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"Contents may not Settle"
Perry Estelle © 2002
Newmarket Upper School. Tuesday April 24th 2001 8.30hrs.
"Mind, if I hang out wid joo?"
Donny Gates was a product of the American airforce. At fifteen years old he had followed his Father around the world more times than his own shoe size. A colonial giant, that had managed to grow his arms and legs at the same time. He had a Little Richard moustache helped in its pubescent growth by using mascara. He wore mirrored pilot glasses. The crinkly 'regulation' flat top made him look too young for the military, but old enough to be a 'Guardian Angel' in a New York subway. Eyes, as big and brown as upturned horse-chestnuts.
"Why not? E rm,….help yourself….I'm Rose…Rose Sinclair, by the way. …….You are?" Rose nudged a chair with her good foot and in breaststroke fashion cleared a crater in the middle of the table. She was not taken by surprise at the new boy's offer of company. Total strangers, often shared a meal with her. Her parents had been doing it for years. On, the first Tuesday of every month, since, they gave her up for fostering. Having a cripple for a daughter just might put people off their food.
Each school assembly she did not repeat the 'Lord's prayer', parrot fashion. Instead, she usually asked God to try harder next term and help her find one part, of the 'physio' torture she was ordered to tolerate, more or less, pain-free. It left her like she had been put through a meat grinder. She was no stranger to pain and she hoped this stranger was not one either.
"Hi, Donny Gates, good to know ya. Man, I though at least you would have a candy store here. You Brits sure do know how to have a good time, for real, baby." Donny looked at the tiny Tupper-ware container. Roses' carer, a Nazi in drag, called 'Mo' had hastily squeezed samples of edible material, into the box with all the 'care' of a stubbing a cigarette. A task, the woman begrudged as it made her two minutes late for her aerobics class, after the shift. He reached over to lift some cling-wrap off some squashed homemade flapjack. His face changed. Curiosity changed his expression to that of a newly appointed nurse changing a sceptic dressing.
"Hey, do you mind?" Her mouth full, Rose rescued what was left of her pack-up and snatched it away from further over-handling.
"It may not look much, but it's my lunch. If you want to touch my food then be prepared to eat it too, because I don't want complete strangers infecting it with hands that I do not know where they have been. Thank you very much."
Rose frowned with disdain. She had been institutionalised sufficiently enough from her grand tour of foster and care homes at an early age. She knew how to look after herself and her food. Meals could leave your fork before it got to your mouth. Like a bar of soap in the bath it was gone. Just because it was thrown at her did not mean others could perform an autopsy on it.
"Gee, take it easy, I was only kiddin' ya, ok? I wish like hell you had a McDonalds or Chilli's so I could educate you limey's on true cuisine…" A large cocky grin revealing more white teeth than there seemed room for, thrust a broad smile that would prove wider than the conversation. A smile of charm and mischief. He was born in Oxford, on the banks of the Mississippi. That giant smile was bigger and wider than the mud on both sides. A smile, that encouraged Rose to be more charitable.
"Would you like a bite out of my big red rosy apple?" Rose offered the nibbled fruit, yielding slightly.
The offer was overheard by a group of boys who had put their feet on furniture in the school canteen because they were not allowed to do so at home. The gang of youths, five in number, led by an obnoxious example of teenage revolt. Ricki Cooper. An accomplished juvenile confidence trickster. Ricki had the scruples and mercy of a coyote in a chicken shed.
"That's my line, twinkle toes. You can munch on it anytime, darlin'." The boy with enough lunar surface on his face for an Apollo landing, made a snorting stifle of a sound and looked over each shoulder for applause. He rolled a cigarette with one hand to the awe of the scruffy bundle around him. A cry of derision bounced across towards her.
"In you dreams, smart arse." Rosemary, handed Donny the fruit and with the other hand foraged for a suitably crushed cereal bar that she previously found inside a sofa while searching for money. It was business as usual for Rose. She had a stock answer for her critics, disarming terrorists at two paces with her retorts filed in her well thumbed mental catalogue of the vernacular.
The jeering lout, smarted and puffing his chest, sauntered towards the rear of Rose. He stood behind her and sniggering to his goading group threw his head back and snorted again. He bent down, and spat a globule of mucus into her lunchbox. He swiped the contaminated food container onto the floor.
The cronies cheered. Rose cursed at him and stooped from a chair to salvage what she could.
Donny gaped and frowned. He picked his moment. With clenched fists inside leather driving gloves and through gritted teeth, he shouted at the chuckling figure, now walking back to his horde.
