The Post-Lunch Outlaws.

When I was a young boy in the prime of my life, Elementary school, I realized that it was time to change. You see, I'd been traveling down the same road for ten years. I had finally grown out of my Mickey Mouse bedsheets and I was on my way to becoming a man - a man that deserved some fucking respect. I came to this revelation while on the playground one day after lunch. Note that after I finished my lunch several minutes beforehand, I slammed a box of apple juice and crushed it with my bare fist. That last bit of information isn't entirely factual, like a small number of details in my story.. But for the sake of sounding credible, I'm going to tell you it's true.

The story begins with my friend Chris and I, hanging out on the 12' foot steel jungle gym. I usually didn't sit on the very top of this particular gym because I didn't want to embarrass the other kids who may have been too afraid to ascend the structure. I mean, it was pretty terrifying at the summit. I personally had climbed to the top of it hundreds of times. I was just showing a little bit of compassion, you see. I was setting an example for the younger kids, to show them that even the bravest of kids can still be cool on the 5' foot beam. Moving on with my story, I turned to Chris at one point while lighting up a candy cigarette. "You know what, Chris?", I continued, "I think it's time we became the bullies of this playground."

After taking a moment to weigh the potential consequences, Chris nodded in agreement. "Yeaaah!", he replied enthusiastically, "Bullies of the playground!", and it was done. We were bullies now. There was no turning back, my friends. From there forward, we were untouchable. Newspapers across the nation would spread the word from Anchorage to Sarasota. Mothers would draw the shades when we rode by on our Huffy bicycles, protecting their sons and daughters from our very presence. Together, we would develop complete immunity to competition and ridicule, using nothing more than our ten year old brute strength, and sheer intimidation to pave our way through a rough and savage world.

(For the full experience, I recommend that you play the song below when prompted to. It's within your best interest, I promise.)



Chris and I stepped forward from the jungle gym and into the blazing sun, walking toward the crowed slides. (Cue western showdown music, embedded above this paragraph) - A lone, brittle tumbleweed skipped across the dusty courtyard before us. The feeling was empowering, and oh, could we feel it. The playground was ours. Climbing onto a vast wooden structure lined with a series of stairs, we stood blocking a line of kids waiting to go down the slide. "Move!", the first kid demanded. I tipped my my cowboy hat slighty, revealing a dark, stony gaze. "Make me.", I smirked, confident that he would do nothing of the sort. He pushed his way past me and jumped onto the slide. Alright, just minor setback, nothing to worry about. The next kid won't be so lucky, though. Okay.. Looks like that didn't work either. Perhaps this wasn't the best way to start our campaign. After all, we had to gain notoriety if we wished to make a name for ourselves, and notoriety has to be earned. We knew we had to take somebody down. Scrapping our previous plan-of-action, we turned our sights to a much easier target, the balance beam girls.

(Keep music rolling for optimal dramatic effect)

We made our way toward our next victims with long, slow-motion strides. Our shadows cast over them, as they turned their heads to see us approaching. I could already see the fear in their eyes. This was going to be easy, like pie. I could taste it, even.. The pie, that is.. I happened to enjoy pie, but not blueberry or apple pie. No, I had a taste for razor-blade pie now. I had a craving for blood, and nails, and gunpowder pie. I licked the dirt off of my lips. It was sweet against my tongue. The girls froze, their conversation stopping abruptly as we planted our boots into the sand, kicking up dust. Chris and I turned to each other, cracking a smile before slowly turning back toward the girls. Sweat began to bead on their foreheads, glimmering in the bright summer sun. I spoke. "What are you girls looking at?", I asked menacingly. Their faces fell to the ground, avoiding eye contact and my inquiry. "Hey, I'm talkin' to you!", I exclaimed, my hands firmly at my hips, elbows jutting out like blades. One of the girls swallowed hard and rolled her eyes up toward mine, taking a small step forward. She gazed quickly around the playground, hoping for an adults intervention, but only found an empty wasteland rippling in the afternoon heat. She knew all of the other kids, even the girls who were with her, had already fled the scene; ducking behind wagons, troughs, and saloons. She hesitated for a moment, and began to speak, her voice quivering in desperation. "G..g..gir..", I stood silently, waiting for her to continue, almost as if I were daring her. Narrowing my eyes, I took a long drag on my candy cigarette. The chalk filled my black lungs like gun smoke, burning warm like the smoldering embers of an El Paso wildfire. I liked the feeling. "Well?!", I shot back, startling her.



She held her wrist nervously, and with a deep breath, she said;
"Girls go to college to get more knowledge. Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider!". Her words echoed across the barren playground.

I stood quietly in awe, absolutely shocked by the words I had just heard. I looked to Chris, his head sunk into his shoulders. I pulled the candy cigarette from my mouth and held it at my side before flicking it to the ground. I exhaled a cloud of sugary chalk through my nostrils. That was unexpected. This certainly put a damper on my self esteem, my new-found ego even. I already knew that, geographically, the opposite genders came from China and Venus. That's where boys received their penis' prior to birth, and girls acquired vaginas, whatever those looked like.. But this.. This was too much. We were in over our heads, rendered helpless by a powerful gypsy rhyme.

After a brief, silent pause that seemed as though it stretched on for minutes, I finally turned back to the girl. She was shaken, her back pressed against the balance beam, cowering, waiting to be struck by the back of my iron hand. She breathed heavily, but tried to hide it behind her brave guise. I spit on the ground and brought my fingers to the rim of my hat, removing it from my head. I studied it for a moment, then tossed it to the ground in defeat. I looked back to Chris, who was holding his against his chest, his eyes still fixed on the dirt below him. He knew it was over. I bit my lip in angst, and took one last look at the girls face. She eyed me pompously, and I gestured back with a nod. We turned and walked away.

Chris and I hung our heads as we took that slow walk back to the jungle gym from whence we came. Our dirty days as outlaws were finished. We knew we couldn't come back from this.



Life is dangerous in the playgrounds of the old west. They say it changes you. Even the greatest of men, upholders of virtue, have fallen to cold pistol grip of the savage lands. Doctors turned to killers, clergymen to gamblers.. Hell, even lawmen have turned into outlaws. But Chris and I were two of the lucky ones. We stared the untamed beast straight in the eyes, and in the end, we walked.

But now, at this time, I would like to turn the story over to a personal friend of mine - renowned black actor, Morgan Freeman; who will be narrating the final passage of this classic American fable.



"After that momentous day of discomfiture, the outlaws turned over a new wing, vowing never to return to their wild old ways. It is believed that months later, Adam's Spider-Man action figure was stolen from him, most ironically, by an actual playground bully. Adam's mother had warned him not to share the toy with brigands, and so he found himself in quite the predicament. He asked Christopher to take the wrap for this crime, and to endure a spanking after school. Christopher refused this act of good faith, and the two of them went their separate ways. All though their friendship was severed, the old legends say that on that fateful day, so many years ago, the very shadows of those two broken outlaws were framed against the land. In their moment of defeat, their silhouettes were preserved forever, for all generations yet to come. It serves as a landmark to remember the young men, and to retell their story again and again. After some time, the playground returned to its former state of peace, but the spirit of the post-lunch outlaws lives on. It lives in stories passed down by grandfather to grandchild. It lives in the ancient trees of the forest, and it lives in all of us, even you.. Always blowing.. in the warm, May breeze."