by Shawn Inmon
The Unusual Second Life of
Thomas Weaver
Episode 1
By Shawn Inmon
©2015 by Shawn Inmon
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Published by Pertime Publishing
August 1976
“C’mon, Zack. You promised.”
This was true. For Tommy’s fifteenth birthday, some months back, Zack had failed to get him any kind of gift. In a moment of guilty weakness, Zack had promised to take him to one of the lake parties, but had evaded keeping that promise. Tonight was the last party before Zack left for college, and Tommy knew it.
“Okay, you can come tonight, but don’t make me regret it. If you tell Mom anything, I'll kill you. Understand?” Zack waited for Tommy to meet his eyes.
Tommy looked up at his big brother, five inches taller than him, even after he’d had what was going to pass for his growth spurt. He gave him what he hoped was a confidence-inspiring grin.
“Do I look like a narc to you?” In light of their history, that was a poor choice of words. Tommy had ratted Zack out more times than he could remember.
Zack's eyes narrowed. “No, you don’t, at least not lately.” Lightning quick, Zack punched him in the side. Tommy winced, but didn’t say a word. “That’s why I’m bringing you along. Well, that and you make a good cover story with Mom. She’d never believe I’d take you to a kegger.”
I can’t really believe it either, but…heck yeah!
“As far as she knows, we’re just going to the lake for a bonfire. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Zack’s gaze lingered for two seconds longer, looking for weakness. “Good. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes. Get changed and grab a towel.”
Anything Tommy said could endanger his chances of going, so he shut up and went to their bedroom at the back of the house, the one that would soon be all his. He shimmied out of his gym shorts and fished his blue and gold swim trunks out of the bottom drawer. When Tommy reappeared in the living room, Zack shook his head. Skinny legs, Mom-approved swimsuit, brillo-pad hair that stuck out at all angles. “Oh, hell no. Not going to cut it. You look like you’re auditioning for the Osmonds.”
Zack and Tommy were as different as brothers could be. Zack was a younger version of their father, six feet tall with wavy brown hair that he wore in a long, careless shag. He was a natural athlete, an excellent middle distance runner with a full ride track scholarship at Oregon State. Zack got good grades and managed to stay out of serious trouble, due more to his ability to charm his way out of consequences than to his behavior. Zack had every girl he was ever interested in, and he had been interested in a lot.
Tommy was not handsome, athletic, academically gifted, charismatic, or popular. He studied hard to get lower grades than Zack got without effort. He had a couple of good friends, but none of them were the popular kids who ran the school. Zack reigned over the popular clique. Seeing the brothers together, people sometimes wondered if the milkman had made an extra delivery on his early morning run, sixteen years earlier.
For Tommy, therefore, this debut with Zack’s friends felt important. If he had any chance to move up the hipness scale at Middle Falls High, it would start at this party.
“Man, don’t you ever go outside?” Zack stared pointedly at Tommy’s pale legs.
Tommy didn’t go outside much. He was fair-skinned, and long exposure to the sun turned him into a giant freckle. Or roasted him like a lobster.
“Okay. Never mind. Too late to do anything about that, but that swimsuit has got to go. It looks like something Mom picked out for you.”
Tommy opened his mouth to say, “She did,” but wisely closed it.
“You must have a pair of old jeans in there that you won’t need for school this year, don’t you?”
Tommy ran a quick mental inventory of his pants and said, “Yeah, but—”
"No buts. Go get ‘em. Hurry.”
When Tommy returned with the jeans, Zack brandished a pair of scissors. The jeans were well-worn, faded and soft with wear. Zack chopped at the legs with abandon, then held out his masterpiece with a devilish smile.
Zack had cut the jeans off so short that the pockets on both sides hung down below the cut. “Holy shit, Zack! You cut ‘em off too short! My ass will hang out.” Tommy’s voice sounded high and squeaky in his own ears, so he shut up.
“Man up. Don’t be a baby. Look at mine.”
