Writers' Showcase
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Norbal
by Bill Tope
"Why ain't
you norbal, like other people,
Douglas?" Cass asked her nephew who,
as usual, sat on the back porch with his
nose shoved tight into a book.
"When you come from the city last
year I
took youse in but you ain't been norbal
not
one minute of the time." Douglas
shrugged
his narrow shoulders. Norbal? he thought.
"You don't like nothin' other kids
your age
like," complained Cass. "Not
girls, not guns,
not cussin' or booze, or dope, or nothin'.
I's
beginnin' to feel like I failed you.
Has I?"
No, Aunt Cass, replied the 16-year-old,
snapping shut his book. You've been great.
She smiled a little, then frowned again.
"One
'a yer' school counselors call' me jus'
today,"
she went on. Here it comes, thought
Douglas.
"She told me as how you was BLT or
somethin', an' needed a' intervention.
The
young man blinked. "An' I told
her you had
your family and she could shove it up her
ass," she declared heatedly. "You
know what
I mean?" His shoulders relaxed.
Douglas smiled gently at his aunt and
said,
No, Aunt Cass, I'm not BLT. I just like
to read,
that's all. But I'll try to fit in.
"Would ya', Dear?"
she asked. Sure. If it'll help you
out, I can smoke
a little reefer and drink a glass of
Southern
Comfort now and then, and maybe say 'shit'
out loud--and in public--from time to
time.
Cass blew a grateful sigh of relief,
patted
Douglas on the shoulder. "I knowed
youse was
norbal," she said and opened the
screen door
and stepped happily back into the kitchen. |
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