A Fine Kettle of Fish

by Lou Bradshaw

  Mickey had a ’49 Chevy Coupe, which wasn’t too bad on the surface – 11 years old with 2 patched up bullet holes in the trunk lid. All in all it was about average for the time and circumstances. I made sure that it kept running, but I wasn’t about to do much more than that. Somewhere along the line, that Chevy lost a set screw from the passenger side door handle, which would come off with very little effort. Mickey didn’t care much since that wasn’t the door he used. He made a joke about it. Whenever he could get a date, or get a girl into the car, he would reach over, remove the handle, and tell her that the only way out was through him. It worked well as an icebreaker, and everyone got a good laugh out of it.

  He caught this one particular young lady – let’s call her Debbie Dimwitz –on the rebound from a pitifully average lovers spat. She wasn’t too bright but had some great boobs; she was also about 2 months pregnant. Mickey didn’t know that fact at the time, and it wouldn’t have made any difference anyway. To make a short story long, Debbie was trying to make the ex-boyfriend jealous, etc. and… etc. The boyfriend, Roscoe, was about twice as smart as Debbie, which placed him on the same approximate level as an oak tree. He also had a position on the football team called linebacker. Mickey didn’t know that fact either, and it would have made a difference.

  Mickey and Debbie wound up going to a drive-in movie, and he pulled the door handle gag. She thought it was cute, so they wrestled a bit and so on. That was on a Saturday night. On Sunday afternoon, Debbie and Roscoe were back in love and planning their family. Debbie told Roscoe all about her date with Mickey, she told about the wrestling, she told about the so on, and she told him about the door handle.

  Monday morning it was raining. It was one of those cold mother rains that gives you the first hint that you had seen the last of summer. Monday afternoon it was still raining, and when we scooped Mickey out of the Union, it was coming down in buckets – and colder. We sprinted to the parking lot, and Mickey opened the driver’s side and got in. Mack and I ran around to the other side slinging profanities in our wake. I reached for the door handle and got upholstery instead. It took me another reach to realize that there was no door handle, there was no window, and there was no door, just a big gaping empty.

  I had to shove Mack into the back seat because of the rain on his glasses, he couldn’t see what had happened. We both tumbled into the backseat out of the rain to sort this thing out. About that time, Roscoe pulled up and yelled through his open window that Mickey needed to get his door handle fixed, then he laughed like an insane person – or a linebacker.

  We figured that was one of those kill the driver and take his cars situations. Instead, we made him sit in the passenger seat to keep the rain off of Mack in the middle and me at the wheel. I was rather careful on left turns lest I throw him out. Every time he’d bitch about the cold or the rain, we’d remind him what Roscoe might have done if it hadn’t been raining. The door was never found – some say that Roscoe ate it… it was a possibility.

  * * *

  One Friday night I was sitting at Mona’s about 11 o’clock, trying to get Freddy excited enough to stutter me up a free one when Mickey and Raymey Ward came in. Mickey looked like someone had kicked the crap out of him. His shirt was torn, his pants were ripped, and his shoes were all scarred up. He had the beginning of a black eye and a number of scrapes and bruises.

  “What the hell happened to you?” I asked.

  “Nuthin’.” was all he would say.

  “Bullshit nothin’!” I said. “You got your butt kicked, didn’t you?”

  “I fell… mumble… mumble… mumble…” and his voice died away.

  “Y-Y-Y-You t-t-t-t-talk w-w-w-worse th-th-than m-m-m-m-me.” Freddy s-s-said.

  I looked at Freddy for a long few seconds and said, ………… “Na!”

  Freddy said, “P-P-P-P-P-Prick!” and ordered us two m-m-more the s-s-sane.

  “Come on Mick, you can do better than that. What did you fall from, a third floor window – down a cliff – what?”

  Raymey piped up and said, “ He fell out of the car!”

  “Whose car, yours, his, a Frisco freight car? What?”

  “Teddy’s car.” Raymey added.

  “Your brother Teddy?” I asked, feeling rather stupid, Teddy Ward was the only Teddy I knew. Raymey acknowledged, and I said, “And…?”

  “And what?”

