Chapter 13 | Down by the River
Down by the river, red-headed Mike is skipping stones, chewing on a lollipop, wishing he was old enough to drink beer and smoke cigarettes like the big kids. Circus is ok, but he likes this spot. He can skip stones and watch and hear the circus from afar, build a fire, talk to the people who live by the river bank, with their banjos and shotguns and watermelon patches. Mike makes friends real easy, and they give him stuff, or sometimes he just takes it and nobody seems to mind. He’s walking back and forth between the banks of the river and the porch of a dilapidated old house with his new friend, Molly, a grandma in search of a grandson. Red-headed Mike fits the bill. Practically an orphan, lost and unnoticed. Molly hands him a slice of peanut butter toast off a plate and warns him to watch out for the stickers that get in your feet if you're not careful. He wanders off the porch, back to the banks of the river. Molly follows him with the plate of peanut butter toast.
“Why you out here all by your lonesome? Ain’t you got no friends?”
“My friends are up there,” he points, tossing another rock at the river. It bounces a couple of times before sinking. “I found a dead guy once.”
“Oh? Is that so? Well you must be very brave. Very brave, indeed.”
“Yes, ma'am. He got ate by a tiger.”
“My goodness! Did they catch him? The tiger, I mean?”
“Yes, ma'am. They found him in a cave way up in the mountains the very next day. He was the biggest cat anybody ever seen. No way he would’ve come peacefully, so they shot him. Shot him right between the eyes. He wouldn’t’ve come peacefully. Could I have another piece of toast, please, ma’am?”
“Yes, you may!”
Red-headed Mike’s got a sixth sense for trouble. Unseen, unheard, he can find it. Big trouble, little trouble, and everything in between. “Thank you, ma’am. This toast sure is good.”
“Have another one,” Molly offers, but the boy’s eyes are off in the distance, watching an invisible future unfold. Unseen, unheard, yet unmistakably present.
Just a couple clicks through the woods to the southeast, three men in face paint emerge into a clearing and pop smoke. You can't see them from where Mike sits, but he's up in an instant, stuffing his face with peanut butter toast. “Thank you, ma’am!”
“Off so soon?” the woman calls out to him.
No sense explaining, he couldn't if he tried. “Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am!” He wipes his mouth with his sleeve and takes off running towards the woods.
