Outcast by Darren Greer

Author:Darren Greer [Greer, Darren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781999427511
Publisher: Apotheosis Press
Published: 2018-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

Two

When Tommy and I were boys we played a game one whole summer called Jungle Joe. It started when we both got G.I. Joes for graduating elementary school when we were twelve. I had wanted one because all the kids in school were getting them. Tommy got his because his mother had bought him a Barbie for Christmas, and his father made a fuss.

“You’re just encouraging it,” Tommy and I overheard him say. “The boy won’t have a chance.”

Neither Tommy nor I knew what “it” was, but we both agreed it must be pretty bad. “Hoof and mouth disease?” said Tommy.

“Polio?” said I.

We were both pretty precocious for twelve-year-olds. Tommy was enervated by his G.I. Joe. He wore a moustache, for one thing, and even at twelve, Tommy hated moustaches, likely because his father wore one. His father forced Tommy to leave his Barbie set at home and take his G.I. Joe to my house and play. At first, Tommy wanted to make his G.I. Joe go skydiving without the little parachute that came with the set, but I convinced him to play normally with the action figure. He’d still break out in wild suggestions though. “Let’s set him on fire. See how he gets out of that!” Or, “Landmine! Got any firecrackers?”

I think Tommy enjoyed thinking up ways to destroy G.I. Joe as much as he did playing with his Barbie, but I wouldn’t let him. I taught him how to play with the doll as intended, and we set up miniature obstacle courses in the dirt drive in front of the garage and devised missions on which to send him. I was, even at that age, a warrior. My battle scenarios were complex, and even Tommy found them exciting. It wasn’t long though before I was dissatisfied with putting the foot-high figure through his paces. I needed something real. One of the nicest things Randy used to say about me was that I had a “strategic” mind.

“On a chessboard,” he’d say, “or in an exam room, or a virtual computer environment, I wouldn’t think about you twice. On a battlefield, I’d run for my life.”

When he said that it always made me feel strong and good in ways that are difficult to explain. I was a fighter, and it started when I was twelve years old playing G.I. Joe with Tommy.

* * *

Jungle Joe, when we finally devised it, consisted of ditching G.I. Joe and setting up a life- sized obstacle course for ourselves. My parents were permissive and didn’t mind if we rearranged the front yard, as long as we put everything back when we were done. Tommy wanted to arrange things stylistically, I wanted them done tactically, and between the two of us we made quite a team. My father had some old two-by-fours on the side of the garage, and we built an air assault tower that stood about nine feet high. My mother forced us to build it behind the garage, out of sight, and my father helped us so it would be sturdy and safe.

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