|
From a novel in progress:
About a week after Uncle Dan and Aunt Lona moved in, Lona took me to my school in Poulasa, which was the town close by. About a thousand people lived there so it was pretty big even if not as big as Lafayette, which was about twice as big. I rode up in front, and every time Lona came to a turn she'd stomp on the brake and put out her hand to catch me, then she'd turn around and check on John, who was holding onto the door handle for dear life.
"You're not going to open that door and fall out?" she asked him.
He just shook his head without saying anything, so I said, "No ma'am, he fell out once, and he's not gonna do it again."
She looked at me and grinned. "You don't have to call me ma'am. I told you that."
"No ma'am, I know it."
"I'm not much older than you. Not really."
"Yes ma'am."
"Just call me Lona."
"Yes ma'am, I sure will."
Now she shook her head, reached in her purse for her pack of cigarettes. She handed them to me and asked me to fire one up for her, which I did. I pushed in the lighter, and when it popped out, I tapped the red-hot end of it to one end of the cig while I sucked on the other. I liked that she trusted me to do things that big people did, and I inhaled some each time I lit one. I figured the smoke would toughen up my lungs. That's what uncle Dan said, that smoking gave you strong lungs, and I wanted to be strong so I could beat up Mousey Bertrand.
Mousey was the son of the third grade teacher. "That Mousey," I heard her say one day, "he's going to be a doctor, you watch. A baby doctor." She was probably right about that cause he was always pulling boy's pants down in the bathroom. Wanting to examine their privates.
"Looks like you got pus down there," he'd say. "You been playing with that? Cause if you been playing with that, it might have'ta come off."
If there was anyone worth beating up, it was him. I figured he didn't have somebody to give him cigarettes, so his days of playing doctor at Poulasa Elementary were numbered.
© 2009
|
|
