The Spirits of Summer
A Story by J. Thomas VanSwearingen
3/13/2010 - / /2010
3/13/2010 - / /2010
Chapter 1. The Last Good Saturday Night
It was still too cold for April. It was especially cold once you got out past town a mile and a half down Northcraft road, on the edge of Frost Prairie, and just before you get to the old pioneer cemetery. That old, dark, burial lot, lying cold in the shadow of Arnott's Hill still had dark, unreadable, cedar pioneer grave markers mixed in not far away from the last few tiny American flags that were poked into the few veteran's graves last November. A few times this year, and this time too, Billy thought he could still hear the faint echoes of Taps bouncing around the looming hills up the rutted narrow road up to behind Arnott's place. He remembered that morning now, while he kicked down the road away from the cemetery, not far off from Jack's house. The sun was so bright it hurt to keep his eyes open that morning he remembered, while he watched the boy scout bugler. He couldn't figure out what had made him cry that morning, but he told his Mom it was the sun when she asked.
Now, the sun was well down, and it was just that weird kind of spring darkness he was scared of the first time, but that he was too used to, to be scared of anymore. "There's never anyone out here. If there was, it wouldn't be so boring." he thought. You could almost see the fog that would fill the whole valley before morning, and would make it dangerous to drive or to walk on the gravel roads. The night had a cold, hard, half moon haze in it, that from the ground, masked out all but Orion's belt and maybe four other stars. From time to time, a clear, cold patch of blue, not quite black night sky would open like a window on heaven that flew past so quickly you could only catch a glimpse of what lay beyond. From the road, if a person were standing there a while, you'd hear wrenches clinking from under the yellow light of the carport of the little house back off the road, and a bright white glow from under the bus making it look like it might shoot straight up through one of those holes in the night sky and jump to light speed. But it didn't.
A half mile or so down the road as Billy approached, Kim's old Sportster sat clicking away the heat from it's exhaust pipes, while Jack grunted under the old yellow VW bus, laying on his back, his feet close to kicking Kim's feet where he stood next to the tool case, leaning his bandaged wrist on the top, holding a glass not full of the last drops of his second Dewar's since he roared up to the house. "You done down there?" he says, impatiently, "Need any help?" "Nah, nah...I got it! Just a sec." I think that'll do it, no more leak!" Can't let this sunabitch burn, Momma says I already have too much money in it!" Jack laughed as he scooted the cheap red plastic Chinese made creeper out from under the back of the bus. Sitting up on the creeper, then laying down to peer up at the fuel lines, Jack asks, " Go turn the key, woudja? Just on, don't start it, so the fuel pump kicks on, and puts some pressure in the line." "Sure sure, I know." Kim mumbles, and pushes himself off the tool case, downing the last drop of cheap scotch before he stepped away.
The fuel pump whirred, but then the engine cranked, and fired up quick, purring like a little German kitten while Jack scoots his head out from under it with eyes like somebody busted them open. "Dammit, Kim! I said, just turn on the key, not start it!" "Sorry dude!" Kim says,"is it leaking?" Jack bends over and looks, "Of course it's not leaking. Turn it off!" Kim stepped to the back of the bus, "Sorry man." Ready for a new scotch?" "You betcha KJ. Right damn now! Come on inside, buddy, I got something to show you." Kim leans forward, tilting his head and leaning in toward the door as he follows Jack inside. "Look at this!" Jack says, as he reaches into the back of the liquor bar "Arberlour, a'bunahd" "What the hell is that?" Kim's interested now. Really interested. "It's an Arberlour single malt, a special one though, hasn't been aged, right out of the barrel. At the distilleries, it's tradition to tap the big kegs, and let the locals take a little bit home with 'em before they fill the aging barrels." He laughs. "It's a little rough, but I've learned to love it." he wheezes and coughs in his only and best imitation of a scot's accent. "You got some clean water to break it?" Kim asks as he sniffs at the neck of the bottle. "Oh yeah. fresh from the lowland peat bogs!" Jack laughed, and pulled the tap on the big water jug upside down next to the kitchen counter. "Fresh from the nasty bottoms of the lowland peat bogs."
