Spud

by Patricia Orvis

  We grab a couple cans of Coke from the fridge in the kitchen, then head back into the living room. I grab the remote from the table by Dad’s chair and settle down on the old, beat up couch along the wall. Well, I do, but Spud prefers Dad’s chair, which is directly in front of the television.

  First, he pulls out the guitar he keeps at my place, behind our couch, and begins to strum a few lines, or whatever you call them. He tried to teach me before, and while I’d like to play, I just can’t get it. Spud plays with our Uncle Troy and his own dad at family get-togethers, sometimes. He really is good.

  Mom and Dad have left a note on the coffee table that they took a drive to Ned’s, and Zoë is likely at the pool. I decide to pop in a movie. Why not watch A Christmas Story? Seeing some snow might help cool us down a bit. With Spud’s rendition of John Michael Montgomery’s “Life’s a Dance” in the background, along with the hum of the AC and Deena’s beautiful, flawless blonde hair on my mind, I settle into my movie with a slight smile on my face.

  Let me mention that Spud’s best best best piece on the guitar is this song. He even often says, “Dude, life’s a dance, Cooper,” or challenges me with, “You gonna sink or swim, Cooper?” Always with a testing, challenging tone to his voice. Those phrases from the song have come to mean so much, and the song even fits with Deena, that first verse, as Spud plays…

  When I was fourteen, I was falling fast,

  For a blue-eyed girl in my homeroom class.

  Trying to find the courage to ask her out

  Was like trying to get oil from a waterspout.

  What she would’ve said, I can’t say,

  I never did ask when she moved away.

  But I learned something from my blue-eyed girl,

  Sink or swim you ought to give it a whirl…

  Life’s a dance, you learn as you go

  Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow

  Don’t worry about what you don’t know

  Life’s a dance you learn as you go.

  Perfect. Well, let’s just hope Deena never moves away, but you get the drift. My blue-eyed girl.

  Anyway, soon Ma and Dad will be home; the grill will sizzle with burgers or brats or whatever Ma and Dad decide, and the house will liven up. Enjoy the peace, the mood, and the movie while it lasts.

  Chapter 3

  “Jack, you home?” Zoë comes barging into the living room like a woman with a mission, waking both me and Spud from our afternoon naps, as she returns from her daily trip to the pool, full of color and energy and cheer. “They’re opening back up from seven to nine tonight, on account of the hot day. We should go. Why’d you miss today? Oh.” Her tone changes to disappointment when she sees Spud half-snoozing in Dad’s brown recliner chair.

  Nobody gets to really sit there, his beat up prized possession, but Dad wouldn’t even think of asking Spud to move. Spud, his second son. Zoë, however, gets pissy, doesn’t like that I’m hanging with Spud, and will now act a bit immature the rest of the night.

  “What ya all doing tonight?” she asks, a glimmer of hope in her eyes, running a brush through her short wet hair.

  “Waiting on Mom and Dad, then have dinner and maybe rent a game or something. Spud’s staying over until Ned’s party tomorrow.” I say, stretching my tight muscles from my heat-induced nap. I’ll need to remind him to call his mom. I don’t think he did, yet.

  “Oh, yeah, wanted to tell ya. It’s been moved from Ned’s to the park. I guess there will be a bigger turnout than planned, and Ned doesn’t want all those people going in and out of his house and using up the AC. What a tightwad. Anyway, so now everyone is just gonna meet at the park for a cookout and stuff. Boy, but it’s gonna be a roaster out there. I bet it gets moved back to his place.”

  As she says this, she’s gathering some clothes and towels sprawled around, taking out her swim gear, and getting ready, I’m sure, to do a load of laundry. Zoë is a neat freak, genius, and great help around the house. She doesn’t swear or cheat, and I’m sure she’s perfect. In fact, she’s going to be a freshman next year and was the valedictorian of her eighth grade class. Gave the speech and everything. The only thing that gets me is she is rude to Spud. Sweet as sugar to everyone else but has a definite vendetta against him. I can’t totally comprehend it, which frustrates me.

