Cemetery Street

"At least I'm not a Commie-Pinko."

"At least I'm not a close minded hick," Shannie retorted.

"At least I'm not so open minded my brain falls out."

"Yours already did," Count said.

My head bounced back and forth with their taunts. "We going to exchange pleasantries all day?" Shannie said jumping from the tree. She led the way towards the junkyard.

"Here, this is for you." Count handed off the bag of steaks like a football. The bag slammed into my gut. "Dog is a mean mother. You should've seen what he did to the last kid. He took a chunk out of the poor bastard's arm. Kid bled like a pig."

"What happened?"

"The dog went after him," Count answered.

"No shit," I said. "What happened to his arm."

"He got gangrene, chlamydia, something like that. They had to chop it off," Count smiled.

"You're full of shit," I protested.

"Honest to God. After they chopped his arm off, the owner of the Junkyard, Damn it, what's his name Shannie?'

"Gus," Shannie said weaving down the hill.

"Yeah, Gus the Russian Jew was so pissed he told the kid's parents he would press charges for trespassing unless they gave him the arm. He wanted to feed it to the dog."

"You're full of it," I hoped he was lying. "Why didn't the kid rat you out?"

Count laughed, "I told the pecker head I'd tear off his other arm and shove it up his ass, then he would walk around with a tail looking like the rat bastard he is."

"Bullshit!" I cried.

"It ain't bullshit. It happened," Shannie said.

"Why did the dog go after him?" I worried aloud.

"Who knows what goes through the mind of a mongrel. Come to think of it, that was the only other time I dumpster dove. I think the mutt was pissed he didn't get a fresh cut. Probably wanted a porterhouse or something."

We slipped behind the hedgerow and stared at the chain link fence. As I stood between my friends I eyed the barbed wire draped along the top. "Ever climb over barbed wire?" Count asked.

"Nope," I gawked at the stacks of wrecked and rusting hulks of dead Ford's and Chevy's.

"There's a first time for everything. Listen up, you got to be absolutely quiet, you can't even fart. You don't want Duke Nuke 'em hearing ya."