11 posts tagged “5 word challenge”

The words for the challenge this time are:

knocked, tourists, ride, intrude, and doubled.

Here's how the challenge works:  If you are not already there, go to the group 5 word challenge.  Post a writing of any kind which includes, in bolded letters, the five words highlighted above.  This can be a story, poetry, memory, essay...whatever.  The only rule is that it must include these 5 words within the body.

Use this exercise to stretch your writing muscles.

In a week or so, a new challenge will be posted.

Good writing!

I don't like it, Andy Finston thought to himself.  He stood in the steamy mid-day sun of early July in Philadelphia, pretending to watch as two giraffes loped exhaustedly across their small dirty imitation of the savannah.  Finston was surrounded by the usual zoo crowd of mewling babies, barely controllable toddlers, cataleptic parents and teenage boys calculating around which corner to cop a feel. 

Finston was accustomed to setting the agenda.  So the sudden call from Mr. Nickles had rattled him.  One o'clock.  In front of the giraffes at the zoo.  Bring lots of cash.  Click.  Finston had a vague sense of unease, but no real options.  He had spent months cultivating Nickles, just so this moment would occur.  The moment when Andrew Finston made his bones as more than just a beat reporter for the Daily Chronicle.  He would open the box, and all of Philadelphia's dirty little secrets would fly out.  Nickles was the key.

It was now a quarter past one.  Finston sighed as he raised the disposable camera, and took another meaningless picture.  Did you bring the money?  A sharp rasp of a whisper from the right side.  Finston nodded without looking.  Walk over to the peacock walk.  There's a path into the bushes used by employees to the right side.  Meet me there in ten minutes.

Finston waited five minutes, and then strolled over to the peacock walk.  He doffed his Phillies cap, wiped his brow with his sleeve, and replaced the cap.  God, it's hotter than hell.  There, off to the right, he saw a faded dusty track over a lawn, down a slight incline.  It settled into the bushes.  This was a quiet back area of the zoo, used mostly to skirt the exhibits on the way out.  The few peacocks Finston could see bedraggedly stood silent, with feathers furled.  

Time to make the big time, thought Finston.  He looked around and, seeing no one, strode purposefully down the lawn and through the gap in the bushes.  There was a set of stairs, bordered by rusted railings, leading down to a concrete landing festooned with dumpsters.  Mr Nickles was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.  Jesus, Nickles, what's with the cloak and dagger crap?, asked Finston.  Nickles stood quietly, his hands in his pockets.

As Finston started down the stairs, he was shoved from behind.  His momentum carried him to Nickles's feet.  He tried to stand, but the man behind him slipped a loop over his head, and began to pull, jerking him onto his back.  Nickles watched as Finston gasped and struggled, and then finally went limp.

Sorry, Andy.  You were too close.  Nickles looked at the killer.  He has cash.  Stuff it in his mouth and throw him in a dumpster.  The killer laughed softly.  When the body was found, it would look as if Finston was a dirty reporter who crossed the mob.  Very good, deputy mayor Nickles.  Elegant.

Show us a Vox blog you think more people should know about.
Submitted by TheFiercestCalm.

There are a lot of great blogs in my neighborhood.  The one I am highlighting best fits the criterion implied in the question.  Namely, that it is not well known.  Formance writes very interesting stuff, both on her own blog, and over at 5 word challenge.  She also goes out of her way to encourage others who are engaging in the craft of writing.

Check some of her writing here, at her blog.

I am almost never on Vox on the weekends.  So, in honor of the weekend, I offer one suggestion, for those who have not yet taken it, and a musical interlude.

First, the suggestion.  For those who like to write, head over to the group 5 word challenge.  Build a story, poem, memory, essay, commentary on a picture on the following 5 words:

Fruit.

Crows.

South.

Fresh.

Breeze.

I will attempt to do the same over the weekend, and we can share our efforts on Monday.

Second, I wish you happy weekend, and offer the following musical interlude:

I hope you enjoy it.

Andy and Doug picked me up in Doug's car at around ten in the morning.  Andy was a surfer dude from New Jersey, tall, tawny and sophomoric.  His idea of a good time was to go to the diner, and tell crude jokes in front of waitresses who had heard it all before.  Doug was the product of an abusive family, covering up his pain with humor, and afraid to look inside.  They had been sober for only a few months, and I was worried about them.

