Educational Experience

Part II--Chapter Four

Gonna get wild and crazy after this little "show down." Stay tuned...

“Where’d you git babies from?” JR asked. All the “juniors” up there wound up being called “JR,” so when you called one of them, a whole chorus of guys would go, “Yo!”

This one was a Goon. A big, good looking kid my age with a black haystack of hair and red eyes at half-mast from all that Christmas weed they’d been smoking all week.

I gave him a wink and said, “Babies R Us. They had a big sale on twins last year.”

A couple of half dead dendrites finally met up somewhere inside that thick skull of his, and he smiled, gave me a little snort and said, “You a crazy mother fucker, man.”

Wyatt finally bopped out of the house wearing skinny jeans and a robin’s egg blue sweater, both of which showed off that nice little body that had kept me so busy all night long. And the wind did that shampoo commercial thing to her hair at that moment, too.

The elements were sure working with her up there, I have to admit. It was almost a Disney princess entrance. You know, the way they seem to float on air and all the little cartoon animals rush to gaze upon her in awe.

JR went, “Damn...” and smiled wider than I thought Goons were allowed.

“Keep your eyes on the road, son,” I told him as she slid in next to me.

He went, “Si, Jefito,” in a sarcastic tone. The Goons always made fun of the other men. The men who kept them fed and put roofs over their heads and made the money they bought all those Metallica t-shirts and weed with.

He’d come over with one of the new Ranger UTVs they’d chosen for me to use while we were there. It looked like it could climb up the side of a mountain if I asked it to. We’d just bought a whole fleet to replace the junkers they’d been hanging onto and damned near getting killed by for years.

Ranch people have trucks from the Dust Bowl days, damned near. They’re like those Cubans still driving around in the Caddys they ripped off of the rich folks the day Fidel took over. You make do. You make it funky. And over here, you get one of those “historic vehicle” license plates to make it legit, too.

As soon as Wyatt’s butt hit the seat next to me, JR hit that road like a bat out of hell and glanced back to give me a snotty little smile. I don’t know why he thought he was scaring me, since I went out riding with them every year. But I just let him enjoy himself.

See, I’m the same age as those guys, most of them. And it’s really hard for them to get used to seeing me as this guy who owns the very ground they walk on—I get that. It’s like that even with all the businesses, when this young kid with tats and silver studs running up the back of his ear comes walking into the board room and takes that chair at the head of the table.

Most older guys eventually just let it go. I’m just another sign that the world is going to hell in a handcart and life’s not fair and all that other stuff people say behind my back to make sense of it all after I leave.

But it’s real personal with guys my own age. Especially guys like the Goons who have a reason to resent me and the entire world than most. They’re not really dumb, the Goons—I need to quit making fun of them. They’re angry. So angry they can’t think straight.

They hate the way the world has treated their people and they hate their people for being the people the world treats like shit. And therefore, they sort of hate themselves.