Post by Radrook Admin on Jun 7, 2019 1:18:07 GMT -5
The Bored Boy
by Radrook
by Radrook
Tommy had not wanted to go to the circus with his grandfather because, as he repeatedly said, he found elderly people with all their tales about the past extremely boring. But that wasn’t unusual for Tommy, since he seemed to find everything boring. They had tried guitar lessons, chess lessons, kung fu lessons, and the kid would always complain of being bored. School was boring as well as were the kids whom he tolerated as friends. School was boring, girls were boring and so was the Internet.
So his grandfather wasn’t really surprised at all when they arrived at the circus and Tommy just sat there with his red hair and a look of profound boredom on his round, meaty, freckled face.
“Look! The elephants are coming!" he had excitedly declared in an effort to get some reaction from his grandson, who had responded by looking the other way. The grandfather had promised himself to ignore his rude antics, since he considered patience a virtue, but that was easier said than done. Especially when the circus tickets had cost him an arm and a leg. So after approx ten minutes of waiting for the show to start, he finally gave in.
“Why are you looking so bored Tommy?” he asked, and Tommy shrugged in response-one of his trademark reactions that he knew would always exasperate his parents, and he was sure would work just as well on his grandpa.
“Not every kid gets to go to the circus, you know?” the grandfather said in hopes of stirring some appreciation. But deep down he knew it was hopeless. Nothing short of an atomic bomb detonation, maybe at five-hundred yards, could impress this kid. He wasn’t surprise. Tommy’s father, his son, had been the same way. Always bored. So Tommy was definite evidence that genetics do transfer some behavioral tendencies.
“Tommy look! The trapeze people are going to perform!” he had announced effusively in hopes that his enthusiasm might be contagious.
“Seen this on TV a thousand times!” Tommy uttered in his usual, slow, languid tone of voice, followed by a long, loud, drawn-out yawn.
“Yeah, but this is not just TV. This is for real, right now! No net!”
"Anyone can do that if they practice enough." Tommy said in a bored, half-yawning voice.
For a brief moment, Tommy’s grandfather had to control the almost irresistible urge to rap Tommy on his head with his middle-finger knuckle. But that never worked with his son, and he was sure it wouldn’t with Tommy. In any case, his arthritis no longer permitted it. In fact, he could barely grasp his cane because of the excruciating pain. But even if he could, he wouldn’t. Wisdom of the years had taught him that there are more subtle and more effective ways to do things.
“Look, Tommy the lions! Hope they stay in their cages- don’t you?” he added maliciously, and caught a momentary look of concern on the kid’s face. For the first time, he had seen a reaction from the kid he had considered an unmovable, dispassionate bastion of total disinterest. But how to capitalize on it, was the question. Tommy was obviously uncomfortable in the front row, so close to the lion cages, and his eyes were darting from them to the circus tent entrance as if he were about to bolt. But there was no way to get those lions closer. That’s when he saw it. As if an answer to a silent prayer, he saw snake-handlers parading around with their writhing slimy serpents in tow approaching.
“Well, if a lion does escape, I think that the nearest exit is that one over there, by those three people handling those mean-looking, nasty snakes.”
He made sure to slowly enunciate the word snakes in a particularly vicious manner, by prolonging the sound of the s, so that it sounded like a hiss.
“What snakes?” Tommy said with a quavering voice. His usually-healthy, ruddy complexion had blanched to a sickly pale, his lower lip was trembling, and he was quickly blinking his large, blue, bulging eyes.
“Those sssssnakes!” The grandfather pointed at the young male performers who were rapidly strutting about with snakes coiled around their torsos, and showing them to the audience seated in the front rows. The opportunity was there, and he knew that he had to act fast.
“Over here! Hey! Over here! The kid and I want to see the ssssssnakes!” the grandfather shouted, waving his black metal cane in the air in order to draw their attention.
“No I don’t!” he heard Tommy say a high-pitched, pleading voice.
“Yes, we do! Hey! Over here!” This time, the grandfather stood up on unsteady legs, so he wouldn’t escape their notice.
Having finally caught their attention with his hoarse shouting, hand-waving, and other antics, the three performers began smilingly making their way towards him and Tommy.
They were a rather colorful group dressed in black leotards and black capes. And so were the snakes. One was an albino anaconda with pink eyes, a gaping pink mouth, and the other two were two jet black boa constrictors. Each one was approx twelve feet long. But best of all, they all seemed to be peering at Tommy as if with some kind of mesmerized, malevolent interest. One was staring intently over the handler's shoulder. Another was peering from under an underarm, and another peered as it rested its large head snugly in the performer’s hand.
They were approx thirty feet away and closing rapidly, when suddenly, the grandfather heard the chair next to him crash into the floor and noticed that Tommy was gone. He did catch brief glimpses of his cropped red hair as he was sprinting towards the circus tent entrance. Saw him slip on some elephant manure, get up and keep running as if being chased by the devil himself.
The grandfather prided himself in being a good man. A religious man. A man of principle. So it pained him deeply to think the words :
“Run brat! Run!”