I Am Lucius van Dyke III

Chapter 3

“…and in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen,” said Reverend Kelley.  He signaled for the casket to be lowered into the grave.

I tried to hold back the tear at my eye and wiped my nose with my sleeve.  My father put his arm over my shoulder and we walked away in silence.  My mother and Scooter followed. Read the rest of this entry »

Molly Ravenhardt had recruited me to help her collect corn stalks for the high school art department’s annual Halloween “Witch Walk” since I was sixteen, thus able to drive.

I pulled the Impala out of our driveway and across the street to the Ravenhardts.  Molly stepped out of the door wearing a red jacket and a black beret.

“I didn’t know I was picking up a little French girl today,” I said as she climbed into the car.

“En Francais!” replied Molly.  She was just a little too into the French language class we shared in high school.

I put on a bad French accent and mangled the language in a way that would have caused the Frenchmen worldwide to drop their cigarettes and declare “Zut, alors!” had they heard me.

Read the rest of this entry »

The cold, wet snow that made for great snow forts made for lousy shoveling. Each shovelful weighed a hundred pounds. At the rate we were going, it was going to take us the rest of the afternoon to finish the driveway.

I sighed heavily.

“Twenty dollars,” said Scooter sarcastically. “Sure beats building our snow fort.”

“I know, I know.” I said, scooping up another two inch, fifty pound load of snow.

“I’m done,” said Scooter, throwing his snow shovel down on the snow pile next to the driveway.

“You’re what?!” I exclaimed. Read the rest of this entry »