Glasses brightened in a lovely shade of gold, the single malt perfectly broken with a dash of fresh water, they step back outside and stand next to the bus. "Cheers, my friend" Jack says, and they tick each other's glasses and sip the first of what would be many. "ooooh nice!" then, "caack! a little rugged around the edges, but nice! I'm just gonna go inside for another splash." Kim starts toward the door. "No! No!" just don't swallow right away, let it rest on yer tongue a minute, the burn will diminish, leaving you with that sweet earthen dew, just beggin' for a trip down your gullet, and I promise, do that, won't burn a bit!" Jack takes another small sip, and smiles like a leprechaun. Kim follows suit, and lets it linger several seconds. "Yep, there it is my friend, what's something like this cost?" "Cost? You dare to ask the cost? My friend something like this is priceless, a gift directly from the Lord! Tears of the fallen angels!" They laugh, loud.
Just then, Della steps through the door to the kitchen."You guys HAVE to be quiet, the baby's asleep, and we have to get up early, she has choir in the morning, so... have fun but...HUSH! Night honey!" leaning into Jack and giving him a little kiss. She gives Kim a quick, one-armed hug before she steps inside. "And you mister, don't stay too late, your lovely wife is not gonna be too happy with you if you come sneaking in after midnight. Nitey-nite!" and the door slips shut quietly. Kim shakes his head and smiles, saying, "You, my friend, are truly blessed." Jack smiled, "That fine young woman there is grace without effort, God's holy mercy on an old man! The very definition of soft and lovely. I am indeed. I am indeed." They both laughed at the same time, and took another sweet sip of the earthy dew.
Chapter 2: A Good Saturday for a Walk
Jack and Billy had agreed to go for a walk today, just to hang out and talk a little bit. They had been doing that a lot since the funeral. It had been a while since they'd talked, maybe a month or more, and it seemed to Jack that it was a good time for it, since school was just out, and with Billy's mind on the summer ahead, maybe he'd be able to talk more and cry less. It was chilly on Saturday afternoon in the shadows of the trees on the hill behind town. It had rained hard all morning, and it had stopped, but the air was still wet, and it was too cold for early June, like always. Jack and Billy stopped at the top of the hill overlooking the church and sat on big slab of sandstone left stacked with thirty others, in the place it landed after the cutters had had it lifted out by a crane of the quarry. The pile looked like some kind of ancient ruin, except for the piles of old beer cans and garbage that laid strewn along the path up to it. Jack and Billy had been making this hike a couple of times a week since Kim had been killed early that Sunday morning in the fog out on Northcraft Road near the cemetery.
Billy was lucky to be alive. Thrown from the bike over the fence and into the soft pine needles in the grove, he completely missed the barb wire fence, and at least three trees. Kim flew through the air as did Billy when the bike's front tire had dropped into the drainage channel cut into the roadside, spinning the back wheel violently sideways and tossing them both off like a rodeo bull. Kim had been stopped in mid flight, a few feet away from where Billy had flown unharmed, by a single barbed wire that rose a foot or so higher than the others below it, because someone had stapled it unnecessarily to a tree between two posts, and the tree had grown just enough to almost remove Kim's head.
It wasn't until almost light that Jack had driven down the road to get more cigarettes, since they'd smoked them all by the time Kim left with Billy at about two in the morning. Della told him to get more coffee too, The fog had dropped into the low parts of the prairie, and Jack was almost on top of it when he saw Kim's bike mangled in the ditch, and found Billy, staring at his Dad's face. He had been, but he wasn't crying. From where Jack found them, he figured Billy must have been sitting there for almost 4 hours. He was shivering, and wet, and he didn't say anything or make a sound until Jack sat next to him and held him in his arms. Jack didn't say anything, there wasn't really much he could say. Billy shook a little, and then just sobbed. It was almost a half hour before Billy stopped, and they got in the bus and drove back to Jack's house, only a little more than a half mile back up Northcraft.
