.....Doc Taylor saw Wolfe out to his car and declined a ride.
.....“Sun’s going down soon,” he observed. “And I like watching it from over in the park.”
.....He watched the Valiant turn off towards the high school and started off walking in the opposite direction. He moved the sidewalk beneath him at a leisurely pace, falling into just one more of his many daily rituals.
.....He may be nothing more than a barfly, as some of more purple-nosed members of the community were prone to whispering, but he put more into his day than most folks half his age. And they sure as hell didn’t have any problems with his lifestyle when it came around to having him salve their bunions or refill empty bottles of Zoloft.
.....One hell of a lifestyle, that was.
.....Although the parts where he wasn’t handling some harpy’s gnarly foot were pleasant enough. The Teapot Cafe was a nice oasis and Tanya and her crew were more than pleasant enough company.
.....He found that he had the park to himself, no competition for bench space. Prime territory for the time of day, he settled into one facing the west.
.....The sun begin to settle behind the roof of the American Security Bank, and Doc sighed his pleasure. Small town life may be boring, but boring was a relief after some of the bullshit things that he’d seen in nearly a century of kicking around.
.....He turned his attention to the sound of a skateboard eating up the sidewalk and watched as the Ziegler boy rolled up. As he neared the bench the boy dismounted and kicked the board up, catching it adeptly and tucking it under his arm. He nodded towards the empty end of the bench.
.....“You mind, Doc?” he asked.
.....“That’s why they call it a park,” Doc replied. “Park it.”
.....The boy sat down and they watched the sun slowly settle behind the skyline, the process observed in silence. As the twilight grew comfortable and the street lights began to hum and flicker on, the crickets began to speak.
.....Finally, Mike eyed the doctor cautiously.
.....“You mind if I ask you a personal question?”
.....“As they say, depends on how personal.” Doc retorted. He suspected that the boy had something weighing heavy on him, and probably just needed someone to talk to that wouldn’t give him any grief about it.
.....“Why do you keep hanging around this place, Doc?” the boy finally asked, breaking the silence.
.....“Why shouldn’t I?” replied the doctor, looking around and then following with his gaze a shapely pair of calves that carried a package of Harding fireball down the sidewalk. “It’s quiet, the view is...”
.....“I mean Harding.”
.....“Again, why shouldn’t I?” Doc cocked an eyebrow. “You in some hurry to see me movin’ on?”
.....“Well...” Mike wasn’t sure how to politely phrase his question. “I mean, you’re the only black in town. Doesn’t that get weird?”
.....“Well now, there’s that Scott boy...”
.....“He doesn’t count.” Mike smiled, for the first time that day. Perhaps even days. “Although it’d be fun to see how Original Gangsta’ he’d be if someone were to drop him off in Compton or South Central for a few days.”
.....They shared a laugh and Doc considered the question, not wanting to give the kid another glib response.
.....“Well, my sister Abigail spent the last thirty-some years of her life being that one black person in this town,” he finally offered. “When she died, guess I inherited the responsibility along with the house and her Lexus.”
.....“What responsibility?”
.....“Look, son.” Doc explained. “Wyoming only has one black person for every one hundred white folk, right?”
.....“I suppose... it definitely seems that way.” Mike had never really thought about it, but it sounded right. Maybe it was even kind of a high reckoning.
.....“So, usually the only black folk they ever really see is what’s shown on the television; rapists and drive-by shooters on the news, sex-crazed players on the comedies, and drug-dealin’ gangsters on the video channels.” Doc shook his head. “That ain’t what we’re all about and I figure now it’s my calling to remind folks hereabouts of that.”
.....“How so?”
.....“By just being me.”
.....“So you’re an Original One-percenter?”
.....“Word.”
.....Mike smiled again and Doc wondered just how often the boy indulged looking happy. Not often, by the sound of it. He was curious about the oddest things... it sounded as if he was spending a little too much quiet time in his own head.
.....“So what's really on your mind, son?”
.....The boy gave it some more thought.
.....“It’s just getting weird here.” Mike finally replied. “No one seems to want to be who they are anymore. Like Scot T... he pronounces it like that now, y’know? ‘Scott-Tee.’ Used to be just Scotty, back when we were...when we used to get along. Now he’s a jock and hanging with the jocks and still he’s looking to be something he isn’t.”
