‘I Know Everything You Know About Me’
by Troy Blackford
retold in the laundry room by
a nice girl from three apartments down
I heard a story
about this guy named James that works at this museum about guns or plows or
something like that way out in the country, fifteen miles from the closest
town. Anyway, James is the guy who sells tickets to people when they get there. He’s standing around all day, and hardly anybody shows up, and
James is all bored, and he’s standing waiting to go home, and then he sees this
guy come walking up the driveway.
Remember? This
is real far out in the country. The guy didn’t have a car or anything, he was
just walking up from the road. And this guy is like really big, like he could beat us all
up easy. And he was walking up the dirt path really fast, even though he was
huge.
James doesn’t
know what’s up with the crazy-big guy coming up the driveway, and he gets all
nervous. And the guy comes right up to the booth, and James sees him up close
and is all like: this dude is only fifteen years old!
Like the
guy looks really big, but really he’s not even fully grown yet?
The guy has a weird, slow voice, and what he says makes no sense. The guy is like: “I want a ticket, but I don’t
want to pay with no money. I want to pay with a magic trick.”
James is all ‘what the hell,’ you know? Not, you
know, out loud, but still. Before James can say anything, the big guy goes on.
“I know you
think I’m big, and slow, and you think my voice sounds weird.” James thinks the
guy is talking about stereotypes, that James is writing him off as a ‘big dumb
country boy.’ “You don’t just think it’s weird that I walked up this road,” the
big teenage dude says. “You think it’s like stereotypically
weird!”
James thinks
‘That’s uncanny,’ and the guy says “And uncanny.”
And now James
is all weirded out, but he still thinks it must be some kind of joke. The big
dude’s just, you know, acting awkward on purpose to eff with him. And it
creeped James out because he had been nervous about just seeing this giant kid before
the guy had even said anything. So now he was like super-freaking out, you know?
The kid slams
his fist down on the counter and he’s all like “Now you think I’m some kind of awkward
joke and you’re scared of me.” But it was like the kid said it all weird:
‘awk-uh-ward.’
And James is
all creeped out but... what’s that word? It’s important to the story. But... is
it ‘prevaricated?’ That’s not it. Oh! I know!
James wonders
if what the big kid says is predicated on what James is actually
thinking, or is the guy just like, you know, guessing how people might respond?
The kid starts slamming his fist down hard, and he says “You’re trying to trick
me! What the hell is pear etiquette?”
That really
freaked James out. He was scared of the kid before, but now he was like: Oh my
God! He really can read my mind! What am I going to do?
“Why do you
need to do anything?” the big kid says, all stomping mad. “Why
don’t you just give me my tickets? Wasn’t that a good enough trick?” He was almost
crying, and his face was super red.
James reached
down for this gun they had under the register, trying to act like he was just getting
the tickets, and the kid was like “You’re lying!” like James had said something, and
he reached in and James tried to shoot him but the kid already knew what was
happening and he kept grabbing and broke his neck.
The big kid
looked around, but nobody saw him do it or anything. He dropped James on the
floor of the booth, and tore off a ticket. And the thing of it is, when he was
going up to the doors to go into the museum, the kid was all like: “This always
happens. I should go back to paying for things with money.”
Or something
like that.
THE END
I think that would be the perfect story, if you ended it with the word "money"....And skipped the lead in....Loved it...
ReplyDeleteNah, I think it's perfect the way it is. Good stuff, Troy!
ReplyDeleteOkay. First who told the girl the story of what happened and who told the first person? James is dead. Do you think the big, not so stupid guy when around telling people he killed James over tickets? Huh. And, the girl telling the story, I'm sorry, but I don't think she'd get the connection between stupid and rabbits and George. That's takes some knowledge on her own, and I don't think she has it.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it was a fun read except for these two things which made me stop and go - Huh?
Loved it, except nobody could have told her that story if he killed James.
ReplyDeleteI'm loading up my gun to kill the girl in the apartment three doors down. (Interesting tale though :)!)
ReplyDeleteExcellent short, Troy. I think that you ended the story perfectly, as i believe the female narrator would not have cut the story short and ended it after the word money, as George who commented first would wish it to have ended. It just doesn't feel like it would be something she'd do.
ReplyDeleteAs for James being dead - i think that all the others who have commented on his death are just assuming that he died, with the exception of Lisa, that is. People who have their neck broken don't always die, and some even make a full recovery! After all, it does say in the first sentence that James "works at like this museum out in the country." Works, not worked. And after all, we wouldn't have a clue otherwise as to what was going on in James's head if he had died, would we? The story couldn't have been told if he had!
Liked it.
ReplyDeleteThis reads like an Urban Legend.
ReplyDeleteReally enjoyed reading this. Great little short and strange story :)
ReplyDeleteRobynLeanne @ Fairytales and Folklore
Haha that was a very amusing story. I especially enjoyed the narration by the ditzy girl. Thanks for sharing :-)
ReplyDeleteAt first I thought this was an actual event ! Very entertaining .. more please ..
ReplyDeleteI agree with the previous comments about how this girl knows if James died. Would have rather read it as an account from James. The intensity of the story would have been so completely awesome! This way we lose some of the emotion because we don't connect with the characters. The voice is interesting, but a little annoying. But as always a fabulously disturbing story staring at me from the screen. Way to try something new!
ReplyDeleteThose wondering 'how the girl knows what happens if James died' are missing the point - the narrator here is relating a -story- she heard, not a - say - rumor going around her high school about why James is no longer showing up for class. In the first draft, she mentioned in the first paragraph that she read this story on a website.
ReplyDeleteThe actual story was too insubstantial and I had been meaning to do a story in the voice of a vacuous storyteller who was not gifted at relating events for a couple weeks, so wedding the story to the speaker was the only way to make this one interesting.
This is more meant to be taken, as one of the above commenters says, like an urban legend.
Nicely done. I love the girl's voice for relating the urban legend - perfectly done, the apartment, the laundry room. Usually an urban legend involves a mention of an 'authoritative source' like a website as you said so that the narrator can swear it's real.
ReplyDeleteLove the mixing of prevaricated and predicated.
Imagine trying to tell this story to a friend. "So there is this guy, and he wrote a story, and then he had a neighbor retell the story..." Etc.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that anyone analyzing who told the story to whom; whether James is dead or which tense described James, is missing the point. Or am I? Does it matter? I now have a great story to tell my friends.
ReplyDeleteUrban-legend? Good story!
ReplyDeleteUrban-legend? Good story!
ReplyDelete..Amazing story....pear etiquette....your weirdness is spellbinding...
ReplyDeleteGreat story, love the urban legend angle. Interesting character with an amazing gift but no idea of its potential. Also, can feel the frustration building and boiling over - great stuff!
ReplyDeleteGreat story, love the urban legend angle. Interesting character with an amazing gift but no idea of its potential. Also, can feel the frustration building and boiling over - great stuff!
ReplyDelete......Enjoyed it the second time too....like a murder mystery...mentally challenged.....one of us...
ReplyDelete