Photo Copyright © 2018 by twentysixdollars.com. 

“I LOST MY BRIEFCASE with my all of my notes!” Mort cried, bursting through the front door. He quickly closed the door behind him, to keep the cold air out of the house.

His mother looked up, alarmed, as she watched him stamp his feet and shake his shoulders in an attempt to rid his boots and clothes of snow.

“Best eulogy I ever heard,” I heard over and again as I mingled with mourners at the entrance to the church. His family was excessive in their praise. “Excellent eulogy, you knew him so well,” sad faces repeatedly said. “Better than even some of his family,” a few added. Only Curtis Brown, one of our old schoolmates, said, “I almost didn’t recognize the character you were speaking about. That wasn’t the Peezoff that I knew.”

*

Benji, Fluffy and Squid

IT WAS another Saturday morning. The side door closed and Mum was off to town as the theme tune of Julia struck up.  I sat shelling peas in front of the telly. 

“Can’t I be in your club,Earl .J. Wagadorn?” Corey Baker beseeched. “I’m your best friend.”

A small white worm wiggled about in a pod.  I picked it up and fired it through the window.

“This is our secret private personal club.”

EARLY IN JANUARY nineteen t’irty-seven, t’ings change.  It was tense befo’e, but it get worse now, an’ t’ings gettin’ real bad ’pon de plantations.  De overseers gettin’ vex dat de people complainin’ an’ dey makin’ de people work harduh in order to frighten dem into submission.  But dat ain’t workin’. An’ den I hear dat Lemmey, who live by Miss Ida house in a hut near de bottom uh de gap, slap one uh de overseers, an’ it turn out bad ’cause de overseer try to hit Lemmey widuh whip, and Lemmey slice ’im up widuh cutlass.