Zack’s own cutoffs were the same, at least in theory. Of course, the style wouldn't look the same on Tommy. Screw it. If I have to let my ass hang out of my cutoffs in order to get into this party, so be it. “Change your shirt, too. Don’t you have something cool to wear? Wait, what am I thinking? Of course you don’t. Look under my bed, my Foghat shirt is under there. You can wear it tonight.”
“Yes!” turned to run back to his bedroom and almost stepped on Amy, their dachshund. Amy had a knack for standing where she was most likely to be in the way. He jumped over her, yelled, “Sorry, Amy!” over his shoulder, then almost barreled over his mother, Anne, half hidden behind a towering laundry basket. “Sorry, Mom!”
“Those better not be the jeans I got you for Easter. Those have to last you until Christmas!” The words echoed off the bedroom door, which Tommy had shut behind him. He pulled off the cutoffs and considered a new dilemma. He held the cutoffs against him. Do I need underwear with this? I don’t want to be a complete dork, but I don’t want my dingle berries hanging out, either. He tried the cutoffs on commando, but he was convinced he would be making his big debut in more ways than one.
Underwear it is.
Tommy rummaged under Zack's bed, pushing aside a stack of Penthouses and Playboys, until he found the black Foghat T-shirt. It was slightly rank, but no doubt cooler than a clean white shirt. He pulled it on and examined his look in the half-mirror over the dresser. His hair stuck out at many angles, as it always had. Nothing ever helps, so why bother? He gave up and headed for the front room.
*
Zack jumped and slid gracefully across the hood of the ‘69 Camaro. He had seen Starsky and Hutch do the same thing a few weeks before and he’d been doing it ever since. Tommy opened the passenger door, clambered in and rolled down the window. Zack turned the key and the V-8 rumbled to life with its hoarse feline growl. The 8-track stereo clicked on and the rolling intro to Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir blared from the speakers. Zack nodded his head in rhythm to the music, looked at Tommy, smiled his Pepsodent smile, and winked.
Man, I wish I could hate him. No one can hate Zack, though. The bastard.
“You can ride shotgun unless we see some foxy girl walking down the road, then you’re in the back. Got it?”
“Got it.” Tommy pursed his lips and squinted out toward the horizon, going for his best 'I’m cool' p
ose. He had practiced it in the mirror that afternoon.
Twenty minutes later, Zack turned the Camaro off the highway onto a stretch of country road. A few miles later, he slowed and turned left onto a gravel road. This deteriorated into a dirt road, which soon gave way to a meadow marked by half a dozen sets of tire tracks. A campfire crackled in a crudely rocked firepit, loosely surrounded by large logs. Around the perimeter sat three old pickup trucks, a Pinto, an old Dodge, and a ’63 Impala. On the far side of the meadow was what Zack and his friends termed The Beach. It was just a muddy lake shore, but the name had stuck.
Zack rolled up and parked beside the Pinto. “Listen, Squirt. Try to find somebody that’s not too cool and hang out with them. Just don’t draw attention to yourself and you’ll be fine. You're my brother, after all.” He got out of the Camaro and walked up to a 300-pound behemoth lounging on a truck tailgate. “Beer me, Tiny.”
Jim “Tiny” Patterson had a lumberjack beard that merged with the black thatch on his chest. Zack claimed that Tiny had hit puberty in Kindergarten. Tiny pulled a clear plastic cup off a stack, held it under the tap of the keg sitting next to him, and handed it over. Zack poured the entire cup down his gullet, smacked his lips, and held the cup out again. “I dub thee 'Sir Tiny, Keeper of the Keg.' Beer me again, Sir Tiny.”
When Zack had his refill, he looked around the party for feminine companionship. Tommy watched as Zack's eyes fixed on a pretty brunette wearing cutoffs and a white halter top. A moment later, Zack's arm was around her, whispering something in her ear. The girl giggled.