After a half hour of walking without saying a word, they stopped at the top of the hill overlooking the church. "You gotta go tomorrow?" "Yep." Billy answered, "Mom says The Rev said he needed it, and will let me paint the church this summer, and I can get that scooter before school starts, with what he'll pay me, and along with what I got working at the stupid florist last year."Jack thought, "I fixed the Sportster, Billy." But all he said was "That's cool, lotta work though, you ever do any painting, Billy?" Jack asked, with a small smile Billy couldn't see. "Well, Dad had me paint the garage, before...." his voice trailed off. "Yeah, I've seen that garage. It looks like shit." "Damn! Harsh!" Billy was taken aback. "You know I only tell you the truth man, no use for lies." Jack smiled again, this time Billy could see it.
"You'll need to use my LPHV sprayer if you're gonna do the whole church, and it sure as hell can't come out looking like that crappy assed garage!" Jack winked. "You want me to teach you how to use it, or you want to screw it up like a soup sandwich?" "Yeah. Show me how to work it. That sucker's gonna take me forever!" Billy sighed. "It's easy. Only take you a few days' once you get the hang of it, what's gonna take you all summer is stripping the loose paint off and sanding it smooth. You'll have to do your best work up front, where people are gonna look at it the most.The rest you can just knock off the loose stuff and give it a once over with a wire brush, and oh, I have an orbital you can use." "Sounds like Mom" Billy said, thinking about the front of the church painted and fresh while the rest was tired, and hurt. "What's an orbital?" "It's a sander, dipshit." Jack quickly leaned away, Billy slugged him n the arm. "Whadyou mean, 'like Mom', Billy?" "I dunno...she's really pretty and tries to act happy, I guess, but." Jack just let him think.
After several seconds, "It's just that Mom, well, do you think she's happier now?" "You mean like in the last few weeks? Well, I see her smiling more." Jack said, and just waited for what was coming next. "I don't think it's real. It's like, she's trying to look happy, maybe even trying to BE happy, but up until maybe last week, I could hear her crying in her room, and sometimes, I'd see her just holding her arms around her waist at the sink, and twisting back and forth, and crying." "Billy, said Jack, "your Mom is hurting, you know that, I don't have to tell you. When Della and I used to come over to your place some nights, we'd walk in, and your Dad would be holding her that way, from behind, with his arms around her waist, rocking her back and forth. He loved her Billy, and she knew it. He didn't say it much, but in those moments, she knew it, and he didn't have to say a word. The best love is like that, son. It really is." They just sat there quietly for several minutes, just looking at the church. Every so often, Jack would chuckle a little. He was thinking about the Reverend Hallfast and his little church. Billy was thinking about his Dad.
After while, Billy blurted out, "Why'd he have to die, Jack?" just shy of a cry, "He wasn't even as old as you, I don't get it." JAck paused, then said, "Billy, he had to die because he was alive. Everything and everyone who is, does. No getting out of it." "Was it God's will? Billy asked, "that's what Mom says. God's an asshole." Billy snapped. Jack could feel how angry Billy was. He waited a few seconds for the spit to settle, and then said "Billy, I don't know about God, but the best we can do is live each and every day we're given in a way that as much as we can, makes the world better, that causes us, and other people to smile and laugh, that makes our hearts well up with joy and pain, and anger, and other feelings you don't even understand yet, but you will. Life is for laughing, and being good to other people, to learn to see all the ways to love, to fully live, every second of your life until it's over. Your Dad did that, that's probably why we were best friends. I think that's about it though, Billy, I think that's about it." Jack didn't have one more word to say on the subject, but he thought about his own faith, about God, and couldn't think of how to say what he really had been thinking since Kim died, to Billy. Jack wasn't sure Kim would appreciate him talking to Billy about God, but then again, maybe now....he would.