  “And – are you gonna to tell us what happened, or am I going to have Freddy here take you out to the parking lot and break your clavicle – And!”

  “Oh… oh yeah, now I get it.” he said, feeling very proud of himself. The Ward brothers were not Rohde’s Scholars, and they came from a long line of non-Rohde’s Scholars. After all, who would name their kids Teddy and Raymey, and those are their birth certificate names.

  About that time Moma came down the bar and asked, “Is this riff raff drinking or leaving?” I held up four fingers and told her to bring us f-f-f-four more the same”, and Freddy called me another p-p-p-p-p-prick.

  “Okay, Raymey, start from the beginning, and it better be good or at least make some sense. It just cost me 2 bucks.” I glared at him.

  Raymey took a long swallow of his beer and looked at Mickey, who just stared at him but said nothing. ”Well, me and Teddy and Mickey got us a bottle of vokka at the likker store in town, and we was gonna drive to Joplin and raise some hell. But we stopped at the park by the tennis courts, and they had the lights on, and some girls was playin’ in them little white dresses. What’s a clavicor?”

  I said, “They’ve got a tournament going on, but it’s just junior high school kids. It’s clavicle and that’s your collarbone. So what happened?”

  “Yeah, well some of ‘em must have been older. Anyhow, we watched em play, opened up that vokka, opened up some Pepsies, and fixed some highballs like. Pretty soon old Teddy’s skippin’ the Pepsi and gets smashed out of his gourd. Well, me and Mickey didn’t want to go to Joplin with Teddy all conked out. I mean, the 3 of us could have hoorawed that town, but with just the 2 of us, we just wasn’t so sure.”

  “Hell!” I said. “There’s only 50,000 people in Joplin. You should’ve given it a crack.” Freddy rolled his eyes.

  “Anyhow, we didn’t. We went to Springfield instead. We just dumped Teddy in the back seat and took off. When we got there I let Mickey drive cause he knows his way around the city pretty good. So we’re drivin’ up this one main street and Mickey says, ‘You know, we aught to go cruisin’ Kearney Street’ so that’s where we headed.”

  “Very mature of you Mick.” I said, and he just looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere and not come out till this was all forgotten.

  Raymey continued. “You never seen so many rods in your life. Up and down the street, goin’ both ways, it was really neat. Every now and then you’d see 2 guys waitin out a light, and then screech and burnin’ rubber – wow! It was so cool – I bet it was better than goin’ to Hollywood or even New York City.”

  “Okay, you’re cruising Kearney, so how does Mickey fall out of the car?”

  “Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Well, we was cruising along when Mickey noticed that the speedometer didn’t work. And he says, “Hey, wouldn’t it be something if we woke old Teddy up and told him it was time to get out; that we was stopped. He’d look at the speedometer and open the door and…” Well, about that time Mickey opened the door and leaned out and reached for the wheel with his right hand – or was it his left hand – no I’m almost sure it was his right hand – and he missed it. And slick as goose shit he disappeared.”

  “It took me a little bit to realize that no one was drivin’, so I took the wheel and scooted over and stopped. I stuck my head out a the window and looked back, and here come old Mickey limpin’ and hoppin’ up the middle of the street. There was a couple of crashes back there and some glass breakin’ and a lot of cussin’. Well, old Mickey was doin’ his own share of cussin’ when he piled in the other door. Then we got the hell out of there, and c
an you take him home?”

  “I suppose so, what about you?”

  “Me? I’m goin’ out there and wake up old Teddy, and we’re goin’ cruisin’.”

  * * *

  Things like that were always happening to poor old Mickey. For example, a few years before when we were juniors, Mickey and I were tossing a football around in my backyard on a Sunday afternoon in November. After a number of passes and some exaggerated runs and tackles, we grew board and sat down to shoot the bull. Mickey sat there lying and bullshitting and absentmindedly flipping his Zippo, just to hear that distinctive click and snap. Every little bit he’d spin the wheel and light it. Mickey was a regular smoker and had been for a couple of years by then. I hadn’t taken it up yet, but it seemed to make a lot of people happy to do it.

