The Spiderman Incident

"And don't forget the flour. Last time you forgot the flour! Sometimes I think you'd forget your head if it wasn't attached."

The young boy listened only partially to his mother's voice which, when she was in a mood like this, took on the qualities of a fork scraped across a dinner plate. He hated that sound. It wasn’t that he disliked his mother—he, in fact, adored her. It was just that being the only child left at home out of a family of six kids, and the only boy at that, he had few options when it came to avoidance. Truthfully, even when his older sisters had been home he had always been the one singled out to run "errands" for his mother. She called them errands but in reality an “errand” was anything she didn't feel like doing. Anything.

"I didn't hear you, James Edward. What did you say?" she hollered from the screened-in porch.

Ten year-old James, or Jimmy to his friends, hadn't said anything. What she wanted was for him to say something like, "All right, mom." Or, "Yes, mother." Something like that just so she'd know he was listening. 

"All right, mom. I won't forget."

He stood in the street outside their simple house under a summer sun that felt as if it were burning his skin through the long-sleeved shirt she always made him wear whenever he went outside. 

"Now you hurry back. I don't want you dawdling." 

He didn't really know what “dawdling” meant but he supposed it had something to do with him stopping at the pharmacy to look at comic books and eat candy. Jimmy loved candy and he especially loved Cherry-a-Let candy bars...but not as much as he loved comic books. He figured he could probably spend an entire day just looking at comics if Ralph, the pharmacy owner, would let him. And he probably would.

A southwest wind sent a flurry of dust devils racing past the wheels of his cart—okay, wagon, but he preferred to think of it as a cart—that he always pulled behind him when going to the market for his mother. It had become an every day thing lately. Sometimes two times a day and one day last week she had made him go three times. Of course that had been the day he had forgotten to get the flour so that third trip technically didn't count. 

At the end of their little street he glanced behind him to see if she was still watching. She usually watched until he got out of sight. Today, however, the porch was empty. Jimmy thought that a bit strange that she wouldn't watch until he turned the corner like she always did. It actually made him feel kind of funny. In fact he almost turned around right there and went back to check up on her, but in the end he decided to just keep going. 

His route took him past the old Wells Fargo Bank; the city water plant; the hardware store where you could buy hay for horses and corn meal for chickens (along with just about every other thing you could ever imagine needing for rural life); past the diner where they served the best root-beer floats he'd ever tasted; past the pharmacy and then the small grocery store where everybody knew his name, where he lived and everything else there was to know about him. 

Some of them even claimed to know where his dad was, which was a sore subject with him because he hated his dad and hoped to never see him ever again. When he asked his mother what had happened to him three years earlier she just said that he'd, "Run off." Sometimes he wondered what a person did when they ran off. Whatever it was, though, he was pretty sure it wasn't good given the looks on the faces of the adults when they talked about it. And they talked about it. He figured small towns didn't get much news and when something like that happened it could keep people going for a while.

With his cart loaded down with everything on his mother's list—and you can bet he'd checked it twice, just like Santa Claus—he started the long trip home dreading the mile and a half walk through the hot sun. 

Passing the pharmacy Jimmy slowed way down and looked through the window at the magazine rack. Right away he could tell that there were a lot of brand new comic books. Comics he hadn't seen. Looking up the street toward the clock tower that was easily the tallest structure in town he realized that if he spent fifteen minutes looking at comic books he could still get home before his mom started fretting. 

He parked the cart where he could see it through the window and went inside, straight up the aisle to where the candy was tantalizingly arrayed and picked out a candy bar after squeezing and hefting a half-dozen or so. You had to be careful with candy; just because it said it was a certain size on the wrapper didn't necessarily mean it was really that size. He had actually proven this to be true with his old friend Bradley. But Bradley's family had moved away last year and there was no one left to corroborate his story. That was okay because he knew it was true.

Ralph, the pharmacy owner peered down at him from behind the counter smiling as if he were genuinely glad to see him. And he was. In fact he and the boy were good friends and Ralph tried to help Jimmy out wherever he could since he didn’t have a dad looking out for him. Like allowing him to read the comics for free. No one else got to do that. No one!

"So, you gonna squeeze in a few minutes at the rack, Jimmy-boy?" he said, winking conspiratorially.

"I thought I would, if that's okay with you," Jimmy said as he handed over the fifteen cents for the candy, which was highway robbery in his book because he could remember when it had only cost a nickel!

"Got a new Spiderman in just this morning," Ralph said in a loud whisper as if it were a secret that only the two of them were supposed to know.