Tommy sighed. What’s it like to be good at every damned thing you do? He slipped out of the Camaro, trying to be inconspicuous. He considered walking up to Tiny and confidently saying, “Beer me, dude,” but knew he would never be able to pull it off. He settled for eye contact and a nod. The less I say, the less chances for me to make an ass of myself.
“Baby Weaver,” Tiny rumbled, but smiled as he said it. His paw deftly plucked another cup, filled it, then held it out.
“Thanks, man.”
Tiny moved his hand back a fraction of an inch. The smile disappeared. “That’ll be a buck, Baby Weaver.”
Tommy flushed. The sum total of his earthly wealth amounted to less than the requested buck, and none of it was on him. He glanced around for Zack, but his brother was already gone. “Uhhh…”
Tiny smirked. “Just shittin’ ya, man. You’re covered.”
“Oh, ha. Good one.”
With Tiny’s limited attention span exhausted, he began humming along to Gimme Three Steps by Lynyrd Skynyrd blasting out of the truck’s speakers. Tommy wandered the edges of the party, flitting around like a moth at various groups, but moving away when someone looked at him. Eventually he came to rest against the side of the Camaro.
After ninety minutes, his first beer was warm and only half gone. Olympia beer was weak to begin with; as Zack always said, It’s the water, and nothing more.
Zack had snuck out to parties like this for years, and Tommy could see why. The whole party revolved around him. Tommy had always imagined these parties to be exotic, grownup affairs. The reality fell far short of that. There was a lot of casual flirting, and some couples wandered off into the woods. Massive amounts of beer and marijuana were consumed, much of both by Zack, who was already looking unsteady.
Never mind. I'm at a party with the cool kids, and I haven't humiliated myself yet. Here's to me. He took a swig of the warm, flat beer, then tried to pour out the remainder without anyone noticing, lest he be revealed as a lightweight. Just then, he felt something soft and warm brush against his arm, and a feminine voice say "Hey."
He turned and looked straight into the bottle-green, stoned-drowsy, dilated eyes of Amanda Jarvis. Tommy froze. He had never been so close to a goddess before and didn’t know how to act in her divine presence.
Admittedly, Amanda wasn’t a goddess in the technical sense. Just like Tommy, she was a sophomore at Middle Falls High. Beyond that, they lived in different circles. She was tall and lean, with blonde hair that feathered back from her heart-shaped face and fell straight down her back. She had dated college men since eighth grade. The Amandas of Tommy's world dated Zacks, not Tommies. She was wearing cutoffs and a burnt orange halter top that showed off her dark tan. The mixture of weed, tanning lotion, and perfume that wafted from her made his knees feel a little weak.
For one dizzying moment, Tommy thought she was going to kiss him. She didn't, but she flashed her dazzling white teeth at him and said, “Hey,” again. Her voice was distant, as cool as the other side of the pillow.“Uh, hey.” Tommy felt the telltale burn on his cheeks. If Amanda noticed, she gave no sign.
“I had to bring my cousin tonight, and she hasn’t found anyone to hang out with. She’s bugging me to leave, but I’m not ready to go yet. Would you talk to her?” She ran the tips of her fingers across Tommy’s neck, causing gooseflesh to erupt down his arms. He fought the urge to shiver with delight. If he’d had a tail, it would have been wagging vigorously.
Whatever minimal effort Amanda was spending to persuade Tommy into doing her bidding was unnecessary. He would strip naked and run through the center of the party if she so much as asked.
“Okay!” Too much. “I mean, yeah, sure. Where is she?”
Amanda inclined her head toward a short, heavyset redhead sitting alone on a log, staring into the fire, heaving a long sigh of boredom.
The universe aligns.
“Yeah, sure, Amanda. I’ll hang out with her. Do you know what she’s interested in?”
Amanda ignored the question. She had transferred ownership of the problem to a minion, and that was all that mattered. “Her name’s Georgia. That’s her name, though, not where she’s from.” Amanda laughed.
