Spaz
With a previously unknown feeling of awe, and a pleasant skip in his walk, the man stepped down from the commuter train and smiled. He wore his hair in a tightly braided ponytail and a cowlick drooped to his forehead. The air was warm with a hint of blistering heat and the puddles from the thunderstorm that visited the night before were evaporating. He worked his way through the small crowd en route to the station house that sat next to the tracks on a small hill that was on Front Street. Once inside he stopped in the restroom. With a twinkling smile, he gazed at his reflection and searched his pocket for a comb. He was pleased at his appearance and checked it out in the mirror.
The hair was in place, his eyes were wide with crystal green optimism, and his body was in fine shape as well. He had on a loosely fitted blue denim jacket, tight black shirt, stonewashed jeans that hugged his legs snugly, and new sneakers.
“You are looking great, Phil, especially for a fifty year old man.” He winked at his reflection then fired his finger at the mirror before turning to leave. It’d been over thirty years since he’d been back and he was in a good mood. The idea that he returned to go to a funeral bothered him slightly but, he laughed, he would make his appearance then seek out his old haunts. Phil Dawson had become a man ages ago. He found that people were as real, or as phony, as the individual decided. After graduating from high school (barely) he moved to the city to get away from his mother and her expectations. His mother was a Baptist who believed salvation was only in Jesus. Between the old woman and her gaggle of bible thumbing friends, Phil thought for sure he was going to hell.
He walked from the station house down the hill heading for Archers Cafe, which was in the town square. Archers was the place he and his buddies (or as his dad used to call them ’fellow thugs’) used to hang around and daydream about conquests like mating, running away on motorcycles, or beating up bullies. For some reason his parents were both still alive. They even somewhat got along with each other, although they lived in different homes and had different names. His mind started to wander back to the days when ‘Hip-Hop’ was an expression used to describe a bunny’s movement, Marlboro was cool, and music was bought on these things called cassette tapes. He worked his way down the hill and his mouth dropped open as he saw that Archers had become a ransacked mess. The sign was broken and halfway hung across the once proud doorway. An old crate collection had managed to form next to the walk and Phil decided to reminisce for a few moments before gearing up to undergo the tasks that lie ahead. He slipped a crate beneath his ass and then pulled a Marlboro 100 from his jacket pocket.
After lighting the smoke, Phil Dawson breathed in the flavored vapor and returned to a different, simpler time.
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“Life, can be complicated sometimes son, when I look back there are a number of things I’d have done differently to make it easier. Look, I know it can be hard when the other kids pick on you and then the teachers say: Boys will be boys!” Edgar Dawson was a nice enough man and a great father. With his eyes glassed over by fondness, he was sitting on the stoop in front of the cottage smoking a cigarette and having a man-to-man talk with his son.
Phil had gotten in some trouble at school that day. The fourth grade was replete with bullies and the like. He was drawing peacefully during recess when he felt a spitball knock him in the head. Drawing on his mother’s Christian examples, he let it pass and softly smirked.
The smirk was taken as a flippant gesture by the boy who’d spat the ball. His name was Turk and he calmly stepped over and slapped Phil in the head. Turk’s friends all laughed and cheered their leader on to attack. After shoving the hapless Phil to the dirt and raising his foot to kick, Turk sneered, “Dawson, you are a freak!”
The same group of punks had beaten Phil on since he could recall. This was the final straw for him. He grabbed the foot as soon as Turk was in mid-swing and flipped it airborne. Turk landed in a tubby heap as his friends chuckled. Before the bully could get back at the artist, Phil shouted and leaped on top of Turk. Swinging wildly well-placed fists and a perfectly aimed knee at the oppressor’s balls, Phil beat the tar out of the kid. He was taking out every frustration he had endured since he was in kindergarten. Finally Mr. Parker, the school’s principal heard the commotion and broke it apart.
Parker grabbed Phil by the back of the shirt and hoisted the angry boy skyward. Turk played his part of the victim to the hilt. He looked at the angry principal’s bulging arms and bald head with fear. “Mr. Parker, I was just sitting here with Benson and the guys when Dawson came out of nowhere and started smacking me!”
Turk should’ve been an actor because he used the tears that were welling to his advantage. Parker was a bully who’d retired to run the school. He was able to pick a thug out of a crowd (so he claimed in the interview to get the position) and turned to look in Phil’s face. The kid in the air had a smug grin that told stories. The bell rang and the kids all stood in attention to form a line. Parker placed Phil on the ground and then waved his hand in Turk’s direction to tell the boy to get in line. Then the principal stared right through Phil.
“Mr. Dawson, you are suspended from this school until such time as one of your parents can come in and speak to me about this. You had better hope and pray this incident does not end up on your permanent record!”
Then Phil reported to his classroom to gather his coat and lunchbox. Turk saw the dejected boy and smirked as he sat at his desk. As they were leaving the room Turk whispered to Phil, “I just figured out what to call you: Spaz!” The quiet laugh Turk enjoyed shot a bolt of angst through Phil.
His dad was home, thank God, and not his mom when the school called. After a brief bit of haggling, Edgar agreed to pick his son up at the school. The ride home was one of silence as son wasn’t sure what father was thinking. The words of Principal Parker rang in Phil’s ears ‘Permanent record’. If this found its way to his permanent record, he wouldn’t be able to work, find an apartment, or get married. Marriage was a long way off but he’d been thinking about becoming a trash truck driver and living somewhere away from his folks. Now his plans might be shattered and his mom was going to have to find out about the fight eventually.
