Swamp City - Chapter 1

Colt, Jessi, Ray, and Tommy decide to start their summer on the water.

                 My friends were broken.  Every one of them.  So was I.  I guess I didn’t realize it then, but now I do, and I wish I could have said more.  Maybe it’s not my fault; I was eleven.  Most little kids aren’t deep thinkers and they certainly aren’t selfless.  

“Get out of my damn way,” Colt said as he pushed his broken bike down the road.  Two kids at school had thrashed it.  It was Colt’s most prized possession, and the most expensive thing he’d ever had.  

“Sorry,” I said.  I didn’t like to argue with Colt.  He was pretty much the leader of our group of friends.  Colt was mixed; his momma was a red-headed Creole lady and his father was half black but he’d never met him.  So Colt had red hair and light brown skin with blue eyes.  It got him in plenty of fights.

“Tommy and Joey are already in your drive way,” I informed. 

“I see that.” 

                Tommy and Joey were standing by the basketball goal in front of Colt’s double wide trailer.  Two of his brothers were in the yard digging a hole. 

“Hey ya’ll!” Tommy yelled.  Sometimes I wished he would notice when Colt was in a bad mood and keep his mouth shut.  I’ve always hated conflict. 

“Hey. And shut up…about the bike,” Colt replied, looking at his feet.”

“Damn, what the Hell?” Joey asked.  Joey was actually a girl.  Her name was Josephine but she hated it.  She was also the body guard of our group.

“Yeah, the jocks…” Colt said. “Don’t even bother with it.”

“Yeah right, I’ll beat their a*s.”

“No, it was the last day of school, it’s all over now.”  Colt leaned his bike against the side of the house.  Joey was livid, as usual, and I knew she wasn’t going to just let it go.  But she shut up for now.  She stared at Tommy, who was helping the little kids dig their hole.  She sighed.

“So now what we doing?” I asked.  Colt and Joey shrugged and Tommy re-joined the group. 

“We got to do something, it’s the first day of summer!” Tommy was all too enthusiastic for the current mood in the air.  He usually was.  Tommy was the oldest; he was twelve.  He was actually close to thirteen.  He had light brown hair and grey eyes.  He lived with his older brother and he was a pervert. 

“No one got an idea?” Joey asked. 

“I want to go on a boat,” Tommy said.  This sounded grand except for the fact that we didn’t have a boat.

“We don’t have one,” I told him quietly.  He rolled his eyes.

“We can get one, dumb-dumb.”  Immediately Colt was back to life and I wanted to run home and crawl into bed for the summer.

“We can, you know,” he interjected. “The principal lives down the road and he’s got one.”  I started sweating even more than normal in that humid weather.

“We’re going to get caught…” I said.

“Shut up, Ray,” Joey said. “No one even decided we’re stealing it yet.” 

“I have,” Colt said.  I knew we were in for it.  All it ever took was one crazy idea and for Colt to O.K it, and everything went down hill.