  Anyway, Mickey sat there flipping, clicking, and snapping, until it dawned on him that he was getting a lot of spark and little or no flame, so he shook it real hard and got a weak flame which promptly went out. “Damn,” he said, “I’m out of fluid. You got any?” I told him that I didn’t have any need of it, and Brick used matches for his pipe. “Well crap!” he said. “That’s just the pits. Guess I’ll have to chew ‘em – well crap!” That Mickey sure had a way with the English language.

  We sat and talked a bit longer, or Mickey talked a bit longer, mostly about what a great football star he was going to be in college. That struck me odd since he’d never had a shoulder pad on in his life, but I guess he figured someone would happen to stumble across his name and make him a star. Soon, we grew tired of that and decided to go scrounge up a sand lot game. The future Heisman Trophy winner went inside to use the bathroom first.

  Sure enough we found a game in progress at the park, on the flat area next to the fishpond. I’d never known of anyone catching a fish there, but the little kids sure liked to sit there with their poles and lines hoping to get the big one. About twice a year, it would freeze enough to play something like hokey. It was only a couple feet deep, so that when you broke through the worst that could happen is you could catch pneumonia.

  If you have never played in a Sunday afternoon pick up football game, you should count your blessings. It’s just like organized football, except you may not have clearly defined positions or sides. Everybody plays both sides of the ball, but the main difference is that the equipment manager is the guy who brought the ball. You get to choose the position that you think you’re best at, and you play it unless some tougher guy chooses it, and then you move to your second or third choice. That generally works out okay because we usually know what everybody can do, so it comes down to public opinion.

  There are two objectives in sandlot football. One of, coarse, is to score more points than the other guys, and the other is to inflict as much pain as possible on anyone who isn’t you. The pain part is probably more important than the score part, and anyone who touches the ball is likely to wind up at the bottom of a pile.

  Mickey and I wound up on opposite teams, which was good because that meant I’d get a shot at him sooner or later. Once, between plays I saw him stick a cigarette in his mouth and strike a kitchen match across the seat of his Levis. Those old wooden red heads with the white tip would strike on almost anything. Oh yeah, smoking was permitted during the game if you didn’t mind having hot ashes all over you.

  Mickey’s team recovered a fumble and took over on offense. He went out for a pass, but he was on the opposite side of the field from me, so I wouldn’t have a shot at him. I didn’t figure they’d throw it anywhere in his direction anyway. Low and behold, the quarterback, under a great deal of pressure, flung one out there and it came right to Mickey – and he caught it. It was a work of art; he went up in the air and caught it with his fingertips. He brought it down and tucked it in, just like he was supposed to do. His feet hadn’t touched the ground when he was creamed from 2 sides, but he held onto the ball with 2 guys slamming him down… no, it was 3 guys with more coming from every direction and closing fast.

  I could hear him cussin’ and see him thrashing around and flinging guys off. He jumped up dancing and hopping and trying to get his pants undone. He was cussin’ up a storm, and there was smoke all around him. He got his pants down around his thighs, and there were flames coming from them as he hopped, cussed, stumbled, and ran to the fishpond.

  When he got there he spun around and back flopped into the water, clothes and all. He came up with a smile. It didn’t matter that he was sitting in muddy water that couldn’t have been above 45 degrees – he was that relieved… for the moment. Of course he was miserable in no time at all, and embarrassed with those 6 or 8 girls crackin up on the sidelines, and him with his britches around his knees.

  Mickey was out of the game, so I took him home. It seemed that when he went to the bathroom at my house, he helped himself to a handful of Mom’s kitchen matches and stuck them in his back pocket. All it took was a little bit of friction and – poof.

  * * *

  For one shining split second Mickey was a king – a monarch bold and regal. It took place in the big study hall. The big study hall was in the library, and it was mandatory, and to us freshmen mandatory meant that we had damned well better be there.

  About that time there was a cute little radio gadget that was sweeping the country. It was a small crystal affair with a tiny earplug, or might I say a tinny earplug. We all had them, they were no bigger than a pack of gum, and if you worked the tuner just right; you could pick up music and static.

