Bud Smith: F 250

“I wouldn’t know. She’s a bitch. I haven’t talked to her in a year,” June said.

“I stole a fancy painting from her. Burnt it in my backyard.”

June Doom stared straight ahead and said, “Just as well.”

Feral didn’t live with Trish any longer. They were still seeing each other, but I got the impression that things were on the rocks. That it was just a matter of time. They were both incomplete. They were both still on search and destroy missions.

But it was the holidays.

Denise and Trish had an apartment together. It was a nice place — a condo that’d sprung up on the same vacant lot where Commando Video had once been: an acre and a half of woods between the road and Food Universe.

I looked out the window in awe of the beauty of the snow falling on the industrial slums of Newark/Elizabeth/Linden — New Jersey. The armpit of America. You have to be from here to think it’s beautiful. Even then, there’s something wrong with you.

Feral turned his head.

“You alright?” he asked me.

“Ahh, it’s a lot of things,” I said, pointing all around the interior of Seth’s car. (I’d never been in it comfortably like this. I was always stretched around the drum set, fighting for survival.) “It’s the snow, I think.”

“Snow? Doesn’t it snow, like, every day in Seattle?”

“It doesn’t snow at all in Seattle.”

“Get the fuck outta here,” he said.

“For real.”

Feral looked in the rearview.

“June, tell me this bad man is lying, playing me for a rube.”

“He’s not, Feral. People think he’s fucking around, but he’s never lying.”

Jesus Christ, that almost brought a tear to my eye. June had somehow gotten to know me better than anybody else had ever gotten to know me in my entire life.

I decided right then — in the Nissan, as we drove past the Bayway oil refinery with all its sick smoke and toxic waste bellowing into the sky — that I wouldn’t let June get away.

“Actually got a job,” Feral said.

“Who, you? No fucking way.”

The ride was good. We spent it with the radio on low and just shot the shit, told jokes, recounted things that seemed like a decade away … though it’d only been a year.

When we pulled off the highway onto route 9, Feral said, “They’re at Mary Beth’s house. You guys mind going there?”

“Not at all,” I said. Trish’s mom… I wondered if she’d ever gotten that LeSabre fixed.

“Tomorrow, I’ve got to get over to the Mayweather,” I said out loud to no-one in particular. “Aldo is being Santa Claus again and passing out gifts.”

“He lost a lot of weight,” said Feral.

I was honestly surprised.

“He’s skinny now. Looks good for an old fuck. He’ll have to stuff pillows under his shirt to play Santa Claus now.”

“You see him around?”

“Aldo? Damn right. Trish says he’s doing good as fuck. She knows better. She takes his blood … I don’t know why. But I see him almost every other day at my job. I’m a big shot orderly at that place now. You should see me, man. I mop the hell out of the Mayweather. I’m a mopping maniac.”

“An honest job … holy smokes.”

“Yeah. Ha! Tell me about it. It sucks in its own special way, but then that’s alright too I guess. Your boy Aldo reads to this… Well, I’m not sure what’s wrong with the guy, but Aldo reads to him a lot.”

“Sounds about right,” I said.

“I’ll take you over there,” Feral said. “Tomorrow. Just say when. Nothing else going on.”

He pulled into the development behind Food Universe. The sun fell. Christmas lights blinked on. That’s the good thing about the development back there. It didn’t seem like the people had any money, but Christmas lights didn’t suffer in the least. I guess when you have less, you’ve got to have spirit to survive.

Feral pulled up to the front of the house. There was the LeSabre. It looked beautiful with the lights blinking around it. Good as new. Some things can be fixed.

“Looks good.”

“Bro, it’s an old-ass LeSabre. Get a life.”

Feral knocked so loud on the front door that he shook the wreath and bells.

Mary Beth shouted, “Come in!”

They were at the long, wooden table when we walked in. The house was warm. Willy Nelson was singing “Pretty Paper.”

I heard a baby softly cooing.

Denise, Trish, and the young boy Jackie, whose birthday party I crashed that time, were all playing Yahtzee. The dice rattled around in the plastic cup then tumbled across the table. Mary Beth met us in the doorway and gave us all hugs.

“I don’t know you Belle,” she said to June, “but I can tell right away that you’re my favorite.”

“Ma, I’m right here,” Trish said. “Don’t be telling strangers that they’re your favorite with me right here.”

“Well, you keep hitting Yahtzee. I can’t help it.”

We stepped into the kitchen. Trish gave me a kiss hello. Denise waved awkwardly. Things had ended strangely between the two of us.

I walked right to the baby and peeked down.

“What’s this little guy’s name?”

“Ace,” she said.

“Ace?”

I wanted to cry. I really did. I looked down into the baby’s eyes — the same eyes as Seth. The baby also had the same hair, and would probably grow up with that same gap between his front teeth.

“Pick him up,” said Denise.

“Not yet,” I said. “Give me a little while.”

We sat down at the table. Mary Beth asked a score of questions. She wanted all the updates. She’d heard a lot from Trish about my band.

“I even got a CD player for my car now,” she said, telling the story of when she met me … when I crashed into her down by the river.

Denise said, “I’ve seen an even better crash.”

“When?”

“He hit my ex’s car. Pushed it into a lake,” she laughed.

“A lake!” Mary Beth seemed very amused. “So, I guess I got off lucky!”

The wine came out. Many bottles of red wine. Mary Beth passed the glasses out and said, “I got a little prayer for friends that I like to say during the holidays…”

Mary Beth stood up. Her over-sized gray sweater hung down on her scorecard. She raised her glass.

“It goes a little something like this: may all your silly or dire or imaginary troubles lessen and find all the holes in your pockets on your way to Heaven. Or if you get lost and stumble into Hell, save me a spot at the bar.”

We all raised our glasses and took a sip, except for Denise, who just did a salute with her glass and set it back down. She was still breast-feeding.

“Here’s to friends and family, those that are here, and those we wish were here,” she concluded.

I took another sip. Willie started singing “Rudolph” in the other room. The record had a scratch in it; the needle kept jumping. Trish got up to fix it.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing out a small, framed picture on the wall.

“Oh! That picture’s crazy,” Trish said. “Remember that?”

“Damn right, I do.”

It was a photo of Trish as a little girl dressed up as a witch. The photo had been taken at my old house long ago. There I was dressed as a werewolf with big, fake, hairy hands.

Mary Beth said, “Look how little you were!”

We all stood there looking at the picture. Then Mary Beth said, “Oh, I got an idea…” She looked at June Doom. “Will you put on Elvis?”

June Doom never looked happier in her whole life. Elvis on the record player on Christmas Eve.

I transported myself away from the table as a new game of Yahtzee started up. I stopped and peaked inside the cage of babbits that June saved from the lawn mowers. I tried to guess what their names would be.