A Company of Tatters by Jack Beltane

Author:Jack Beltane [Beltane, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, heartbreak, high school, literature, teen
ISBN: 9781929309177
Publisher: Graveworm Press
Published: 2014-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

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I’d been worried about Sammy since I’d started back at the toy store. He was alone down there in the hotdog stand now, and Sammy, it turns out, didn’t do alone very well. He needed comfort, for all his loner ways and false bravado. It’s why he was so nice to his mom—and why his dad leaving hurt way more than he let on. Me and Niz, we helped keep him straight by taking him skating, but left to his own devices, Sammy was prone to fill the dead air with noise—any noise. So when I went back to the toy store and then Donna Marie broke up with him, Sammy had plenty of time to poke shriveled hotdogs and think about how alone he was—or thought he was. Unfortunately, John from the pizza place also noticed, and John was the kind of guy who had bad solutions for easy problems. I mean, that was no surprise, but you’d think a guy like that would have dealt with his share of stoned friends. Instead, he also had bad solutions for harder problems.

Which is how Sammy ended up in the toy store, coming down after dropping acid that morning with John. I was straightening a display of remote controlled cars when they came in. At first I didn’t recognize Sammy, partly because he was with John, and I didn’t register knowing anyone he’d be hanging out with, but also because Sammy looked... blank. Sammy was never exactly mister bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed, but he usually smiled, maybe even waved. He at least made eye contact.

“Sammy?” I checked, standing to greet them.

Sammy’s eyes wavered in my direction, then he went back to staring at a hanging display of punching balloons that were slowly drifting on the air our movements created, pinging very softly as inflated rubber bounced off inflated rubber.

“What’s wrong with him? “ I snapped in a harsh whisper.

John shrugged. His hair was long and greasy, hanging limply down to his shoulders. I’d only ever seen him working before, so he’d always had it pulled back; he did his best to let it flop over and cover his eyes, but I wouldn’t let him.

“What?” I asked again.

I glanced over to the registers where Steve was already adding up the charge receipts so he could count out the drawers quicker later. He met my eyes and I noticed he was chewing his lower lip ever so slightly, and I didn’t think he was nervous about the receipts. Steve looked like he knew exactly what was going on and he was torn between helping and wanting the problem out of his store.

“Sammy?” I tried, skipping the middleman.

John was nervously eyeing Steve, so I let him believe that his scrawny ass was about to be kicked by a former repo man.

“Sammy? What’s going on, man?”

He mumbled something, shook his head distractedly, then poked laconically at one of the punch balloons. It pinged softly away, drifting in slow motion. Sammy smiled.

“What the hell is he on?” I snapped at John.

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