After a few seconds, Billy asked, "But, I have to go, cause Mom says, but you and Dad never go to church. how come you know so much, cause you're not Christians, and how come you guys don't go, didn't go to church?" "Reverend Hallfast goes to church every day of his life, Billy, what do you think of him?" Jack just waited. It took almost a minute. "He's a douche!" Billy said, laughing. "I mean he's nice and all, and he said nice stuff at the funeral, and Mom cried, and told him it was a beautiful service. The words sounded all goddish and everything, so I guess he's a good preacher or whatever, but he's a frickin' douchebag when you talk to him. It's like, he doesn't know shit about anything but church and the Bible, and stuff." Jack waited a few seconds and said, "Answer your question, Billy?" "Yeah, I see what you mean." Billy said. Jack was thinking that once, a long time ago, he did think of himself as a Christian....just not any more, not really.
Jack sighed, reached into his pocket and pulled out his flask, took a short pull, and sighed. "Ahhh....nice." "Can I have a little?" Billy asked. "You ever tasted scotch, Billy?" "No." "Well, it ain't like drinkin' water", Jack said, "I can tell you that, not pop either, or even coffee. It's a hell of a shock at your age, actually. Drinking scotch is an art, a privilege for adults, and a joy to be respected, Billy. Something to savor, not just gulp down, kind of like life." "So, can I have a sip?" Billy said, a little exasperated by the old guy's running on with this philosophy over a stupid sip of whisky. "OK Billy, just a little one, take just enough to fill the middle of your tongue, and let it sit there a little while before you swallow it, OK?" Billy sipped, and felt it burn his tongue, and after a little bit, stopped grimacing. That's just when Jack said, "OK Billy, now you can swallow, just at the right time. Everything it it's own, perfect, time. "Whaddya think?" "It's pretty strong, I can barely breathe!"Billy gasped. "Have just one more little sip son, you'll be OK. You'll be OK." A few seconds later, "Ready to go back? I'll go over the sprayer with you." "Sure." Billy said as he popped up and took one more tiny sip, this one being a little easier to take.
Chapter 3: Sunny Sunday
Billy's Mom is downstairs in the tired yellow kitchen that wants so much to feel cheery, in the front of the house. Looking out the little window over the sink at the pretty, but trying too hard and failing little flower garden along the fence, she flips the last of four hot brown pancakes just when all the bubbles have opened up. "Perfect!" she gloats. "I have this pancakes and eggs on Sunday thing down to an art!" she thinks, and splashes hot water over her now perfectly basted eggs.
Billy's tie and pants are already ironed and hung on the end of the ironing board. She walks past them and tilts her head up the stairs. At the top of her lungs, she shouts, "Billy! B-i-i-i-ily! Get up! We're gonna be late for church! You have to iron your white shirt! I don't have time, I have to get dressed while you eat. Will you hurry up, please?" She shakes her head, smiling, thinking, "He burnt himself out pretty well yesterday, all that hiking with that old hippie, Jack. They were gone for hours. I'm sure I smelled booze on Billy when he came onto the porch. I'm gonna have to have a talk with that man. He's a nice guy and all, but why does he have to let Billy drink?" shaking her head with a sigh, then yells over her shoulder, for 'the last time', "Billy? Can you hear me? Are you awake yet? Get DOWN here!" The eggs look perfect, so she turns off the burner.
"Jesus" Billy says to himself. " Yeah Mom." he yells, "I'm awake...just a minute!!" Billy covers his head with the striped Pendleton wool blanket that's getting too hot to sleep under anymore. It's June, a week after the end of his Junior year, and it's the second Sunday after school. He got out of going to church last week, Mom cut him a break because it was his first weekend of summer, but not this week. She wasn't going to let him get away with it this week. Not Mom. Wouldn't look good. Dragging his head off the pillow and kicking the blanket and sheets off at the same time with one foot, then the other, he finally succeeds in freeing his sweaty, oh my god smelly feet from the warm sheets, more or less, one foot still twisted into the sheet. The bedclothes flip onto the floor, covering the cases of the techno and speed metal CDs Jack gave him, saying "These were Dan's, he left 'em, and I can't stand 'em, but you might like them." and his clothes and backpack from his hike yesterday with the old hippie. "Dan's cool. Wonder how he's doin' down in Oregon?" he wondered.
