WENDELL HUSSEY | Cadet | CONTACT
Local dad, Bryce Gillis (62) is usually one to stick up for his dead shit sons no matter how badly they’ve fucked up.
No matter how many black eyes, or broken hearts they’ve returned home with – Bryce is always more gentle than their mother.
He doesn’t pay much mind to what they said to get a punch in the face, or what their girlfriends found on their phones that warranted an instant and unceremonial break-up. Because he knows they are only human. In fact, these boys are very human – in the sense that their flaws are more obvious than most.
Maybe they are just excitable young lads, or maybe they aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed. But at the end of the day, Bryce loves them and will try to defend them where he can.
However, this summer it seems his youngest has managed to really test this unconditional love.
Andrew (19) has gone above and beyond in his efforts to bring shame upon himself and the family.
He’s left Bryce with no option but to play bad cop.
After getting behind the wheel drunk last night, Andrew has now lost his license for 6 months.
This is not ideal for an apprentice carpenter, who must now spend half the year travelling to and from worksites on a pushbike – with all of his tools.
Dad still loves him, but he does not sympathise with him at all. In fact, he is finding great joy in how badly Andrew has inconvenienced himself.
As a career schoolteacher, Bryce knows all too well the tragedies that this kind of stupidity can cause for a community, with a number of past students no longer with us because they were far less lucky than Andrew was last night.
In fact, the old man thinks that his son could’ve done with a bigger stretch – but he hopes 6 months of the pushbike treatment teaches him the lessons that he needs to learn.
“That’ll learn him” Bryce says to himself.
“Bloody halfwit. He won’t be full of piss and bulletproof when he’s doing the Lance Armstrong to work at 5am on a Monday”
