Burning Garbage Read online

  I gasped as Syd elbowed me squarely in the ribs. “Wow! Did you see that!” she exclaimed excitedly as the chimpanzee expertly squeezed past the giraffe’s long legs and ran back into the building. “Now that was a great hat!”

  One Fish

  Joey and his friend Mikey came into his Grandma Ellen’s house to play. She finished washing dishes and wiped her hands on a dishtowel, then smiled at Mikey and ruffled Joey’s hair. “Does my little fella want something to eat?”

  “I want a hot dog—one meat, two breads, ketchup—that’s all. And cheese macaroni.” Joey piped up.

  “Me too!” Mikey said as a rapid flash of color on the kitchen counter caught his attention. He walked across the kitchen to where Joey’s fish bowl was sitting, and rested his chin on the counter as he stared into the water and watched the two fancy guppies swim in and around a pink and green castle.

  Joey moved away from Grandma Ellen, stood beside Mikey and told him about his fish. “The yellow fish is Charley an’ the blue fish is Bluey. They’re guppies not goldfish even if Charley is yellow an’ they live in a goldfish bowl.”

  Mikey tapped the glass and the fish darted to the far side of the bowl. “We don’t have fish in my house—but my dog is yellow.”

  They leaned against the counter and stared into the fish bowl as Grandma Ellen fried hot dogs. Joey continued, “I have a cat too, an’ I used to have three fish, but one jumped out.”

  Watching as the two guppies darted around the circumference of the bowl, Mikey asked, “Which one?”

  Weapons of Mass Destruction

  Smith descended the rugged stone staircase cautiously, the slingshot in his left hand poised and ready for action. He checked the tan deerskin weapons pouch at his side to see if he had sufficient ammunition for his quest. He would have to be very careful as he journeyed through the wilds to the Sanctuary of Fate, for there would be many dangers on the way.

  After safely reaching the base of the stairs and determining that the coast was clear, he called quietly for his trusty sidekick to join him. Within seconds, Bandana Brown stood at his side, her sun-kissed hair blowing slightly in the breeze. He lightly caressed her shoulder as she glanced up at him, the look of understanding passing between them needing no words.

  Smith was glad to have her company in his quest to get to the Orb of Destiny before the dastardly villain, Snake Pitt. Cautiously the pair slowly advanced into the unknown wilderness, keeping a wary eye on their surroundings. They followed a faint path through the jungle, hacking their way through the dense growth with a machete that was rapidly growing dull. Smith worked steadily, unaware he was being watched.

  Just over the rise, Snake Pitt peered through his binoculars to determine the route Smith was taking. Satisfied, he put them inside his shirt and pulled his hat down over his eyes. He knew where Smith and Brown were headed and intended to get there first. Pitt took a long pull of water from his dented tin canteen and wiped his mouth with his fist. He screwed the cap on and slung the strap over his shoulder.

  He made an attempt earlier that day to travel the path through the jungle Smith and his companion were hiking. The forest along the mountain range to his right was not as heavy as the jungle, so he determined that the rocky path at the base of the mountain was a better choice. “I expect I’ll make better time this way,” he thought. “I’ll head Smith and Brown off at the pass an’ they won’t know what hit ‘em.”

  “Bandana, check this out!” Smith indicated a boot-print on the ground. Bandana pointed to an object in the high grass a stone’s throw from the boot-print. Smith nudged it with his boot then cautiously picked it up. He held the object up for Bandana to see. “It’s dynamite, Bandana.” He waved the stick and the fuse swayed back and forth. “It’s still good, so maybe it’ll come in handy later,” he told her as he placed it in the weapons pouch with the other ammo. “Keep a sharp eye out Bandana—Pitt’s definitely nearby.”

  Meanwhile, Snake had succeeded in drawing closer to the pair undetected, and watched them from his higher position. He took a grenade from the small box he carried and lightly tossed it up and caught it a couple of times, threw back his arm, and took his aim. “Aayaahhh!” he screamed as he heaved it hard towards Smith and Brown. It hit the ground in front of Bandana, exploding on impact. She lept back quickly and avoided the liquid that flew out from the center of the blast.

  “Acid Grenades! Watch out Bandana—don’t let them touch you!” Smith pulled Bandana in a wide arc around the strike zone. He reached in his bag, drew out the dynamite stick, lit it and hurled it in the direction he last saw Pitt. Smith and Bandana hunkered down for a few moments until the blast subsided, then cautiously peered up.

