Free The Obstacle Course by JF Freedman

clothes as he went for my mom to pick up in the morning.
    There was the usual stack of unwashed dishes in the sink along with a bunch of greasy glasses, some smeared with lipstick. I got out a fry pan and fixed myself three western-omelette sandwiches and washed them down with a couple glasses of chocolate milk. I’m a growing boy, since I was about six years old everyone’s been saying I’ve got a hollow leg. My old man’s always threatening to charge me room and board because I eat so much. Someday he will, he’s such a bastard.
    The kitchen was clean when I went back upstairs. I hate a dirty kitchen.
    I lay on my bed looking up at the ceiling for a long time, playing with my cock, thinking of Darlene, Ginger Huntwell, Mrs. Fletcher. My ceiling is papered in swirls and patterns, an old job that’s faded over the years. As I lay there thoughts of pussy faded away, and just before I fell asleep I saw the patterns above my head come alive and start to move.
    I was running the obstacle course in my dream. I was in slow motion, flowing like the wind to the cheers of the spectators who were lined up to watch. I ran effortlessly, smoothly, all power and grace, every muscle working in harmony.
    I came to the last hurdle, the highest one. Springing at it, I cleared the top with ease, soaring into the air, up and up and up, flying like a young god towards the sky.

FOUR
    M ACGREGOR’S HOBBY SHOP is the most complete model shop in the Washington area. It’s way over on Georgia Avenue, in Silver Spring, which is in a different county, but it’s the only place to buy your models if you’re a serious builder. I take the bus near my house down to the Mt. Rainier depot and transfer to another bus that goes to Montgomery County, which takes more than an hour, or I hitchhike, which can take a lot of time, too, depending on the rides. Even so, I mostly hitch unless the weather is bad, because I’ll put my money into a model over bus fare every time. I was checking out this frigate, a Confederate model from the Civil War. I like frigates; I like older boats in general, they come from a time I wish I’d lived in, such as when Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and those guys lived. I’ve built a couple frigates, one from scratch even; I found these old drawings and diagrams in this book I checked out from the library in Hyattsville, it took me three months and it didn’t come out exactly the way I’d wanted it to, but it was a good ship, I had a lot of fun making it. Building ships is fun, especially sailing ships. Someday when I’m old and retired from the Navy I want to be a ship’s architect and builder.
    One thing I’ve got to do first is learn how to sail. I’ve never actually been on a boat, I mean I’ve been on them but they were always tied up at the dock, not counting boats like canoes and rowboats, I’ve been on those of course, just not a real sailing boat. This summer I’m going to learn, I’m going to go up to Annapolis and find somebody that owns one and volunteer to help out in exchange for lessons. I’ve seen these ads posted around the harbor looking for people to crew, I could be good at that, I’ll be old enough to be away from home on my own, it’ll probably be a relief for my folks to have me out of the house for a while—the feeling would be mutual on my part, too. I’ve been looking forward to it for months, actually, I’ve even figured out how many weeks it’ll be before school’s over.
    Besides the frigate there was also this battleship that interested me. It was a World War Two model, really big. It would be the biggest model I’ve ever built. It isn’t graceful like a sailing ship, it’s more just raw power, meant for hunting and destroying. It’s the kind of ship I’ll be in command of someday.
    I really like frigates but I’d already built a bunch of them. It was time to build a battleship. I started looking at the plans.
    There were a couple other kids in the store besides me, but