Crazy Cornelius & the Magic Pills Ch. 01

Still choking on the beer, his face bright red, Mr. Hawkins was in such a state of shock he tripped over the table, bruising his shin in the process and went sprawling on the floor, coughing violently, soaked with beer and cold water, feeling sick from the impact to his shin and having heart palpitations from the shock. Cornelius, still clad in the demonic tee-shirt and filthy jeans he wore to his job interview -- stood pointing at his father while emitting crazy, hyena-like shrieks of laughter.

The racket caused Faye, Danielle, Gavin and Erica to go running into the lounge room. Any normal family would have been shocked by the scene but the Hawkins family were not a normal family. Danielle smirked at the latest chaos her husband was responsible for, Faye looked even more stressed than usual, Gavin looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here while Erica cringed and waited for her father to explode.

"Cornelius, why did you do that after what I told you earlier?" stormed Faye.

"Mother, you said not to speak to Father the moment he came into the house after work," said Cornelius. "You never said that I was not to approach Father from behind with a balloon filled partly with carbon dioxide and water and burst it while he was drinking beer. You need to be more specific."

"Don't you ever do that again Cornelius!" bellowed Alistair, still bright red and writhing on the floor from heart problems and shock. Faye, Gavin and Erica knelt down next to the angry Alistair. Faye wondered if this would be the time she would be putting into place the first aid procedures she had undertaken a course in should her husband have a heart attack, and Erica and Gavin pondered if they would be attempting to save a life so early into their nursing training.

"It is not funny, Cornelius, grow up!" yelled Faye as her son stood pointing and laughing at his father, getting Alistair angrier and angrier.

When it became apparent that Alistair Hawkins wasn't going to have a heart attack and require an ambulance and first aid, Erica, Gavin and Danielle left the lounge room and the subsequent row between Cornelius and his parents continued for close to 15 minutes thereafter.

*

A dinner of stew and vegetables and washed down with lots of cold beer -- this time without some fucking moron bursting a balloon behind him -- did calm the angry Alistair down somewhat, but it did not improve his mood having to share his dinner table with Cornelius mostly, but also Danielle and to a lesser degree Gavin. The grumpy patriarch of the Hawkins family sat at the head of the table wearing a sour and angry expression, still fuming about his bad day at work and Cornelius's balloon prank.

"Where's that wife of yours?" growled Alistair as he noticed that Danielle was not at the table with everyone else.

As if on cue, the laundry toilet was heard flushing in the background. "Does that answer your question, Father?" asked Cornelius.

The sounds of Danielle opening the toilet door and washing her hands was heard next, then in she came, adjusting her knickers through her leggings.

"Sorry I took so long in the toilet, I needed to take a shit," Danielle offered. It amused Cornelius who gained much pleasure in life from lavatory humor, but not with any of the others, who were not an appreciative audience of lavatory humor.

Danielle elaborated further about her recent session on the toilet. "Fuck, I went through so much toilet paper I probably killed half a tree, and just for your information do not go in there for at least half an hour. Phew! Talk about having the period shits."

"For God's sake," growled Alistair.

Faye turned to Danielle, keen to put a stop to this nonsense before she put everyone off their dinner. "Danielle, that is enough, we do not want to hear any more about it."

"What, how I went to the toilet on my period and took a massive, smelly shit?" laughed Danielle. "Come on, what's the big deal? I'm menstruating, last week Erica was menstruating and the week before that, you were the one menstruating Faye. Week before that, period free week so all the boys could relax, nobody in the house with blood coming out of her vagina, surfing the crimson tide."

"Yes, but we do not talk about it, especially not at the dinner table, is that clear Danielle?" said Faye.

Danielle smirked, and Alistair turned his attention to his daughter's boyfriend. "You look like you're enjoying your dinner there, Gavin?" he said.

Gavin looked at Alistair's piercing eyes and facial expression that held a clear warning of, 'One false step, and I'll fucking smash you.'

Swallowing nervously, Gavin said, "Um, yes Mr. Hawkins, your wife is a very good cook."

"Good, good," said Alistair, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "It makes me so happy, my daughter's boyfriend sitting in my house, at my dinner table, eating my food for free."

Cornelius laughed his crazy laugh. "Well its better than Gavin eating out your daughter in your house for free!"