He went upstairs to his room while his dad sat by the radio and waited for his mom to return from the nursing home she worked. Dad told mom there was a fight and that he’d taken care of everything. Phil listened to his parents from the other side of the wall. He could feel a beehive in his belly about to explode. Mom took it pretty well especially after dad started to tickle her. As she made dinner, Eloise pondered the fate of her offspring. Edgar had told her that he was going to talk to the boy outside.
“So what happened anyway? Boy, I know you just ain’t the kind of kid to haul off and belt somebody that didn’t deserve it.”
Phil explained what had gone on between Turk and him for as long as he’d been in school. After that, the relationship between father and son improved and even mother and son got along much better. School, on the other hand, was a colossal mess. The entire class began calling Phil ‘Spaz’. He wasn’t happy about the moniker but figured that as long as Turk no longer beat him up he could deal with it. After grammar school and junior high, the social system changed considerably. It was funny how things had turned around. The same boy that had been criticized for being an ass kisser who’d rather sit and peacefully draw than get in trouble found comfort in hanging around with stoners. He’d discovered the truth of his old man’s words when it became clear that girls were the one thing everyone wanted. Life indeed became a complicated mess with which he had to deal.
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Tina St.Mark was the girl’s name that brought sex to the table. She was a slut who enjoyed the height of popularity and passed around through the group. Phil, however, developed true feelings for Tina and was hopelessly in love when it was his turn. Sadly for him it ended after she had her older brother, Walter, kick the hell out of the affectionate boy. He did what everyone else seemed to do at the time: more drugs than ever. Then, while alone and crying by the tracks, he watched as a puddle formed disappearing rings from a pebble he’d kicked into it. The lesson he learned was that while the pebble remained in place, its effects went on for a while then vanished. He breathed a sigh as this occurred to him. Then impulsively retrieved a beaten up notebook from his pocket and started to draw.
The drawings became alive and he was just the intermediary between inspiration and action. He truly let himself float along in the wild spree that followed. His dad, by this time, had found work as a traveling shoestring sales representative. Leaving the boy alone to face his heartbreak, (mom was never any good at handling emotional problems, she’d just tell him to give it to Jesus) which annoyed him until now. He then found a paint store and went crazy with artwork. Tina St.Mark had become the pebble and the art was the resulting rings of water. He knew a strange peace as a result. His friends now consisted of people with names like, Jaybar, Ribald, and Lonnie. They were what the papers all called dropouts and bums. Phil was happier though than his mom had even thought possible. She was also very nervous about what path those boys were leading her son.
She tapped lightly on his door one Saturday morning after Walter’s assault. Her mouth dropped as soon as she opened the door and saw the walls decorated. Smiling weakly, Phil offered, “Hey ma, what do you think of my artwork? Don’t worry I can wash it all off before noon.”
She hushed his statement with a wave of her hand and then carefully inspected the work. “What was her name?”
Before he realized what he was, doing Phil told his mom the story of how Tina St. Mark had broken his heart. He wisely left out the sexual parts. As he was speaking, he rose from his bed and used hand gestures to explain. She embraced him and they shared tears. Time passed and, though he struggled to succeed, he squeaked through the last year of high school. After that, life became its usual tedious boredom. He managed to find work in various fields.
The local restaurants provided Phil with dishwashing chores and odd jobs. Then he briefly had a spell with the DPW and soon found that there were no prospects that maintained his interest.
Eventually he found a job working east and drove a golf cart for a while. Life seemed to keep getting in the way of his dreams. He had discovered some time past high school that the love affair with creating colorful pieces of art was the only thing that made him feel whole. Tina St.Mark had been the initial reason for his fascination but that was merely the start. He’d created thousands of portraits, pictures and fabulous works of art. They accumulated in hundreds of notebooks that gathered dust in his bedroom closet. The styles that had come and gone were something to which he’d paid no heed. Kids changed from wearing long hair to none, tight jeans to loose ones, and Marlboros had become cancer sticks. Seatbelts, safety helmets, and organic foods had become nuisances.
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None of any of this bothered him at all. He had discovered the style, which suited him best and wore it with pride. He was also aware of the fact that he could potentially have become father to a small handful of people. In his early twenties, he’d been something of a whore monger without concern for his actions. This bothered him a bit because he’d wanted to have a family when he was younger like his dad. However, he considered as he extinguished his smoke, there’s still plenty of time for that because I ain’t dead yet!
With a winsome smile, he stood and gazed at the old cafe again. Then considered the reason for his return home: Mr. Othello Parker had died after a bout with pneumonia and he had to attend the funeral. His reason for attending was simple: his dad had told him that Parker was an old enemy who’d turned around and become a good man.
Phil grinned at his reflection in the window of a new car that parked under the train bridge. He was happy now that childhood was finally over and life was treating him better than he’d ever thought it would. Bearing this in mind, he started to walk toward the old cottage where his mom still held residence. Distracted by his own thoughts he bumped into a homeless man who had taken up the spot next to the dumpster under the bridge. He opened his mouth to apologize but before he could utter a sound, the homeless man shouted.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing to me? Think I don’t feel anything because I got no place else to call mine?” The disheveled vagrant acclaimed a fighting stance. Phil’s eyes rolled and he smirked as he studied the bum.
The vagrant who tried shoving Phil took the smirk as a flippant gesture. Then the man paused and looked Phil in the eyes. “Spaz? That is you ain’t it?”
The years had not been friendly at all to Turk. Phil grinned and then rolled his eyes. “Spaz? Nobody has called me that for years. Do yourself a favor Turk: grow up will you?”
Phil reached into his pocket and handed his former tormentor a ten. Turk snatched the bill and hobbled off to his corner. Phil shook his head and started toward the cottage. Some people will remain the same children forever.
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