Buzz was just Buzz and things weren’t gonna change that – no matter how hard anyone tried.
There was a time when he was gonna be a movie star, then there was the time when he was gonna be President, and then that crazy summer when he said he was gonna be in the Olimpicks (or somethin’ like that).Now I ain’t too sure about what the Olimpicks are, but I think they has got to do with runnin’ and stuff – serious runnin’.
I told Buzz that I thought that he was crazier than a sack of cats on a hot day and that the Olimpicks was about runnin’ and what did he know about that kinda what-cha-ma-do?
He just gave me one of his looks, the ‘don’t tell me what I can and can’t do’ kinda stares and then said he was gonna be in the Olimpicks and that was that.
He said that the Olimpicks only took folks that knew what they were doing and to stop the crazy folks joinin’ in, like Big Carter from the next town over, they moved the Olimpicks each time they held them.
“So you’re tellin’ me, Buzz that they keep movin’ to stop the crazy folks findin’ them?”
And Buzz told me that was the case, and I gotta say I had to believe him ‘cause Buzz has never really told me a lie or anythin’. Well except that time he said that his Great-Grandma had been married to a guy called Edison and that she had invented the ‘lectric light. Might still be true, who can say?
Anyhoo, Buzz says that he’s gotta start trainin’ for the sport which is gonna win him a ‘Cold Medal’ (yep, I’ve no idea what a cold medal is either but that’s what he said, so it must be true).
Buzz asked his Uncle Bert what kinda sports they had in the Olimpicks and his Uncle Bert told him that there was a running race for people who had one leg shorter than the other and that was probably his best bet.
Well I gotta say that Buzz was a might upset on account that both his legs were the same length. I know this fact ‘cause he made me measure them several times. No matter what he did they were always the same. The following week he came to school with a boulder tied around one of his ankles, to try to make one leg longer. Mrs Fabert, the teacher, said that Buzz would need to study real hard just to be an idiot.
No, I ain’t sure what that meant either.
The problem was that everything Buzz did to make his leg either shorter or longer caused him to run around in a circle – and I kinda wondered what race involved running around in a circle.
“Why they all do,” said Buzz to me. “Everyone knows that.”
Well, I didn’t and that’s for sure.
Buzz had probably been training for a couple of weeks, when I saw him being chased by one of the Cops from the Town Hall. Every time Buzz ran anywhere, folks thought he had probably stolen somethin’.
Buzz confided in me that he was getting’ mighty tired in the way the folks in town were treatin’ a respectable sports star like him.
“If I run in a straight line, the cops chase me. If I run in a circle, folks come out to watch and see how long it takes before I go dizzy and fall over. I heard they were takin’ bets.”
And he was right and I heard it was double the money, if Buzz was threw up.
On the followin’ Tuesday I heard a bang over by the old stables, and found Buzz flat on the ground and his face all black and smokin’. I asked him if I should call a doctor and he said he was fine. He was just bein’ like his Great-Grandma and trying to invent somethin’.
I asked him ‘bout the Olimpicks and he said, what in the name of a crazy kid was I talkin’ about.
That’s Buzz for ya.
bobby stevenson 2016
wee bobby
No comments:
Post a Comment