A Few Weeks of Larry
i was a little kid so larry seemed big and old but even as a little kid i knew something was majorly wrong with larry he had these giant thick glasses and really fat and wet lips and tongue like raw meat that he talked with like he'd just been to the dentist he talked and looked and moved funny it all making me a little bit afraid from the first time i found larry knocking at our door i don't recall exactly how or why larry started coming around knocking at our door for a few weeks like clockwork on saturday mornings my father explained how he and his friends when they were kids picked on larry for being different and weird he said how one time larry finally went crazy and beat the shit out of one of them for being so mean after a couple of weeks of larry i began to think the reason larry was coming around was larry must have ran into my father somewhere and now my father was trying to be nice by patronizing larry like a child with some chatter and attention to make up for being mean when he was young then after a few more weeks i discovered what i thought was the real reason larry kept coming around the first time at our apartment he told my father he was thirsty so my father gave him thirty-five cents to get a pepsi from the soda machine at the garage across the street after that larry came around knocking visiting under his own pretense of amity looking for another thirty-five cents for another pepsi every week after a few more weeks of larry my father finally said be quiet and we'd let larry knock calling my father's name until he left and until he finally quit coming around at all i remember feeling sad like it wasn't right to be hiding essentially lying to poor old larry who'd already been mistreated and was still and always playing with a shit hand and only wanting thirty-five cents for a pepsi in return all these years later what i've learned from larry and my father is that being mean and nasty as a kid to somebody who didn't deserve it is something you ought to regret and it's something worth making up for so long as it costs less than thirty-five cents a week and if you could but just wouldn't cough up the thirty-five cents for a little bit of redemption and conciliation then redemption and conciliation for being a prick or anything else must not mean too much so it's probably best to let go of the idea of what a helluva compassionate nice guy you ever and always were for giving larry thirty-five cents for a pepsi a coupla times
mrobins71 