Jimmy's eyes lit up as he hurried toward the rack and immediately searched for the comic finding it in just a few seconds time. Spiderman. Good ol' Spidey. He wondered what sort of evil he'd save the world from this month. But when he opened the book, the first page was torn almost completely away which meant that a good portion of page one AND page two were missing. How in the world was he supposed to know what the story was about with the critical first two pages gone? He grabbed another one—same thing. And another, and another. They were all the same.

He looked around as if to spot a potential culprit, but besides Ralph, he was the only one in the store. 

Jimmy was just about to go and tell Ralph the bad news when he heard a soft knocking coming from the direction of the big plate-glass window. Turning slowly he saw something that made his heart stand still. It was Leroy Marshall, the meanest kid in his school. He stood with his face pressed against the glass grinning from ear to ear, his long, jet-black hair looking as if it had been dipped in motor oil before being slicked back. And in his hand...the torn pages from all ten Spiderman comic books.

Jimmy got really mad. Madder than he'd ever been. All he wanted to do was to take one of the torn pages and stick it in his pocket for safe keeping while he stuffed the rest down Leroy Marshall's throat, which was probably a bit unlikely since Leroy was two years older, at least a foot taller and quite a bit meaner. 

Later on he would wonder why he did what he did, but in that moment there was no room for logical thought, only action. 

He got up and pushed through the front door which dinged pleasantly to let Ralph know that a customer had entered and shouted, "Give me those pages, you creep!"

"Why don't you come and get them," Leroy shouted as he took off running, laughing loudly as if it were just the funniest thing.

Jimmy hesitated, but only for a second and then was in full pursuit, the cart full of groceries and his promise to his mother temporarily forgotten. He surprised himself, and Leroy, by running him down in the space of two blocks, leaping on his back and immediately beginning to yank on his long hair as if pulling on the reins of a wild stallion.

“Ow! Ow, my hair. Le’go my hair, you little punk!” Leroy screamed in a voice drifting perilously and incrementally into a soprano range.

“Give me those pages!” Jimmy hollered in reply. “You should’n’a took those pages, Leroy!”

Jimmy rode him all the way to the ground where Leroy finally relinquished his grip on the precious pages in order to concentrate on beating the stuffing out of Jimmy, which he accomplished in short order.

“And that’s for pulling my hair, lambchop!” he said while delivering a final stinging slap to the back of Jimmy’s head before stalking off, the pages left lying scattered and forgotten on the ground.

Jimmy thought about asking Leroy what he found particularly insulting about the term, “lambchop” that would cause him to employ its usage so regularly, but decided that’d be pushing his luck. As it was he’d gotten off with only a knot on the back of his head, a slightly puffy lip and scraped knees—injuries that were well worth the effort if it meant having the Spiderman pages back.

Crawling in a rough semi-circle he gathered up the ones that hadn’t blown completely away, smoothing out the wrinkles before beginning the walk back toward the pharmacy. It was right about then that he discovered to his utter shock and dismay, that page one and two were not, in fact, related to the current story, but contained advertisements for two new comic books “coming soon.”

He started to get really mad, but decided in the end that the whole thing had been worth it just to hear Leroy Marshall scream like a girl.

Barkley

“Barkley, no! No! Come here right this second!”

The woman’s strident voice cut through the ambient sound of passing cars, reaching our ears as we sat on the patio of St. Arbuck’s.

It was one of those rare Las Vegas spring mornings about which you’ve heard me speak several times before: Temperature...a balmy seventy degrees; wind...non-existent.

We only get a handful of those mornings each year so my wife and I have dedicated ourselves to a fierce pursuit of enjoying the heck out of each one that comes along.

Barkley turned out to be a yellow Labrador Retriever whose owner, a distraught woman of uncertain age, had lost her grip on the leash and was trying, with little success, to coax him away from his current quest—the tracking down of a delectable scent.

From where we sat, Barkley’s scent trail led directly away from his owner and toward a park across the street.

It was the “across the street” part that, no doubt, had the woman concerned, for it was a quite busy street.

“Barkley! Come here! Here!” she shouted.

Nothing.

Glancing at the onrushing block of cars just released from waiting at a stoplight up the road a ways, and then at her dog’s single-minded obsession with whatever he was tracking, she cupped both hands around her mouth and screamed, “Barkley! Barkley! I’m not going to call you again!”

My wife and I gave each other a wink-wink, nudge-nudge look, knowing full well that the anxious dog owner would, indeed, call him again, because that’s what parents and dog owners do.

I’m pretty sure Barkley knew it as well, for he kept on going, his trail leading him ever closer to the street.

“Barkley!” she wailed.

For reasons unknown to anyone but himself, Barkley suddenly turned and bounded back toward his owner, his doggy face bearing an expression that said, “Aw, I was only kiddin’!”

