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DECEMBER '75
S. A. Scoggin
They'd never seen anyone do it like that, no sir, Woody
says, they used to come by the dorm and watch me and Joey shoot
a six-pack. Some of them got to be pretty good, too, after we
taught 'em how, but nothing compared to what we do here
everyday. Beer takes too long, he says, so I shoot mine--and
then he would--twelve ounces in a gulp, a sixer under a half-
minute, a second in his corner to pop the tops and pass--now
they've got this goddamn push-button top, and who can shoot any
other beer? So Coors bottles for me, he says, Rocky Mountain
Kool-Aid...Colorado brown, and bury me with a full one. Woody
bought a van. Seems everyone else had one, but God knows he
didn't need one and probably would never finish paying for it,
what with thai sticks up to $32.50 and copper down to 56 cents.
The old man told me they're going to lay us all off, he says,
copper is scraping bottom, the mine is losing money and what're
we gonna do ? Anything but buy vans, I say, and he laughs. Woody
laughs at no job, no money, no dope. Let's go watch the old
high-school rasslers tonight, he says, pick you up at eight.
There's me and Woody and Bill and Denis and Gene. Me and Denis
and Gene are sitting hip to elbow on a stained loveseat Woody
has in the back, Bill in front across the hump from Woody. Woody
is steering with his memory as he tries to open a bottle on the
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ashtray. He gives up and bites the cap off like we’ve seen him
do a hundred times, usually in front of some girl, and Bill asks
him why he didn't gnaw it off in the first place. Woody shrugs.
But I ain’t going to bite them off all night, he says. We stop
at a grocery store and buy some beer with a fake ID and a can
opener which we lose. Denis can't figure out the dome lights, so
Woody pulls under a streetlight and we find it. Gene is sitting
on it, grinning. Denis cuffs him. I can't control him anymore,
he says, he‘s really on the rag these days. Woody pulls into a
gas station and discovers that the attendant has several high
school student body cards. Woody extracts them with an
incredible promise--saves us a buck, he says. Bill checks his
watch and says we have an hour to make the match Sixty miles to
Gardnerville, he says, and who's drinking all the fucking beer?
We point to each other; Gene points to his leg. Gene and Denis
are trading insults. Gene is talking to his penis, which he
calls Jackson. Down boy, he says, back in the holster. Have a
drink, Jackson. I tell Gene he is a waste, and he nods sadly and
pulls a joint from his pocket. It's this mary-gee-wanna, he
says, corroding the youth of this great land. We laugh and smoke
the pitiful little thing. All I had left, Gene says. Woody
passes out the student body cards-—Denis strokes his beard and
says, who the hell is gonna believe this crew is in high school?
Give me a break. Bill is burning the roach in the cigarette
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lighter and passing it to Woody, we are laughing at something on
the radio, and Gene is telling us about a girl he met in Vegas
who used to--Denis punches him in the shoulder. You’re a liar,
he says, she said she only did with me. Bill throws something
out the window and says, then she lied to me to? You guys remind
me of some little Paiutes I saw fighting the other day, I say.
One of them got so mad he called another a fucking Washoe. Gene
spits a mouthful of beer on Woody's back and the van swerves and
Gene is trying to cough and laugh at the same time. A fucking
Washoe, he says at last, a Washoe. Keep it in your pants, Woody
says, you nearly killed us all. Bill laughs. Who would notice,
he says. Denis is talking about Jackson, something about
tweezers which I can’t hear over Woody singing along with the
Eagles, and than we're in Gardnerville. Bill directs Woody to
the high school, but there are no cars in the lot and the
buildings are dark. Shit, Woody says. Denis jumps out and says,
Bill, you Washoe, this is the old high school. Oh wow, Bill
says, they built a new one?
We find the new high school and go in. No one challenges
us, and Woody starts to swear. Wasted cards, he says, what is
this jive? Denis spots an off-duty policeman and elbows Gene to
make him stop giggling. In the center of the gym two scrawny
wrestlers are grappling ineptly on an orange-and-black mat. A
row of restless teenagers watches from a row of folding chairs.
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They wear street clothes. Denis' girlfriend, Harry, is a
cheerleader. She comes over to us and looks at Denis' eyes. They
forfeited every match but one, she says, these are some JV's
wrestling now. While she is talking, one pins the other and
people begin to leave. We sit in the stands until the gym is
empty. Sixty miles, Bill says, sixty miles to watch one stinking
JV stinking match. Here's a match, Gene says, and throws a
headlock on Denis.
