Cherry Pitts
By Rachel Heffington
I didn’t even know
we had aunts. There were uncles by the dozen, but they all “bached” it in a
dirty, smoky set of apartments in the city. Buggs, Sharpshin, and I loved
visiting them—we always had such larks, for there was a desperate element of
danger in their antics: Uncle Nelson had a habit of juggling all the sharpest
steak-knives and throwing them at you so they cut a few hairs off the top of
your head, but left your scalp. Uncle Jem drank brandy (for his bum leg, he
said.) and smoked dime cigars at the same time. Uncle Welch always dared us to
walk along the wrought iron rail of the great bridge in the Park. But the
youngest, most perilous—and therefore beloved—uncle of all was Uncle Brodie. He
would load one chamber of his six-shooter, (that had done service to a real
live Indian once) then coolly point the pistol in your direction and shoot the
five empty chambers so you prayed he was paying attention and counting right.
We adored Uncle
Brodie for the very fact that you were never quite safe around him—he was like
a jungle, an island, a cowboy, and a pirate-ship all boiled down and buttoned
up in a crumpled, grey suit.
We never knew what
to expect from Uncle Brodie. Maybe that’s why we weren’t as surprised as we might
have been when the door of Sallimander’s Drug jangled open one afternoon as
Buggs, Sharpshin, and I were drinking our twice-weekly cream-sodas.
Uncle Brodie slung
his lanky frame onto the barstool beside Sharpshin. “Hey kids,” he said.
I sipped my cream soda and licked my lips,
savoring the sweet furze that clung to them.
“Hey Uncle
Brodie,” Sharpshin said, without taking his eyes from his comic book. He wasn’t
reading it—I knew my own brother well enough to know that—he studied the
super-heroes because he planned to become an inventor and he was determined to
find the formula for Kryptonite. Buggs and I thought him a genius.
Uncle Brodie
cleared his throat and I looked at him. His face was splotchy, and he kept
swallowing funny.
“Want my cherry?”
I asked, running a grimy hand through my red hair till it stood on end.
“Sure kid,” he
said. He never called me Lewis—which was my real name—or even Pitt, which was
what the guys called me. All three of us—Buggs, Sharpshin, and myself—were just
“kid” to Uncle Brodie, but I didn’t mind.
I pulled the
cherry off the deflated pile of whipped cream and eyed it with a little
reluctance—but nothing was too good for my idol. I passed it to him and he
tossed it in his mouth, chewed once, and swallowed it, stem and all.
I suppose there
was a measure of talent mixed up in such a feat, but I stared gape-mouthed.
Buggs, Sharpshin, and I had a religious system when we ate a cherry; we pulled
the stem off, licked the cherry clean, polished it on our shirt-sleeves, then
ate it in mouse-bites till the last bit of sweet cherry-juice was only a memory
on the tongue.
The cherry being
disposed of, Uncle Brodie cleared his throat again and pulled an envelope from
his pocket. It was sweaty and crumpled and looked as agitated as a june-bug with
a string tied to his leg. In fact, it looked just like Uncle Brodie did.
“What’s ‘at?”
Buggs asked. He pushed his patched cap to a jaunty angle on his head and
reached for the envelope.
Uncle Brodie
shoved his hand away. “Listen kiddos,” he said, “I’ve got somethin’ important
to tell ya’.”
I froze in my
folding of a napkin into a sailor-hat. Sharpshin pulled his eyes from his comic
book. Buggs pushed his hat back in the other direction.
Uncle Brodie
crumpled his weather-beaten fedora in his hands and gave us a sympathetic
grimace. “I’m real sorry, kids. I really am.”
Buggs cracked his
knuckles. “So?”
Uncle Brodie slid
the envelope across the counter till it hit my elbow. “So, it’s the aunts,
kiddos. They’re claiming you.”
2 comments:
Please write more! Please!
I like it! You have some very unique characters in this story, all very interesting in their own ways. I think this could definitely be the start of something bigger if you ever want to push it further.
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