milliways_bar | (no subject)

Hey, kids! Remember the '90s? You know, back when everyone wore boots and flannel all the time; mobile phones and home computers were not yet ubiquitous; and the powers that be tried to revitalize the sagging Japanese Beetle! franchise (and grab precious merchandising dollars) by reframing it as the eternal struggle of jocks vs. geeks in a suburban high school, far from its epic WWII origins?

...no? Well, you're just too young to remember. It totally happened that way.

Anyway, in swaggers eighteen-year-old Squirrel, in jeans and his Skyline High Rockets letter jacket (apparently if you're big enough and fast enough, a five-foot-long squirrel tail isn't too much of a liability on the football field; who knew?) and with a real Cheshire grin. It felt good to stuff Beetle in a locker today, better than usual even, and he figures he deserves a treat for it.

Up to the bar he goes, for some deep-dish eggplant parmesan pizza and a double-chocolate malt. Highly botherable.

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"Farming?" he asks. "Or... is it more ranching, out where you are? Do you get some other kind of work too?"

"We have a herd of cattle. Don't really do anything else. I try and get to school when I can."

"...oh, that's right, they don't make you go to school, do they? Wish I didn't have to go every day--well, but without having to work either."

He has made laziness an art form.

"My Ma would like it if I could go to school more but just ain't that much time. Better if my brother goes."

"Mine's a teacher, so I'd be out of luck either way," Squirrel says. "Your brother's younger than you, then?"

"Yeah, not much younger but enough."

"It's just the two of you and your mom at home, then?"

"My Pa was killed about a year ago."

He nods. "But you just have the one brother, no aunts or uncles or grandparents or anybody else living with you?"

"No, just us."

"I can't imagine," he says. "I mean, I've seen westerns and all, but that's not the same as actually living out west, with cattle and all. When are you from?"

"Just outside Bisbee in Arizona Territory."