"Hey, you freakin' philistine pick up the box, buddy. Pick up the damn box and pass it back, or so help me, you will get yours."
The canteen chatter died down to a mere gasp. The dinner lady, dressed in green gingham reversed out of the hall to summon emergency back up. Hilda had seen jockeying for position on the first day of term before. The pecking order was about to begin. It was going to end in tears. She took her feet in her hands and ran to the teacher's staff room. The rest of the kids stood or sat, like waxworks.
The ringleader stood up and shot back. Pointing a finger first at Rose who chomped nonchalantly on what was left of her nourishment, barely acknowledging the danger of the situation. Humming, as she chewed.
"Watch it cripple! You better take care of yourself. You might have a matching pair for legs soon, if you don't. As for our all American hero here, meet me in the Gym, at midnight. You bloody yanks never learned anything from Pearl harbour, so you probably need a lesson in self defence after all."
Donny stood his ground.
Rose was about to ignore the threat as she checked the almost illegible 'sell by date' on a dismembered mini-roll to be sure a local supermarket were not held responsible for any poisoning effects.
She just could not let it go. She turned looking under her curls and lashes. Drumming her fingers, she said.
" Oh, I'm shittin' through me ribs. It will take a man, not a shirt button, you hairy arsed wanker." She smirked and winked at Donny who wore an expression of disappointment. He wished that she had let it go. Now, he too, was past the point of no return.
Donny blurted.
"Forget later, your friends, already know what a coward you are. Now.. do they have to spit in a girls food to feel like real men, huh, is that it? I bet you're real proud of yourselves."
"I said pick up the box and hand it to me." Donny in the unenviable position between pushing his luck and pushing up daisies.
Ricki, looked down and with a shrug, scooped up the container and without hesitation, threw the contents into Donny's face.
Donny stood there with lettuce and another green substance in his hair.
His face contorted. His pupils dilated, while other pupils fixated and stopped exchanging Pokemon cards and sharpening pencils. Donny, took one look at Rose's crack of a smile and she pealed into raucous laughter. Donny, wiped stray mayonnaise from his fore-lip, careful not to smudge his mascara and joined in the hilarity. Ignoring the reaction of those present who had not read the amusement.
Ricki gave a confused look and his throng looked at him back in the same puzzled way. They had not seen people squeak with laughter when the 'Billy the Kid of the playground' threw down his gauntlet before. It was a new, unforgettable, and slightly worrying experience for all of them. They shuffled off. Tugging at Ricki's sleeve. He made one parting shot.
"After midnight…because… right now you're a dead man walking, sunshine." The boy framed his shoulders and signalled by a nod of his head and a flick of his forelock for the gang to follow. They were hesitant and he used his knee to push one of the boys into submission to follow him away.
Donny, sat down and took some limp and discoloured foliage from around his left ear. Checking it for remnants of phlegm he hungrily sucked it like spaghetti into his mouth, making fake noises of gastronomic delight.
"Grossed out or what?" Rose squawked.
She twisted her mouth in disgust and they both sat locked in a stare of disbelief and wondered how to follow such a unique introduction. He thought she was the finest thing to pee between two heels. Rosie thought him less than self-obsessed. Not plug-ugly. He was now in the frame for a while, with Rose.
Donny looked on fondly and then looked away awkwardly. Back into her eyes again. They twinkled at him approvingly. The two exchanged the 'fruit of friendship' as well as the bruised apple. Savouring the flesh together and spitting pips. Only the stalk remained.
Dialogue, of some description would be needed. They had to use their mouths for something else apart from eating. Their near death experience, had stunned them into silence. Chewing apple fodder was far easier. Two minutes earlier they were Bonnie and Clyde now they were 'holed up' for something to say. Donny blinked nervously.
Outside the heavens opened. The greasy handprints on the panelled windows caught the rain. Summer rain. Heavy. Like, a bull 'shushing' on a flat rock. She stared out into the window and then looked back at this person she could smell from over the table. It was coconut and lemon juice. She thought it must be his hair gel. It was a clean smell that interrupted her dirty thoughts.
A pregnant pause soon needed a caesarean. The ice broke when both tried to start a conversation by spitting food at each other. They both laughed and choked with their mouthfuls and laughed and choked again. Slapping the other hard between the shoulder blades, peppering the air with more contents from the holes in their faces.
Regaining composure, they looked at each other through tearful hysterics, catching their breath and the eye of the person suffocating opposite.
It was then it happened. They both knew.
They knew pancake Tuesday from a hole in the ground. Sticking together like butter to bread.
to be continued (bookmark [CTRL+D] this page)
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