Smokey Mountain Breakdown

Did everyone have a fun Fourth? Have your fill of hotdogs? Damn, I loves me a skinless Nathan's, know what I mean? Me? I spent a pretty quiet day. Watched some episodes of Oz. Drank some hot tea. Mowed the lawn. Watched the fireworks.

Anyway, my buddy, Leslie, over at Leslie's Omnibus, lured me over to blog story writing with her Take Three exercise. It's a bit more constricting a prompt than I'm accustomed to working with, but I gave it the old college try. The prompt was to write a story in under 1000 words with the following three sentences:

I hate nature… and WalMart.

And that’s when Nana went commando.

Moments like this make me very, very nervous.

So...I give you for your blogging consumption...

Hippie Chick Gets Us Busted at the Walmart Parking Lot

Donnie threw a hand up to shade his eyes, looking across the Walmart parking lot and the four-lane highway to the county sheriff's depot. The wind blew just right, 10 mph the paper said, wafting right into the right-hand corner of the Wal-mart parking lot. The monthly marijuana burn was about to commence and Donnie was looking forward to a free contact high.

He squinted and spat, kicking some garbage left by the fireworks vendor who'd vacated that bit of concrete that morning. Walter and his hippie chick girlfriend pulled up in the parking spot next to Donnie's truck.

"They started yet?" Walter hung his head out the car window, his squinty ginger eyes fading into the freckles of his ginger face and ginger hair.

"Nah, but they moving everything out onto the bonfire."

Walter and the hippie chick joined Donnie on the tailgate of the Ford truck.

"Hey man," said Donnie, "You got any crack?"

Hippie Chick scowls. Walter rolled his eyes. "Nah, Sasha don't let me do none."

"It's not natural," Sasha the hippie chick said as she jumped from the truck and began dancing a jerky, inelegant dance, not at all inconspicuous.

"Moments like this make me very, very nervous," Walter said, as shoppers turning into the Walmart rubbernecked at Sasha's dance, her hairy armpits all exposed. He passed a few hydros into Donnie's silent palm while Sasha wasn't looking.

"She's gonna draw a crowd."

"No shit. Rentacops too, prolly."

"So where'd you get these? I thought your uncle had your granny?" Donnie popped the hydros.

"We done got her back. Unc let her get away from him in Home Depot. She got one of them lawn tractors started and that's when Nana went commando."

"Christ, man! Shut the hell up! I don't want to hear nothin' 'bout your granny's va-jay-jay!"

"You perv!" Walter shoved Donnie in the arm. "I mean she went crazy! Mowed down half of lawn and garden. Put three guys in the ER before they stopped her. Anyway. Court ordered her back with us so Momma's got control of her meds and social security again. Unc's madder'n'hell."

Sasha pirouetted, bare dirty toes gripping the concrete as a cloud of blue, marijuana-flavored smoke rose from the depot and came roiling across the parking lot. She spread her legs wide, picked up the hem of her blouse and fanned the smoke into her face. She wasn't wearing a bra.

"Let us thank Gaia for her bounty!"

"Fuck me, what the hell is she on, Walter?"

"Mushrooms. Jimson weed. Tree bark. Christ, I dunno. She don't take nothin' less'n it grows in the woods."

Sasha stripped her top completely off.

"Make her stop, man! Woah--that's more 'nature' than I need. Shit man, Walmart done called the cops," Donnie said as the city cops came peeling into the lot.

"I hate nature," Walter said, "and Walmart."