Authors: Patricia Orvis
“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.”
At the time, I admired it, then I tucked it into my pocket, but the next day it was
on a chain around my neck. I wore it proudly and for show every day, not taking it
off, but then I got into high school, when I tucked the string into my shirt, but
never took it off.
Even though I tried, picking up playing the guitar never was my thing. I didn’t have
the patience, or the talent, really, but I sure loved watching Spud and his dad and
the country tunes they could belt out! As of yet, the pick hadn’t snagged me a girlfriend,
but I’ve had some interest my way, at least! That’s another story.
So tonight, Spud tries to show me a few more tunes, strings, whatever you call them,
and I’d like to learn, but still, I’m happy just letting him play and watching it
all, letting myself get lost in his renditions of my favorites, like Randy Travis’
“Forever and Ever, Amen” and Johnny Cash’s
“
A Boy Named Sue.” I love those songs.
That’s how we pass the time until we both doze off, too hot, too humid, dreaming
of snowstorms and swimming pools.
Briiing! Briiing! Huh? Oh no! Fire alarm!?
This unwelcome and blasting early morning alarm, and waking back into the realization
of the heat wave, only is the phone and my body’s reaction to our stifling July.
No fire, though it sure feels like one! Reminds me of the hilarious event last school
year when the fire alarm was pulled, and we had to stand in the
brrr
cold snow during
sixth period. I was in gym class, so all I had on was a goofy tee shirt and shorts.
Talk about cold; how I wish for that now! I was pissed at the time, freezing my ass
off; however, snow sounds real nice today, as I wake to a sweaty forehead, sticky
clothes, and this humidity. Ick!
After three rings, someone has picked up. Now awake and sweaty, all I can think about
is a cool shower, but I won’t get the chance…
“Jack? Jack? You up? Spud? His ma’s on the phone! Jack!” Criminy! Relax, Pops. As
I step from my bed, I step right on Spud’s foot, as he fell asleep on my floor while
playing some football Nintendo game. I forgot he was there, and he grumbles, but
just rolls over. How come the damn phone didn’t wake him? Why am I the only one who
seems to be on top of things?
Stepping into the hallway, I meet Dad, who’s dressed in cutoff jean shorts, a White
Sox tee shirt, and his Velcro tennis shoes. He’s holding the cordless phone, a bit
winded from climbing the stairs.
“Spud’s mom needs him home. She’s pretty mad. He lied, she says, and didn’t tell
her he was staying all night here. He’s likely grounded,” he says, eyes squinting
like he’s not approving this
behavior, handing the phone to me.
Geez, it’s not like he was out on the streets. She could have called here last night.
Doesn’t matter. Get him up and get moving.
With that, Dad turns and heads downstairs, and I’m left to tend to the sleeping Spud.
“Hey,” I gently kick his foot. “You gotta get moving. Yer ma is pissed. Why didn’t
you tell her you were here? Anyway, here’s the phone.” Spud looks at me, like I’m
nuts, as I hand it to him. He wipes his eyes, his long hair a mess. He yawns, taking
the phone.