"Where are we going?", Doug asked.  "No questions.  Turn right here, go over to Lombard, and drive over the South Street bridge.  I'll let you know what to do then."  Andy and Doug glanced over at each other, nervous, but didn't say anything else.

As the blocks flowed by, I thought about Katie.  She had been a teenager when she first came to work for me.  But even then, she was stunningly beautiful.  As is always the case in a work setting, I ignored her beauty, and set about teaching her how to get the work done.  It wasn't hard; she picked things up quickly.  Over time, as appropriate, I came to learn a little more about her.

Katie was Canadian, but her mother had been born in Philadelphia, and her father was from Brazil.  She had moved to Philadelphia to help her elderly grandfather, with whom she lived.  She was such a nice person, I doubt it ever occured to her that she had picked up a burden many teenagers would never consider shouldering.

Katie spoke five languages, and clearly could do whatever she desired, if she put her mind to it.  At some point, in context, I complimented her beauty.  Katie demurred.  She told me that she had worked as a "face model" but didn't think she had what it took to make it on the runway.  She talked of having been in Paris, and of meeting the supermodel Laetitia Casta, who was so nice, and loved her young sister so much.

Over time, Katie started missing work.  When she was there, her work was exemplary.  But she took long lunches, sometimes only coming back after a couple of hours.  Some of the other guys she worked with started complaining.

I called Katie into the office one day, and asked her to sit down.  "Katie", I said, "have you thought about going to college?"  She looked down at her shoes, and didn't say anything.  "You're wasting your time here, Katie", I continued.  "You are a brilliant young woman, and could do anything you wanted.  Please consider going to college."  Katie was, as ever, unfailingly courteous, and thanked me for taking the time to speak with her.  Not long after, she announced her resignation, and enrolled in a local university.

"OK, go over to Springfield, and follow it until we get outside the city.  I'll tell you what to do then,"  Doug glanced in the mirror at me, and Andy squirmed a little in his seat.

After she left, more of the brokers started gossipping about Katie.  Apparently her "recreational" activities had been more extensive that I had known.  Lots of pot and cocaine during working hours.  Drinking after work.  I was just a little surprised, but figured she had been bored, and didn't think much of it.

It was a little over a year laater when I heard about Katie next.  She had stayed in school, and had a 4.0 GPA in a pre-law major.  She still had an adventurous side, and had gotten engaged to a heavily tattooed guy from South Philly, who ran DJ parties around town.  Knowing Katie, she must have glimpsed the light inside of him that truly kind and loving people see.  Katie was head over heels in love, and her parents were coming to town to meet their future son-in-law.  When I met her parents, they were touched that someone from her former job had taken the time.

"Turn right at the entrance, and go to the bottom of the hill."  It was a cloudy day, with a little breeze in the air.  We parked on the dirt, near a tired and grimy willow.

I walked over to the grave with them, and turned around.  "This is the grave of my secretary Katie.  She was murdered by two colleagues of her fiance, who was an ecstasy dealer, after an argument involving money.  She was twenty-two years old.  It was two years ago today.  This is not a game.  You guys need to start taking sobriety seriously."  I kneeled down, and cleaned the stone.  Then I closed my eyes, and told Katie that I was sorry I had not seen the signs.  I would have reached out to help her if I had.

Doug and Andy are still sober today.  I think Katie would be happy to know that she had helped them.  She was that kind of girl.

It had been a wonderfully mild beginning to winter, so Nathaniel Prustock set out from Bath in an open gig.  He had just arrived there a few nights earlier, after a long and choppy sail down the coast from New Jersey, followed by a two-day row up the Pamlico River.  With Christmas close at hand, Prustock had been forced to lodge in town until the locals felt sufficiently motivated by his purse to convey him into the hinterlands.  But he was a hunter, used to the privations of the trail.  And his sources led him to believe that he may finally have run Charles Read to ground.