  She’s a petite thing, about five-foot tall, has short, shaggy brown hair, intense green eyes, and lots of energy. She’s fun, very conscientious, and always wants to do the right thing. Helps Mom with all the chores and cooking. Surprises us with her soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies or M&M brownies out of the blue. Nobody bakes like that girl. She can be a real sweetie. Or a real pain.

  Anyhow, I’m liking that we’ll be at the park tomorrow. Illini Park has been the place of many family picnics over the years. Lots of tables, trees, paths into the woods, and has access to the bridge over the Illinois River. We can trot off under the bridge with a few pilfered Miller Lites and chill. Maybe a quick dip in the river. Sweet.

  “Does Mom know Spud’s here?” asks Zoë, not very nicely. “She never mentioned…”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’ll be easy just to take him to the park tomorrow,” I say. “Plus, Ma always likes when Spud’s here. She has a fit over her widdle baby Tater!” I’m trying to wake him for good here, teasing.

  “Dude, shut up,” says Spud sleepily, clearly embarrassed and throwing his pillow at me. Mom treats him like he’s the next king, and he knows it. Sometimes, I think he’d move in if he could.

  Laughing, I get up to use the restroom. It’s 3:30, so I know the parents will walk in any time. They often take a run to Ned’s to hang out and catch up, when they get a chance in the summer. He has a garden that Ma likes to tend, and he shares the tomatoes and cucumbers from it. Plus he and Dad like to sit and talk about baseball, and the kids (us and Ned’s daughter, Cat, a year behind Zoë and a promiscuous thing, always a new story with her).

  Mom enjoys it there, since we don’t ever plant a garden here, because the neighborhood heathens like to pick the tomatoes and throw them at cars. It’s too much hassle, quite messy and discouraging.

  “Hmmph,” mumbles Zoë, and she stomps off to the back room by the kitchen to do laundry. Kinda rude, no? She’s just convinced Spud will get me into drinking, smoking, and the wrong crowd. I know he does it, but just because we hang together doesn’t mean I copy all he does. Sure, I’d love to play guitar like him, have the girls flock to me like they do to him and all, but I don’t think I care for smoking and stuff.

  My ma and dad have always smoked, and I don’t think it smells all that great. Plus, whenever we visit my Uncle Ned or Dean for indoor shindigs, there’s so much smoke from all the adults, my eyes burn like fire and turn all bloodshot to the color of strawberries. Not too handsome. And the smell. I guess I get used to it at home, but at school, I’m sure others can smell my clothes and hair and know I come from a smoking home. Why pick up that habit and make my kids suffer in the future?

  As I emerge from the bathroom, I hear the front door open with a whoosh!, and Ma greets Spud happily, bringing some energy into the place, as she steps into the cool, dark room. Our living room is small, but homey, with an old couch, two chairs, including Dad’s
, and a medium-sized television set. On the walls are baseball team pictures from every year Zoë and I have played, as well as our recent school pictures. I hate having them on the wall, but I guess lots of families do that. The one thing I really don’t like, though, is our greenish shag carpeting. I mean, are my parents stuck in the seventies?

  “Hey, Ma,” Spud says, addressing her like she’s his, too. “How’s it goin?”

  “Fine, dear. And you? You boys hungry? Dad and I picked up some sweet corn at a stand on Route 6 to go with the burgers tonight. Sound good?” She’s carrying a paper bag, tufts of the corn popping out, and heads to the kitchen, a spring in her step, despite the heat.

  “Sweet!” Spud enthuses. He knows how to make Ma smile. “Thanks.”

  She stops for a second. “Sure. Just hang in there for a bit, and dinner will be ready soon. Hi, Jack. Zoë home?”

