Story a Day

The kids all stood in line to go down Splash Mountain, sweat trickling down their expectant faces. They had chosen a ride and were waiting to experience it. I don’t know why that depressed me. Probably I just wanted to be someplace that served beer.

The house had a magic hole in the floor that granted wishes. I think something bad happened, and I wished to have never moved in, because now I don’t live there, but I kind of feel like I started to.

I moved into the house. It had a secret hole in the floor that granted wishes.

When I got a prosthetic hand, it helped. But I still can’t play poker; it clicks.

He never would have agreed to it if it hadn’t been Strawberry’s last night in town.

“I don’t know, Straw.”

“Come on, Bruce. I’ve done it tons of times. High school kids do it all the time. Are you more scared than a high school kid? Are you going to finish that banana?”

“No, you can have it. Yes, I’m more afraid than a teenager, because I am older and more knowledgeable.”

“Fine. We don’t have to do it.” She took a bite of his banana and chewed.

“In high school,” he said, watching her, “I once ate a centipede.”

“Dude! Awesome!” Strawberry wadded up the peel and held on to it. She wiped starchy banana from her fingers onto the side of one Chuck Taylor.

“It was horrible. And five minutes later everyone had forgotten about it but me.”

“I only wish you could see the swimming pool.” Strawberry looked at Bruce and sighed. “Maybe I’ll ask Horse.”

“I want to see you tonight! It’s your last night in town!” He shouldn’t have said it, but he did.

Strawberry and Horse came to pick up Bruce in Horse’s hearse. Strawberry was riding shotgun. Bruce climbed in back and lay in the huge space, looking at the velvet painting of Elvis that Horse stapled to the ceiling. Elvis was crying. Bruce turned off his headlamp and Elvis mostly disappeared, turned into a ghost.

“Where’d you get a hearse, horse?” asked Bruce.

“Police auction, actually.” Then Horse turned on the radio.

Bruce could still see the white outline of the King. He wondered what kind of crime the hearse had been used for, that would necessitate police action. Only certain kinds of crimes sprung to mind: murder, smuggling, grave-robbing.

He should have included breaking and entering on that list, but he didn’t.

They parked alongside the curb in a residential neighborhood, next to the school. Nighttime sprinklers scattered water across people’s lawns.

“Huh,” Strawberry muttered as they pulled up to the school. “Usually the lights aren’t on.”

“What does that mean? Should we leave?”

“Not sure, Bruce. Let’s check it out, come on.”

Horse and Bruce followed Strawberry through a parking lot. She stepped on a concrete ashtray and hoisted herself over a brick wall. Horse went next. Bruce weighed the most. As Bruce stepped off the ashtray, it came unrooted and toppled into a shrubbery. When they left, they would need to jump down from the seven-foot brick wall with no footholds.

Strawberry climbed into a dark window. She turned on her headlamp. Bruce and Horse could see her light moving around in the room. The lights were on in the east half of the building, where she wasn’t, but the west half was totally dark. The east half looked clean and orderly. Students’ crafts hung on the walls, construction paper and yarn.

“Come on in,” Strawberry stage-whispered. Bruce and Horse climbed into the window, looking over their shoulders. Bruce wished he hadn’t worn a yellow shirt.

Continued tomorrow?

image: Auntie P on flickr

Amy never bought adult’s clothes. She still wore her childhood shirts and nightgowns, cut apart and sewn into new garments.

But it wasn’t about saving money. When she needed a new dress or pair of socks, she went to the mall and bought children’s clothes. Then she made Amy-sized patchworks from them.

There was a keyboard, and any music you played on it would be played in a room somewhere else. You never knew who was listening.