Spud (13 page)

Spud is certainly in the air of the get-togethers. Adds a bit of solemn touch. Anyway,
Spud’s dad and another uncle always play music with their guitars and stuff at family
parties, and Spud always joins for a song or two. They play all sorts of Johnny Cash,
Hank Williams, Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks, some Beach Boys, lots of oldies. It’s
great every year, except this one.

Deena’s parents listen with a great ear. Her pop, a tall, strong man with the same
blond hair, clean-shaven, dressed proudly in his khaki shorts and white polo shirt
talks a bit about his days playing ball.

“Was even offered a contract to play with the Mets my sophomore year of college,
but I wanted to settle, you know, back here in Illinois, where our family business
was, so I turned it down. Sure, would have been a lot of fame and money, but there’s
more important things in life.”

When he says that, he squeezes his wife’s hand and smiles at her. Probably a lot
more to that story, then. Deena’s mom, a picture of health, is a grown-up version
of Deena: long, sleek, blond hair tossed into a perfect ponytail, glittering blue-eyes,
with a hint of a joke or humor always twitching on her lips. She smiles a lot, laughs
even more, and always seems to have witty, cute remarks. A great hostess. And her
knee-length pink sundress highlights her cheeks perfectly. If
she’s any indication
of what Deena will look like in the future, I’m sticking around! What a family. Deena
also has a little sister, seven, who is actually on a vacation as a guest with one
of her friends to Disney World. Can’t beat that.

Of course, our chat dwindles as they express their delight in meeting me and me in
meeting them, though I don’t see how exactly I came across as delightful, and we
let them get back to their grown up friends, and we head back to ours, Deena and
I feeling the sweet success of that meeting. “They totally adore you. Much more than
Mike. My pop said more to you just now than he has to Mike total!” She’s smiling,
swinging her arms. So light, so pretty.

“Thanks. Your parents are really cool.”

As the evening rocks along, the music still humming, people loose and chatty and
carefree, playing card games and flirting, the sun has set, and the temperature has
become quite bearable, and Tim doesn’t forget. Yep, his keg stand challenge. The
drunker he gets, the more he freaking remembers.

“Jacko!” He sees me as Deena and I are dancing to the Beach Boys’ “California Girls”
on the lawn, as several people are. I hate to dance, as I always feel as if everyone’s
staring at me, and I look like some dork swatting insects away, but maybe I just
imagine that.

Deena moves like an angel, soft, sweet, perfect, and she’s not giving me weird looks,
so I must be doing okay. “You’re a great dancer, Deena. Wish I looked half as graceful.”

She smiles.

“Jacko! Tim hops, rather unsteadily, between us. “Kegger time! You like them Soxies
or what?” He tries to grab the hat again, but considering he’s much drunker off keg
beer than he was earlier, and I’m sober, I can easily dodge him and quicken away.

“Jacko, let’s go.” He forgets the hat and heads toward the keg,
and I wish he’d quit
calling me Jacko. It sounds kind of perverted or something. The music is loud, adults
really quite plastered, talking in their own little groups and laughing and getting
animated about politics and such. Sounds like there isn’t much appreciation for our
federal government from one group. And another seems to be debating the price of
gas. Is that an issue? It’s like what, eighty or ninety cents a gallon. So what?

Anyway, nobody’s paying attention to us. In fact, I see, near the keg, the second
keg tonight, that there are several of our classmates hanging out, just standing
around and talking about how the summer goes too quickly. Yep, sure does. One poor
fool is drenched in sticky beer as a result of his own keg stand. I so do not want
to do this.

“How about me, first, eh? Show ya how it’s done, huh?” Tim takes off his Cubs t-shirt
and stretches his arms, making an act of getting ready to show off. “Who’s gonna
hold me?” But before anyone can decline, he’s grabbed Josh and Caden, two classmates,
and they’re automatically recruited.

“One, two,” the counting is going, somewhat coherent, as Tim chugs off the hose on
the keg, remarkably managing to get most of the booze into his mouth, but when the
group of drunken boys reach seven, there’s a loud boom behind us, scaring the blazes
out of everyone, and the excited boys drop him! Drop him sideways, so he reaches
for the keg to get a grip on something, and it tumbles on him, spilling its contents
all over! While I cringe and hope he isn’t hurt, I secretly shout to myself,
Hooray!
No keg stand for me! He swearing the f-bomb left and right while we all gaze around
stupidly for the source of the boom, and it was only the sound of another raft from
the pool popping as the chubby girl was filling it with air to replace the earlier
one that was torched. Not a good night for pool accessories!

