Knight of Converse

Knight of Converse - Chapter three

“My baby was in an accident?!” She turned around and gripped me to her chest. Thank God my face was turned away to conceal my grin. Thank you mother for unintentionally bailing me out! I was going to milk this story as well as I could.

I sniffed dramatically. “I was… I uh, was at the junk yard and those machine things…and oh God momma it was it was horrible!”

She stroked my hair and kissed my head then whipped around and glared at dad. I almost let out my snicker. This was one of the rare times that I could physically sense her dormant Irish red-head fury. “Christopher how could you be so insensitive?!”

And so my freedom begins.

Dad gave her an incredulous look. “She—I—she didn’t—I…!” he stumbled over his words as his worked up fury began to diminish with fear. Oh yes, dad was terrified of mom when she was angry. It was almost too funny to watch.

“You just shout at her without question?! We live in a state of democracy dammit! Everyone is innocent until proven guilty!” She hissed at him. “Is this the kind of behavior you want to exhibit in front of our only child? Christopher you need to change up your attitude!” The words were like bullets in her Irish accent which grew even more elaborate with the heat of her words.

It was dusty, temperature humid, stuffy even. Mom’s shiny silver spurs clinked and spun with every step that she took. She chewed on her piece of straw then removed her cowboy hat, taking out the nine inch revolver that was hidden in the red curly wild beast she called hair, and tucked in securely into her holster.

She stopped. Listening carefully to the clinks of Dad’s spurs. Rusty. 

Dad stopped and spat out the piece of tobacco he was chewing on. They faced. Eye to eye, they stared each other out.  Well it was more looking up for mom because she was almost a foot shorter.

Mom’s hand twitched on her gun. An old west tune belted away. Tumble weed rolled past and a big bead of sweat rolled down her pink cheek.

Bang!

She shot dad down and dramatically blew the smoke from her pistol.

The score was settled. Mom: 1. Dad: 0.

(Note to self: Don’t go to sleep with old cowboy movies playing on TV.)

Dad looked down sheepishly and scratched his neck. A common trait we shared signifying embarrassment. I had won. I felt like this was the moment to be jumping up and down in slow motion. But of course I wasn’t going to do that. It literally was impossible anyway.

Mum huffed and strutted back inside leaving dad outside glaring at me. He narrowed his eyes at me. “I don’t believe a single word.”

I smirked. “You don’t have to. I have mom on my side.”

“What did you actually do to this car?”

I stuck my tongue out at him. “You heard mom, I was in an accident!”

He gave me a dirty look. “Lying brat.”

“Jerk.”

“You know I can still ground you right?”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“You’re grounded for two weeks.”

The ego boost and early morning blonde-brain mode must have scrambled up my mind. What was I thinking?! “No, dad I was kidding!”

“Same. I was just messing with ya.” He responded with a smile. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Really?” I asked.