I just remembered why I hate everyone
Crack
"Shit, missed!"
Crack
"fuck, missed!"
I wake up to the unmistakable sound of a rifles going off and being rechambered. I'm groggy but the smell of gunpowder is like caffeine to my 8 year old body. I look over to the window and two of my older cousins are silloutted in the bright morning sunshine. They each have a rifle pointed out of the window in the direction of the barn. There's a dirty sock on my face.
Shit for Brains sees me staring at the sock.
"You were snoring so loud that Sluggo had to put that sock in your mouth"
I wipe my tongue with my hand and make a face. Sock Tongue.
"Did you hit them?" I ask, assuming they are trying to kill the woodchucks under the old barn.
"Nah"
I'm secretly releaved. I love guns but I cant imagine the thought of killing an animal. I dont tell them that because they'll tease me more, and I dont need that with this crowd.
Shit for Brains has a beautiful Winchester .22 caliber rifle. The stock is black to match the barrel and he has a scope on top of it. Shit for Brains couldnt hit the Barn itself let alone the Woodchuck. I covet his rifle, but he wont ever let me fire it...he says it's because I'm only Eight, but the real reason is that he's an asshole.
Shit for Brain's rifle has a long feeding tube that holds 16 bullets. It's a lever action rifle which means you pop a new bullet into the chamber by cocking the lever on the bottom, just like in the old cowboy movies. I lay back in bed and think about how cool it would be hunting down Viet Cong with that baby. It's kind of ironic considering my feelings for the woodchuck family eating the foundation of the barn.
I think about my own rifle that my father had given to me. I refinished the stock myself with a light cherry woodstain. I'm alway careful to clean it everytime we go shooting. The rifle was probably made in the 1940's and was a bolt action. We couldnt find a clip to fit it, so each round had to be loaded by hand into the barrel. I couldnt fire as quickly as my other cousins, but I dont mind. I always hit what I aimed at, mostly old Genny Cream Ale cans, even without the fancy scope.
I stumble down the ancient crooked staircase in my pj's. The kitchen is the original room of this farmhouse and is over 200 years old. It's full of cousins (i have 17 on the Steakbellie side) none of which like me very much. Grandma is a wonderful person, but a horrible cook. She's an enourmous women who loves to read, travel the world and laugh. Grandma like to gamble. She's burning eggs in rancid butter for breakfast and I take a gamble of my own and eat them anyway.
Hours later there are Eight of us in the Dodge Dart headed to the Bath County Fair. The underside of the car takes a beating as Grandma rockets down the gravel road. I stick my finger down a rust hole in the floorboards.
Grandma gives Shit for Brains five dollars for all of us to split for ride tickets and leaves us to visit friends. He and Sluggo are the oldest on this trip and decide to keep the money for themselves. They go looking for a place to buy cigarettes and let the rest of us tag along and watch them go on rides. I'm interested by a trailer that supposedly holds the body of a two headed monster. They pay for their siblings to go in, and I get to hear the descriptions when they come out.
We trudge over to the Grandstands hours later to watch the Demolition Derby. Some far removed Cousin/Uncle person has a station wagon entered in the competition. I've never met this guy before and I'm impressed that I'm related to someone in the contest. Surley he's famous.
Before the derby starts there is a man with a megaphone calling all of the kids out of the stands.
"Come on down kids and join our ice-cream eating contest! The first one finished gets ten dollars in fair tickets!"
Most of my cousins are smoking cigarettes and are too cool to embarrass themselves in the competition. I havent eaten anything all day and I sprint down into the crowd of kids surounding the folding tables. A woman is handing out styrofoam bowls of melting choclate icecream. I squeeze into an open table corner and am crowded by all of the teenagers and bigger kids vying for those tickets.
They are nearly out of icecream when I get my bowl. The announcer explains how we are not allowed to use spoons or our hands...we must shove our faces down into the icecream to eat it. I am exhilarated. I've seen pie eating contests on tv shows...surely this is something I could be good at.
"GOOOO!!!" The man yells into the Megaphone
I slam my face down into the bowl and instantly get a nose full of chocolate goo. I'm biting huge chunks off and swallowing without ever lifting my head more than an inch or two from the bowl. By the second bite my tongue and throat are freezing from eating too fast. I jam my face hardered down into the icecream trying to get a good angle for a bite. Hundreds of people are screaming and I am sure of victory. I am David amongst these Goliath teens. God made me to eat, and he wants me to win.
