TWENTY-TWO
Jason and I had actually managed to finish clearing away the hill on the side of our house by Thursday afternoon. We rose early, at six that day, ate a quick breakfast and worked all morning and then through lunch, finishing up somewhere around two o’clock that afternoon. We did a pretty decent job, too. All that remained was the ice plant, making the hill look like a green waterfall frozen in place. The weeds and other dead vegetation filled two trashcans and four plastic bags on the side of our house, ready to go out to the street on Saturday morning for the garbage man to pick up.
After we cleaned up and had an afternoon snack-to make up for the lost lunch-the two of us went up to retrieve another box of bottles from the Magnolia Glen construction site. There were only six this time and there was a note taped to the box for us. It read:
Justin & Richie,
Hope you guys get plenty of baseball cards when you trade in these bottles. Sorry I couldn’t get more this time. A lot of workers took today off for the upcoming weekend. Thanks for staying out of our way. You’re good kids.
P.S.
There won’t be any bottles for a few days. Everyone is off for the holiday. Try back on Tuesday. Happy Fourth of July.
-Rod
“Justin and Richie?” I said when Jason had finished reading the note, “Who’s that?”
He crumpled the piece of paper and tossed it into the box with the bottles and replied, “He must have forgotten our names. We’ll have to tell him next time we see him.”
We turned around and pulled the wagon back home and put the box with the rest of our bottles on the side of the house next to the full trashcans. Earlier that morning, before he had gone to work, our dad had asked jokingly if we had started drinking when he saw our stash of empty bottles.
“Don’t ever let me catch you taking a sip of booze,” he had added and handed us each a five dollar bill for the work we were doing on the hill. “See if you can have it all finished up by the time I get home today. Maybe you two will get a bonus.”
And by the time he did get home that day we had it done. He had stayed at school later than usual to finish some last minute work before the holiday weekend, making sure everything was tidy and clean.
True to his word he handed both of us an extra dollar for having everything swept and bagged up by the time he putted up into the driveway in his Fiat. We decided we deserved a treat for our hard day’s labor and asked him if we could go down to the 7-Eleven for a couple of Big Gulps.
“Oh, I don’t see why not,” he told us. “You want me to give you guys a ride down there?”
“Nah,” Jason replied. “We’ll walk. We were going to see if Steve and Cory wanted to go with us.”
“Okay,” dad said, and headed for the front door. But just as he got there, he turned back and added, “Hey. Don’t go blowing all that money down there. Make it stretch for a few days, okay.”
“We will, pop,” I said, and continued on across the street with Jason.
“And watch for cars. And don’t talk to strangers. And be home before six.”
“Okay, okay,” we shouted over our shoulders.
Dad went inside, letting the screen door smack behind him.
We went to Cory’s first. Jason knocked on the Dayborne’s door and once again Janeal answered.
“Hi,” Jason said. “Can Cory play?”
She looked frustrated and tired, as if her day had gone to hell. “No, boys, he can’t. He needs to be out doing yard work so this place will look decent for the party tomorrow. He won’t do a thing I ask, so he’s grounded until he finishes his chores,” she said leaning up against the door jamb.
“Can he play later?” I asked.
“Only when his chores are done,” she said, as if to a retarded child.
A voice came from down the hallway, “Who is it?” Cory yelled.
She turned her head and yelled back, “It’s your friends. But you can’t play until you finish with the yard.”
“Come on, mom. Just for a half hour. Please,” Cory begged somewhere out of sight.
“No!” she said. “Not until you’re done and that’s final. Don’t ask again.” She turned back to face us once more. “Sorry, boys, maybe later, okay?”
“Okay,” Jason told her. “See ya later.”
“Bye.”
She closed the door, pushing a cold draft at us that lingered on the porch like a ghost and we relished in it a minute longer before turning and heading over to Steve’s, cutting across the strip of ivy that separated his yard from Cory’s. Once there, Jason repeated his procedure. He knocked three times on the door and we played the waiting game.
There was movement inside, a faint shuffling, and then a voice that seemed far away. It was Jacob’s.
“Don’t answer it.”
“Why? I just want to see who it is.” It was Jackie’s voice this time. The sound was muffled by the closed door, but we could tell it was her.
Jason and I exchanged a look and stood listening.
“Because I said,” the oldest brother roared back. “Mom said to clean this house up, so clean it!”
A few seconds went by, and then it was Steve we heard.
“Why are you yelling at her? Why don’t you leave her alone? You ain’t her dad.”
Now the argument began to get intense. We probably should have just left at that moment but our childish curiosity kept us rooted on their doorstep.
“No shit! But someone’s got to be in charge around here. And that’s been me ever since dad got taken away. No thanks to you, you little shit.”
Steve screamed at his older brother then, “Fuck you!”
We shared another wide eyed look with each other but it was the next sound that made us both flinch simultaneously. It was a sound like a yard-stick smacking a side of beef. The instant we heard it we were off the top step and walking as fast as we could down to the sidewalk. When we had reached the house next door, we heard the Hanel’s front door open, and quickly slam shut and more yelling, although it was faint from where we were.
We kept walking deeper down Cottonwood, I turned to Jason and asked, “Why is he so mean to them?”
