Cranky
(Published in Jubilee City, 2005)

They just couldn’t get off. Neither one had a car that was running either. So they left their boss’s boring party, and stuck their thumbs in the air. The two eighteen year olds caught a ride with two sixteen year olds from the other side of the tracks in a nice trans-am. The sixteen year olds were on speed and wouldn’t shut up but they did hand the riders fresh beers out of a brand new case. The eighteen year olds got to their destination and convinced the irritating sixteen year olds to pull down a dark street. The older ones concocted a plan to take the beer. The car stopped, the riders got out, and started kicking the guys in the front seat till they let go of the beer. And then the two walked down the dark street carrying three-quarters of a case of beer and tried to drink a few more, but dropped about fifteen cans in someone’s front yard and set off on foot. Six hours later its twilight. They somehow got separated during the night and one ran completely out of luck, couldn’t even get a ride now, was more tired than drunk and after walking three miles he finally got a car to stop and take him the last mile home. He gets in the car happy to have a ride, but looks up and sees it’s the two kids they kicked the shit out of six hours earlier. He jumps out of the moving car and runs into an abandoned shopping center’s parking lot and finds out there are two cars, and he is quickly surrounded by six or seven sixteen year olds. He backs up to a big aluminum lamp post in the middle. They are closing in on him. He looks down and sees a big chunk of asphalt from the crumbled parking lot, holds it over his head, and says “I’m gonna kill the first mother fucker that touches me.”