"We have our Winner!!!!" The megaphone barks...I'm only half done and I look two table over at the big fat kid with his arms in the air. His shirt is covered in brown icecream and it seems like the only white left on his face is his teeth and eyeballs.
I hate him.
People are trying to picky his sticky fat ass up.
I have an icecream headache.
They dont have napkins so I dejectedly wipe what goo I can on my shirt. I can feel the drying brown sticky residue on my neck as I head back to the bleachers.. My cousins didnt realize I had even left and now look at me some amusement but mostly disgust.
"Gross...."
I sit down in the hot sun and watch my anonymous uncle/cousin person get his station wagon destroyed and catch fire. The engine compartment is shooting flames and I'm holding my ears with sticky brown hands in case it explodes like on tv. The driver got out and somebody extinguished the stationwagon. It was green with fake wood sides and had 'Crusher' written in black spraypaint on it.
Later that night i would take a cold water bath and sit at the table and read to my Grandma from a book she bought just for me. 5 Short Stories about Dolphins.
After the sun went down we'd catch peepers in the driveway, and Sluggo would show me my first Playboy by flashlight.
"Shit, missed!"
Crack
"fuck, missed!"
I wake up to the unmistakable sound of a rifles going off and being rechambered. I'm groggy but the smell of gunpowder is like caffeine to my 8 year old body. I look over to the window and two of my older cousins are silloutted in the bright morning sunshine. They each have a rifle pointed out of the window in the direction of the barn. There's a dirty sock on my face.
Shit for Brains sees me staring at the sock.
"You were snoring so loud that Sluggo had to put that sock in your mouth"
I wipe my tongue with my hand and make a face. Sock Tongue.
"Did you hit them?" I ask, assuming they are trying to kill the woodchucks under the old barn.
"Nah"
I'm secretly releaved. I love guns but I cant imagine the thought of killing an animal. I dont tell them that because they'll tease me more, and I dont need that with this crowd.
Shit for Brains has a beautiful Winchester .22 caliber rifle. The stock is black to match the barrel and he has a scope on top of it. Shit for Brains couldnt hit the Barn itself let alone the Woodchuck. I covet his rifle, but he wont ever let me fire it...he says it's because I'm only Eight, but the real reason is that he's an asshole.
Shit for Brain's rifle has a long feeding tube that holds 16 bullets. It's a lever action rifle which means you pop a new bullet into the chamber by cocking the lever on the bottom, just like in the old cowboy movies. I lay back in bed and think about how cool it would be hunting down Viet Cong with that baby. It's kind of ironic considering my feelings for the woodchuck family eating the foundation of the barn.
I think about my own rifle that my father had given to me. I refinished the stock myself with a light cherry woodstain. I'm alway careful to clean it everytime we go shooting. The rifle was probably made in the 1940's and was a bolt action. We couldnt find a clip to fit it, so each round had to be loaded by hand into the barrel. I couldnt fire as quickly as my other cousins, but I dont mind. I always hit what I aimed at, mostly old Genny Cream Ale cans, even without the fancy scope.
I stumble down the ancient crooked staircase in my pj's. The kitchen is the original room of this farmhouse and is over 200 years old. It's full of cousins (i have 17 on the Steakbellie side) none of which like me very much. Grandma is a wonderful person, but a horrible cook. She's an enourmous women who loves to read, travel the world and laugh. Grandma like to gamble. She's burning eggs in rancid butter for breakfast and I take a gamble of my own and eat them anyway.
Hours later there are Eight of us in the Dodge Dart headed to the Bath County Fair. The underside of the car takes a beating as Grandma rockets down the gravel road. I stick my finger down a rust hole in the floorboards.
Grandma gives Shit for Brains five dollars for all of us to split for ride tickets and leaves us to visit friends. He and Sluggo are the oldest on this trip and decide to keep the money for themselves. They go looking for a place to buy cigarettes and let the rest of us tag along and watch them go on rides. I'm interested by a trailer that supposedly holds the body of a two headed monster. They pay for their siblings to go in, and I get to hear the descriptions when they come out.
