Short Story - HIS NAME WAS LOUIE
Hey everyone! This 500 word prompt was simple. Everyone had to write a story that began with the words “His name was Louie.” I had to drop everything because my mind immediately caught me and ran.
There are content warnings for this one, my friends.
Bullying
Self-hatred
Reference to school shootings
Murder
Here we go.
HIS NAME WAS LOUIE
His name was Louie.
Louie the loogie. Louie the loser. Louie the lump.
He’d been hated long before puberty hit him with the ugly stick, pimpling his face, protruding his Adam’s apple, and giving him sweat that smelled like jockstraps.
Teasing became violence easily for someone rail-thin like him. Taunts thrown like javelins became wedgies that made him bleed. He never told anyone. What was to tell? The people who mattered saw it all anyway, the cool kids and the girls in class. The girls he couldn’t stop looking at. Or thinking about.
Louie the lowly. Louie the lecher.
Louie the lonesome.
Revenge was a word made sexy by the news as teen boys prettier than him hell-raked through their schools, fanning out sprays of bullets and blood that prime time TV envied. But Louie wasn’t like that. Not because of some moral high ground, but because Louie was afraid. Afraid to hurt the wrong person. Afraid to get caught. Afraid to die.
The Mackie castle was deserted, haunted if you believed the masses. Louie liked to “play” here, which consisted of different things throughout the years. Pretending he had friends, the young him fought the ghosts of this place like a livid hunter. Pretending he had a girlfriend, the now him touched himself, hidden in corners and thanking God that no one ever came here. Not to chuck rocks. Not to break shit. Not even to kick his ass. It was too far away.
Then Sunday came.
In the thick woods behind the house’s grand acreage, Louie heard voices. Ones that cried, “Help!” from the abandoned well about a mile in, one next to a shack that housed a simpler family in days gone by.
Louie the leerer peeked over the lip to find Erik and Dustin, two of his tormentors extraordinaire. Dustin held his arm with a face that screamed pain.
“What are you doing?” Louie called, an echo coming from the deep.
“Louie? That you? I think Dustin broke something. We came down here for a laugh and-”
“Anyone know you’re here?”
“No, man. You think I want my dad catching me like this?” Erik waved around a joint like Louie was an idiot.
“Can you climb?” he asked.
Erik attempted and failed.
“Phone?” Louie tried again.
“No signal,” was the reply.
Staring down, Louie had a choice. Become the hero or become the villain. Balanced on the teetering edge, he watched Erik twirl his finger in a circular motion, looking up like Louie was an inconvenience instead of a lifeline. “Hey jackass, think you could speed this up?”
Louie went cold, a blackness seeping through all the cracks these boys smashed into him. Leaning over the wide circle that cast heavy shadows, he admitted, “Nah. I think I’d prefer you die slow.”
Louie the lurid let a smile cut into his white-headed cheeks. The hollers as he turned on his heels felt good. Vindicating. For the first time in his life, he was powerful.
Louie the liberated. Louie the lighthearted. Louie the laughing.
Louie the lost.