Read had once been a prominent judge and businessman in New Jersey, born in Philadelphia, and active in New Jersey politics for nearly twenty-five years.  He boasted the best kind of friends, like Charles Morris, and Benjamin Franklin.  But Read had disappeared suddenly in the spring of 1773, and his respectable facade had collapsed, leaving only debts and acrimony behind.  Prustock was the agent of some of his more aggrieved creditors, charged to get their money, or barring that, to drag him back to spend his remaining days in debtors' prison.  So here Prustock was, far from the comforts of Philadelphia, perched precariously on a rickety carriage bouncing over rutted back-country roads.

It took all day, and late into the night, before the carriage pulled into Martinburg.  "Hardly a place worthy of a name", thought Prustock.  Just a cluster of oak-log houses, squatting like pigs next to the muddy waters of the Tar River.  Prustock stepped down, and handed a few coins to his driver.  The driver looked at the coins, grunted, and dropped Prustock's bags to the ground, coincidentally in the muddy spot left after his horses had vented their spleen after the long ride.  Prustock gingerly picked them up , and plodded over to the one building with strong light in the windows, and smoke coming out of the chimney. 

He opened the door to a dank and smelly room, filled with greasy faces illuminated by clay pipes.  "I seek lodging", Prustock ventured.  He was met with a stony silence.  Finally, one old man slowly detached himself from a chair by the fire, and stumbled over.  "So", the man said, "you've finally come."  "I have a spare room in my store, if you wish some rest before we conduct our business.  Yes," the old man nodded as Prustock gaped, "I am Charles Read."

Prustock was not prepared for the vision in front of him.  Read had been clever enough, when he left New Jersey, to have destroyed all paintings which showed his face.  But this ravaged shell of a human being hardly seemed to match the stories of a vigorous judge and burgher which had been related to Prustock.  Read's face seemed hollow, with grayish black stubble sewn over parchment-yellow skin.  His head, once likely covered by a powdered wig, was as bare as an egg's shell, soot-stained and leathery.  Read's clothing seemed to defy the law of gravity, his body being so skeletal as to provide small purchase.

The two men faced each other, seated on splintered chairs opposite each other in Read's small goods store.  "May I offer you some food?", ventured Read.  Prustock nodded without speaking.  It was his experience that, if left alone, his prey most often condemned themselves with his having said nary a word.  Read picked up a shiny wooden bowl, and ladled some stew out of an iron pot hung over the fireplace.  Pork stew, with some shriveled carrots and parsnips.  "Fitting", Prustock thought.  Read fetched a bowl for himself and they ate quietly, with just the sound of the river, the wind, and the fire.

"Let me tell you a story..."  Read looking quizzically at Prustock.  "Nathaniel Prustock."  "Of course.  I knew your father.  Young Nat.  I had you pegged for better things."  Prustock flushed, but said nothing.  "Well, Nat, there is nowhere to go tonight, and I am too old and feeble to run, were I even so inclined.  So allow me to fill your head with a mad tale."

"I had staved off the scandal of the ruin of my father by making a better match than I deserved.  My dear wife Alice was not the loveliest of creatures, with her Creole features and her indifferent temperment.  But her father's wealth matched my ambition to flee His Majesty's Navy and she was sufficiently agreeable.  The dowry was enough to quiet the whisperings left by my father's death, and the Antiguan rum which her father laid in our ship bound for Philadelphia made my fortune.  Unfortunatley, the lace curtains of Philadelphia were not ornate enough to hide the tedium of Quaker sensibilities.  So, we moved to New Jersey, and, with connections wrought by my charm and her money, I became an important man.

Alice had been raised in such a way that my dalliances were of little interest to her.  But she expected to have the best, which my best efforts soon failed to provide.  Until the day that Dorcas Leeds knocked on my door.  He was tall, with a long face, eyes like fire, and he moved so smoothly that one would have thought that he had snakeblood.  "I understand you have ambition, Charles.  I wish to help you."  It may seem odd to you, but I took him at his word.  Such is the desperation of a man of taste in a world of empty pots.  Leeds pulled out a small casket from beneath his cloak, and placed in on the table in front of me.  I ventured to open the lid; the glow of jewels and gold made my loins ache.  "I have a parcel of land I wish you to buy.  You will build a mill there, and will smelt bog iron.  I will purchase the products you make from the iron."  I agreed immediately, and Leeds pulled out a contract written, oddly enough, on sheepskin.  He handed me a pen with brown ink, and I signed without even reading.

