Yes, No, Maybe So--Part III

Every night after supper, Dad camped out in the living room. Over the course of each evening he’d nurse two bottles of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and polish off an entire can of salted peanuts, the Spanish ones with the skins on them. I never got why he liked those kind. The skins made for a tooth flossing nightmare. Dad didn’t mind though. He wasn’t much for dental hygiene. Come to think of it, he didn’t care much about personal hygiene at all beyond combing his hair and Abraham Lincoln beard. I knew for a fact he rarely used deodorant and Mom and I had to beg him to wear aftershave whenever he treated us to supper at Shoney’s.

            So while Dad would fold himself into the floral Ethan Allen wing chair under the picture window and devour peanuts and guzzle beer, Mom would arrange herself and her muumuu-looking housecoat, usually a pastel blue floral, on the couch. She’d puff on her cigs—Benson and Hedges Light—and sip Tab diet cola from a glass she got in a box of Tide laundry detergent. I’m fairly certain she washed it first. Maybe. She wasn’t Suzy Homemaker or anything. In fact, one of her favorite sayings was, “You’ve got to eat a peck of dirt before you die.”

            Most nights my parents watched television or read. Dad was a big time reader. Mom too, but she usually went for paperback romances. Dad read smart stuff because he was that kind of guy. He had three degrees including one from Harvard. Yep, my daddy was smart, but he sure didn’t know everything.

            More often than not at night, some or all four of us kids would be in the basement glued to the tube. Sometimes we had friends over, not because Mom was the Kool-Aid mom or anything. Just because.

            If communication was necessary between us and the folks, we yelled up or they stood at the top of the stairs and hollered down. If Dad was worn out, he just roared from his wing chair.

            “You kids pipe down!” Or, “Stop horsing around! Don’t make me come down there. I swear. I'll tan your hide.”

            Only when we got really loud would he stomp down the stairs. It was never Mom. She didn’t scare us. That particular night, the one with the Rolling Rock, Jude made sure we didn’t make too much noise. He was good at that.

           

After two minutes of whispering in the kitchen, Katie Lynn and I tiptoed back down the painted gray steps. Tried to keep from creaking the stairs. All three of Charlie’s pistol-packing Angels darted hither and yon across the TV screen but the boys didn’t pay any mind. They were too busy hawking loogies at the fireplace. Without opening the screen. Viscous, pale green gobs stuck and slid. Smeared and clung. Left shiny trails in the charred mesh.

            “Ga-ross,” I said.

            Both guys whipped around at the same time, swiping their wrists across their lips. I saw Robbie puff into his hand and sniff. A corner of my mouth lifted. He was cuter than I remembered.

            Jude patted the couch. “Why don’t you all come down,’ he said. “Sit a spell.”

            I started back up the stairs. “I don’t think—”

            Katie Lynn gripped my wrist and tugged. “Okay,” she said. “We should sit boy girl, boy girl.”

            I grumbled under my breath as I wedged myself into the space between the sofa arm and Robbie’s leg. Katie made herself at home between the guys. Robbie reached into the styrofoam cooler and lifted out a green bottle. Wiped the wet off with his t-shirt. Jude tossed him the bottle opener. The cap catapulted across the room with a sucky sound. Robbie grinned and handed the icy beer to me. Repeated the process for Katie.

            I hovered my nose over the bottle top. “Smells like hamster pee.”

            Robbie chuckled “Try it,” he said. “You’ll like it.”

            I sipped then wrinkled my nose. “Tastes like it too,” I said. “Jiminy Christmas! How do you all drink so much of this stuff?”

            Jude leaned forward. “See?” he said. “I told you we shoulda bought Boone’s Farm.”

            Robbie huffed. “Who doesn’t like beer?”

            Jude stood. “I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Be right back.” He took the stairs three at a time. Returned with two straws. “Try these,” he said as he tore their wrappers away. “And hold your nose.”

            Katie Lynn juggled the tasks. “Seems complicated,” she said.

            “The good thing about straws,” Robbie told me, “is they get you drunk quicker. That’s what my science teacher says.”

            I think Robbie was onto something. After my first two sips, I felt very confident and way braver. Was that what being intoxicated was like? Wasn’t too bad. In fact, I figured if I had one more gulp, Imight just  jump up and perform a lively rendition of Dancing Queen. I squinted at the fireplace tools and considered how I might use the fireplace poker as my microphone. No sooner did the idea form in my brain than it was shot all to heck. By ham salad.

Yes, No, Maybe So--Part II

Like every other guy in town, Jude had the hots for Katie. After all, she did resemble a cross between Cher and Brooke Shields. Even though Jude was pretty good looking, he was strange, and I’m not just saying that because he’s my brother. Jude had this theory that if you didn’t shower for a day or two after you sunbathed, the dirt would sink into your skin and increase your tan factor. He brought this theory up every time he lay out with us.

            “Ooooh, ga-ross!” we’d squeal. Gross was our favorite word and we always said it as if it had two syllables.

            I blame Jude’s weirdness on illegal pharmaceuticals. He didn’t take Nancy Reagan’s advice to just say no to drugs. He smoked a boatload of pot. In fact, he grew it in his room. Mom thought it was a really pretty houseplant.

            “I never would have guessed Jude had a green thumb,” she said.

            His grades weren’t great but I reckon he was a little smart because he figured out how to fashion a pot pipe out of a salt shaker. It was shaped like a catfish and the one time I walked in on him getting high, he looked like he was kissing a thumb-sized sea creature or giving it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The room he shared with my oldest brother Matthew often smelled like a fall burn pile.

