Short Story / junior
junior was the big boy who lived across the street. he was the tallest mexican I had ever seen. we were both 13 and never talked. he lived in the yellow house with his graying parents, who were old as crickets. junior was their youngest of four. the small bungalow house was on the corner of mistletoe and mcCullough. its lonely dirt lawn kept company with a dying live oak. they had an endless parade of animals that came with the holidays: dogs in the summer, rabbits and chicks for Easter, doves during Christmas, and kittens throughout the year. the animals never lasted long. he would cry and then mostly forget, until the next set of loving eyes distracted his grief and his arms would love the breath out them.
junior was a big boy with big bear strength. His hands were the size of dinner plates and everything that he touched found its breaking point. His biggest talent was moving and pulling and ripping all the things he was not suppose to move, pull or rip. His stiff black hair was cropped short and he would often fix his minotaur eyes to the drama of nothingness. Junior who was younger than me by a month would sometimes run naked through the yard plowing over his protesting father. They would fall to the ground with Junior’s strange boy laughter. Everybody saw this and everybody understood. “He’s touched”, my numerous aunts would pronounce. It was a phrase I grew up with, never asking for definition assuming it was some adult secret, the kind that I as a child could never question. It was my worldly cousins who explained to me that Junior had the brains of a little kid. This is why Junior never went to school, why he would laugh with invisible friends, and why when angry an arc-angel, powerful and punitive.
junior who lived across the street who sometimes cried as a child, had been the height of man since he was 11. had the strength of a man and proved it on his parents. at first it was strange when he was young, and then it was dangerous when he was big. his parents who were by now gray and tired, would say nothing, but everyone heard the noises at night. a call was made, maybe by junior’s older siblings or maybe by someone close to here, but the police came. when they saw his parents busted towards yellows and bruises, junior was asked to come with them. junior tried to run, but was subdued by the weight of several men. junior’s voice threw itself into piteous bleats, punctuated by a thick baby-wail full of fear and phlegm, “mamaa! mamaa!”
a crowd built itself behind junior’s parents. fragile and loving they begged and bargained at first with the authorities, with fathers and mothers, then god. they would not say goodbye. they could only ask and wait for translations, slow jumping between spanish and english and then to spanish, back to english but the police moved in their own time putting junior in the car. his parents were still searching for answers, when the car door shut and junior pressed his wet face to the window. his mother and his father merged together like stones in disbelief. their tears seeding anyone who had half a heart, until past dark where moonlight glinted on strange sad waters.
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It’s compelling, and could definitely be a good start for something longer. More description of Junior and his handicaps (remember to keep a little girl’s perspective, which you’ve done pretty well so far) would give the story more depth, as would more events before Junior is taken away.
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This could be a very interesting story if you expanded it a bit. I like the Junior character, but I would like to see him a little more developed. Also, I guess I don’t really understand what happened at the end. Did Junior beat up his parents and go to jail? You also need to take another look at your punctuation and capitalization. It’s a good first draft, and I think with a little more detail it could be an excellent story.
It is a good start to a very emotional story. I felt a misplaced loathing for Junior. I do not believe that you intended for the reader to hate this character. There was some discription on the emotion but it could be done better. I do not mean this to deter you from writing but anyone’s first draft is always lacking…so rewrite, rewrite, rewrite
Capitalization is a major downfall in this work, nothing that can not be fixed easily. Just junior needs to be capitalized as do the first words in a sentence. Im also not quite sure where your going with this story, more detail would help develop a sturdier plot and stronger characters. Keep writing
Very interesting piece. The subject, Junior is very fascinating, but some things are a little unclear. For example, “had taken to drumming his grey parents”. Does that mean that he killed them? Hurt them?
Describing the people as grey and sometimes purple at the end- I’m not sure that I understand this either.
I really like the part where you talk about sitting in the mimosa tree-great detail of what the sisters were doing.
Fascinating story- could be developed further- I’d love to read more if you do work on it more.
Katy
wow. this story was really sad. it seems a bit incomplete though. a bit more details and maybe some added dialogue would be nice. it wasa good start though.
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