We trudge over to the Grandstands hours later to watch the Demolition Derby. Some far removed Cousin/Uncle person has a station wagon entered in the competition. I've never met this guy before and I'm impressed that I'm related to someone in the contest. Surley he's famous.
Before the derby starts there is a man with a megaphone calling all of the kids out of the stands.
"Come on down kids and join our ice-cream eating contest! The first one finished gets ten dollars in fair tickets!"
Most of my cousins are smoking cigarettes and are too cool to embarrass themselves in the competition. I havent eaten anything all day and I sprint down into the crowd of kids surounding the folding tables. A woman is handing out styrofoam bowls of melting choclate icecream. I squeeze into an open table corner and am crowded by all of the teenagers and bigger kids vying for those tickets.
They are nearly out of icecream when I get my bowl. The announcer explains how we are not allowed to use spoons or our hands...we must shove our faces down into the icecream to eat it. I am exhilarated. I've seen pie eating contests on tv shows...surely this is something I could be good at.
"GOOOO!!!" The man yells into the Megaphone
I slam my face down into the bowl and instantly get a nose full of chocolate goo. I'm biting huge chunks off and swallowing without ever lifting my head more than an inch or two from the bowl. By the second bite my tongue and throat are freezing from eating too fast. I jam my face hardered down into the icecream trying to get a good angle for a bite. Hundreds of people are screaming and I am sure of victory. I am David amongst these Goliath teens. God made me to eat, and he wants me to win.
"We have our Winner!!!!" The megaphone barks...I'm only half done and I look two table over at the big fat kid with his arms in the air. His shirt is covered in brown icecream and it seems like the only white left on his face is his teeth and eyeballs.
I hate him.
People are trying to picky his sticky fat ass up.
I have an icecream headache.
They dont have napkins so I dejectedly wipe what goo I can on my shirt. I can feel the drying brown sticky residue on my neck as I head back to the bleachers.. My cousins didnt realize I had even left and now look at me some amusement but mostly disgust.
"Gross...."
I sit down in the hot sun and watch my anonymous uncle/cousin person get his station wagon destroyed and catch fire. The engine compartment is shooting flames and I'm holding my ears with sticky brown hands in case it explodes like on tv. The driver got out and somebody extinguished the stationwagon. It was green with fake wood sides and had 'Crusher' written in black spraypaint on it.
Later that night i would take a cold water bath and sit at the table and read to my Grandma from a book she bought just for me. 5 Short Stories about Dolphins.
After the sun went down we'd catch peepers in the driveway, and Sluggo would show me my first Playboy by flashlight.
5 comments:
That's one of the best posts I've read in a long time. It made me homesick, somehow... (None of my cousins lived nearby, so I was pretty much alone on the farm, but I've had many childhood days spent with goo on my face and people laughing at me. The few times they did let my older cousins out for a day or two they didn't have much to do with me. When I was a kid I had an old .410 shotgun that belonged to Grampa. I had access to an ancient .22, but for obvious reasons the rest of Pop's armory was pretty much off-limits until my age had two numbers in it.)
Well written. It makes me wonder how any of us survive to adulthood. In an odd twist, I once owned a 1964 Dodge Dart. It had a pushbutton transmission. Neat!
Did you ever reconcile with your older cousins? Are they still "that way?" Or did they grow up, too?
i only have 1 cousin I talk to. Most of the rest I wrote off years and years ago, and I get news of their lives through my Dad.
I didnt grow up near them, so I didnt see them as much as they saw each other growing up. When I was around I was one of the younger ones, and they didnt want me to know anything for fear I would tell.
This particular story happened at my Grandma's farm one summer I spent some time up there.
I was really hoping you were going to say you'd won! I think the big fat kid cheated - smearing ice cream all over your shirt shouldn't count. It's such a conflicting existence up at Grandma's - take out all the horrible cousin stuff, and it sounds grandparent-perfect. Read only the cousin stuff, and it sounds horribly lonely and sad - Lord of the Flies kind of stuff. I got the conch.
Oh my gosh I loved that story! I could almost see it :) Awesome.
great story, even though your cousins are f**kers. Your tale makes ME hate people too.
Sluggo seems okay,since he was willing to share porn.
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