"What?!" thundered Alistair, leaping to his feet and turning bright red, Cornelius also leaping out of his chair, pointing and laughing at him, while Erica went bright red, Gavin squeezing her hand under the table to try and relax her.

"You should have seen your fucking face Dad," laughed Cornelius.

The petite Faye Hawkins got to her feet, trying to act as mediator between her much taller husband and son. "Alistair, Cornelius will you both please just calm down, sit down and relax? Can't we have one meal together as a family, just one without World War Three breaking out?"

Alistair and Cornelius continued to glare at each other, but after a few seconds they sat down and resumed eating. The nervous Gavin found himself earning the glare of Alistair, the man clearly angered by the thought of Gavin performing oral sex upon his teenage daughter.

All was quiet for a few uncomfortable minutes, until Alistair spoke again. "So, has anybody heard the loony moving about in his flat? I haven't heard him in days."

"I heard Brendan earlier, it sounded like he was moving something," Erica volunteered.

"So he is alive then?" said Alistair. "I thought Brendan might have gone back to the loony bin where he belongs or even better finally topped himself, which would be a good thing if I didn't have to deal with his stinking corpse in my house."

"Alistair please, that's an awful thing to say," protested Faye.

Alistair ignored his wife's pleas. "I suppose it would be too much to ask for him to emerge from his hidey-hole and go out to The Gap and chuck himself off? A flying saucer might get him."

Cornelius guffawed at the comment, and his father glowered at him. "What the fuck are you laughing at you fucking moron? I'll tell you one thing you worthless little shit, if you want to commit suicide by jumping off The Gap, then just let me know and I'll pay for a limousine to drive you out to Watson's Bay to do it. Then I might finally be happy."

Cornelius continued to snigger, but Faye was unimpressed. "Alistair, enough, I don't want to hear any more talk about suicide, is that clear?"

As usual, Erica kept quiet and stayed out of it, used to her father making shocking comments like this. She never recalled his father saying one positive thing to Brendan at any stage of his life. As for Cornelius, the only time Erica recalled their father saying anything close to positive about his middle son was years ago when the family went to Manly beach one day in the spring, and Brendan and Cornelius went too near a magpie nest high up in one of the many Norfolk Island pines. The aggressive and territorial black and white birds swooped down, chasing both Brendan and Cornelius.

When Brendan had begun crying after a magpie landed a hard peck to his face, it had enraged his father, Alistair Hawkins bellowing at his eldest son to 'stop being a sissy and cut out the stupid crying or I'll give you something to really cry about' before indicating Cornelius and saying that 'I don't see Cornelius crying, do you? Why can't you be tougher like your brother?' So with that, Alistair had given Cornelius his one and only piece of praise in life. He then made good on his promise of giving Brendan something to cry about, belting his son in front of everyone at the beach and calling him a 'great poof'.

Erica herself mainly kept off her father's radar. For one thing, Alistair Hawkins was more focused on providing negative attention to his older sons, so paid Erica little attention. If she had vanished without trace as a child, it probably would have taken her father a month to realize his daughter was missing. And any attempt by Erica to win praise from her father never went well.

While Erica struggled at sports as a badly bullied, nervous and socially awkward girl in her early years of high school, she improved as she got older, and won a bronze medallion for her efforts in an interschool athletics carnival in Year 11. All Alistair had to say was, 'So, you're only third best then?' and 'Must have been pretty poor opposition.' When Erica scored 95 percent in a maths exam, her father asked, 'Where did you lose the 5 percent?'

More recently when Erica was accepted into nursing at university along with Gavin, Faye couldn't have been prouder but Alistair had said, 'Too bad you're not smart enough to be a doctor', before making some disparaging comment about male nurses being 'poofter' to Gavin. So Erica never sought further praise from her Dad.

Alistair shrugged and drank another gulp of beer. "Well, I guess I'm not going to be happy that way, but perhaps I could be slightly less unhappy. How's looking for another place to live going?" He glared pointedly at both Cornelius and Danielle.

Neither his son nor his daughter-in-law answered him, and Alistair said, "I hear Perth is really nice. How about moving to Western Australia?"

"You would miss us too much Father," said Cornelius.

"No I would not, the only better thing would be if you were dead then I wouldn't have to see you again ever," said Alistair. "The only thing I would miss is the rent you pay me. Oh that's right, you two haven't paid rent in months. Nor do you do any fucking work around the house to make up for it. I told you to mow the fucking lawn three days ago Cornelius, so why the fuck hasn't it been done?"

