dontravis.com
blog post #317
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TO
MY READERS: The “Contact” section has disappeared from my Web Site, so I have
no way of reading or responding to your comments. Please make any comments
directly to my personal email, dontravis21@gmail.com, until
this situation is corrected. Thanks.
Pure nonsense this week.
*****
SHARK’S TOOTH WILSON
By Don Travis
My real name’s Bobby—well, Robert,
actually—but everyone in high school called me Shark’s Tooth ever since our
Algebra teacher, Mr. Langston, said I was as sharp as a shark’s tooth in class
one day. Before I knew it, everyone in my world except my parents and this girl
named Becky called me that. Guess I’m lucky he didn’t say sharp as a tack or
else I’d be known as Tacky. Praise the Lord for small miracles.
But back to that one girl who still
called me Bobby, the one known behind her back as Boxy Becky. To be honest,
that sort of described her, but as a victim, myself, I tried not to think of
her in those terms… as difficult as that was. My closest friends—my buds—who’d shortened
my unwelcome nickname down to Sharky, claimed she was sweet on me, but all that
did was put a twist in my shorts. Why couldn’t some of the other girls… the babes… be sweet on me, instead of Boxy
Becky?
I managed to keep my distance from
Becky—although I was always polite to her—until just before the winter prom my
junior year. She caught me in the hallway and let me know she didn’t have a
date for the dance. I felt my cheeks burn as I said I didn’t either and then
rushed off to English class.
The prom was neat, and I managed to
dance with just about all the girls, but I was constantly aware of Becky
standing off in the corner with a couple of other girls the football jocks
unkindly labeled as cows. Being sort of soft-hearted, I occasionally asked one
of them for a dance, including Becky. By this time, she wasn’t carrying as much
weight, so her old sobriquet wasn’t quite so appropriate. Still… a habit’s a
habit, and she was still Boxy just as I was still Shark’s Tooth.
Somehow, I ended up with her for
the last dance of the night. Finally noticing that she had pretty good moves, must
have flustered me, because when she asked what I was doing after the dance, I
blurted out that me’n some of the guys had plans.
“Do they include girls?”
My cheeks heated up again. That
only seemed to happen around Becky. “Not… not that I know of.”
“I don’t believe it,” she retorted.
“Look, Boxy, I---”
Even in the subdued lighting of the
ballroom, her eyes flashed. She puffed up like a tire on an air hose.
“S-sorry, Becky. I just….”
I was talking to thin air. She
stalked toward the exit, the sway of her broad beam expressing righteous
indignation. She didn’t speak to me again that term.
Over the course of the summer, I
managed to swallow the shame of my indiscretion with Becky. In fact, between my
temporary construction job and hanging with the guys, I forgot about it
completely. But as opening day at school grew closer, I found myself composing
apologies for my careless mouth.
First day eventually arrived and
proved a busy one. Getting classes squared away and talking to old friends you
somehow hadn’t seen for three months, turned it into a zoo.
Finally, I heard a familiar voice
speaking to someone behind me. I whirled and butted into the conversation.
"Becky, I…."
My voice died in a constricted
throat. Chill bumps played down my back. Despite myself, my eyebrows shot up.
The girl who stood before me was Becky all right, but she was another Becky.
Her face was still broad, but it had shape, definition, from violet eyes to
cupid’s-bow lips. Her frame displayed curves that weren’t there before. I
swallowed hard and tried again.
“B-Becky, it’s good to see you.
She smiled broadly, said “Hello,
Shark’s Tooth, and swayed provocatively away, chatting and laughing with her
companions.
*****
Life
catches up with you, doesn’t it? I’m sure we can all recall something similar
to this when we were growing up. Hope you enjoyed the reading.
Please
buy a copy of my latest book, The Lovely
Pines, and provide feedback on
the novel. If you do read the book, please post a review on Amazon. Each one
helps.
Abaddon’s
Locusts is scheduled for release on January 22, 2019, and the first draft of The Voxlightner Scandal is finished and the second draft is about half
done.
Now
my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on
writing. You have something to say… so say it.
My
personal links:
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter:
@dontravis3
Buy
links to the Lovely Pines:
See
you next week.
Don
New Posts are
published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.
