Goon (fiction) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chad Willenborg

GOON

round the corner he come all panting and wobble-eyed with his little sticks kicking out to the sides, and he slipped because the grass was wet. One of his Velcro shoes flew off and knocked into the siding. He got himself together, picked up his shoe, and bounced inside the house. Willard. I told Angela he ’ s over-sugared.

The older one, Brian, come sprinting across the yard. “Will!” he ’ s hollering. “Will!” He dropped his old bat as he flew past me, and the screen door slapped shut, and then everything was quiet again.

I went over to the wall and turned the water off.

I’d moved in a couple months earlier. Angela and I talked about it for a few weeks, and I wasn ’t hot on it at first, but she was ready to take a chance again, she said. She said her boys could use someone, too. Okay, I said. When this rental on Blue Ferry Road come available, I packed my stuff and their stuff and moved us all out here.

I got to know the boys pretty well pretty fast. Brian ’ s happy to have anybody throw a ball at him. He ’ s one of those kids that, if they don ’t have a catch partner, you always see staggering around the yard, chucking balls up in the air to themself. He ’ll do pretty much what you tell him to. Will, he ’ s got more of an artistic side. He ’ll sit for hours drawing bloodied-up versions of the cartoons he watches, wearing out felt tip markers to the point he ’ s got to lick them to keep them going. His tongue, it’ll be purple or green whenever he ’ s explaining his stories to you. They run for pages, and he only ever draws on one side, which is a waste, I said, but he ’d throw a fit if you made him save on paper.

I could hear thuds. The two of them were talking in their bedroom. The light fixture in the hall was rattling.

“Y’ all quit dribbling in the house!” I called. “You heard me now, Brian!”

When I come in, Brian looked up and give me a shrug. He didn ’t have the ball, so I looked to the other side of the room, and, what it was was, Will was standing against the wall, knocking his old head against the sheetrock, whump, whump, whump. Brian and I stood between their twin beds watching him go at it. “Way

too much sugar, ” I said.

Brian stared. “Geeze. ”

Whump.

“Quit that now, ” I said. “You ’ re going

to get a“

Whump.

“Melonhead. ” I took his shoulder and set him back on the bed. He was wearing the blue shirt with the old messy looking monster on it he liked. Brian made to go.

A10

Smeared Pages With Hope by Kristen Solecki © 2008