Chapter 2

            We had the truck out in the driveway and were putting the supplies in the bed, well, I was. Skimps sat on the edge gulping down his beer and telling me what to do.

“Put the sleeping bags in next, no Ren the sleeping bags. You need some glasses or something?” Then he would take another drink.

“Well if you’re so interested in the proper way to throw a couple of sleeping bags and some food into the truck, why don’t you do it?”

“Shoot, because I’m the supervisor.”

“Skimps, this isn’t a factory, you don’t need someone’s permission to work.”

“Actually I do.” He cocked an eyebrow and took another drink. It was true, the home wouldn’t let him get a job unless they approved it.

“Well…” I grumbled tossing the sleeping bags in, Skimps had won this round but next time I’d get him back. I was about to pick up the cooler with the beer and food and put it into the back.

“Wait-“ Skimps cut in, he opened it and pulled out a sandwich. He eats like a horse but has never in his life weighed more than 110 pounds at a time, and he beat up any soc who made fun of him for it. I closed the cooler and put it in the bed.

“You sure you want it back here? You might get hungry within the hour it takes to get there, even though you’ve had 3 already.” I said sarcastically.

“Watch it.” He said with a mouth full.

“We still want some food for when we actually get there.”

            He swallowed his food, then took another bite, “I know you, if we run out of food you can catch a rabbit just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

            I sighed and was about to say more but then Jack’s car came squealing in as he rounded the corner at 50 miles per. As he drove down the street he served a lot. Unfortunately, this was his normal driving when he wasn’t drunk. He slammed on the breaks and screeched to a halt.

“How was that!?” he called from his car.

“Boy howdy, only you could drive like that Jack!” I shouted to him, once he had taken me for a ride in his car, a mistake. I was just a little kid, but I may or may not have thrown up in his back seat. So now every time I see him driving he asks me how he did, and I say the same thing. Because, only Jack can drive like that.

“Get your pop for me will ya?!” he called back.

            I turned to go but pop was already on his way out the door, “You sure you don’t want to come with us?” I asked.

“Sorry kid, I’m busy, take care.” And he hopped into the car and Skimps and I watched Jack drive away breaking many laws of physics no doubt. For a moment I just stared at where the car had been.

“Hey, Ren he just doesn’t dig sleeping in the dirt, in bags like we do.” Skimps said sympathetically. I looked at him, he only smiled and finished off his sandwich.

“Yeah, let’s go, it’ll be dark soon.” Skimps got down off the truck bed and I slammed it shut.

            When I was younger pop and I would go off alone and head up to Ridgeback Mountain and camp there for a couple of days, most of the times on the spur of the moment.  I’d come home from school on Friday and he’d say let’s go and we would. Mom would make us a couple of sandwiches and other stuff and pop and I would head up. He taught me to fish and make a snare to catch rabbits, where did Skimps think I learned how to catch a rabbit? School?

            Driving up, Skimps had the radio blasted with Elvis and was singing along to it and awkwardly dancing to 'Hound Dog' in his seat. From outside people saw him and would stop and stare, wondering if he was having a seizure. Skimps is weird, that’s all there is to it.

“You know Donald Duck was banned in Finland, It was because he doesn’t wear pants.” he told me in-between songs.

“Yeah?” Skimps had a random bunch of facts stuck in his head because his roommate back at the home would tell them to him every night. Skimps would listen because he felt sorry for the kid, but now Skimps just spats them out, he can’t help it. Pop and I just go along with it, because we all have our quirks.

            It was dusk by the time we got to Ridgeback. Skimps and I had a spot we would always go to, it was supposed to be closed off to the public, but Skimps and I didn’t care. We set up camp, which was just throwing the sleeping bags onto the dirt, and starting a fire by the time it got dark.

“How long you want to stay up here this time?” Skimps had started to dig into the cooler and found another sandwich and a root beer.

