Bubba slowly turned towards me. The look on his face told me he was about to do the techno-color yawn...about to hurl chunks all over his sneakers. His Dad was enroute to the scene where his car, still wedged against the broken tombstone, sat in a mangled mess. He couldn't even look at his car. I went back to survey the damage again. The broken shards of red and yellow plastic that were once the turn signal covers. The puddle of anti-freeze pooling on the grass, already causing an environmental incident in my head. I was sure that some poor defenseless shrew or field mouse or tombstone critter was going to gulp the green stuff down and die in writhing jig of pain.
"What are we gonna do, Wit?" Bubba asked. There we go with the "we" stuff again. He was still not taking his eyes off the barren road. Any moment, headlights would rise over the crest and Bubba's bladder would let go in a warm embarrassing rush.
I took a deep breath and let it out in a noisy whoosh. "Look, he already knows you had an accident, right?"
Bubba nodded in agreement but I was sure his mind was elsewhere.
"But you didn't tell him HOW it happened, right?"
Bubba finally turned away from the road, his forehead scrunched in a questioning scowl. Maybe it was the tone of my voice or my false-confidence, either way he was intrigued.
"So don't TELL him you were too busy looking in your backseat to pay attention to which way the road went."
He ran his hand through his hair all the way to the back of his neck. His hand worked his neck as if trying to rub out a kink. From the back of his throat came a grunting, gravelly sound. "What the hell am I supposed to tell him?"
"I don't know," I shot back trying to hide my frustration, "tell him you swerved to miss something. Like maybe a car or a kid or a dog or some shit."
"A kid," He said with wide eyes as if saying 'yeah, that'll fly.'
"You know what I mean," I said now sounding full of frustration. "Just tell him anything but what really happened. You tell him that shit and you'll never drive your car again."
"Shit," Bubba moaned and kicked at the grass. "Shit shit shit!"
"Did he sound pissed" I asked gingerly.
His face was chalk-white with a blue-ish tint from the lights over the parking lot. I was sure that if it had been daytime, his facial tone would've been pretty close to the same color. "What do you think," he cried.
I already knew the answer. Bubba's Dad was the perpetually grumpy sorta fellow who was happy sitting in his lazy boy infront of the TV. Hell, I was lucky if I got a hello from the man on the rare times I got anything at all. He wasn't a mean guy by any sorts, just his own sort of gentleman. Before I could answer, Bubba interrupted me.
"Oh fuuuuck," he said pointing down the road. Headlights. Coming our way. I was sure it was Bubba's Dad. I was sure he was going to smack us both around. Bubba for being a moron, and me just cause I was there. I realized that I myself felt a little sick in my stomach. I also realized something else.
Bubba was laughing.
It was the kind of laugh you'd expect in a horror movie or a movie about an insane asylum. It was a laugh that said he was on the last bus to Nutsville and his ticket was already stamped. "Holy shit," he said through his unnerving laughter, "here he comes, Wit. Here he comes." And in that split second I was suddenly so sure that he was going to bolt off into the cornfield. I was positive he was going to leave me standing next to his broken down car and the broken down tombstone. Standing in a torn up cemetery as his furious father looked down at me and blamed me for everything. Bubba was pacing. He was chewing his fingers and pacing and mumbling something that was close to hysteria. He was gonna crack harder than Theisman's leg and I was gonna be left holding the bag.
"Look," I blurted, "tell him this..." But in that moment of fear my mind was blank. The portion of my brain that had become so highly developed in the art of bullshitting suddenly shut down on me. I sent the request for a bullshit story and got nothing back. Holy hell I was drawing a blank. Zilch. I'd worked so hard at the art of flowerful storytelling...of excuse making...of downright bullshitting. That part of my brain was normally like lightning. And now, my brain just left me hangin'.
"Tell him you had to swerve to miss a dog." *siiiigh* Yes, I know. I suck. Even as the words came out of my mouth I wanted to kick my own ass for being so lame. A DOG??
"Huh?" bubba asked, slightly more puzzled than I was.
"Y-Yeah...just tell him a dog shot out onto the road and you turned real hard to miss the damn thing."
"A dog ran out in the road," bubba said, testing the words for validity. His hand placed thoughtfully on his chin as if he were pondering his own existence.
"A dog," he repeated, looking to me for support.
"It'll work," I urged, noticing that the headlights were slowing as they approached. "A dog shot out from the field," I instructed, pointing towards the tall cornstalks, "you didn't see it at first cause it was dark. You jerked the wheel to avoid hitting the the thing and KAPLOW the rest is history."
"...and I swerved..."
"YES, SWERVED DAMMIT!!!!" I wanted to hammer the words into his forehead. It wasn't that hard of a concept to grasp was it? Little did I know. I was foolish to not realize how far into the proverbial horse dung we were. Bubba was no better at concocting a story than I was at bending spoons with my mind.