"Billy! Billy, get up please, You have to go to church today, and you have to talk to Reverend Hallfast about painting the church this summer. You want that scooter or not? Get Up!" In his best exasperated voice he yells down, "I'm UP, Mom! I'll be down in a minute!" Standing, he pushes the front of his underwear back down, "morning wood, da-a-amn!" and steps toward the door. "I'm UP! OK? Jeezus." he whispers to himself, and CRACK! A sharp pain shoots into his foot and sends him leaning toward the door. "Shit!" the CD case has cracked, and he jump-stumbles to the door, grabbing the door knob to hold himself up to keep from falling. In the bathroom, he squints in disapproval at the semi-beard that means he's going to have to shave before church and turns on the water. Three fingers up and three down, he gives his best evil looking grin, arched eyebrows, "Hey! What up, Dude?" "What up? I need me a Faygo, right NOW! That's what up." He splashes cold water on his face and gets on with it.
Flipping three of the pancakes onto a plate as she hears the bathroom door slam, she arranges them just so on the last of the bright green spiral pattern plates, and drops two of the three eggs on top of them. Pulling the hot syrup out of the microwave, she sits the little glass pitcher from Denny's down next to the plate. She breaks the yolk of the third egg, and swishes it around to spread out the bright yellow ooze across the whole egg. Slipping it onto the last pancake and lifting them together onto a plate, she realizes it's getting late, and rolls the pancake up with the egg in it, grabs it and starts up the stairs. They pass on the staircase. "Morning, Sweetie!" she chirps, taking the second too big bite of her breakfast. "Morning Mom." he stomps down the last two stairs, and as he turns into the kitchen, sees the abstract art yellow egg sploosh on the floor between the stove and the stairs.
"Mom", he thinks,"Sheesh. What a mess." and, " I haven't seen her cry in a while." he sits down at the table, smiling at the perfection of his carefully arranged table setting. "It looks like still life." remembering his art teacher Renee Soliel telling him how the most ordinary things become special when arranged in ways that present them well, and show the beauty in the most mundane of things. "Art is not perfection, it's a perfect reflection of a thing, and that representation, the art, is that it gives the viewer it's meaning." he remembered, not knowing whether to eat it or just look at it. "She really doesn't have to try so hard." he thinks, and slices straight across both yolks and tears it all into a brown, white, and yellow pile, bearing no further resemblance to what Mom had worked so hard to make look good. "Renee," he thinks. "way hot." He shoves his hand across his lap to adjust, and dives into the pile, shoving a huge fork full into his wide open mouth.
Chapter 2: A Good Saturday for a Walk
Jack and Billy had agreed to go for a walk today, just to hang out and talk a little bit. They had been doing that a lot since the funeral. It had been a while since they'd talked, maybe a month or more, and it seemed to Jack that it was a good time for it, since school was just out, and with Billy's mind on the summer ahead, maybe he'd be able to talk more and cry less. It was chilly on Saturday afternoon in the shadows of the trees on the hill behind town. It had rained hard all morning, and it had stopped, but the air was still wet, and it was too cold for early June, like always. Jack and Billy stopped at the top of the hill overlooking the church and sat on big slab of sandstone left stacked with thirty others, in the place it landed after the cutters had had it lifted out by a crane of the quarry. The pile looked like some kind of ancient ruin, except for the piles of old beer cans and garbage that laid strewn along the path up to it. Jack and Billy had been making this hike a couple of times a week since Kim had been killed early that Sunday morning in the fog out on Northcraft Road near the cemetery.
