In the spring of 1968 i fell in love. Not with a girl or a dog but with a toy. The KLACKER to be precise. What is a klacker you ask, well let me tell you, it was a magnificent piece of weaponry, 2 acrylic balls attached to a sturdy workman like piece of string that when banged together could drive a parent crazy, and i had to just have one. A light blue transparent one at that.
Some scrawny kid like me could own one of these, jump over a 6 foot high fence and smoke the local bully. Yeah, that was going to be me. Jack, the neighborhood tough guy wouldn’t get the best of me anymore. That psychopathic grin would get wiped off his face really quick and than i would dance over his fallen body like David over Goliath, oh yeah, that 11 year old 130 lb walking jelly bowl was going down. Or so i thought. As i gathered my nerve and as my friends waited timidly around the corner i approached the lug and started to stare him down, he didn’t flinch, i approached a little bit more slinging my klackers like like a gunslinger in the old west and then it happened, he pulled a giant slingshot out of his overalls and started to fire spitballs at me. One by one they stung me and drove me back to cover behind the closest garbage pail and there i waited for the cavalry to arrive but realized that the Cavalry had run for cover as well and vanished into the school and the safety of the Nuns leaving me alone to face Jack one on one. It seemed like i was there for over an hour[probably just about a minute] when i got my courage up, got the klackers swinging good and rose,ready to face my final moments, i came flying out from behind that garbage can and ran smack into the body of Sister Aloysius, all 6 feet and 150 lbs of her. I went down like a rock ,my klackers flying out of my hands and landing at her feet, her evil grin even made the bully Jack cringe, and she had me at her mercy, and Jack was standing behind her grinning that psychopathic grin of his. I was doomed.
I wound up with a detention and had my Klackers taken away for 3 days, a punishment that seemed worse than death, and while i eventually got over that moment, the tension between Jack and i never cleared up but we stayed away from each other from then on. For me A moral victory and 3 day’s later i got my klackers back. All was well again.
And i wonder, did anybody ever get Jack? Did they get away or did Jack get revenge? And i wonder where Jack went? Is he living now on a chain gang in Alabama somewhere breaking rocks with his fists and dancing with a good ole boy named Bubba? One can only dream.
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