Amazing, Jenny. Just amazing. And the "don't let the bedbugs bite" exchange has a very smart edge to it. And Barbara, I like how you narrate so much detail into your paragraph. It could easily be part of a much longer essay.
So here's my try at the first time I saw...
The first time I saw Bennie he was on his old Schwinn, pedalling along Doan Road like somebody was chasing after him. The bike had these big balloon tires, and there was a car antenna fixed up to the back tire strut. Up there at the top, a squirrel tail trailed in the wind. He was quite a sight, sailing along like that. Something you don't see every day.
I asked Hank what he knew about Bennie, but he didn't know much of anything for sure. Hank had an ear for news about people, so I figured that if he hadn't heard anything, there wasn't much of anything to know. Either that, or what he'd heard wasn't fit for a kid. So I let it go at that.
The next time I saw Bennie he was down by Anderson Creek, fishing. He'd cast the line out into the water, then slowly, slowly reel it in. He stood in the shade of an elm tree, and his Schwinn was leaning against the tree trunk. He'd give the fishing pole a clean snap at the end so that the line would go way out in the creek. I watched him do this a few times, then walked over.
"Catch anything?" I asked.
"Nope," he said, staring out over the water. "Nothing I wanted to keep."
"Nothing very big in this creek," I said. He just reeled in his line, then I said, "There's some good-sized carp in the river."
"Don't like carp," he said. Then he looked at me for the first time. It was a deep, sad look and it scared me a little to see. "Don't like carp at all." Then he turned to walk away.
"I'm Philip, but everybody calls me Petey," I said.
"I know," Bennie said, getting on his bike, the fishing rod balanced on the handle bars. "I know."
Bob ;-)
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