Bud Light and Pill Bugs

The air was crisp, and a light Spring gale swayed the old oak trees above Jenny’s head as she walked over to a pile of rocks in her grandparents’ backyard. Her fingernails were dirty, and her denim jeans were covered in mud as she labored to pick up the first of the heavy rocks to see what was underneath. A baby rat snake and some small white worms were underneath the first rock. The second rock had nothing but a dead ladybug. Jenny and her father had started the evening by playing a game of cops and robbers using old croquet sticks as guns. But Jenny’s father had paused the game to run inside and take a call. He had been inside for over an hour. It was still light out, so Jenny ran over to the house of a young boy who lived down the road from her grandparents. His name was Jackson, and he had a goofy smile with a large gap between his two front teeth.

            Jenny and Jackson returned to the woods to play in her grandfather’s old termite-ridden toolshed. While Jackson ran ahead, Jenny stopped to look through the house’s back window. Jenny’s father had his face in his hands, hunched over in a rocking chair with the home phone pressed to his ear. Jenny thought that it must just be another phone call from work. Why in the world Jenny’s dad would want to take a boring phone call over cops and robbers, she could not understand. Thankfully, Jackson was there, and they would use their imagination to make the old toolshed into a spaceship. Or a castle full of goblins. Something far better than whatever was on the other line of that phone.

            Jenny pulled out her grandfather’s old fishing toolbox from the shed. She loved to open it and look at the glittery fake worms. She held up a hook and stared at the burnt orange discoloration of the rusted barb. One year her dad took her fishing. She was excited when he pulled up the line, mortified to see the hook gaping from the fish’s eye. Jenny was about to ask Jackson if he wanted to play egg hunt with the colorful bait, but Jackson had already taken a sproat hook and carried it outside where Jenny had been turning over rocks.

            “Ew, oh my god- Jenny!”

            “What!” squealed Jenny as she ran over to where Jackson was pointing.

            Beside the evergreen shrubs that outlined her grandfather’s abandoned garden lay a dead baby opossum. Jenny leaned over and saw that it had a hole in its head. Tiny ants were crawling in through the skull and exiting out the eye sockets. Jenny stared at the dead opossum and felt like she could cry, but she didn’t. Jackson took the fishhook, pressed its sharp point into the skull, and watched it hang down. Jenny shrieked at Jackson to put it down. Jackson was startled by Jenny’s tone of voice. Usually, she never shied away from a weird moment in their times with nature. He shrugged and threw the dead creature like a fastball pitch into the shrubberies. He said nothing more.

            The two children resumed playing in the woods and looking under rocks for roly-poly bugs until the sky darkened. Jenny loved it when the little bugs would turn into little balls in the palm of her hand. Jenny thought that it was a cute thing for a bug to do. She never squished any of her findings and tried to stop Jackson from doing the same. They looked underneath the rocks until nightfall before Jenny walked Jackson back to his house. Her dad nor her grandfather had called for her yet, but she was obedient to her bedtime and was feeling drowsy. She said goodnight to Jackson and left her grandparents’ house alone.

            Jenny came through the front door and could hear the familiar sound of a football game inside the living room. She stayed with her dad at his adoptive parent’s house when they visited from Alabama. Her mom never came with them. She blamed it on never getting enough time off. Jenny crept past the kitchen and saw her dad snoring softly at the dining table. Empty pints of lager rested next to his head, and the home phone was beeping off the hook. Jenny placed the phone back into the receiver and was about to creep to her bedroom when her grandmother called from the smoking room:

            “Jennie, is that you? Grandma needs your help.”

            “What’s wrong, Geema?”

            “I gave myself a little cut,” said her grandmother as she held her freckled, papery arm to the light beside the table she worked over. Jenny’s grandmother was a kind and small woman, but something about how she hummed out of tune made Jenny uneasy. She liked to sew, but in her older age, she had begun to poke herself more with the needle when her hands shook. Jenny often heard her grandmother asking her grandfather to buy more band-aids when he went out to the store. He never cared to ask why they needed so many.