  Snake Pitt stood tall on the edge of the crater left by the blast. “Smith! Banana Smith! You’ll never get to the Sanctuary of Fate to get the Orb of Destiny before me, so give up now, and maybe I’ll let your friend go!” Pitt stood with another acid grenade poised ready in his hand, teasingly tossing it up and catching it.

  Smith rolled into the tall brush, reached into his ammo pack, loaded a poison pellet onto the sling-shot’s pouch, aimed, pulled back the strap and let it fly. The missile hit Pitt on the upper arm. He fell back with a scream of agony, and brushed the white powdery poison that coated the projectile from off his skin.

  “Ha! That’ll slow him down!” Banana Smith laughed triumphantly as he and Bandana Brown raced through the jungle towards the Sanctuary of Fate, fighting off fierce beasts and dodging pits of quicksand. When they reached the river, they saw to their dismay that Snake Pitt was already across and ascending the ladder to the Sanctuary. He quickly reached the platform and held the Orb high above his head. “Banana Smith! I am the owner of the Orb of Destiny! You’re too late!” Snake did a victory dance on the platform.

  Ben tore his hat from his head, threw it on the ground and stamped his foot in anger. “Sam! You’re supposed to be Snake Pitt the bad guy! I’m Banana Smith the good guy! I’m supposed to win, and it’s my basketball!” Bandana Brown plopped down in the grass, shaking her head violently until the handkerchief around her neck loosened. She pulled it off with her teeth and started chewing on it. “Brownie!” Ben yelled with exasperation. “Don’t eat the costumes!” He pulled the red and white cloth from his dog’s mouth. She got up and stuck her nose in the pouch at Ben’s side. He pushed her away and shook the dirt from the bandana. She whined and wagged her tail.

  “Sam!” Startled, Sam dropped the basketball and looked to his house next-door. The ball bounced down onto the ground away from the tree house and into the yard. Brownie chased after it. “Sam, five minutes till supper’s ready!” Sam’s Mother called from their kitchen window.

  “Okay Ma! Be there in a few minutes!” Sam climbed down the ladder as Ben retrieved the basketball. “Anyways, you always get ta be the good guy—I wanna win sometimes,” Sam said as he reached the bottom of the ladder. “Besides, you can win next time—but I wanna be Snake Pitt again.”

  Ben threw his basketball up into the tree house and checked inside his pouch. “I’m gonna have ta find summore ammo anyway. I only had two dynamites and Brownie ate most of the poison pellets for the sling-shot—but that’s okay, there’s more in the cupboard.”

  “BENJAMIN!” The two boys heard Ben’s Mom yell from the kitchen door, her voice tinged with a touch of anger and exasperation.

  Sam looked towards Ben’s house, quickly turned to Ben and said, “Gotta-go-bye!” as he ran through a narrow opening in the hedge between the two houses.

  “BENJAMIN!” Madelyn Smith came out onto the back porch, a Wal-Mart bag dangling from her hand. She yelled across the backyard, “Ben! Why is all my stuff in this bag! And where is my purse!”

  Ben grabbed the pouch and ran to the house, a big grin on his face. “Mom!” he called excitedly, “This is the best ammo pouch ever! And it had dynamites in it already!”

  Madelyn’s eyes widened when she saw that his “ammo pouch” was, in fact, her new LL Bean purse, and
she guessed what the “dynamites” might be. She turned around and quickly scanned the kitchen. Under the table were a few tell-tale crumpled paper wrappers. She gasped and took the purse from him. “Oh, honey, I wish you would have asked me.” She took his sticky hands in her own. “I have some old purses lying around that would make much better ammo pouches than this.” She tossed her purse on the table.

  Madelyn steered him towards the doorway as she wiped her hand on her faded blue jeans. “Now you go wash up while I find us some dinner.” She waited until she heard the water running in the bathroom, then picked up the Wal-Mart bag and her purse from the kitchen table. She reached her hand into the purse then drew it back suddenly as she squealed in surprise. She had touched something cold, sticky and slimy. Cautiously she peeked into the purse, then fully opened it and groaned with dismay. “Oh come on, Ben! Marshmallows?”

  Silver Spoon

  “She told us to sit wherever we wanted, so we sat at the counter.”

  “Who told you to sit anywhere?” Renee asked as she put the last dish in the drainer.