.....Doc leaned back and let the boy get to what he was getting to, even if it turned out there wasn’t anything there.
.....“It’s not just him, you see it on the TV all the time.” Mike mused. “There’s that Paris Hilton chick. She was born with all the money in the world, could have been anything she wanted to be... but it seems all she wants to be is white trash.
.....“I see what you mean.” Doc laughed. “I’d be surprised if that girl doesn’t have real pink flamingos with their feet stapled to her lawn and a Rolls Royce up on blocks.”
.....“Yeah, but what’s messed up about it that all the girls at school seem like they want to be like her, dress like her, act like her...it’s kinda creepy.”
.....Doc paused at the mental image of the hallways of the high school packed with adolescent wannabe Paris Hiltons. Personally, he didn’t see any problem there. Although his versions had a little more weight on them. That girl was way too skinny for his taste, her tits and ass sagging and flapping like all the meat had done been clean sucked out.
.....“And the guys aren’t much better,” the boy continued. “Wearing trucker caps, getting tattooed and wanting to be the white trash losers their old man fought not to be.”
.....His gaze shadowed. “Nobody seems to care about anything but getting drunk and getting laid and fucking each other up if they’re not getting laid, all as the world seems to be turning into one big ol’ steaming pile of shit where the politicians don’t look like they’re even bothering to fake looking like they’re not lying anymore, there’s gonna be no jobs but flippin’ burgers left after our generation gets out of college...if we can even afford to go to college, and global warming is drowning the world in super storms and what resources aren’t being drowned are being sucked up and shit out before anyone else gets a chance to get their hands on them, and it’s like a race to see who can fuck up the world the quickest...”
.....He trailed off, blinking. Where the hell did all that come from?
.....“Wow.” Doc was impressed. He didn’t even hear the boy take a breath as he spat all that out. He looked over at the teenager in the dimming light. A kid his age shouldn’t be thinking about things that deeply, that early.
.....He pulled a pre-rolled from behind his ear and lit it. Held the smoke and handed the cigarette over to the boy. Mike looked at it dubiously.
.....Doc exhaled. “Trust me, I’m a doctor.”
.....Mike nodded and took a drag, held it in and let the smoke out casually. Took another hit. A seed popped like a mini firecracker.
.....“Whoops.” Doc coughed. “One snuck in.”
.....“S’cool.”
.....The sweet-smelling smoke crept off across the empty park as the cigarette was passed back and forth. Mike stared off idly into the gathering darkness, wondering where all of that had come from himself. Maybe it was the Red Bulls. Lately he had begin to suspect that he had been putting away too many cans of the stuff during the course of the day. His scalp was getting all tingly and sweaty and he seemed to have cottonmouth all the time.
.....Which only led to more Red Bulls.
.....And his temper seemed to be on more of a hair trigger. Not that he really gave a shit. Rant aside, lately it felt like he didn’t really give much of a shit about anything…
.....Finally, Doc spoke again.
.....“Maybe that’s why everyone you know is content just to get drunk and get laid?”
.....“Right,” the boy scoffed. “That would mean that they were aware of what the hell was going on around them in the first place. They’re happy just being nothing more than ignorant shit kickers, and they don’t trust anyone who doesn’t want to be that.”
.....Doc shook his head. “Where you getting all this...”
.....“They’ve got this new thing called the Internet that...”
.....“Don’t make me smack you, son.” Doc retorted with a mock scowl. “I just thought that someone your age would be more interested in the porn.”
.....“That’s for the old guys.” Mike shook his head. “No offense.”
.....“None taken.” Doc looked over at the boy. “So what’s your point, here?”
.....Mike sighed. “I dunno. It just seems like everyone is just turning into a bunch of assholes, y’know? As my old man always says, shit rolls down hill. Like at school, everyone used to fuck with Charlie Bierce, the goth kid.”
.....Doc nodded. He’d been filling the kid’s meds since the boy was twelve. Personally and professionally, he didn’t think the meds were needed. ADHD his ass, the boy just needed to cut the sugars from his diet. Especially all that Coca Cola. But a regular dose of the Ritalin was a condition laid down by the nurse’s office over at the high school in order for the boy to continue his education, so...
.....“But his folks sent him off to some church camp for a while, and so now everyone seems to think it’s open season on me.”
.....“So I take it that you miss ol’ Charlie Bierce.”
