Authors: Geoff North
Gary Reynolds was reading his newspaper,
the sports section. He barely paid any attention as Hugh half-jogged to the
counter, the bottles in their displays clinking lightly with each step.
“I need a pack of cigarettes, Gary, Player’s
King Size.”
“Well, well, what have we here? Our
resident author is about to take up smoking.”
“Please, Gary.”
“Maybe you already smoke, I wouldn’t know ‘cause
you never buy them here, or booze for that matter.”
“I’m kind of in a hurry here.”
“I’m just jokin’ with you, Hugh. Ever since
your sister won her jackpot my lottery sales have tripled.”
Hugh glanced up at the pictures on the wall
behind the cash register. The same people with the over-sized cheques and
shit-eating grins he saw thirty-seven years ago smiled down at him. Heather was
a new addition. Her picture was in the middle, and her shit-eating grin was
wider than all the rest.
“I really have to get going, please--just
give me the smokes.” He slapped a twenty dollar bill on the counter.
“Would be nice if
she
came in once
in a while, you know, support a fella’s busin-”
“And a lighter.” Hugh turned and looked out
the store window. It was black, grey sleet pelted against the plate glass. When
he turned around again Gary was still whining, but at least the cigarettes had
found their way onto the counter. Hugh grabbed them up and started to tear into
the cellophane wrap.
“You must need one of those pretty bad,”
Gary said placing a pink lighter down.
Once inside, he removed the silver foil and
took out a single cigarette. “That’s right, one is all I need.” He tossed the
remainder on the twenty and started out.
“Wait a minute, Nance, what about your
change?”
“Keep it.”
“What am I supposed to do with the rest of
these goddamned cigarettes?” He was almost shouting. “I can’t re-sell an open
pack!”
The time for small talk had passed.
“Then shove them up your ass, you miserable
old fuck.” He hadn’t said anything that terrible to anyone in years, perhaps
never. It felt good. It felt
Hugh
.
He’d left the car running and it was
toasty-warm dry inside. The windshield was wet, not frozen, and the wipers
swooshed it noiselessly clean. The snow continued to fall and build so he
turned the intermittent up a few clicks. No surprises this time. The all-wheel
traction found the pavement below a thin skiff of ice and he was away, bound
for Highway 16 and destiny, a half mile ahead. He put the cigarette to his lips
and tasted tobacco.
Wrong end
. He fumbled with it, almost dropped it
between his legs. A car horn blared coming the other way. Hugh pulled his own
vehicle back to the right side of the road.
Too much.
The Audi performed
admirably on the ice and stopped fishtailing immediately.
Slow down, you
still have time.
He took his foot off the gas, lit the cigarette, and
lowered the window in one smooth move. Bad habits were hard to forget.
The first drag tickled his throat and the
taste was magical. The second one was better. He felt the buzz in the ends of
his fingers and in the back of his brain after an impossibly long third haul.
Ashes fell into his lap and he saw the stop sign through a cloud of blue,
exhaled smoke. Hugh slammed down on the brake pedal so hard his seat belt
caught against his shoulder.
Good car, much more responsive than that
old clunker.
The Audi came to an obedient halt seven
feet before the stop sign. Hugh took another healthy drag and watched the semi
approach from the left hand side. It was easy to hear its mass of tires running
down the wet highway with his window open.
Closer, closer. One more puff.
His cell phone began to vibrate in his coat
pocket.
The truck thundered by in a spray of dirty
grey sleet. FENCO FUEL in yellow and orange introduced itself once again for a
half second and was gone.
The cigarette was done; Hugh’s fingers were
starting to burn where the cherry had begun to eat the filter. He tossed it out
the window and sighed with relief.
“
Now
I’ve quit smoking.”
He answered the phone.
“Where are you, Hugh? Please get home!”
“Cathy? -Are you crying? What’s happened?”
“It’s your brother.”
Hugh was stunned. So much for not being
able to see the future and it had only started ten seconds ago.
Talk about rude awakenings
.
“Donald?”
“No, Hugh…I’m
so sorry…Gordo’s died.”
