Larry spent his high school years living in a trailer with his Mother Irene and his little brother Thomas. This wasn’t a fancy trailer like you see in movies. This was an aluminum box designed to be on wheels but was now supported by concrete blocks and timber. They lived “off the grid” and pretty much off the face of the earth.
This aluminum box sat in what Larry supposed was an abandoned farmer’s field. There was a dirt road a quarter of a mile outside the front door of the trailer. There was an ever-growing pile of trash a half mile outside the back door. They cooked their food over the same kerosene heaters that they used for heat. There was convenience store a mile down that dirt road that had an active water spigot behind the building. Irene, Larry, and Thomas would lug jugs and bottles down to the store to fill them up for water with which they would bathe, drink, and cook.
Irene worked at the Burger King in town once. That was the only job Larry remembers her having during his high school years. She, of course had an affair with the manager and when the manager was through having fun with her, well, Irene was collecting unemployment again.
Larry tried to keep up with the kids in his class. No one knew where he lived or how he lived. He would steal nice clothes, but from the wrong stores. He would always be on the tail end of fashion. He would steal a polo shirt and bugle boys from the Kmart and show up Monday morning to see the kids wearing tie-dye and acid wash. He would steal acid wash jeans and an OP sweatshirt and the kids would be wearing flannel and converse.
Larry barely graduated and not long after he met a girl while jockeying the register at a Pizza Hut. After a month of dating, the girl really wanted to see where Larry lived. Embarrassed while she drove the three miles that he walked everyday between town and the aluminum box, he kept his head down and looked away the entire three-minute ride.
There was a look of fright in the girls eyes and Larry would have seen it if he could bring himself to look at her. Irene was at the door smoking a Marlboro and wearing a housecoat. The girl let out a barely audible gasp. Then she was struck by a trembling, unwashed, ashamed, open fist.
The girl cried and ran to the car and drove wildly home.
Irene cried for herself and for her son. She walked over, with a closed fist struck, and drew blood from Larry’s nose. Then she just stared with shame and fright.
Larry cried and did not wipe the blood from his nose. He looked up at the gray dusk sky and then slowly walked in the opposite direction of town.