            Jude liked to brag about sniffing glue to Katie Lynn and me. I knew he was telling the truth because I saw the squeezed tubes of model glue in the woods whenever I walked our dog over that way. He also told us how he and his buddies did acid every day during their high school years. One of his friends dropped so much it damaged him forever.  He never made it to college. Heck, he never even made it out of his parents’ house. He was like the poster child for that commercial that showed an egg being cracked open: “This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs.” And then they’d show the egg frying.

            Jude was always getting into trouble. Like the time the police called the house and informed Mom they’d nailed him shoplifting. She gave me the job of phoning my father at his office and telling him. Man, was Dad honked off. Right after he picked Jude up at the police station, he drove him to a barber shop and told the guy to shave Jude's head. Mom boohooed for days. I don’t know which bothered her more—his criminal record or the removal of his pretty copper curls.  I found them one day when I was snooping through her dresser drawers. Dad must’ve had the barber put the hair in a baggie for her. I snuck outside with them. Stuffed them into a garbage bag inside a trash can. Just because.

            In addition to being a klepto and a druggie, Jude consumed scads of beer. In fact, the first time I ever got drunk was with him. Jude and his friend Robbie had snuck a case of Rolling Rock into the basement. Katie Lynn and I walked downstairs to watch Charlie's Angels, and there they were—the boys and the beer.

            “Want some?” Jude asked.

            “No,” I said.

            “Yes,” Katie Lynn said.

            I have no idea how my folks never figured out two college boys were getting two ninth grade girls tipsy in the basement. I take that back. I do have an idea.

Yes, No, Maybe So--Part I

I’d eaten my bowl of Cheerios with a spoonful of sugar. I’d fed the dog, the cat, and my hamster, Houdini. I couldn’t wait any longer. It was time. I dialed Katie Lynn’s house. Her mother Caroline answered the phone.

            “Morning, Mrs. Carver. It’s me, Dana.”

            “Good morning, Dana. You’re up early.” I loved the way her Southern accent spilled out like Hershey’s chocolate syrup.

            “Yes, ma’am. Is Katie Lynn up yet?”

            “No, but I’m happy to wake her. Else she’ll sleep the day away. Hold on.”

            I heard Mrs. Carver put the phone down. A minute later came the clank of porcelain on metal. That was probably Katie Lynn knocking the handset of her princess phone off its cradle.

            “Mmm . . . hello?”

            “Wake up, you sleepy head. Get your hiney out of bed.”

            Her words came pillowy and slow. “It’s summertime. We’re supposed to sleep in.”

            “They’re here, Katie Lynn! They’re here!”

            “What are?”

            “The space age tanning blankets. The ones I told you about. I ordered them from the Sunday supplement and I got you one too, ‘cause they were buy one, get one free.”

            “That is exciting. Can I go back to sleep now?”

            “No. It takes you forever to get ready so you have to start now. Be here by ten. For real.”

            “Oh, all right. Which suit should I wear?”

            “How ‘bout the white one?”

            Katie made a growly noise. “Naw. I don’t have a base tan yet. I’ll look pasty.”

            “Um . . . Bring the rust-colored one, the one you made in Home Ec.”

            “Naw. It’s a one piece. I want to get sun on my tummy.”

            “For crying out loud, Katie Lynn,” I said. “The fact of the matter is I really don’t care. Just pick one and get over here. The blankets are supposed to maximize our time spent in the sun. I want to get started.”

            After I hung up, I closed my bedroom door and stepped into my suit. Shivered because it was still damp from yesterday. I wiggled and adjusted in front of the mirror. “I wish I had five or six suits,” I told my reflection. “Like Katie Lynn.”

            Outside I grumbled as blades of wet grass licked my calves. “You’d think with three boys in the house, our lawn would be perfect,” I said to no one in particular. I dragged two aluminum chaise lounges into the middle of the back yard, lined them up with the sun’s position in the sky.

            On the screened-in porch, I deliberated in front of my mother’s tanning product collection. Coppertone, Bain de Soleil for the San Tropez Tan, or Hawaiian Tropic Dark Tanning Lotion? Or, I could mix up some baby oil with iodine. I twisted the top off the Hawaiian Tropic, inhaled, and grinned. It was the first day of summer break. We should celebrate by smelling like coconuts.

            Back in the house I gathered several issues of Seventeen magazine and two Rosemary Rogers’s romance novels. Katie Lynn always begged me to read the love scenes out loud. I grabbed my hand mirror at the last minute. In case she wanted to practice kissing.

            In the kitchen I peeked over Mom’s shoulder as she scanned the newspaper and smoked, according to the ashtray, her third cigarette of the day. The weather section said it was going be a scorcher.

            “Better get the hose,” I said to myself as I headed back out. 

             "Dang it!" I said, hose in hand. I backtracked to get Mom's kitchen timer. Katie Lynn and I always set it for thirty minutes. Half hour for our fronts, half hour for our backs. Katie Lynn also spent time balanced on each side so she wouldn't have white stripes under her arms but I wasn't that dedicated.

            True to her slower than molasses in January track record, Katie Lynn arrived an hour late. I’d anticipated this and was already tanning.

            I slid my sunglasses down my nose. “Aren’t the tanning blankets cool?”

            “Are they Reynold’s Wrap?” she said. “’Cause that’s what they look like—tin foil.”

            I rattled my blanket. “I know. And when you move, they crinkle. Am I dark yet?”

            “Nope. You’re still super pale.”

            I shrugged. “No big whoop. By Friday, I’ll look like the little girl in the Coppertone ad with the white butt.”

            We spread Katie Lynn’s silver sheet on her chair and she greased up. Just as she was settling in, I heard the window in Mom and Dad’s bedroom crank open.

            My brother Jude hollered out. “Hey! You all mind if I join you?”

            “Yes,” I said.

            “No,” Katie Lynn said.