Behind closed doors.

Dirk was a good looking young man and one of the "cool" kids. He wore plain white t-shirts, blue jeans and a leather jacket. He kept his comb in his back pocket and a pack of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve of his t-shirt.

Joan, the apple of his eye, didn't think too much of him at first. He would to offer to carry her books or take her for a ride on his motorcycle but she wasn't interested. She assumed he was just like all the other boys and only cared about getting under her skirt.

Joan wasn't the most popular girl in school but she had a lot of friends. She was beautiful, smart and she wasn't afraid to stand up for herself.

One day after school she was standing outside talking with a few friends and a boy walked up and knocked her books out of her hand. When she reached over to pick them up he took the opportunity to slap her bottom. Before she had a chance to react, Dirk appeared and escorted the boy away scolding him for being disrespectful.

The next day Joan had thanked Dirk for his kind deed with homemade cookies and a promise to go see a movie with him. What poor Joan didn't know was that the events the day before were a set up. Had she known this, maybe things would have turned out differently for her.

Eventually Joan and Dirk were married. They bought a cute little house right outside of their small town and had a few children. He drank a lot and had a hard time holding down a job so she worked full time. They argued a lot and he began getting abusive.

Joan wanted to leave him right away but knew that she couldn't afford to support her children on her own. Instead she worked and saved her money until she could afford to get an apartment. She would bite her tongue and try to avoid arguments for the safety of the kids. Until one evening when he pulled a gun on her at the dinner table. She called the police and had Dirk taken away.

When he was released he set fire to the house, burning it and all of their belongings to the ground. Thankfully, no one was hurt. Dirk went back to jail and Joan found an apartment. In jail Dirk was forced to be sober and he had a lot of time to think about what he had done. He didn't feel bad, instead he was angry that she had left him. When he was released he showed up on her doorstep to try to win her back and she greeted him with a cast iron skillet to the head. That was the last time Dirk bothered Joan again.

Wait.. they do exist??

Melinda's grandfather was an abusive alcoholic. He was the kind of drunk that would get up at 6 AM and polish off a case of beer before noon. He also smoked like a chimney and barely ate so it was no surprise when he had a stroke.

Her whole life she had heard stories of his abusiveness. Guns pulled at the dinner table, a burnt down house and getting so sloppy drunk his 10 and 13 year old children would have to drive home. But ever since she could remember she saw a man who was so disturbed by the man he used to be that he would drink to forget. He was there when they were low on money to buy groceries and Christmas presents. He would even come pick her up every morning and give her a ride to school so she could attend a different school. So when he had the stroke she was sad and found it really hard to visit him. It was hard seeing this man lay helpless in a hospital bed, despite all the bad he had done.

A few years later he was moved to a rehabilitation center out of state to be closer to family. Shortly after, Melinda found herself moving out of state as well for work. Living only an hour away from the rehabilitation center she decided to get over her issues and began visiting her grandfather every other week so he didn't have to spend his time alone. Right away she noticed how he didn't seem to mind his situation. No one else had visited him but he didn't care. When asked he didn't want any books or puzzles and the only movies he requested were dirty ones which she awkwardly laughed off. The only time he seemed to express emotion was when his sons visited, he would try to gain pity in hopes to be released. She also heard that he was asking to live with his old drinking buddy so it became obvious that he just wanted to drink again.

For the first time in many years he was sober and in his right mind. He wasn't suffering from Dementia or Alzheimer's. The stroke had just left him unable to speak well and unable to walk.

Just a few weeks before his birthday, Melinda visited. She brought the bi-weekly John Wayne selection and sat and crocheted. During the movie she noticed him rustling under the blankets and had assumed he was just adjusting his legs. After a few minutes she realized his hand was also under the blanket. She wondered for a moment if he was masturbating and then thought she was being ridiculous. He stopped after a few minutes and she thought nothing of it. After the movie she gathered her belongings and went in for a hug and he grabbed her breast and squeezed a few times. She quickly pulled away and he asked her to let him play with them. This was the last time Melinda visited.

