when you live in a small town, you have to be creative when it comes to having fun. I was never really into football, but I do attend all the home football games at my high school. I really don't watch the game, I wander around the bleachers and around the grounds visiting with friends and chatting with people who might be from out of town. If there are no home games, then nine out of ten times I'll pester my sister or Heather to drive me out to the skating rink located just off Highway 16 three miles from town.
That's an average Friday night for me. Saturday, we'll Saturday morning I'm either helping Kayla on the farm, catching up with homework, or helping Lily and Robin with their maid theme cafe downtown. I help on and off during the school week. Saturday afternoon I draw my wages from both places. I save my money for those once in a blue moon, okay more like once a month mall trips and then I head into the woods to meet up with a group of friends.
No, we don't smoke or drink out in the woods. We just sit around a roaring bonfire, roast hot dogs, munch on chips and tell ghost stories. Then when Sunday morning rolls around, no matter how late I stayed out the night before, I drag myself out of bed, brush my teeth, wash my face, do my hair, and get ready for early morning Mass. My uncle's the town Episcopal priest and so I normally end up attending both the “Low Church” early morning Mass that is held at eight o' clock. I ring the church bells for that one. And then I turn around and attend the “ High Church” service at ten thirty. Yep I take communion twice on Sunday.
Now eight o' clock mass last about a hour. So instead of heading back home, I kind of head to the local doughnut shop called “Benton Doughnut's” . It's a tiny little shop that is located in the old KFC (Kitchen Fresh Chicken) stand at the end of downtown. A newer, more modern KFC was built three or so years up on the highway were most of the newer business seem to be moving too. I mean chain business, downtown still remains mostly churches, government building, banks and mom and pop owned stores.
Anyway the Wong family, one of the handful of Chinese families that live in Benton run the place. The dining room is often crowded and people often sit shoulder to shoulder, but it's cozy and the air is always warm and inviting. Mr. Wong goes to Methodist church and his wife and four children attend the Methodist church.
Anyway after eight o' clock mass. I drag myself there to get a doughnut and some coffee. And normally that was where my friends started to gather. Let me tell you about them. First their Jame Sarah Potter, Jamie around my age and smart as a whip. She attends Benton Academy and she is my closest and dearest friend, she likes my twin sister, only I'm a brunette and she is blonde. Up next their Taylor, the youngest member of our group. She is a freshman at Benton Academy, she has blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair and is a solo girl scout, kind of cool if you ask me.
Then there's Cerridwen. She is a raven haired pagan girl who claims she can do a little magic. She is the second youngest, she is only a few weeks older than Taylor. Next we have Daisy, Daisy is Daisy enough said. He or She depending on the day attends Benton Academy too and is dating Cerridwen. Next we have Ben, who's dating Jamie, Matthew who's dating me, Andrew who happens to be Jamie's cousin who also happens to be dating Taylor and rounding out the group Daisy and Cerridwen are a pair, we think.
These are the guys and gays that make my life in Benton worth living. We pick on each other, tease each other, sometimes we fight each other. But when the cards are down, I know everyone has my back. We are a family, a fellowship of misfits and outcasts that have banded together. Kind of like the Fellowship of the Ring, only I doubt any of us would have the strength to carry a cursed ring into the mouth of an active volcano.
Anyway it was the first Sunday in October. School had been in session now for about a month, the leaves on the trees were starting to turn from green to brown, some even turning orange and orange-red. The mornings were cooler, the afternoons it seemed hotter. The days were getting shorter and the nights longer. I was a month into my Junior year of High School, soon I knew I would be a Senior and walking across the stage to claim my diploma. Time marches on. But I pushed those thoughts far from my head. Me and the gang had business we needed to talk about, real business. Halloween business.
Yes, I'm aware that Halloween was a good twenty four days away. And to the casual person, who might only pass out a one bowl of candy and maybe put a few wooden tombstones up on their front lawn along with some fake glow in the dark skeletons that was plenty of time to get ready. But me and my growth was barely enough time. And in order to bring my plans to fruition, We'll need to use every free hour we could get.
