by A N Sandra
“It… is…” Bud thought about it and agreed. That was the sound of the song. The quarry had a rhythm, and the song captured it. The most surprising thing was how appealing the song was, when the actual quarry didn’t sound appealing at all.
“I’ll play it for you on the guitar when we get home.” Joshua grinned. “The guys are gonna flip.”
“Yep, they probably are.” It was more than a good song. Bud didn’t know music, or the music business, but he knew a good song, and this song was something indefinable, but really good. “They’ll owe you for coming up with it.”
“It just came to me.” Joshua looked out the truck window with his grit-smudged chin tilted, pleased. “I hope they think they owe me, though.”
Bud knew how hard it was to lead a group of men who had to do what he said just because of the authority vested in him, first by Hump and later by Randy. How Joshua kept four other young men in line the way he did was always impressive.
“They already owe you,” Bud said as the countryside disappeared while they sped down the highway on their way home. “Even if they don’t know it.”
By Saturday it was clear that working together in perfect synchronicity was the new normal at the Macdonald Building Materials quarry. Not only did work get done extra efficiently, but Bud’s back didn’t hurt, and no one else complained of any aches or pains either. Bud wasn’t sure if the small ivory box in his pocket was responsible for the miraculous improvement at the quarry, but he kept it in his pocket at all times for the sake of superstition.
At noon on Saturday Bud sent everyone home. The quarry crew had logged a decent amount of overtime and actually gotten ahead of where Randy had hoped they would be previous to the trouble with the artifacts appearing on Tuesday. He completed his paperwork in the office and went fishing before coming home because Joshua had driven his own car to work for just such an eventuality.
Early afternoon is never the best time for fishing, but Bud had decent luck at his favorite spot before coming home. As he turned into his driveway a glance in the rear view mirror showed his mother’s Buick was right behind him. Katy had an unwavering instinct about her only son and never bothered to come over unless he was there. Now Bud smelled like beer and fish, and he could see that Back Pasture was practicing at his house because their rigs were all in the carport. Danica’s sister, Joyce, and mother, Janice, were there too, their trucks placed so that no one could park behind them.
“Never a dull moment,” Bud muttered to himself. Carefully, he made sure the ivory box was locked in his glove box, even though before this week he had never locked the glove box for any reason. He parked so that he didn’t block anyone in even though it meant he wasn’t under his own carport, with his mother Katy pulling right up behind him.
“Mom!” Bud affected great enthusiasm for his mother’s presence as she got out of her car. She was dressed in pink petal pusher style pants with a soft pink cardigan over a white shirt. Her intended look was to make her a harmless middle-aged woman. In reality she was a timeless barracuda.
“You smell like beer and fish!” Katy announced as she hugged Bud as briefly as possible.
“Did you come for dinner?” Bud asked politely.
“Danica invited me,” Katy said, as though she hadn’t fished for the invitation more aggressively than Bud had fished for the trout in the small cooler in back of his truck. “I have some books for you.”
Bud was never sure how the Holy Fire bookstore in Redding would operate in the black if Katy quit buying slim, brightly colored books telling people of every other religion that they were going to hell for certain. Katy’s purse was brimming with such books now. Previous books were buried along with the quarry artifacts behind the outhouse if Bud guessed that Danica would be really steamed over them. Some were saved until winter to start fires with. And some were simply fun to mock, so the kids did dramatic readings from them on boring winter nights. Twilight used some of them for pithy inspiration for t-shirt quotes. Bud sometimes suspected that he should discipline Twilight for mocking his mother so skillfully… but Katy never knew she was being mocked and it was hard not to be proud of Twilight’s cleverness.
As they approached the house the sound of Joshua’s song came from the back patio where Back Pasture practiced. Bud knew they were practicing briefly before packing up their instruments to go play for a wedding the next afternoon.
“They sound…” Katy paused. Praise was not her forte.
“Really good,” Bud supplied. They did. He couldn’t believe they were already playing the new song so tightly.
