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David B. Seaburn
Category:
Humor
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
ISBN-10: 1612968554
Type: Fiction
Pages: 193
Copyright: 2017
ISBN-13: 9781612968551
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
This is a humorous and poignant look at two brothers trying to figure out why their mother left them thirty years ago. The only help they have is n African grey parrot they've inherited after her death. When he starts talking, things change.
Lucas and Grinder are more than a little suprised and confused to hear that their mother, Millie, who they haven't seen in over thirty years, has died. Now her best friend wants them to come to Pittsburgh to take care of their mother's effects, chief among them being Paul.
A road trip ensues with memorable stops at a Racino, a Pittsburgh landmark geasy spoon, and finally a ride on an incline trolley to meet their mother's friend, janice. They are taken aback when she introduces them to Paul, an African grey parrot who has things to say that will change their lives. And so a transformative adventure begins.
Excerpt
1
Millie watched as Janice pinned a slip of rolling paper to the table with her thumb and struggled to open the Ziploc baggie with her other hand.
“You okay?” said Millie as she rubbed her own temples with her fingertips.
“It’s this damn arthritis.” Janice leaned an elbow on the receipt and pulled on the baggie haphazardly with her gnarled fingers. With a deep sigh, she turned to Millie. “Here, can you open it?” Millie, the skin on her hands shrink-wrapped across brittle bones, studied the bag.
“Lucky they put this plastic nub on here.” Millie gripped the nub between her thumb and forefinger, then slid it across the top of the bag. “There you go,” she said, handing it back to Janice.
“There you go, there you go,” said Paul.
“That’s right, Paul,” said Millie.
“Thank you, thank you.”
Janice sprinkled weed across the paper and started to roll it.
“Doggone it,” said Janice when most of the marijuana blew off the paper and fluttered through the balcony railing, disappearing long before it reached the street below.
“Do you have any more?”
“Jesus, yes,” said Janice.
“Jesus, lover of my soul,” said Paul.
Janice picked more weed from the baggie and spread it across the paper again.
“That’s the spirit, Paul,” said Janice.
“That’s the spirit,” said Paul. “Going in now. See Judge Judy.”
“Why don’t you just wait a bit longer?” Millie stroked the back of Paul’s head.
Janice, hunched over the table, continued to grapple with the paper. “Goddammit, where did I put my good pair of hands?”
Millie smiled at Paul and patted him again.
“We’ll go back inside in a few minutes. Janice is getting my medicine ready.”
“Yes, Dr. Janice is hard at work.” Janice slid her tongue across the paper’s edge and ran her dampened finger along the length of the joint to seal it.
“There,” she said. “Do you have any matches?”
Millie reached down to the floor and picked up a long Bic lighter. She held it up and they both studied the metal wand with its red handle.
“Where’d you get that thing?”
“It was in the bag when the church deacons brought my groceries.”
“Why the hell’d they give you something like that?”
“I can’t make it work,” said Millie. “Gotta press the one do-hickey forward and then kind of pull back on the trigger thingy.”
Millie handed the lighter to Janice. Janice handed Millie the joint.
“Hmm.” Janice turned the lighter over in her hands several times. She pressed here and pulled there. “Dammit.”
“Go back in,” said Paul.
“Don’t worry, Paul, just a few more minutes.”
Millie glanced across the Monongahela at the PPG tower, its cathedral-like spires glistening in the late afternoon sun.
“This ain’t workin,’” said Janice, dropping the lighter on the table.
“Huh?” said Millie, still taking in the view.
“Jesus,” said Janice, pounding the lighter with her fist.
“Lemme look in the kitchen. Maybe I got some matches.” Millie leaned forward in her chair and reached for her walker, her face wincing as she steadied her legs, her house dress falling straight as a potato sack.
“No you don’t. You just sit yourself back down there, Millie Ingersoll.” Janice got up and walked into the apartment, disappearing around the corner and into the galley kitchen.
Millie leaned back in her chair, her hand shading her eyes as she spied the great fountain at the confluence of the lazy rivers. A white river boat, its massive paddle churning, turned slowly and headed back up the Allegheny as a barge passed it going the other way. Across the Allegheny, sprawling on the shore was the arena, asleep for now, where her Steel City gladiators performed their mighty deeds. Just beyond it, laid the little brother, home of the emerging Bucs. Cars and trucks sped across the slender bridges carrying the city’s life blood to and fro. Millie smiled.