We are bummed out on the way home. I'm bummed out, Bill
says. We nod. Woody snaps his fingers. Let's stop and shoot some
pool at the Central Bar, he says. Is it mellow, Bill asks. Sure,
Woody says, I know the bartender. Gene puts out his cigar. I’m
up for it, he says, let's do it.
There is one cowboy at the bar, talking to the bartender
over a scotch. Denis and I rack up while Woody and Bill go
behind the bar looking for Jim Beams. Hi George, says Woody. Hi
Woody, says George, and keeps talking to the cowboy. George
thinks Woody is 23, or says he does and doesn't care much.
Business is slow.
Gene put a dime in the dusty jukebox and is strumming a
pool cue, singing falsetto with Chet Atkins. We play five-way
elimination, first loser buying drinks, but Gene goes out in
four shots and he only has $1.12. Woody and Denis play eight-
ball for straight shots of Jim Beams. Bill and I are sitting at
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the bar drinking beer and talking about a seventeen-year-old
girl. Gene is throwing peanuts in the air and catching them on
his tongue. He's really out of it, Bill says. A peanut lodges in
Gene's beard and he is stretching his face into horrible pained
expressions trying to reach it with his tongue. God, Bill says,
Gene is feeling some kind of buzz. Gene nods vigorously and the
peanut falls into his tequila sunrise.
The bar closes at midnight. The only other customer had
left around ten. We say good night to George and go out,
stopping to pick up Gene, who trips over the doorsill. Holy
shit, says Woody behind us, and we turn and gape at Wood's van.
White vapor is curling from the tops of the windows and
streaming from the overhead vent--steam, I think to myself, and
Woody is running, yelling something, and we chase him. Woody
yanks the driver's door and smoke billows out. I slide the side
door over and my eyes burn. I'm on fire, Woody yells, and
through the grey clouds I can see a glow inside the loveseat so
I grab an arm and drag it out of the van. It falls on the
asphalt lot--one cushion bouncing away, a square wheel charred
on one edge, leaving a contrail. We gather around the smoldering
loveseat. It‘s only the loveseat, Woody says, wow--I thought the
mother was torched.
Gene is laughing, bent over, he is laughing so hard, and
then we are all laughing at him and at how scared Woody was and
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at the column of smoke rising into the stars. Goddamn, Bill
says, goddamn...I’ve never seen anything so funny in my whole
goddamn life. Smoky the Bear seize piss on it, Woody says, and
he does. I find a bottle of Coors in a paper bag which had
fallen from the van, shake it and spray it over the coals. Bill
goes off to look for a hose but comes back without one. He kicks
the loveseat. Sparks fly, and we laugh. The damn thing'll burn
all night, Denis says, let's put it in the road and beat it. I
can see some cowboy hitting a blazing loveseat, Bill says. Gene
falls to the pavement. George is locking the bar door and stops
to laugh at us. Go throw it in the ditch, he says, and we whoop
like wild Paiutes. Denis and I snatch the seat, run it across
the road. The drainage ditch is ten feet on the far side of a
barbed wire fence. We swing one-two—three, and the loveseat
flies, trailing fire and smoke and splashes sizzling into the
middle. It sinks. Bill throws in one cushion, and Gene the
other, but Gene misjudges and the cushion lends on the opposite
bank in the weeds. No one volunteers to retrieve it.
Back to town, I am sitting in front and Denis and Gene and
Bill are lying in back. The van smells like scorched plastic.
Denis is fighting with Gene. You started it, he says, you and
that cheapo cigar. Spontaneous combustion, Gene says, but Denis
is sitting on him and the words aren't clear. It wasn't even
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mine, Woody says, it was Joey's. What am I going to tell him?
Tell him we smoked it, Gene says.
We stop outside of town at another beer. They card us. Bi11
has four fake IDs, but I vote to leave and we do. Gene says it's
Jackson's bedtime anyway. Woody drops me at my house and roars
away. The van weaves slightly. The dogs bark, but no lights come
on, so I slip in the door and to bed.
The next day Woody told me everything was cool. Joey had
ripped the loveseat off.
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