take hold. There are passionate words, passionate touches, passionate sounds. All the foreplay, none of the penetration. It's perfectly opposite from sex with his wife, and that's why he hates it. He can't stand the phoniness of it all.
"Can we have sex tonight, hon?" he asks, hating the biological urge that refuses to let him let it go.
"Not tonight, hon," she mumbles from the other side of the bed, turning away from him and tugging the blanket over her ears.
Sometimes she acquiesces just to keep Gary from asking for another two weeks. Gary isn't prepared for this, and he must spend a few minutes getting himself ready. He sits up and retrieves a tabloid from the nightstand to the side of the bed. The shamed actresses inside arouse him more easily than the sight of his wife's child-ravaged body does, but even this takes some effort. He hates that erections don't come easy anymore. His wife pulls the sheets off and lies on her back, still wearing her nightgown. The lights stay off because they don't help anymore, and Gary closes his eyes and thinks of the girls from the movies. There is no joy, there is no sound, there is only the satisfaction of a latent need and then a "Good night, hon," as the final stamp on their night of intimacy. Gary hates himself when he's done, but not as much as he hates his wife.
Carrie hates her husband. She hates the disappointment in his eyes that makes her feel so worthless. She hates how he's never interested in what she's doing or how she's feeling, that her life matters so little to him. She hates that he dumped the raising and care of their ungrateful children onto her lap and can't be bothered to take any interest in their lives. She hates knowing that nothing she can do will ever make him care about her anymore. She hates looking at old photo albums when the smiles were genuine and the happiness was palpable. She hates that she hasn't felt happy in sixteen years.
Those memories are the worst of all. She remembers what they were like when they met in school, two aspiring actors with everything they needed to succeed at hand. They were beautiful, talented, and smart. When they started dating, they became campus icons. Gary and Carrie, the cutest and most popular couple at a place that emphasized the superficial. They were a sure thing, stars in the making, until she violated the unspoken rule of Hollywood which says that pregnancy can't come before fame. A failed audition here, a parental disownment there, and they dropped out, found jobs, and lost their future.
Carrie hates the dependence she has developed. "Hon, I need money for food, for clothes, for a shrink." "Hon, I need your love, your respect, your appreciation." "Hon, I need your jealousy, your worry, your need." "Hon, I need you to tell me that we're happy, that we're just as well off, that we made it." She hates that she needs all of these things from him, but she hates even more that she can't express any of them.
She hates that she has been unable to hold down any of the jobs that she has attempted. There was the secretarial position where she decided to introduce her boss' wife with his mistress over the telephone while they both waited for him to finish screwing the mail-girl. She hated that job anyway, just like she hated waitressing. It was an endless chain of impatient customers barking their dissatisfaction and piling on additional orders. She can't stand needy people. Then there was the time she worked as a weekend traffic reporter for a local television news station. Sure, weekend traffic is the next most useless job in the world after beauty queen, but she actually enjoyed that one. Her husband didn't though, and threatened to withhold money for her therapy sessions and antidepressant prescriptions if she didn't quit. That was closest she had felt to him since their daughter was born, but she hates him for it still.
Now she spends the days alone inside the house, starting and giving up on new hobbies every week. She watches cooking shows on television and laughs at how ridiculous all that effort is while munching on diet cookies. She hates the way the cookies feel brittle in her hands, the way they crack apart in her mouth like the road during an earthquake, the way they taste like how she imagines dirt to taste. She hates that she forces herself to eat this way, and to stay thin and attractive so that her husband will look at her again like he used to. She hates that he doesn't care, that he eats like shit and has the belly to match. She hates the futility of it all. So she sits there on the couch, eating terrible food, watching terrible shows, convincing herself that divorce won't do anything to change how badly she fucked this life up.
Brian hates his older sister. He hates the way she belittles everything he does and criticizes him for being "juvenile." He hates her arrogance and inflated sense of self-importance, her piousness, the flair for melodrama and the emotional weight she gives to every situation, turning even the mundane into tragedy. She knows she's a bitch, but she doesn't care, and that infuriates Brian. He hates that he tries to rally support against her from his parents, but they tell him to grow up. To stop complaining. To get along. He hates when they say that.
Of course, he hates all of the other things that a ten year old boy hates as well. He hates school, he hates homework, he hates the rigidity of a world run by adults. He hates the other kids in his class, and he hates their weakness. They are small, they are stupid, and they are meant to be pushed around. He hates when they don't resist, when they simply fall down and let him pummel them with his fists and with his feet, and they just lie there and cry and wait for it to end. He hates that they don't fight back. Nobody fights back. Then he's dragged into an office. This time a teacher, the next time the principal, it doesn't matter who. They sit him down and they lecture him and they make him admit he was wrong, that he'll apologize, that he'll never do it again. Brian does all these things, but he doesn't care about any of them. His mother gets called in, but never his father. She grabs him at the wrist and carries him out of the school and into the car, and they ride home in silence. Brian watches her face from the back seat, but it never turns towards him. He sits at the table and waits for his father to come home and spew fire, but even when he does speak it is cold and passive. He waits for a stern "Guess what your son did at school today," from his mother, but she never speaks. Brian goes to bed and cries, and hates himself for doing so.
Ashley hates the world. Yes, all of it, and she's well aware of how common that sentiment is amongst teenage girls. She doesn't care, because she means it. She hates conformity and the system that encourages it, that thrives on it. Her classmates are all victims to it. No, slaves to it. They fight each other, competing in some assumed ordered system to achieve the rank of "most popular." The whole thing makes her sick. Even the outcasts, the ones who claim to be above the trappings of popularity, the ones who pride themselves on being independent thinkers, they all stick together too. After all, what's the point of pride if not to share it?
Ashley hates her family. She hates her parents for being self-absorbed, emotionless people. They've given up on life and their children. Actually, scratch that, they never cared about their children. She hates the way they look at each other. It's cold and heartless, and not at all inspiring for someone seeking out hope for the world. She hates the way they don't look at her. She hates the way her brother throws fits of whining and violence to get the attention that never comes. Every so often she catches herself feeling sorry for them, but then she reminds herself that it's their own fault. If they truly wanted to be happy with their lives, they'd do it.
She hates her clothes, her hair, her tattoos, and her piercings. She hates how ugly they are, and how trite. She hates that her parents have said nothing about any of them, nor even hinted at noticing. She hates that boys don't look at her the way they look at the other girls, that they avoid eye contact or proximity. Every so often they'll form groups with girls and laugh at her or call out childish names, but these don't bother her because she expects them, and because they're often true. The ones that do talk to her are simple and boring, and look unfortunately just like her. She hates that they think she's like them; she hates that they even exist.
Ashley hates being alone, but hates company even more. It never turns out to be as enjoyable as it at first seems. So she isolates herself in the grim realization that the rest of the world hates her as much as she hates it. When she gets home, she slides into her bedroom unnoticed, covers herself in pillows atop her bed, and fills notebooks with her dark, angry thoughts. She used to imagine a future where she both found love and was capable of giving it, but she gave up on that dream long ago. She compares her old recorded thoughts with those from today. She hates the hopefulness in them that is lost to her now, and she hates the fact that it's gone from her forever. Just as she hates the feel of cold steel against her wrist that sends shivers through her body and an array of red streams down her arm. As she sits there and watches it ruin her bed sheets trying not to scream, she hates the realization that she's nothing more than a cliche, and that nobody will care.