.....“That’s not what I was getting at.” Mike shot him an exasperated glance. “I left him alone and he left me alone. I think that’s all either of us want, but no one else will let it happen.”
.....“There any reason for that?”
.....“Now you’re sounding like my old man,” Mike’s eyes went dark. “That somehow it’s all my fault that everyone thinks I’m weird or crazy.”
.....“Are you?”
.....“What, weird? Yeah.” the boy shrugged. “Crazy, no. But it seems like they’re doing their best to drive me there, though.”
.....Doc shrugged. “Sometimes you gotta go a little crazy just to stay sane.”
.....“Don’t give up your day job waiting for Hallmark to call.”
.....Doc sighed. “I’m sorry to break it to you, but that’s high school. There’s always gonna be someone that everyone else feels free to pick on.”
.....“Swell.” Mike frowned. “So these are supposed to be the best years of my life, huh?”
.....“There’s a handful of people that’ll always look on high school as the best years of their lives, they’re the Emperors of the teenybopper-set and you’re one of the Christians being thrown to the lions. Look on the bright side...”
.....“Oh, there’s a bright side?” Mike shook his head doubtfully. “That’s reassuring.”
.....“A couple.” Doc retorted. “How much longer have you got?”
.....“In school?” Doc didn’t like the sound of that one, and he made a mental note to check in on the boy. “I’m a senior this fall.”
.....“So you’ve got eight, nine months of this crap left.” Doc nodded. “After that, you have all the best years of your life ahead of you. Their best years are just about over, and they only have a handful of months left to get the most out of it.”
.....Mike did the math: “At my expense.”
.....“Well, yeah.”
.....“Great.” Mike stood up with a sigh. “Thanks, Doc.”
.....He started to head away.
.....“Hey,” the Doc called out. Mike turned back. “Look at Bill Gates...you know that they fucked with that boy all through school, and now look at him.”
.....“So?”
.....“Ever wonder how many of the jocks and cheerleaders from his high school he has in his own version of a medieval torture chamber, human toys he uses just to blow off steam after a long, long day of being the New World Anti-Christ?”
.....Mike smiled at that, then dropped the skateboard to the sidewalk and rolled on, weaving off to disappear into the darkness.
.....“Sun’s going down soon,” he observed. “And I like watching it from over in the park.”
.....He watched the Valiant turn off towards the high school and started off walking in the opposite direction. He moved the sidewalk beneath him at a leisurely pace, falling into just one more of his many daily rituals.
.....He may be nothing more than a barfly, as some of more purple-nosed members of the community were prone to whispering, but he put more into his day than most folks half his age. And they sure as hell didn’t have any problems with his lifestyle when it came around to having him salve their bunions or refill empty bottles of Zoloft.
.....One hell of a lifestyle, that was.
.....Although the parts where he wasn’t handling some harpy’s gnarly foot were pleasant enough. The Teapot Cafe was a nice oasis and Tanya and her crew were more than pleasant enough company.
.....He found that he had the park to himself, no competition for bench space. Prime territory for the time of day, he settled into one facing the west.
.....The sun begin to settle behind the roof of the American Security Bank, and Doc sighed his pleasure. Small town life may be boring, but boring was a relief after some of the bullshit things that he’d seen in nearly a century of kicking around.
.....He turned his attention to the sound of a skateboard eating up the sidewalk and watched as the Ziegler boy rolled up. As he neared the bench the boy dismounted and kicked the board up, catching it adeptly and tucking it under his arm. He nodded towards the empty end of the bench.
.....“You mind, Doc?” he asked.
.....“That’s why they call it a park,” Doc replied. “Park it.”
.....The boy sat down and they watched the sun slowly settle behind the skyline, the process observed in silence. As the twilight grew comfortable and the street lights began to hum and flicker on, the crickets began to speak.
.....Finally, Mike eyed the doctor cautiously.
.....“You mind if I ask you a personal question?”
.....“As they say, depends on how personal.” Doc retorted. He suspected that the boy had something weighing heavy on him, and probably just needed someone to talk to that wouldn’t give him any grief about it.
.....“Why do you keep hanging around this place, Doc?” the boy finally asked, breaking the silence.
.....“Why shouldn’t I?” replied the doctor, looking around and then following with his gaze a shapely pair of calves that carried a package of Harding fireball down the sidewalk. “It’s quiet, the view is...”
