the newspaper boy

"I don't want to do this anymore, Dad," Billy says as he pushes his mom's shopping cart down the pavement.

"But I thought you said you wanted to do what I do for a living," his dad says back to him.

"Yeah, but you're making me do all the work! And I don't get paid."

"I'm teaching you," his dad fishes out a paper from the cart, rolls it up and throws it at the porch of the house, "how money is earned, so you'd learn to spend wisely."

Billy continues to push the shopping cart, its little wheels wobbly from the weight of the thick dailies. Two boys, in hockey uniforms, walk past them, lugging their large hockey bags and hockey sticks that make them almost trip. The end of one hockey stick hits Billy's cart and then his leg.

"Look at those bastards," his dad says. "All they know is play hockey, they wouldn't know how hard life is because their parents protect them by sending them to hockey camps." He throws another paper at another house's balcony. He misses and the paper scatters about on the steps. He continues to walk while Billy pauses, torn between going back and put the paper properly or just continue on.

Then his dad walks back and puts his arm around Billy's neck and musses his hair with his other hand. "But us, we're going camping in three days time, how's that, huh?"

Billy looks back at the two boys with their hockey gears as they blended in the darkness behind them.

"I'd rather go play hockey," he mutters under his breath.