fast car | STEVE HARRINGTON [2]

22. lady and the tramps

Normally, Ringo would have engaged in conversation - to return his backhanded insults with ones of her own. But all she could think about was how it felt to be humiliated all over again, on what was already one of the worst weeks. She may not have been a trailer park girl any longer, but the upper class never saw her as anything but a lowlife. And once again - it was for something she didn't do. Something that happened years ago.

Slowly she turned while exhaling, her eyes trailing over the prized rose bushes, the rare hydrangea hybrids and the small water fountain perfectly shooting a stream of water upward until it cascaded down like a waterfall.

"What am I doing out here, you ask?" Ringo finally addressed him, crossing the garden with determination in her step and wrenching the shovel left next to a newly dug pit, likely used for planting new prize winning flowers. "This."

With all her force, Ringo swung, stabbed and hit the rose bush with the shovel. All the pent up frustration, sadness and anger finding it's victim in the flowers as she physically rooted them out of the ground and destroyed the rose buds. Ironically the rose petals flew around her, a beautiful juxtaposition to her ugly anger.

Eddie let out a shout of surprise, before beginning to holler with support. Whooping and cheering her name with occasional claps, an impressed grin smeared across his face at the destruction before him.

When she was done with the rose and hydrangea plants, she made her way to those inside little pots - smashing them into large pieces of ceramic by swinging the shovel like a bat. Ringo wasn't going to stop until every inch of the pristine garden had been affected.

"Go onnnn Wheeler!" Eddie screamed in delight. "Show these rich assholes how quickly their place can become ugly too!"

The screech of wheels roared against the tarmac as Julia finally arrived, racing out of the drivers seat once she saw the destruction her daughter was leaving.

"Ringo! Cut it out! Now!" Julia pleaded, unsure of whether to physically intervene and attempt to restrain her. "Stop it!"

The mother of two jetted forwarded when Ringo dropped the shovel and picked up a brick from a near row of bricks that had been surrounding the rose bush for decoration, her breathing heavy as she toyed with the object in her hand, eyes fixated on the pretty stain glass windows that surrounded the front door.

Over the roar of Eddie's support and Julia's begging, it was the ring of sirens and flash of red and blue that had made her drop the brick finally instead of using it, satisfied that she had done enough to get her hatred of the family out of her system.

"No, no, no- she didn't do this! Okay? It was all me, don't take her!" Julia pleaded as two police officers made their way down the newly dirt covered path towards Ringo. At the sound of her mother's interjections, the blonde turned and shook her head vehemently.

"This was all me," she denied. Not an ounce of regret in her voice.

"Ringo! Stop that now! Tell them it was me that did this!"

"How about we take you both downtown and we'll figure out there who really did this?" Officer Callahan cockily offered, turning Ringo around so he wasn't facing her and clicking a pair of handcuffs over her wrists. The Wheeler girl struggled in his grip, full of fury at the suggestion of arresting her mother for her actions as she was dragged towards the car, resisting all the while.