.....“I mean Harding.”
.....“Again, why shouldn’t I?” Doc cocked an eyebrow. “You in some hurry to see me movin’ on?”
.....“Well...” Mike wasn’t sure how to politely phrase his question. “I mean, you’re the only black in town. Doesn’t that get weird?”
.....“Well now, there’s that Scott boy...”
.....“He doesn’t count.” Mike smiled, for the first time that day. Perhaps even days. “Although it’d be fun to see how Original Gangsta’ he’d be if someone were to drop him off in Compton or South Central for a few days.”
.....They shared a laugh and Doc considered the question, not wanting to give the kid another glib response.
.....“Well, my sister Abigail spent the last thirty-some years of her life being that one black person in this town,” he finally offered. “When she died, guess I inherited the responsibility along with the house and her Lexus.”
.....“What responsibility?”
.....“Look, son.” Doc explained. “Wyoming only has one black person for every one hundred white folk, right?”
.....“I suppose... it definitely seems that way.” Mike had never really thought about it, but it sounded right. Maybe it was even kind of a high reckoning.
.....“So, usually the only black folk they ever really see is what’s shown on the television; rapists and drive-by shooters on the news, sex-crazed players on the comedies, and drug-dealin’ gangsters on the video channels.” Doc shook his head. “That ain’t what we’re all about and I figure now it’s my calling to remind folks hereabouts of that.”
.....“How so?”
.....“By just being me.”
.....“So you’re an Original One-percenter?”
.....“Word.”
.....Mike smiled again and Doc wondered just how often the boy indulged looking happy. Not often, by the sound of it. He was curious about the oddest things... it sounded as if he was spending a little too much quiet time in his own head.
.....“So what's really on your mind, son?”
.....The boy gave it some more thought.
.....“It’s just getting weird here.” Mike finally replied. “No one seems to want to be who they are anymore. Like Scot T... he pronounces it like that now, y’know? ‘Scott-Tee.’ Used to be just Scotty, back when we were...when we used to get along. Now he’s a jock and hanging with the jocks and still he’s looking to be something he isn’t.”
.....Doc leaned back and let the boy get to what he was getting to, even if it turned out there wasn’t anything there.
.....“It’s not just him, you see it on the TV all the time.” Mike mused. “There’s that Paris Hilton chick. She was born with all the money in the world, could have been anything she wanted to be... but it seems all she wants to be is white trash.
.....“I see what you mean.” Doc laughed. “I’d be surprised if that girl doesn’t have real pink flamingos with their feet stapled to her lawn and a Rolls Royce up on blocks.”
.....“Yeah, but what’s messed up about it that all the girls at school seem like they want to be like her, dress like her, act like her...it’s kinda creepy.”
.....Doc paused at the mental image of the hallways of the high school packed with adolescent wannabe Paris Hiltons. Personally, he didn’t see any problem there. Although his versions had a little more weight on them. That girl was way too skinny for his taste, her tits and ass sagging and flapping like all the meat had done been clean sucked out.
.....“And the guys aren’t much better,” the boy continued. “Wearing trucker caps, getting tattooed and wanting to be the white trash losers their old man fought not to be.”
.....His gaze shadowed. “Nobody seems to care about anything but getting drunk and getting laid and fucking each other up if they’re not getting laid, all as the world seems to be turning into one big ol’ steaming pile of shit where the politicians don’t look like they’re even bothering to fake looking like they’re not lying anymore, there’s gonna be no jobs but flippin’ burgers left after our generation gets out of college...if we can even afford to go to college, and global warming is drowning the world in super storms and what resources aren’t being drowned are being sucked up and shit out before anyone else gets a chance to get their hands on them, and it’s like a race to see who can fuck up the world the quickest...”
.....He trailed off, blinking. Where the hell did all that come from?
.....“Wow.” Doc was impressed. He didn’t even hear the boy take a breath as he spat all that out. He looked over at the teenager in the dimming light. A kid his age shouldn’t be thinking about things that deeply, that early.
.....He pulled a pre-rolled from behind his ear and lit it. Held the smoke and handed the cigarette over to the boy. Mike looked at it dubiously.
.....Doc exhaled. “Trust me, I’m a doctor.”
.....Mike nodded and took a drag, held it in and let the smoke out casually. Took another hit. A seed popped like a mini firecracker.
