The Duke Beats Up the Bad Guys
by Michael C. Keith
Genre: Memoir
Swearwords: None.
Description: Never underestimate a child's will to survive.
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Kids can be very shrewd. – Maurice Sendak
My father was working the day shift, so as usual I tried to find something to do to get me out of our one room efficiency apartment, as he called it. If I was lucky the movie had changed at the Redland, the only place they even had movies in the small town we were stuck in. I say stuck in because that’s where our trip to California had stalled and where my father took a job running the elevator at the Calmez Hotel.
We’d been in town for three weeks and I was more than a little anxious to get going again. Oklahoma was only halfway to our destination from Richmond, where we had started and where I was born. My parents were divorced, and it was my time with my father, because that’s the way it worked out in the summers when school was out. This time we decided to go to on a long trip west instead of making our usual local ones a few hundred miles up or down the East Coast.
The only problem with our plan was we lacked the money for a bus ticket all the way out west. But my father figured it wouldn’t be tough hitching a ride from where what money he had for a ticket would take us. He was wrong. After our ride on the Greyhound out to Memphis, it took us a week to get to Clinton, Oklahoma.
Now our plan was to buy another ticket, hopefully as far as Albuquerque, when he got his check. He’d saved a few dollars from his previous checks and with his next one we could afford to get underway again. His theory held that we could catch some long distant rides from Albuquerque, because there wasn’t that many towns for people to be going to between it and California.
I dreamed of our departure date set for the following Monday as I checked out the matinee. To my delight it had changed from the boring Sandra Dee movie that had been playing over the last week. John Wayne was starring in something called Rio Bravo, and I was excited to see it as I handed over my quarter to the lady in the ticket booth. That’s all it cost for kids up to 12, and I was just barely under that age limit. The movie was halfway over when I entered the dark theater. But that was fine, because I would sit through it until it returned to the part where I came in. I took a seat about midway down toward the front and nestled in as the Duke was punching out some mean looking gunslingers.
Not long after I became engrossed in the action on the screen, I heard someone whispering. I looked at the rows ahead and noticed a lone figure waving in my direction. I looked around and saw no one sitting behind me that might be the target of his wave. At first I pretended not to notice, but when the man continued flapping his hand toward me, I leaned forward in my seat and in a low voice asked what he wanted.
“Why don’t you come up here with me? We’re the only ones in the place. More fun to watch a movie with someone else,” he said.
“Okay,” I replied, thinking he was trying to be friendly, and I longed for companionship, since I had made no friends in the time we’d been in Clinton.
“You like this movie?” he asked as I slipped into the seat next to him.
“Yeah, I love westerns,” I answered.
“You want a Jujy Fruit. Here have some.”
“Thanks,” I replied, more than willing to share his candy, as I hadn’t had money to buy my own.
We sat in silence for a while gazing intently at the screen and then he asked if I would do him a favor.
“Sure,” I answered.
“Touch me.”
“What?” I asked, startled and not knowing what he meant.
“Here . . . put your hand on me and rub.”
The stranger took my hand and placed it onto something I immediately realized was his private. Although I tried to pull my hand away, he held it in place. Suddenly I was overcome by fear, thinking he would get mad if I didn’t do what he said. My head swirled as I tried to figure out what to do. As the movie drew to its climax, an idea struck me.
“I better go. My dad is a policeman, and he said he’d meet me in the lobby after the movie,” I said, trying to appear calm.
“Your father’s a cop?” he replied, pushing my hand away from his lap. “No, you’re kidding.”
“Yeah, he’s a sergeant in the force. Would you like to meet him?” I offered, continuing my charade.
“Look, I got to go, kid. See you sometime. Don’t say nothing to . . .” said the man, tugging at his fly.
He rose abruptly and scampered up the aisle without saying anything further. I remained in my seat for the movie to start up again thinking proudly about how I had managed to get myself out of a really weird situation. I decided it wasn’t anything I’d tell my father.
Swearwords: None.
Description: Never underestimate a child's will to survive.
