The Gus Diaries

Part 92

The Smoker
 

This past week I had been moping around the house a lot. Both my dads were getting on my case about being a drama queen, but I couldn’t help it. Jeff was off to Carnegie Melon for his freshman orientation, and I was left behind at Britin... alone.

I couldn’t understand why the students needed to stay through the weekend. Jeff explained they were going to have a shit-load of getting-to-know-each-other events once all the “business”of orientation was complete.

Why the fuck did he need to get to know all those other students now. He’d be seeing them again when the fall semester started anyway. So I was stuck at home, and he was off having a great time.

Friday morning breakfast was no different. I came downstairs in my now typical daily grumpy mood.

“Morning, Sonny Boy. Care to try and grace us with a smile today? It’s been so long I’m beginning to wonder if you still have teeth in there.”

Pop snorted as he scrambled up some eggs for us.

I sat down and gave Dad my biggest forced smile.

“Nice teeth. Good thing you never needed braces. They might have stained those pearly whites.”

“Dad, give me a break. I’ll smile when Jeff gets back. Right now I go to work during the day and do some prep for the school paper’s fall return -- that’s it. What the fuck do I have to smile about?”

“See, Sunshine, this is how we can prove Gus spent time living with Melanie -- they both have the same trash mouth.”

Pop smiled -- a real smile. “Right, Brian, because you never use that kind of language.”

“I fucking well do not.”

I was glad the two of them were having fun. Too bad I couldn’t share in their irritating morning chatter.

Pop brought over the plates of hot food, and Dad poured everyone a cup of coffee. I don’t always drink that stuff, but that morning I needed something to help wake me up so I didn’t look like a zombie at work.

“You know, Gus, I happen to remember you having more than one friend in the world. Why don’t you see if any of them are available after work today?”

“All of them have boyfriends or girlfriends. All of them have a life.”

“See, Sunshine, I told you he has your drama queen tendencies, just proving the theory that nurture is as important as nature.”

Pop tilted his head. “Thank you, Freud... or whoever the fuck said that.” It was actually kind of funny, but I was in no mood to laugh. “I’m sure he couldn’t have gotten any drama queen tendencies, as you so sweetly put it, from you.”

“Moi? How can you say that mi amore?” Dad stuck his tongue in his cheek, Pop hid his laugh by shoving a forkful of eggs into his mouth, and I actually chuckled.

“You two should take this routine on the road. It’s pretty good.”

“Thank you for your theatrical opinion, Sonny Boy, but what I’d really like to see taken on the road is your ass with any of your friends.”

“Okay, okay. I know when I’m outnumbered. Maybe I have been a little bit of a drag this week...”

Pop’s head shot up. “A little bit! We wondered if we needed to take you to a shrink or something. You’ve been a fucking hermit and driving us insane.”

Dad and I simultaneously chimed in, “Trash mouth!”

I was actually feeling pretty relaxed for the first time all week. It made me wonder why my dads hadn’t forced me to go out with my friends earlier. Maybe they were hoping I’d come up with the idea on my own.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
 

On my first break from work I called Marci, but she had dinner plans with her parents and some visiting relatives.

My next call worked out far better. I decided to give Matt a try. We’d gone out a couple of times when Jeff or his girlfriend were busy and had a good time. Turns out since his girlfriend would also be attending CMU, she was away for the weekend too. We decided to meet at the diner after I got out of work.

When my break ended, I went into the sales area of Red Cape Comics. “Hey, Michael, I’m back.” We decided it sounded better, especially since I worked for him at the store, not to call him ‘uncle’ when I was there. Outside of business hours it was up to me. As I was getting older, many of the uncles had been really cool about me just calling them by their first names.

I didn’t care one way or the other, but I think having me call them ‘uncle’ made them feel too old, and one other side benefit -- it pissed off Jenny. She hated being thought of as the only little kid in the family.

Work went pretty smoothly. I actually made a few big sales to some guys who wanted only one comic and each left with four or five.

By the time six o’clock rolled around, I was looking forward to meeting up with Matt. Since Matt had his own car, my dads knew they wouldn’t have to stay late in town to bring me home. If we were too tired to take the drive to Britin, I’d just spend the night at his place.

“Hey, Gorgeous Gus, how’s my favorite high school grandson?” Grandma Deb gave me one of her bear hugs. It nearly knocked the wind out of me.