“I have work tomorrow afternoon, so we’ll leave in the morning.” I worked at a gas station, I had to pick up a little extra cash, so I dropped out of school to work full time. I was about to graduate, I remember I would dream about going to college and coming home with a diploma to show off to my parents. I was gonna make something of myself, I worked hard at school. But after mom died it just wasn’t in the picture anymore.

“Ren!” Skimps said, “Stop staring into that fire or you really will need some glasses, how weird would it look seeing a greaser with glasses?”

            I shrugged, “Give me a sandwich before you eat them all.” He handed me one and took another for himself.

            Skimps shifted closer to the fire, “Shoot, I should have brought a better jacket.”

            It had gotten colder, the wind was blowing, swaying the tall trees above us. It was darker out, the moon was in the horizon rising from the ground with the stars. A cricket started chirping, anywhere else I would have been annoyed by a cricket, but here I was okay with it. I liked to get out into the woods. Back at the city, there was so much fighting and silent gang wars, sometimes I just wanted to get away from it all.

 Like the fight Skimps and I had last night, we were walking home from the garage and the socs started trailing us in their blue mustang. I noticed them first, I thought they were going to leave us alone if we didn’t make a fuss that they were there, they didn’t. They stopped their car and 6 of them got out and started circling us. I wasn’t worried Skimps and I could take on almost this many on our own, depending on how big they were. I like a good fight as much as any other greaser did. One of them grabbed me from behind long enough for a different one to land a punch, to my face. I broke free and Skimps and I were able to fight them off, the one who nicked me had a couple of rings. Which was the only reason he got my forehead to bleed like it did. When they left, they looked just about as bad as we did.

Even though Skimps is  small, he makes up for it in muscles. He can fend off about 4 socs at a time, maybe more if he had a broken pop bottle, and walk away with only a couple of scratches and bruises. Compared to him, the others would look like they were mauled by a bear or something. If you’ve seen Skimps in a rumble you still wouldn’t believe it. A lot of the time the bigger socs would want to get ahold of him-you know, the soc wants to look good by beating up the smallest one-that never made since to me. But anyways, it’s an even fight when that happens. Skimps may be small, but he can really pack a punch. At most, they’ll both go home with a couple of cracked ribs, a broken nose, cuts, bruises, that’s normal for Skimps. I once broke a soc’s arm, but that was an accident, which is something I don’t like to talk about too much.

“There’s a lot of stars out tonight.” Skimps said.

“Yeah.”

            Skimps took a cigarette pack from his jacket, “Want one?” he offered.

“No, thanks.” I only smoked when I was stressed out, it calms my nerves.

            He lit his cig and breathed in, the end glowed a bright red. A flickering memory, like a candle in the darkness, I haven’t forgotten about her, I just didn’t want to remember the pain I had when I thought of her. I looked away from the cigarette between his lips, and tried to push the memory away.

            I leaned back on my sleeping bag and watched the stars, soon I was asleep. I couldn’t get her out of my memory though, she lingered in my mind like the scent of the campfire in my leather jacket.

Author's Note

Please review!

Reviews

[barleygirl]

I like your storytelling & this story is interesting. You use a good mix of dialogue & expository to show us what your characters are doing. You also show us behaviors (like eating a lot of sandwiches) that help us get to know your characters.

My main problems: (1) many grammar, spelling, & other mistakes . . . and (2) too many long, run-on sentences that need to be punctuated better for smoother reading. Since I don't see you fixing anything in the previous chapter, I won't bug you about this again. I'll just stop reading you next time I get a chapter this full of mistakes.

[matpat]

Thanks for the tip, I'll try to fix that next time, thanks again!

[BBP]

I'm not looking to talk shi*t cause I love your story, but be really careful not to trail off too much into mimicking the Outsiders.....like he socs driving a blue mustang ... it will take away from your awesome creativity.

[BBP]

I only give you this advice because I have that movie memorized forward and backward so I noticed small things like that.

[matpat]

First off, thank you so much for commenting! and thank you for the advice! also 10 points to you for watching the Outsiders it's my favorite book!

[BBP]

You win my heart with your style 100 points to you ! 😍