Tommy smiled as though that were funny. “I’ll talk to her.”
"Thanks." Amanda vanished like a genie, leaving behind that intoxicating mix of Fabergé shampoo, dope, and Babe perfume.
Tommy looked one way, then the other, trying to be inconspicuous about his mission. Tiny had abandoned his post at the keg and was passed out, a large mound of human in the grass. Tommy refilled his cup, then wandered toward the fire.
As he approached, Georgia looked up from the flames. “I know she sent you over here. If she had the sense God gave crabapples, she’d be dangerous.”
Tommy smiled.“Amanda? Yeah, she asked me to come and talk to you, but I’ve been spending all night trying to work up the nerve to come talk to you anyway. She just gave me an excuse.” Tommy paused, waiting to see if his nose might grow.
Georgia finally looked away from the fire and sized Tommy up. She said, “Whatever, doofus,” and scooched over on the log. It was a little after ten, and the sky had clouded over. The evening felt cool.
“I’m Tommy.” He sat down, a reasonable distance away.
“Georgia,” she said, turning to look back into the dancing flames.
“I’ve never seen you around town. Where do you go to school?”
“Hawaii. My Dad took a job over there a few years ago.”
“Hawaii? Awesome!” Tommy eyed her copy-paper complexion, tried to imagine her laying out on a sandy beach, and imagined her roasted to magenta. Her narrowed eyes and sour expression finally delivered the message: I don’t suffer fools gladly. Wise up, or begone.
Tommy could not wise up, but he could and did shut up.
Without looking at him, she said, “Yeah, I get it. I thought it would be cool to live in Hawaii, too, but after a few weeks, I just figured out high school is high school, wherever you are.” She nodded her head absently at Amanda, now cuddled up to an older-looking guy with a dark tan and workout biceps. “Well, whatever. Two more years, then I’ll be off to college and I can leave all that petty high school bull behind.”
I wonder if college isn’t just more high school on a bigger scale, Tommy thought. “What do you want to study in college?”
“What are you, my guidance counselor?” She glanced at To
mmy. “Ah, forget it. I want to study Astronomy,” she said, pointing up at the sky. Starless, thanks to the clouds. As she did, a huge, warm raindrop splashed against her pale skin, as if the very stars she wanted to study had spat on her. There hadn’t been any rain in the forecast. More warm drops splattered down, then became a sudden sheet of water. The bonfire hissed as people scattered for cover.
Tommy yelled “See ya!” to Georgia, ran to the Camaro, and jumped into the shotgun seat. Zack did not show up; he was probably off in the woods with that foxy girl. After five minutes, when Zack did not materialize, Tommy looked in the ignition and saw that Zack had left the keys in. He turned the key a click, then flipped the wipers on. They could barely keep up with the deluge.
The party was obviously over. Engines started all around him. As the Pinto beside him backed up and turned away, the headlights flashed across the bank where a small group had been just a few minutes before. He thought he saw Zack lying on his back on The Beach, rain pounding down on him. What the hell?
Tommy opened the door and ran to the general vicinity. Sure enough, there Zack was, laying stretched out, mumbling something incoherent. “Zack!” Tommy shouted over the storm. “Zack, come on, let’s go!”
Zack’s head turned in Tommy’s direction, but his eyes didn’t focus. “No, I’m good right here.”
“It’s raining!”
“No shit,” Zack seemed content in spite of the weather.
“Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Zack lifted his head, focused on Tommy for a moment. “Hey, that’s my shirt.” He didn’t seem inclined to move more than that, so Tommy tried to pull him up into a sitting position. He got him bent almost to 90 degrees, then his hand slipped. Zack fell back, banged his head and laughed.
“Zack, come on, we’ve gotta get out of here. Everyone else is gone.”
“Chickenshits. What, are they gonna melt?”
“C’mon. You’re too heavy, I can’t lift you all by myself.”
“That’s because I’m a grown ass man and you are but a boy.”