Katy hated compliments deeply. Even those given to her grandchildren were distasteful to her, so she wrinkled her nose to give the impression that she wasn’t impressed with the musical skill being displayed. But Bud knew that any time Katy couldn’t come up with negative comments quickly, praise was overdue.
Both of them walked to the back door where the former garage had been converted to bedrooms. There was still a hallway with a mudroom there and Bud stopped in front of the sink.
“I better clean these fish before I go in,” Bud said. Danica had clear rules about what could pass into her kitchen.
“You might use some mouthwash too,” Katy said helpfully. “Even though your wife doesn’t mind your drinking. She’s probably having a beer herself. Drinking so much isn’t a good example to the young people in your life.”
“Twilight is fourteen,” Bud shook his head. “She’s our last kid and she’s too precocious to follow examples anyway.”
“That is when an example is the most important—” Katy began, but Bud turned on the water in the huge mudroom sink. Katy went in the back door with the week’s offerings of religious instructional books to spread her viewpoint further to the family.
When the fish were safely cleaned and ready for the fridge Bud stepped into the kitchen to find it empty. The family was on the back patio and Katy was there with a diet no caffeine soda that Danica kept just for her. Danica’s mother, Janice, was drinking a PBR along with Danica. And Joyce was having a cigarette with hers, sitting off to the side with a coffee can full of sand that was her ashtray when she came to visit. Katy was surprisingly calm about Joyce’s smoking. Because Katy felt there was a special, unredeemable hell for smokers, she had pity for Joyce’s extra smelly sin. Bud treated himself to another beer before joining them.
Back Pasture was on a platform Bud had built over the leach field for the septic tank years before. They were in the middle of Joshua’s new song.
“Hey, honey,” Danica stood to kiss Bud before sitting back down to listen to the music. “We’re just having cold cuts tonight.”
“Great,” Bud said, even though sandwiches were not really his idea of food at all. He couldn’t really expect Danica to fix two hot meals every single day, especially not for all the people in the back yard, but he wished she wanted the hot meals as much as he did. He supposed he could learn to cook, be like on the men on TV who fixed things like bread pudding made from pumpkin pecan bread. The idea wasn’t unappealing, it just sounded like too much work after being in the quarry all day.
Dutifully, Bud kissed Janice on the cheek and dropped down into a lawn chair next to Joyce in her Smoker’s Den of Shame.
“They sound better every week,” Joyce commented as Bud settled into his lawn chair.
“They sound amazing today,” Bud answered.
“Hella tight,” Twilight said, from behind them.
“Hella,” Joyce agreed. Bud noticed she was wearing a dark pink t-shirt that announced she was SMOKING HOT in black print. Twilight had done her work well for the day.
“Have a good week at work?” Bud asked Joyce.
“Great,” Joyce said. She took a big drag from her cigarette and a large swig from her beer just from thinking about work, so Bud knew she wasn’t being truthful. “I caught four shoplifters and I fired Joanne for being late for the twenty-ninth time.”
“Anyone wearing a hijab is always shoplifting
,” Katy said helpfully from across the patio.
“None of them were in hijabs,” Joyce said with dry amusement. The town’s one Muslim family required strict dress on the part of their women, probably spurring Katy’s comment, but none had tried to shoplift anything. None of them had been brave enough to come into the store anyway. Their very presence in town clearly made Katy uncomfortable. “They were mostly teenagers. I didn’t even call the police. I just sent them away. It’s much easier to manage shoplifting without the homeless riff raff. I can handle a restless teen or two.”
“There is no reason for teenagers to run around unsupervised in Blythe anyway—” Katy began a new rant, but everyone turned away.
Joyce owned and managed a convenience store/gas station in Blythe. The store made most of its money on late night impulse purchases. In a bad divorce Joyce had been stuck with the store. She had gone from being a housewife to managing her ex-husband’s bad business decision. Once she had a been a fun loving girl, always ready to go horseback riding or tubing down the river, but those days were gone. She coped with the stress of her young adult children and demanding business with lots of cigarettes throughout the day, alternating beer and coffee as the hour demanded.