“Oh, you’re a good b...” she started to say only to watch the spirited canine scamper past her position and commence frolicking around the parking area, dragging the leash behind him.

While safe by comparison, there were still plenty of ways an untended dog could be injured...especially one as bold and full of life as Barkley.

By then she had apparently “had it,” so to speak, and did something that I still have trouble believing, and I was there to see it.

“Okay, Mister!” she said sternly. “Get over here right now. One...”

My wife looked at me in stunned disbelief. “Oh, no she didn’t.”

“I’m afraid so,” I replied.

“...two...”

Meanwhile, Barkley had found a couple of college-aged girls upon whom he was bestowing the full measure of his affection, and having it returned enthusiastically, by the way.

“This is your last chance,” the woman said as if addressing a misbehaving five year-old.

One of the girls noticed Barkley’s owner and asked brightly, “Is this your dog?”

“Yes!” the woman said sharply. “And he’s a bad boy!”

The two led Barkley in the direction of his owner growing progressively somber as it became apparent that she was, shall we say, put out.

They handed the leash over, remarking, “He’s such a beautiful dog,” at which point Barkley dropped to the ground, rolled over onto his back—legs splayed immodestly—and fixed his owner with a pair of deep, brown eyes that seemed to say, “Come on, mom, you know you love me.”

The woman held out for a good ten seconds before her resolve disintegrated under the onslaught of Barkley’s charm.

“Oh, you’re a good boy. Yes you are,” she said in that high-pitched, ridiculous falsetto vocalization known to dog lovers worldwide. Bending over to rub his belly she continued, “You just love to tease your mom, don’t you?”

The girl asked excitedly, “Can we get a picture with your dog?”

Acting as if it were a request she was used to hearing the woman said, “Oh, sure. He loves to have his picture taken.”

The girls handed the woman an iPhone and knelt on either side of Barkley, at which point he sat up, offered his right paw to be shaken and smiled for the camera.

After the girls had gone inside St. Arbuck’s the woman stared at Barkley with a, “What am I going to do with you,” expression, which he met by dipping his head and adopting a posture of genuine contrition.

Shaking her head, the woman dug into her purse muttering, “Now where are those keys?” and dropping the leash in the process.

Barkley took that as his cue to go bounding across the lot to greet another new arrival, holding his leash in his mouth and offering it to an elderly woman who seemed to think it was the most precious thing ever.

“Barkley!” his owner hollered. “One...”

My wife rolled her eyes and texted me a, “Just shoot me!” icon. 

Now, it could have been my overactive imagination, but I could swear that as he trotted up to his owner with the elderly lady in tow, he turned and winked at me.

Conversations With Eddie

Recently Eddie and I went on a road trip to Newport Beach.

Why?

Listen, going to Newport Beach does not require a reason...okay?

Anyway...

In a cost saving measure, we decided to share a room.

Two double beds.

Not a good idea.

Not a good idea at all.

Because, well, because he, uh, snores.

I mean I do too, but in Eddie's case we're talkin'

the big leagues of snoring.

Prehistoric-dinosaur-in-the-throes-of-death snoring.

One might even say he was a bront-a-snorus.

(Sorry...I had to go for it.)

Snorr-est Whitaker.

(Okay, I'll stop.)

We went out for our nightly Saint Arbuck’s fix and then back to the room with the idea in mind of retiring early

because we had a lot to accomplish the following day.

And, besides that, I was really tired from several

nights of insomnia.

Don't ask.

So, the lights go out.

Eddie says, "Think you can go to sleep?"

"Yeah," I said, "as long as someone doesn't keep me

awake."

"Oh, I'm not planning on talking."

"That's not what I mean."

He sat up and turned on the light.

"Oh? And just what do you mean?"

I turned to face him and said, "Dude, do I have to

spell it out for you?"

He thought for a minute and then said, "You implying

that I snore?"

I laughed.

"No, I'm not implying it, I'm flat out saying it."

His face arranged itself into a familiar pout.

"You just bein' mean spirited now."

And with that, he turned out the light, laid his head on the pillow and within five minutes was snoring with great vigor.

I reached for my shaving kit, inside of which I keep

ear plugs, and to my horror...they weren't there.

Panic stitched a pattern across my sleep-starved consciousness.

What was I going to do?

I knew.

The gift shop in the hotel lobby.

It was my only hope.

I threw on a combination of clothes one would never want to be seen wearing in public.

I didn't care.

Down the elevator into the lobby where I was greeted by the oh-so-cheerful Asian night clerk.

I said, "Do you have any ear plugs?"

