"...but you know she has a fake leg."
"Fake leg? She don't have no fake leg, she lyin to you."
Some mornings, I like sharing the bus with teenagers. These two were having their conversation around me, like I wasn't even there. The boy was the one telling about the girl with the fake leg. He was small, deep black, sitting with a pudgy white boy. The skeptical girl was little, too, but you could see she was already almost a woman. She held herself very still, her dark hair carefully combed back from her face.
"No, I'm tellin you, she have a fake leg. She got run over, it got run over, and it broke."
"Psh."
"Yeah. It got run over an now it's fake."
"She lyin. You don't get no fake leg from havin your leg broke. You just get a cast, like I had last year?"
"No, it was broke, an it healed, an then it got run over."
"An I'm tellin you she lyin."
"I see her today, I'm gonna kick her in the leg."
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true stories, found objects and scratch fiction
13 comments:
ah they're all the same, aren't they. i really liked the morning ride with high-school kids. even though some days...
If I ever found someone who had a fake leg, I'd kick it. Just to see what'd happen.
"kick it" -- that is so excellent. Why ask...when you can kick!
a TREASURE!, this is a damned treasure!
dialogue like this makes you want to hang up your writing mittens and just go around with a tape recorder...
well, no, maybe it should, but in truth it doesn't, in truth it fills me with heady joy at the limitless beauty and absurdity of my species, and makes me want more than ever to make shit up that's equal to our madness.
cb:
"The test of any man lies in his legs." -- Pindar
"Give me a ready leg leg rather than the ready tongue." -- Pavese
Maqroll has docked in an icy port. Pray for me.
El Gaviero
We don't kick enough legs as a society. Figurative, literal, whatever...
I love how the kid thinks that it's better to find out by kicking the leg than just asking the girl.
Good style, you make me giggle -
This is why at the age of 8 I went around with a tape recorder hidden in my jacket, and this is why as an adult I'm starting to consider bugging my duds again with my digital Marantz. I could live for a month on the sheer delight of overhearing and capturing such a conversation!
Hey, our Christmas cards are finally ready to send. I've got your addy. Can you spare Leifie's again? I can't find it.
Ho ho xo!
What all of you said. I pray for all my readers, Maqroll.
hehe - FUN!
Wow. that's a great little story. In the 2nd grade, half the class was convinced our teacher had a "fake leg" and schemes were hatched to determine the truth. In a moment of frustration she struck a yard stick so hard across her leg that it shattered, yet she never even blinked. It was at that moment we discovered the truth; it was going to be a long year.
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