Anyway eight o' clock Mass had just ended and I was on my second cup of coffee. With school, like I said having just taken in, most of the crew was still at home, trying to catch up on Homework. And with it being the opening day of archery deer season, most of the boyfriends were in the woods. Let me explain something real quick too. Generations of southern women have always endured having their boyfriends, husbands, and brothers vanish into the woods when October rolls around. Hunting them is almost like going to church. And the opening weekend of any season is treated like a holy day to them, like they put it on the same slate as Christmas and Easter.
Anyway only Jamie and Daisy it seemed could make it. Both of whom seem half asleep. Daisy seemed to be in girly mode today as she wore a nice pastel pink dress and a matching white purse, her blonde hair down and held in place with an Alice band. Daisy is gender fluid, so you just gotta see what her or his mood is. Right now she was half asleep, and leaning into Jamie shoulder who was dressed the same, and likewise was still half asleep.
We tended to treat Daisy more like the little sister of the group than the others.
“Okay ladies!” I said finally as I looked down. “We have business to talk about and there plenty of doughnuts left..” I said getting up and walking over to the coffee pot. I filled two cups up with the strong coffee and handed each cup toward Jamie and Daisy who only muttered a thanks before lifting the coffee to their lips and taking a small sip. Both almost spat the coffee out. But they managed to swallow.
“Hey!” I said looking at both. “I can't help it the way you two take your morning coffee's put you both asleep. Once you put all that cream, half-and-half, and sugar into that stuff. You don't have coffee anymore, you have some sweet and milky creation.”
“Only a farm girl.” Daisy said, taking another shot of her coffee. “Would drink her coffee straight.” She said as she shuddered at the bitterness.
“And only a spoiled city girl would add all that junk you add.” I said shooting back. Two and a half years of staying with Kayla had really toughen me up. Kayla was an old farm girl, she rose with the morning sun, fixed a large breakfast and drank her coffee black. And some of her habits had worn off on me.
“At least I don't have hay behind the ears.” Daisy teased as she took another shot of her coffee. Even Jamie had to giggle at that one and I did too. The hay comment came from the first time Matthew and I really kissed. It had been in the hayloft on the farm, we had decided to help Kayla harvest some hay. The boys did the bailing and the heavy lifting. We girls made sure nobody fell out from heat stroke and tended to the wool heads that had gotten themselves hurt. Matthew and I had been flirting on and off all day and finally he had sweetly talked me into the hay loft. And we'll start kissing. That kissing was about to turn to something else when Kayla and Jamie came busting in on the scene.
I remember the look Kayla gave me, it could have melted through a sheet of ice sixteen inches thick. I could tell she wanted to whoop me there and then. Instead she just scolded up for slacking off. I fully expected to get a whooping that night, but she seemed to have forgotten about the matter. I did have hay stuck in my hair all day and smelled like hay all day that day and all that Sunday and all that following Monday. I sometimes thank God I'm a country girl, how many girls can say they've been kissed in a hayloft? Not many, and I'll take a hayloft to the backseat of an old ford truck anyway of the week.
“Anyway ladies.” I said blushing. “We have some business we need to talk about. And while I would have liked for everyone to have been here this morning. That would have been like herding cats. And the Lord God can only do so much.” I said. “So enough chatting, let's get down to business.”
“To defeat the Huns?” Jamie chimed in and both she and Daisy broke out laying. Jamie had turned Daisy into a Disney Princess loving geek. It was safe to say that when Daisy was in “Girl Mode” as we called it, she was Jamie's adopted little sister. Just as much as Cerridwen was my adopted little sister. I guess we vibed like that, Cerridwen even as a transgender girl was a tomboy and I was still a bit of a tomboy. Jamie was full of girly-girl and had made it her mission to mold Daisy into the perfect princess. God I love my friends sometimes.
“I'm sorry Jamie, we are not going to save China today. Instead we have bigger fish to fry. We have..” I paused and took another sip of my coffee. “Halloween Business to talk about!”