  “Yeah, laundry room.” I see Ma roll her eyes and head toward the kitchen. She also knows Zoë is likely being rude to Spud, and Zoë does too many unnecessary chores.

  Dad plops onto the couch and bends down to undo his Velcro sneakers. “See the Sox game today?” he asks us both, yawning. He puts his shoes to the side and grabs the remote. His bald head is red from the sun, and so are his knees. Time for an evening of flipping through sports highlights, an old rerun of Star Trek, or something, and then he’ll gobble his dinner and hit the sack. Typical.

  He turns to pick up the paper from the coffee table. “Looky here,” he says, shaking his head and pointing to the headline. “What a toll the temps are taken. Nuts. Well, that’s a shame. All these old, poor, and sick folks dying. Even animals, it says.” He’s scanning the article. It’s so unbelievable that weather so calm can be so deadly, and I don’t want to think about it. Dad continues to read.

  I guess there are poor people, older people, lonely people, who just can’t deal, and have no relief. Buildings made of brick practically bake, like they resemble actual ovens, I’ve heard. Bridges and stuff, I’ve read, need to be hosed by fire departments in order not to buckle. Pets are dying, as the heat hurts them, too. There was this lady in a suburb, can’t remember which one, who died because of a power failure, and the elevator in her old building was not working, and she was handicapped, so she couldn’t get her wheel chair down the stairs to any cooling places. Not that there may have been many, with no electricity, so she stayed in her oven of an apartment and roasted to death like a goddam turkey on Thanksgiving. Sick. One news story talked about how the body can only stand temperatures over like a hundred degrees for forty-eight hours and after that it, like, breaks down, and people get ill.

  When you’ve had these days, so many all in a row, then that’s a problem. In fact, yesterday, it was 106 degrees and the heat index, what it feels like for the body, was a freaking whopping 126! That’s unreal! And the electricity! That’s a major problem. Maybe because we’re a small town, we haven’t had any bad outages, just a couple very short spurts without power, but the news keeps talking about these huge cities like Chicago going without power because people use so much to stay cool, and it goes out, and the electric company can’t keep up with the demand. Think of no AC or fans, spoiled food in the fridge, no working elevators, no working AC at libraries or anything. How on earth do you survive 126 heat indexes with no electricity? My God! It’s a rough situation. Unfathomable. Completely like being in Hell.

  After Dad has settled, now fully engrossed in the paper, a look of concern and concentration on his face, forgetting about the Sox game that minutes ago was on his mind, Mom calls us to dinner. I’m almost too sick with these thoughts to eat, but when I see the display, my mood changes to the here and now! I feel a bit guilty, but I am hungry, and she has worked hard, in this heat, to cook outside on the grill. Didn’t want to heat the house up with the stove. So, well, yum!

  Our mouth-watering dinner of char-grilled burgers, perfectly juicy with a bit of burned crisp on the edges, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, and that bright, delicious, sweet corn on the cob goes over quite well, so very tasty! Spud even does the dishes, and recruits me, too. He says, “Hey Ma,” when we are finishing dinner, just as he stuffs one last cucumber slice in his mouth and washes it down with a swig of Coke. “That was lovely. You so outdid yourself. You work too hard. How about you go put your feet up, and Jack and I will do cleanup duty?” Thanks for volunteering me, Spud -head.

  Mom beams her petty, yet tired smile and is so pleased she doesn’t argue. I, on the other hand, am not exactly thrilled, but I guess we will survive. Spud really gets me. Sometimes, he steals from a gas station or cheats on his math, smokes the occasional cigarette and drinks liquor, then he’ll knock your socks off by helping out, cheering you up, and being just your typical good kid. Guess that’s why he appeals so much to us.