Two months later, Alice and I stood on a barren hill, with a new house on it, surrounded by gloomy pines settled in sandy soil.  we were deep in the Pine Barrents, far from any taste of civilization.  But there was a fortune to be made, and Alice understood that.  We named the site Bastso.  Soon, we were settled down with a motley crew of Indians Quakers and freemen, and started our business.

For a few years, all went well.  We were turning soil into iron, and Dorcas Leeds paid us with treasure.  I spent some of it on jewelry and paintings and fine dresses for Alice.  I even brought in a few handsome men to "entertain" her while I tended to my governmental duties.

Then, late one night in the spring of 1772, Dorcas Leeds showed up at our house in the woods.  "It is time for first payment, Charles.", he said to me.  I asked what he wanted.  He looked at me; "Alice."  I began to stand, and suddenly Leeds seemed to grow taller.  Black batwings unfurled themselves from beneath his cape.  And I finally understood who he was.  Leeds.  That was the name of the poor woman of legend, whose thirteenth child was the stuff of nightmares.  The Jersey Devil.  The foul creature strode up the stairs to our bedroom, and flung open the door.  I stood, fixed, as dear Alice started screaming, and then was abruptly silent.  Leeds, his face covered in blood, came back down the steps and came to stand in front of me.  "I will expect payment again next year at this time."  I buried Alice in the woods that night, and told the world that malaria had taken her.  It was common enough, and nobody questioned me.

As April approached last year, I knew I could not stand to face him again.  So I left early one morning, and ran until I came to the end of the world.  So, here I am."  Read pulled out a pair of yellowed kaolin pipes, filled them with tobacco, and offered one to Prustock.  They smoked, looking at the flames.

Finally, Prustock turned to Read.  "That is an incredible confection of superstitious nonsense you have baked for me, Charles Read.  My employer, the same Dorcas Leeds you have named, will be most amused when you relay it while standing in the prisoner's dock in the courthouse in Burlington.  Unless, of course, you have his money."  It seemed impossible that so sickly a man could appear even more so, but Read accomplished the trick.  He nodded weakly.  "I have the casket still.  Allow me to give it to you for conveyance to Mr. Leeds."  Prustock rose, and Read shambled over, and pulled a small box from under his bed.  As Mr. Leeds had predicted it would, the box spilled over with jewels and gold.  Read handed the box to Prustock.

"I will, if you have no objection, take my leave of you, Mr. Read.  The boat I arranged to follow me here will have arrived by now.  Your debt to Dorcas Leeds is now satisfied."  Charles Read started to laugh as Prustock closed the door, and walked to the dock at the edge of the village.  The sound of his laughter rose higher and higher, until it seemed the screaming of lost souls.  The doors of the other buildings remained closed, and Prustock noticed a few lights which dully flickered behind their windows were suddenly extinguished.  It was of no account to him; the business was done.

The kind person who dispatched a letter the next day, which Charles's son Charles received a few weeks later, advising him of the demise of his missing father, did not mention that the condition of his body was such that, with prayers and imprecations to cover all possibilities for such horrors, the locals had simply thrown lit torches into the store, and watched it burn into the ground.

Bastso, as a forge for the Continental Army, supplied musket and cannon which helped remove the stain of British rule from the colonies.  It was ironic that Charles Read the son should have turned out to be a traitor to the cause.  But then, as people remarked to each other, it was a supremely unlucky family.

By the time conductor Frank Moore finally got time to sit down for dinner, it was past midnight.  The Night Express from Penn Station to Pittsburgh had been late getting out of the station, and it was a full train.  These days, with the Depression on and all, Frank had to be extra careful checking the tickets.  There were a lot of folks trying to sneak on, hiding in the lavatories and so on.  Not that they had anywhere to go.  But there was no hope where they were coming from, so they went anyway.  And the Pennsylvania Railroad had been laying people off.  At Frank's age, it would be a quick doom if he lost his job.  Nobody was hiring 63 year-old rail men.

The kitchen stayed open for Frank, who was well liked and respected by the other workers.  No attitude to go with that experience, and he tried to keep his crew together.  He glanced at the menu, and rattled off "Tomato juice, Baked Spiced Sugar Ham with Bigarade Sauce, Sweet Potatoes, Ginger Bread, Lettuce and Pineapple with French Dressing, Peach Pie, Ice Cream, and Coffee."  Then, he sat back and lit up a cigarette.

