Yesterdays Gone: SEASON TWO (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (Yesterday's Gone)

 

    eBook Edition - February 14, 2012
    REVISED: March 25, 2012 to fix typos including instances of incorrect capitalized “Rs”

    Layout and design by Collective Inkwell
    CollectiveInkwell.Com

    Published by Collective Inkwell

    * * * *

BORICIO WOLFE: PART 1

    1987
    Lauderdale Greens, Florida

    Boricio had been playing Pick Up Sticks with Ricky for about 15 minutes, and had been bored for 14 of them, when he decided he would hurt the kid.  
    He wished there were other kids on the street he could play with. It would have been nice if they had cool toys, or more interesting personalities, but he would’ve settled for a pulse. Ricky wasn’t just the most boring boy Boricio had ever met; he was the only other white boy on the block.  
    There weren’t many white kids in Boricio’s neighborhood. Weren’t many white adults, either, and Joe didn’t let him play with “the darkies.” The white people had left seemingly overnight, and the property values plunged, effectively turning the neighborhood into a ghetto of peeling paint, broken windows, and endless yards of chain link fencing off lawns of concrete and rust.  
    Boricio had seen pictures of the neighborhood from back in the old days. They had a fire safety assembly at school one time, and the fireman showed them slides of life in the city, before the neighborhood went to hell and the smelly rock was sold in the streets. It seemed like everyone on his street was a buyer, even his own mom. Maybe not Ricky’s mom. Boricio had never smelled the smelly rock at Ricky’s. He wrinkled his nose imaging the smell of the smelly rock’s smoke, like cat pee and burning plastic.  
    The neighborhood was pretty in the slides from back then . There had been so many trees and green lawns. Most of the trees had been replaced by patches of hard dirt with a few spindly branches sticking out like fingers.  
    Boricio’s street had no trashcans. There used to be a few when he was younger, but that was before the Fourth of July that some kids filled a bunch with firecrackers. The bottoms of the plastic bins were blown out and garbage exploded everywhere. The city came out and cleaned up, but hadn’t replaced the cans. So now people just threw their bags out on the curb, which invariably were torn into by stray animals, and nobody cared enough to clean up the resulting messes.
    Boricio never really liked Ricky, though he used to like Ricky’s older brother, Julian. Julian was 13, five years older than Boricio. He was nice to Boricio, showed him dirty magazines and let him use his slingshot to shoot at the cans on the lawn and the cats in the alley. He let Boricio hangout with him, whenever he had to watch Ricky anyway. Julian didn’t really like Ricky all that much either, called him a fag all the time.
    He would often disappear, taking different girls into the back of the house and leaving Boricio and Ricky alone, and bored. Granted, it was better than being home and listening to Joe scream at his mom, or worse.  
    Boricio couldn't play with Julian anymore since Julian was sent away a few months ago. Ricky didn’t know where he’d been sent to, only that it was for his own good on account of their mom saying Julian was gonna grow up bad if she didn’t do something quick. Julian once told Boricio that his dad left about an hour after Ricky was born. Boricio figured that made the two of them lucky. Boricio’s real dad had left an hour after he’d been born, too. At least their mom never ended up with a Joe.  
    Boricio didn’t want to play with Ricky anymore, but he didn’t want to go home. So, Boricio balled up his fist, just like Joe, and clocked Ricky in the left ear as hard as he could. It was mostly out of curiosity, wanting to see what would happen, though a little was from the stuff that comes when your inner hate starts to simmer, but instead of taking his turn.
    Boricio had taken plenty of hits, but had never thrown one, not like Joe gave him, anyway. He wasn’t exactly sure what to do, but figured it couldn’t be too hard since Joe did it all the time. Ricky had the sticks in his hand and his eyes on the pile, so he never saw Boricio’s fist.
    Ricky’s face filled with surprise, the emotion quickly followed by pain, then fear – in an order that fascinated Boricio, even though all three flashed by in less than a second. He used a punch to Ricky’s gut to knock the wind from him, then erupted in laughter as Ricky exploded in tears.  
    Ricky doubled