"I bet you I do mow the lawn," Cornelius said.

"I bet you don't," growled Alistair.

"Alistair I shall mow the lawn in the anti-meridian of tomorrow," Cornelius assured his father.

Alistair slammed his fist into the dinner table. "Do not call me fucking Alistair, Cornelius!" he bellowed.

"Father, I called you Alistair, not 'Fucking Alistair' if you recall correctly," said Cornelius.

"Whatever, and don't fucking lie, I know that you won't mow the lawn," grumbled Alistair.

"Mr. Hawkins, I've got a bit of time between class and work tomorrow, how about I mow your lawn?" suggested Gavin, wanting to put an end to this argument and hoping to maybe impress his girlfriend's father.

"No you won't," growled Alistair. "This cretin is supposed to do it, let's see if he gets off his lazy arse and does it."

"Maybe Gavin should mow the lawn like he suggested?" said Cornelius. "After all, he's got plenty of experience with tending to the grass that grows on Erica's wicket."

"What did you say?" bellowed Alistair, again going scarlet and getting to his feet, while Cornelius laughed as did Danielle and Erica blushed with humiliation.

"Alistair, think of your heart condition," urged Faye, again trying to stop her husband having a heart attack. She then looked at Cornelius. "You keep it shut Cornelius, and will you mow the lawn like your father and I have told you to do so many times in the past?"

"Mother and Father, the lawn will be mowed tomorrow, by me," Cornelius said.

"Yeah, I'll probably see a pig flying by rather than seeing you mow the bloody lawn," grumbled Alistair, sitting down in his chair. He again glared at Cornelius. "It's a pity I didn't take you and Brendan up to the Northern Territory when you were babies. Brendan, I would have left him outside in Darwin on Christmas Eve 1974 and let Cyclone Tracy do the rest. And as for you Cornelius, I would have left you in your carrier out near Ayers Rock. But that would have been a waste of time, even a hungry dingo probably wouldn't be desperate enough to eat you."

Danielle spoke up, as usual opening her mouth to cause trouble. "Alistair, you're supposed to call it Uluru, the proper Aboriginal word."

Mr. Hawkins looked like he was about to suffer a stroke, and he went the color of a cooked lobster, his face contorted with rage. "Ayers Rock!" Alistair again smashed his fist into the table, crockery and cutlery rattling.

Erica tried to finish her stew and vegetables and hoped that yet another war didn't break out at the dinner table. Danielle's statement to provoke her racist and intolerant father-in-law had done its job, but she was hardly one to speak, she was as big a racist herself, if her comments and jokes were anything to go by. As for Cornelius, he made similar jokes and some of his artwork could at best be described as 'racially insensitive'.

Cornelius himself ate some more stew, and looked at his wife as Danielle stuffed her mouth with vegetables, chewing some broccoli, peas and carrots with her mouth open, before devouring some cabbage with the same lack of table manners.

"Fuck Danielle, I have to share a bed with you tonight after eating all that green stuff," he laughed.

Danielle laughed. "Be afraid Cornelius, be very afraid. The only things that should be more scared than you right now are my knickers, my period pad and the toilet."

"Danielle, what did I say earlier?" snapped Faye, her daughter-in-law giving her an arrogant shoulder shrug in response.

"It happens, you must know about it, you've been having periods since about 1959 except when you were pregnant with your kids," said Danielle. She then turned to Erica. "How about you, Erica? Don't you just hate it when you fart on your period, and it goes along your pad and up your pussy-hole and out your fanny flaps, bubbling in all the blood?"

Erica blushed and looked shyly at the ceiling, not at all comfortable with this conversation, and Danielle smirked in smug satisfaction at the discomfort of her shy sister-in-law.

"I'll probably regret this later, but if you like vegetables have mine," said Cornelius, scooping all the vegetables from his plate of which he had eaten none onto his wife's plate. "Vegetables are fucked, I fucking hate them."

"Cornelius!" warned his mother.

"This stew is like dog food anyway, it tastes like crap," Cornelius added.

"Cornelius, if you don't want to eat the food I prepared after working all day, then make your own dinner in the future," said Faye sternly.

"And if you want to call the food dog food, how about you leave the table and eat it like a dog on the floor where you belong," growled Alistair.

"You want me to eat like a dog, I'll go and eat like a fucking dog," said Cornelius.

