I, Racki (Part XVIII)

This is a continuation. To start from the beginning, click here.

Then I took another look and realized everything was just fine. It was in the weary way Hannibal looked at me and in the nervous way Petra hugged herself. Hannibal and I have a bond that’s like we were in a war together, and to look at Petra is to look at a roadmap of all the flatbacking she’s done in her life and the way she looked at me right then was the same way she looked when she found out somebody had peed on the cake at her sixth birthday party… disgusted. But between me and Hannibal there’s an unspoken link, the kind of manly understanding that some skank could never disrupt. The kind of understanding that comes from winning together and losing together and being down.

Now to someone not paying close attention, none of these things would have been apparent in any way. I gave Petra a hardy hello, acted like it was perfectly natural for her to be over, even though we both knew better, and when I thumped fists with Hannibal, I couldn’t help but to think he was relieved. It may have sounded like a typical whassup grunt from Hannibal, but years of down-for-whatever friendship can convey a whole encyclopedia in a moment. Petra was red in the face, but I played it cool, acting like I didn’t even notice what she was scheming to do.

If Petra Plascak wanted to bring down God’s own thunder on herself by trying to steal Mayor Bruce “Lead Pipe” Wilson’s only daughter’s Prom date, then in my book she should go nuts. But leave my boy out of it. Then you bring down my thunder. Very solemnly, while I pointed a finger directly at Hannibal, I said, “You’re my boy, Hannibal.”

And right back at me he said, “You’re my boy, Racki.”

I nodded. Petra waited. At last she said, “Um, okay. Racki, pick me up at six-thirty, will you? I gotta go get ready.” Then I nodded again, watched her leave and said, “Yeah, I thought so.”

fin

This was the end (my only friend, the end), and I hope you enjoyed the story. Stone Creek is a disturbing, yet highly literate town, and I hope someday to return there for more stories. Come back to DWCC soon; I've have something new up, for sure.