A few years later when she heard of his passing she was relieved. It was a terrible thing that had happened to her the last time she saw him alive but at the same time it freed her from guilt and sadness. Still, she went to the funeral in West Virginia to be there for her father. Melinda's husband joked prior to the trip that someone was going to get arrested for digging the grave themselves. But neither of them could have predicted the people they would encounter.

Now, many years ago her grandfather had been married to a woman that was much younger than him. She was from the hills of West Virginia and her family lived in a bus. She was also a pretty big alcoholic, they had divorced and got back together but she passed away in her thirties of a brain tumor.

Melinda's family didn't have much money and her uncles were looking for every way they could save on funeral costs. They borrowed a van and had already arranged to transport the body out of state on a cot with a sheet covering him. Knowing this, her late grandfather's ex-wife's family called to explain "them boys won't have to dig the grave, we'll do it!". Of course her uncles agreed because this saved another $700.

Having been away for a few years, Melinda was no longer used to being around these kind of people which made the funeral all the more ridiculous. She was among a very small amount of people who bothered to dress nicely. Old friends of her grandfather wandered in wearing ripped jeans and t-shirts looking like they didn't bother to wash their hair or shower for quite some time. This was actually rather normal and expected. The grave diggers however were nothing like anything she had seen in real life. She had seen people portrayed on TV and in movies that resembled this but always thought it was exaggerated.

The grave diggers family probably consisted of at least ten people, maybe more, but there were really only a handful that stood out above the rest. The eldest of them was a man who was probably about 400 or 500 lbs. He wore a plain navy blue t-shirt with a pocket and denim overalls. The overalls were covered in drywall mud and only one of the straps was buckled leaving the majority of his shirt exposed. There was a large triangular tear in his shirt that exposed his belly button when flapped open. This was the man that Melinda had pictured making the phone call offering to dig the grave as he was the only one that would talk. The rest of the family would just stare and whisper among themselves.

There was another man, possibly the previous man's son, who appeared to be in his early forties. He wore a plain white t-shirt and ripped jeans, which based on the attire of the other attendees was not unusual. What caught Melinda's eye was the way he acted. He would stand in the middle of a crowd with his feet spread apart and his back hunched so that his head leaned forward. His body swaying in a circular motion like he was on drugs and struggling to stay upright. Like the rest of the family he would stare straight ahead and not speak to anyone.

The last but possibly creepiest of the grave diggers family was a young couple and their children. The couple were no more than twenty years old and had two or three children ranging from two to five years old. They all had bright red curly hair and very pale skin. The mother and father looked so much alike they could pass for twins. These were the only ones of the group that weren't dressed in rags. The mother held onto the youngest girl who was wearing a frilly dress and looked like a porcelain doll. Yet again, none of them spoke a word to anyone. The children even sat quietly staring straight ahead.

The funeral was split into two days. The first day was the viewing and then the funeral services were on the following day. The grave digger family came to both the viewing and the funeral in the same clothes. The only difference on the second day was that the men had dirt covering their jeans from digging the grave earlier that morning.

Melinda and her husband were both shocked and scarred. Her husband had assumed how things would go but neither of them imagined these characters.

Every unpopular kid's anthem.

One of these days I am going to be famous and I am going to come back here... and you are going to regret ever...

Ever since I can remember, I have always wanted to be famous. I planned to get famous and go back to my home town to prove to everyone that I was something special and make them regret teasing me. It's funny how these things change over time.

I would by lying if I said that I don't desire to be a rockstar but if I were famous I wouldn't give those people the satisfaction of seeing me again! I don't need to be famous to know that I am better than them. I don't put people down and make them feel bad about themselves. I have a good paying job, a loving husband, a house and I can afford to buy myself things and go places.

If I could offer advice to any teenager in the same situation it would be to ignore everyone, do what you love, be who you are and when you can get the hell out and never look back! They aren't worth your time and your tears.