The Fearless Naked.
Copywrited 2001
Ronin walked in and immediately recognized the cracker.
"I put that there this morning."
I didn't quite understand the direction at which his comment was aimed, until I realized that he was still staring at the cracker.
"Why?" I asked, obviously confused.
"For your veiwing pleasure, of course."
I smiled at his quick creativity. I've know Ronin for a long time, and I know that the cracker had no real purpose for being displayed in the center of the floor, but I was prepared for farther explanation.
He came and sat next to me on a bar stool, spinning around and making distorted race car noises, like a child.
"Our little friend here was the last cracker in the box, but I was too full to eat it. I could not have left him in there all by himself, he may have been afraid of the dark. I put him in a place where I knew he would make new acquaintances."
I slide down the counter a few feet and opened up the junk food cabnet.The saltine cracker was full. In fact, it appeared as if the mysterious floor cracker was the only one out of the box. This was no surprise to me.
I turned and looked at the broad smile on his face. He had a beautiful smile. Ronin hopped off the bar stool and laid down next to the cracker. He picked it up and stared at it for a moment, the he licked all of the salt off of it.
"Don't look, he's naked!" he said, covering the cracker. Nonsense like this was always expected from him.
Ronin's house was like a shelter for the non-homeless. Various people would always be there for days at a time, and then leave. I glanced at the clock. 2:43am. A boy about the age of seventeen walked out of the hallway in his boxers (at least I'm guessing they're his) and opened up the refrigerator.
"Who are you?" Ronin asked in the voice of the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland.
"Justin", he replied while grabbing a soda. He popped the top and ventured back off down the hallway.
"This cracker is naked", he said.
"You've already said that," I reminded him.
"Naked and fearless."
Silence took hold of the room for a single moment. Could he actually have a point? He stood up and yelled, "Naked and fearless, I come with the cracker!!!"
You are a cracker, I thought to myself as I watched him run down the hall, pounding on his chest like Tarzan running through the jungle. I answered my own question. He forgot to bring the cracker on his enterprise.
I was sitting on the counter still, playing with a jar of flour when I saw him stumble back down the hallway and into the kitchen. He was mumbling mannerisms about the "small, crusty bread-like creature...".
He found his way to the floor by falling and quickly crawled to the cracker. He pickedthe cracker up off the ground without using his hands (use your imagination) and ate it. It had long surpassed the five-second-rule, but that didn't seem tofaze him.
We sat in the kitchen for hours, staring blankly at each other; neither of us said a word. I'm not sure if Ronin taught me a lot about that cracker, or if that cracker taught me a lot about Ronin. But I do know that I will never forget that night, that cracker, or Ronin, the fearless naked.
