I wrote this for a literary magazine as an undergrad. It’s as coherent as it is inspiring.
He didn’t know how it got there. He had been past the same spot the day before and hadn’t noticed anything strange. As he stared, Jimmy leaned over the low white fence to pick up the item. Never in his 12 years had he seen such an object that commanded this amount of attention, this cosmic puzzling, this extraordinary sense of awe.
The boy twisted the piece of plastic in the sunlight to fend off the glare. His mussed brown hair obscured the view form his right eye but avoided his left allowing a clear view of the prize. It was, in fact a name tag.
The tag consisted of a rectangular piece of white plastic with a diaper type pin on the back. On the front was a sticker with the message: Hi, My Name Is… The area below the writing was left blank to accommodate a name. There was no name. Jimmy thought to himself, “Mom’s gonna have to get me my South American Surly Mouth Crab now.” With that happy thought in his head and his index finger in his eye, he headed home.
Jimmy climbed the shabby stairs to his apartment. As he walked by apartment doors he hollered, “Fire! Fire! The whole building’s on fire!” Then giggled because he knew a lot of people were afraid of their building burning down. “If I ever catch on fire” he thought, “I would cook a hot dog or a Polish sausage over my leg.”
Jimmy’s mom was fixing up some bacon as well as some beans over the stove when he walked in. “Hey! What are you doing here!” the lady screamed. “Oh, you’re not my mom.” He had walked into the wrong apartment again.
Jimmy got home and greeted his mother hurriedly as he rushed into his room. He pulled out a black pen and scrawled, “Chrome Eyebrow” into the area on the name tag for someone’s name. He sat there and wondered at what he had done. This wasn’t some average kid trick, this was a horrendous example of diabolical ingenuity.
“It’s time for dinner Francisco, come on out before it gets cold!” hollered his mom from the kitchen. “I ain’t letting that Capybara get my hoseries again. Punk.”
Jimmy remembered the time he convinced his mom that a Capybara was really a fish because it swam in the water. What mom wouldn’t let their child have a pet fish? She allowed it, though she had never seen a four legged fish with large incisors. To top that off, it nursed its young! Fantastic.
“I was just recalibrating my corn nugget when you called mom. Did I catch you at a bad time?” Jimmy questioned.
“No not really. I was just wanting you to get to your food before it got lukewarm. You know, about the temperature of an armpit. And quit calling me mom, I just do the vacuuming in the halls of the building.”
“You’re the armpit. Stinkin’ armpit head.” Jimmy mumbled under his breath as he stomped away.
“You won’t talk to your mother like that young lumber tooth. I’ve got a good mind to give you a piece of my mind mind you! And what, I suppose you’re in a gang now with that big shot Chrome Eyebrow thing? I knew it! Your father warned me. Now that I think about it, I left my vacuum in the hall unattended. Someone could have stolen my hepafilter. Tell your parents I said hi. See ya later.” She turned and walked out the door.Thinking over the recent events Jimmy just had to smile and say as he leaned back onto the scalding stove, “Zang Dang, ain’t America great?”
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