The Rough English Equivalent (The Jack Mason Saga Book 1)

by Stan Hayes

  “I see. And for whom, besides himself, does he reserve the ‘Just Plain Bizarre’ label?”

  “Now you’re talkin’ transcendentalism. We can always ask him.”

  “Let me ask you something.”

  “What?” he said, turning his face to hers.

  “When your car broke down- were you really looking for a theatre, or were you running from her?”

  “Just a theatre. Do I strike you as a torch-carrier?”

  “For me, I hope. But someone taught you an awful lot about making love, and people like that aren’t easily forgotten. I’m guessing she’s the one.”

  “Moses smiled. “Well,” he said, “It certainly wasn’t Laverne Levine.”

  “You’re making that up.”

  “No, she was my high school sweetheart. Wouldn’t even screw me before I left for the Navy; I had to settle for a jerkoff.”

  “Guess she figured you’d be getting enough, being a sailor and all.”

  “Guess so.” He dropped off his elbow onto his back and looked up at her. “She had one thing exactly right, though.”

  “Who?”

  “Sarah.”

  “What?”

  “She said makin’ love should be the highest form of art.”

  “On that point she had it exactly right.” She took his hand and put it between her legs. “Do me a little before you start the eggs.”

  He was swollen again as soon as his fingers felt the slickness of her lips. “Oh, baby. She’d be prouda you.”

  And I’m prouda you, too, buddy, she thought. And more than a little amazed that you’re still driving around town with your dick on your hood. That’ll get you into Just Plain Bizarre, hands down.

  “OK, boys,” Mr. Reynolds said, “let’s settle down and take a look at today’s lesson.” Any time I spend Saturday night at Ricky’s, I have to go with him to Sunday School. And church. And get up early to get ready. It’s not so bad once you get there, the taste of Miz Terrell’s scrambled eggs, toast and jelly still hanging on at the back of your throat; everybody’s real nice, particularly to me since I’m a visitor. Flx hates it, though; he just sits on my shoulder, beak shut, lettin’ me feel those little claws now and then.

  What gets me is how a lot of the grown folks, and a few of the kids, act like they’ve got this big secret, and don’t you wish you knew it? Most of the kids in the class, though, are like Ricky and me; we’re here because somebody else thinks it’s a good idea. Seems to me like Mr. Reynolds might be here for the same reason. He doesn’t look much like a Sunday school teacher; tall, dark and handsome, like they say, and still pretty young. He played first base for the Bullets, but when he married Miz Reynolds he quit and went to work for Mr. Terrell selling insurance. I heard Mr. Terrell saying to Ricky’s mom that it was gonna be good for Jim, that’s Mr. Reynolds’s name, be good for his business to be active in church work. Miz Reynolds- her name used to be Laura Bateman- Ricky says she’s been singing solos with the First Baptist Church choir since she wasn’t much older that we are. She’s really good-looking, too. So I guess it wasn’t all that hard of a choice that Jim Reynolds had to make. First base with the Bullets or a home run with Laura Bateman.

  Anyway, he starts talking about the lesson, which all of the regulars are supposed to’ve read out of their little magazines- they call ‘em “quarterlies”- and he tells us the main idea of the story, which is about this boy about our age who finds a wallet with some money in it. It’s enough to pay for the new football he’s been wanting, and at first he’s so happy that he can’t wait for the sporting goods store to open the next day, which is a Saturday, and he can go buy the football. But what happens is he can’t get to sleep, thinking about the person who lost the wallet and what they might’ve needed the money for, and he remembers the last time he was in Sunday School, when his teacher told them “Whenever you want to know what to do when you have a problem that you can’t solve, just ask yourself, ‘What would Jesus do?’ “

  So when he’s done telling the story, he asks us who wants to tell the class what Bobby, who’s the boy in the story, does. And this one kid, Perry, raises his hand, just like he’s in regular school, and saying “Ooh, ooh,” like he’s gotta take a shit. And Mr. Reynolds says “Tell us what Bobby did, Perry.”

  “He, he, ah, he told his daddy he had th’ wallet and gave it to him, an’, an’, his daddy said he’d keep it ‘til they could put an advertisement in th’ newspaper. An’ he told Bobby what a good boy he was to tell ‘im about it.”

