Jason, Pete, and Fred

1.

Abby and Jason Discuss the Night Before

"I can't believe you're still on this."

"What's not to believe, Abby? It was obvious to everyone."

"What was obvious to everyone?"

"The dude, trying to score. It was obvious. Everyone kept asking me, 'What's up with the dude?' nodding your way. I played your angle, though they didn't believe it either."

"Jamie being a friend from high school isn't 'an angle,' you creep. We were in chemistry together."

"So, he's queer."

"No." She giggled. "No, he's definitely not queer."

"Why 'definitely not,' like you're so sure?"

"Alright. So he's queer, Jay. Is that what will get you to shut up?

Jamie's queer, 'as a football bat' as you like to say."

"See, Abs, fact is, any dude's not gay's looking to score. Everyone'll tell ya. I'm not overreacting here, you know."

She was just about to tell him he was overreacting. Her leg was damp from resting against his. She scoonched closer to the wall, turned her head to face it. He propped up to face her.

"So you think this is me, overreacting again?"

"I think I need to leave. In fact, yes. Let me up, Jason."

The sheet was tucked in tightly on her side against the wall and his propped elbow had it pinned across her chest on his side of her, and there she lay strapped, as if on a psych ward gurney.

"Look, I've got everyone asking who the dude is, and there's the dude, his face buried in your ear; and, there's you, with a smile bright as the, as the damn Stroh's neon sign above your head, laughing and nodding, and tapping him and motioning his ear to your mouth to ask if he 'remembered the time when.' What's a guy to think, Abs?"

"A man might put down his darts for a few rounds to come scope it out for himself, Jay. He might shake hands, join the conversation, weigh the competition if there was any. A guy? He'd give beady eyeballs from afar, pound another draft, head-butt his teammates, and draw his own conclusions, like you did. Now let-me-up."

Her head flopped with each word. He really had her pinned.

"Okay, picture this then. I'm all cuddly with this girl —"

"— don't put me in your shoes, Jason Braswell. If you want me to yourself, take me on a date. A real date. Take me someplace that doesn't have a DJ, that doesn't check your ID at the door. I'm starting to feel like a groupie, like I'm supposed to give high-fives when you trip on twenties, whatever the hell that means."

"It's when you hit three —"

"— Jamie at least talked to me, Jason. And not only did he talk to me, he wasn't drinking, so I actually understood him over that P-Diddy crap, the third time they played him."

"Wasn't drinking? Maybe he is gay."

"Let. Me. UP!"

"What? Oh, come on, Abs! We went to dinner. I even had reservations."

"Jesus, Jay, we went to The Stuffed Mushroom. Decent restaurant, okay, until 10:00, when they move the tables. Toughest bar to get into, unless you eat there first. Ask everyone, they'll tell you. Your motives are all too clear, for Christ's sake."

"It's Sunday, Abigail. You really shouldn't talk like that."

"That's it." She found the strength.

The digital read 11:47. This was ridiculous. Abby McNeil had things to do, school for starters, and since she'd met Jay Braswell a month prior at Slammy's Halloween party she seemed to have placed that second.

Just like her, too, her housemates would tell you. Abby needs her a man.

2.

The Halloween Amoeba

Jason had broken free from the third head-hole of the queen-sized white sheet he shared with his two friends long enough to grab a Coke at the bar and to tickle Abby's interest.

"A guy who doesn't drink," she said. "How rare."

"I'm the driver," he said, nodding towards the two-thirds of his costume, now jerking about like bobble-heads on the dance floor, tripping over his share.

"I want to guess a ghost, but —"

"— an amoeba, darling. An amoeba. Those black things are vacuoles. Our legs are the, um, the flagella I guess."

"Right. And your heads?"

"They were to be the nuclei, but I see no major life functions being carried out now." The impaired, single-celled organism had engulfed a scarecrow.

"I'm Abby."

"Sean Reynolds, Abby. Pleasure." He held out his hand.

Sober, responsible, smart, and polite, all in the first two minutes, Abby thought. Guy sure wasn't saving himself.

She shook his hand, and his other brought out his ID. "Wanna show you something."

"It's okay, I believe you," she said, putting up both hands in surrender.

"No, just look at it. Really. There's something funny, you look closely enough."

Abby had a penlight on her keychain which she shone on the laminated card beneath the bar, because she knew how uncool the whole idea was, and she looked for something funny.

"Other than your middle name being 'Ernie' and that you're from, where?"

"Bailey's Crotch."

"Right. Well, that is funny."

"But that's not it."

Abby looked closer. "I'm obviously missing something."

"Yeah," he said casually, taking the card back. "That's the only thing sucks about the ID, the middle name and the place. Might have put 'Ernesto,' given a more Latino ring to it. And Bailey's Crotch really catches the eye, might cause a bouncer to linger a bit longer."

