Slick

So, like, here’s the thing. There are some people that swear by the beefcake setup, say it helps out with every trick that needs you to roll up a lot of string in there, but really I reckon that mostly they just don’t have the skill to do the good stuff without having to pull their gear apart and make it ‘better’. Me, now, I’ve been doing this as long as I can remember and I don’t really think the fancy stuff is necessary to a slick trick. It’s just a crutch. Not enough hours of string burn and bite back, fixing their style and wobble, just some fancy butterfly with reverse starbursts to lessen the friction.

Yeah, I know this all sounds like so much rug burn to you.. sorry, it’s just.. well, see, this thing has been with me for longer than I can remember. Sure, I’ve replaced the string and the bearings a hundred times or more, but at it’s heart, this is still the yoyo my grampa gave me when I was six. Funny, really.

My favorite thing in the world, constantly in my hand, and I got it on the worst day in the world. My world anyways. I never really got what happened, not until way later. People don’t like to tell you things when you’re a kid, think you can’t take it or something. So you get a toy instead, like it’s going to replace what you lost.

Guess it did, actually. Who needs a mom when you’ve got a yo. Or something. Maybe it replaced her not in any like, really real way, but just filled the gaps she left behind. It’s the string between the hubstacks of my life. Yeah, poetic and everything aren’t I?

First trick I learned was the three leaf clover. Gramps said I could make wishes on a three leaf clover every time I did it, that it was lucky. Course, no matter how many times I do it, it’s not like my life just snaps back to some normal one with two parents and a mongrel dog. Grampa isn’t around anymore either, so my whole family in the world is the asshole in jail, and the yoyo.

People find out, even though I don’t talk much. They ask about the weird kid with the yoyo in his hand that never stops moving and doesn’t talk. I don’t get it really, why they want to know. It’s not like I’m out there looking for buddies, but every time they hear my asshole murdered my mom, they come running. Girls especially, all trying to save the tortured soul, like I’m looking to be rescued and shipped off to normal town. I do alright now, I don’t need their sympathetic glances and asking me if I need to talk, telling me they’re there for me. Buy me some new string if you want to be there for me. Poly slick 8 would be alright. Stuff I need, not stupid words and glances and crap. I’ve got enough of that already.

I don’t really like competing, even though I do it every so often, pick up an extra dollar or something. Feels creepy when people watch me yoyo. I don’t really like being watched. After she was gone they all watched me a lot, the people around me. Gramps was worried, I guess. I was alright though. I mean, I barely remember her now. Maybe I should have glued her picture to my yoyo. I think he might have burned most of them though. Only ones I’ve ever seen are the ones of her when she was younger that gramps still had. You know the kind, big hair, big smile, polyester school uniform in that ick shade of blue I think they invented just to make teenage girls look as bad as possible. So that’s all she is in my mind now, someone the same age as me who got pregnant, had a kid, and then died when her asshole husband decided he didn’t like her face the way it was anymore so he should refinish it with his fists. Yeah, I know technically he was my father, but it’s like with her, I want to remember her face but I don’t, and with him, I can’t forget. I have to show up at his parole hearings, make sure he dies in jail for beating my mom to death. Gramps said he knew it was tough for me to go to court like that, but that they’d listen to me because my opinion meant the most, like I was the expert on my fucked up father. I guess the cute kid with the yoyo thing worked, he’s still in there. So yeah, that’s me. Yoyo freak with the dead mom and the murdering dad.