Keeping Up With the Wind: A 'Burban Tale by Suleyma Moon

14.

Faith and I found "the bridge" when I was around nine or ten years old. We used to pretend that we were explorers and go everywhere that we had no business being. All of that stopped after we finally found the perfect hideout. Eventually, we could keep our secret about the "mysterious cave" no longer and we brought Faith's brother back. Of course he had to get the other boys, Spider and Ace.

Li'l Jay was too small to go anywhere back then, but he used to bug us about coming all the time. The place became our unofficial hangout, and the more we went, the less he got to hang with the "big kids." That might have also been around the time that he started acting up, just trying to get our attention.

It's a wonder that no one but us ever did find out about that place. Five little kids running across the highway must have looked pretty suspicious. I also wondered why no one ever came to tear it down.

            "Shadow!" Ace's booming voice snapped me back to the present. "Where are ya, you son of a bitch!" he called jovially from inside the building. We had been so focused on the several hundred dollars' worth of merchandise that Shadow had just thrown out into the middle of the street that we hadn't even seen Ace go in.

Ace had picked up a slight southern accent from his father, but it only came out when he was really excited. Spider liked to call it "laugh-happy," since his brother wasn't happy enough to laugh very often.

            "Shit..." Shadow mumbled under his breath. Then he took one last drag on his cigarette and went back inside. I followed him in.

            "You two look guilty," Blaze observed as soon as we walked through the door.

            "No. Just throwing away some of Li'l Jay's stuff. He said he quit..." The words sounded like a lie, even as they came out of my own mouth.

            "Well, all right li'l mama!" Blaze shouted and ran toward me at full speed. I braced myself and tried not to run. When he finally reached me, he picked me up and spun me around.

            "My side!" I screamed as his fingers dug into my rotten pear-bruise. "Let me go!"

            "Oh sorry," he apologized and quickly put me down.

            They all watched me for a minute to make sure that I was alright. Then Ace began to grin and circle around Shadow, looking him up and down. Shadow, having never seen Ace grin at him or anyone else before, looked curiously at me.

            "What the hell is this fool grinning at?" he asked me in an agitated tone.

            I just smiled and shook my head. It hurt my face, but I couldn't help but grin, too, at the sight of Ace being so happy. It was a rare thing, indeed.

            "Som' bitch," Ace kept mumbling and shaking his head proudly. "Didn't know you had it in ya!"

            "What in the hell are you talking about?" A smile had also begun to slowly spread across Shadow's face, though his was probably more out of confusion than humor.

When no one answered, anger flickered in his eyes. He had been on edge for the past few days, and any emotion was bound to pop up at any given moment.

            Sensing that the joke was about to play out, Blaze finally grinned and said, "We ran into a few of Johnny's friends last night." He flopped down next to me on the side of an armchair that we had found the year before.

Finally, Ace and Blaze began to unravel what sounded like an epic tale...because all of their stories came out that way...excitedly cutting across one another and pausing every now and then to laugh at their own jokes.