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Scribe
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 61
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Easy Street (Chapter 2)
Now I may be a little bit lazy, but I generally try to be good to people. Most of my income comes in from selling a little pot, and, when D.J. is lucky enough to confiscate some, a little crank too. Like I said, seven fifty an hour ain’t much to live on. Truth is, we rarely sell the crank. Actually. I can’t really recall ever having sold any crank. Come to think of it, I didn’t really sell much weed either. No wonder I never had any money.
But I ain’t never been a thief. Most of the dopeheads I used to hang with support their habits by stealing just about anything from anyone. If you ain’t got a good garage to lock it up in, a new four-wheeler or lawn mower will only last about a week before it’s long gone. But I’ve always stayed away from that shit. I might try to steal your drugs or your girlfriend, but I won’t touch your belongings. When times get real tough, I’ll go help my buddy Joe Deer frame a house or two, to get the bills paid. (You ain’t gonna believe it, but Joe’s little brother’s named Johnny. Ain’t that some shit!). Anyways, I probably wouldn’t have given those farm grants another thought, except maybe to cuss the farmers now and then, if a couple things hadn’t happened to make me believe in fate. Looking back now, I truly believe the devil was tempting me and I failed the test. Hell of a way to learn a lesson in life.
It had been a couple of days since D.J. had first mentioned the money that would soon be coming to a few lucky souls in Oak Grove, and I had mostly forgotten about it. Oak Grove can get pretty boring for a fellow like me, especially when I’m not working steady, and I haven’t for quite some time now. I decided, God only knows why, to get up early that morning and go down to Dan’s for a donut and a carton of milk. I normally wouldn’t have been up that early, but the night before D.J. had stopped some kids and confiscated a little crystal. D.J. ain’t no different than any other so-called peace officers in the county, probably the whole state for that matter, and he always knew who to stop in order to confiscate their stash. Nobody ever really gets in trouble; the dopers just hand over their stuff and D.J. lets ‘em go. It’s a pretty good set up for everyone involved, aside from the fact that none of my old suppliers deal with me anymore on account of me living with D.J. That don’t really matter, though, since D.J. gets all our dope for free.
Anyways, that dope really got me going, and there was no way I was getting any sleep that night. Not D.J., though. He fell asleep about halfway through the third showing of The Getaway, which I have on tape since it’s my favorite picture, and I headed down for some breakfast. Now I have a certain routine that I try to stick by, and, like I said, it usually involves sleeping till midday. Not sticking to my routine was my first mistake.
Now as I said before, all the old guys in town tend to hang out at Dan’s most mornings, and that morning was no different. I don’t generally get on real well with most of those old pricks, they seem to think that since they all own their own farms and work for a living that they’re somehow better than me and the boys I run with. It irks me something fierce. I’ve known just about everyone in Oak Grove my whole life, and everyone always got along with my folks. It’s true I’ve gotten in a little bit of trouble from time to time, but that don’t make them better than me. I suppose it’s mostly because of the people I run with. When I got to Dan’s, Junior Pearce and his boy Doak were outside by the ice reefers talking to Guy Peters about shoveling horseshit or something.
“Well I swear, Shorty, ain’t it a little early for you to be up and about?” Junior said with a chuckle, “Hell, since you’re up you might as well go with Doak over to Siloam Springs and help him haul some cows back from the sale.”
“I ain’t no good with cows, Junior,” I said, barely able to control an urge to cuss him, “besides, why cain’t you go with him?”
“Hell, I’m an old man,” he said, “But a hard working young man like yourself could handle it fine I guess.” Old Guy chuckled at that, the bastard.
“Well, I guess Doak can take care of a few cows himself,” I said, slapping Doak on the shoulder, “It’s a pretty straight shot to Siloam; I doubt he’ll get lost.”
Doak is a big man, my own age, with broad shoulders and thin blond hair that appears to have been slapped on with a paint brush. We used to run together back in school but over the years we’ve kinda fallen out. Doak’s more of a drinker than a doper, and he never liked the crowd I fell in with after we got out of school. He shot me a go-to-hell glare as I walked past him into Dan’s. I could hear them outside laughing as I went over to the cooler and grabbed myself a half-gallon of milk. I know they were laughing at me. Dan was standing behind the counter talking to a young lady I didn’t recognize when I slipped behind her in line.
“Sorry ‘bout your gramma, miss,” he said before the lady turned and walked outside. He looked my way and smiled.
“Morning, Shorty,” he said, “Kinda early to see you here.” Dan is an older gentleman, in his sixties I’d guess, and one of the few folks in town who’s always nice to me. That morning he was looking a little peaked, like the wind had been knocked out of him.
“What’s new Dan? You under the weather this morning?”
“Sadie Coverdale died in her sleep last night. I guess I never thought she’d go. Known her all my life. Sweet old woman, a saint it seemed to me. I’ll miss her that’s all.”
“Well I swear, Old Lady Coverdale? Sorry to hear that. She was always so sweet.”
I felt funny all at once, like I might cry. I had known her my whole life too. Sadie Coverdale was one of Oak Grove’s best known citizens, used to be the editor of the town paper when I was a young’un. When I was a kid she used to hire me to cut her grass. Always paid good money too. I haven’t really spoken to her in years, but the shock I felt was sincere.
“That young lady was her great niece from the city,” Dan said, “come down to bury her gramma I guess.”
“I swear,” I said, still in shock, “When’s the funeral, Dan?”
“Wednesday morning, at the Free Will Baptist Church. You goin’ Shorty?”
“I just might do that,” I said. I thanked Dan for the milk and headed back for D.J.’s trailer.
Last edited by fisherking : 01-18-2008 at 04:23 PM.
Reason: Font
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