.....“Whoops.” Doc coughed. “One snuck in.”
.....“S’cool.”
.....The sweet-smelling smoke crept off across the empty park as the cigarette was passed back and forth. Mike stared off idly into the gathering darkness, wondering where all of that had come from himself. Maybe it was the Red Bulls. Lately he had begin to suspect that he had been putting away too many cans of the stuff during the course of the day. His scalp was getting all tingly and sweaty and he seemed to have cottonmouth all the time.
.....Which only led to more Red Bulls.
.....And his temper seemed to be on more of a hair trigger. Not that he really gave a shit. Rant aside, lately it felt like he didn’t really give much of a shit about anything…
.....Finally, Doc spoke again.
.....“Maybe that’s why everyone you know is content just to get drunk and get laid?”
.....“Right,” the boy scoffed. “That would mean that they were aware of what the hell was going on around them in the first place. They’re happy just being nothing more than ignorant shit kickers, and they don’t trust anyone who doesn’t want to be that.”
.....Doc shook his head. “Where you getting all this...”
.....“They’ve got this new thing called the Internet that...”
.....“Don’t make me smack you, son.” Doc retorted with a mock scowl. “I just thought that someone your age would be more interested in the porn.”
.....“That’s for the old guys.” Mike shook his head. “No offense.”
.....“None taken.” Doc looked over at the boy. “So what’s your point, here?”
.....Mike sighed. “I dunno. It just seems like everyone is just turning into a bunch of assholes, y’know? As my old man always says, shit rolls down hill. Like at school, everyone used to fuck with Charlie Bierce, the goth kid.”
.....Doc nodded. He’d been filling the kid’s meds since the boy was twelve. Personally and professionally, he didn’t think the meds were needed. ADHD his ass, the boy just needed to cut the sugars from his diet. Especially all that Coca Cola. But a regular dose of the Ritalin was a condition laid down by the nurse’s office over at the high school in order for the boy to continue his education, so...
.....“But his folks sent him off to some church camp for a while, and so now everyone seems to think it’s open season on me.”
.....“So I take it that you miss ol’ Charlie Bierce.”
.....“That’s not what I was getting at.” Mike shot him an exasperated glance. “I left him alone and he left me alone. I think that’s all either of us want, but no one else will let it happen.”
.....“There any reason for that?”
.....“Now you’re sounding like my old man,” Mike’s eyes went dark. “That somehow it’s all my fault that everyone thinks I’m weird or crazy.”
.....“Are you?”
.....“What, weird? Yeah.” the boy shrugged. “Crazy, no. But it seems like they’re doing their best to drive me there, though.”
.....Doc shrugged. “Sometimes you gotta go a little crazy just to stay sane.”
.....“Don’t give up your day job waiting for Hallmark to call.”
.....Doc sighed. “I’m sorry to break it to you, but that’s high school. There’s always gonna be someone that everyone else feels free to pick on.”
.....“Swell.” Mike frowned. “So these are supposed to be the best years of my life, huh?”
.....“There’s a handful of people that’ll always look on high school as the best years of their lives, they’re the Emperors of the teenybopper-set and you’re one of the Christians being thrown to the lions. Look on the bright side...”
.....“Oh, there’s a bright side?” Mike shook his head doubtfully. “That’s reassuring.”
.....“A couple.” Doc retorted. “How much longer have you got?”
.....“In school?” Doc didn’t like the sound of that one, and he made a mental note to check in on the boy. “I’m a senior this fall.”
.....“So you’ve got eight, nine months of this crap left.” Doc nodded. “After that, you have all the best years of your life ahead of you. Their best years are just about over, and they only have a handful of months left to get the most out of it.”
.....Mike did the math: “At my expense.”
.....“Well, yeah.”
.....“Great.” Mike stood up with a sigh. “Thanks, Doc.”
.....He started to head away.
.....“Hey,” the Doc called out. Mike turned back. “Look at Bill Gates...you know that they fucked with that boy all through school, and now look at him.”
.....“So?”
.....“Ever wonder how many of the jocks and cheerleaders from his high school he has in his own version of a medieval torture chamber, human toys he uses just to blow off steam after a long, long day of being the New World Anti-Christ?”
.....Mike smiled at that, then dropped the skateboard to the sidewalk and rolled on, weaving off to disappear into the darkness.
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