Clocks.

19Mar08

In the Venture Compound, there are three alarm clocks.

The first goes off at eight o’clock. Brock will roll over, squint at the digital numbers, bring one large hand down and stop the alarm. He’ll get up, do his daily calisthenics, then trek to the kitchen to make breakfast – eggs and toast for Doc, Lucky Charms for Hank, and corn flakes for Dean. Once breakfast is done, he’ll go out in the hangar, smoke a cigarette or two, and down his coffee. It’s dull and it’s repetitive, but it’s better than waking up at three AM to go stab the guerrilla warriors who are crawling through the windows.

The second alarm will go off at eighty-thirty. Well, the alarm actually goes off at eight-ten, but Doctor Venture always hits the snooze button twice (three times if he had a nightcap). He’ll crawl out of bed, glare at himself in the mirror, get dressed, glare at himself some more, then go eat breakfast, ignoring the sons who’ll enter the kitchen halfway through the meal. Doctor Venture is sure that he requested that the eggs be scrambled instead of sunny side up. He is also sure that Brock will make the same sunny side up eggs tomorrow morning. The good Doctor will sigh, finish his orange juice, and then haul himself to the lab. By nine-thirty, he will have consumed three “diet pills” while digging through his father’s notes and staring futilely at test tubes. He’ll daydream the days when he was just a happy boy, playing on a space station or flying on a pterodactyl. But with an angry groan, he’ll snap back to the task at hand, fail at it, then call Brock on the two-way to rant about his morning eggs.

The third alarm will go off at eight-forty five, and the boys’ beds will open. Their learning done for the day, they will happily pull on their clothes and race to the kitchen. Hank will wolf down his sugar-coated substitute for nutrition, and Dean will read the back of the cereal boxes – aloud. They will wonder why their father is making such an unhappy father, but he will get up before they can ask, and within seconds they will both forget he seemed on edge. After breakfast, the boys will run out to the hangar to see Brock. Brock will humour them for a while: answer their questions, let Hank wash the windows of the Charger, or explain simple martial arts moves. Once Brock starts to get annoyed, the boys will split up. Hank will go watch old cartoons, ones where the rabbit outwits the hunter or the duck, and Dean will go reread his Giant Boy Detective books and wait for Triana to come home. He likes to watch her get off the bus. This is all the boys have ever known.

Later that evening, Brock will cook dinner, take a plate to Doc in the lab, and then sit down to eat with the boys. Brock is, at best, a mediocre cook, but he can make simple food, and that works well enough for boys who were often hungry before Operation: Rusty’s Blanket kicked into full gear. Once the plates are cleared, and everyone is full, the boys will entertain themselves with one mindless game or another, Brock will tidy up the house while thinking of more exciting people and places, and Doctor Venture will throw a beaker or a petri dish in frustration (HELPeR will clean it up, and Doctor Venture will swear loudly and tell the robot to leave). At ten o’clock, the boys will go to bed to learn, and Brock will step into the hangar for his last cigarette of the day. At ten-thirty, he’ll go into the lab and try to force Doctor Venture to bed. The effort will be fruitless. Brock will roll his eyes, make a snide remark, then go take a shower and try to sleep. His head will fill with mixed memories – screaming men with breasts taking the pulse of a dead, deaf quarterback, while a redhead snickers evilly in his ear and stabs him in the kidney with a dagger. He’ll awake in a cold sweat, get up to smoke another cigarette, and check on Doc, who’ll be passed out over chicken-scratch notes and spilled chemicals. With a sigh, Brock will wake him gently and get him to bed, before returning to his own bunk. After that, it will be dark and quiet in the Venture Compound.

At eight the next morning, the first of three alarms will sound.

Filed under: Brock, Dean, Dr Venture, Hank, Venture Bros   |  Leave a Comment