Tuesday, September 13, 2005

story time, again

He was a young boy from the trailer park about twelve or thirty. He had to grow up too fast anyway just to survive. His parents didn’t usually know where he was because they didn’t care.
He used to take his dad’s guns out for target practice in the woods behind the park. The guns made him feel powerful. One time when he was back there blowing beer cans to smithereens he almost got caught by the owner of the trailer park.
He was a mean old cuss. He lived in a big house down the road around a corner so that he wouldn’t have to see the crooked rows of dilapidated singlewides. He had a boy that was about the same age as the gunslinger from the trailer park. At least the same age in numbers. He had everything he could ask for and more.
It was a Tuesday. Nothing good ever happened on a Tuesday. Nothing good ever happened on any other day either. His dad remembered to lock the gun cabinet last time he used it, but forgot to put the pistol away before he did. But there was no ammo; there would be no smell of gunpowder today. No feel of hot steel burning his palms. He would have to imagine that he was blowing his enemies to small bits.
The boy who had everything just got a little more than everything. His dad gave him a brand new BMX bike for his birthday. The kind that had pegs and shocks and all that stuff the tricked out bikes were guaranteed to have. One of his favorite things to do was to flaunt his good fortune in the face of the park-rats. That’s what his family called the trailer park kids. It was Tuesday and seemed like as good a day as any other to show off his new bike.
The park-rat, expertly handling his dad’s pistol, was skulking through the brush near the river at the edge of the woods behind the trailer park spying on imaginary enemies. A real enemy came into range. He’s riding another new bike. He’s got another new expensive toy. As the shiny bike and moneyed rider came into close range the park-rat jumped out of the brush and aimed his pistol straight at the offender. He shouted at the boy to get off and hand over his bike. The boy did as he was commanded. The park-rat shoved him to the ground and took the beloved bike. He had never even touched anything so nice. Had never been so close to such perfection. He kept one hand on the glistening handlebars and one hand pointing the pistol at the boy on the ground. He got on the bike, cocked the pistol, and started riding away. He turned and pulled the trigger, there wasn’t any ammo in it anyway and he wanted to see the look on the rich boys face. That would be almost as good as having a brand new BMX bike. At least for a minute. A blast of smoke, the gun recoiled, the park-rat fell off of his stolen goods. The bullet just missed the crying boy’s head. The park-rat ran and threw his dad’s pistol into the river and wondered if he could make it to Mexico.

3 comments:

BethInPortland said...

I accidently posted this on the wrong story (oops!)--it should be with this post:
I really like this story. Is it true? It could be.
I like the phrase "mean old cuss." That's a phrase my dad used to say. He also used the word "ornery" a lot. He also says "What's the skivvy?" I've never met anyone else that uses that phrase.

Tami G. said...

ha
thanks for the dual comments :)
the story has elements of truth and was inspired by a country song sang by a prepubescent boy. bad song, good story? sometimes words and phrases just pop into my head. sometimes that's a good thing.

Erik said...

thanks for the story. happy b-day, btw.