"Rite of Passage" - original fiction - Comedy Open Mic Round 17

Vince closed the heavy door to his dorm room behind him and threw his backpack on the bunk. His roommate Tyler was lacing up his boots.

“Hey, yo,” Tyler greeted him. “What’s up?”

Vince sat on the bunk and just answered the usual, “Not much. Where you goin’?”

Tyler stood up and zipped the bag, “Goin’ to pick up some airheads.”

Vince sat up a little straighter. Airheads?

Since he had started attending Texas A&M he had been so immersed in his engineering classes he hadn’t had time to really go out and party like a lot of the other students. He rolled the image of big buxom blonde women around in his mind.

I guess that’s what they called them out here in Texas, ‘airheads.’ It sounded a little nicer than his hometown of Boston’s 'skeezah,' at least. Maybe the girls were nicer too.

The truth of it was, Vince had never been with a girl. His Uncle Marco would take the young male cousins to a strip bar for their 21st birthdays and he had heard the tales. It seemed the thing to do even though his cousin Al said it was awkward. Since he missed his 21st birthday celebration last exam time he felt he needed to make up for it.

“Mind if I tag along?” he asked Tyler.

Tyler looked a little perplexed, “Um, I dunno…”

Vince stood up, “Come on, I can pay my own way. Besides I’ve got the weekend free I’ve finished my paper. I need to blow off some steam.”

Tyler narrowed his eyes a bit and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Well all right, you can come. My uncle Frank won’t mind, I guess. But you gotta keep your mouth shut. He doesn't like a lot of noise.”

Vince imagined Tyler’s uncle Frank and some kinky situation and began to think twice. It’s one thing to go to a strip bar with your own family but another to go with dudes you don’t know. “Yeah, yeah,” he promised quickly.

“Ok come on then,” Tyler said grabbing his duffel bag. The bag clanked loudly as if metal were inside.

Vince asked, “What’s in the bag?”

“Just some tools Uncle Frank wants. Makes things easier,” Tyler responded. His accent was getting thicker as it usually did when he went away for the weekend.

Vince’s thought, oh shit he’s bringing hand cuffs and chains and then sniffed his arm pits, “Sounds… wild. Yeah. Shouldn’t I get cleaned up first?”

“Naww not like airheads care,” Tyler shrugged.

Vince thought that was a bit cold to say about girls, even strippers, but didn’t want to comment and risk Tyler changing his mind.

The guys left the dormitory and walked to the curb where Uncle Frank waited in the huge tank-like International pickup truck. Tyler got in and Vince followed pulling the heavy door closed.

“You gotta slam it,” Tyler said impatiently.

Vince re-opened and then gave it a good slam shut. Tyler said to his Uncle Frank, “My roommate Vince, from Boston.”

Frank looked over with his grimy ball cap shadowing his eyes. A toothpick was perched on his lips and he flicked It left to right twice. “A’ight.” He cranked the engine over and grabbed the shifter on the tree and set the tank in motion.

Vince put his arm on the window sill and tried not to gag with the copious exhaust fumes wafting in as they slowly drove down the side streets of College Station. The loud truck filled the quiet void making it thankfully unnecessary to talk.

At one point they pulled up to a stop light and there were a group of pretty girls with shopping bags waiting to cross. The truck let out a thundering backfire and belched black smoke from the tailpipe that had the circumference of a watermelon.

The girls covered their noses dramatically and scurried across the street while Vince sunk a little lower in the seat. Frank laughed a low chuckle that made the hairs on the back of Vince’s neck prickle. He thought about the handcuffs and chains and began to get a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

At last they reached the edge of town and the truck picked up speed. Vince’s voice cracked as he ramped up the volume to be heard over the engine, “Thought it would be in town?”

“Nope further out,” Tyler simply answered.

They passed vast open grassy fields along the way traversing miles and miles of barbed wire fence and heat miraged curtains on straight unending blacktop. Must be some place like that Mustang Ranch in Nevada I heard about, he thought to himself. If so, it was sure to be a mind blowing experience.

Vince smiled at the thought of entering a bordello of gorgeous Texas beauties. They would all be dressed like Dallas Cowboy’s cheerleaders: tan, with legs as long as this long road they traveled… his mind wandered.

Source: Wikimedia Commons


Finally the truck began to slow and Vince saw up ahead there were several trucks parked along the road in a turnout. They came to a stop and piled out.

A small group of men came up to Frank and they spoke quickly. All Vince heard was clipped, “Yeps and mm mmms” interspersed in heavy East Texas accents. The men set off and Tyler hoisted the mysterious duffle bag over his shoulder. Vince noticed the other men carried them too.

“Your uncle must be into some kinky shit,” he commented to Tyler as they followed the older men.

“What?” Tyler just shook his head and kept walking. “Told you keep your mouth shut.”

The land became more sloped and the grass was harsh with burrs and tangled brush.

“Ravine’s that way!” one of the men called out and they all followed.

Ravine? What kind of bullshit was this? Oh man… did they have some girls chained up somewhere in some ditch? Vince lost sight of the men as they fanned out. Tyler stopped and said, “Ok we go this way then.”

“Why are we spreading out? Don’t we all go together?” Vince asked while his paranoia soared.

Tyler looked irritated, “Cover more ground this way. Airheads,” and he paused as if to be momentarily poetic, “Are elusive. They only show up when they wanna be found.”

What kind of metaphysical bullshit was this? Were they hunting women? Man oh man… I gotta find a way out of this. This fucked up ritual how am I going to through with it?

Suddenly he heard a piercing yell. It echoed throughout the ravine and was so loud a bevy of quail were flushed into the air. Vince ducked and hunkered down. “No Tyler no I can’t do it I can’t!...”

But Tyler had left running toward the yelling. Vince took off after him thinking it might be worse to be lost in the unknown wilderness.

He arrived to see the men clustered around Frank who was laying on the ground. Someone had ripped his pants leg to reveal his bloody leg. One of the men said calmly, “I’ll get the kit” and started jogging back toward the road.

Vince was taken aback by how all the men were just standing there, even jovial acting, at the frightening scene.

Tyler looked back at Vince with a huge smile on his face, “Hey bud come on, check it out.”

The unnamed man returned with the kit. Vince winced as he watched the guy carefully tend the snake bite wound and the blood ooze out from the punctures. "Is he gonna die?" Vince asked. Tyler shook his head, "Nah, but we'll take em to the hospital to get checked out anyway."

Frank laughed deliriously and held up his clutched fist and then opened his fingers.

Everyone let out a collective gasp of appreciation and awe.

Frank had scored the most intricate masterwork arrowhead from the Paleolithic Period, the envy of all arrowhead hunters till this day.

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This is my entry for @comedyopenmic I was nominated by @bitfiend – thank you 😊
Join us all in being clowns by participating in #comedyopenmic
Rules of the contest are here https://steemit.com/comedyopenmic/@comedyopenmic/4pmdkb-comedy-open-mic-round-rules and the latest round is here https://steemit.com/comedyopenmic/@comedyopenmic/comedy-open-mic-comedy-contest-round-17
I nominate @riottales hoping for some funny dog stories
and @cryplectibles maybe a funny tale from the convention?

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This story is based on a true misunderstanding I had with someone while I lived in Texas. The person told me they were searching for “arrowheads” and I thought they said “airheads.” I replied, “you mean like ditzy, big buxom women?” and he just laughed and laughed. That’s where my similarity with this story ends. This is a work of fiction.

To learn more about the ARROWHEADS of Texas this is a great resource: http://www.arrowheadsoftexas.com/index.html

Free cloud clip art http://cliparting.com/free-cloud-clipart-5597/