KING(3)

“Like one of them stilt homes?”

“Yeah man, a f*cking Star Wars stilt home, right on the bay.” This boy lived in a trailer park where he was beaten up by his stepdad, and here he was dreaming about his future. I couldn’t see my way past next week, never mind to the next ten years. “What about you, man?”

“What about me?” I unhooked my pocket knife from the waistband of my jeans and used it to pick at the falling stucco on the side of the building.

“What are you gonna do when you grow up?”

The only thing I really knew was what I didn’t want. “Not sure. I just know that I don’t want to work for anyone. Never liked being told what to do all that much. I’d like to be my own boss, run my own shit.”

“Yeah, man. That’s f*cking amazing. Yes, that. I’ll help you. We can do it together. You run the shit. I’ll help you run the shit. Then, we’ll buy a big ’ole Star Wars stilt home and live there, and no one will be able tell us what to f*cking do ever again!”

Samuel removed a composition notebook from his backpack and turned to a blank page. “Let’s make a mother f*cking plan.”

The idea seemed silly, sitting down with a kid I didn’t know and making a plan for a future I’d never thought of, but for some reason the thought of hurting his feelings made my chest feel stabby, a feeling I was very unfamiliar with. Unsure of what to do next I gave in. I sat down next to him in the grass and sighed. He smiled up at me like just me being there meant we were halfway there.

“We can’t be *’s about this,” he continued. “We aren’t going to get the Star Wars house by getting jobs in a shitty hotel or factory, and I never been much of a fisherman. So this shit starts now. Pussies get pushed over and stepped on. My uncle, who’s a total f*cking * douche-bag, sells weed. We could steal some from him and sell it. Then, we can use that money to buy our own to sell.”

Using a black marker from his bag, Samuel began to draw on the page. The top read GOAL and he drew a house with legs underneath that did look like a stick figure version of the whatever-you-call-it-thing in Star Wars. I didn’t know the name of it because I’d never seen the movies, just the previews. Then, he drew what looked like it was supposed to be us, him much smaller than me. With a green marker, he drew dollar bill signs all around us floating in the air.

“So what? We friends now, Preppy?”

I’d never had a friend before, but there was something about this boy with the foul mouth that got my attention. I plucked the marker from his hand and took over his drawing. I was never good at much in school, except for art. Just drawing really.

Drawing was my jam.

“Fuck yeah!” Preppy said, watching me add on to his stilt home. He’d also drawn a picture of what I assumed was his uncle because he’d written douche-bag over the top. “You’re f*cking good at that. Man, we’ve got to have you do that, too. Art shit. Write that down in the plan. We gotta have hobbies, too.”

“Then what’s your hobby?” I asked.

“My hobby?” He smiled and wiped his nose, which had just started dripping blood again, a single drop fell to the page and splattered on stick figure Preppy. He nodded slyly and purses his lips, hooking his thumbs under his suspenders. “Bitches.”

I think I laughed more that day then I ever did in my whole life. I also learned that ‘bitches’ could be a hobby.

“So what happens if we get caught?” I asked, pausing the marker over the page.

“We won’t. We’re too f*cking smart for that shit. We’ll be careful. We’ll make plans and stick to the plans. Nobody will get in our f*cking way. Nobody. Not my stepdad, not my uncle, not teachers, and especially not bitch-ass bullies like Tyler. I ain’t ever getting married. I ain’t ever having a girlfriend. This is just about Preppy and King crawling out of the shit instead of rotting in it.”

“But really, what if we get caught?” I asked. “I’m not talking about by the cops. I’m talking about by your uncle, or anyone else that does the kind of shit we’re talking about doing here. These are rough people. Bad people. They don’t like being messed with.” I knew these kinds of people first hand. More than one dealer had come to our house armed with guns, demanding payment. Mom would settle her debt by taking them into her bedroom and closing the door.

This kid may have just been screwing around, but the more I thought about it the better it all sounded. Living a life without answering to anyone. A life without fear of what someone could do to me or to this little preppy kid, who by the looks of it had enough bullying to last him his whole life.