31

Another excerpt from the past.

Staring wide eyed at my hand I realized the moment I discarded that I had made a mistake.
That's a club! Not a spade! That's a club! Crap! I thought and instantly felt my underarms go slick.
I looked around the table to see if my panic had registered with anyone. It hadn't.
All drunk and high, I thought, though it only dropped my anxiety a smidge. As long as no-one knocks, I'll be okay.
Amid the banter I glanced about the small formica table and considered my odds. Through the lilting smoke I could peep around the array of beer cans and crumpled chip bags to see how many quarters everyone still had in front of them.
Gabe has two left and so does Jeb, I considered then rolled my eyes discreetly to the left and confirmed that Clyde only had one. I still have a good chance to win and get that model I want, unless I lose this hand,"I said to myself while looking down at my two quarters, then considered, As long as nobody...
"Knock!" A loud rap, impossible to mistake for anything but knuckles on a wobbly table, cut through the chatter.
Damn! I thought. Damn, damn, damn! I quickly glanced at my hand to solidify what a moron I was. Yep, total moron, I thought then began doing my level best to look bored and unaffected. Failing miserably I retreated to my most reliable distraction.
"Anyone need a beer?" I asked and looked around the table as I sat sweating out my situation.  
Each of them were already half sloshed.  The morning had been spent at a softball tournament, which I always thought was an excuse for them to drink in matching outfits. This after party had simply extended the festivities of the day.  I knew from experience that a drink would not be declined.
To my right Jeb hooted, "Well, since I am about to whoop up on you guys,  I think I do! Somthin' to celebrate with! Sooooooo yep!"
Jeb looked at each of us in turn as he drew out his "so," pursing his lips as if angling for a smooch. He ended with a pop of his mouth, looking right at me.
"You sprayed me! " I said, wiping my arm across my forehead. "Come on!"
He leaned in grinning as if I'd said nothing and wondered aloud, "What-dam-I gonna to with your money after I win, hmmmmm?"  He scratched at his scalp, pushing around the few stringy hairs that clung there, and scrunched up his face in mockery of hard thinking. 
"Pay me to get you a beer?" I asked.
Jeb's face sagged into an exaggerated frown, then shifted to a barking laugh that made the length of his beard shimmy like a rug being snapped clean. The violent motion freed the dribblings from his mustache left there after his last swig.  A fine mist now decorated my glasses.
"Again!" I jumped from my seat to gain distance and removed my specs to wipe them on my pants. While I smeared his spit across my lenses, he swirled the last bit of beer about the bottom of his can. Raising it one last time, he tipped the swill back and gulped it down. After letting loose a huge burp, he ordered, "I'll take an Oley."
Turning to mom's boyfriend Gabe, my eyebrows raised like a question mark, we locked eyes and I waited. He sat silently looking at me, squinting through his small round eyeglasses that looked stupid on his big round head. As he sat there, making me wait out his decision, he pulled at his thin mustache.  Not for the first time I thought,  He looks like a lumpy and retarded John Lennon.
I kept my eyebrows floating and tried to keep just enough of a smile to make him wonder. I hoped my grin made him uncomfortable. At the very least it should not have been something he was used to seeing.
"Same," he finally mumbled then turned away and started talking with Jeb about the game.  "That ump didn't know s**t...," he stated as I looked to my left, checking in with my last opponent Clyde.  He nodded a "yes" and I turned to cross the cracked linoleum floor. 
        As I stepped over our sleeping German Sheppard to get to the fridge.  Clyde asked, "Chris, what did you think of the game today?"
        Before I could answer Gabe snorted, "Nothing I bet.  He took a book to read." 
I ignored the comment, yanked on the levered handle of the refrigerator and leaned in.  No distinctive gold cans .
"Ever heard of a kid that doesn't like sports?"  Gabe asked no one in particular.  "Football or baseball.  I bet he still doesn't know which hand to put a mitt on." 
I was used to this speech and knew what was coming next.
"When I was a kid you had to drag me off the baseball field.  I played on TWO teams. This kid?  All he does is read and..."
I tuned out the rest of his well worn opinions but was still relieved when Clyde changed the conversation back to the umpire of that days game. 
Gabe took over again.  "I know those were not strikes! I can hit the damn ball when they pitch strikes!"
Still not seeing the beer, I yelled out, "Mom! Wheres the Oley?"  I did not really expect an answer since she was upset about me gambling, but it was worth a shot, when compared to asking Gabe and having to put up with another tirade.
Instead of getting an answer from her, my younger brother Todd sang out instead from somewhere back in the trailer. "Are there or aren't there Artesians? Ya think one will ever be found? Well, pour me another cold Oley my friend. The question is worth one more round!"
The song halted the tables conversation for the fifteen seconds it took Todd to complete the jingle. Jeb laughed at the end and said, "I love that commercial!" He picked up listening to Gabe blame everything but himself for his days performance.
When I looked away from the fridge to holler at mom again, I noticed that Clyde still had his eye on me. He had been acting kinda strange all day.  Of course, that could easily have just been my impression since I still felt guilty about the last time he was here. 
I had not seen him since I had helped Gabe dupe him out of some money a few weeks back. He had stopped by one afternoon while Gabe had Todd and I stacking wood behind the trailer. As we humped logs around, they sipped beers, talked sports, and critiqued how we chose to stack the firewood.
Before long, under the guise of upping the entertainment value of the day, Gabe suggested that some shooting was in order. We soon found ourselves traipsing towards the old quarry with all chores dismissed, Gabe's holster strapped to his side.
Trailing behind the men as we made our way up the hill, Todd grabbed at my sleeve, yanking on it and giggling.   He pointed at Gabe, making me aware that the top quarter of his rear was sticking out of his trademark burgundy sweatpants. Besides tucking away his pistol, the holster was also serving to drag down his drawers .
"A real cowboy," Todd whispered then snorted, making a huge snot bubble balloon out, then retract just as quickly.
"Good one!" I hooted but settled down when Gabe turned to give us the stink eye.
Once there the men took turns pinging trash Todd and I had salvaged for them from the part of the quarry we used as a dump. Since all the garbage we could not burn ended up there, finding good shooting cans was easy.
As Todd and I returned from setting the targets upright for the third time, Gabe offered up, "Chris, you wanna shoot?"
I paused a moment to look at him.  "Can you show me how?"  I turned to Clyde and noticed him shaking his head at my question.
"I was hunting when I was your age," Clyde threw out, making apparent what he thought of a thirteen year old that did not know how to fire a gun.
"Chris has..." Todd started out but Gabe interrupted him.
"Get over here," he said to me then proceeded to take great pains to show all the intricacies of loading, cocking and aiming the firearm.
When finished, I held it as if it were a dead bird, pinched between two fingers as it dangled with its barrel pointed at the ground. I am sure I looked more like a target myself than a marksman.
"How many you think he can hit?" Gabe asked Clyde.
Snorting, Clyde suggested, "I dunno...two...of the big ones?" then laughed.
"I'll bet you he hits five," Gabe offered and held out his hand. "Ten bucks?"
One could almost see the slow grind of Clyde's mind turn as he looked from Gabe and then to Todd. It was as if the faintest ting-a-ling of a warning bell had sounded, but he couldn't tell what direction it was coming from. He then turned towards me: thin, gangly, and looking like the report alone would knock me on my a*s. You could all but see his concerns drop away. 
"Sure," he said reaching out and slapping Gabe's hand. "Don't take it out of him if he misses though."
"Can I hold the money?" Todd asked and was favored with the responsibility of clutching enough cash to cover a third of our grocery bill.
Gabe had made it clear the day he discovered I was a natural shot that if he ever had a chance to bet on me that I was to act dumb. That was a cinch since I was also a natural at that.
My teachers considered me well below average which made homework easier and suited me just fine.
My gym teacher thought I was a total loss at any sport with more than two rules. This only meant that I didn't have to participate in such torturous passtimes as basketball or softball.
Gabe, in all his wisdom, made it a habit to tell me that I had no common sense, was lazy, and would amount to less than nothing. One of his favorite sayings was, "If you were locked in a room with a box of crackers you would still starve to death."
For the most part I had come to terms with most of these impressions.  It did not hurt that a small part of me had come to believe that being underestimated was my superpower.
I also believed that anyone with a superpower, even a lame one, would be able to get out of a locked room and then get something better than saltines for dinner.
Gabe on the other hand? I would bet that in the same situation Gabe would wind up eating himself a cracker sandwich.

