Ninja Stars and Dreams

Shoplifting Has its Rewards.

(Manny and I, aged 10, have shoplifted toys and are heading back to the trailer park.)

Robert, Manny’s brother, was about four years older than us and positioned towards the top echelon of the trailer park’s popularity roster.

He listened to high school music like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Pixies.

He shared a room with Manny, so we had easy access to his cassettes, and we’d read all the inserts.

We would pretend to be ‘cool’ like Robert by reciting lyrics to each other from songs we had never heard.

I heard the sound of action figures rain down as Manny opened my bag and poured our new collection of toys into his narrow closet.

We were catching our breath as the particle board bedroom door creaked open.

Robert had just woken up. He was wearing nothing but underwear and a baggy tee shirt with the name Rancid on it. One leg of his boxers was riding up his thigh.

He seemed cranky.

“Manuelito what the hell is going on? Shut up! I’m tryin’ to sleep and I hear giggles and shit. I thought I’d come out and see two girls. What the fuck? Shut up!”

Manny looked up, annoyed.

“Shut up, Bobby. It’s one in the afternoon! We’re going inside to play with Greg’s new toys.”

Robert’s face grew red.

“No. You’re not. I might have a friend coming over. Stay out.”

Manny whined. He was getting frustrated.

“Where do you want us to go?!”

Robert couldn’t have cared less what we did. He was still sleepy.

“Doesn’t matter. Go to The Falls.”

My stomach shrank and my thoughts began to race.

We can’t go back to The Falls again. What if they see us?

Robert turned to walk the short length of the hallway back to his parent’s bedroom where he liked to nap.

His parent’s bedroom contained a waterbed from the late seventies — although water hadn’t filled the bed in years.

A full-size mattress was placed into the Queen-sized spot where the container of water used to sit — crumbs and empty potato chips bags had been stuffed into the gaps left on each side.

Robert screamed back from the depths of the hallway.

“Go to The Falls!”

Manny saw the fear in my eyes. He looked at me and smiled. He knew I would be too timid to speak my mind.

I sensed a feeling of empathy in the trailer park for the first time.

Manny spoke up for me.

“Fine! Gregorio Wants to go there. He loves The Falls!”

My stomach tightened again — nervous intestines wrestling against themselves under my skin.

Robert paid this no mind as he slammed the door. I picked up the bike, and we began walking it back to Luis’s.

Manny’s front door opened again.

It was Robert sticking his face out.

“Hey, Gregorio!”

I was taken aback as he never talked directly to me.

Maybe he had felt bad for kicking us out in this heat with nowhere to go, I thought.

I looked up at Robert to hear him voice something for the park to hear.

“Only girls wear those, man!”

I looked back down at my fanny pack and sighed.

We continued on to Luis’s.

As I pushed the bike, I noticed the chain had come off.

It didn’t matter.

We were going to set the bike exactly where it had been and find somewhere to play with our new treasures.

We left the bike at Luis’s when Manny stopped me.

He whispered over to me and pointed at his trailer, where Robert just walked out of.

Robert was showered and had a ‘Melvins’ tee shirt on — his short hair died a metallic blonde tone. He was headed out for a date.

I smiled as Manny and I walked back to his trailer to play with our bounty.

I began to think about what we had accomplished.

Those two guys at the store that caught us stealing were good men. They gave us a chance to come clean and give the merchandise back.

They had assumed that we shared their level of moral reasoning and duty. They had hoped we would have learned a lesson and chosen to the tell the truth.

I realized something though, as I trailed behind Manny a bit.

We Had learned something from the encounter with those two men.

Lying was easy.

Manny pulled back the thin bedroom door and began to scream.

“Chingar!!! Teegra!! Teeeeegra!! Estupido! Estupido! Aghhh! What are you doing? No!!”

I walked in behind Manny and realized what the commotion was about.

The room was in shambles.

Shirts and food wrappers were scattered across the room.

Balls of tissue paper had been ‘unwadded’ and sniffed through — the dried phlegm investigated.

A pillow case lay in tatters against the wall with an elliptical stain of fresh urine, growing within its threads.

It looked as though the trailer had been robbed.

It had not.

Manny’s family had acquired a puppy from outside the Ace Hardware store a couple months prior.

The dog had broken free from its makeshift kennel — two dining room chairs and a laundry basket propped against themselves to form a teepee.

The trailer was not a far cry from where the puppy had started.

An old woman had been handing them out of a large cardboard box to random people.

It was not a hard sell. They were adorable puppies.

I had run home that afternoon begging my mother for one.

She wouldn’t entertain the idea.

No. They’re Pit Bulls. Tim used to breed them. They bite and they kill Gregory. It happens everyday. Is that what you want? You want to get something that will kill us? We have Samantha. You love her.

Samantha was a disgusting cat that lived around our trailer. Samantha was not our cat. It just lingered nearby like a furry transient because Ray fed it.

I did not have Samantha. Nor did I want her.

Not to mention I was severely allergic to cats.

Cat dander would swell my eyes like softballs until the whites would protrude past my pupils.

It was the way one would look had they been trapped inside a decompression chamber.

It was disturbing for people to see.

And Samantha, who was a male cat, very much did bite.

And if she had just a few more pounds of muscle on her there is no doubt in my mind that Samantha would murder our family.

Manny’s parents allowed him to risk certain death and have one of the puppies though.

He named him ‘Teegra’.

I had assumed this was Spanish for ‘tiger’ due to the brindle pattern the puppy had.

Manny corrected me.

“Nah, it’s ‘Fire and Ice’ bro!”

‘Teegra’ was taken from a character in the animated movie that Manny and his brother had been obsessed with.

The pit-bull had destroyed Manny’s small bedroom that he shared with his brother.

I pushed Manny to the side so I could see more of the destruction.

I realized why he was so upset.

A laundry basket was lying on its side next to a green, lumpy mountain of chewed-up legs and broken turtle shells.

All of the figurines.

Every one of them had been chewed, broken or devoured entirely.

There was nothing left but shards of shiny stolen refuse.

I began to whimper without realizing it. Before any tears could form I evaluated my surroundings.

I couldn’t cry in front of Manny. I would never hear the end of it.

Manny threw the bottom half of a figurine to the floor with a hollow thud.

“Get out!”

He turned to me screaming, sobbing — torrents of tears running down his pudgy cheeks.

He was not making eye contact.

“Get out!”

He pointed to the door and nudged my shoulder with an open palm.

I lowered my head.

We were both defeated.

I turned and walked down the shaky corridor of the trailer to leave.

We had lost everything we had worked for.

All of the anxiety and stress had been pointless.

But, we would realize something else too.

It was fun.

A lot of fun.

And for a few weeks after that, every time Teegra would defecate a ninja star, we would smile — looking forward to the next opportunity to do it again.

Keep Reading to meet the DRUGS and the GRANNY…

Check out this entire SHOPLIFTING story!

Part1:

Part2:

OR…

START AT THE BEGINNING OF THE RACE!

CHASING CRAZY!