A scary story.

[Mrleft8]

Running. Busting through Dasheen groves as high as a goat. Feet tangled in Ginger. Wet from the leaves and sweat. Heart pounding, temples throbbing. Make it to the dirt before the sun goes all the way down. A sudden burst of feathers and a heart stopping screech! Just a Cockricou. Keep going. A hundred more yards. Can still see the orange in the sky. Not too late.
"You pretty close dis time boy!" Cackled Uncle Payson. "One dese days dat cow leg woman gonna get you for sher if'n you don' lissen close to yer ma'am".
Kester staggered to the Mango tree in the clearing, holding it's twisted trunk with both hands. Heaving deep breaths and trying not to let Uncle see how his legs are turned to rubber.
Kester's mother Franny walked out from behind the house with a wash tub balanced on her head, dragging a filthy 4 year old Nakisha by the arm.
"I tole you. Nex' thing you know it gonna be dark. You gotta be mo' careful boy. Now get yer sistah clean up. Choir is about now."
"Dat boy ain' got the strength to wash hiself, let alone that lil girl" laughed Uncle Payson. "He done jus run all de way from the river in about 2 minits flat!"
Kester took one more deep breath and let go of the tree. He saw those little bright dots in his head as he straightened up, but he wouldn't faint this time he was sure.
When his head cleared he saw his mother looking at him out of the corner of her eye, a little twisted smile crinkled the edge of her thin lips.
She turned to her husband's brother and winked." Kester got a gir'frien' you s'pose, Payson?"
The old man cackled some more and stamped his foot on the hard packed dirt under his chair.

[Memphis Mike]

Meanwhile, Keeno drank deeply from the tall glass of beer before him and took a long hard pull from the ganja spliff.... He didn't know how it was that he came to this remote place....he vaguely remembered an explosion....yes, an explosion on a boat made of wood.....a woman.....dingy blonde hair and skin the color of Carnation milk. Thelma? he thought. A man......the captain of the boat.....drunk...full of rum and ganja weed. Yes,it was Papula......Keeno took another long toke from the ganja spliff.....

[ 08-30-2004, 11:22 AM: Message edited by: Memphis Mike ]

[imported_Dutch]

...no ..... not Thelma .... Thelma was one of two chicks his hen Mergatroid had hatched out last winter while he pranced arond the Yukon, mapping ghost towns for National Geographic .... the other was Barney.... Barney ... big bastard of a cock....

[Mrleft8]

Kester muttered something under his breath and took his sisters hand while his mother put the wash tub under the spigot from the rain barrel. While the tub filled with sweet, cool water, the boy pulled his sister's filthy mud caked dress over her head.
"I don' unnerstan' why you don' talk more boy" Said Uncle payson, as he pulled a pint of rum from his pocket. "Yer daddy was the talkinest man I ever saw. That man could talk the pants offa a catlicl nun!" A green mango wizzed past Kesters ear and smacked Uncle Payson in the side with a hollow THUMP!
"You jus SHUT UP about that man!" snarled Kester's mother. "He may have been yo brother, but he ain't NO ONE'S brother now! He GONE! An he ain't NEVER comin' back! So just SHUT UP YO' MOUTH!"
Kester pulled off his damp shirt, and shorts and stepped into the tub, hauling his squirming sister in with him with one lanky arm.
"I don' talk cuz I ain' got nothin' to say most times." Kester said to the water.
"Now that the most dam sensible dam thing I EVER heard any dam man in this familly say anytime!" Said Kester's mother as she stomped into the house and started pulling her things together for choir.
Payson looked at his shirt, where the mango had hit him and shook his head. "Yer mommy got some anger up in her boy. You gonna have a long hard life, you."
Nakisha twisted away from her brother and leapt out of the tub like a grass frog. She wheeled around the Mango tree twice, and bounded into the house in one giant spread legged leap.
When Kester had finished with his bath, he dumped the tub in the yard under a yellowing Fig tree, and put on the white button front shirt, and deep blue trousers his mother had put out for him.
"We getting a ride tonight or gotta walk again?" Kester asked his uncle.

[ 08-30-2004, 09:30 PM: Message edited by: Mrleft8 ]

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

"Whatcho talkin bout boy?" exclaimed Uncle Payson. "We gots the best damn ride in the whole swamp in ole Jupiter dere!" and he waved his hand at the shack of a stable made of cardboard and rotten wood from which the cataracted orbs of Jupiter peered. A big horse of uncertain ancestry, full of spavins, worn teeth and a buckled back, Jupiter slowly chewed a flake of moldy hay as he considered the ministrations of his owner.