I guess I won’t have to keg stand, thank goodness, and Deena is laughing so hard
tears come down, so I start laughing, looking ridiculously at the drenched Tim. First
water, now beer. The poor kid. He and his Cubs are really having a trying season.
I haven’t been this happy in ages.

Then, she kisses me, again. Bliss! I have a wonderful, new appreciation for strawberry
lip gloss!

All the while, Tim is lying there, swearing, the boys are laughing and high-fiving,
and the music keeps going. Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing,” for sure!

Deena’s parents decided that was enough, and the evening has calmed down remarkably,
with no more alcohol for miners, which their appalled faces at the drinking said
it was a major no-no to begin with. Now, for us, it’s just casual conversation and
sitting around, but it’s getting near midnight anyway. The party has gotten thinner,
and I am about ready to call it a night.

Right as I start to tell Deena, who’s sitting next to me at a picnic table, in a
discussion with her friend, Sam, about the perils of this research paper we all had
to write last semester, guess who shows up?

Hey, hey!” Mike stumbles over to our table and stands guard in front of us, arms
crossed in front of his chest. He’s obviously drunk, and his disheveled hair and
wrinkled clothes give way to the fact he hasn’t had a very nice night. The stench
of alcohol on him is powerful.

“Mike, what are you doing here?” Deena sighs. “Please, just go.” She runs a hand
over her ponytail, nervous and fed up.

“Gotta get in my two cents, little girl. Hey, Cooper,” he’s
looking at me. “You just
watch it, buddy. You’re gonna really get it, pal. I… I just watch it. You crummy
sh--.” A hard stare at me as he fades his words.

“Look, I don’t know what’s up, Mike, but I didn’t do anything to you. What’s going
on? At the funeral, you were normal and sincere, and now, you’re acting like a prick.
What gives?”

“Shut it, Jack. Jack-ass, Cooper. Haha. Just shut it. I got my reasons. I hate this
town. Just watch your back.” He glares over the table, at each of us. He smirks,
mumbles something incomprehensible and must decide he’s finished here. A weird encounter.
And he doesn’t cause any more of a scene but staggers through the dark yard, mumbling
when he almost trips over a lawn chair, toward the road, where it looks like a car
is waiting for him. One of his older buddies, no doubt. He climbs into the passenger
side, and the car takes off down the road. The darkness prevents being able to tell
what kind of car it is, but who really cares? At least, he’s gone. We’re all a little
shaken by that display.

“Sheesh, what’s that suppose to mean?” I ask Deena. “And where did he come from?
It’s like he just appeared out of thin air. What the hell did I do? What’s he gonna
do?”

“I don’t know. He’s acting so weird. I wouldn’t think too much of it. He’s been drinking
and is just talking out of his head.” She squeezes my hand. “Just shake it off. Don’t
let him ruin the night. He’ll probably forget all about it come morning.”

I don’t want to end the night on a note like Mike’s threats, but I promised Mom I’d
be home before one. It’s rare to stay at a place so late for me, but since Deena
lives in town, and she’s got a decent family, Mom thought it would be all right.
“I should get going, Deena. I have to be home.”

“You have a ride? You can’t walk home with Mike out there,
and it’s so dark and late.
You can stay the night. Sleep on the couch or my bedroom floor. No big deal. Just
give your mom a call. Come on.”

At that, she leads me to the house to use the phone, and I really don’t want to argue.
I really don’t want to meet whatever is out there anyway, waiting for me at this
time of night, even if I do live just blocks away. Mike’s out there somewhere. Shivers.

Turns out most of us teens stay over, camping on the living room floor. We talk ourselves
to sleep by about 2:30 a.m. It’ll be a long day tomorrow, as it’s been a late night,
but after my sweet goodnight kiss from my new girlfriend, I think I’ll deal.

Chapter 16

“Briing! Briing!” Again, I really dislike waking in this manner. The shrill sound
of the phone, right on a table above my head. Someone picks up from another room.
Thank God.

I groggily look around at the scattered bodies of teens, teen boys anyway, slowly
waking from last night’s party. The girls camped out on Deena’s bedroom floor. Tim,
a few feet from me, has his hair sticking up all over the place, his shirt is missing,
and has dirt and grass stains all over his shorts. Now, he’s gonna be feeling it,
today.

