Oregon Grunge (complete flashfic)

[larkin]

 

An Aimless Adventure

 by Larkin

 

 Filthy canvas high tops, ragged and torn jeans. These characterized Sammy from the waist down. Next to him, a similar figure. Mark is a mirrored companion. The two boys, each 13, are dressed grungy. If it was winter they might both be wearing hooded sweat shirts, but it was early summer and they had on old, worn, over-sized tee-shirts. Today Mark's tee-shirt had the faded Green Day logo. Sammy's shirt said, in distorted lettering, "Please Kill Me". Although not brothers, their clothes a common pool whose shirt, pants or even underwear was whose made no difference to them at all. 

 There were other similarities between the two boys. They were  both small and worryingly thin under their over-sized clothing. Starting in the Spring and now into the summer, their hair had grown to shoulder length. Parted in the middle, bedraggled, looking filthy and uncombed, it was an identifying trademark for the pair. They didn't care about presenting a socially acceptable image. They wanted just the opposite and made an unacknowledged effort to achieve it.

 Since Sammy's house was consistently unsupervised the two boys spent all their time there and, since it was summer, Mark never went home. Sammy's room was chaos and clutter that smelled of boy's socks, underwear and stale marijuana smoke. There was a large mattress on the floor void of sheets and piled high with unzipped sleeping bags and dirty clothes. It was, for lack of a better description... a nest.

 The two came in, slammed and locked the bedroom door, pushed the clothes and debris out of the way and crawled onto the naked mattress. Mark grabbed the brown stained plastic bong that had been left out in plain sight and from a crumpled baggy loaded it with pot. Sammy lay face down, legs bent at the knees and feet dangling above his butt.  He stared at the floor. When Mark lit the bong and drew smoke through the plastic cylinder he nudged Sammy who sat up to take his turn. 

 They lived in a part of Oregon where pot was plentiful.  The simple truth was that it was much easier for Mark and Sammy to get an ounce of pot than it was to get a six pack down at the corner store. 

 Sitting Indian style, Sammy blew out a column of smoke. 

 Looking around the room he said, "Everything in this fuckin room is fuckin broke." 

 He passed the bong to Mark who immediately re-lit it. 

 Sammy went on, "The Nintendo is broke, the TV is broke, the lamp is broke, that fuckin disc player is broke, too."

 Mark picked up an old claw hammer that was lying on the floor and moved menacingly over to where the broken portable TV sat. He upended it and said, "It's not broke, it just don't fuckin work." 

 The hammer came down hard on the glass screen but it didn't break. Instead it made an sort of loud clink. He did it again with the same results, and again. Sammy came over and the two struggled over the hammer. "Let me fuckin do it!" 

 Soon they were rolling around on the floor struggling for the hammer almost hitting each other with it trying to secure the right to smash the picture tube. Sammy finally got it and pushed Mark out of the way. 

 Mark yelled, "Fuck you, asshole!" 

 They went at it again but they were so equally matched that only craftiness or cheating could gain the advantage. For some unexplained reason, Mark suddenly let the hammer drop and they lost interest in whatever it was that they were doing and went back to the bong. 

 Sammy refilled the bong and they continued the ritual. There was a sudden loud knock on the door that gave them both a start. Mark and Sammy looked at each other thinking that it could only be trouble or bad news. 

 Sammy yelled, "What!"

 From the other side of the door they heard a voice, "It's me, Chuck. You got any pot?"

 Sammy got up and let him in. Chuck was one of his Mom's ex-boyfriends. "Come on, spare me some. I'd do the same for you."

 Mark said with pessimistic sarcasm, "Yeah, right..."

 When he got what he wanted, Chuck was out the door and instantly gone. Mark peered under the window shade and saw the cloud of dust left by the banged-up Toyota.

 

~

 It was beginning to get dark and Sammy reached for the small crate that was covered with a mass of burned out and melted candles. He searched the multi-colored lava-like mass for a wick and found two or three. He lit them for a comforting light. 

 High from the pot and staring into the flickering flame, he said, "It's like an Indian camp fire and we are, like, in a tribe of ghost Indians."

 Mark nodded yes, but mentally, he was somewhere else. Sammy's companion was sitting with his back up against the wall and legs spread out on the mattress, he pushed his pants down in preparation for the second jerk off of the day. Seeing this, Sammy came up and sat next to him as he often did and prepared to join him. 

 Perhaps it was their inadequate diet or maybe they were both stunted from the pot or something else, but both boys were still small and hairless. Once erect, they pushed their pants down further and pulled their tee-shirts up out of the way exposing bare, undulating torsos. 