“Hit the jackpot,” said Janice, clutching a box of matches and a bag of Doritos as she returned to the balcony.
“Seems like a lot of trouble,” said Millie.
“No trouble at all.”
“I probably shouldn’t even be doing…”
“Now don’t you start that again. You know it always makes you feel good.”
“Against the law, you know.”
“Law? What law? What happens in the privacy of your own place ain’t no one else’s business.”
“What would God say about an old woman---”
“He’d say, ‘Mind if I pull up a chair and have a toke?’”
Millie curled the corners of her mouth and shook her head.
Janice lit the joint and drew on it long. She held her breath, her face tight as a drum, like she was waiting for the smoke to reach her toes. Then she exhaled. “Oh my, that’s good.” She held it out to Millie, who frowned and then took it between her thumb and pointer. She studied it for a moment.
“I don’t know why I ever let you talk me into this, Janice Beechem.”
“‘Cause you know I love you and would do anything for you, old woman.”
“Old woman for sure. Smokin’ reefer.” Millie inched the joint toward her lips.
“Reefer madness,” said Paul.
Millie chuckled as she drew on the joint. She coughed hard. “My goodness me.” She drew again and handed it back to Janice. “Enough.”
“What’s ‘at?” said Janice.
“My legs are sticks of butter on my best day. I don’t need them to melt completely.”
“Come on,” said Janice, drawing again.
Millie took a handful of Doritos. “Look at that sunset.”
Janice leaned against the balcony and shook her head.
“Makes those muddy rivers look mighty pretty.”
“Mighty pretty,” said Paul.
“You got that right,” said Millie, smiling at Paul.
A man stepped onto the neighboring balcony and glared around the corner at them.
“Am I smellin’ what I think I’m smellin’?”
“If you don’t like it, Frank, go back in your goddam apartment,” said Janice.
“I shouldn’t have to stay inside just because of you two old druggies. My God, put yinz together and yinz must be a hundred and fifty, if you’re a day.”
“And proud of it. Just hush up,” said Janice.
“I oughta call the cops on yinz two, you know that?” Millie smiled and waved. “Gosh darn it, what are you doin’ to her, Janice?”
“Tend your own business, Frank, or I’ll tell Ellie why you’re always stopping by 108.”
“Tend your business, Frank,” said Paul.
“That’s right,” said Janice. “You tell ‘im.”
Frank turned away, waving his hand limp-wristedly as he went back into his apartment.
“Such a nice man,” said Millie, her smile fixed, her eyelids at half-mast. “Who was that nice man?”
Millie reached again for the Doritos.
“So, Millie, wha’d the doctor say this time?”
Millie tipped her head to one side and put a hand to her ear as if she couldn’t hear.
“The doctor. What did he say?”
Millie raised her eyebrows and chomped on her chips. Janice waited for her to swallow. Millie reached for the chips again.
“Wait a minute, Mill,” said Janice.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute---”
“Shut up for once, Paul,” said Janice.
“You shut up,” said Paul.
“Listen to me; don’t take another bite,” she said, her hand up like a stop sign. “What did the doctor say?”
“The same thing he always says.”
Millie was into the Doritos again.
“My God, woman, I’m glad you didn’t smoke more.” Millie’s mouth was full.
“Why dontcha just put the bag over your head?”
“What’d you say?” said Millie. She put the bag down and wiggled her feet into her slippers.
“The doctor. What’d the doctor say about your chest pain?”
Millie shielded her eyes with one hand and looked at the sunset, layered in pink and purple and grey.
“Millie?” Janice leaned forward and tapped her friend’s arm.
“Huh?”
“The doctor?”
Millie sighed and shifted her weight. She turned to Paul, but he had stepped away. She looked at Janice from the corner of one eye.
“I’m an old woman, so it don’t matter anyway.”
“Don’t give me that old woman crap. Eighty ain’t old no more. You just got a worn out heap of a body.”
Millie reached for another Dorito, then dropped it into her lap. She looked at Janice defiantly, her eyes popping wide under wedged brows.
“I didn’t go to the doctor’s.”
“You didn’t go?”
Millie waved for Paul to come close.
“Millie. For God’s sake, why didn’t you go? You been talking ‘bout this chest thing for months.”
