Spirits and Demons

Teenage Years

                                                          Part Thirty Five

  Tony Kramer was another guy that lived close by. He and Jimmy Don became fast friends and everyone in the neighborhood soon discovered they were the only ones on drugs. Cale followed suit and the three of them ran around together, staying far away from everybody. Mike was walking to Bubba's house and on the way he ran into a guy holding a shotgun standing in front of Tony's house. Junior Frost related he was waiting on Tony to come outside so he could kill him for something Tony had done to him. Junior was drunk, so drunk he was leaning on his shotgun to help him stand. Ricky, Ronny, Tommy, and Kathy were walking a block behind Mike and something had to be done fast. Mike had no idea if Junior was mentally unstable or not, he only knew he didn't want to take the chance of any of his siblings being shot or anyone else for that matter. Waiting for Junior to blink his eyes, Mike snatched the shotgun away from Junior and smashed it in half against a telephone pole nearby. He unloaded the shells and threw the two broken halves on the ground near Junior where he had fallen. Walking away, Mike could hear Junior cursing him all the way down the street. Randy was another matter, he had it in his mind he was a kung fu artist since he watched Bruce Lee movies all the time. Mike and his siblings stopped by to check out Randy's turtles and overheard Randy in the woods making all kinds of crazy karate sounds. Randy had shot and killed a sparrow with his bb gun, pushed his fingers into the dead bird's body and pulled it's heart out and ate it. It was the most ridiculous thing Mike and his siblings had ever seen anyone do. They'll never forget seeing Randy take off running, screaming wildly through the woods with a crazy look in his eyes and the bird's entrails hanging out the edge of his mouth with blood running all over his face and neck. Mike caught up with Randy later that day and asked him why he'd do such a crazy thing and Randy replied eating the bird's heart gave him immortal, kung fu powers. Mike took it in stride and thought to himself what would the next crazy person he'd meet do.

  The Jackson's lived two blocks away, Bill Jackson, his live-in model girlfriend Mary, and his two sons Rusty and Mike. Bill was in the waterbed business which was booming at the time. He leased a small office building from Carl and built waterbed frames there. Bill paid good, Jimmy Don, Mike, and Cale could barely keep up demand sales were so brisk. On Saturdays alone, they'd drive and set-up fifteen to twenty waterbeds for the customers. Taking a work break, Bill would take all of them to his house for lunch and lemonade. Mary was always barely dressed and she took great pleasure making lunch for everyone while wearing her see through lingerie. Life was good for a change, Mike saved most of his earnings while Jimmy Don and Cale spent all of theirs on drugs.

  Virginia hired a barmaid named Judy and since Judy had four children and was homeless, she rented a house from Carl for herself and her four children. Judy had a brother move in to babysit her kids while she worked late evenings and nights at the bar which was located a stone's throw from Carl's house. Judy called from the bar and Mike answered the phone. She asked Mike to take a message to her brother for him to come by the bar and get some money to purchase supper for her kids. Mike went and knocked on the door and there was no answer, the door was wide open so he stuck his head inside to holler at Judy's brother about the message she sent. What Mike saw made his stomach sick, Judy's brother lay naked on the living room couch with all four of her sons naked with him. The young boys had tears in their eyes, Mike left and went home wondering what to do. He asked a neighbor if they'd knock on the door and tell Judy's brother there is an emergency phone call for him and to come and take the call at Carl's house. Mike stood on the porch waiting for the child molester to walk up the steps and when he reached the top step, Mike reared back and hit Judy's brother with all of his strength, knocking him off of the steps and onto the ground. Judy's brother screamed he was going to get a knife and he walked down to the bar to use the phone to call the sheriff's department to come and areest Mike for assault. Within thirty minutes a deputy arrived to see what was going on and to sort out the matter. First the deputy talked with Judy's brother, then came over to talk with Mike. Mike related to the deputy he'd seen the guy molesting his four nephews and the deputy said nothing could be done about it unless Judy would press charges against her brother. She refused to press charges and the deputy put Mike in his patrol car and related to him that he could be placed in the Louisiana Training Institute for boys since he'd hit the molester. The deputy sided with Mike though nothing could be done since Judy refused to press charges so the deputy left warning Mike to not hit Judy's brother anymore or he'd have to take him in.  Mike received a migraine headache from all the confusion and was to learn later about Judy's brother ending up dying in jail from aids later in the year. The ex-cons in jail had named him Trixie. Mike pondered how justice comes in mysterious ways.