 Like Gemini, Sammy and Mark were the best of friends. Occasionally their arms and hands would cross over to trade the manual chore of jerking off but it was just an honorable reciprocation. When one would come, he would go on to other things seemingly unconcerned about his friend's approaching orgasm. On this particular day it was simultaneous and vocal with barely a spritz of juice between them. They were blissfully unaware of their overdue transition into puberty that lay just around the corner. Two boys, with their penises and naked bellies exposed as they were at the moment of resolution, both dropped off into a deep sleep. 

 It was hours later when Mark woke up to a black room. He wriggled his pants back up and looked around for his Bic to light the candle mass. Naked butt exposed, Sammy was curled up facing the wall, still asleep. In another minute, Sammy was up and glowing yellow in the light of the sputtering candle. 

 Then both boys went out the window and into the night. 

 "What time is it?"

 Mark said, "2:30."

 The streets were abandoned and now they were night creatures. Their aimless journey had no destination except to avoid the headlights of approaching cars in the off chance that they might be the cops. There were no streetlights and on this night, the moon was hidden by an overcast sky. Their eyes adjusted to a dim light that presented a gauzy and surreal landscape. Occasionally they would run into a friend who had sneaked out, but tonight, no one seemed to be around. The short story was that there was just nothing to do. Their wonderings took them to a neglected ball field along which ran a series of abandoned bleachers. Sammy and Mark climbed up and sat huddled together at the top. 

 Mark looked off into the murky distance and then turned to Sammy and said, "If we ran away, where would we go?"

 Sammy thought about it and said after a long pause, "I don't know."

 Then Sammy went back into his fantasy quest for the tribe of ghost Indians. "I wish we could find them. Maybe if we did we could join up and be ghost Indians, too."

 Out of the two, Sammy was the more imaginative and fantasy-prone. Mark enjoyed his stories and willingly let himself be swept into them. 

 Mark said, “I would like to ride my own horse bareback and I would have a long bow and a dagger.” 

 It was then that they saw a dark figure standing at the foot of the bleacher. "What are you two boys up to?"

 There was an immediate impulse to run but it diminished. They sat silently eyeing the potbellied man who had just intruded into their world.

 "It's a little late for you boys to be out, but don't worry, I won't say anything." 

 He slowly and cautiously climbed up closer and sat a respectable distance away. "What do you boys like to do when you out late at night like this?"

 Neither one answered the man.

 In a superficial gesture of friendship he offered them a cigarette and when they both refused, he lit one for himself. The match brought a momentary glow of color and detail to the translucency of the scene. 

 "What do you boys do out here this late, or maybe I should say, what do you like to do?"

 Sammy and Mark's telepathy was full on and they did not have to talk it over. In perfect concert, they rose, hopped and ran in long strides landing on the field then ran even faster. 

 When they were sure that they hadn't been followed, they resumed an ambling pace.

 Mark was the realist. "He was a motherfuckin pervert, wasn't he? Sammy, did you recognize him?"

 "No, I don't think I never seen him before."

 Mark said, "I think I have but I can't remember where."

 Their indignant response was not based on an objection to an anonymous invitation to sex with a creature from another world, it was because it threatened the union of the two. The idea of telling the police never entered their heads. The last thing they needed was any association with the police. It was just plain, bad Karma. Mark or Sammy, alone, actually might have responded to the man in an effort to see what they could get off of him, but not paired up. It would be like looking into a mirror. They formed a strong protective bond when they were together that was more important than what they might do separately. 

 It was still dark when they crawled back through the window and into the unlit room. A word was not spoken between them. Sammy shed all his clothes and in the silent darkness, pushed his naked back and behind up against Mark's body. Sammy was completely erect. Mark interpreted this as an offering and began to handle Sammy body as carelessly as if it was his own. After discarding his clothes he conjured up spit and used it to enter Sammy from behind. Mark did it as efficiently and thoughtlessly as a back yard dog; this was the way with them; when he was finished reciprocation did not always follow. 

 Maybe tomorrow or next month the roles in this secretive event might reverse but it was all left to chance rather than ritual. 

[Al Norris]

Now that was an interesting bit.

Interesting because it highlights what many youth feel, at times, in this world we find ourselves in. Without something more pushing, useless, unchanging, uncaring...

[Shayn059]

Seems a bit dark and scary to me but I'd like to see where this goes.

[larkin]

Seems a bit dark and scary to me but I'd like to see where this goes.

First of all, thank you for commenting.  I really appreciate it.

Reading can be for adventure and escape and that is all good.

But fiction can be about adversity in life and how people struggle to rise above real and actual situations.  

This one carries Sammy's life a little further..

http://castleroland.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/1181-sammys-lost-tribe/