            “What do I need to do, Geema?”

            “Just cut this little flap here.”

            Jenny’s grandma held her shaking arm to the light. There was a small cut with a wet piece of skin sticking out.

            “Just take the scissors and cut that little piece,” said her grandmother. Jenny took the scissors and held her grandmother’s arm in her own. Her grandmother’s shaking was making it hard to get the flap of skin in between the blades of the scissors. Jenny tried to cut the small piece of flesh, but it was too wet to cut. Jenny started to cry, and this woke her dad up.

            “What! What the hell is it!” bellowed her dad as he came stumbling out of the kitchen. He was wearing a torn Georgia Southard t-shirt, and his reading glasses were crooked on his nose. He was a linebacker in college and still weighed in at 290 pounds. He had biceps the size of Jenny’s head.

            “Grandma cut herself,” Jenny sniffed.

            “Christ, Jenny, I got it. Just go to your room.” Jenny surrendered the scissors and went and tucked herself into bed. Her tears dried once sleep finally took her. Her hair lay tangled on the pillow, her body nestled into a ball under the weight of the blankets. She dreamt of nothing.

—————-

            “So, I’m the wizard, and you can be a princess.”

            “What if I want to be a witch.”

            “Okay, then you can be a witch.”

            “What if I was a drunk witch?”

            “What’s a drunk witch?”

            Jenny and Jackson were in the toolshed and shifting through old gardening tools to be used as props. Jackson eyed some rusted rakes for the perfect wand. Jenny bent down over old mason jars full of cobwebs.

            “A drunk witch is a witch who drinks.”

            “Are you drunk now?”

            “I think I might be. I had some apple juice this morning.”

            “Okay, then you can be a drunk witch.”

            Jenny grabbed the largest mason jar and rubbed the dust off with her sundress.

            “I’ll use this as a potion jar.”

            Jackson chose a medium-sized rake for his wand and raised it over his head. He made noises like he spoke in tongues and shook like an electric current was going through his body. Jenny watched his performance and laughed. She grabbed the mason jar, held it above her head, and shouted to the heavens to give her rain.

            “I’ll drink the rain, and that’s how I’ll get my power.”

            “What if it doesn’t rain.”

            “Then I’ll borrow some from the kitchen.”

            They set off into the woods with wand and potion jar in hand and walked behind the woods of the houses down the road. Eventually, their adventures lead them to Robert Flint’s house. Mr. Flint was a brick of a man with a red face and hairy arms. He was a bachelor with two teenage boys that often got in trouble for throwing rocks at passing cars. Jenny and Jackson liked to pretend the boys were giants, and it was a game they played to get as close as possible to them without being seen.

            Jenny leaned behind a tall oak tree and watched as the teenage boys smoked cigarettes and leaned on their dad’s old Mustang. Jackson picked his nose and sat his rake down.

            “I’m bored,” said Jackson as he ate a big one.

            “Me too,” said Jenny.

            Jenny moved away from the tree and followed Jackson into a dried creek that followed the length of the neighborhood behind the houses.

            “Want to look under some rocks?”

            “I’m thirsty,” said Jackson.

            “Ok, we can go back to my house. We can get drunk.”

            They started to walk down the path of the dried creek until something red caught Jenny’s attention. Jenny pulled her sundress over her knees and crouched down to see a magazine crammed underneath a small pile of rocks. Once she lifted the rocks, she met eyes with a woman with a grimaced look on her face. She looked sweaty; makeup was running down her face.

            “Holy crud. What’s that?” Jackson asked as he peered over Jenny’s shoulder.

            Jenny forced the magazine open. It was crunchy and felt like it had been thrown to the bottom of the sea and then baked for hundreds of years under the Sun. Jenny and Jackson quietly eyed the crumpled pages of these weird games of leapfrog and marveled at the titles on each page.

            “What is a deep throat?”

            “It must be like when you have a frog in your throat. It must be deep enough for a frog to get in there,” said Jenny.