Billy was lucky to be alive. Thrown from the bike over the fence and into the soft pine needles in the grove, he completely missed the barb wire fence, and at least three trees. Kim flew through the air as did Billy when the bike's front tire had dropped into the drainage channel cut into the roadside, spinning the back wheel violently sideways and tossing them both off like a rodeo bull. Kim had been stopped in mid flight, a few feet away from where Billy had flown unharmed, by a single barbed wire that rose a foot or so higher than the others below it, because someone had stapled it unnecessarily to a tree between two posts, and the tree had grown just enough to almost remove Kim's head.
It wasn't until almost light that Jack had driven down the road to get more cigarettes, since they'd smoked them all by the time Kim left with Billy at about two in the morning. Della told him to get more coffee too, The fog had dropped into the low parts of the prairie, and Jack was almost on top of it when he saw Kim's bike mangled in the ditch, and found Billy, staring at his Dad's face. He had been, but he wasn't crying. From where Jack found them, he figured Billy must have been sitting there for almost 4 hours. He was shivering, and wet, and he didn't say anything or make a sound until Jack sat next to him and held him in his arms. Jack didn't say anything, there wasn't really much he could say. Billy shook a little, and then just sobbed. It was almost a half hour before Billy stopped, and they got in the bus and drove back to Jack's house, only a little more than a half mile back up Northcraft.
After a half hour of walking without saying a word, they stopped at the top of the hill overlooking the church. "You gotta go tomorrow?" "Yep." Billy answered, "Mom says The Rev said he needed it, and will let me paint the church this summer, and I can get that scooter before school starts, with what he'll pay me, and along with what I got working at the stupid florist last year."Jack thought, "I fixed the Sportster, Billy." But all he said was "That's cool, lotta work though, you ever do any painting, Billy?" Jack asked, with a small smile Billy couldn't see. "Well, Dad had me paint the garage, before...." his voice trailed off. "Yeah, I've seen that garage. It looks like shit." "Damn! Harsh!" Billy was taken aback. "You know I only tell you the truth man, no use for lies." Jack smiled again, this time Billy could see it.
"You'll need to use my LPHV sprayer if you're gonna do the whole church, and it sure as hell can't come out looking like that crappy assed garage!" Jack winked. "You want me to teach you how to use it, or you want to screw it up like a soup sandwich?" "Yeah. Show me how to work it. That sucker's gonna take me forever!" Billy sighed. "It's easy. Only take you a few days' once you get the hang of it, what's gonna take you all summer is stripping the loose paint off and sanding it smooth. You'll have to do your best work up front, where people are gonna look at it the most.The rest you can just knock off the loose stuff and give it a once over with a wire brush, and oh, I have an orbital you can use." "Sounds like Mom" Billy said, thinking about the front of the church painted and fresh while the rest was tired, and hurt. "What's an orbital?" "It's a sander, dipshit." Jack quickly leaned away, Billy slugged him n the arm. "Whadyou mean, 'like Mom', Billy?" "I dunno...she's really pretty and tries to act happy, I guess, but." Jack just let him think.
After several seconds, "It's just that Mom, well, do you think she's happier now?" "You mean like in the last few weeks? Well, I see her smiling more." Jack said, and just waited for what was coming next. "I don't think it's real. It's like, she's trying to look happy, maybe even trying to BE happy, but up until maybe last week, I could hear her crying in her room, and sometimes, I'd see her just holding her arms around her waist at the sink, and twisting back and forth, and crying." "Billy, said Jack, "your Mom is hurting, you know that, I don't have to tell you. When Della and I used to come over to your place some nights, we'd walk in, and your Dad would be holding her that way, from behind, with his arms around her waist, rocking her back and forth. He loved her Billy, and she knew it. He didn't say it much, but in those moments, she knew it, and he didn't have to say a word. The best love is like that, son. It really is." They just sat there quietly for several minutes, just looking at the church. Every so often, Jack would chuckle a little. He was thinking about the Reverend Hallfast and his little church. Billy was thinking about his Dad.