_____________________________________________________________________
Kids can be very shrewd. – Maurice Sendak
My father was working the day shift, so as usual I tried to find something to do to get me out of our one room efficiency apartment, as he called it. If I was lucky the movie had changed at the Redland, the only place they even had movies in the small town we were stuck in. I say stuck in because that’s where our trip to California had stalled and where my father took a job running the elevator at the Calmez Hotel.
We’d been in town for three weeks and I was more than a little anxious to get going again. Oklahoma was only halfway to our destination from Richmond, where we had started and where I was born. My parents were divorced, and it was my time with my father, because that’s the way it worked out in the summers when school was out. This time we decided to go to on a long trip west instead of making our usual local ones a few hundred miles up or down the East Coast.
The only problem with our plan was we lacked the money for a bus ticket all the way out west. But my father figured it wouldn’t be tough hitching a ride from where what money he had for a ticket would take us. He was wrong. After our ride on the Greyhound out to Memphis, it took us a week to get to Clinton, Oklahoma.
Now our plan was to buy another ticket, hopefully as far as Albuquerque, when he got his check. He’d saved a few dollars from his previous checks and with his next one we could afford to get underway again. His theory held that we could catch some long distant rides from Albuquerque, because there wasn’t that many towns for people to be going to between it and California.
I dreamed of our departure date set for the following Monday as I checked out the matinee. To my delight it had changed from the boring Sandra Dee movie that had been playing over the last week. John Wayne was starring in something called Rio Bravo, and I was excited to see it as I handed over my quarter to the lady in the ticket booth. That’s all it cost for kids up to 12, and I was just barely under that age limit. The movie was halfway over when I entered the dark theater. But that was fine, because I would sit through it until it returned to the part where I came in. I took a seat about midway down toward the front and nestled in as the Duke was punching out some mean looking gunslingers.
Not long after I became engrossed in the action on the screen, I heard someone whispering. I looked at the rows ahead and noticed a lone figure waving in my direction. I looked around and saw no one sitting behind me that might be the target of his wave. At first I pretended not to notice, but when the man continued flapping his hand toward me, I leaned forward in my seat and in a low voice asked what he wanted.
“Why don’t you come up here with me? We’re the only ones in the place. More fun to watch a movie with someone else,” he said.
“Okay,” I replied, thinking he was trying to be friendly, and I longed for companionship, since I had made no friends in the time we’d been in Clinton.
“You like this movie?” he asked as I slipped into the seat next to him.
“Yeah, I love westerns,” I answered.
“You want a Jujy Fruit. Here have some.”
“Thanks,” I replied, more than willing to share his candy, as I hadn’t had money to buy my own.
We sat in silence for a while gazing intently at the screen and then he asked if I would do him a favor.
“Sure,” I answered.
“Touch me.”
“What?” I asked, startled and not knowing what he meant.
“Here . . . put your hand on me and rub.”
The stranger took my hand and placed it onto something I immediately realized was his private. Although I tried to pull my hand away, he held it in place. Suddenly I was overcome by fear, thinking he would get mad if I didn’t do what he said. My head swirled as I tried to figure out what to do. As the movie drew to its climax, an idea struck me.
“I better go. My dad is a policeman, and he said he’d meet me in the lobby after the movie,” I said, trying to appear calm.
“Your father’s a cop?” he replied, pushing my hand away from his lap. “No, you’re kidding.”
“Yeah, he’s a sergeant in the force. Would you like to meet him?” I offered, continuing my charade.
“Look, I got to go, kid. See you sometime. Don’t say nothing to . . .” said the man, tugging at his fly.
He rose abruptly and scampered up the aisle without saying anything further. I remained in my seat for the movie to start up again thinking proudly about how I had managed to get myself out of a really weird situation. I decided it wasn’t anything I’d tell my father.
About the Author
Originally from Albany, New York, Michael C. Keith has paternal family roots stretching back to Clan Keith of Caithness and Aberdeenshire. A leading scholar in electronic media in the United States, he is the author of over 20 books on electronic media, as well as a memoir and three books of fiction. Much more about Michael and his publications can be found on his website: http://www.michaelckeith.com