“Don’t feel bad at all right now,” she said, pumping her fists up and down slowly, the waddle of her upper arms shaking like two half-filled water balloons.
“I’m sure it don’t. Nothin’ feels bad right now.” Janice stood and leaned over the balcony, looking at the parking lot below, then turned again to Millie. “Look, Millie, this ain’t right. Your heart can’t take nothin’ more. You know that. You don’t want a repeat of last year, do you?”
Millie shrugged. “I can’t hardly remember yesterday, let alone last year.”
“Something’s going on and you know it,” said Janice. Millie smiled and took another handful of Doritos. “At least go back and hear what he’s got to say.”
“I know what he’s gonna say---‘Get some tests.’ That’s all he ever says.”
“Maybe that’s what you gotta do.”
Millie took a single Dorito, turned it this way and that, stared at Janice, and then chomped off one corner truculently.
“Get tests, Millie; get tests,” said Paul.
“Now he’s making sense,” said Janice, nodding to Paul. “Think of him if you ain’t gonna think of yourself.”
“Paul, you stay out of this, hear me?” said Millie.
“I mean, last week you couldn’t hardly breathe, remember? You called me all panicky-like. ‘What am I gonna do?’ you said. ‘Go to the doctor,’ I said.”
“Breathing fine now.” Millie inhaled as deeply as she could before she started hacking.
“Yeah, right. A week ago, your arms were aching and you were throwin’ up for no reason whatsoever. And that’s just stuff you told me. Who knows what else goes on when I’m not around?”
Millie dropped the Dorito back into the bag.
“He wants me to get some test. It’s called, I don’t know, some letters. They stick you in a tube no wider than your shoulders. Bangs real loud the whole time is what he said.” Millie straightened her back and jutted her jaw. “No reason to put myself through that.”
Janice sat down again, her hands open, resting on her knees. “Don’t you wanna know what’s goin’ on?”
Millie’s eyes narrowed. “No. I don’t.”
“My God, you’re damnable stubborn,” said Janice.
“I’m the stubborn one?”
Janice placed a hand on Millie’s knee. “Look, I’m not tryin’ to be no bother. Just worried, that’s all. Don’t want nothing to happen to you.”
Millie reached for the taped handles of her walker, pulling it near as she scooted forward in her chair. She rocked slowly back and forth to gather some momentum.
“Here, lemme help you,” said Janice, standing now.
“No, that’s okay.” Janice’s arms fell to her side. Millie labored on, huffing and puffing until she was on her feet, grey curls stuck to her forehead. “Look at me. Smoked a joint. Ate a bag of Doritos. Now I feel like ten bucks.” She caught Janice’s eye. “If you were listening, you should be laughing.”
Push, shuffle, push, shuffle, push, shuffle. Millie turned and backed up to the davenport. She let out a triumphant sigh as she tumbled into her spot opposite the TV. Janice stood by the bookshelf examining the salt and pepper shakers---puppies, kittens, cows, giraffes, taxi cabs, dice, Empire State buildings, roses. “Jesus,” said Janice. “How long’d it take you to get all these.”
“Long enough,” said Millie. “God bless that Lillian Vernon lady.”
“Ever use ‘em?”
“Not for using.”
Janice picked up a photograph from the top shelf and read the inscription: “Wishing you many more Super Bowls, Franco Harris, #32.”
“Franco, Franco!” said Paul.
“The man himself,” said Millie.
“Yes, indeed.”
Janice put the photo back in its spot, shifting it slightly so that it was angled just right. Then she picked up another photograph, this one older, cracked at the corners, yellowed. She held it close to her face and studied the two boys. One was a head taller than the other. They both had summer crew cuts and held fishing poles in their hands. They had squinty-eyed smiles, their heads cocked as if to avoid the sunlight flooding in from behind the photographer. The smaller one held his hand up. The bigger one’s left hand was perched on his younger brother’s head. There was a picnic table to one side and a lake in the background. Janice placed the photo gently back on the shelf, hoping not to make any noise.
“You’re terrible quiet back there.” Millie turned to see what Janice was doing.
“Just lookin’ at all your stuff,” said Janice. “Too bad it’s the only picture you got.” Millie turned back, silent. She reached for the remote and pointed it at the TV just in time to see Judge Judy read someone the riot act. “What was the little one’s name again?” Millie stared at the Judge.
