In the second installment of this week's paired flash pieces, Matthew C. Funk takes us from grade school on up in the Big and not so Easy.
Peer pressure like a vice grip. This week's heart-breaker. Only at FFO ...
Peer pressure like a vice grip. This week's heart-breaker. Only at FFO ...
High Hopes by Matthew C. Funk
 |
 |
Their dreams made them more than mere survivors. Anyone who
lived in Desire had to survive it. The Core Four wanted to escape being just
anyone.
Astronaut. Architect. Supermodel. Navy SEAL. To Sherman and
Louise, Marla and Pook, the words held more value than a fist of cash. More
security than a mortgage. Better sustenance than a French Quarter meal. The
words were keys to a future that could lock away the present and past.
“Pain can’t touch you,” Marla would say, whenever another of
the Four had been beaten, yelled down, written up, stolen from or graded a
failure.
“No. It belongs to someone else, somewhere else, some other
time.”
And when nights were warm, the Core Four would grill pork
rib in the graffitied shadow of the abandoned technical college, and drink wine
coolers, and talk of their future salaries. When nights were cold, they'd boil
crawfish at Pook's, winding blown pot smoke with the rising steam, and talk of
the trophies they'd win. And on mild nights, they'd sit on Marla's porch, under
the tarp Katrina left of her roof, shooting dice, drinking Colt 45, telling
each other how prepared they'd be tomorrow.
One tomorrow, Marla didn't come home. Her seat in Geometry
sat empty with Sherman, Louise and Pook surrounding it like protective dogs. By
science lab at noon , word reached
them that she'd made her way to the police station.
Rumor up and down Desire's main drag, Louisa
Street , was that a vagrant with a knife and a
hard-on for tweens crossed Marla's path, pre-dawn at the homeless shelter.
Sherman, Louisa and Pook tried to pry details out of her from the moment they
picked her up at the 5th District Station, but she only held her elbows
tighter. The only thing that came out of Marla's mouth about that night was
swabbed out by a Special Victims nurse for evidence.
It made Marla quieter and made her dresses and makeup louder.
Pook ducked bill collectors until he had enough to buy a gun. Louise gave up
single-fist drinking. And Sherman
escaped into his studies.
He turned D's into A's in his sophomore year. It made his
teachers smile about him together on their cigarette breaks. It meant Marla,
Louise and Pook had to drink Sherman 's
Colt 45s for him most nights.
He built an engine out of kitchen foil, car parts and
under-the-sink cleaners. It made LSU recruiters write his name down enough
times they'd remember it. It kept Marla, Louise and Pook outside the admiring
circle that gathered at Sherman 's
science fair booth to pat his back.
He wrote a paper on hydrodynamics at the international space
station. It posted on Gorbachev's blog, by way of Carver
High School
They were focused on other projects:
Sending obscene texts to Sherman ’s
teachers from his stolen cell phone came first. Waiting until he went on his
morning jog, then sneaking into his room and pouring Big Shot soda all over his
computer and books, came next. Planting his brother’s heroin in his locker for
tipped-off cops to find, capped it off.
By June, Sherman
was back in the sandy waste inside the technical college courtyard. He sat
among the Core Four, watching pork fumes escape the ring of derelict buildings
toward the few stars that could be seen. His sixty days in jail had made him
almost as quiet as Marla. He only spoke when everyone was soggy from Night
Train.
"Why'd you fuck me up?" Sherman
said, leaning back in his lawn chair. "I know you did it."
"It ain't like that," Louise said. They squinted
in confusion at Sherman .
"You wrecked everything. It was my dream."
Pook laughed, patting his shoulder. "Come on, dog, we
dream together. We dream together."
