The Toilet Plunger

All through my adolesent and teen years Wednesdays were the worst day of the week. Not because of it's calender location but because the worst shit always, and I mean always happened on a wednesday. The first one started like this...

 

It was a wednesday afternoon I had just come home from an afternoon fight after school with a kid named Bill Allen. We completely distroyed Mrs. Goldburgs flower garden while in our headlock wrestling match. After Bill said "I give" the fight was over and I got the girl.

 

As I finished my walk home I was feeling pretty good about kicking Billys ass and everything was right with the world.

 

Walking into the house on Degarmo Street my mother asked me if I would do her a favor ."Sure

mom what is it?" "Would you take this money and ride to the dry cleaners and pick up some clothes I have there?" "OK" I said "no problem." So I got on my trusty metallic gold Sting Ray and rode the mile or so to the dry cleaners. Now the cleaners were located near a five point intersection at a strip mall in a very busy part of town. I negotiated the traffic and slid my golden steed to a stop in front of the dry cleaners. Walking in I gave my mothers claim ticket to the asian man working behind the counter. He came back with a silk and rayon dress and my mothers favorite pink cashmere sweater. The garments were covered with a thin clear plastic bag, the kind that people said "don't put this over your head."

 

I got some change back from the asian man which my mother said I could keep for doing her the favor, and got back on my bike for the ride home. Now like I said this was a very tricky part of town traffic wise and I now had cargo on board. As I reached one of the stop lights which had just turned red, I decided to go up the street about a half block and cut over at the stop sign instead of waiting. It was a long light. As I got to the stop sign and went across the street I heard a voice coming out of what sounded like a loud speaker behind me. I turned my head and there I saw a motorcycle cop with the disco lights on and a microphone to his mouth, "stop the bike kid and stay where you are!" Well I was no criminal, yet, so I stopped my riding, put the kickstand down and gently drapped the clothes over my bananna seat. "Whats your name kid", "Keith" " well Keith do you know why I stopped you?" "No" "you were riding on the wrong side of the street." "huh?" "Your not supposed to ride on the left hand side of the road." "OK" I said. "So I'm going to give you a ticket" "What!!" "wait officer please don't give me a ticket, I didn't know." "Well now you do." "But since now I know, I'll never ever do it again I promise!" "I know you won't." As he began to write the citation in his black ticket book. I started sobing. I asked him while he was writing the citation, "what do I do with it?" "there's a date on it where you'll have to go to court and talk to the judge." I was really scared now and sobing even more. He gave me the black book to sign my name, he tore off the yellow copy and gave it to me. "Be careful kid" he zoomed off.

 

I was so fucking scared it wasn't even funny. My mother was going to beat the shit outa me and I might be going to jail. I was barely able to get on my bike and start peddling back home. My legs were weak, my eyes were blurry, I was a wreck. I was about halfway home when something else went wrong. I was so upset that I wasn't paying very much attention to anything when suddenly I was thrown from my bike like I had hit something. But there was nothing around to hit. What happened was the long flowing plastic bags that were covering the garments got caught in the front spokes of my bike and pulled all the plastic and clothes through my dirty, greasy spokes, forks and tires. They were ruined. Oil stained on pink cashmere.

 

I was beyond scared now I was a fucking zombie. I might as well be dead. Because thats what was going to happen to me when I got home. I got up and began pulling the debris out of my front wheel. It was all fucked up. I walked the rest of the way home with the ruined garments on my bananna seat crying really hard. As I approached the driveway I stopped and thought really hard about just running away. But that's all I did, thought about it. I walked up the driveway and my mother stepped out of the backdoor and said "Where have you been honey, I've been worried about you?" I couldn't speak. I held out my hand full of change and mustered the words "here's the change I don't deserve it" She saw the clothes in the tattered bags with the grease stains on them and my skinned and bleeding elbows, which I didn't even notice. "Did you get in an accident?" "No, I got a ticket" I said. "What?" "you got a ticket?" "for what?" I gave her the yellow paper. "That chicken shit motherfuckin asshole!!" "you got a ticket for riding on the wrong side of the street?" "That fuckin prick!" "Please! don't be mad at me mom!" "Don't worry sweatheart you've suffered enough today." Let's go wash those arms off and get some bandages on em."