  Mickey and I sat across a big library table from each other with books open and earplugs crackling. We didn’t think too much of it when Clyde Littlejohn and Stan Black, a couple of senior jocks, slid into empty chairs on either side of Mickey. Poor Mickey hadn’t started to grow as yet, and he got a lot of hassling from some of the older guys.

  Clyde leaned over and started to speak in a real low tone. I looked up, and Stan Black said, “Little Brick – read.” That’s all I had to hear and my baby blues went straight to the book, but my non-crackling ear tuned in.

  Clyde whispered to Mickey, “Okay, Twit, we got a real cool stunt lined up for you.” Mickey looked up at him, but didn’t say anything. “See that big vent over there at the base of the wall? We got the grill loose, and we think you can fit in it.”

  “Huh?” said the eloquent Mickey.

  “We think you should get in there, Dingleberry.” Clyde went on. “We got a little plan, you’re a big part of it, and so you just do what we tell you.”

  “I’ll get in big trouble.” Mickey whined. “I could spend a month in detention. Come on Clyde, have a he…”

  “Clyde! Did you say Clyde?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Littlejohn, sir. But you can’t make me… I won’t do it.”

  “Listen, Fart Breath,” Stan Black said, “you’re in my gym class, and your skinny little ass would make a great target for a wet snappin’ towel. So don’t give me any crap and do what we tell you to.” Clyde was the diplomat; Stan was a little more direct.

  “But, but, but… okay.” Mickey knew when he was beat, so he adapted and saved his own butt.

  As Clyde laid it out, the plan was for Mickey to get into the vent and wait for a senior girl to come by all loaded with books, and then grab the grill and growl. She would scream, and everyone would have a good laugh. The idea was starting to appeal to Mickey. I could see him nodding and grinning. I’m sure he was thinking that being close to the floor he might get a peek up a skirt or two. I wondered if they’d let me do it.

  “Now look, Pipsqueak, you gotta make sure it’s a senior girl.” Clyde went on. “You know the difference between a senior girl and a freshman girl don’t you?”

  Mickey shook his head yes, then no, and then yes again and said, “No.”

  “Senior girls got tits.” Stan said. Stan never wasted words.

  “Okay.” Clyde said. “I’ll drift up the shelf next to the vent and pretend to look for a book. That way the Librarian won’t be able to see. Stan will come along next
to me and open the grill. Then you crawl up there and get in, then Stan closes the grill, and we wait.”

  Within seconds, Clyde and Stan were at the shelf, and then Mickey sort of disappeared below the table edge. I could see guys at tables between where I was and the vent look down and grin; I knew Mickey was in route. I saw Stan open the grill and close it again, but when I saw him pull out a screwdriver and tighten it I knew that Mickey was in trouble.

  All the guys along the outer aisle were grinning, and I could hear some snickering. The librarian gave a couple of shushes, and things quieted down. For about the next 10 minutes or so, it was business as usual with a few people passing the vent, but nobody noticed Mickey. I was just about to give up on any senior girl passing by, when prissy Valerie Madison came from the reference section and headed along that bank of shelves.

  Valerie Madison was just what those jocks had ordered – a senior girl with noteworthy breasts. She was also very snooty and very smart. She was the president of the Library Club and helped the librarian by re-shelving books and by saying, “Shhhhhh!” when the librarian was too busy.

  She was carrying an arm full of books, probably to be re-shelved. She stopped and put some here and there, then picked up some more that were most likely in the wrong place. You could see by the look on her face that she had no patience for the lowly non-Dewey Decimal types. The roll of her eyes said volumes about her disgust for the entire human race. She flitted, fussed, made a great show of her importance, and looked thoroughly pissed. She pulled more books and was moving ever closer to Mickey’s cage. Clearing the shelf; she was standing with her back to the vent. I held my breath. She was just standing there looking important and staring at another bank of shelves across the room. Nothing! Mickey was probably asleep.

  Stan and Clyde looked at each other and then at the vent. They were not happy. Suddenly, Mickey cut loose – it was no little pussycat growl – it was a full-throated MGM lion’s roar. He had style. You couple that with the metal acoustic in that vent and you had a roar to be proud of.