For Nothing At All

Garfield Ellis

Wesley was the bright one, the one who was going to do well. He was also the only boy at the White Marl All Age School ever to “dust” big, fast Red Head. That was the sun-drenched day Wes and his friends decided to scull school. They went fishing, stole sugar cane, fled from a cane fire, were shot at by the ranger and lost their clothes. It was a glorious day. But as the years passed the friends grew apart, forced by circumstance along dark paths of corruption and death, devotion or madness, leaving their sunlit dreams in tatters. Wes continued to study hard, but it was the boys who left school before him who seemed to do well, with their weed, their guns, their flashy clothes and new cars. And when Wes graduated with the best results his school had ever seen, he couldn’t get a job. Eventually he was obliged to take work on a construction site, mediating between two gangs, both of which had threatened his life. Even so, he seemed the only one of the friends still with a chance, still not trapped by the system. Until Danny Bruck Foot moved in on him.