“Oh my God!” A loud, loud wail from Deena. “Oh my God!” The loudest indoor yell I’ve
ever heard. It sounds like she’s auditioning for
Nightmare on Elm Street
or something.
Totally bloodcurdling and surely gets everyone up in a panic, wide-eyed, now fully
awake, looking around.

“MOM! DAD!” she’s shouting, now appearing from her room, already dressed in another
light, flowery sundress.

“It’s Mike! He’s dead! He’s dead! My God he’s dead! He jumped off the bridge, just
like Spud at like three o’clock this morning and drowned! Drowned! Oh my God!” she
crying, shouting, turning in circles, unsure what to do with herself. Her parents
are on full alert running to her, shushing her, demanding she calm down. What happened?

Oh my God. Mike. How? Why? This is too unreal. We’re all just standing there, not
sure what to say or do. How to react. It’s incomprehensible. Mike’s dead? Mike, who
just stumbled through here last night, then went and killed himself? He knew, didn’t
he, what he was going to do? He was lost, out of his head, unable to deal
with being
a part of Spud’s death, losing his girl, and the flack from his parents. Oh my. Mike’s
dead. Gone forever. Just like Spud.

Deena’s parents have shushed her, and hugged her, and she’s crying like mad. Her
mom is holding her in the chair, and her dad’s off in another room to the phone.
Her mom is trying to get the story from Deena. Everyone is murmuring and anxious
and cannot believe this news. By now, the girls are out in the living room with the
rest of us, all a chaotic mess.

“What happened?”

“How?”

“Dead?”

“Mike?”

“What?”

These are the random questions that keep repeating, until Deena is calm enough to
explain, but still crying. “I guess he left here, all drunk, and they went to the
same place Spud jumped from. I don’t know why that jerk he was with would even think
about driving out there. If he even did. Maybe Mike took the wheel himself. Who knows?
But he got there, jumped, and drowned. His buddy called the cops from a payphone,
and they quickly found him, and he was already dead!” She bursts into gushing tears
again, clinging to her mom.

Oh my. Nobody really knows what to do.

“How awful!”

“Deena, so sorry!”

“Poor Mike!”

“Not again!”

“Oh, Deena, I’m so sorry!”

“Jack, are you okay?”

“Yeah, Jack, this isn’t good. So sorry. Not again. To relive
this.”

“And so sorry about Spud. Tried not to mention it as we wanted you to enjoy a night
without having to think about his death. But, man, so sorry.”

And on and on. After about forty-five minutes, it’s a lot calmer, there’s more news,
more details, but the same basic story. Slowly, phone calls are made; kids take off,
numbly head home.

We’re all in shock. Comforting Deena, her parents comforting all of us. Her mom talked
to Mike’s mom, learned he truly drunkenly jumped off the bridge. He had his buddy
take him to the park, some excuse about leaving his ball glove there, then ran from
his pal and up the bridge and jumped. His buddy didn’t realize Mike headed toward
the bridge until it was too late to catch up to him.

They were both drunk. No chance at that time of night to survive a jump. He wouldn’t
even have been able to see the shoreline from the water on account of it being so
dark. Why? This is just so screwed up.

Hugging Deena one last time today, I know I best get home. My parents are going to
be freaked when they find out. They likely already know. It’s not that they had any
attachment to Mike, but another death like Spud’s in the same way is ridiculous.
I tell Deena I’ll call her, give her my sympathies again, thank her parents, and
trot home.

Roasting and sticky from the creeping humidity, I look up to see the sky is dark
and eerie, but it’s only nine o’clock in the morning. Fitting. Maybe it will rain,
I think. But then, that’s not what I should be thinking about. The weather should
be the last thing on my mind, but for some reason, it’s not. I have no idea what
to expect now. More bad news, and oh, my.

The amazing thing? And maybe a sign of something? Right
as I get to the door of our
apartment, which is open to welcome me in, as my parents are likely expecting me,
it starts to pour. Like mad. The rain that we have needed forever is drenching us,
drenching the house, the cars, the grass, the trees. It’s like tears are falling
from above. About all these tragedies? About the suffering? Is it finally time to
cry and make things better? Coming down like solid sheets. I mean, it hasn’t been
as hot as the week when Spud died, but it’s still been hot and dry. Just not fire-breathing
hot.