Sarah Aymes hadn't had enough money for the meal Frank ordered.  A buck and a quarter was a lot of money to pay for dinner.  She had bought rolls for a dime at the station, and paid twenty cents to get sweet milk for her baby.  Her brother-in-law, Evan, had promised her work cleaning rooms in his boarding house, with free room and board.  With John gone building roads for the CCC for at least six months, it was the best she could do.

It was a hot evening, with rain threatening.  July had been a scorcher so far.  As the Night Express moved west, a gypsy train was picking up fifty coal gondolas, destined to be fired into coke for the blast furnaces around Pittsburgh.  The iron company had started using gypsies as labor unions had begun disrupting normal traffic, as they desperately fought for their jobs.  They were cheaper, and the crew, struggling for their own livelihood, were not afraid to get nasty to protect the cargo.  So what if they drank a little to ease the passage.  And, even in the face of injunctions, the unions were not backing down.  The coal train picked up speed, going a bit faster than usual, since there had been rumors of demonstrations across the tracks.  It would plow right through, if necessary.

Frank passed through the cars, checking to make sure there had been no stowaways at the last stop.  He passed Sarah, who was sleeping holding her baby, pulled a light blanket out of a compartment, and gently laid it over her.  She was too pretty a woman to be spied on unawares.  They would be in Pittsburgh in a hour or so.

The heat, and mischief, had put a few kinks in the line ahead of the gypsy train.  Nothing that a couple of decent brakemen couldn't handle, if they were alert. 

Frank heard a whistle up the line, as he came to the head of the train.  Nothing unusual; just freight traffic on the other line.

The New York Times story described how the gypsy train had jumped its track, and run head-on into the Night Express.  Miraculously, the death toll was low.  Just one conductor, a female passenger, and her baby, whose name the reporter had been unable to obtain by deadline.  Thank God for small favors, sighed the country, as it turned onto the sports section, and read about those Washington Senators tearing it up.

Donal Patrick Murphy was attached to the ROK army, and had been sent behind the lines to scout out the enemy's strength before our final push.  Donal had been too hard a case for the American officers, who saw in his casual contempt and daunting disciplinary history the kind of turpitude which could be contagious.  The Korean colonel who found him nearly senseless in an opium den in Seoul, had earned Donal's respect by shooting the drughouse owner in front of him, and counseling him to change his ways.  And Donal had shown his respect by volunteering for all of the most dangerous missions.  Which was how he came to be behind the lines when the Chinese human wave struck our forces.

Donal had seen the Chinese filtering through the North Korean forces, and realized that it would be impossible, surrounded as he was, to radio a warning.  He was on his own.  But Donal's father had been an Irish republican gunrunner, and his mother was Iriquois.  And growing up in a working class neighborhood in Philadelphia had taught him a little about survival.

So Donal flitted from bush to bush, spare concealment in the icy blast of a Korean winter.  As he went along, he was able to outfit himself, by quietly killing a Chinese soldier he caught pissing, and donning his garb.  Later, Donal was able to upgrade his rank, as he took advantage of the natural misinterpretation of his uniform by an officer.  Night fell, and, as he travelled south, Donal was able to skirt larger units and move faster.  He nearly was discovered twice by smaller parties.  But there were enough corpses by then that Donal was able to flop down akimbo, and escape close scrutiny.

My unit was holding one of the last unblown bridges south, and Jimmy and me had forward guard duty.  I was watching the last of our jeeps roll through, as the rest of the unit wired the bridge.  There was a mass of refugees waiting impatiently under the sweep of our machine guns, determined to cross.  "Marco!"  Suddenly I heard our password coming out of the crowd.  "Polo", I countered.  "Pony", came the counter-reply, and a disheveled man stepped to the front.

"Who's in charge here, private?"  "Who the fuck wants to know?"  "My name is Captain Donal Patrick Murphy.  I have information for the Korean officer who will take over once you pussies leave."  I relaxed.  This kind of raillery is what you learned to expect from the right kind of soldier.  "That'd be Colonel Park, sir."  "Fuck your sirs, kid.  Just take me to him."  I waved the last jeep over, and he and Jimmy and me hopped in.  We drove to the gatehouse at the far end of the bridge.  Donal got out, and walked inside.  I followed.

