Summertime in the country

The beginning

I am the kid that when parents find out their kid is hanging around me half of them smile thinking of all the good times we will have and the other half frown and turn away. Well I'm not that bad but I'm not good and I sometimes get into trouble but what's the fun in life if you always follow the rules. I'm 12 and I have a girlfriend some don't like that but hey she is beautiful and I just love her personality we don't have sex or anything. Me and my three buddies hang around spring creek and shoot the shit, sometimes with our girls. There's just something about water that I just love, the little crawdads and such, I just find them amazing. But anyways I was down by the creek with my girl a friend with the listenin' to the radio, the Broncos were beating the Raiders to high hell and it was perfect day in the mid seventies when I got to thinkin' "why the hell don't we go for a joyride?". I got to thinkin' this because I saw a movie the previous night where at one point this kid steals his dad's car and takes it for a spin and it looked mighty fun cruisin'around and hope in ' no one saw you and busted your ass. But I thought "what the hell", only an idiot would get caught. Me and my friend Kenny go into my one friend's garage, Jack's garage I think it was, more on him later and took his car out for a spin. We couldn't even get the thing out of the garage. My friend Kenny drove it straight into the wall. By this time the girls had ducked out so it was just me and my friend Kenny, He drove was the one that drove it into the wall. So we just got outta there and left it for Jack and his family to find. So while me and Kenny were haulin' ass to get outta there we saw our girlfriends up ahead. We had stumbled upon an alibi, we could claim we were with them at the time. So we yelled "hey!" And spent the better part of the afternoon with those two. My girlfriend, my name is Earl by the way was named Jenny. We stayed together for the next year but my friends girl Molly dumped him when she heard he was the one that drove the car into jack's wall. Kenny and Molly  got to talkin' 'bout things regarding life in general, it was pretty "deep" as Kerouac would say, conversation. They were real close but I think that this was the beginning of the end for them. She kissed him real deep and said she wanted to take things more seriously but He and I were a lighthearted guys and he thought about it and told her that he would well, think about it. But me and Jenny got along great and I still don't remember why we broke up but people change I guess. We went our separate ways around 5:30 and it ended up being the two couples walking home together.
"Earl?" Asked Jenny
"Yeah?"
"Patrick," she choked "Patrick said that you had another girl somewheres"
I steamed "Frankly Patrick's word ain't worth two shits"
Taken aback she responded " so you don't have another girl?"
I assured her I didn't

Later at Diner my mother mentioned Patrick calling him a "good role model" you see Pat was one of those kids who av
acted one way around parents and another around kids he was the only one of us without a girl as most found him disgusting, which was what he was. My mother is a smart woman and could see I disagreed with that and she asked how things were going between the two of us.
"Well ma he told Jenny I was cheatn"
"We're you?"
" 'course not ma!" I shouted
She frowned realizing Pat was a no good liar. The worst of a sorry bunch.

The next day I found him near the junk yard, taunting the guard dog
"Jenny told me what you said"
He turned with a grin " Just though I'd stir things up a little"
"Well I guess you succeeded"
" so, wanna duke it out?" He asked, losing his grin
Pat was a good deal smaller than me so I was clearly going to whip his ass.
It was my turn to grin " sure" I replied coolly.
He ran. But I was faster and tackled him I let him get back up. I wasn't going to hit a man on the ground! He ran. It continued like that for a while
My mother got a call from his later that night. She knew about what he said so the paddling wasn't as bad as it could have been but it was bad.