Part 2 is on my home page. Thanks!

Author's Note

I am prone to rushing. That means this will be edited and re-edited and.... Well you get it. Anyway this is the first part of a story that should be finished soon. I love all feedback. Positive and negative. So let er rip.

Reviews

[KAOlmsted]

Okay. I came, I read, I will review ;-)

I would like to know how old all of the characters are closer to the beginning and what their relationship is to one another. I first assumed this was a poker game played between teens, as the narrator wants to spend his money on a model...a model what would be nice to know, as that is a bit of information used to develop character. Then I read Jeb has barely any hair, a long beard and a mustache and I went, "Huh?" I had no idea Jeb and Clyde were the mother's boyfriend's age. So, to avoid confusion, just some establishing remarks while the narrator peruses the men around the poker table would be nice. Maybe have some observations about Gabe first, to put the other men in context.

Next. When a third person character has internal dialogue it is always written in italics without quotation marks. Quotation marks are used to indicate speech. When a first person character has inner dialogue, like our Chris, the thoughts don't necessarily need to be in italics simply because the entire story is inner dialogue with moments of external quotation mark speech. That's just science. *laugh*

You already know you need to edit the living s**t out of this, so I won't take you over my knee about that today. I would love to see this cleaned up, though.

Thanks for sharing your work with us. I think you've got some really good bones, like I said before. Now make them pretty ;-)

[The Rhino]

Another great review. I will soak it in and work this baby over. Thanks!

[KAOlmsted]

Always my pleasure. Anything I can do to help, don't hesitate.

[KAOlmsted]

Oh damn, I have not got enough time tonight to do this justice, but please know, I will--if my ADD allows *laugh*--return to it tomorrow and read it in full and give you some feedback. A lumpy and retarded John Lennon?? xD Priceless. Okay. See you with all of my attention tomorrow. So far it's got some good bones...

-kimmer

[The Rhino]

Thanks! No pressure though. It might make more sense if you started with Wonton manor. Then that would be two stories for your ADD to tackle. Either way I appreciate the look my way.

[KAOlmsted]

Okay. I'm on it ;-)

[KAOlmsted]

See what I mean by ADD? This was two weeks ago xD