Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Angry (08/02/07)
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TITLE: Drop | Previous Challenge Entry
By Nathan Perkins
08/02/07 -
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The boys had delivered a huge load of groceries to a woman who had lost her husband and was going to be raising three young children on her own.
The funny thing was how she responded to the surprise gift of needed supplies.
The boys quietly carried thirty paper packages to the door, knocked and ran for cover.
When she came out the door she overlooked the knee-level groceries and looked around to locate the intruders. Seeing no one, she turned to go back inside and the packages caught her eye.
When she saw them, her eyes got big with surprise, her eyebrows furrowed with curiosity and finally she stooped to read the note.
“Dear Mrs. Durbin, we know that you are going through a particularly hard time right now. We hope this will help lighten your load.”
Signed, “Friends”
After reading it, she squinted as she was thinking about who might have done this for her. A tear rolled down her cheek and she looked up to heaven. It seemed she knew that this was a gift from God.
After that moment, she called her kids to come help put the groceries in the house.
When the kids finally arrived at the door they dove into the bags to see all the great surprises buried there. The teen boys intentionally hid brightly colored ice cream, and a few toys. This all brought laughter from the children.
After several minutes the door on the house shut and the three teen boys burst with their conversation and laughter.
Ben was one of the teens. He was not all that interested in doing this deed, but went along. The idea of putting his own money into something that would not benefit him was illogical.
But it was Ben who got the absolute most out of that morning.
Ben had been holding onto a lot of anger. He had both of his parents growing up, but you could hardly call his a home. Ben’s Dad spent most of his time drunk in front of the television.
One of Ben’s most recurrent memories was when he was hungry. Used to helping himself to lunch, he searched the house and found nothing but ketchup and spaghetti. He put the ketchup on the spaghetti and that was his meal.
While Ben was eating, his dad got up from his chair for another beer and finding none in the fridge he cursed and kicked around until he had the idea of yanking the ceiling fan right out of the ceiling and pawning it to get money for beer. He did all of this while Ben was eating spaghetti with ketchup.
Even though Ben’s anger form these experiences turned him to self reliance, the other two boys were able to convince him to go along on this surprise grocery drop. He considered it an outing with friend and really nothing more.
As the boys rolled and laugh and teared up over what they had just witnessed. Ben thought about those days when he went hungry and at that moment his laughter was intruded upon by a flash of that angry memory.
He jumped to his feet and began to walk away. He felt he had just been robed. His past had robed him of the moment of joyful pleasure. One of the other boys, Tom, jumped up to face Ben having seen the anger in Ben’s eye.
“What’s wrong Ben?”
“This is stupid. I can’t believe you talked me into doing this.”
“I thought you were having fun.”
With a tear Ben said, “It was fun until I remembered my dad’s way of taking care of me as a kid.”
“Ben, your dad was only looking out for himself…”
When Ben heard that phrase he realized that he had turned out to be just like his dad. Looking out for himself caused Ben to get so angry at others and to take advantage of people, too, just like his dad did.
Ben responded, “I don’t want to be that way, Tom.”
Tom putting a hand on his friends back said, “You don’t have to Ben.”
As the three boys walked home they talked about what their next mission would be and about how great it feels to give to others who are in need.
Ben felt lighter then he had for years having received healing from anger through giving to another.
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Think about working on dialogue that sounds a bit more natural--some snippets struck me as being not quite the way that real teens speak.
I like the grace that is evident here.
Keep writing.