 

After I got doctored up I went into my room and fell asleep. My mother came in a couple hours later and asked me if I wanted dinner, "I made your favorite, spaghetti." I was out of the clear and everything was right with the world

Boy am I glad to see you. Your the one I've been waiting for to talk to for a long long time. First of all please forgive me for not calling or contacting you about all the shit that has been happening to me lately cause I don't want to sound like some kind of whiner. You know how I hate whiners so sounding like one really gives me the creeps. But I'm sure you've heard em all so what difference would mine make. Opps there I go. Sorry.

I remember when I was about nine back when they used to sweep the isles at the grocery store every few hours to get the cigerette butts out of the way. My mom would buy food for a week for six for $25 or $30 bucks. It was then that I got my first public beating. In retrospect I find it amusing for some reason.

My friends Clay, Johnny, Mike and myself were out in my frontyard on Degarmo St in Sun Valley California on a hot and smoggy summer afternoon practacing some baseball hitting and fielding. Well it was my turn to field some hits off of Clay. Well Clay smacked one over my head and into our neighbors yard. Now the Wards where a nice Christian family. (We were not Christian, Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran or anything) and the Wards had a perfect little house with a perfect little yard and they had just re-planted some perfect little grass in their freshly turned and treated soil. This was before turf. Well I had to get the ball, no one was home so I carefully climbed over the white string with white cotton sheet strips hanging off of it and stepped onto the rich black loam with it's baby grasslings popping to the surface I walked along the very boundaries of the yard until I had no choice but to cut across to where the ball was. I then doubled back the way I came, as I was genuinely concerned about damaging the grass. As soon as I got back to the guys my mother called out to her children "DINNERS READY!" Well my buddies scattered on their Sting Rays and I went in for supper.

Hamburger patties, lots of worechester sauce on mine, a side of green beans some cottage cheese and a big glass of milk. We were all at the table together my little brother Guy my younger sister Linda, the baby two year old Gail and myself. There was a window right on the other side of the dinning table where no one sat and the table was butt up to the base of that window which looked out to our driveway. There was a knock on the front door so my mother got up to answer. My mother started answering some questions that I could not make out and soon her voice went balistic and believe me my mother had a hell of a temper. The only thing I could make out from all the cussing and screaming was the tail end of the discussion.
"If you ever come over hear again you fuckin bitch and accuse one of my kids of doing something to your property without any proof I'll fucking poison your God Damn dog!!!

Shit! I thought to myself she's stickin up for me, sorta. Well if I don't say I did it I'm in the clear because Mrs. Ward had no proof. Right?

My mother walked into the kitchen with all of us wide eyed and our mouths agape no one said a thing. She looked right at me with the red still flushing her face her eyes filled with anger her mouth some what foamy "DID YOU WALK ON PATTYS NEW FRONT LAWN!" she directed it to me because she knew my buds and I where playing ball. "NOPE! no way she's just picken on us, they always think it's one of us over here, they just don't like us for some reason." "ARE YOU SURE" "Yep"

After the outburst we were all just about done eating when one of my buddy's rode up to the window by the dinning table and said "hey Keith can you come back out and go for a bike ride"? I looked at my mom and she said sure, be careful. Then just as I was about to get up from the table my buddy says "Hey Keith did Mrs. Ward ever find out that you walk on their new grass?

My mother looked at me and that same face that had looked at Patricia Ward was now manifesting itself as she grabbed me by the hair, a nice big fist of it and dragged me to the back door of the house out through the service porch where she grabbed a toilet plunger, as she took me outside by the hair a few more buddy's had arrived on their bikes
and she began to beat the shit out of me. The first whack broke the plunger off so now she had a nice little makeshift billy club. I was trying to get her hands off my hair but she kept smacking my ribs, when I let go of her hands in my hair to protect my ribs I'd be getting hit in my forearms, hands and elbows. She just kept beating me and telling me to tell my buddy's what a fuckin lyer I was. "TELL THEM YOUR A FUCKIN LYER, TELL EM NOW!!!!