Desperate Times

Describe a good meal prompt from the Antioch Writer's Workshop

“Just give it to me,” Keisha whispered.

 

We were both wearing our skirts, the ones with Gem and the Holograms stitched on the side.  Our mothers had gotten them out of layaway two weeks apart so the first time we wore them, I'd saved mine for two weeks, so we could be twins. 

 

Our only difference was size.

 

The bus bounced and Keisha's soft warm thigh jiggled against mine, and it felt good.  It felt good to be so close to somebody.

 

Darnell, his pimply face hovered over ours, was turned around in the green leather seat, bouncing each time the school bus hit a pothole.  And there were lots of potholes on our side of town.

 

“Ask me nicer than that,” he taunted, holding the Twinkie over Keisha's face.

 

She crossed her arms over her ample chest, her face twisted into some serious anger.  As her best friend and Gem and the Hologram's twin, only I could detect her desperation .

 

“Come on Darnell! Stop playin'!”

 

“You gotta ask nice!”  Darnell didn't have much.  He wore pop bottle glasses and always smelled like cigarette smoke, cause his mother smoked those Kools in the house and the scent got in everything.  Even his lunch box smelt like smoke.  I bet the Twinkie did too.

 

“I did ask nice!” my best friend shouted.  “Now give me the damn thing.”

 

“Give it to her, Darnell!” I seconded, near whispering cause I didn't want the boys who sat in the back of the bus to hear me begging too.  It was embarrassing to have a friend so fat.  I'd already been through a lot.  “You ain't gone miss nothing.  You know your mama bought those with her pay ease card.  You gotta whole box at home.”

 

Darnell didn't deny it. He shrugged his shoulders.

 

“You sure you want this, fatty?”  Darnell asked again, dropping the creme filled yellow sponge closer to Keisha's face.  And I swear I could hear her breaths quickening �" that girl wanted that cake so bad.  I shook my head.

 

“No.  She don't want it,” I said, giving Keisha a scolding glance.  I needed her to play tough.  I needed her to stop being so hungry all time.

 

She elbowed me hard in the arm. 

 

“Ow!”  I clutched my arm and gave up.

 

“Well, what you gone do to get it?” Darnell was sneering down at us, and Keisha's dimpled arms were still crossed, still determined, still desperate, and as always hungry.

 

“What you want me to do?”

I sighed.  I knew something bad was coming.

 

Now Darnell wasn't nobody to take serious.  He was skinny and stupid and his only friend was a boy named Sean, who had to wear a helmet because he had some sort of disfunction that even I knew wasn't polite to discuss, well at least not in front of him.

 

So when Darnell said you can come up and here let me touch your t***y, I thought he was trying to be funny.  And I sure as heck didn't think Keisha was gonna get up and go do it.

 

The situation must have been worse than I thought, because when my friend said, “I want the Twinkie,”  it sounded like a growl, like there was a bear stuck her chest, and not nice bear, but an angry killer bear.  And I was scared of bears.

 

Seizing the opportunity, Darnell chimed in.  “Well then, you know what needs to be done.”  The little pipsqueak of a boy shrugged his shoulders as if there was nothing he could do about the options.  He pushed the Twinkie closer to Keisha's face and waved it back and forth.

 

“You ain't gotta do this,”  I reminded her. 

 

Keisha stared at the Twinkie, sure enough getting hypnotized.  “You gotta Twinkie?” she asked me.  I shook my head and she then shrugged. 

 

She stood, her posture like a general, her mind made up.  “Desperate times call for desperate measures.” 

 

My face wrinkled in disgust. 

 

There was a lot of shuffling as Keisha tried to get up.  I don't know how but she managed to get around me and the bookbags and was able to shimmy into the seat in front of us before Ms. Tammy, the bus driver told her to sit down.

 

“I'm gone see a t***y!”  Darnell told me proudly, as he turned around, joining Keisha in the seat, victory written all over his face.

 

Now I don't know the particulars of what went on.  I can't tell you if she pulled her shirt up, or if she stretched out the neck of her pink t-shirt pulling it down, but all I know is, about fifteen seconds later all I could hear was Darnell panting.  And about fifteen seconds after that, he was clapping and shouting, repeating, “Areola!  Areola! Areola!”  over and over again.

 

There ain't much I remember about being in the fifth grade, but I promise you this, I will never forget the sounds of Keisha smacking as she ate that snack cake.  And I will never forget the look of pop bottle-eyed boy falling in love.