“I was sixteen, had just gotten out of my sophomore year of high school, and was starting a summer job where I lived in Florida. All my life my mother has been into antiquities, and and usually frequents various auction houses. That summer I was to work for some friends of hers, who lived in an old theatre in Port St. Joe, Florida, and held auctions on the weekend. I was to write tickets when the wife needed a break, and clean up and serve beverages to people, and later help them pack their treasures to leave. As you might guess, for a high school student on summer break, it wasn’t much for me to do, so I took frequent breaks, and went about the town by bike or foot.
“It was a relatively small town, and after a while I met many of the locals. Most were very courteous, old timey even. But there was a group of kids, most around my age, that were destructive in every sense of the word; vandalism was one of their most common pranks. One of them, a boy a year younger than me, stuck out more than the rest because he was somewhat different, and befriended me quickly. I think the only reason he hung out with that group of kids, was because he had no else to hang out with.
“These teenagers used to get drunk, and rowdy, and go from parking lot to parking lot playing their music, skating, and pushing each other around in buggies. Sometimes they would walk in a large group, and sometimes they would pile into a couple of vehicles and take off. I never did hang out with the full horde of them, but that one guy would come around looking for me on my breaks during the days that I worked. He told me a little about these kids and why he hung out with them. He said that because the town was so small and there wasn’t much to do, they mostly went looking for trouble, hoping to find it out of boredom.
“The leader of this group was his older cousin, whom I learned was always full of bad intentions. On a regular basis the small group, especially the so-called leader, tried to get me to join their little gang. They would call me chicken and make harassing noises, and often tried to scare me, and sometimes would chase me down the sidewalk. My one friend in the group stopped them many times, seeming to have a big effect on them since he was the cousin of you know who. Well, his efforts didn’t stop them for long, but after a while they did seem to grow bored with the games, and let me alone besides. The boy and I became considerably close, and toward the end of summer I would meet him on a regular basis, just to talk, and flirt, and catch up from the week before. Mind you, I did not live in this town.
“One day we were sitting on a bench outside the theatre talking, and when we looked up we saw the group coming out of the bar across the street in front of us. As they angrily stalked out they were followed by the ‘only’ 2 cops in town. The cops were screaming at these kids about something, obviously making them leave the establishment for some reason or another. The kids split up into three groups; two of the groups jumped into one of two cars and raced up the mainstreet a ways and sped just about as fast as traffic would let them, attracting the two cops; while the rest, including the leader, donned sunglasses and hats and prepared to re-enter the establishment they were just booted out of. The leader pulled a gun, a pistol I think, and then robbed the little old man that ran the place.
“As they came running out, my friend, formerly a part of the alliance, decided once and for all he would put an end to the chaos they were causing. That afternoon, being the little narc that he was, my friend went to the police and positively identified the three boys who held up the bar, while the cops were in pursuit. Well, I heard that the boys were held over a period of a couple days in county jail, fined, and released. However, the leader would be bonded out, and had to stand some kind of trial before he was put back in jail, or juvey, I’m not sure which, for the gun charge he caught. This information I learned the next week of work after the robbery.
“I was a little upset that my friend would get involved with those people again, and so when he came to see me that next day of work, I almost avoided him and ran inside. Instead I just sat on the bench we had shared during the robbery and waited for him to cross the last two side streets between us. When he got about half way, encountering absolutely no traffic as usual, he decided to sprint the rest of the way to me. I watched as he leapt from the sidewalk directly across from me, down to the paved road, and started at a slow run. Meanwhile this is all coming in slow motion for me… the sound of a horn, an acceleration, I turned my head but a moment before my view came, with the sight of the front bumper of a car, right back to my friend standing in the middle of the road. BOOM!!! Busted glass, and screeching brakes and wheels… and then the car stopped, and out stepped the conveniently possessed leader of the pack… laughing with disdain, and calling out ‘I told you not to f**k with me a**hole!!’ Then he took off running away, along with another guy that was in the car with him. My mind finally backtracked, and I slowly started to realize what had happend. My friend had just gotten hit by a car, and not just any car: his cousin’s car. I jumped up without thinking, and almost getting run over myself, ran to the middle the street, where lay a 15 year old boy, crumpled over sideways, unnaturally, to say the least. He had slid a couple yards or so, and retained bloody scrapes up and down his body in random spots that also bore slightly peeled back flesh. I turned him over just as he started to attempt moving, and hearing his inconsistent breathing started I screaming ‘Call 911, he’s not breathing right! Somebody Please!’ At this point people were in shop windows, on the sidewalk next to us, and milling around the road where the accident took place, looking as if dumb founded. It seemed to almost as if time stood still, and captured me, and almost everyone else. Someone had chased after the two boys that were in the car, and had one on the ground restrained, and the other was being thrown about because he was resisting. I stared in wonder. He had not achieved his goal of stopping this chaos, my friend I mean, and for a moment the scenery held me. All of a sudden I heard what I can only assume, and fully believe, was my name followed by a gurgle, and I looked down to the boy’s head in my lap. He took one more deep breath before I heard the siren, and tried to speak, but blood took the place of his words, and his muscles went slack. He died in my arms of all places, and for what?”
Hmmmm… I could swear I’ve seen this movie before but I can’t quite place it.
Brush