Donal saluted, and began to speak in a combination of Korean and English to the colonel.  I couldn't get what they were talking about, but I saw the conversation rapidly proceed to a point of congruency between the two men.  Donal saluted, and motioned me out.  He asked me for a cigarette.  "What's up, captain?"  "Is the bridge wired?"  "Yes, captain."  Donal puffed thoughfully for a while without speaking.  "See those people coming over the bridge, private?  The whole fucking Chinese army is less than five miles behind them."

By this point, without Jimmy and me holding them, the refugees had begun to cross in their oxcarts or on foot.  There were hundreds of them.  "Damn.  What fortitude", Donal muttered, as he threw the cigarette down.  "I offered to do it, but Park said 'No.  These are my people.'"  "What do you mean, captain?", I asked.  The gatehouse door opened, and Colonel Park walked out.  Donal nodded, and Park strode over to the box.  He lifted the plunger and pushed it down in one swift motion.

Last I heard, Donal Patrick Murphy was in Western State, out near Pittsburgh, serving forty years for bank robbery.

Dad turned the station wagon off the road through the valley, and into a ring of trees abutting concrete cabins along the Merced River.  It was afternoon, and we had been on the road since very early that morning.  The last time my family had gone to Yosemite, we stayed at the Ahwahnee.  But the belt had tightened considerably since then.  Dad waxed rhapsodically about the adventure of roughing it in this bucolic setting by running water.  Mom looked off vaguely into the distance while he ranted.  Brian, being the reflexive ass-kisser he always was, nodded enthusiastically.  Debbie looked bored.  I lugged bags into our assigned cabin, built by desperate men during the Depression, and noted even the absence of a door.  Just slabs for three walls and the floor, with a dingy blue nylon curtain separating the low cots from the outside.

Mom had made fried chicken the night before we left.  She opened our fire-red metal Coleman cooler, and pulled the foiled pieces out from under the ice.  We all ate like ravenous dogs.  After lunch, Mom and Dad pulled white wine out of the cooler.  This was the signal for us kids to get lost.  Debbie wandered down the riverside, Brian toadied off to get more ice, and I strode toward the valley wall.

It took some time for me to make my way out of the grove and into the meadow grass, dotted with orange poppies and white shooting stars.  It was late spring; grass blades were knee-high and and damp.  By the time I made it to the valley wall my sneakers were squeaking, and my calves felt frozen. 

From the distance of the grove, the stone walls had appeared seamless.  They were not.  The bottom was strewn with huge stone boulders, laid haphazardly atop each other like Legos left neglected by some giant infant.  I started to pull myself up the side of the boulders, moving in a careful yet determined manner.  After about a half an hour, I stopped, turned around, and stood flat-footed on a massive granite shelf.  My airy aerie looked out over the valley and trees.  The few visible people were the size of ants, although their voices carried clearly through the thin breeze.  My pants were dry, my toes felt numb, and I was hungry.

It took me considerably less time to descend, and make my way back to the cabin.  Dad had stoked up some charcoal in the rusty permanent barbeque, and had begun to grill some steaks.  I felt cold, weak and famished.  Every time the shadow of a cloud passed overhead, I shivered.  But a bellyful of London broil, potato salad, and pecan pie soon remedied that.  I went to bed just past dusk, and slipped into a dreamless sleep.

At some point, I began to hear the insistent clanging of bells deep inside my head.  They grew louder, and I finally realized that the noise was not part of some dream.  As I blearily awoke, and rubbed my eyes, I suddenly saw a massive paw enter past the flimsy nylon curtain, claws clicking on the cement floor.  I froze, as a huge head followed, snuffled loudly, and then withdrew.  Brian was in the cot across from me, looking terrified.  "Let's go see", I whispered to him.  He shook his head in a jerky motion.  "Chicken", I hissed.  Of course, I didn't move either.

The next morning, when we went outside, the Coleman cooler's lid had been ripped off like a tab off a can of soda.  Apparently one of the local bears had invaded the cluster of cabins, and had done some impulse shopping.  Our neighbors had driven her off by banging on pots and pans.

