I was definitely not drenched in horse shit the first time I ran into them. We weren’t on a street corner, an opera-singing cashier was not involved, and our friendship certainly did not revolve around a crushed box of OREOs.
As much as I’d like to pretend that those were NOT the circumstances of our meeting, they definitely were. It’s part of what makes us stick together after all this time, I think. Unusuality. Is that a word, I think so.
So it went like this. I was really poor ever since my parents kicked me out of the house when I was twelve. Nobody’s rich even when they do live in the slums, and even less rich when you’re sleeping on a street corner in the slums.
I took a job cleaning up the horse crap from the parades. Holy hell, were there a lot of parades. Sometimes three or four a day! I’d walk behind the pretty ladies in the fancy cars, behind the imps on stilts, and behind the horses. It was disgusting, but soon I had enough pay to buy myself a tent, which I pitched behind the drug lot. Wait, no, it was still the elementary school at that point.
A beauty my tent was. She was tan and black striped, straight from the most snotty camping store in the center of town. I had my precious few belongings in there, and even saved up for a solar light for the ceiling. I loved that tent.
So after a few years or working on my own, things seemed pretty simple. Wake up, horse shit, eat, sleep. One day after a particularly long parade I was stumbling back to my humble hovel when on the corner of Asoen and 29th there came a scream. This was a most manly scream in that it came from a man, but it probably hit at least an F sharp.
I ran to the scene to see what kind of cash I could nab off the victim, but to my surprise, the victim seemed to be a box of OREOs.
The poor box was punched in in the center, and the seams of the plastic were tearing. A few crumbs dribbled out.
Two boys around my age were clearly the ones causing the damage, as they had a ratty look about them, similar to me. The pasty man who I’d heard was trying to steal back the OREOs, rather unsuccessfully.
The boy holding the OREOs caught my breath. He was so gorgeous, in a completely aesthetic kind of way. He had the most beautiful heart-shaped face, with high cheekbones and bright green eyes. Across his nose were a galaxy of pink freckles, and his huge ears were pierced . I only knew found out he was a boy later, because the skirt and makeup he was wearing seemed to hint otherwise. The boy standing next to him was entirely forgettable.
“RUN!” he screeched, flinging the cookies at me. I fumbled to catch it, recovering from seeing an angel for the first time, and fled with them as they bolted out of the store. It was the most stupid split-second decision I ever made.
My cheap chain-store sneakers squeaked as I pivoted on the street corner and raced away from the mart. Luckily, we were all athletic, and I spent more time running than walking behind the horses at the parades. We ran through the dirty city, ducking through alleys and around corners. The boy with the OREOs’s long skirt fluttered in the bitter wind and I was really glad I didn’t trip on it.
The nondescript boy ducked behind a trash can in a musky alley, and prettyboy and I followed and soon the overweight cashier ran past and we were safe. The OREOs were on the floor, soaking in something dark that had vaguely fluidic properties.
“I think your cookies are pretty much over,” I huffed.
“They’re not, just a little tattered, that’s all,” said the boy who had dropped them in the chase, only a little out of breath. His eyelashes fluttered magnificently.