After while, Billy blurted out, "Why'd he have to die, Jack?" just shy of a cry, "He wasn't even as old as you, I don't get it." JAck paused, then said, "Billy, he had to die because he was alive. Everything and everyone who is, does. No getting out of it." "Was it God's will? Billy asked, "that's what Mom says. God's an asshole." Billy snapped. Jack could feel how angry Billy was. He waited a few seconds for the spit to settle, and then said "Billy, I don't know about God, but the best we can do is live each and every day we're given in a way that as much as we can, makes the world better, that causes us, and other people to smile and laugh, that makes our hearts well up with joy and pain, and anger, and other feelings you don't even understand yet, but you will. Life is for laughing, and being good to other people, to learn to see all the ways to love, to fully live, every second of your life until it's over. Your Dad did that, that's probably why we were best friends. I think that's about it though, Billy, I think that's about it." Jack didn't have one more word to say on the subject, but he thought about his own faith, about God, and couldn't think of how to say what he really had been thinking since Kim died, to Billy. Jack wasn't sure Kim would appreciate him talking to Billy about God, but then again, maybe now....he would.
After a few seconds, Billy asked, "But, I have to go, cause Mom says, but you and Dad never go to church. how come you know so much, cause you're not Christians, and how come you guys don't go, didn't go to church?" "Reverend Hallfast goes to church every day of his life, Billy, what do you think of him?" Jack just waited. It took almost a minute. "He's a douche!" Billy said, laughing. "I mean he's nice and all, and he said nice stuff at the funeral, and Mom cried, and told him it was a beautiful service. The words sounded all goddish and everything, so I guess he's a good preacher or whatever, but he's a frickin' douchebag when you talk to him. It's like, he doesn't know shit about anything but church and the Bible, and stuff." Jack waited a few seconds and said, "Answer your question, Billy?" "Yeah, I see what you mean." Billy said. Jack was thinking that once, a long time ago, he did think of himself as a Christian....just not any more, not really.
Jack sighed, reached into his pocket and pulled out his flask, took a short pull, and sighed. "Ahhh....nice." "Can I have a little?" Billy asked. "You ever tasted scotch, Billy?" "No." "Well, it ain't like drinkin' water", Jack said, "I can tell you that, not pop either, or even coffee. It's a hell of a shock at your age, actually. Drinking scotch is an art, a privilege for adults, and a joy to be respected, Billy. Something to savor, not just gulp down, kind of like life." "So, can I have a sip?" Billy said, a little exasperated by the old guy's running on with this philosophy over a stupid sip of whisky. "OK Billy, just a little one, take just enough to fill the middle of your tongue, and let it sit there a little while before you swallow it, OK?" Billy sipped, and felt it burn his tongue, and after a little bit, stopped grimacing. That's just when Jack said, "OK Billy, now you can swallow, just at the right time. Everything it it's own, perfect, time. "Whaddya think?" "It's pretty strong, I can barely breathe!"Billy gasped. "Have just one more little sip son, you'll be OK. You'll be OK." A few seconds later, "Ready to go back? I'll go over the sprayer with you." "Sure." Billy said as he popped up and took one more tiny sip, this one being a little easier to take.
Chapter 3: Sunny Sunday
Billy's Mom is downstairs in the tired yellow kitchen that wants so much to feel cheery, in the front of the house. Looking out the little window over the sink at the pretty, but trying too hard and failing little flower garden along the fence, she flips the last of four hot brown pancakes just when all the bubbles have opened up. "Perfect!" she gloats. "I have this pancakes and eggs on Sunday thing down to an art!" she thinks, and splashes hot water over her now perfectly basted eggs.