"You knows Ole Jupiter won't go in the swamp at night Uncle! He's downright skeered, and he should be...I am too"

[Mrleft8]

Kester stood on an old blue and yellow beer box by the windward road with his sister, and mother close by in the deepening murk. It was warmer than he'd expected, and his shirt was already beginning to stick to his back. "When that man comin' mommy?" Nakisha whinned.
Franny fanned herself with a pamphlet and looked down the road, ignoring her daughter's question.
"he'll be by soon, I know it." Kester said in a voice that was more confident than he really felt. "He won't let us wait too long."
Kester had hated going to choir until last month, when he saw the new girl. She was older than Kester by a year at least, and so pretty it made him embarrassed when she looked over and saw him staring at her. She'd smiled at him and sort of nodded her head. But Kester had been so flustered he'd quickly looked away, and then lost his place in the hymn book, and when it was his turn to sing alone he couldn't. There was a horrible pause while the rest of the choir looked at him, and he got more self consumned, and felt his face burning, and he thought his legs might fall out from under him. Mr. Jacobs had saved his life, Kester was sure, by singing Kester's part in a high tenor voice that nearly vibrated the window over the open front door of the church.
The girl had been at choir for 3 of the last 4 Thursdays, and Kester was hoping she'd be there again tonight. If he could keep from having to drag Akisha around after the singing was over, he'd try to talk to the girl during the after sing refreshments. If he could find the courage.

[Mrleft8]

Dissapointment was one thing, Kester was used to having his hopes let down by one thing or another, but this was a mighty weight. Not only was the pretty girl not at choir tonight, but his mother had left him with Akisha, and gone to town with some of the other ladies in a car as soon as the sing was over. Akisha was sitting next to him eating curry chicken, and drinking blue juice from a soggy paper cup. Somehow his sister always managed to get more food ON her than IN her, and tonight the dress that had been pink, was a camoflage of curry yellow, blue and pink, and it was threatening to migrate onto his clean white shirt. But Kester didn't really care.
He felt his sister stiffen suddenly and start to quiver. "Oh great!" Kester thought, "She's messed herself again." He nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt a tapping on his shoulder. Kester whirled around, knocking the cup out of Nakisha's hand and sending it flying into the scrub next to the bench they were perched on. The pretty girl was looking at him, smiling, and saying something he couldn't understand.
"Please?" said the girl again. Kester tried to speak but no words came out. Nakisha was standing behind him now, gripping his arm so tight that it was beginning to tingle. "What?" was all he could manage to say without his voice cracking.
" I said, I missed the sing, and my Grandmom went to town, and I'm afraid to walk back to her house alone. Could you walk with me so I won't be scared?" said the girl.
"What?" Kester said again. Stupid stupid stupid! He yelled at himself. The girl laughed, and said "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sneak up on you like that. It's just so loud here, and I don't know anyone from around here, and I saw you the other time and you looked nice...."
Nakisha was whimpering behind him, her nails digging into the flesh of his arm. Curry chicken on her chin, and dress.
"That your sister? She a cute one. Come here sweetie, what your name?" the girl said squatting down low.
Nakisha started moaning and shaking her head.

[Mrleft8]

Mason Hall is at least 2 miles up the side road. Nakisha wasn't going no where. She was curled up under the bench, and old Mr. Sampson is talking to her. But..... That new girl smell so pretty! And she so nice! Maybe Mr. Sampson will stay with Nakisha for a hour while I walk up that road.....
Mamma gone kill me if she come back and I gone....
But she SO PRETTY!....... And she so FINE!!!!!!

[Mrleft8]

Frogs chirping in the ditch by the road side. Dark trees moving in whispered slow dance. The pretty girl's name is "Joan".
"My name? My name's Joan. It rhymes with 'Moan'... Yer name's 'Kester' init?"
Kester just nodded. His voice didn't work right, and his knees were all sweaty.
They were just about a half mile up the road, past the grocery stand where he got a cold drink one day.
"this where we take the path" Joan smiled and took Kester's hand.
"What path?" Kester asked, He looked at the side of the road where the girl stood in the long grass, but could see no path in the dark.
"This path right here" she laughed, and stepped into the dark.