Spud
Authors: Patricia Orvis
Copyright © 2009 by Patricia Orvis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publisher.
Published by WriteLife Publishing
(An imprint of Boutique of Quality Books Publishing Company)
Printed in the United States of America
Photo Credit:
Front Cover: Brian Chase © 2009.
Back Cover: Yuriykulik © 2009.
ISBN 978-1-60808-009-0 (p)
ISBN 978-1-60808-118-9 (e)
First Edition
For Danny, John, and Brad
…
Acknowledgments
So, this whole process is quite an adventure, and it can’t be done without some serious
support and believers. I must, without a doubt, thank certain people.
Of course, thanks to the family. You always believe in me. I could tell you I was
thinking of backpacking through a closet to Narnia and you would support me. Not
that my writing skills are as preposterous as the idea of a fantasy land (I hope!),
but still, you would act like my passion was the best idea ever. I love you, Mom,
Dad, and John.
And John, you are not quite “Jack” in this book. But he is based off of you. As you
know, I tend to twist the truth in order to create my fiction. You remember the essay
about the Ouija board, right? I’m not a statistician, but a writer, my dear.
Thank you, to Sally, Rich, Sandy, Jamie, and Brad. I know this is a very emotional
topic. I hope some light is brought to it. Your support has meant so much.
Cindy Grady, David Martin, and the whole WriteLife team, you are amazing! I am very
lucky to have come across such brilliant, kind, and helpful people. A writer could
not simply be any more fortunate than I have been to come across such a friendly
group with hearts of gold. And, Bailey Palmer, I appreciate your time and brilliant
ideas. You have a bright future ahead!
Tom, my fellow book fiend, I love ya!
Dr. Diab, thanks so much for everything. You
are fabulous.
Vin, Dr. Bauer, and Miss Downes, thank you for making writing experiences
and applying grammar rules quite the…adventure? Tim Blake, kiddo, here it is, so
you can quit asking! And how’s the high school treating you? Are you driving yet?
Watch out, Illinois motorists! Kidding. Just kidding.
Thanks, too, to my greater, extended family. All of you. Danny’s family, you know
much of this is for you. While this book is fiction, lots of made-up stuff here,
my inspiration was to pay tribute to my wonderful cousin. I know his passing was
and always will be very difficult, and it’s what I wanted my first published book
to be based upon. I’m so sorry for your loss. I love all of you tremendously. I miss
you!
Mr. Eric Klinenberg, thank you for
Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago
,
with its facts and statistics about that 1995 Chicago summer. You must be quite an
awesome professor out there in New York. Thank you very much!
I thank my friends, too, who always give encouragement, and my co-workers, and just
all of you in my life. I love my life, I love you all. Thank you.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the
product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events, locales, or persons is coincidental.
CONTENTS
“Hey! Hey! Get back here you sneaky little…!”
I look up, startled at the language, you know the kind. The cashier, exasperated
and a bit heavy, a big zit on her sunburned nose, calls uselessly after a nervous
boy. The blonde kid has just bolted out the door with his five-finger discounted
Pepsi. The kid’s got some guts. Just took it and ran, and she, this cashier, just
couldn’t go rushing after him; she has more customers, and she’s simply way too,
well, fat.
“Damn kids,” she mumbles, clearly not too devastated by this incident, “school needs
to be year- round, already. Sheesh! Where are the parents?” She continues, shaking
her head, then gets back to her short line of customers, also shaking their heads,
likely wondering who raised such mites. Well, people just like them did, really.
The town is truly not all that big.
I browse the standard selection of candy bars down the aisle, in no hurry to find
one and escape the comfort of the air conditioning. I can’t blame the kid for the
pop pilfering. For real, a one-hundred plus degree day, summer vacation, and much
roaming around town in search of something to bust the boredom make a kid thirsty.
We’re all too young for jobs, and we don’t have much cash; thus, we’re in need of
liquid refreshment! Plus, to be cool, not nerds, at our age it’s much more acceptable
to pass the hot days hanging in gas stations and wherever than at home with the parents
or annoying siblings.
Typically, we laze away our days at the public swimming pool, the air conditioned
gas stations like the one I’m in right now, and the library. Those are about the
only choices in this hick town.
No mall, no McDonald’s, no movie theater, nothing.
Around here, we’re limited. But hopefully, even if next summer is this hot, we will
by then have finished our sophomore year. Spud and I will have both have a driver’s
license and be cruising to Ottawa to see some movies, grab a Big Mac, snag a girlfriend,
whatever. Anything that gets us out of Seneca.
As I said, this is the hottest summer ever, and I’ve been here all my life, so I
know. This one, we’re indoors a lot, where the air conditioning is, and this week,
even swimming at the public pool is out of the question. Preposterous, this deal.
I have spent all my previous summers either at the pool or playing in the town baseball
league. I’m too old for ball now, thank God, because wearing that gear in this heat?
Just thinking of sweatpants and thick socks makes me nauseous.