  “That’s right,” Mr. Reynolds said. “And it’s a good lesson for all of us, idn’t it? Whenever we don’t know what we should do in a situation, all we have to do is say to ourselves, ‘What would Jesus do?’ ” Well, everybody nodded and smiled at Mr. Reynolds, and about that time the lady started playing the music that tells everybody to come out to the main room, so he sort of blew out his breath so his cheeks fluttered and said, “Well, that’s it for this week, boys; see ya next Sunday.”

  We got up, walked out and sat on the benches in the main room. The piano was making so much noise that it was hard to talk, so I was looking around the room and I got to thinking about what Mose told me about Thomas Jefferson’s letter to somebody about Epicurus, a guy who lived way, way back, even before Jesus. He was writing about how he liked Epicurus’s ideas so much better than what some of the other big shots had to say way about what life was all about back then, how if you weren’t having a good time, you really weren’t living wisely. I’m sure Epicurus would’ve given back the wallet too, but from what I know about Jesus, which isn’t all that much, it doesn’t seem like he never had much to say about having a good time. Maybe next time a good question would be “What would Epicurus do?” Flx, who happened to be tuned in right then, agreed.

  “Hey, Mose.” Roy Hartwell’s head and one shoulder protruded through the swinging doors.

  “Hiya, Roy. What’s up?”

  “Couldja step out here for a minnit?”

  “Uh, yeah. Hang on just a second.” Draining his Red Cap, Moses slid off the barstool and walked outside. “Whatcha need, buddy?”

  Roy looked at him briefly, then across the sidewalk to where the Estate Wagon was parked. “I ’us jus’ lookin’ atcher car. Th’ hood ornament. I may be nuts; I prob’ly am. Wouldja mind tellin’ me somethin’?”

  “If I can,” said Moses. “What is it?”

  “I jus’ happm’nd ta be lookin’ ’at way as I ’us passin’ by,” he said, the color rising in his cheeks, “an’ I saw it; then I stopped an’ looked at it agin. Thassa helluva April Fool joke. Where’dja git it?”

  As Moses moved to the front of the car, a couple of inbound Lunch Room customers stopped to look over their shoulders. “Hell,” the shorter of the two, whom Moses recognized as one of Ribeye’s fellow handgun aficionados, said. “ ’At’s a dick.”

  Moses’ mind took him on a brief, warp-speed trip, out and back. “Not just any dick, my boy. That’s a very sharp dick indeed. I wonder where it came from.”

  “ ’Less you look close,” Roy said, shaking his head, “You’d never notice it. Looks almost ’zackly liike a reg’lar Buick.”

  “Yeah,” the sometime pistol packer said, “ ’Cept ’at’s a Bu-dick.”

  By the end of the next day the fact of Bu-dick was abroad on the streets of Bisque. It was a couple of minutes past six that afternoon when Moses nosed the wagon into a parking spot opposite the neon Bisque, which had developed a sputtering blink sometime during the last week, got out and walked into the hotel lobby. He tossed a wave at Jerry McClain as he approached the desk. “Hey, Mose,” he said with a grin that was just a shade too wide. Looking for Mrs. Mason?”

  “Bingo, my boy. She around?”

  “She’s up on three. You can go up if you want to. She’s just checking on some paint work in 314.”

  “No thanks. I’ll just wait in the café.”

  Serena showed up just as Moses was finishing his coffee. “Hiya, sailor.”
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  “Hiya, sculptor. Or you can call me Bu-dick, if ya wanta be stylish.”

  “Bu-dick? What’re you talking about?”

  “I’m talkin’ about that effigy of my dick that you put on my hood. When’d you do it?”

  “Back in November, when you lent me your car to go to Augusta.” She worked to suppress a smile. “I thought you’d notice it way before now. The more time that passed, it just sort of became part of the wagon and I honestly didn’t think about it that much after a couple of months, except when it popped into my head occasionally, and like as not I’d laugh out loud. Are you mad at me?”

  “Ask me in a day or two. I may find that I prefer it to ‘Cueball,’ but I wanta see how the good people of the hamlet digest my silver dick, and that oughta be long enough to get it spread all over town. I walked up on some high school kids standin’ around lookin’ at it this afternoon, laughin’ like hell; one of ’em had a camera.”

  “Would you like me to take it off? I have your old one upstairs.”