“Fine, Grandma, if you don’t suffocate me first.”

She laughed her wonderful bellow and went on to get a meal when the bell at the order window rang.

I spotted Matt at one of the booths in the middle of the diner and quickly made my way over to join him.

He laughed. “Hi, Gorgeous Gus.”

I could feel the blush creeping over my cheeks. “Very funny. It’s my grandmother. Grandmothers say stupid shit like that. Apparently she called me that once in a while when I was a baby.”

Matt was still laughing. “Careful, kid, a name like that might catch on, and then where would you be?”

I finally got my wits about me. “At least I’d be considered gorgeous, not like Monkey Matt strikes again.”

“What the fuck! I got that name because I’m so damn tall I can jump up and swing on the basket whenever the hell I please.”

“I know, remember, Monkey, I’m on the team with you -- or at least I was, now that you’re off to college too.”

“Hey, Pitt will be cool. I won’t be far away and I still get to play in exchange for school. Full scholarship does have a nice ring to it.”

I nodded. “How about some food before we go out?”

“Actually, my parents are out of town visiting my older sister, her husband, and their kids. I rented us some cool movies and thought we could sack out and eat all the pizza we want.”

“Sounds great!”

When we got up to leave, I heard Grandma yelling from behind. “Aren’t you gonna eat anything?”

“Not tonight, Grandma. I’m trying to skip my weekly stomach ache.”

“Shit, you really are a Kinney -- what a mouth.”

Remembering the morning I laughed. “I understand it runs in my family -- all sides.”

We left the diner, got into Matt’s car, and headed to his house. While we waited for the pizza, he started showing me the movies we could watch.

“Hey, Gus, how about this one? Have you even seen it?”

I shook my head, never really noting it anywhere before.

“My dad got it for me to watch before I went to college. He said it reminded him a lot of his college days, but dramatized times ten.”

“Is it supposed to be funny or serious?”

“Definitely funny.”

“Okay, let’s give it a try.”

Before we sat down we made popcorn, Matt pulled out a six pack of beer and paper plates.

“Where the fuck did you get that?”

“What, the beer?”

I nodded, knowing he was far from twenty-one.

“You should know this, kid -- one of the tricks of the trade -- you can exchange a basketball ticket for almost anything these days, no questions asked. Now that I’m on a college team, the locals can’t do enough for me. In return, I’ll get them tickets to the games.”

“Is that legal?”

“Probably not, but who the hell is going to tell.” He glared at me.

“Not me, I can keep a secret.”

“Good.”

Before the credits started, the pizza arrived and we sat down to watch some bullshit film called Animal House. It was actually pretty funny and it got funnier after my second beer.

Matt was bummed that we had bottles of beer rather than cans -- he wanted to crush one against his head like one of the lead characters. “I explained that bottles probably meant the beer was better than the shit sold in cans.”

“How would you know, peon?”

“I listen to my dads.”

“Yeah, your dads are cool.”

I sat back and smiled. My dads really are cool, although I wondered what they’d say if they saw me downing three beers in less than an hour.

“Gus, look!” Matt directed me to a scene where some people were sitting with their college professor smoking pot. It looked kind of like they were really getting to know each other in a much more grown up way -- or were just high as a fucking kite.

Matt ran out of the room and returned quickly. “Lookie what I have, my friend.” He was dangling a bag of tiny leaves. Looked a lot like some of the herbs Pop used when he cooks, but I was pretty sure I’d never had this in my mac and cheese.

“Is that...”

“You know it.”

“Don’t tell me you traded future basketball tickets for pot!”

“No fucking way. This is good shit from a school friend.”

He started to roll a joint, and I wasn’t sure how smart this was. “Coach would kill me if he knew about this.”

“What the fuck do you care about the coach? You’re not back to school for another couple of months. It’s break time -- enjoy your break.”

I have to admit the logic made sense, at least at the time it did. I was trying to remember why Jeff and I had never hung out with the guys when they started smoking before, but between my pizza-laden stomach, the beer, and that weird-ass movie, I couldn’t think of one reason.

“I’ve never tried that stuff before.”

“No problem, I’ll show you how.”

And he did, until I stopped coughing and found myself getting much more out of the movie than I would have ever thought possible.

Just one problem, I forgot to tell my dads that I wouldn’t be coming home.

[TBC]

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