"So you're not that guy in the picture? Holy shit. Lemme see that again." She held the light closer this time, lowering her head closer to the bar and seeming to forget how uncool the whole scene was; but the bartender was across the way, busy prepping tequila shots for two obnoxious cavemen.

"Yeah, okay, I see it now. But wow, that's close. Man. Dead ringer. You know this guy?"

"Never met him. It just sorta came to me, a hand-me-down some random dude I met at a party. Gave him only twenty-five bucks, if you can believe that. It'll last me 'til I turn."

"Which'll be?"

"Over a year. I'm twenty in April, a sophomore at Brinkley."

"And your name, for real this time?"

"Jason Ottomar Braswell."

"Ottomar?"

"Yeah. Can't win there, can I?"

3.

The Game Called Punch

Abby McNeil dressed in clothes smelling like Marlboros and did a once-over in the bathroom that rivaled a gas station's. "Okay, I'm going," she called. "And you might want to get a plumber for that toilet."

"What'ja leave behind this time?" No response. "Abby?"

The front door shut like someone had a purpose. Son of a bitch.

As there were no more cool spots beneath the covers or on either side of the pillow and the mattress springs were identifying themselves, and his boxers and undershirt were warm and twisted and saggy, Jason Braswell decided he'd overdone bed.

Indeed, the toilet water was at high tide, a small plastic sailboat riding the slow whirlpool of regurgitated paper shreds. Jason peed tippy-toe into the sink, aiming for the hollow drain with the stopper long removed and running the water for not only the flush, but for the disguise, as if his two housemates might care. He squeezed the rolled-up bottom of a half-full, cap-less tube, and a thin line of blue toothpaste squiggled through a small, crusty opening onto his toothbrush, its soft bristles parted down the middle.

He pried an oblong piece of petrified striated-black housesoap from the bathtub shelf to wash The Stuffed Mushroom from his face and hands. Fred's ball python, Mama, was in a tight coil on the tub's filmy, bacterial floor.

Pete was literally in the couch they called Daisy, his right leg crooked over the back and his left arm outstretched towards the Sony, bouncing with each click of the remote. He was wrapped in a blanket he'd drug from his bed. Jason took the sucker's couch, a big brown thing that scratched like burlap — Beast, they called it — and moved beer bottles from the Masonite table to the floor to make room for his feet.

Lots of beer bottles. A gallery.

And cards, and quarters, and shot glasses, and dice.

And two miniature plastic piggies, both on their feet. Great roll.

"Time d'jou head out?" Jason asked.

"No idea." Pete answered.

"Time d'jou get in?"

"No idea."

"D'jou eat anything?"

"Dogs outside Mushroom."

"How'd'jou get home?"

"Walked."

They'd calculated the distance at five miles from that bar, home, and added a quarter mile if walked when drunk. They'd all walked home from bars, Pete usually because he got really pissed when he lost at darts. He was good for the disappearing act; and, he justified it was good for his partner, too, who was always held responsible for the loss, and was therefore liable to get smacked.

Pete's head was turned at an impossible angle towards the ceiling and his eyes were closed, yet still he pointed that remote, his thumb doing the driving, full audio. Pete looked like a work in progress.

"Looking fit, Pete."

"This new carb diet I'm on. Listen, Jay. Um, yeah, there it is. Killed some brain cells last night."

"What's up?"

"Your dad stopped by."

Jason's feet jerked from the table like they'd been tickled and several bottles toppled like dominoes. Someone had been dipping tobacco.

"Fuck you say?"

"Almost got jawed, too, tapping me on the head and saying your name, like you ever get Daisy."

"Meantasay dude just came in?"

Pete kicked the cover off, stumped over to Jason on his knees and socked him — bam bambam — in the bicep, three pretty good licks for a man jarred from prolonged torpor, then sort of half-rolled back into the couch like one well-rehearsed in the game of Punch.

Or, like the one who invented it.

The word was chosen every Saturday night. Abby had to have her date.

"Good shot, dick. What's the word?"

"Dude, balls."

Saying balls after the word was your only defense.

"I'm the only one says 'dude.' Balls."

"Then you're the only one gets punched. Should of been here for the vote. This is a democracy, Jay."

"Fine. Like 'dudeballs' better anyhow." Jason rubbed his arm. Shit hurt. "So Bill just came in and thumped your melon. Then what? What time was this?"

"Dunno. Sometime before Abby woke me up a second time with her slamming the door. These are your people, Jay." Pete was up for good now. Punch had excited him. "He left something for you on the table, repeated it like, three times, until I fucking said something back." He had his blanket wrapped around him like a toga and was hobbling to the bathroom as if his feet had blisters from a five-and- a-quarter-mile walk.

"What did you say?" This worried Jason.

"Dunno. Something like, 'okay.' We done now, Jay? I gotta lather."

"We done, dudeballs. Watch out for Mama."

4.

