By: Carisa J. Burrows
“Jackpot!”
Evelyn Turner had just found a half eaten hamburger hiding under a piece of junk mail in a city trash can. She didn’t care that it had a bit of fuzzy green mold growing on the bun. She picked it off and took a huge bite. “Mmm…still warm,” she whispered to herself as she closed her eyes and pretended it was a giant turkey leg she picked off the platter of a Thankgiving dinner table.
“Garbage Picker!”
“Bum!”
“Yeah, you stink,” mocked several boys standing at a nearby bus stop.
Evelyn knew these boys, most days she avoided them. They were always causing trouble in the town, but no one could ever catch them in the act and they knew it.
“Do it, Lukas,” yelled the oldest boy in the gang to a small boy hunched over on the bus shelter’s bench. “Do it now!”
Lukas, the small boy, just stopped and stared at Evelyn.
“Hey, Dufus Lukas, you better do it or else!”
Hesitantly, Lukas stood up and nervously reached into a plastic grocery bag that was given to him by one of the other boys. He pulled out a rotted and stringy ball of pumpkin pulp from a gutted Halloween jack-o-lantern.
“Chuck it at her!” Peter the oldest boy said
“I don’t want to Peter. I can’t,” pleaded Lukas.
Angrily, Peter grabbed some of the disgusting mess and forcefully hurled it at Evelyn. She ducked, but some seeds and a bit of the fleshy insides caught her left arm as she used it to defend herself.
Then, Peter took the rest of the pumpkin’s entrails from Lukas’ shaky hand and smashed it in his face. “I told you to do what I said or else.” Then he knocked him backwards and Lukas smacked his head on the corner of the metal grate bench. The boys laughed at what happened and ferociously looted Lukas’ back pack.
“What a baby, he has a set of colored pencils and some weird drawings in here. You like coloring pictures baby boy?”
They snapped each of the pencils in half and threw them down a nearby sewer grid. They pocketed his mp3 player, his cell phone and ripped all the pages out of his sketchbook. Evelyn watched as the awful scene unfolded.
“What are you looking at tramp?” A boy grinded his fist in his other hand threatening Evelyn with the same fate.
Dark alleys and unlit street corners were their usual stomping grounds, but this gang’s violence had now escalated to broad daylight. Peter the older boy had been to juvie hall four times. He was nineteen and still attending high school. Because of this, he always blamed those long absences on having bouts of rheumatic fever, which he knew nothing about except what he looked up on the excuses-ipedia website.
Just then, the bus approached the shelter and the boys loaded it swiftly. One of them flipped off Evelyn though the back window as she stared in disbelief.
After the bus was out of sight Evelyn reluctantly walked over to the booth. The boy was crawling out from under bench holding his head. Evelyn pulled an old rag from her coat pocket and gave it to him.
“They’re gone. Are you ok?”
“Yeah, I think so,” mumbled Lukas.
“Well, we finally caught ‘em,” Evelyn said excitedly.
Lukas pressed the rag to his cut and gave a wince in pain. “What are you talking about?”
“Its daylight….those boys didn’t know, but this bus stop has a security camera.”
Michael stood in front of Valley Green Floral Designs looking into the window. Hearts and flowers were as deep as a cliché. Valentine’s Day, he harrumphed to himself. What a waste of energy…not to mention money. He leaned closer to read the price tag hanging limply from the stem of one of a dozen roses in a generic glass vase. “Eighty-five dollars!” he exclaimed rather loudly. “What a bunch of crooks!”
