The Traveling Vampire Show

“So how long’ll it take you to finish the yard?” Rusty asked.

“I can quit for a while. I’ve just gotta have it done by the time Dad gets home from work.”

“Come on with us,” Slim said.

I gave a quick nod and ran across the grass. Nobody else was home: Dad at work, Mom away on her weekly shopping trip to the grocery store and my brothers (one single and one married) no longer living at our house.

As I charged up the porch stairs, I called over my shoulder, “Right back.” I whipped my T-shirt off the railing, rushed into the house and raced upstairs to my bedroom.

With the T-shirt, I wiped the sweat off my face and chest.

Then I stepped up to the mirror and grabbed my comb. Thanks to Dad, my hair was too short. No son of mine’s gonna go around looking like a girl. I wasn’t allowed to have much in the way of sideburns, either. No son of mine’s gonna traipse around looking like a hood. Thanks to him, I hardly had enough hair to bother combing. But it was mussed and matted down with sweat, so I combed it anyway-making sure my “part” was straight as a razor, then giving the front a little curly flip.

After that, I grabbed my wallet off the dresser, shoved it into a back pocket of my jeans, hurried to the closet and pulled a short-sleeved shirt off its hanger. I put it on while I hurried downstairs.

Rusty and Slim were waiting on the porch.

I finished fastening my buttons, then opened the screen door.

“Where we going?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” Slim said.

I shut the door and followed my friends down the porch stairs.

Rusty was wearing an old shirt and blue jeans. That’s pretty much what we all wore when we weren’t dressed up for school or church. You hardly ever caught guys our age wearing shorts. Shorts were for little kids, old farts, and girls.

Slim was wearing shorts. They were cut-off blue jeans, so faded they were almost white, with frayed denim dangling and swaying like fringe around her thighs. She also wore a white T-shirt. It was big and loose and untucked, so it hung over her butt in the back. Her white swimsuit top showed through the thin fabric. It was a skimpy, bikini type thing that tied behind her back and at the nape of her neck. She was wearing it instead of a bra. It was probably more comfortable than a bra, and definitely more practical.

Mostly, in the summer, we all wore swimsuits instead of underwear. You never knew when you might end up at the municipal pool or at the river... or even when you might get caught in a downpour.

I had my trunks on under my jeans that morning. They were sort of soggy with sweat from the lawn mowing, and they clinged to my butt as I walked down the street with Rusty and Slim.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked after a while.

Slim looked at me and hoisted an eyebrow. “Stage one’s already been executed.”

“Huh?” I asked.

“We freed you from the chains of oppression.”

“Can’t be mowing the yard on a day like this,” Rusty explained.

“Well, thanks for liberating me.

“Think nothing of it,” Rusty said.

“Our pleasure,” Slim said, and patted me on the back.

It was just a buddy-pat, but it gave me a sickish excited lonely feeling. I’d been getting that way a lot, that summer, when I was around Slim. It didn’t necessarily involve touching, either. Sometimes, I could just be looking at her and start to feel funny.

I kept it to myself, though.

“Stage two,” Slim said, “we see what’s going on at Janks Field.”

I felt a little chill crawl up my back.

“Scared?” Rusty asked.

“Oh, yeah. Ooooo, I’m shaking.”

I was, but not so much that it showed. I hoped.

“We don’t have to go there,” Slim said.

“I’m going,” said Rusty. “If you guys are chicken, I’ll go by myself.”

“What’s the big deal about Janks Field?” I asked.

“This,” said Rusty.

The three of us had been walking abreast with Slim in the middle. Now, Rusty hustled around behind us and came over to my side. He pulled a paper out of the back pocket of his jeans. Unfolding it, he said, “These’re all over town.”

The way he held the paper open in front of me, I knew I wasn’t supposed to touch it. It seemed to be a poster or flier, but it was bouncing around too much for me to read it. So I stopped walking. We all stopped. Slim came in close so she could look at the paper, too. It had four torn corners. Apparently, Rusty had ripped the poster off a wall or tree or something.