Shadowed Soul by John Spagnoli Read Free Book Online Page B

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I did not yet possess.  Our general store was just down the block from where we lived.  With no siblings it was just my mom and me in the apartment.  My dad was serving our country as a soldier somewhere in the desert, fighting bad guys.  Big Old Angry Jake owned the general store.  Jake would chase you out with a broom if you came in alone, on most occasions.
    “Son of a beesh !” Jake would curse.  “Stealing my candy, damn you!”
    But sometimes, if his mood was right, he would call you over to the counter.  You would think you were dead meat, even though you had not done anything bad.  Then, he would hand you a pack of baseball cards or a comic book.  This only happened if they had arrived damaged.
    “I guess it’ll stop you from tryin’ to steal from me, kid!”  He would say each time.
    His store was wonderland to me.  A maze of shelves laden with groceries, paperbacks, cheap looking statues of dragons and hardware; Jake sold everything.
    “Mom!  Please …”  I wailed.  My mother was deep in conversation with Jake; both bore a serious expression but I was eight and did not care.  I just wanted Donatello the Turtle.  Mom regarded me, her face sharper and angrier than I had seen it before.  She had been in an odd mood for a week, snapping at me for little things and I thought I had heard her crying when she was in the kitchen making dinner the night before.
    “What is it, Thomas?  What do you want?” asked my mother impatiently.  I held up the object of my desire, my eyes pleading with her.
    “Can I get Donatello?  He’s the only one I’m missing.”
    “You don’t need it, Thomas!” said my mother hotly.
    “Yes, I do!  I have Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo.  I need Donatello!”
    “Well, we can’t always get what we want,” she said, sighing. “Put it back.  I don’t have the money to waste on toys.”
    “But, mom!”  I gagged on my own protestation, silenced by the veiled hostility in my mother’s stare. 
    Sullenly replacing Donatello, I ambled to the comic book rack, my lip quivering.  Although I was not paying attention to my mother’s conversation with Jake the occasional snippet drifted past me.
    “…does the kid know?” asked Jake.
    “I haven’t told him yet.”
    “The son of a beesh always was bad news, everybody knew that…”
    “…I don’t know what to do, Jake….left us with nothing…”
    Their conversation was so involved I got to read an entire issue of The Fantastic Four and got about half way through a Spidey .
    “Thomas, we’re going.  Put that back.”  As I did she headed for the door.  I followed her with my head hung low, hands deep in my pockets.  Since my dad went to the war I had been a good boy and had not asked for much.  I hadn’t many toys and it wasn’t as if I was asking for a Shredder and a Casey Jones.  I just wanted the last turtle.  The harsh electronic door chime sounded when Jake’s rough voice jolted me out of my pout.
    “Hey kid! Tommy!”  I turned around and saw Jake leaning against the counter, a fat cigar in his mouth. “Come here a minute.”  I glanced at my mom and noticed that she was as puzzled as I.  “Ain’t got all day, kid!”
    I approached the counter slowly; my heart thrummed as I prepared to explain that I had not stolen anything.  Jake had always threatened to call the cops when I came in without my mother. But I was a good kid.  The walk was long and terrifying and when I reached the counter Jake glared down at me, chewing his cigar.
    “I had these in the back of the store, they got damaged.  The plastic crap inside is okay but the cardboard’s torn.  So, you can’t go and resell it, now, you got that?”  Jake lifted three carded action figures from below the counter. “You better take’em and run…before I call the cops!  You little shii --” Jake winked and sat back.
    In disbelief, I received Donatello, April O’Neil and Rocksteady as a