Well,
my umpy-umph wedding anniversary is next Tuesday, so a kiss to my late wife and
a sigh that my blue period is coming to an end … for this year, at least.
Enough
of that. Let’s get on to another short story.
###
THE CASE OF THE
MISSING PENNY
The usual
gang was hanging on the street corner—Squiggly and Wiggly, also known as the
Hoffman brothers, Maxine, and me—doing what ten-year-old kids do at high
summer. Killing time. Actually, I was showing off one of my magician’s tricks
when Ryan walked up. He was another kid from this neighborhood just south of
the tracks not quite in the dumps but not uptown either. Ryan’s bigger’n we are
and a bully, but he gets by ‘cause all the girls says he’s “sooo good looking.”
Couldn’t see it.
Anyway,
I was bamboozling them with this penny—my entire bankroll at the moment. I’m
pretty fast, so I was doing a fair job of keeping them guessing which hand it
was in until Randy Ryan showed up. Then all my fingers turned into thumbs.
He
gave a horse laugh. “You ain’t very good.”
I
don’t know if it was because Maxine went all twitter-twitter-and-chirp when he
was around or because he’d given me a bloody nose last summer, but I didn’t
like Ryan very much. My mouth went motor on me.
“Yeah,
well I can make this disappear. Completely.” I was holding up the penny and
smirking at him when it hit me that was as likely to happen as me breaking the
four-minute mile. Cripes. He hopped right on it.
“You
do that, Colin, and I’ll buy ever body a RC Cola down at the corner store.”
“Rather
have a Dr. Pepper, Wiggly said.
“Strawberry,”
his brother piped up.
A
Nehi orange was Maxine’s choice.
“Whatever,”
Ryan dismissed them. He could afford to. His dad was the only one on the block
had a job except for some CCC work. Those three Cs stood for Civilian
Conservation Corps, but us kids mostly called it Civil Constipation Cramps.
People kept talking about the Great Depression, but we didn’t know what that
was. We just knew everybody was poor. Raggedly-assed underwear poor. Hell, I wasn’t
even wearing any beneath my bib overalls. Saved the only patched pair I had for
church on Sunday. Frankly, all I had on was the overalls and my brother’s
hand-me-down shoes…about a size and a half too big.
Naturally,
my pals were salivating for a treat like a nickel soda pop. We likely couldn’t
put together enough among us to buy one of them, and that included my penny. But I
didn’t trust Ryan. He probably had the twenty-cents all right, but he wasn’t
dangling the coins in front of us for free.
“What
happens if I can’t do it?” I asked.
The
bully gave a real mean smile. “Then I get to whomp on you without nobody
telling.”
Made
giddy by shouts of “You can do it” and “Show the bum,” I heard the part of me
that’s always getting me in trouble accept the bet. Dumb-ass. Nothing but a
dumb-ass.
With
no idea of how I was going to come out of this without a beating, I started my
routine under the sharp, beady-eyed stare of Ryan Dilfigger. Fear made me
fumble-fingered at first, but desperation soon restored some agility as I flipped
the penny between my fingers and started moving it from hand to hand and pocket
to pocket. It went on so long my digits started to cramp, and Ryan got tired of
waiting. I couldn’t stall any longer.
I
switched from the right hand to the left, and dropped the penny into my overall
pocket while pretending to palm it. After supposedly switching it from hand to
hand again, I turned my palms up and unclenched my fingers. Everyone went “Awww!”
at the sight of my empty hands.
Except
for Ryan. Declaring it was in my pocket, he started pawing around with both
hands without any regard for my personal dignity. Then he felt all up and down
my legs. “Crap! Where is it. Pull your pockets out.”
“You
can’t pull overall pockets out,” Squiggly said. “They’re sewed to the legs.”
So
Ryan shoved his hands down in both of them. “A hole! He’s got a hole in his
pocket. Without another word, he shoved me aside and started grubbing in the
dirt. I figured that was the end of me, but he came up empty.
Then
he got another bright idea. “Your underpants! You stowed it there.”
“Not
wearing none.” I got kinda red-faced admitting that in front of Maxine. I
couldn’t imagine her telling me she wasn’t wearing panties. But Ryan didn’t leave
anything to chance. He tugged at my waistband and peeked down inside. I jerked
away, but he’d seen enough to know I wasn’t lying.
It
took another five minutes of pawing, but after that, even Ryan had to give up.
Muttering dire threats, he led us down the street to the grocery store. Before
trailing along behind, I paused to sweep the ground with my gaze. Where was
that danged penny? Maybe it had
disappeared. Be great if I really did have powers like Mandrake the Magician.
Halfway
down the street, I felt something flopping in my left shoe. That danged penny didn’t
bother me until it got stuck under my heel. Then I started limping.
I’d
have a blister tomorrow, but a blister was better than a beating.
Don
Next week: You never know.
New posts are published at 6:00
a.m. each Thursday.
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