Secret Rebellion

Jason laid his outfit on the bed: a tan two-button Hugo Boss suit, a sky-blue Brooks Brothers dress shirt, a navy tie and brown Florsheim Welles Oxford shoes. He tossed a pair of brown socks and a tank undershirt next to them.

Jason was not a man of means, but he knew how to dress a notch above his station in life. It had been ingrained in him. His mother demanded order, tucking and primping and tying up the freedom and chaos of his childhood into a neat, presentable package each day.

Now well into his 30’s, he still looked sharp. It was certainly his mother’s look … almost.

Jason opened his underwear drawer. It was brimming with color, wild designs, fire and ice. It looked like a clown had stumbled into his bedroom and vomited in his dresser after a night of drowning happiness in mango mojitos.

He selected a fuzzy beige banana-hammock with lolling blue eyeballs on each side and floppy ears sewn into the side straps. Jason shivered and smiled as he pulled it up over his thighs.

He put on his suit, tied his shoes and straightened his tie. And as he walked out the door, Jason wished what he always wished to start his day: Please let me get hit by a bus and have to go to the hospital.

Her Neighborhood

Evelyn stirred the lemon wedge in her iced tea and watched through the window from her wheelchair. The dewy glass left her fingers damp. She wiped them on her dress.

It was hard to superimpose her childhood memories over the neighborhood today. She closed her eyes and pictured Betty skipping rope on the sidewalk across the street.

I went downtown To see Ms. Brown, She gave me a nickel To buy a pickle, The pickle was sour, So I bought a flower. ...

Evelyn opened her eyes, and three teens sat on the steps where Betty had lived. They passed around an amber bottle and catcalled at passerbys. One bent to pick up a chunk of asphalt. He hurled it - hard - at a group huddled on the curb below her window.

His aim was poor: It sailed wide and slammed into the apartment next door.

First Kill

Joe had visited the pawn shop every day that summer to make sure it was still there. He had done extra chores at home, odd jobs for the neighbors, mowed every lawn in a one-mile radius of his house.

Now it was his. He sat on his bed and ran his hand along the polished blue metal barrel. Finally. The Remington 1187 Upland Special. He fingered the swirling leaves engraved on the stock.

“Freaking awesome.”

His mother had forbid him from doing anything but look at it within the town limits, but she promised they would visit Uncle Steve’s farm that weekend.

Thursday and Friday crept by heartbeat by agonizing heartbeat. At 6:30 a.m. Saturday he was dressed and ready, two hours before the rest of his family finished breakfast.

As they pulled into Steve’s driveway, Joe bolted from the car, brandishing his shotgun above his head. He met Steve at the porch.

“Hey! Whoa! What you got there? Lemmie take a look at that.” Steve grinned and turned the weapon over in his hands. He looked down the barrel. “Pow!” He shot an imaginary bird out of the sky.