It was another two houses before he answered.
“I don’t know. I think he does drugs sometimes. They must make him crazy.” There was a hint of pain in my brother’s voice as he said it.
We kept on toward the 7-Eleven, mostly in silence. We went up Redwood and then right onto Fullerton. It wasn’t until we were about forty feet from the stairs that led down to Acacia that I spoke again.
“Do you think that guy’s here?”
“What guy,” Jason asked sounding in higher spirits now.
“You know, that guy that Cory spit on the other day. Mike.”
He stopped then and I took his lead and halted too. “I don’t know,” he said. “I forgot about Mike. Let’s hope not. But just in case, walk quietly and then we’ll run when we get closer to the stairs.”
“Okay,” I agreed.
We did too. We crept slowly and cautiously until we were about ten feet away. “Okay, run,” Jason whispered.
As we passed by at a steady jaunt we were relieved to see that the stairs were empty and slowed back down to a stroll.
On and on we walked and finally arrived at the 7-Eleven fifteen minutes later. The air conditioner blowing inside was a blessing after our journey.
Diane was working behind the counter again and as we walked past on our way to the Big Gulp machine, she said, “Hey, there fellas. How you guys do- Hey. I remember you.” Pointing at me, she snapped her fingers a couple times. “Ahhh, Ricky. Right? The kid with the ESP.”
I nodded, smiled and said hello. Jason and I were the only customers in the store at the moment and as we filled our gigantic cups with soda, Diane said, “No bottles today guys?”
“No,” Jason answered, putting a lid on his drink and shoving a long red straw down the middle. “We’re saving them up. We’re going to bring them down at the en
d of the summer so we can get lots of money for ‘em.”
“Well, that sounds like a fine idea,” Diane proclaimed as we placed our drinks on the counter in front of her. “That going to be all?”
“Yeah. But can I have some quarters, too?” Jason asked her.
“Me too,” I added.
“Okay. Let’s see. That’s a dollar seventy-eight for the Big Gulps.”
Jason and I handed over our bonus dollars that our dad had given us for having the hill done early and Diane rang up the sale and handed the change back to Jason who was about to pocket it but before he could I tapped his shoulder and pointed to the jar on the counter. Donald’s jar. Help fight Cananvan disease. He dropped the change in and smiled at me.
“Now, how many quarters do you want?” asked Diane.
“Two dollars worth for me,” Jason said.
“And two for me,” I told her.
We gave her the two fives and she turned it into two sets of eight quarters and three dollar bills for each of us. Shutting the register drawer, she asked, “For the video games?”
We nodded.
“Well, we got a new one in yesterday. It’s called Donkey Kong. I tried it out this morning and it’s pretty fun. Big ape throwing barrels at you.”
After putting the money safely in our pockets, we headed back behind the cashiers stand, next to the beer coolers. There, we saw that the Pac-Man game had been replaced by the new one Diane had described. Asteroids was still in the same place it had stood for over a year, though. Apparently it was a little more popular than the dot muncher.
Jason popped in a quarter and after a few tries figured out how to climb up the ladders and jump over the barrels to save the damsel in distress that Donkey Kong held captive. When his first game was over, we both shoved quarters in and played doubles for the next hour and a half.
People came and went from the store as we played. Some bought cigarettes. Others bought beer. The cash register bellowed out its mechanical jingle every time a transaction was made. But time passed and our quarter supply diminished, and when we were out we knew it was time to go. Jason, looking up at the clock on the wall noted that it was almost five and told me we needed to start heading back home. But before we left, he ran over to one of the aisles and grabbed four packs of baseball cards and took them to Diane to ring up.
Outside in the heat, on our walk home, our Big Gulps half empty, we opened up the cards to see which players Jason had got and we shared the powder coated sticks of gum that came inside the packs.
All but one of the players was ones he already had. He gave a whoop of excitement, though, when he pulled out a Reggie Jackson in a Yankee’s uniform. “Cool. This is the one I needed,” he said sliding a stick of gum in his mouth. “You want the rest?”
“Sure,” I replied. He always gave me his doubles. I kept my own half-assed collection in the top drawer of the desk in our room. I stuck the stack of cards in the back pocket of my shorts and chomped on a stick of gum myself.
We chewed and walked and drank from our oversized cups, not talking much the rest of the way home. The heat of the day and the yard work earlier had sapped us.
When we got back to Cottonwood Steve was nowhere in site, but Cory was out sweeping up fresh mown grass clippings from the sidewalk in front of his house. He let us know he wouldn’t be able to play that evening and we told him we’d see him tomorrow.
At home, the inside of our house smelled like fried chicken. Mom was busy making it at the stove for our dinner. Dad and Susan were watching the news on TV, sitting in his recliner; ‘The King’s Chair’ as he called it.
Our yard work was done. Our summer had just begun. The next day was July fourth, the day of the big block party. We couldn’t wait.
The excitement, though, didn’t start the next day with the fireworks show. Instead it started earlier, in the morning, when Steve and Cory came pounding on our front door and we saw that Steve was holding the local section of the newspaper in his hand once again.
Frisbee Page 27