USK | Prose | Laidlaw | Just Another Day

Just Another Day

Nobody around here understands the way I operate and that's fine and dandy with me so long as they don't come knocking on my door when I'm sick. But of course no matter how many times I curse someone to high heaven or break a nose or throw a leftover pot of eatmore at 'em, they just don't fucking get it; sometimes I need to be left alone. About four years ago, some punk from the West Bend News called at 9:00 in the morning just to see if I read their rag of a newspaper and if I might want to take advantage of a special subscription offer and as an answer I ripped the phone out of the wall; since then, we haven't had a phone and that's the way I like it. Anyone that counts, like family, they know the drill: catch me down at Whitey's before I get too whiskey drunk or unless it's an emergency, and by "emergency" I mean someone is dead or the house is on fire, DON'T COME KNOCKING ON MY DOOR.

It was with me in this frame of mind and on a day when I was sick that my nephew, Tommy Ray, came screeching into the driveway, honking his horn and blasting Roy Orbison like a bugler blasts out reveille. He missed Beth's car by fucking inches, stumbled out of his car like Evel Keneival, dusted himself off and screamed,

"Hey Rusty, come meet my new old lady!"

Now, Tommy had been in prison for the last few years, I forget how many, and he was the last person I expected to see. I wouldn't even have recognized him if the cocksucker didn't have such a striking family resemblance, cuz he had certainly filled out since the last time I saw him, which was just before he'd punched out a couple of local cops that I had gone to high school with. This was all I needed; either he was on the run or he had a fist full of money, either way it meant he wanted something from me. I knew he wouldn't go away or turn off Roy Boy until I opened the door so I sent Beth out to try and chase him away.

"Rusty's sick, Tommy, his liver is acting up and he's trying to crash."

He picked Beth up and spun her around, knocked over the sugar jar in the process and kissed her on the lips.

"Where is he? I'll wake him up."

He walked right past Beth and saw me on the couch.

"Rosco! How the fuck are you? Long time no see. I missed you."

So he missed me, did he? I wasn't going down that easy.

"Didn't you hear what she said? I'm sick, Tommy. Why don't you go see your mother, I'll catch you before you leave town."

I could see the hurt look in his eyes and I guess it soften'd me up a bit cuz next thing I knew I was up and drinking some fancy bottles of beer he'd brought and doing shots of Early Times. Anybody else would have got both barrels of my shotgun and a kick in the ass, but I did love the bastard and he looked like he could use a meal. While Tommy and me drank what was for him more than a few too many and for me an eye opener, or rather, a rude awakening, Beth and Tommy's girl had to go through all the nicey-nice formal shit like: "So where were you born," and "How did you meet Tommy," and "I'm sorry the house is a bit messy but we weren't expecting company," and all the rest of the kind of conversation that makes me want to take a perfectly good t.v. and smash it up into a thousand pieces.

I could see Beth was getting sucked in by the novelty of "entertaining" and it was pissing me off. Here she was pulling out all the stops, putting on our last roast, peeling potatoes, and of course drinking that shit imported beer of his like it was going out of style. She had lost another job a few weeks before on account of "frequent absenteeism" and I guess she was bored. Me, all I wanted was to either fuck that buxom young wench Tommy had with him or lie on the couch and pray for sleep. I knew I shouldn't be drinking the hard stuff and Beth damn well knew it too, but give her an excuse and she could suck 'em down with the best of 'em. The doctor at the V.A. had told me never to touch another drop; now I knew that was out of the question but I had been sweating it out for a week trying to stick to just beer and get straight and she damn well knew that, too, so right about now I was getting pissed off at her and Tommy's fresh young liver and that big-titted broad of his and the rest of the fucking world. And where was Sherry, my sister, the kid's mother? Why didn't he go wake her up and start a fucking revolution over there?

"So what's the news, Russ? Anybody dead? Anybody married? Anybody knocked up?"

I only had one t.v. so I took a pull of ET and said,

"What do I look like, the AP or the UPI ? Go ask your mother, she knows it all anyway."

He tried to look at me with those sensitive eyes of his but I looked away, it wasn't my problem that he had no father and I wasn't going to suffer for it anymore today. I shot one below the belt,

"What do you come around here for anyway? The Mullens boys catch you and they'll not only kick your ass from here to the cop shop but they'll pin something on you and throw away the key this time." I could see the rage taking hold of him even before he spoke,

"So that's how it's going to be, huh, Rusty? Well, fuck you! If you weren't blood I'd kick your ass all the way down to the cop shop and call out those two old pigs and go romper stomp on the lot of ya! I should kick your ass right now but I'd probably kill you and I don't want to do you any favors." Then to her he said, "Come on baby, let's go meet the rest of my family."

So off they go to kick up dust somewhere else and here I sit with a half-cooked roast I can't eat, a drunken woman telling me I was wrong and just enough whiskey left over to kill me if I drink it. I swear if this shack wasn't paid for I'd move two towns over to Young America and put the name "Elmer Fucking Fudd" on the mailbox. But the shack is paid for and it's all we can do to pay the taxes on it and keep food and beer in the fridge. Beth gets a job every so often at one of the factories and keeps it as long as she can, which, on average, is three to four weeks. I return empty's, cut the grass, do an occasional paint job and drink. No sense adding any sugar to it, I'm too far gone for the factories and Beth ain't far behind me.

So these are the things I think about while Teddy-boy Kennedy has a Bloody Mary for breakfast and works on one of his speeches, and the punks at the newspaper wake me out of a merciful sleep, and my nephew is getting three hots and a cot or is out gallivanting all over the country using up his youth like I used up mine. I don't want any god-damned news, I don't care to hear about someone else's latest round of adventures, I like things the way I've gotten used to them, I want every day to be just another day... until the days stop coming and I go six feet under where they can't knock on your door and phones don't ring and doctors don't tell guys like me I can't drink anymore...

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