  “The waitress, Madge. You know, like the lady in the old Palmolive commercials.”

  “I don’t remember any commercials about those. What are palm olives anyway? One of the gourmet kinds like they have at that fancy grocery store that we never go to?” She turned off the water faucet.

  “One word. Palmolive. It's a brand of dishwashing liquid.”

  “How appropriate.” Renee dried her hands. “But, really a dumb name.” She sat at the kitchen table. “What about this place again?”

  “Oh yeah, I got side-tracked. We had coffee while we waited for our order.”

  “What did you have?”

  “Eggs.”

  She looked up at me. “Weren’t you were there at night?”

  “We were, but we just ordered eggs because the place was filled with taxidermy animals.”

  “Gross.”

  “You said it. I swear a squirrel winked at me. It freaked me out, but John just laughed.”

  “What a sweetheart. Where were you guys again? She picked up a mug. "Coffee?”

  “Yes, thanks. The town was called Deerkill. Have you ever heard of such a place? The restaurant was Whitetail Diner, which makes sense, I suppose. But, I didn’t see any deer tails, just heads.”

  “If it was so bad, why did you eat there?” Renee filled their cups.

  “It was late and there wasn’t anywhere else open.”

  Renee added milk and Splenda to her cup, then stirred it around and around. She held up the spoon. “This is my favorite spoon.”

  “Okaaay. Well. The cook was a Priest or something. He told us he took a vow to serve the masses and the masses were sparse, so he’s also serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

  “That’s nice. Was Madge a Nun?” Renee left her spoon in her cup.

  “No, just a waitress, but she was wearing a cross around her neck that was so big I thought she was going to fall over.”

  Renee fingered the chain around her neck. She pulled it out from under her sweater. “I ordered this one from a TV commercial.” The rhinestone cross was huge.

  “It’s lovely, really. Anyway, after Madge brought our plates out we heard the Priest yelling all kinds of stuff like, Great Caesar’s Ghost! Oh my good golly gosh! Bless the good Lord! What hath God wrought? It’s a miracle! And he kept calling for Madge. I thought maybe he was having a heart attack or something.”

  Renee looked up from her coffee cup. “Did he?”

  “No, he was yelling about the frying pan.”

  “Oh. He got burnt then?”

  “No.”

  “He dropped it on his foot?”

  “No, listen, I’m trying to tell you. He scared Madge and she dropped the coffee pot and it broke all over the counter and she had coffee all down her dress and on her necklace. She was none too happy.”

  “I’ll bet. So what about the frying pan?”

  “Well, he came out from the kitchen holding the pan and showed us a burnt image on the inside of it. Madge went all churchy and they both said it was an image of Jesus in the pan!”

  Renee smiled, pulled her spoon from her cup and held it up. “You mean an image of Jesus like this one?” She indicated a faint face-like image on the outside curve of her tarnished silver spoon.

  Trespassers

  “We can’t go that way, man! Old man Jenkins’ll get the shotgun out!” Kyle yelled as he brought his 4-wheeler to a screeching halt. He pulled his helmet off his head and looked expectantly at his friend.

  “Come on!” Stefan revved his engine and his powerful dark blue machine lept forward through the old cornfield, the 4-wheeler streaking past the "No Trespassing" signs. He squinted against the wind in his eyes as his long greasy hair whipped around his bare head.

  “Stupid idiot.” Kyle muttered under his breath as he slicked back his hair, jammed his helmet on his head, then took off after his friend, already out of sight over the crest of the hill.

  Stefan put his engine at full-throttle, the machine powering through the tall weeds. At the edge of Jenkins’ property, he aimed the 4-wheeler at a small rise on the rim of his view. He happily anticipated some air time as the shiny blue vehicle hit a pile of debris buried in the tall grass and flew up into the air, sending bald tires bouncing down the hill.

  Stefan’s head hit the steel handlebars with a sickening crunch. The 4-wheeler flipped through the air as his body flew end-over-end and landed in the pond on the other side of the rise. The 4-wheeler tumbled down the bank and rolled into the water, its weight settling on Stefan’s body, pinning him to the bottom of the shallow pond.

