Stand By Me

chapter two; The Journey Begins

(Who would be who; l to r; Jason, Jesse, Perry, Lee)

---
"What do we need a pistol for anyway?" Perry asks as we all come to the tracks.

"It's spooky sleeping out at night in the woods. We might see a bear," Jesse answers. "Or a garbage can," I shrug. Lee then acted as if he'd punch Perry, and the boy flinches.

"Two for flinching," he hits him in the arm twice. "Ow!" We make it to the bridge where our journey begins. It was a long stretch of tracks as far as we could see.

"How far d'you think it's gonna be?" Lee asks.

"If we follow the tracks all the way into Harlow it might be about 20 miles. Sound about right, Jason?"

I nod at my best friend, "Yeah, yeah. Might even be thirty." Perry then groans, "Gee. Maybe we should just hitchhike."

"No way, that sucks!" Lee protests.

"Why not? We cold go down Route Seven to the Shiloh church. Then down the Back Harlow road. We'd be there by sundown," the youngest reasons.

"That's pussy!"

"Hey, it's a long ways," Perry complains, but we just kept walking. To pass time, we start singing our favorite tune.

"Have Gun, Will Travel" reads the card of a man! A knight without armor in a savage land! His fast gun-for-hire heeds the calling wind. A soldier of fortune he's a man called Paladin!"

We stop after a while, but Lee continued since it's his favorite song. Jesse takes a drink from his canteen and I remembered something.

"We could fill up at the junkyard. My dad said it's a save well," I say. "Not if Chopper's there," Perry shakes his head. "If Chopper's there we'll send you in," Jesse jokes.

"Haha, very funny."

We travel in silence for a few minutes. I'm looking down at my feet as we moved.

"Hey, I'm kind of hungry, who's got the food?" We stop. "Oh shit! Did anybody bring anything?" Jesse shakes his head, "Not me. Jason?"

"Nope."

"Well, this is great. What are we supposed to do? Eat our feet?"

"D'you mean, you didn't bring anything either?" Jesse gives Lee a dirty look. "Oh shit, this wasn't my idea. It was Perry's idea. Why didn't you bring something?"

"What'm I supposed to do? Think of everything?"

"Hey, hey, hey, hey!" I stop the two from bickering. "Let's see how much money we've got."

We all sit down on the tracks after emptying our pockets. "Yeah. I got a dollar two," I say then start collecting everyone's money.

"Sixty-eight cents from Jes. Sixty cents from Lee," we all look at Perry expectedly. He reluctantly puts his change in my hand and I start down at the pennies.

"Seven cents, Perry?" I deadpan.

"Haven't found my pennies yet," he shrugs. "Well, $2.37 not bad. Quidachioluo's is at the end of the little road that goes by the junkyard. I think we can get some stuff there."

The ground starts to vibrate under us. "Train coming," Jesse says and we all stand up. "Geronimo!" Perry yells as he jumps from the little hill the tracks were on and onto the grass.

"Come on, Lee!"

"No... I'm gonna dodge it," he says while taking off his sleeping bag and tossing it over to us. We could see the black smoke coming from the locomotive.