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Big Boys
Big Boys
Rod and Luca had been friends ever since they met. Luca, along with his family had moved from Germany to the noisy capital of Mexico due to the war in the European country. They were neighbors and went to the same elementary school. Luca was a year older, but they were in the same grade. The duo was inseparable, like a hydrogen bond, they did everything together, from protecting each other from abusive kids at school to all the mischievousness they were expert at. One time, the duo had found an abandoned house two blocks from their homes and the first thing that came up to their minds was to enter the house. They entered through a rusty and broken window. Inside, the house was cold and the deteriorated furniture was completely covered with dust.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Rod said
“Let’s make it more comfortable then” Luca answered
Luca took a small rock he found on the floor and then threw it against a window. Rod stood behind him. The glass shattered as soon as the rock touched the window. Rod scared himself for a second.
“Why would you do that?” Rod asked
“Try it” Luca said with an appealing voice
Luca picked up a spherical piece of metal from the floor and threw it against a flowerpot. The pot broke and the duo laughed.
“Lets tear the whole house apart” the boy suggested
They began on the first floor, the furniture was the first thing to destroy, their methods were easy: throwing, jumping, or pushing them from the stairs to watch them fall and break. For the windows, they played baseball with the goal to hit and shatter the glass. The floor was made of white ceramic, and they broke it easily with a hammer they found on the backyard. Both boys felt a rush of excitement and adrenaline when breaking things. They had finished the first floor and decided to do the second floor. At the top of the house, the floor was made of wood, so a hammer wasn’t effective to destroy it. They picked up the wood floorboards, leaving the joists exposed, and then sawed through the joists destroying the whole floor.
After this, the duo was completely tired.
“Let’s go home” Rod yelled from the first floor
“Alright” Luca replied from the second floor “I’m coming down”
All of the sudden, Luca heard a loud bang, but it didn’t scare him. When he got to the first floor, he saw his friend lying on the remaining of the floor. A wood floorboard had fallen directly into his head. Luca felt his heart pounding at an incredibly fast rate.
“Are you okay? Please wake up. What happened?” the boy said with a nervous voice and touching his friend’s head.
With all his available strength, he carried his unconscious friend in his arms to his house.
An old wrinkled doctor standing next to Rod’s bed said to Rod’s Mom “Yes, he’ll be alright, all he needs now to recover is rest and to make him strong again, vitamins”
Luca hiding in the hallway feeling terrible, tried to hear what the doctor was saying but all he understood was that his friend needed “*bitte mines” to heal. He didn’t know Rod’s mom apparently spoke German. He left the house, pedaled his bicycle to the train station and took the first train to the Rocky Mountains. At night he returned to his friend’s house, all his clothes were dirty and his face was sweaty. He entered the room, and stood next to Rod who was still in bed, but now he was awake.
“I heard the doctor said to your mom that to make you strong again, please give him mines. I couldn’t bring you the whole mine because they are enormous, but I brought you the nicest rocks that I found inside the mine on the Rocky Mountains” the boy said and then unfolded his shirt and let a bunch of rocks fall to the bed.
“I think, I already feel so much better” his friend said and smiled.
This story was written by Ricardo Pérez Castillo
*bitte: please, in german.