  Anyway, easy dishes, since Mom grilled (no tough pots or pans), and it is too hard to talk to each other with my neighbor, Jim, an elderly man, mowing his lawn out the window. Loud, because we have all the windows open so we can try for some breeze in here. The air conditioning is on, but only cools the living room. Dad has put up a sheet to the kitchen entrance so the living room-his television kingdom-can stay ultra-cool. Yep, in this heat. Also, the dishes are quick and easy because we don’t goof around and splash each other or anything because this is for Mom, and we don’t want to make a mess. So all’s good.

  When we finish, we settle in the cooled living room, Dad now is in his air conditioned bedroom upstairs. It would be a bit better if we would not have to keep fending off the few flies and gnats that are seeking refuge in the air conditioning of the house, but at least we have the air. Nobody, at least tonight, is jumping off bridges, smoking illegally, or stealing. No Jerry the Jerk…

  Zoë went back to the pool this evening, a bit miffed that we didn’t go along, and Ma is on the phone with my Aunt Sheryl, her sister who lives quite a bit away in South Carolina. They’re talking about the horrid heat and will chat for an hour or two. Dad has hit the hay for good and won’t be back down here until morning, and Spud and I are fiddling with his guitar…nice.

  While I don’t play, really, Spud is a young guitar genius, at least to me. My favorites are his Montgomery, Garth Brooks and Alan Jackson. I remember when I first experienced Spud’s talent, three years ago…

  “Hey, wanna try my guitar?” he asked, as we were at his dad’s old house, sitting in Spud’s basement, where there was a pool table, bar, and record player. I stayed the night after a family shindig and we were fiddling around, waiting for my dad to pick me up. Only eleven at the time, we were already best friends.

  “I don’t know,” I said, somewhat afraid of the thing. Looking huge and expensive, I didn’t want to break it. It was just a basic brown, acoustic guitar. I knew I couldn’t play it. I was taught that big, expensive things were not toys. “What about you?” I asked. “Can you play anything?”

  “Kinda. I play with my dad when we’re sitting around sometimes. He won’t let me play when they do real sets for business, but just around here, for now. He says once I’m thirteen, he’ll let me play with the band. Wanna hear my version of Hank Williams’ “There’s a Tear in My Beer” ?”

  “Sure,” I knew the song from all family parties. Uncle Ned was a Hank Williams freak. I could sing it and knew all the notes but didn’t know how that would translate onto the guitar.

 
“K. Here goes.” Spud’s face was serious and full of concentration, as he adjusted the strings and strummed a bit. Then a bit more. He played the song and sang to it like he was born for it, his head bobbing lightly to the beat, occasionally looking at his hands strumming, then looking up, off in his own world, though. He was a natural, lost in the music. Wow. My God. He could actually play the thing!

  “There’s a tear in my beer, and I’m cryin’ for you, dear… you are on my lonely mind…” he had it going on!

  Looking around the room, I almost expected the Elvis and Johnny Cash caricatures on the wall posters to start clapping or dancing, expecting the tall wine glasses at the bar to sway and rock out. He was so talented! Eleven! I was so proud to be his buddy!

  As he finished, I said, shaking my head, “Dang, man! That rocks. I wish I could play like that.” Completely in awe of my best friend.

  “Yeah, it’s fun. But it’s ‘cuz I have a dad who plays.”

  “Yeah, my dad doesn’t have a clue.” My dad with a guitar would make me crap!

  “Hey, I’ll teach ya a couple strings, though. And, take this; it’ll be your lucky pick. My dad gave me one two years ago, and I won’t play with it, but I keep it here on this chain around my neck, so when I play, it brings me luck. You do the same, and when you practice, your lucky pick should help you learn. Of course, you might just suck anyway, but the pick could bring you luck for something else. You know, like with the girls!”

  We laughed at that, then he gave me a brownish guitar pick, out of a basket on the bar. I never really handled one before, so tiny, but so useful. I knew at that moment it would be my most prized possession, along with my White Sox hat.

  “Thanks. I’ll get a chain when we go shopping tomorrow for groceries. Or maybe my ma or Zoë has one from an old necklace. This is cool. Yeah, thanks.”