School’s been out for a month or so, and while June was great for the pool, pick-up
baseball games in the field by my house, walking around town or shooting some basketball,
July has been a whole new story. These last couple of days, well weeks, have been
scorchers, as if we’ve drifted into Hell. I mean, we’re hit with hundred-plus degree
days that just won’t let up. It sucks to never be comfortable, to sweat all night
when you’re trying to sleep like you peed the bed, but worse. Also, what fun is a
summer break when you can’t go outside? If we are out too long, there’s the fear
of becoming sick, the body shutting down from heat and getting all dehydrated. Not
a fun time.
Then, people like Candi the cashier are moodier than usual, uncomfortable and mad,
swearing too much, clothes all sticky. In addition, who wants to hang around their
boring house with even more boring parents after us to clean our rooms, wash our
dirty cups and plates? So, we hit places outside the house that have AC, until we
get kicked out, hence the afternoon here in this gas station.
At this moment, how on this great earth does a starving fourteen-year-old guy, um,
me
, choose between the Twix or the Snickers… or the Milky Way? Kit Kat? I’m kinda
partial to caramel… not really in the mood for peanuts, or wafers. Hmmm.
I rub my hand over my freshly shaved head, which resembles a sweaty bowling ball
today. Lots of the guys are sporting the shaggy look, and I did try for a bit, but
I gave up this summer. Too icky. Maybe I’m a wuss, but I decided the matted, sweaty
mess wasn’t worth it. The poor girls. How do they handle those mops on their heads?
My mousy-brown hair never looks good when it is long anyway. Spud, though, refuses
to chop his hair like mine. His brown hair is long and messy and floppy, and he likes
it that way. The girls do, too! Guess some suffering does pay off!
“Jeez, I’ll never make up my mind,” I mumble to Spud, my best buddy who’s transfixed
by the magazine stand, gazing at the cover of
Sports Animated
, his eyes bulging at
the sexy pictures of the never-aging Madonna in a red bikini. Well, it is summer.
Yup, Spud is lost in his fantasies. He gets that way. He will get all interested
in something and tune out the rest of the world.
Surprisingly, he pops out of his deep thoughts and mumbles, “It ain’t no life er
death situation, Jackson. It’s all just a buncha chocolate. But whatever, take yer
time; it’s too freaking hot to go back outside for a little while. Whatever you buy,
we’re staying in here to eat. That way I can flip through this mag. Of course, if
the cashier bitch doesn’t shoo us out first.” He glances at her and makes a nasty
face.
Obviously, she ain’t his favorite person. She accused his little sister of stealing
a bag of gummy worms last winter. For all I know, Rhia did steal, but whatever. That
kid’s not the most trustworthy, and at eleven years old, she’s a brat.
This Candi chic is short-tempered, about a hundred pounds too heavy, and her teeth
are so yellow she looks like she munches Cheetos all day. She’s something like thirty,
and she’s rude. But instead of those aforementioned Cheetos, she spends her shift
gobbling Ranch Doritos (that she probably steals), grumbling and getting fatter.
The only reason she’s still employed, obviously, is because nobody else wants the
job. I mean, who wants to spend their adult years in a hick-town gas station waiting
on rude customers, annoying kids, and making coffee for the stuck up doctors, bankers,
insurance reps and shop owners who pass through all day?
Everyone knows everyone, and it’s best not to be the lowly gas station worker. No
wonder she’s a bitch.
“Grab a seat;” I sigh, nodding my head toward the booth and playing eenie, meenie,
minie, moe, and having to settle on a Twix. I grab it and merge toward the counter
before I have second thoughts. Sheesh! Decisions! “You want anything?”
“Yeah, ice cream. Grab me a Nutty Cone, and I’ll be at a booth.”
Sure thing, boss
,
I think as I make my way to the counter.
Let me pay for it, too!
And I will. Spud
doesn’t get much help from home, especially in the form of cash to hang with friends
and buy stuff. No biggie… he is my best pal.
The gas station, Casey’s, has a little kitchen that makes pizzas and sandwiches,
so there are two small red-leather booths near the back of the store for anyone who
wants to sit and eat. Nobody really does, unless they have no agenda, no lives, no
place else to go, but me and Spud have no desire to tread back into the sweltering
sun and decide to milk our time in the AC.
As I join Spud at the booth, he looks up and around cautiously, after he snags his
ice cream from me, then asks, “Did you hear about the latest heat death? Guess some
old couple had no AC
in their ratty apartment and couldn’t take it. My pops said
they died naked, in half a tub of cool water, sitting there trying to cool down.
It was like in Chicago or something. What a way to croak. Think of it; their old
wrinkled bods extra shriveled with the water and all.” He cringes, frowns, and shakes
his head, then licks his ice cream cone thoughtfully.
He continues, “How freaking sad. Like lately all these old people and all these poor
people who can’t afford more than a dumb fan. I mean, what help is it anyway for
a fan to just blow around this suffocating stuff we call air?” He gestures to what
we are, obviously, forced to breathe in. “It’s gotta be rough, you know, to have
no means of air conditioning and no water. Damn, how could they live? Telling ya,
Cooper, this here,” he waves his arms more wildly about this time, but careful not
to drip his treat, “this July ‘95, here, it’s gonna go down in the record books.”
Nodding that he knows he is right, Spud then cringes his friendly face once more
and shivers, despite the heat, as he returns back to flipping through the magazine.