It was a boiling hot day like everyday in Birmingham, Alabama, as the white children played in the clean city parks, a group of four black children met at the local junkyard.
"Line up Soldiers!" commanded the eldest of the little junkyard group.
"Yes, Sir!" shouted the the younger boys. They formed a straight line as if they were truly in the Army.
"Sound off men!" The comandor held a broken piece of wood in his dark black skin.
"Dan!"
"Gregory!"
"Clay!" one by one th boys steped forward and announced their presents.
"All are acounted for, Comandor Maurice!" said Clay in his meek vioce
"Then let us begin!" Maurice turned to face the high sun. "Today's challange is to climb Mount Junk!"
The younger boys admired their comandor, his great courage and strength made any large task seem like a meaningless piece of dust. Until the enemy attacked.
The group of boys spotted his white skin a mile away in mass of dirt & rubbish.
"A spy!" alerted Gregory, running twords the intruder
"Go get him!" Maurice gave a fearsome yell of war as his men charged after this little white boy.
The invador was brought back squirming likea worm as they ragged him to Maurice.
"Why has thou come to this battlefeild!" boomed Maurice the way his pastor does every sunday.
"I just." stuttered the white boy "i just wanted to play soldier with you!"
"Play soldier with US!?" laughed Dan "White people always look down on us, now one wants to play with us!" He cackled, as his newspaper hat fell over his eyes.
As Clay and Dan continued to harass the boy, Gregory noticed Maurice's large brown eyes brimed with tears.
"Men!" Maurice's vioce cracked "Leave the maggot be! We have a mountain to conqur!"
Emidtly the boys left to follow their comandors order. The white boy slinked behind an old rusty garbage can watching Maurice as he was the first to reach the top of Mout Junk.
The burning hot sun sank beneath the brick buildings when Maurice announced to the soldiers the day was done.
Togeather, the three younger boys leaft laughing and teasing eachother.
Maurice waited until he could no longer hear their obnoxious joking. he went around to the garbage can and saw that the white boy had fallen asleep amongst the debris. Maurice shook him awake & motioned him to follow him. The boy introduced himself os Johnny but Maurice kept walking. Maurice took Johnny through confusing turns & twists through the getto. Finally the cam to a dead end.
Johnny sighed and sat on the filthy street. Maurice lokked stiff and ridged, his body twitched. Without a word Maurice shoved Johnny into a garbage can.
In the darkness Johnny herd shouts & accusions. in a few moments the lid of the can was opened-but not by Maurice. Clay gave a helping hand to Johnny, along with an apologie. In fact everyone from Maurice's group where there and all of them gave an apologie.
Johny never understood what happened in that alley way. Maurice stood up for him & that's all he wanted to know.
In the years that followed the boys met every year in that same junkyard & remembered the times they've had togeather.
As Johny turned 50 he lost contact with all of his junkyard friends, except one. He stood with flowers in hand in front of a tombstone. He read and re-read the epitaph it said:
"You're always our comandor."
inspiration- picture promp at school- turne dout much better than i antisapated
 NotListeningToTheVioces · Sat Feb 24, 2007 @ 12:20am · 1 Comments |