  “Nah. Why doncha just give it to me, and I’ll switch ’em when I’m ready.”

  “OK. I’ll run up and get it in a minute. Say.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to know something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “This whole hood ornament business was a just a dumbass brainstorm of mine. I didn’t take a cast of your dick just to play a joke on you. But the more I thought about the shape, the more I could see it, tastefully streamlined of course, a merger of your dick and your car into a single art object. I thought it’d be funny, of course, but I thought I might find some inspiration if I started working with the shape on some kind of immediate project, no matter how limited the scope might be. Then, once I finished it, I was afraid you wouldn’t go along with putting it on the car, and it wouldn’tve made sense unless it was on the hood.”

  “And it was all right with you if I looked like a jackass, or more likely a friggin’ sex maniac, as long as you pursued your art.”

  “As far as your ‘image’ around here’s concerned, nothing else seems to’ve bothered you; I figured you’d handle it, maybe get a little PR out of the whole thing.”

  “The whole thing? What whole thing? Bein’ Mr. Bu-dick for the rest of my life?”

  “Given the amount of crazy shit that you’ve pulled since you hit town, buster, you’re begrudgin’ me this puny little prank?”

  Her sudden truculence made him smile. “I guess not. Mind if I go up with you?”

  “I guess not. Want to see what I’m working on?”

  “Sure. I’ve got sump’m to show you, too.”

  “I’ll bet you do, Chili,” she said. “C’mon.”

  Jack and Ricky stood on the corner of Willow Grove Lane and Academy Street, watching their peers trickle by in twos and threes on their afternoon walk home, some waiting to cross Academy, others staying on the near side in no need of Patrol assistance in crossing the street. Ricky, filling in for the ailing Harold Glass today, had taken over his post, since it was the farthest from school and not subject to scrutiny by Ward B Grammar School faculty. The post required a steady and experienced patrolman, and Ricky had decided to take it himself rather than entrust it to another patrolman. As the patrol’s Lieutenant, decisions such as these were his to make. Jack, the Captain, had given him wide latitude in running the patrol, much more so than Gil Walters, the Captain of the other patrol, had given his Lieutenant. Jack circulated from post to post on his bicycle, his mobility, bright-white Sam Browne belt and blue-and-silver badge combining to project an image of quiet authority.

  They’d switch with Walters’ patrol next week, doing mornings, which was a much more intense activity than afternoons, particularly a Friday afternoon in Georgia’s springtime, the emerging pale green of the street’s eponymous willows, like the weekend’s possibilities, just starting to open up. As lawmen will, Jack and Ricky took momentary advantage of this undemanding duty to speculate on off-duty pursuits.

  “Daddy’s talkin’ about takin’ Mom and me with ’im to Atlanta week after next,” Rick said. “Said we could go see th’ Crackers play. He thinks they’re playin’ Boston that Sunday. Wanta go? We’d hafta miss school next Friday, but he said he’d talk to Miz Borden and get us off.”

  “Hell yeah I wanta go. Guess Glass’ll be back next week. He can be Captain and Lieutenant both for a day.”

  “Ah hell, let ’im appoint somebody Lieutenant. We’ll be watchin’ big-time baseball, might as well let him have that much fun.”

  “Hm. Guess so.” Jack looked up as the unmistakable sound of a Big Twin exhaust grew louder. “Hey. Here’s Brady.”

  Fifty percent of the Bisque Police Department’s Motor Corps rolled to a stop at the curb, the Harley-Davidson’s broad solo saddle sinking on its hydraulic post under Officer Dan “Tub” Brady’s ample physique as he took his feet off the floorboards. One hand went to his cap, easing it up slightly on his forehead, the other to the Big Twin’s gas tank-mounted ignition switch. “Afternoon, men,” he said, eyes blanked by aviator-style Ray-Bans, the rest of the round red face smiling just slightly to indicate an intent to amuse.

  “Hey, Brady,” said Jack, the ranking officer, his eyes on the Big Twin’s black bulk. “Whenja get the new motor?”

  “Wednesday,” said Brady, having swung a leg over the bike to sit with his feet on the curb. “Rode it over from the dealer’s in Atlanta.”

  “How’s it ride?” Ricky asked him.