Billy's tie and pants are already ironed and hung on the end of the ironing board. She walks past them and tilts her head up the stairs. At the top of her lungs, she shouts, "Billy! B-i-i-i-ily! Get up! We're gonna be late for church! You have to iron your white shirt! I don't have time, I have to get dressed while you eat. Will you hurry up, please?" She shakes her head, smiling, thinking, "He burnt himself out pretty well yesterday, all that hiking with that old hippie, Jack. They were gone for hours. I'm sure I smelled booze on Billy when he came onto the porch. I'm gonna have to have a talk with that man. He's a nice guy and all, but why does he have to let Billy drink?" shaking her head with a sigh, then yells over her shoulder, for 'the last time', "Billy? Can you hear me? Are you awake yet? Get DOWN here!" The eggs look perfect, so she turns off the burner.
"Jesus" Billy says to himself. " Yeah Mom." he yells, "I'm awake...just a minute!!" Billy covers his head with the striped Pendleton wool blanket that's getting too hot to sleep under anymore. It's June, a week after the end of his Junior year, and it's the second Sunday after school. He got out of going to church last week, Mom cut him a break because it was his first weekend of summer, but not this week. She wasn't going to let him get away with it this week. Not Mom. Wouldn't look good. Dragging his head off the pillow and kicking the blanket and sheets off at the same time with one foot, then the other, he finally succeeds in freeing his sweaty, oh my god smelly feet from the warm sheets, more or less, one foot still twisted into the sheet. The bedclothes flip onto the floor, covering the cases of the techno and speed metal CDs Jack gave him, saying "These were Dan's, he left 'em, and I can't stand 'em, but you might like them." and his clothes and backpack from his hike yesterday with the old hippie. "Dan's cool. Wonder how he's doin' down in Oregon?" he wondered.
"Billy! Billy, get up please, You have to go to church today, and you have to talk to Reverend Hallfast about painting the church this summer. You want that scooter or not? Get Up!" In his best exasperated voice he yells down, "I'm UP, Mom! I'll be down in a minute!" Standing, he pushes the front of his underwear back down, "morning wood, da-a-amn!" and steps toward the door. "I'm UP! OK? Jeezus." he whispers to himself, and CRACK! A sharp pain shoots into his foot and sends him leaning toward the door. "Shit!" the CD case has cracked, and he jump-stumbles to the door, grabbing the door knob to hold himself up to keep from falling. In the bathroom, he squints in disapproval at the semi-beard that means he's going to have to shave before church and turns on the water. Three fingers up and three down, he gives his best evil looking grin, arched eyebrows, "Hey! What up, Dude?" "What up? I need me a Faygo, right NOW! That's what up." He splashes cold water on his face and gets on with it.
Flipping three of the pancakes onto a plate as she hears the bathroom door slam, she arranges them just so on the last of the bright green spiral pattern plates, and drops two of the three eggs on top of them. Pulling the hot syrup out of the microwave, she sits the little glass pitcher from Denny's down next to the plate. She breaks the yolk of the third egg, and swishes it around to spread out the bright yellow ooze across the whole egg. Slipping it onto the last pancake and lifting them together onto a plate, she realizes it's getting late, and rolls the pancake up with the egg in it, grabs it and starts up the stairs. They pass on the staircase. "Morning, Sweetie!" she chirps, taking the second too big bite of her breakfast. "Morning Mom." he stomps down the last two stairs, and as he turns into the kitchen, sees the abstract art yellow egg sploosh on the floor between the stove and the stairs.
"Mom", he thinks,"Sheesh. What a mess." and, " I haven't seen her cry in a while." he sits down at the table, smiling at the perfection of his carefully arranged table setting. "It looks like still life." remembering his art teacher Renee Soliel telling him how the most ordinary things become special when arranged in ways that present them well, and show the beauty in the most mundane of things. "Art is not perfection, it's a perfect reflection of a thing, and that representation, the art, is that it gives the viewer it's meaning." he remembered, not knowing whether to eat it or just look at it. "She really doesn't have to try so hard." he thinks, and slices straight across both yolks and tears it all into a brown, white, and yellow pile, bearing no further resemblance to what Mom had worked so hard to make look good. "Renee," he thinks. "way hot." He shoves his hand across his lap to adjust, and dives into the pile, shoving a huge fork full into his wide open mouth.
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