PUNKIN'S BIG ADVENTURE
It was a beautiful day outside, and Punkin decided she would try to ride her bike again. The last time she had tried to ride her bike, she had to ride it on two flat tires for miles and miles. The bike only had two tires, and so it was a very flat ride. And Punkin's legs got very tired, and she wanted so much to stop and smoke a cigarette. But cigarettes always turned on her--burned her when she would try to steer the bike.
B
ut anyway, Punkin wanted very much to be outside, so she went to the three bikes at the front of her house. The blue bike had two flats. She couldn't ride that one. The yellow bike had a seat that rubbed her crotch raw. She couldn't ride that one. The green bike was ugly, but had a little air in the tires and a wider seat. Punkin decided to ride the green bike.
Making sure she had her twenty-one dollars in her pocket, she was off toward her big adventure. On the way out, she stopped at the mailbox, and there was a letter from the employment agency. The letter said she was not eligible for unemployment. Punkin put the letter back in the box.
Punkin went to the first gas station for air, and put the nozzle on the spout. The tire became flatter. She turned around and looked at the sign on the air pump. "Out of Order" the sign said. And Punkin said a curse word. So Punkin rode on her flatter tire further into town to the next gas station. An ugly lady i
n a station wagon tried to run Punkin off the road, but Punkin steered out of the way.
Punkin finally found some air at another gas station, and continued on her big adventure. She went to the Parkway Tennis Shop and tried to find a racquetball glove, but all they had was left-handed small. Punkin' was neither left-handed nor small. So Punkin was pissed. She saw the Bookworm up ahead, and since she loved to read, went over to it.
Punkin looked around the bookstore for an hour and bought seven books. When she took them outside in the paper sack, she realized she had no basket on her bike to put the sack of books in. That's when she saw the McCrory's store down the block. So Punkin balanced her books on the handlebars and pedalled over.
Punkin bought a small raspberry-colored plastic basket, a ceramic hand-shaped ring holder, a blue plastic coffee mug with rings all around it, a big box of Bavarian dutch style pretzels, a package of stay-tyed shoestrings, two flip-over writing pens(one yellow and one blue) and two vanilla Twookies. And she still had fifteen dollars left. She got change from the cashier to buy a classic Coke.
Taking her goodies outside, she noticed that her bike was not where she had left it. Fretting greatly, she looked down the sidewalk and realized that the bike was too where she had left it, only she had come out a different door. Who would want to steal an ugly green bike anyway? she wondered.
P
unkin took all her goodies out of the two bags and dumped them on the outside sale table with ugly shoes. Punkin knew that the shoes were outside, because they hoped someone would steal them because they were so ugly. The sign on the table said "buy one, get one free," but Punkin didn't like them, so she didn't want to get two of something she didn't like.
She placed the basket on the front of the bike, but it was too big. She put it on the back, and it fit just right. So she tied the basket to the back of the bike with the shoelaces, and placed the books, the other laces, the coffee mug, the Twookies, and the ceramic ring holder inside the basket. The pretzels were too big to put in the small raspberry basket, so she poked a hole in the top of the sack and slipped it onto her right handle bar. The right one, because the brake worked only on the left side and she wanted her left hand to be free in case another ugly lady in a station wagon tried to run her off the road.
She left the extra sack on the ugly-shoe display table for the wind to have. As she began to make her way back home, stopping to get a Classic Coke out of the machine, she marveled at how perfectly everything fit into the basket. The Twookies rode happily inside the coffee mug, and the flip-over pens bounced joyfully in the bottom of the basket. At the gas station, Punkin stopped again and bought two packs of Benson & Hedges, stuffing them down in the basket beside the ceramic hand-shaped ring-holder. Then she started for home again, happy about her big adventure and how warm and beautiful the day was.
Punkin steered the bike over the railroad tracks and discovered she had put too much air in the tires, for it bounced greatly. She heard clickety-click behind her and turned around to find the two Twookies and the two flip-over pens had leaped out of plastic raspberry basket onto the road. A car came over the tracks, the people inside waved at her and smashed one of the poor Twookies.
"Goddamn it!" Punkin said.
She leaped off her bike and went to stand in front of the items, flagging down two negroes in a Lincoln, so that they wouldn't crunch the pens or re-smash the Twookies. She picked all of them up and put the pens in the bag with the books, and the Twookies in the bag with the pretzels. Then she got on the ugly green bike and made her way again.
Punkin enjoyed the ride back, except for the sticky place on her hand and arm, where the classic Coke had spilled when she went over the railroad tracks. She licked it off, but it still felt sticky.
