Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Theme Week 7

Even among the group of construction workers Scotty stood out. Not by height or weight, both average but his teeth, crooked and yellow stood out past his lower lip. Scotty remained taking long puffs on his smoke as the rest of group of super-safety-certified workers made their way to the safety zone they stamped out their cigarettes and reached into their pockets for their smokeless tobacco. Scotty grinned and said to me, “Them guys are getting double cancer. At least I’m only getting the lung cancer.” He took one last drag, hot end pointing toward the sky, flicked the butt down and flattened it on his first step toward his buddies.

We will have to work on that “a scout is obedient” stuff with the new scout Bobby. His mom brought him to our meeting without registration or warning. She said something about a child in a nearby troop harassing Bobby so the district council recommended our troop and here she was with Bobby. He looked like a typical 11-year-old except with small but protruding ears that seemed too high on his head. At the first drop-off meeting various chaperones peppered him with chides, directions, and warnings he finally fell off a rock and made a 6 inch long gash in his arm. Luckily the camp nurse was attending so she swabbed and bandaged him up while the scout master called his mom. He put Bobby on the phone and his first question was “Mom, what is my name?” an odd question from an odd kid.

3 comments:

johngoldfine said...

I like the Scotty one in particular--you do a very nice job of not being in the piece and being in the piece very strongly. Nice trick (and you pull it off with the Bobby graf too.) I like the very dry humor in the Scotty graf--all the super-safety stuff--and that last image, very visual and not necessary to comment on. Just leave it and done--strong writing.

The Bobby piece, for my taste, leaves too many hanging threads. Bobby's question sounds like hbis mom is on the run from the cops and is changing her name and his as she picks up new ID. Anyway, not as sure of itself as the Scotty piece. Does that square with how you thought about it?

stevens said...

I see that there is too much of mom in the Bobby peice. That distracts from his description. Just dropping the second and third sentences helped.

johngoldfine said...

Bobby's mom?--not too much of her in my opinion. His peculiarity and hers entwine and it winds up being a dual portrait, not an unreasonable approach with a kid.