At the general store {open}
Apr 9, 2012 7:46:04 GMT -5
Post by kneedles on Apr 9, 2012 7:46:04 GMT -5
This general store was a rundown old man, wizened of tooth and weary with the world; grey wood around it like old creaking bones ad wrinkles, small dirty windows with the shutters half drawn to form a cynical sort of gaze, the porch a jutting, gurning mouth. It made sense that the handful of elders sitting at the porch would choose this place; it was as grizzled and hoary as they were, made them feel comfortable as they sat on their ragged wooden chairs playing chess, cards or simply spat tobacco and judged the world as it went on its way about them. Today there were only two of them; one was coal dark, his beard ashen and fleecy, the other bald crinkled and jaundiced as a sultana. Origami paper wrinkles pinched around two sets of shrewd eyes yellowing at the sclera, buried like tiny stones in the crags of their faces. The smoke around them formed thick, heavy auras that floated on the dense, heavy air and it seemed that within this barrier time had slowed, almost to a complete still.
The birds were singing their contentment up in the trees around the store and a crane had built an oversized nest in the guttering below the grey slate roof. It had come home to roost, pure white with tooth pick legs, a broad inky wing span and a crimson gaudy cap on its head.
Scutcher was still going around with the pig tucked under his arms and wrapped in a blanket- honestly if he had to put her down his left arm didn’t even feel the same without her. It was like he was a kid again, palling around with the pig that his father had given him, Apples. Only this time no one was going to force him to slaughter her in the smokehouse to proove a point and teach Scutcher a valuable life lesson. In the weeks since her birth, she hadn’t grown as much as Scutcher would have hoped and remained pitifully runty with a weak little squeal that she loved to use at all hours, and an unsteady little lope. She was doing it on purpose, probably, the sly little thing- it made Scutcher feel hopelessly paternal.
Stepping up to the porch, the two old gentleman watched Scutcher through their glinting beady eyes and the very tall teenager nodded respectfully ‘Mister Turnstone, Mister Winebrenner’ though the old men chuckled like school boys. They knew him well enough as the Tansy boy, the one who’s daddy lost his leg, his pig farm and turned to the drink, maybe they’d respect Scutcher for building his family up again so they had a little income if the boy didn’t also have the reputation for being as dumb as a post to boot.
Scutcher didn’t understand why people didn’t realize that people could be smart about all kinds of different things.
“Son, if you aint careful that pig’s gonna imprint on you like a chick on a momma hen,” said the dark old man, Dust Turnstone, leaning forward, chewing on the battered redwood spout of his pipe and wheezing a little high pitched chuckle.
“I think she’s already there,” said Cotton Winebrenner, the bald sultana man, giggling too, “She’s nosin’ around all hungry like, you givin’ milk right now?” They were gone in an explosion of laughter so loud it startled the pig, probably startled the old men too, who after years of hard labor on pig farms, cattle farms, sheep farms and chicken farms had finally earned their right to sit in a chair and grow moss and most of the elderly men that Scutcher knew had no intention of getting up from their chairs or moving if they didn’t have to ever again.
They were pretty much done with him, so Scutcher left them to their laughter, tucking the old blanket tighter around the pig before he stepped in the store just in case they didn’t allow animals, and he was almost sure that they didn’t, not even the kindest, most well behaved old sheep dog. Scutcher patted his pig and prayed she wouldn’t make a fuss or treat everyone else to yet another falsetto style screeching session.
Inside the general store, it was damp and musty. The vegetables they sold were shrivelled up, the worst of the worst really while some ratty looking rabbits hung from behind the counter, dead for longer than sold meat was supposed to be kept probably. They wouldn’t make the store owners rich, and still had to be taken down and stashed away someplace safe if anyone even got the whiff of a peace keeper coming by the store.
Scutcher’s mom had made him a list; she needed thread and twine for repairing clothes- everything was so old and worn down now that the patches in Scutcher’s clothes needed to have patches themselves, there was something that looked like baking soda on the list too, but the rest sort of blurred into mush. That would be Scutcher’s mothers spidery hand writing written in the last bits of the ink that had dried hard in the pen, compared with the fact that Scutcher’s lacklustre interest in schooling hadn’t seen him learn to read much higher than a fourth grade level or so. Stopping, he raised the list closer to his face and squinted at it, sighing because it really was hopeless.
Putting down the list, he instead stopped to browse, patting his moving bundle of lumps which had began to grow restelessly. Nervously, he looked around for the proprieter but he needn’t have worried, the shop keeper was engrossed in something out the back and hadn’t even noticed Scutcher and his stowaway. On the counter, some homemade cracked toffee caught Scutcher’s eyes- sickly sweet and catching the light like crystallised glass, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had candy- he was too old for it now anway and when he was younger the money had all died up for it. Scutcher licked his lips wistfully.