  “Jam-up, with this new Hydra-Glide front end. This ’49 model’s th’ first one the dealer’s had to sell since fillin’ th’ Atlanta PD’s order.”

  “Sure looks good,” said Jack. That the radio?” He pointed at two black boxes that were mounted where a civilian model would mount saddlebags.

  “Yup.”

  How fast’ve you had ’er?”

  “Oh, still breakin’ ’er in; ran ’er up to 70 once or twiice, on th’ way back, but she needs a coupla thousand miles on th’ clock before I turn ’er wide open. At which time she’ll top a hunderd, or go back to that Cadillac-drivin’ dude of a dealer ’til she can.” He shifted on the seat, bringing a cordovan-putteed leg up to rest on the other knee. “Had to give yer boss a citation while ago,” he said, looking at Jack.

  “Who?” Jack asked.

  “Ole Cueball. How many bosses’ve ya got?”

  Jack maintained a poker face. “What’d he do?”

  “Cited him under City Ordinance 163-d. Obscene behavior in a public place.”

  Both boys’ faces paled under their tans. “What?” said Jack, poker face long gone.

  “163-d. He’us ridin’ around town with a chrome-plated penis on th’ hood of his car.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Jack.

  “Seemed like he didn’t, either,” said Brady. “Riit up ’ere in th’ hood orny-ment, liike it ’us put on at th’ factory. Ya’d miss it if ya wudn’t lookin’ fer it. But seein’ is believin’.” He stood momentarily, swinging his leg back over the Big Twin. He flipping out the kickstarter pedal, he paused before kicking down on it. “Gotta go,” he said, retorquing the stingy smile into place. “You boys be good.” The engine wheezed under the first kick, growled to life with the second, and Brady was gone with a screech and a roar, leaving Jack and Ricky goggle-eyed under the willows.

  Leaving his bicycle in the hotel garage, Jack rode the elevator up to five, wondering if he’d find his mother in their apartment. Turning his key in the lock, he opened the door. “Hey, bub,” she said, turning to greet him with a bright smile.

  “Hey,” he said, the uncharacteristic glumness of the reply capturing her full attention.

  “What’s up, Jackie-boy?” she asked, moving to put a hand on either side of his face.

  “Ol’ Tub Brady told Ricky and me he gave Mose a ticket today.”

  “Oh-oh. How fast was he going?”

  “Not for speedin’; he said Mose was ridin’ around with a penis on the hood of his car
.”

  Serena’s face fell; he hadn’t switched them. She said nothing for what seemed to Jack to be a very long time, so long that he started toward his room.

  “Jack.”

  He stopped, looking over his shoulder. “Ma’am?”

  “Nothing. Aren’t you spending the night with Ricky?”

  “I was s’posed to, but I don’t think I will now. I don’t really feel all that good.”

  “Want some cocoa?”

  “OK.”

  Flx was perched on top of my bookshelf, preening. “Well, Jack,” he said, his squawk grating more than usual on top of my confusion. “Whaddya think of this here can of worms?”

  I sipped some cocoa, glad that Mom had remembered to put extra sugar in it. “You talkin’ about this penis bidness?”

  “I ain’t talkin’ about cream of wheat, son. So whaddya think?”

  “Think, think,” I mimicked his squawk, for which I got a really nasty Goshawkian stare in return, but time to actually think about what the hell it was I did think about Moses havin’ a dick on his hood in the first place, let alone gettin’ a ticket, which means it’ll be all over town before you know it. “I think somebody else put it on there, is what I think. Without him knowin’,” I finally said.

  Flx glided over to the foot of the bed. He spread his wings part-way, putting one around my back, strong gray feathers extended like separate fingers touching me lightly, to show me that he knew I was pissed and that he wasn’t holding the squawk imitation against me. “Let’s see,” he said. “What was it Tub said? “…liike it ’us put on at th’ factory.’? We need to see that. But even without seein’ it, we’ve got a pretty good idea about who’s behind it, don’t we?”

  “I guess so.”

  This time it was Flx’s turn to mimic. “I guess so,” he said, as human as a bird who ain’t a parrot could manage. “Son, most people only do two or three things with dicks. They piss through ’em, play with ’em, and stick ’em in other people. Now if we assume that displayin’ a dick like that ain’t about pissin’ or playin’, what’s left?”