Chillin' with Chris and Q

My car was dead, and I was staring at a dirty fistful of gray, writhing bugs. The fist belonged to Chris, a six-year-old I'd just met. I was standing in the parking lot outside my apartment. Chris and his cousin -- Q, or Scrilla, or Adrien (his real name) -- had been playing on the stripe of grass between parking lots when I happened upon my dead battery. I'd left my headlights on over night.

I'd just exited the car and was leaning against the hood contemplating my next move, not really paying attention to the two small boys barrel-rolling a few yards away, when Chris ran up with his teeming mound of woodlice.

"Look at my roly-polies!"

Half-stunned that I'd do something as stupid as kill my car battery, I bent down to look into the hand that was just then opening. I mistakenly assumed by "roly-polies" young Chris meant "woolly worms." Or really, just the singular woolly worm. I expected to see one woolly worm.

What I saw was not unlike the opening sequence to David Lynch's Blue Velvet, in that it was a chilling, in-my-face tableau of invertebrate chaos. I was fairly disgusted.

Chris and Q kept me company while I waited for a maintenance worker from the apartments to give me a jump. Chris thankfully disposed of his roly-polies into an empty water bottle, which he then whipped around sending the simple creatures flying hither and yon. A few landed nearby, and Chris continued to play with these, alternately imprisoning them within the bottle cap and setting them free.

Q was a rapper. His father was a rapper, and he was a rapper because, as Chris explained, "He has that gift." I admit that Q, a year younger than his cousin, had a tight rhyme and smooth flow for a five-year-old. Of the few bars he performed for us, most included the phrase, "I don't ride the bus! I'm riding on dimes!" or a derivative thereof. Q also has a girlfriend. She's twelve.

"You're dating a 12-year-old?" I said. "That's twice your age."

"I know," Scrill Dog said, "she said that's what she wants." I asked if Chris was similarly tied down.

"No." Q answered for him, and as an explanation for this, "He beats people up."

The maintenance guy took forever, of course, so I spent a lot of time with Chris and Q. They passed the majority of this time ignoring me and pouring bottled water on themselves, stripping leaves off trees and asking the other not to hit [him] with that. Chris and I engaged in a brief discussion about whether or not it was okay to beat people.

"Beating up people isn't a good thing, Chris."

"What if they beatin' you up?"

"Then you tell an adult."

"What if they ain't no adults around?"

"Well. I guess it's okay to defend yourself, but that doesn't mean beating someone up."

"Yeah, see?"

We ended up hanging out for about twenty minutes, and I think by the end the two were starting to feel comfortable with me. At one point Chris leaned against the front of my body as I leaned against my car. I quickly set him beside me, not wanting a six-year-old child I'd just met pressed against my dick.

Q trumped this by spanking me on the ass. He began by hitting my butt with his water bottle, then abandoned this and started using his hand. I told him that he probably shouldn't spank strangers in the butt and that this isn't something most aspiring rappers would do, anyway.

The maintenance guy came, and Chris and Q watched from the sideline and offered their support.

"One on positive," Q shouted, "one on ground!" Apparently Q was a five-year-old rapper genius. After the jump, I thanked the guy and said farewell to my new friends. They were busy trying to make each other wear their bottle caps as miniature hats. I looked down and saw a penny by my door.

"Hey, you guys want a penny?"

They rushed over, both snatching for it. I think Chris ended up with the coin. I'm glad it happened that way. After all, Q will undoubtedly grow up to A) make millions as a successful rap artist, or B) leech money from his many, older girlfriends. Chris is better served with the penny, although he probably used it to smash a roly-poly to death.