            “I don’t see any frogs,” said Jackson.

            “They’re there; you just can’t see them.”

            Jenny felt like she had a frog traveling down her belly as she tried to pry the pages open. Each new page brought another woman contorted in a new shape.

            “Criminy, I think I have seen my parents full of frogs.”

            “Mm. Let’s go back to my house. Let’s get drunk,” said Jenny as she pushed the magazine back in between the rock pile. They silently walked back to Jenny’s grandparents’ house, unable to look at each other.

——————

            Jenny and Jackson reached her grandparents’ house and went in through the garage door that led into the kitchen. Jackson sat at the kitchen table as Jenny stood on the kitchen counter and reached for a box of cookies for them to snack on. She gathered the goods and placed them on the kitchen table, then opened the refrigerator door. She was about to grab the carton of apple juice when her eye caught the blue cans of Bud Light. She liked the name. Jackson was her bud; they should share a drink that commiserated that fact. Jenny grabbed a can and sat down next to Jackson.

            “What’s that?”

            “Friend juice. It says it on the can. Are you my bud?”

            “Yeah, I’m your bud.”

            Jenny cracked the can open and took a swig. The drink didn’t taste nearly as good as apple juice, but her dad and grandfather drank it. It made their eyes twinkle and made them talk more. Jenny thought maybe it was some kind of potion; she took another swig and handed it to Jackson. Jackson smelled the top of the can and made a face.

            “It smells funny.”

            “That’s because it’s magic,” replied Jenny.

            Jackson shrugged his shoulders and took a gulp.

            “Gross, I don’t like it,” Jackson gagged as he pushed the can to Jenny.

            “If you don’t drink it, then it means we aren’t buds.”

            “Fine,” Jackson said and took the can back from Jenny.

            After a while, they both sat there dazed. They hungrily grabbed at the cookies, stared out the window, and hiccupped. In the distance, they could hear Jenny’s grandmother humming as she sat at the work table in the smoking room sewing. Jackson toyed with the cuff of his long shirtsleeve and apprehensively eyed Jenny.

            “Jenny, I feel funny. Can you check if I have a frog in my throat?”

            “Sure, open your mouth.”

            Jackson tilted his head back and opened his mouth wide.

            “Say ‘ah’ and stick your tongue out.” Jackson opened his mouth wider but then felt queasy. Jenny watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

            “Oh my god, I think I see it!”

            Jackson lurched over and threw up on the kitchen table. They stared at the mess and then looked up at each other.

            “Holy smokes- you killed him!”

            “I didn’t mean to! Your stupid bud juice killed him!”

            They stared at the yellow mess on the kitchen table until the sound of Jenny’s father shouting came from somewhere in the house. He sounded angry. Both friends sat in anticipation, not knowing if they should leap from their seats or stay where they were. Jenny eyed the telephone. She had been staying over at her grandparents’ house with her father during her school’s Spring break, and during that time, her father had spent most of that time on the phone. She staggered from her chair and picked up the home phone that sat in the kitchen.

            “What are you doing?”

            “Shh, I just wanna hear,” said Jenny as she cupped the phone in her hands.

            Jenny heard her mother’s voice on the other end of the line. She wanted to call out to her but suppressed a burp and remained quiet. Jackson bit his nails and watched as Jenny stood awkwardly with the phone pressed to her small face. She became very still; her shoulders drooped.

            “Jenny?”

            Jenny turned and looked at Jackson. She felt the room spin, and she felt dirty. She looked at her sundress and suddenly wanted to tear it off. She quietly put the phone down back on the receiver and grabbed hold of the kitchen counter.

            “Jackson, what’s a good time Charlie?”

            “I don’t know. Why?”

            “I think my mom is leaving.”

