by TJ Seitz
Expect It When You Least Expect It
T.J. Seitz
Copyright 2014 by T.J. Seitz
Why Wally Wilson Got a Job
Wally Wilson was a seventeen year old shelf stocker at the Tops Friendly Supermarket in Fairport, New York during the summer of 1985.
His practical–minded mother compelled him the previous year to get the job, several months after he quit the morning paper route that he worked since he was eleven.
She found him smoking marijuana with some friends in the backyard when coming home from work early one afternoon.
An unfamiliar blue Pontiac Phoenix with a white roof was parked in front of the house.
It had three stickers on its back bumper. One supporting the Reagan-Bush 1984 presidential ticket, another for the Penfield Indians and the third was an advertisement for a club in the city called Scorgie’s
Mrs. Wilson assumed one of her sons had a friend over.
The music on a dilapidated tune-box was turned up really loud. Wally and the small group of revelers were singing along to the Genesis song “Illegal Alien” and didn’t hear her car pull into the garage.
A window was propped open with a splintered paint stick. The skunky smell permeated the structure and surrounding area.
There was no denying what the four kids were up to.
Everyone but Wally scattered when Mrs. Wilson poked her head around the corner.
Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” just started playing on the radio.
Wally was too stoned and dumbfounded to say or do anything but finish the last two bites of a banana he was eating. The ‘smoking bong’ was literally right there next to him, on a rusty wrought iron patio table.
It was the second time in less than two weeks we that Wally was caught getting high.
The elderly Jewish couple who lived across the street, Mr. and Mrs’ Kott, spotted Wally and one of his buddies passing what they thought was a pipe in the nearby cemetery.
Mrs. Kott said something to Wally’s mom the next day, but Mrs. Wilson was not overly concerned. She presumed that her son was just experimenting and that the phase would quickly run its course after the novelty wore off.
Rather than make a big scene, Mrs. Wilson remained quiet and went into the house as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on.
Wally was worried, but he wagered on the small chance that his mother’s silence and obvious disappointment would be the worst of his looming castigation.
The woman was savvier than Wally ever gave her credit for. He often forgot that she had a lot of experience dealing with his older brother Festus.
Mrs. Wilson waited a few hours for Wally to sober up before saying anything. She wanted his guilty conscience to simmer a while. The clever tactic was much more effective than her usual yelling.
Dinner that night was a bland noodle casserole. Black olives, diced onions and a can of Campbell’s mushroom soup were mixed with pasta and a Tupperware container of leftover Starkist tuna from the refrigerator. Jiffy blueberry muffins were also baked.
The entrée was heated up in a Amana Radarange and served to the family at 6PM, soon after the muffins were done.
Neither Wally nor his mother mentioned the pending situation while eating. Mrs. Wilson quietly enjoyed watching her youngest child squirm with repressed apprehension throughout the entire meal and prayed that his older brother wouldn’t break the spell by taunting him.
Wally came to the living room a little after 9:30 to say goodnight.
He was done with his Spanish and biology homework and going upstairs to read for a while.
Mrs. Wilson had her back to him. She was wearing a baggy purple sweat suit and a pair of worn fuzzy slippers. She had her feet up in the leather recliner and was watching Night Court.
The large room was minimally furnished for its size.
The left half, furthest from the TV, was almost empty. Three medium sized wooden framed paintings of country scenes that Mrs. Wilson purchased at an annual Starving Artist Clearance Sale were hanging on the walls. Several cardboard boxes of paperback books were stacked underneath a window next to an old steam radiator.
The floor was covered with a leaf green shag carpet and the walls were decorated with textured tan vinyl wallpaper. The rug needed a good vacuuming and had cigarette burns in spots from the out-of-control key parties Wally’s parents used to host before getting divorced.
The trim and molding was painted off- white. It could have used a fresh coat to hide some of the chips and scratches. Both windows in the room had cream colored Venetian blinds, but no curtains.
On one wall, between the two windows, there was an oversized imitation oak particle board entertainment center. It housed a 21” RCA color television and Magnavox VCR. The shelves also contained various video tapes of recorded shows and movies.
The space was dimly lit. Wally and Festus broke two of the three lamps that used to illuminate the room months ago, during a brawl.
Festus wanted to watch a Kung Fu movie that he rented from a shop in the Village and Wally wanted to watch MTV. Their mother never replaced them and now the only working light was on an end table next to their mother’s lounge chair.
That chair was off limits to the boys. They were forbidden to sit in it and adhered to their mother’s decree out of fear more than respect.
A wood framed, brown burlap upholstered couch and matching chair were to the right of the entrance. The seat cushion on the armchair was stained slightly purple and had several holes poked into it.
A round cherry stained coffee table was placed in front of the couch. It was heavily scratched and had several large nails driven into its top. An empty McDonalds food bag, wrappers and a half eaten cheeseburger were sitting on its left side.
The air smelled like peach scented air freshener. An open Glade solid device was sitting on the end table next to Mrs. Wilson. She was holding a lukewarm mug of herbal tea in her hands.
Before responding, Wally’s mother set her teacup down then switched off the TV and cable box with a large remote control device. She then turned around, looked him straight in the eye and promptly said, “Sit down. We need to talk.”
Wally had no doubts now. He knew that he was on trial and immediately complied; first by seating himself on the edge of the coffee table, but quickly moving over to the chair after briefly considering his mother’s sentiments about sitting on furniture.
Mrs. Wilson put her feet down, turned her body towards Wally and started the awkward conversation by first asking, “What book are you reading?”
He told her, “A book of stories by Steven King called Different Seasons. A girl at school lent it to me after she read it a couple weeks ago. I like it so far. Festus says he wants to read it too when I’m done”
She acknowledged his selection with a pensive nod then calmly informed her son, “I talked to your school guidance counselor, Mr. White, a few days ago. He called me at work.”
(Silence)
Mrs. Wilson resumed her lecture after pausing a moment.
“You are failing tenth grade math and need to pass the Regents exam for Geometry in a few weeks, unless you want to go to summer school.
Apparently a number of five week reports were sent to the house and your teacher, Ms. Tyson, left several messages on the answering machine for me, but I never received them.”
Wally just played dumb and let her carry on, rather than dragging things out by interrupting.
He’d been intercepting everything sent home from school for years. Only quarterly report cards and district newsletters ever reached hi
s mother’s possession. Ironically this was the first time she seemed to notice.
However, he didn’t know anything about the phone messages. Wally just assumed that Festus erased them to help cover for him or by accident because the machine was full.
Mrs. Wilson then declared, “I don’t like your new group of friends. They are a bad influence on you. You need to do something more constructive with your time than smoke pot, ‘scum jump’ off the Parker Street Bridge or loiter at ‘the benches’ in the Village.”
His mother’s fleeting words went in one ear and out the other. Wally stopped listening and started wondering to himself how much longer she was going to ramble on before she got to the point.
The teen’s wishes were soon fulfilled. The salt and pepper haired woman’s motherly intuition informed her that the current tongue lashing was becoming counterproductive so she abruptly ended her sermon and offered Wally two solutions to his current predicament.
She clearly stated, “You can either spend your entire summer vacation attending school and working at Nana’s and Poppy’s apple orchard in Albion for free, or to pass the class and get a paying job closer to home.”
The choice was a no brainer for Wally. He knew better than to piss his mother off any more than she already was. Festus was still on thin ice with her for dropping out of school two years ago and getting arrested for fighting the brother of an ex-girlfriend.
Within a week Wally was sweeping floors and helping customers at the nearby grocery