Bobby

This is a story assignment I did as part of a writing course:

Ma dug her nails into Pa’s shoulder. Ma’s light yellow blouse rained sweat. Pa aimed at the red dot with his cork rifle. Ma looked at the big prize, a giant Tweety, as she had leered at the red evening dress in the Bloomingdale’s catalog yesterday. Pa had tried thrice before and failed – a long line of kids waited impatiently. One of them pointed at Pa and said something. The others laughed. Pa squeezed the trigger and almost hit the poor girl in the stall. Pa wiggled his shoulders, turned to Ma and said icily, “Can I have some room here, please?” He thrust another dollar bill at the shaken girl. Bobby sighed.

A gentle breeze blew in a myrrhic fragrance over the odors of sweat and heavily buttered popcorn. Above the forest of round faces, he saw a huge glass ball filled with entwining fibers of green vapor. It floated above a red and white tent. He walked towards the tent. The green gas gradually turned olive, and then a delicious orange and settled at a deep orange red, still meandering in serpentine wisps.

Thwack! He mumbled an apology as he untangled his face from a dark maroon skirt smothered with a thousand small white flowers.

“Kids these days, I tell yo’! Ne’er watch where they’re goin’!”

He looked up again. Thin wires tethered the smoky orb to the pointed cony tip of the bamboo tent pole. His gaze traced a thin red stripe from the top down to the entrance of the tent. A line grew outside the tent like the tail of a giant painted rat. He stopped beside a young woman and asked, “What show?”

“Fortune te…”, she peered down at him through deep blue glasses. She raised her right eyebrow. “Where’s your mommy?”

A thick cloud of incense smoke from the tent cloaked the line in a dull brown haze. Bobby sniffled and stepped out of the fog. He spotted his Pa’s grey pullover near the ice cream cart to his left. He pointed and galloped in that direction, forgetting to drop his arm. A pretty little girl with shoulder length golden hair and light blue eyes walked up from behind the ice cream cart and tugged at the pullover’s dangling cord. The father handed her a cherry popsicle. She sucked on it noisily and planted a wet sloppy kiss on the man’s cheek. Bobby dropped his hand and stopped.

A convoy of tourists burst out of the tall cast iron gate straight ahead. From the mass of flailing limbs, an amuck wheelchair rattled down straight towards him. He sprang out of its way and rammed into a group huddled in front of a store. A straw hat flew up into the air and fell at his feet. A burly chap in a red and black shirt and blue denim overalls emerged from the crowd. He bent over to pick up his fallen hat, glaring at Bobby. Bobby picked up the hat, dusted it gingerly, and handed it over. The glare softened into a half smile. He nodded, scratched his shiny bald head, and put on his hat. Before Bobby could say anything, the man lifted him up with large calloused hands, revealing long dirty yellow finger nails, and deposited him at the store entrance.

A large rubbery finger tapped Bobby on his left shoulder. He swung around and screamed. The Incredible Hulk, the monster of his nightmares, stood facing him. He was larger and greener than he had ever imagined. He boomed, “Come on, quick! I haven’t got all day. I have to run along and get my revenge!” The green face contorted into a nasty scowl. The Hulk flexed his green rippling muscles and roared.

Bobby rushed away. He cried. He looked around, saw dark unfamiliar faces, and cried some more. Suddenly, the hot tears flowing down his cheeks turned icy cold. A cool mist blew in from around the corner up ahead. As he turned right, the ground under his feet shook. A thundering jet of water sprang from beneath, rose high up in the air, and fell, almost entirely on him. He blinked his eyes. A freckled boy with a solitary incisor laughed at him with crinkled eyes. Bobby rubbed his eyes, spat out the mildly salty fluid, and sneezed. The cold water sent a fresh parade of icy chills down his spine. He squeezed out a small puddle from his shirt tails. He shook his head from side to side, like a prize winning poodle set free after an extended bath.

He ran. His eyes darted in all directions at once. He breathed, in and out, searching, scanning. A chorus of blood curdling cries from his left stopped Bobby in his tracks. Six people were tied to an elevator hurtling down a rusty brown tower. Bobby retreated in terror, slowing down only when the screams had faded.

He chanted a silent prayer to give him strength. A soulful Jurassic groan responded, like a massive turbine being turned on after years of disuse. On the ground, the shadows of a mesh of rods moved around in menacing arcs. He stood, transfixed, trying to muster up the courage to look behind. The sound gained tempo as the rods moved faster and the shadows of the rods blurred into one another. He peeked over his shoulder. A giant ferris wheel spun like a windmill in a storm. He waited for the wheel to come to a stop, and then walked on.

The smell of sweet burnt sugar carved out his path. He stopped in front of a majestic red cart, with a huge spider web and a brown hairy spider on it. Behind the web, spiderman stood, weaving cotton candy. He waved at Bobby. The pink clouds circled fast in the spinning drum, growing in size as the drum spun faster. A breathless boy ran past him, handed in some coins, and accepted the biggest pink stick from spiderman. He bit a large mouthful of pink cotton, smeared a noseful on his nose, and chewed on the rubbery strip, before tearing an even bigger chunk with magenta teeth.

Bobby sat on a wooden park bench. Patches of yellow green moss gnawed at the bench legs. He wanted to go home. He wanted his Ma and Pa. He promised God he would be good if he found his Ma and Pa. He looked up. He had seen that tree before. A hand ruffled his hair. He laughed and squirmed as his father’s pullover cord tickled his ear. He paused, and then, twisting himself slightly on the bench, looked up sheepishly, face hanging low. Pa grinned wide, as Ma struggled with both hands to turn her prize around. Tweety’s large innocent eyes met Bobby’s. The sun lit up both their faces. Behind Tweety, spiderman emptied a fresh carton of powdered sugar into the candy machine and topped it off with four drops of bright blue liquid.