The Story Garden 5.0
Flash Fiction
Two-A-Side Suicide
We were playing two-a-side suicide and somehow Aquarius and I wound up as partners. My buddies and I played almost every day after school. On the grass behind the lunch shed. We were probably too old for it at the time but it's a really good game. I'd play right now if I could.
“Do you know the rules?” I asked.
“Sure. Don't get whacked.”
She was right. That was pretty much the only rule. If you got whacked your partner had to commit suicide. Not real suicide. He had to strip down to his undies, rub butter all over his belly and legs, and then roll around in the dirt.
Back then there was nothing worse.
“Right,” I said. “Don't get whacked.”
The beauty of the game was that you had to have your partner's back. If you get whacked, he’s the one who has to commit suicide.
Usually I would partner up with Moon Dog. He knew when to go left.
“Go left. Go left,” I shouted at Aquarius. She was hot-dogging.
“Duck! Duck!” she yelled back.
And then, whack! Right in the back of the neck. I fell to the ground.
“I'm hit!” I cried. “I'm down.”
Aquarius stopped dead. “What?”
She had the look. I never saw a suicider who didn't get that look.
The other guys were laughing. Teasing. “Butter up, bitch.”
I expected her to run. Guys had tried that before. But she unbuttoned her shirt right where she stood. No hesitating. No balking.
Gas Can grabbed a tub of butter from his backpack. His real name was Gary but there were five Garys in our class.
Aquarius threw her shirt to the ground. She looked dead at me. Blank. Not angry but disappointed. I've let a few people down since then. But it's never hurt like that. I couldn't move.
Her skirt fell down to her ankles. I'm sure the guys were all heckling but in my head it was silent, like midnight at the park.
And then, as she smeared butter on her bare belly, I started to cry. Shit. That had never happened before. To anyone.
She rolled around in the dirt patch just like we'd all done a hundred times. Then it was over. She was beautiful. Grass and sand and candy wrappers stuck to her panties and legs and stomach. But somehow her bra had survived the dirt-roll. It was pitch white and I could see her dark nipples through the cotton.
She looked up at me through her dirty bangs.
“Can you grab my backpack?”
--Benjamin King
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