            Jenny walked to the refrigerator to grab another Bud Light when she heard her father’s voice call her name. She quickly grabbed Jackson’s shirt sleeve and tugged him to his feet. He followed her out of the kitchen door into the humid air outside.
—————-

            Two days passed, and Jenny still did not mention the conversation she overheard with her dad. Nor was there any mention of the vomit on the kitchen table. The days resumed in a haze. On the third morning, before Jenny called for Jackson, she snuck into the refrigerator and stole a Bud Light. She stealthily put it in her saggy jean pocket and took it into the woods. She gulped it down quickly and watched as a thick caterpillar trapped itself into a cobweb. She closed her eyes and wondered if her throat was deep enough for a frog to get in.

            Jackson seemed more reserved after their afternoon in Jenny’s kitchen. He eyed her wearily and tried to laugh when she made jokes about the leap frog magazine. He tried to invent new games to play, and the tone of his desperate pleas to get Jenny to stop drinking the bud juice made her want to sock him. She thought about kissing him too, but only once. She wanted to dig a hole in the ground and live there until Spring Break ended. The beer helped her do neither of those things. Jenny and Jackson entered the toolshed and looked around at the rusted garden tools, but Jenny did not feel like pretending. They went into the kitchen for lunch and watched as her grandmother struggled to lather mayonnaise on their sandwiches. Jenny missed her mom.

            As the end of the week approached, Jenny’s dad left to go away on business. Jenny knew he was going to see her mom but remained quiet. The house seemed empty. Her grandfather usually stayed in his room to tend to his stamp collection, and her grandmother never minded if Jenny went outside as long as she stayed close by. Jenny took advantage of the quiet house and stole two beers from the kitchen. She quickly gulped down the first beer and stashed the second into her overalls. As soon as the warmth of the beer wafted through her body, Jenny barreled out of the house and ran to fetch Jackson.

            “Jenny, what’s wrong.”

            “Nothing, I want to find roly-polys.”

            “Your fingers are bleeding.”

            Jenny looked down at her fingers, quickly wiped them on her t-shirt, and resumed flipping over the rocks around the abandoned garden. Jackson leaned back on a tree and eyed her as she tirelessly scanned the ground below.

            “I just like when they roll up. I just want to see ‘em do it.”

            “Jenny, you need to slow down.”

            “Then freaking help me,” panted Jenny.

            Jackson lamented and started to turn over the heavy rocks. The sun beat down on their shoulders, and hours passed without luck in finding the bugs. They took a break and leaned on the tool shed. Jackson toyed with his shoestring and felt like saying something, but he didn’t know what to say. Jenny pulled out the Bud Light can from her overalls and began to drink. In a few quick gulps, she finished the remnants of the can and burped. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and sighed. They sat there for a while and stared up into the swaying leaves of the trees.

            “You know it’s okay. My parents aren’t together.”

            Jenny got up to her feet and walked over to the rocks.

            “I haven’t seen my dad in a long time.”

            Jenny walked over to the biggest rock that was on the perimeter of the dead garden. She inhaled, crouched, tucked her hands underneath the moss-covered stone, and heaved. She flung the rock aside and watched as a cluster of pill bugs scurried about in a startled frenzy.

            “I found them!” Jenny cried.

            She put her palm face up and let the little crustaceans run over her hand. Once she had about a dozen, she closed her fist and sat next to Jackson. She opened her palm and watched as her favorite bugs rolled themselves into their cute tiny spheres. Jackson leaned on Jenny’s shoulder and watched as the bugs uncurled themselves once Jenny’s hand stood still.

            “You know, they are kind of cute,” Jackson observed.

            “Yeah, they are,” Jenny sighed.

            Jenny held them as they unraveled themselves and tickled her hand. She stood up and cupped her hand so they wouldn’t fall and walked to the side of the toolshed. She undid the hose and filled a mason jar full of water.

            “What are you doing, Jenny?”

            Jenny opened her hands and watched as some of the pill bugs lay on their backs, trying to turn themselves over. She watched as the little bugs tried to find ground with their curved shells like overturned turtles. Jenny stared at their flailing limbs, turned her palm, and dropped them into the water. She stood above them as they all sank to the bottom.