My family went to Yosemite many times after that.  But we never stayed in the cabins again.

Billy was playing by himself in the empty lot.  There was little there but a few tin cans laying on an intermittently level dusty patch of urban ruin.  There was nothing to set the cans on, so Billy was lining the rusty metal up against the grey-wood eight-foot high fence separating the back of the lot from the apartment buildings behind.  He dug small chunks of broken concrete out of the dirt, asked the cans for final words, and slung the rocks at them.  Usually, he missed; but the sound of pressed gravel hitting the fence made a satisfyingly loud impression on the neighborhood.  It was a hazy early autumn Saturday, with just enough breeze to send the clothes pinned to lines between grimy buildings into a banner-like flutter from time to time.

A group of six older kids, evenly divided by gender, broke Billy's reverie.  "Scram kid", shouted Cager, the oldest boy.  "We don't need no snot-nosed short-panted whiny brats buggin' us while we get down to business.  Get lost before I hit you harder than your pop hits your ma."  Billy retreated, not off the lot, but far enough away to run, and near enough to watch.  Cager feinted a move, but Billy stood fast.

Cager turned to the oldest girl.  "So Biddy, we're here.  How you gonna show girls are better than boys?"  Dob snickered.  "Hey Dot, why don't ya squat and pee for a quarter, like last week?  That'd show Cager."  Dot shot a murderous look at Dob, but said nothing.  "I'll tell you how, Cager.  Ringer.  One on one.  Your best shooter against my best shooter."  Cager snorted.  "Nobody never beats Sandy.  Sure not no girl."  "Nonie'll beat him like a rug.", Biddy retorted.  "We playin' for fair?", Sandy asked.  "Nope", said Nonie.  "Keepsies."  It suddenly seemed as if the air had chilled, and there was a percussive sound of the sharp intake of breath.  Winner take all.  This was serious.  Sandy's eyes narrowed, his lips thinned, and his shoulders rose as he paused, then nodded.  "Done."

Dot ran off to get the mibs, as Sandy and Nonie each pulled out their best shooter marble.  By the time Dot came back, word had spread, and another half-dozen kids had appeared.  Cager and Biddy scouted the lot, and settled on a fairly level spot.  One of the new kids, presumed to be neutral, was assigned to scratch out a rough circle.  Since Dot had gotten the mibs, Dob volunteered to make the cross.  Thirteen mibs in a ten foot ring.  First to knock out seven gets all the marbles.

Nonie waved over Billy, and gave him her bag; Sandy followed suit.  Cager, feeling the pressure, growled at Billy.  "Back off milk-breath.  But you better not take off with those marbles."  Billy moved away, without taking his eyes off Cager.

It was now dusk.  The kids surrounded the ring, leaving slots for the combatants.  Sandy won the lag, and got to shoot  first.  His shooter was an alley, black as midnight, colored marble, nicked by use; so big it was barely regulation.  Nonie's was smaller, an aggie, iridescent and smooth.

Sandy knuckled down, and let his first shot go.  Smack!  First mib out.  Second mib out.  Third mib out.  Then, on his fourth shot, his shooter hit a tiny knob of concrete pushing up out of the dirt, and veered wide.  Now it was Nonie's turn.

Using a lighter marble, rather than knuckling down, Nonnie was histing.  Her shot was on the fly, not the ground.  Plunk!  One.  Two.  Three.  Four.  But on Nonie's fifth shot, the wind suddenly gusted, rattling the clothes like castanets.  The aggie hit nothing but dirt, as Nonie grimaced distgustedly.

Sandy smiled, and hunkered down.  Four.  Five.  Six.  But Sandy forgot to wipe his alley off, and a small piece of dirt on it threw his shot off enough so that he hit the seventh mib with a glancing blow.  It moved, but not out of the ring.  Cager groaned.

Nonie lined up five.  Plunk out.  Six.  Plunk out.  The last mib was on the far side from Nonie.  It was a beast of a shot to make.  And since the mib was closer to Sandy, it was game over if she missed.  Nonie held her aggie up to the fading sun, checking for flaws.  None found, she settled down, pursed her lips, and let fly.

Bliss for the winner, loser cries.