Salty

A thick manila envelope had been slid between beer bottles on the table in what might have been the dining room. It was the only piece of anything remotely-academic in sight. It had to be seen.

Carefully stickered in an upper corner was his full name on a laser label, Jason Ottomar Braswell, and hastily-cursived in ballpoint across the front was the obviously last minute message, We'll talk about all this later.

Jason saw his Ivy, then-Northwestern-for-his-PhD father in church clothes, looking around and shaking his head.

All this.

He knew the envelope contained something about his father's future for him, something he needed to have done yesterday regarding post-graduation plans two years away. A note was paper clipped to the thick Peace Corps annual mailer: Jason– after Yale, the Peace Corps changed my life. I hope the same experience for you. Certainly they will select from Brinkley, with the right endorsements.

Jason had always felt like a wind-blown apple, having fallen nowhere near the proverbial tree, and he was now ruffled on so many levels that sunnuvabitch, this intrusion proving even further that he and his father had zero in common. NOTHING! Bill Braswell was a fantastic source of embarrassment for Jason, committing such unthinkable and egregious violations of the Father/Son Code of Conduct: from his questioning the cashier about the actual ingredients of a McDonald's shake; to his literal interpretation of sarcasm; to his asking Jason's dates where their fathers went to school for Chrissakes; to this, the random dropping-in on a Sunday morning that sunnuvaBITCH!!

Beth's dying this past summer only widened the trench.

Yes, it unfortunate; and though she wasn't his real mother, yes, Jason attended her memorial service, wearing a mask of the aggrieved and hoping his tears were noticed, though his only real sadness was that he felt he'd lost a drinking buddy.

That was where he'd felt his proximity with her, in the bottle, and she had unwittingly taught him much 101-survival material, like: how to play the part through a morning hangover without revealing your pain. This was a certain indication that a behavior needed altering, she said, citing what would become Jason's personal motto, hair of the dog.

However, her untimely passing seemed to have created in Bill, an alcoholic in recovery, a sense of urging towards his son, like he was due for a myocardial infarction anytime soon himself. Hence, the visit today; hence, last Sunday's all-too-random call of concern from some far-off aunt he'd met maybe twice.

Beth had justified his drinking throughout high school, into college. She was his meal ticket. Now that she was gone it was suddenly, like, an issue with his father.

Jason felt an intervention was imminent, that sumbitch.

* * *

A heavy stomping on the front porch brought him back, and instinctively — because Pete was in the shower and Fred was still sleeping, couldn't be them; but, his father had entered once already, unannounced — he slid over and turned the dead bolt, hoping the click matched the stomp, and he jumped aside to avoid casting his shadow.

Slowly he backed down the hall, pretending to be at the library.

He passed Fred's closed door. Fred was still sleeping.

The front door opened and there was Fred. Jason looked around stupidly, like he'd just been found sleepwalking.

"Fred."

"Good, Jason. Wanna give us a hand?" Fred set a case of Budweiser longnecks on the floor. Two more snow-covered cases sat in the red Radio Flyer on the white walk, its obscure trail down the middle of the deserted road fading fast from a heavy, silent fall. Jason carried both in and kicked the door shut, leaving the little red wagon.

"Dude, where's your car?"

Fred took off his coat, hat, and boots, the white turning wet, blew into his red hands — because gloves were for babies, what Pete said — and punched Jason in the bicep, bambambam.

"Balls, Balls! Fuck I hate this game. Dumbest shit ever."

Fred smiled, proud he'd finally gotten in a lick.

Skinny, skinny Fred. His face looked suctioned. The punches were weak, more like a few attaboys, but they had landed on the same bicep as Pete's.

"Yeah, see? And those were with my left."

"Salty, where's the damn car?" They called him Mr. Salty, because his legs and arms were so skinny, like the nut character.

Fred shrugged. "Dunno, Braz. Was sorta playin' that tape through on my walk to Pecker's to get Mama some delicacy." A gerbil was pawing the sides of a plastic box, carried one-handed under the coat, Jason supposed. "Was thinking some beverage would help me remember, you know? Like a quantum leap to last night." He was smiling, listening to himself. "'Sides, game's on in a couple hours, and Sugar Magnolia's playing tonight. Big Sunday."

"So your car's just, out there." Jason began gathering the empties, sorting those aside that needed dumping.

Fred got a bucket and began dumping. "See, what I think happened was, I left Slammy's and drove to Mighty Taco, then caught a ride home with Lance'n them 'cause I forgot I drove to Mighty Taco."

"So, the ride's at Mighty Taco."

"Or at Slammy's. That's the gray area needs some color."

"But you caught a ride with Lance. That much you know."

"Lance was there. Yes."

Fred opened the window and dumped the bucket. Jason had boxed $3.15 in recycling return for the empties, was looking at around $5.00 when all was said, which would go into the house beer jar which was always empty.