  “Where’d that idiot go?” Kyle wondered as he hit his accelerator and steered his 4-wheeler through the old cornfield, searching for his friend. He stopped at the top of the hill and surveyed Jenkins’ property. Stefan’s 4-wheeler was already out of sight. “He must’ve gone into the junkyard,” he sighed as he glanced at the rippling drainage pond, then to a probable opening into the maze of the junkyard. “I hope that crazy old man’s not home,” he thought as he revved his engine and entered the maze.

  In the pond, Stefan’s eyes stared, a surprised expression on his broken, gaping face. The sunlight shone weakly through the murky, blood-tinged water. A few air bubbles escaped his lungs, rose up and broke on the pond’s surface as a painted turtle pulled its armored body out of the water and onto a rock. It turned its head and stared blinking into the sun.

  Overlooked

  The woman had been standing at the same spot for approximately 27 minutes. She stood staring into the deep, roiling, troubled waters of the river. Brad and Evan crossed the bridge twice during that time. The second time they passed her; they paused and stood behind her for a few minutes before they continued walking. She didn’t pay any attention to them.

  Once they walked across the bridge, Brad zipped up his jacket and clapped Evan on the back. “I’m tired a walkin’. Let’s go down on that bench and sit awhile.” He pointed over to the far side of the river.

  “Okay, man. Whatever.” The pair passed the woman for the third time as they crossed back over the bridge and walked down along the riverbank. A short distance from the bridge was a bench sitting under some trees. It faced the river with a beautiful view of the bridge spanning the wide waterway. Across the river was a man-made beach and shaded picnic area, empty on that cool, overcast day.

  The two men sat down, prepared for their vigil. Evan passed Brad a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. The striking view was wasted on the two men. They had other priorities.

  “Come on, gimmee back Jose.” Evan grabbed the bottle away from Brad, took a long pull, and belched loudly. He started singing, “Jose Cuervo, you are a friend a mine—”

  Brad shoved him. “Shut up, you idiot. You’re supposed to be watching.”

  Evan straightened, hiccupped, and cleared his throat. He put on his Ray-Bans and squinted up at the bridge. “She’s still up there—the bet still on
?”

  Brad glanced away from the figure on the bridge and checked his Rolex. “Yep.” He yawned, raising his clasped hands over his head and stretched, arching his back, then leaned forward. “Yep. She jumps before 7:30, you owe me a new bottle.”

  Imagine That

  It started the day before yesterday. Or the day before that. At least, that’s when I think I first seen ‘im. I dunno. It’s hard ta remember—time is a funny thing, you know? Anyways, he was outside a door paintin’ a picture. I noticed ‘cause he was paintin’ it with his hands, just throwin’ the paint on an’ scrumblin’ it around with his fingers. I called it “scrumblin” ‘cause I don’t know how else ta describe it. Sounded like a good word ta me.

  Anyways, I was watchin’ ‘im paint, you know, an’ he looked up an’ noticed me, an’ asked if he could re-animate Puffy! Re-animate Puffy! Can you imagine that? I couldn’t believe my ears! Puffy was my cat an’ she died a few years back, so, of course, I told him NO. Then I left. I think he kept paintin’. I don’t even remember what he was paintin’ a picture of—I was so riled up about Puffy. She was a good cat, you know?

  The next time I saw ‘im outside the door, I looked inta the room. It was just a plain square white room, an’ it had a few boxes or milk crates or somethin’ in it. An’ a big pile a ratty old newspapers an’ magazines. I guess he liked ta read. I didn’t see no chairs or bed or nothin’ else. But I did notice he was wearin’ clogs. Orange ones. You know, the plastic kind with the holes in ‘em, like some doctors an’ nurses wear? But he was wearin’ ‘em with white sox with stripes on the top. I thought that was kinda funny. ‘Specially since his sweat pants was short. It just looked funny ta me. But he didn’t ask me if he could reanimate Puffy that time. I was glad. It woulda been awkward.

  That time when I saw ‘im I gave ‘im a plastic bracelet. I don’t know why. I thought it was ugly, all red an’ yellow—but not a pretty red an’ yellow, just a plasticky kind a red and yellow. And stretchy. I don’t like the stretchy ones, they pinch my wrists, an’ I don’t like that. So then he gave me a pair a magnifyin’ glasses. Not one magnifyin’ glass with a handle, you know, but an actual pair a glasses that magnify. He probly knows my eyes ain’t real good. But them glasses was funny, you know? They had glass different sizes, an’ one was thicker than the other. Ain’t much good for seein’ if ya ask me.