“How’s the quarry?” Joyce tried to pay him back for bringing up work. She looked at him through the smoke of the last drag off her cigarette and squinted a little.
“Really good right now,” Bud said honestly. “We had some trouble earlier in the week, but we’re all caught up and even ahead.”
“Really?” Joyce was clearly surprised. She raised her right eyebrow as she tapped her cigarette in the can. “Donovan came in late Tuesday night to buy a fifth of whiskey. He looked awful. Randy must be doing better than I thought he could or things would have spiraled out of control.”
“Randy is handling things okay,” Bud said, noncommittally. Privately Bud was livid that Donovan had purchased whiskey like a youth right before a big work day, though they’d had a very productive day on Wednesday anyway. It was hard not to feel like he had “won” something over Donovan’s possibly stress-driven sabotage. They had finished the work week very well. “Who’s working while you’re here?”
“Rhoda. She keeps the weirdos in line.”
Bud had known Rhoda since grade school. She was not only keeping weirdos away, but legitimate business too. No local would enter the store with Rhoda’s car outside. Only unwitting tourists would wander in. Once. Joyce tolerated her because she cleaned the store and would never steal, not for any personal charm that might translate into customer service, because Rhoda had never had it, even in childhood. Also, Joyce was deeply kind at heart and Rhoda was a bitter, lonely woman who needed a job.
“I hope you’re still going to help me install my new ice maker tomorrow,” Joyce reminded Bud. “We’re running out of ice almost every day. The old one can’t keep up.”
There went a single day with no responsibilities. Bud had committed to the installation of the icemaker on a similar Saturday afternoon. A couple of beers, good music, and the buzz of insects ready to pounce on innocent victims made him a chump, evidently.
“Sure,” Bud said, taking a really big pull from his bottle of beer. “What time works for you?”
“Dad!” Jael came up behind Bud and put her arms around his neck. Jael had a custom manicure with black nails, as usual, and a ring that looked like a flower eating a bug that somehow was clever and not tacky. She leaned over Bud in his chair and he could smell her signature floral lotion as she kissed his cheek from behind. No matter what season it was, Jael always smelled like peonies.
“Glad you’re home, honey,” Bud said.
“Just tonight. I have a big project due for finals on Monday. I should have stayed to work on it, but I couldn’t make myself do it.”
“You always get A’s,” Joyce said, slightly resigned. The inference was that Joyce’s own three sons did not have Jael’s natural organization and flare for presentation. Her two older boys used their intelligence and energy on an unending series of complicated pranks.
Bud knew it was hard for Joyce to parent three boys alone. Joyce’s twenty-one-year-old son, BJ, was playing the bass for Back Pasture as they spoke. BJ was an accomplished bass player, but other than that he was merely an unenthusiastic drywall worker. Bryan, age nineteen, was attending community college in Redding with Brock, her youngest son. Brock was sixteen but had mild Asperger’s and did better in college with other people who were only interested in studying than he had in the local public school where his disinterest in sports and impaired social skills made him a target of ridicule. Bud was closer to Brock than he was BJ or Bryan, for the simple reason that Brock had always needed more patience and help. At that moment Brock was sitting in a lawn chair reading a thick book in the far corner of the yard, away from the music and fun.
Jael reached over to hug Joyce, avoiding her cigarette, and Bud could see his lovely daughter from the side. With softly curling brown hair, blue eyes like perfectly cut jewels, and flawless skin, Jael was the prettiest of his daughters. She studied marketing at Chico State and marketed herself to good effect.
“Did Rachel come with you?” Bud asked.
“She’s in the carport talking to Caleb.”
“Caleb’s here?” Joyce looked up, surprised. Then her eyes narrowed. “He didn’t bring Susan, did he?”
