Deamons

Chapter 21 Nickel Bag part 1

Nickel Bag

The weather is breaking. The Sun marching back up north warms the hemisphere. Usually the renewal of nature; the birth of so much brought happy energy to Starke. He cannot quite get up the same now. What is the use. They took away his material stuff and he can live with that. He dug up all pants he had outgrown and his parents forget about and cut them off to make shorts. He borrows t-shirts from his friends all so they clique girls will not call him dirty. So, he is getting by. Unfortunately, the material is not all they took. They stole his belief that his life could get better. They took his self-worth. Any feeling of being loved by his family or friends. He did not know how much the attention he had received at school lifted him up until he lost it. Now he is worse for the experience. The knowing what you do not have makes the not having much worse.

He slept late. It is Saturday. He looks out the window and sees his father is gone. No one is stirring above which is good. He slips up the steps. No snoring, maybe she left with his father, he thinks. He slides down to his parent's bedroom, the door is closed. He listens. Not a sound. Should he do it? Take the chance and open the door. He does. Slowly in fear the whole time of her being in there and what she might do if he wakes her. He peeks in she is gone. "Thank you, God," he says.

He can eat in peace but he cannot leave a trace. He finds some old caramel wraps for making caramel apples that were long forgotten. He scarfs them up washing them down with big swigs of milk right out of the gallon. Then he goes to the closet. Something tells him to look through the coat pockets. Folding money in his mother's favorite coat. He grabs it all and runs down to his room. The thought that they will come through the door is nagging at him. He can picture them going right to the closet to look for the money and blowing up when it is gone. Then he thinks about returning it and pictures them catching him in the pocket. The thoughts race around in his head like a dog chasing its tale. Return the money, get caught returning it. He decides he has to get out of the house before they get home.

Starke throws on his clothes and shoes and shoots out the door. He runs down to his friend John's house. Jeff's fancy red car is there. Oh boy, oh boy Starke thinks. His skin tingles. He is nervous and excited, similar but different emotions. It is like they are fighting. Which one will win out.

He finds John and can see he is in goofy mood. Normally this would be great. Starke has a goofy mood as well, but not today. He cannot go turtle hunting today or for the lost treasure of Blackbeard. Starke needs to stick around the house for Jeff to get back from work. What to do? What to do? It is warm out again but there could be a day or two of cold, he is mulling through the birth of an idea. He is at the back of John's house looking several feet away toward the pool. The pool, the picture of summer-ness. But it is not time for that. Not warm enough yet that is a good two months away. Before him is grass looking like a rice patty with a few inches of stagnant water pooled up. It stinks. John comes barreling out into the birth of an idea.

"Come on let's go fishing down the creek," John says. "The fish aren't going to bite. They are out in the deeper water still," Starke says. "Look let's stick around here I have an idea."

The next two hours they fill a trashcan with every foul-smelling thing they can find in the yard. They call it summer time air. It is supposed to bring their spirits up when they are down with the doldrums of winter. John loves it and it keeps him there at his house. Then Johns father's work vehicle rolls in with Jeff in the passenger seat.

"Let's go see Jeff," Starke says. "Nah, man we have something good here," John says. He is stirring the gallons of sludge with a wooden oar happily. The smell wafts up, a jab of stench followed by a wallop of a punch as the vile succulence hits your nose. Starke coughs. It feels like the summer time air has hit its peak. "Stop stirring that shit man. It needs to stew now like a pot on the stove under low heart, bro," Starke says. John's mother comes out the back door. "Oh lawd, John what is that? Smells like a dog ate cow dung and threw it up," she says. She holds her nose and peers into the trashcan of sludge. "John!" she screeches. She caught the right hook of stench.