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| Yeah, it looks great but is it bulletproof? |
Justin had a paper route and I thought that was an awesome job. All
you had to do was deliver forty newspapers every day for a month and
you would get eighty dollars if you could collect it. The collection
part was the part I did not understand he, after faithfully
delivering a paper daily would have to go up and beg for his money,
and the people would blow him off and say they would pay him later.
But he had to pay the paper company no matter what so non-payment
came out of his end. I told him if it were me they would not get
another paper after they didn't pay and when they did pay they could
resume service but he said the paper company would fire you if you
did that and you just had to eat the difference or bug the customer
until they paid. This was injustice on the most minor scale but it
burned me up something fierce. When Justin and his family were to be
away he had to find a replacement for his paper route or loose his
job. I would try and volunteer every single time because I loved
rolling or bagging the papers, putting on the apron and filling it up
and taking of with a mission on my bike. I really felt deputized like
I was helping complete some vital task that depended on my dedication
and strength, and it was fun to have an official-ish job. Most of the
paper route would be going along fine but when I would turn down this
one road there was a bully named Jared who loved to antagonize the
paperboy. He was usually throwing stuff or threatening loudly but on
occasion he would break out the big guns, literally. He had a pellet
gun that he would sit out on his porch with it and pump it up and menace me. He was the same age as my older sister and her best friend
lived across the street so he would call me Christy's-brother.
He would yell out, “Hey Christy's-brother want me to shoot you?”
I would whimper-yell back, “No.” Now that I consider it he may
have been asking rhetorically and didn't require a response.
He would pump the gun once or twice and holler as I delivered the four papers that went to the houses on his block. Every once in a
while he would aim and shoot at me and then go back to yelling,
threatening and pumping. You know? I hated that block, it was not
worth the $2.60 to put up with that. He was a mercifully poor shot
and never hit me but he had shot Justin before so it was possible and
that kept the fear in it. The really tragic part was that it was not
the worst job I would ever have.