To which he replied with much smiling and head nodding.

Then he just stood there.

I repeated my question this time with a pronounced and dramatic snore.

Immediately his face brightened and he said something like, "Ahhhhhh."

With that he walked over to a rack of pamphlets where he selected one for the San Diego Zoo—one which featured a picture of elephants.

By then I realized I wasn't going to get anywhere with my happy host, so I simply said, "Thank-you," and went back to the room where I fantasized killing my feloniously resonating roommate.

I knew that it wasn't really an option—at least not yet—so I secured some toilet paper from the bathroom and proceeded to cram it tightly into my ears.

It did no good whatsoever!

My mind strayed to my original idea of murder.

I mean, who would blame me.

I could just see the investigating officers coming onto the scene.

I am cuffed and led downstairs into the lobby while the crime scene technicians examine the room.

Just as the arresting officer is ushering me out to a waiting squad car a stern-faced Detective Sergeant stops me, looks at my ears and says, "Oh, for cryin' out loud, Barney. Look at his ears...there's toilet paper stuffed in there. The vic was a snorer. Let him go, the bum deserved what he got."

I woke up to a sonorous serenade and our neighbor in the room next door pounding out his complaint on the adjoining wall. Maybe I could actually get away with it...

Film at eleven.

A Moment In Time

I spend a lot of time at St. Arbuck’s' writing and observing those souls who are my fellow passengers on this amazing ride called life. I'd be less than honest if I didn't admit that there are times when the passing tide of humanity has the appearance of many waters, virtually indistinguishable in its sheer mass.

But there are other times when the waters seem to part revealing a scene that is so compelling that my attention is wholly captured, riveted by the unfolding drama.

Like this morning.

My wife and I were doing our usual thing—she conquering yet another sudoku puzzle and me reading through the local fish wrap while enjoying our beverages of choice.

A young mother and her son entered and sat at the table right in front of us.

The name emblazoned in a nearly illegible scrawl on the young woman’s cup of coffee said, "Veronica."

If I had to guess their ages I would say that Veronica was around thirty and the boy perhaps two and a half.

She took great care in placing her son in a seat next to her, fussing over him so as to insure not only his comfort but also his safety.

When he was well-settled she opened a bottle of chocolate milk which he accepted gleefully and began to drink. He was a bit too eager in the initial consumption, and predictably an entire mouthful of the silky sweet liquid escaped and cascaded down his chin soaking his very stylish shirt.

He looked down at the mess and began to cry.

Veronica immediately picked him up and sat him on her lap ministering comfort that only loving mothers can provide in such moments. He calmed down and had another go at the chocolate milk making sure this time that the sips were manageable.

She sat with her arms around him and her head resting on top of his brown wavy locks, eyes closed, lost in a moment of maternal bliss that was nearly rapturous in its appearance. For in that moment no one else on earth existed save she and that beloved child.

The scene was shattered by the insistent ring of her cell phone. And while I could only hear one side of the conversation, what transpired was heartbreaking.

After the initial small-talk her face took on a sad, wounded look and she said, "Yes, well, I'm not sure you really want to hear about that."

Apparently the caller did and she reluctantly continued, "Well, it's not good. Last night my attorney called and said that David is going to ask for full custody. Can you believe it? He said David intends to claim that I'm an unfit mother..."

It was here that her voice broke and her grip on the child tightened unconsciously.

After a few seconds of silence during which time she listened to her caller's remarks she said, "I know all that, but this means that I'm going to have to go in there and defend myself like I've done something wrong."

By this time the tears were flowing liberally. The child looked at his mommy and with a tiny hand reached up and gently brushed away her tears and laid his head against her breast. The love exchanged between these two was nearly tangible in its intensity.

My wife and I glanced at each other shaking our heads sadly.

Finally she said, "Well, I'd better be going. I'll call you later on...I love you, mom."

She closed the lid on her cell phone, returned it to her purse and choked back a sob that had risen unbidden in her throat. The child turned on her lap so he was facing her and placing a hand on either side of her face said, "Be awight, mommy."

She crushed that precious child to her and covered his head and face with kisses, rocking him back and forth...back and forth, bringing to mind a line by Robert Munsch that my wife used to recite to our kids when they were little: "I love you forever, I like you for always; as long as I'm living my baby you'll be."

It was time for us to go, but I just couldn't walk away without saying something...but what?

I settled on, "I just wanted you to know that the way you love your boy is precious. It touched something deep in my soul."

Blinking her eyes rapidly so as to hold another torrent of tears in check she simply smiled and nodded her gratitude as we made our way out the door.

An unfit mother?

Hardly.

Just another moment in time, but oh so moving.