***
Cathy had agreed to stay at her
mother-in-law’s house for the night. Marion Nance was, naturally, devastated by
the news of her son losing his six-month long battle with lung cancer. No one
knew he was even sick.
Hugh was still in his study past midnight,
clicking through the too-small file of family photos with Gordo stored on his
computer. There were only seven pictures. He wished Cathy were with him.
Staying home alone without her after another death in the family was almost too
much to bear. It reminded him too much of Ben. This didn’t hurt half as much,
but the guilt was just as bad, maybe worse.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Hugh wasn’t alone this time. His kids were
still here. He looked up at his son and offered a weak smile. “It’s hard losing
someone, isn’t it?”
Colton sat in the chair opposite his father’s
desk. His face was pale and there were patches of pink around his eyes. “I only
met Uncle Gordon a few times. I guess it’s a lot harder on you.”
“Yeah, it’s hard on everyone.”
“Did you love him, dad?”
Of course I loved him. He was my
brother. Blood is thicker than water. Family is forever.
“No.”
Colton’s eyes began to water up. It wasn’t
the nicest thing to say to a kid, but Hugh wasn’t going to sugar coat it for
him. “I should’ve loved him…I could have loved him.”
“What happened between the two of you? I
know me and Julie fight a lot but I couldn’t imagine not talking to her for
years and years at a time.”
“Not all that much, really. He drew in some
of my comic books, I pissed on his bed--you know, the normal sibling rivalry stuff.”
Colton rubbed his cheeks dry and laughed. “You
guys were pretty hard core in the old days.”
“Yeah, I guess we were.” Hugh turned the
monitor around. “Take a look at these.” Colton leaned forward and looked at the
pictures with his dad. “This was one Sunday up at Clear Lake.” Two shirtless boys
with crew cuts grinned back in grainy black and white; the taller, dark-haired
one held a fishing rod, the other, still missing a few adult teeth on top was
struggling with a fat fish in his skinny arms.
“Is that before you peed in his bed?”
“Long before.” Hugh clicked to the next
image. Gordo caught off guard tying his shoe tightly just before a track event.
“Are those shorts? They look more like
underwear!”
“Hey, it was the seventies.”
They looked through the rest, Colton asked
questions and Hugh answered.
What a great kid, trying to make
me
feel better by talking about things. And it’s working.
“I don’t remember too much about Uncle
Gordo,” Colton said after they were finished. “Just that silly song he always used
to sing.”
“What song is that?”
“The one about not messing with big Bobby
McFee. You ever hear him sing it?”
“Big Bobby Mc
Bee
. How could I have
forgotten?” Hugh opened his music file and scrolled over his vast selection of
MP3s. He double-clicked on the song in question. It had been sitting on his
hard drive for years but he hadn’t heard it since he was a kid.
They listened for half a minute and Colton
started to nod his head when the chorus started.
-Big Bobby McBee was a mean sonna bitch-
a mountain of a man with soccer balls for fists- and shit-kicking shoes that
was bigger than canoes-
Gordo’s theme song.
-Don’t go hangin’ round town when the
big man wears a frown-
Hugh’s eyes began to get wet; he bit down
on his lip.
-‘cause he’ll surely cut you down-
Hugh started to cry as the song played on.
-
You’re gonna wish that you had refused
,
once you’re beaten, bashed and bruised-
The Voice in the Brown
had
revealed
his identity. Hugh started to sing the rest out loud, word for terrible word,
and Colton leaned back, afraid old dad might be losing his marbles.
-So you listen what I say, don’t go
makin’ Bobby’s day, best to just stay away-
The song ended and Hugh quit singing. He
exited the player before the tune could start again.
“What was that all about, dad?”
The Voice had said it looked I was beaten,
bashed, and bruised…just after the car accident.
“You ever try and recall a certain song,
but another one keeps playing in your head instead?”
“All the time,” Colton answered. “There’s a
cool rock song on the radio I heard a few days ago, but I can’t get this dumb country
one outta my head when I go to remember it.”
Hugh nodded. “That’s what happened to me. I
just remembered the right song.”
Colton came around the desk and hugged his
father. “I’m sorry you lost your brother,” he whispered.
