Free Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris Page B

back to the speedway, where Jerry was setting up for the third stock-car race. “I ought to kick ya’ll’s asses,” he said. “Walking out on me the way you done, that’s no way to treat a friend.” He handed us our uniforms, and we tossed them on the counter, announcing that we’d found an easier way to make money.
“Then get on out of here,” he said. “And don’t come crawling back, neither. I don’t have no use for backstabbers.”
We had a high time with that one. Reminded of just how stupid a person looked in a paper hat, Dan and I returned to our panhandling, pausing every so often to tap each other on the shoulder. “Backstabber, you might think I’ve got some use for you, but think again.” As the afternoon moved on, we replaced the word backstabber with the word hippie, allowing ourselves to believe that Jerry had fired us not because we had walked out on him but because we were free and of the moment. It didn’t matter that we’d never work for him again, as those days were behind us now. Work was behind us.
By five o’clock I had begged enough money to pay for my vest, but Dan and I were greedy and not ready to stop. Plans were made for stereo systems and minibikes, anything we wanted, paid for in dimes. Dusk approached and the midway brightened with colored bulbs. The early evening was lucrative, but then a different crowd swept through and the mood became rowdy.
“Spare change?”
The guy I’d approached had a downy, immature mustache, no more than a few dozen hairs positioned above a mouth the size of a newborn baby’s.
“What did you say?” he asked.
I turned away, and when he spun me back around to face him, I noticed his army jacket, which wasn’t the old ironic kind but a crisp new one, the type you’d buy as practice before you enlisted.
“Did you talk to me, weirdo?” His mouth was bigger now. “Did you say something to my face?”
A second boy stepped up and put his hand on the angry guy’s shoulder. “Come on, Kurt,” he said. “Take it easy.”
“Maybe you don’t understand what’s going on,” the guy named Kurt said, “but this bozo talked to me.” He spoke with great outrage, as if I’d peed in his mouth. “I mean, he actually said something to me.”
Two of their friends who had walked ahead came back to see what the fuss was about and stood with their arms crossed as Kurt explained the situation. “I was minding my own business and this piece of shit started running his mouth. Comes right up as if he knows me, but he doesn’t know me. Nobody fucking knows me.”
The only thing worse than a twenty-five-year-old with a Vietnam flashback was a fourteen-year-old with a Vietnam flash-forward. I turned my head to look for Dan and saw him backing away just as Kurt’s fist caught my ear, breaking the stem off my glasses and sending them to the ground. The second punch grazed my upper lip, and the third was interrupted by the friends, who grabbed Kurt by the arms, saying, “Hey, man, take it easy. He’s not worth it.”
I tasted the blood leaking from my lip. “It’s true,” I said. “I’m not worth it. I swear I’m not. You can ask anyone.”
“He shouldn’t go talking to people when he doesn’t know who the fuck he’s talking to,” Kurt said. “The next time someone gets in my face, I’ll fucking kill him. I swear I will.”
“We know, buddy. We know.” Kurt’s friends led him down the midway, and a minute later one of them returned to hand me a dollar. “You’re cool, man,” he said. “What Kurt did, that was wrong. He can kind of go off sometimes, but I know where you’re coming from. I like peace.”
“I know you do,” I said, “and I appreciate it.”
It was the first time anyone had given me an entire dollar, and it occurred to me that if I could get beaten up twenty times a day, I could make some real money. Then I saw my broken glasses, and the equation fell apart. I was picking them off the ground when Dan stepped up, pretending