“He’s not stupid,” Jael shook her head. “I think she went on a business trip.”
“Maybe she’ll stay gone!” Joyce said, hopefully.
Everyone in hearing range brightened at the sentiment. Caleb’s wife, Susan, had alienated the entire Henderson family with different power trips to the point that even Caleb could not pretend she was misunderstood. Still, Caleb was enthralled with Susan and could not leave her, even when no one in the family could come to their wedding in good conscience. Susan had been livid at not being the star of the Henderson family at her wedding, so she retaliated by keeping Caleb away from his family as much as she could.
Rachel and Caleb each grabbed a beer on their way to the patio, Bud saw them through the sliding glass door. Danica jumped up to hug them both, but really, she was most thrilled to see Caleb after his long absence. Rachel graciously accepted her token squeeze and stood aside to let her mother grip Caleb with a tight hug.
“Baby!” Janice stood up and hugged Caleb after Danica let go of him. Caleb was a good-natured young man and blushed at all the attention. When Janice let him go Caleb walked over and hugged Katy before turning to Bud, who pulled Caleb to him, relieved to see him after a long absence.
“Where is your wife?” Katy wanted to know.
“In San Diego at a convention,” Caleb said.
“Oh, she works conventions?” Katy made it sound like Susan was a call girl plying her wares, but no one made any wisecracks. Katy had been forced to work herself as a young single mother when Bud’s father left. She was an insurance broker, but she was suspicious of women who worked when they were married. Except Danica, who she thought should work to help support six children, after all.
“I’m glad to see you, Grandma,” Caleb said with a peace-loving grin.
Michael arrived through the back door also, and Back Pasture stopped playing then. The group unsnarled themselves from their instruments while Caleb walked over to greet them.
Everyone grazed from the deli plates Danica brought out. Bud had several sandwiches, even though he wished they were having something hot. With sauce. And pasta or rice. Better yet, mashed potatoes and gravy never got old.
The members of Back Pasture folded Caleb into their group, and for a few minutes Bud felt like life was perfect.
Never once had Bud wanted more children than Caleb. When Caleb had been a baby he had been enough for Bud. The love that filled Bud’s heart when the maternity nurse had put Caleb into his arms had overwhelmed him completely. Each child in Bud’s life had brought more love along with added responsibility, and Bud couldn’t imagine which of his children h
e could live without. They mingled with each other, their grandmothers, and the band members. Twenty-eight years of marriage and twenty-six years of parenting had taught him that life is only a series of moments.
“A good time to do the ice machine would be at ten tomorrow,” Joyce told Bud as he set down his empty beer bottle.
“Super. Can’t wait.” Bud turned to Danica. “I can’t go to Mass tomorrow with you, now.”
Katy snorted. She considered Mass to be a Satanic ritual and was exasperated that Bud would ever go. He didn’t go often enough for Danica, but any at all was too much for Katy.
“You weren’t going anyway,” Danica said, wisely. “Next week you can come if you want.”
Bud thought he saw Katy think about getting a beer, just for a moment.
Blythe Maxi Mart was on a prominent corner of Blythe, which didn’t really mean much in a town pared down to only a few real streets that weren’t residential since Urban Relocation had weeded out the “extra” people there. The Maxi Mart stood out against the blue sky with garish red trim painted around the edges as if a second grader had determined the color scheme. It wasn’t pretty, but it was impossible to miss.
Joyce’s ex-husband, Kenny, had been tired of traveling for his fiber optics installation career. He had cashed in his retirement to purchase it, then became tired of running it in less than a year. Kenny had been tired of Joyce and his sons also. He’d left them all for a twenty-eight-year-old hairdresser and the only thing of value in the divorce had been the store, so Joyce had been forced to take it. Their house was heavily mortgaged because Kenny had taken the hairdresser to France of all places while waiting for the divorce to come through, so the store was the only asset left. The hairdresser and Kenny were still together, married and somewhere in Oregon, giving people from California a bad name, Bud was sure.
