They were boys with big dreams of being doctors, and lawyers, and businessmen. Tonight, they were stuck in the sandbox digging for buried treasure. Oogoo Poogoo had the shovel. He was the youngest of them all. 18. Freshman at Oklahoma State, digging for buried treasure in the sandbox behind an abandoned elementary school. Where had he gone so wrong? Bid, Rush, Pledge, Frat. All of it a mistake. Now Oogoo Poogoo needed to find sixty-six cents in a child’s sandbox to make it into Theta Delt. If he could find it, he’s to save his spot in the fraternity.
“A beer first, Oogoo,” shouted some senior.
That’s what he did. His 19th. He Oogooed his beer down to the best of his ability before he kept on a’digging. He Poogooed deep into the ground, breaking the bottom of the sandbox with a pickaxe.
He dug six feet into the earth and more. Seven. eight. nine. He dug so deep, he hit something hard like a rock. The thing he hit was something of an anomaly. It was solid gold. He’d struck solid gold in a small Oki town. Take that to a pawn man, you’d get yourself a nice pretty penny, but poor Oogoo Poogoo didn’t even acknowledge the gold.
He kept on a’digging. Dug so deep, he found a nickel… in the pocket of a dead man buried right ways up in the ground.
The face was something of a horror movie, twisted, and bloated, and gnarled. It was the ooze that Oogo Poogoo hated most, the ooze.
“That’s the where,” somebody slurred from up top, a real slurry mother fucker.
So Oogoo Poogoo emptied the guy’s pockets. the dead guy. the corpse. Took all the money he had. Fifteen cents.
“The shoes, kid. Check the shoes,” another shout from up above.
Oogoo Poogoo oogooed and poogooed deeper and deeper until he was face to toe with the dead man. He peeled off the dead guy’s loafers, and what do you know? Three dollars and seventy-three cents. Rolled up in an Altoids tin tucked into the dude’s gym socks. They oohed and aahhed at poor Oogoo Poogoo as he handed them the Altoids tin and the three dollars and ninety-three cents, but that was all they needed. The gold.
“Now we gotta replace him. He’s like a red herring now.”
“With who?” Oogoo Poogoo asked.
“With you, Oogoo Poogoo. With you.”