“Oh, now I remember. Grinder.” Janice waited. “And the other one was?”
Nothing.
“Lucas, that’s right.”
Millie snorted. “Why are you pretended you don’t know anything?”
“This ain’t really my business, but don’t you think they oughta know what’s going on with you?”
“You’re right. None of your business,” said Millie.
Janice sat down beside Millie. She reached for her hand.
“Look, Mill, we known each other for, well, forever, it seems. You know I’m not one to pry.” Millie raised her eyebrows and chuckled. “Well, not usually, and never when it comes to them boys. But look at us. Life’s gettin’ short.”
Millie squeezed Janice’s hand and then let it go. “Janice, honey, you are the best friend I got in the world. But this ain’t open for discussion.”
“Between friends, everything’s open for discussion,” said Janice.
Millie’s eyes widened. “Janice, Janice. If they came to my door, I wouldn’t even recognize them. What could I possibly say to them after all these years?”
“Everything.”
“And why should they listen?”
“Why shouldn’t they?” said Janice.
Millie pursed her lips and turned back to the judge.
“Here comes the judge, here comes the judge,” said Paul.
Janice folded her arms and watched Millie pat Paul’s back.
“This here’s my only boy now,” said Millie. “My sweetie pie.”
“What kind of pie?” said Paul.
“Don’t you start now,” said Millie, waving a hand at Paul and shifting her weight off her left hip.
“Okay, Okay,” said Janice. “Knew I shouldn’t have bothered.”
“You are a good friend.”
“You, too.” Janice leaned nearer to Millie and hugged her.
“Always been a hugger, haven’t you?” said Millie.
“Yes, I have.” Janice kissed her cheek. “Better get back. Ronald’s probably starvin’ and I didn’t leave him nothing to eat. Man worked in a steel mill for his whole life, but can he make himself a sandwich?”
“Your cross to bear.”
“Yeah, well, that’s a whole other conversation.”
Janice gathered up her paraphernalia. Millie stared at the TV. Paul gawked at both of them.
“Okay, then. You let me know if you need anything, or if you feel sickly at all. Billy’ll be by with another bag tomorrow. I’ll save some back for you.”
“You’re one of the good ones, Janice.”
“I try. That’s about all you can do in this life.” Janice waited but the conversation was over. “Okay.” Millie wagged a hand at her.
When the door closed, Millie studied Paul for a long while. Paul pressed his head against Millie’s shoulder.
“You’re a good boy.”
She slowly rolled her neck to one side and then the other. She reached for her temple, then let her arms drop. “Jesus Christ,” she whispered. “Got a damn thumper.”
“A thumper,” said Paul.
“Oughta just lop this head of mine right off,” said Millie.
“Lop it off, Millie!”
“You foolish thing.”
Millie leaned her head against the cushion and settled into Judge Judy, the evening news, Wheel of Fortune and, finally Jeopardy, although she couldn’t answer a single question. “G’night, Alex,” she said and clicked off the TV. Paul looked at her. “Okay, better get on with things. Gotta eat something. At least that’s what they keep tellin’ me.”
Millie grabbed the corner of her walker and hoisted herself out of the davenport. She reached for the floor lamp, turned on the light, and then stopped at the bookshelves to take down the picture.
“The boys,” said Paul.
“Yep, Paul, the boys.” She tried to put the photo back on the top shelf, but it slipped from her tingling hand and fell to the floor. She looked at it for a moment. She tried to bend over, then thought better of it.
“They’ll have to stay there for now,” she said, Paul looking on.
Millie shuttled into the kitchen, cane in hand this time, and took a can of Ensure from the stack on the counter. Paul watched as she removed a plate of leftover Kraft Macaroni and Cheese from the refrigerator, slid it into the microwave, set the time and pressed the button.
Millie sat at the kitchen table, leaning on her elbows to catch her breath.
“Oh my.”
Millie laid her head on the table and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she grabbed her stomach and groaned. She stood but the room whirled, like she was on a merry-go-round. She flailed her arms, reaching fruitlessly for the molded plastic kitchen chair. She hit the linoleum floor with a thud. Millie rolled over, her arms falling limp at her side, and closed her eyes again.
The kitchen was quiet, except for the grinding whir of the microwave. The timer went off---Ding!---but Millie didn’t move.
“Millie, mac and cheese!” said Paul. “Mac and cheese!”
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