"Good, go and eat on the fucking floor," said Alistair.

"Nobody is eating on the floor like a dog, Cornelius, least of all you," said Faye.

"I am going to eat on the fucking floor like a dog," said Cornelius defiantly, standing up with his plate in his hand.

"Go on Cornelius, do it," trouble-maker Danielle urged her husband.

Cornelius moved away from the table, set his plate down on the floor then got down on all fours like a dog. Putting his face down into the stew, Cornelius began to eat the stew with his mouth, growling and barking. "Look at Cornelius, Cornelius is a dog, woof, woof, woof!" he called out, his mouth full of food, stew all over his face.

"I wish you were a dog, then I could have you put down," growled Alistair, drinking even more beer.

Danielle thought this funny, but Erica simply looked away from the embarrassing scene, wishing she was somewhere else. She also wished this was a one off, but similar things had happened all the time, either at home or out in public where everyone could see. One of her older brothers was 23-years-old and married and was eating on the floor while pretending to be a dog, while her other brother was a paranoid junkie who cowered in his bedroom too terrified to venture out because of demons, ghosts, monsters and aliens.

Erica sometimes wondered if his family situation was real. Perhaps they were really just characters in a sitcom, and Erica as the youngest kid in the family not let in on the secret? Were there hidden cameras all over the house televising the lives of the Hawkins family not only to Australia, but the rest of the world too?

Cornelius thankfully kept out of his father's way the rest of the evening, spooning and making out with Danielle on the living room couch while watching television, practically dry-humping his wife. Erica and Gavin had cleaned up after dinner to give the highly stressed Mrs. Hawkins, and now Gavin was calling it a night.

"So, I'll see you tomorrow, Erica?" Gavin asked.

"See you then," said Erica. "And I'm really sorry about..."

"Hey, it's okay, don't mention it," said Gavin, more than used to Erica's completely crazy brother, her trouble-making sister-in-law and her stentorian father.

The young couple embraced and exchanged a kiss, unfortunately just as Cornelius was passing by. "Woo-hoo!" he yelled out, wolf-whistling his sister and her boyfriend. "Kissy, kissy, kissy!"

Both blushing, Erica and Gavin pulled out of their embrace and Gavin left, walking the short distance up the street to his parents' house. Often in the past Gavin had thought and once suggested now they were both 18 and out of high school, maybe he and Erica could move out together, maybe to a shared house with other university students, just to get Erica away from the nightmare she called home.

But Erica did not want to leave home, not because she loved living there, but because she worried about her mother. Along with Erica, Faye was the only sane member of the Hawkins family. But if Erica was gone, it would leave Faye alone in the house with an insane tyrant of a husband, two completely crazy adult sons and a sluttish and disrespectful daughter-in-law, then maybe Faye Hawkins would go around the bend too. Gavin could see his girlfriend's point, but it didn't stop him worrying about her.

Inside the very normal Baxter house, Gavin's older sister Lisa, a tall, slim and attractive girl with long blonde hair this evening tied back in pony-tail was watching TV, her bare feet on the coffee table.

"So, how was dinner at Erica's house?" Lisa asked.

All Gavin could do was shake his head. "Dinner? I didn't go to dinner. I was in a stage play about conflict resolution in families."

"That good, hey?" Lisa was well used to the crazy antics of the Hawkins family. She had been in the year below Cornelius at high school, and like her brother couldn't believe he was actually real.

"Yeah," said Gavin, sitting down to watch TV with his sister.

*

At the Hawkins house, Faye Hawkins took a shower in the ensuite bathroom, the attractive middle-aged woman standing under the shower washing her vagina, the color of Faye's pubic hair now filled with suds and bubbles showing she was a natural redhead.

Erica had a longer wait to use the shower in the bathroom she shared with Cornelius and Danielle. First Danielle was taking a shower, her menstruating sister-in-law taking forever, Danielle washing the blonde hair that grew around her pussy and her vagina, menstrual blood running down her legs and to her bare feet and the shower floor or her period dripping directly from her vulva onto the tiles.

With her mother using the other bathroom and the granny flat bathroom obviously not an option Erica had to wait, but needed to go to the toilet and in the time she was on the loo Danielle finished in the bathroom, and Cornelius went in there to take a bath. Frustrated, Erica waited in her bedroom as her brother seemed to be keen to set some sort of world record for the longest time taken to have a bath.