Billy Summers [en]

The 5 years I was a Speck Boy was long enough to see the House of Everlasting Paint change color 3 times. There are some things that stand out from when I was there, like the time I got suspended from school for fighting when 2 boys called me Bang Bang Benjy, which had happened many times before but that time I got sick of it. They were bigger but I kept fighting even after one of them black my eye and the other one almost bust my nose. That one, his name was Jared Klein, I got hold of his pants and yank them down so everyone saw his pee-stained underwear. He got teased about that plenty which served him right.

Another thing that stands out is when Peggy Pye had to go to the hospital with pneumonia. Then a week later, or maybe it was 10 days, Mrs Speck got us all together in the living room to pray because she said Peggy passed on and went up to heaven to be with Jesus and now she could see out of both her eyes. Donnie Wigmore said I hope the food is better up there and Mr Speck told him keep your smart remarks to yourself if you don’t want me to slat you one. Anyway we prayed for Peggy’s soul and Ronnie had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing at what Donnie said only she was crying too. Other kids were also crying because Peggy was everyone’s ‘pet.’ I didn’t cry but I felt bad. Later on when me and Ronnie and Glen and Donnie were out in Demo Derby, Ronnie cried some more. Glen hug her and Ronnie said Peg was a sweetie wasn’t she and Glen said yes she sure was.

Then she hug on me and I hug on her and that was one happy thing that come out of Peggy dying because I was in love with Ronnie Givens. I knew nothing could come of that because she was 2 years older and crushing big on Glen, but you can’t help how you feel. Feelings are like breathing, they come in and go out.

Demo Derby was what we called the car junkyard behind the House of Everlasting Paint and next to Speck’s Auto Parts. It was our special place. Being told to stay away from there made us want to go even more. Ronnie said it was like the Forbidden Fruit Tree Eve wasn’t supposed to eat from in the Garden of Eden. Glen wave his hand at the rows and rows of junk cars with all those windshields reflecting and turning one sun into hundreds of suns and he said this is a whole motherfucking orchard, which made me and Ronnie laugh.

When we went there we would look for the best cars, like Cadillacs and Lincolns and Beemers, or once there was this old Mercedes limo with it’s whole rear end gone. Glen always carry a broom and whoomp the seats a couple of times before we got in to scare away the mice if there were any. Once he scared out a big rat. Donnie was with us and he said there goes Mr Speck and we laughed fit to split. Anyway we would sit in those cars and pretend they were whole and we were going someplace.

We could get into the Demo Derby easy because there was a hole in the chainlink fence at the back corner of the playground and once Glen said who knows how many fucked-up foster kids have gone through this hole and where they are now. That made us all laugh but then Ronnie said probably noplace good. Donnie laughed at that too, but me and Glen didn’t. I looked at him and he looked at me and we were both thinking ‘noplace good’!

Sometimes Glen would sit behind the wheel and pretend to drive and Ronnie would sit in the shotgun seat. Sometimes it would be the other way around, and when Glen was in the shotgun seat he might yell stuff like WHOA RONNIE DON’T HIT THAT FUCKIN DOG and Ronnie would turn the wheel and pretend to swerve. Glen would flop over with his head in her lap and Ronnie would push him away and say buckle your seatbelt dumbass.

I would always sit in back, with Donnie if he came with us but mostly on my own. Which I preferred. A couple of times Glen brought a can of beer which we would pass around until it was gone. Then Ronnie would give us Certs to take the smell off our breath. Once Glen brought 3 cans and we got a little bit high and Ronnie swooped the wheel back and forth and Glen said don’t get pulled over by 5–0, girlfriend. They laughed at that but I didn’t because my mother really did get pulled over by 5–0 and it was no joke.

Donnie smoked. I don’t know if the same person who got Glen his beers got Donnie his cigs, but he kept a pack of Marlboros behind a loose board under his bed. He mostly did it out back by the kitchen, but one day he pulled out his smokes when we were sitting in a big old Buick Estate wagon and pretending to drive to Vegas where we would play roulette and shoot craps. Ronnie said don’t you dare light up out here where there’s all these dry weeds and spilled oil. Donnie said what are you on the rag or something. Glen turned around and made a fist and said take that back unless you want to eat your front teeth. Later on, when I was in Fallujah, this one time I saw Sargent West shoot an RPG into an insurgent safe house in the part of town we called the Pizza Slice, and it blew sky-high because of all the ammo inside. Lucky we didn’t all get killed because we weren’t expecting it. That made me think of how Donnie also used to smoke sometimes in the supply shed, where the Specks stored all their paint. That was probably a lot more dangerous than out in the Demo Derby.