The Best Sale Ever

I’m driving home late one night in my brother’s truck, which happens to be quite comfortable, and I’m dozing off behind the wheel.  A few blocks away from my house, we’ve got this blind “s”-shaped turn in the road.  I bank wide and accelerate through the first turn, when suddenly, some kid stumbles out of the bushes and runs in front of the car. I turn franticly into the other lane and narrowly avoid hitting him.  When I look back, he’s got his middle finger extended, and I’m in shock.  I almost killed a young boy, I think.  I saw his plump, pink cheeks, his squinty eyes and his outstretched arms in the headlights.  Franticly, I check my mirrors to assure myself of his fortune.  This time, I count five young boys, all raising their respective middle fingers, laughing and exchanging high-fives.

They tricked me.  It was a joke…

By the time I get home, I know what needs to be done. I run inside and wake my brother, Tony.

“Hey, get up!”

“Spaghetti,” he moans.

“Damnit, Tony, get up!”

He rolls around a bit, and then I tell him to grab some eggs.

“Eggs?”

“Yeah, eggs.”

We pack eggs, tomatoes, bananas and Tony even fills a zip baggie with his own urine. We take a different car to maintain the element of surprise, and head out into the night. 

I drive slow, suspiciously eyeing bushes and trees. They could be anywhere… They could be hiding…  But they’re not. They’re still in the middle of the road, still laughing and slapping each other with high-fives. 

Tony sees them first, and reaches for an egg.  He throws it four or five feet in the wrong direction.  Damn.  I grab one myself, and try out my window.  No luck.

While the car inches along, we franticly fling fruit in all directions; all directions but the right one...  The young kids, who appear to be no older than 12, just point and laugh.  Eventually, I slam down the accelerator and flee the scene.

We’ve still got some eggs, vegetables and a bag of piss left in the car, so we drive around town and strategize a bit. Tony thinks we should take my car this time, so we drive back to the house, and load the ammunition into my beloved 68’ Mustang.

I come into the “s” shaped curve from the other side, and I don’t see the kids anywhere. I start to slow down, and then I stop. We sit for a second, deep in thought, analyzing the situation. Then, a loud crash breaks the silence. Followed by another, and another. It sounds like tree branches falling on the roof of my car. The kids are behind us throwing lemons and rocks at my car. I put it in park and grab some eggs. Tony is already out and throwing. I watch as he mishandles the bag of piss and it spills out at his feet. The lemons continue raining down upon my car, and the kids remain untouched. It’s become apparent that Tony and I have horrible aim.

We run back to the safety of my car, and I pull around the corner for cover. I kill the engine, and step out in that way that says “Hey, you…  I mean business.”

“What are you doing?” Tony asks me.

“I’m going to beat the shit out of those little fuckers.”

“Dude, they’re like 9.”

“Dude, they fucked up my car…”

Tony swings, so we leave the car and run into battle. The kids see us coming from a block away, and they start throwing more rocks and lemons. I’m hit in the face with a fist-sized lemon, but continue to charge onward.  The kids must have seen the fire in our eyes, because they drop their weapons and start running away from us.

We chase them for several blocks, gaining ground, and then they disappear, all of them, into an open garage door. Tony and I stand in front of the garage door dawning puzzled expressions. I squint my eyes and try to peer into the darkness, but I don’t see any of them. We stand on the edge of our world and theirs, and something starts to make its way through the portal.

It’s a full-grown man, shirt off, chest hair and all…

“Get off of my property,” he growls. Tony starts to retreat, but I hold my ground.  “I said, Get Off My God-Damn Property!”

“This is a public sidewalk,” I say, but it doesn’t sound nearly as good as I thought it would.

“It’s MY sidewalk,” he says, now standing directly in front of me.  He’s a giant, twice my height it seems. “It’s my sidewalk, and I wa

nt you to leave.”

“Not until I get your address,” I tell him. “Your kids trashed my car.” And upon saying that, all five of them scurry out from the darkness and start bitching behind their dad’s guard.

“They threw dog poop at us,” one of them screams.

“No we didn’t,” Tony yells back. And I laugh because I know we’re in the clear on that charge.  We didn’t throw dog shit-- we threw people piss.

The kids kick and scream for a few minutes, their dad joining them occasionally. Tony and I kick and scream back, and the whole situation starts devolving before my eyes. I make a mental note of the address and then walk back to my car. It’s been a long night, and now that I have the address I can strike back covertly when the time is right. Several months later, I decide that it is.

It’s another night like the last, and I’m driving around with Tony.  He points out an old, soiled mattress on the side of the road, and suggests that we leave it on our friend’s front lawn.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because. It’ll be funny,” he says.

“Yeah, I guess it would be funny.”

We keep driving, and as we drive, I start seeing more and more junk on the side of the road.  This gets me thinking…

We put the mattress in the back of our truck, and then I pull over for a broken shovel, a broom, some old chairs, and a bag of lawn clippings. We call up our friends for assistance, and spend the whole night driving around collecting people’s junk.

It just so happens to be the night before garbage pickup, so the pickings are ripe. We’re quick to fill the truck, and then, with every full load, we drive to the house-- that same house belonging to the kids and their hairy beast of a father. We leave everything on their front lawn- refrigerators, washing machines, doors, even a few kitchen sinks. The pile of junk is phenomenal, like something you’d see in a modern art magazine. I’m not even exaggerating this: it peaks beyond the height of their house.

Then, with an hour left before sunrise, I print up hundreds of flyers advertising “The Best Sale Ever!”, complete with their address and phone number.  We post these flyers in four neighboring cities, on every street pole, bulletin board and storefront.

With the help of the Internet, I also manage to pull up the first name of the man from that night, and I leave personal initiations from “Bill” in the mailboxes of his neighbors.  

The sale is set. The rest is left to time.

 

For several months, I assume that everything played out according to plan. I didn’t personally attend The Best Sale Ever, but I’m sure it was phenomenal.  It wasn’t important to be there. I know what happened.

 

Then, while sitting in a hospital waiting room, one of my friends from that night overheard two women talking about their kids.

“You think that’s something?” the first woman laughs. “One night, my kids and their friends collected junk from around the neighborhood, and they tried to sell it on our front lawn.”

“Why would they do that?” the second woman questions.

“I guess they wanted to host a garage sale.”

“Oh my goodness…”

“They printed up flyers and everything. Posted them around the neighborhood.  It was shameful.”

“What did they do when the people came?” the second woman asks.

“They denied everything… Put those damn dumb looks on like they didn’t know up from down.”

“So what did you do?”

“We made them load the whole mess into a U-Haul, in front of the crowd and all.  They had to give up their allowance for a month to pay for the truck.”

“Kids…” the other woman moans.

“Kids…”