Setting is early 50s. The wrong side of the tracks. Five guys have grown up together and now anticipate the fast life. Very different but complimenting personalities take them down, and up, different roads. I will appreciate every comment. If there are any?? I hope this 'paste' works... Warm regards, Roger
“Hi, my name is Scotty. Well, it’s really Dellbert Mervin Scott. But every one calls me Scotty. For which I’m glad. Except teachers, and my folks when they’re mad at me.
I’m not supposed to say “mad” when talking about people, because only animals get “mad”. People get angry. So my old-lady says. I’m not so sure. Some folks I’ve seen are a lot like animals. You know what I mean?
Anyway, I’m writing sort of a diary. Miss Goode, My Grade 8 teacher, says, “everyone has a book inside them.” She said if we just show it to her she’ll give us extra marks. I like that. And, she said she won’t read it because she wants us to be natural, and don’t worry about spelling. I like that even more.
So, you are reading my book. I don’t know what it will be like, but I hope you like it. It’s not going to be like a regular diary, with dates and “Dear” every time I write something. I don’t know where, when, or how it will end. But, I do know “why”. Because, I’ll make it end. Just watch.
Since it’s natural, there will be some swear words and dirty-stuff in it too. Maybe some words you’ve never even heard. When the guys are together, well we don’t talk the same as when we’re at home. I would never swear in front of my parents. Out loud anyway. Sometimes under my breath at the old-man. But us guys we say the Father-Uncle-Cousin-King word a lot. Do you know what that means? It’s ““F””. But we don’t say that around girls. I don’t smoke at home either. But we do smoke around girls, because that’s “Real George”.
I’m going on 15 now and can’t wait to grow up. So far it ain’t been that easy. Like it was being a little kid. But at least here, we don’t have to run from bombers and stuff like in England, and those places. That would be really crappy. But we put up with some crappy stuff too.
Mostly for being natural, like Miss Goode says our book should be. Kids today are a lot worse than kids in the old days. At least that’s what the old-man says. So his idea to make me good, is to treat me bad. Like here a wack, there a wack, everywhere a wack-wack. Half the time I don’t even know for what. By his grins, I think it makes him feel good to see me feel scared. That won’t go on for ever.
Anyway, when the guys get together we shoot the ka-ka. You know what that is , right? It makes us feel real good to yak about all the ka-ka we gotta take.
There are five of us guys. So our gang is called, “Five Of A Kind”. Like in poker there’s four of a kind, but also a Five Card Straight. So we tied them together, ‘cause we bend things sometimes and don’t want to be seen as sissy-straight.
But really, we’re not all alike either. I’ll tell you more about that later. Right now the old-man has his cronies in a knot so I gotta run to avoid a wack....
The last sentence wasn't/isn't intended to be anything but a sign-off to this 'paste'. OK, tell it to me "straight" :-)