“Me too, but everything’s going to be
alright now.” It was the type of promise parents sometimes made to cheer their
kids up. It may have been an empty promise for Colton, but it was a wonderful
new feeling for Hugh. Not knowing what lay ahead felt just fine.
Sometimes life was bad, at other times it
could be good.
Hugh Nance had found enough good to try it
twice.
Brown.
“Took you long enough to get back here.”
The old man looked down at his fingers.
They were wrinkled; the knuckles knobby and misshapen with arthritis. At least
they didn’t ache anymore, but still, he’d hoped he would’ve looked a bit
younger.
“Don’t worry about those,” the Voice in the
Brown continued. “You lived to be ninety-one years old. It will take some time
before you get used to the idea of looking any way you want.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell us you had
cancer?”
“What for? We didn’t talk on a regular
basis, did we? Why would I call you out of the blue and tell you I had
something terminal? I didn’t need your pity.”
“You should’ve told mom.” Gordo was silent.
Hugh had him there. “Sorry, I guess that wasn’t called for. Why didn’t you tell
me it was you? What was all the secrecy about?”
“I didn’t want you to live your life again knowing
what was going to happen to me. Shit, you might have tried being my buddy and
made me quit smoking.”
There was a long pause. Hugh looked at his
pale blue hospital pajamas and bare feet. It would be nice to change into a
pair of jeans. “Sorry for breaking your trophies and pissing on your bed.”
“No problem, I got over it.”
Hugh chuckled. No apology for the ruined
comic books. The asshole couldn’t even say he was sorry in the afterlife. “I
want to see my wife now.”
“And she wants to see you too, her and
about a hundred other people you knew and loved. They’re all waiting.”
The brown all around started to change; it faded
to a deep orange, then to a golden yellow, the color of wheat. A blue sky
appeared above spotted with putty-white clouds.
Gordo was beside him and took his hand. He
was young and handsome. His eyes were beautiful. “Come on, dummy. Don’t just
stand there.”
A dog barked.
Hugh stumbled after him, his legs still
ancient and feeble, but a tingling had started to course through them,
throughout his entire body. It was waking up again. “Wait! Why did you stay
here? Why didn’t you go ahead years ago?”
“Because you’re
my brother, and I had to look out for you.”
***
“What did you get?” Little Gordo asked.
“A whole bunch of cool stuff. Check this
out.” Little Hugh climbed out of bed and plopped down into a litter of wrapping
paper. He pushed a clear blue plastic car along the cold floorboards until
sparks lit up inside. It made a wonderful whirring noise.
“I got one too! It’s red!”
Hugh’s face beamed in the pale aqua light. “Let’s
go downstairs and check out the Christmas tree.”
They snuck down the steps in complete
darkness and tiptoed through the kitchen.
“Don’t step on the cat,” Hugh whispered,
sidestepping around Fred.
Their cousin, Michael Cooden was waiting for
them at the entrance to the living room. The soft glow of multi-colored tree
lights blinked off and on against the wall behind him.
“Where have you been all these years?” Hugh
asked.
The curly-haired boy smiled. “Here,
there…everywhere.”
Gordo cuffed him softly on the shoulder. “Well
what are you doin’ just standing there like a tool for?”
The boy’s eyes widened fearfully and he
raised a single finger to his lips to keep his cousin quiet. He pointed into
the living room. “I don’t wanna wake
him
up.”
Hugh peeked around the corner and saw his
father sleeping in the armchair beside the fireplace. There was a mild smell of
wood smoke and Satsuma oranges in the air. The old man was snoring. A thousand
gifts waited beneath the tree in the other corner.
Gordo started in and Hugh followed. Michael
hung back and mewled like a new born kitten. “What about Uncle Steve?”
This was the happiest morning of my
life, and I had a lot of them. I’m going to meet Cathy this afternoon at a
little open-air restaurant on the Dominican coast. It was our favorite. And
this evening I’m going down to the old dugout with Colonel and watch the
prairie sun set…maybe smoke a big fat cigarette.
“Fuck him,” Gordo answered. “He’s not my
uncle. Let’s go open our presents.”
All three boys
giggled and dove in.
The End
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