I heard Bubba's fathers car door clunk shut. "Be cool," I whispered out of the side of my mouth, more for my own sake than his. His father had this strained look on his face as if someone was driving an invisible pool stick right between his eyes. I'd seen that look before and I knew it wasn't a good sign. There was no look of concern, no look of relief that his son was okay. Only....
"JESUS, MARY and JOSEPH!!!!"
...anger.
"What in blue freakin' blazes happened," Mr Wise barked, his face strained as the invisible pool cue dug deeper into his skull. I looked over at Bubba. His mouth was moving but no sound came out. Maybe he was praying. Under the circumstances I didn't think it was too bad of an idea.
"How the..." Mr Wise started but his words were choppy. It was as if his anger was choking off the words as they rose in his throat. Sentences would form never to be finished. You've gotta be.... This is some screwed up.... I can't goddamned believe...
I could easily fill in those blanks.
He marched around the car, spouting out his half sentences, veins bulging out on his forehead. He cussed and spat as he noticed more and more damage. The tire tracks, the crumpled front end, the destroyed tombstone. They all got their own creative cussing exercise. Had it been a different environment, I'd have been taking notes. After his third or fourth lap he must've ran out of swear words, either that or realized he was on holy ground and began to fear for his soul. Either way, the damage surveillance ceased and he turned his attention on his son. And this, my friend, is where the magic of Bubba kicks in.
When you're a teenager, you live your life making excuses to cover your ass. Its a fact of life. Anyone who says differently is either an only child (who can you blame?) or a girl. You have to literally build your whole existence keeping up this chain of fairy tales because its gotten so bad you just don't' remember what the truth is anymore. So as your ability to spin yarn gets better you have to take stock in your surroundings. You have to know who your fellow bullshit artists are and who were the kids you told to stand there and nod. Bubba was a nodder. Never trust a nodder to hold up his end of the yarn.
"What in THEEE hell happened," Mr Wise said, his eyes drilling holes in his son's stomach.
Dog dog dog dog, I thought. I closed my eyes and clenched my fists. I wanted to send bubba my thoughts. I wanted to talk to him through telekinesis...enter his mind...take control of his body. ANYTHING. I forced my thoughts so severely that I was sure my head was going to explode. But Bubba made no sign that he was receiving anything from me. He stood there, for what seemed like three hours, fidgeting with his fingers and blinking repeatedly.
"Well???" His dad demanded.
Like I said in previous posts, Bubba wasn't the quickest roach in the kitchen. And with his dad looming over him, veins bulging, face red, I didn't blame him. I was fighting the urge to curl up under a rock myself. Finally Bubba's eyes met his father's. He sucked in a huge breath. What came out next was a torrent of words. A hail of verbal machine gun fire that shot past both Mr Wise and I, leaving us semi-retarded for a split second:
"Weweredrivingdowntheroadandweweren'tgoingfastbutweweredrivingandwestartedgoingupthehilland--"
Holy Jesus, I thought...
"--itwasdarkandiwasdrivingandwitgotinthebackseatwithcrackersandhewascheckingitout--"
Dog, bubba....DOG!
"andilookeddowntheroadandtherewasthisdoganditwasrunningaroundandaroundand--"
Let me translate because to this day I still cringe: I looked down the road and there was this dog and it was running around and around...at this point the whole jig was up. Our train had derailed on its way to Happytown and we were stuck carrying the luggage.
"andIwasafraidtohititanditwasrunningaroundand--"
"BULLSHIT!!!" Mr Wise exploded. "HOW DAMN STUPID DO I LOOK???" He wheeled around and for a split second I was sure he was turning on me. He KNEW that somehow this was my fault and he was turning to clock me in the noggin. Shit, I deserved it for putting bubba up to story he just completely botched. Instead he marched over to the car, flopped down into the drivers seat and turned the key.
And of course, the car started. OF COURSE. God was up there smiling. He was a sick sumbitch when he wanted to be. But he had my kind of sense of humor. The car klunked and sputtered but it was running. He grinded the gears into reverse and managed to somehow back off the wreckage that was the tombstone. After piloting the car back onto the road he got out again.
"You," he said, pointing a commanding finger at Bubba who all but snapped to attention, "take this damn mess home and park it in the garage."
"But what about the tombstone, I..."
"MOVE IT," he bellow, "before the cops show up and haul you off."
Bubba jumped in his broken dream, hours before his ticket to freedom, now a jalopy that was on the verge of giving up the ghost.
Mr Wise turned towards me as his son's car smoked and klunked towards home. His face was still strained but a little less severe. The veins in his head seemed to deflate.
"C'mon, I'll take you home," he said with a sigh.
Bubba ended up having to pay almost $2000 for the tombstone on top of the costs to repair his car. He also had to pay for the damage to the cemetary yard and deal with the jabs and jibes from family and friends. Everytime he would go for a drive for the next 2 years he'd hear "watch out for dogs" or "stay out of graveyards, Bubba." My mom even threatened to make me help pay for the damage. "I know you had something to do with this," she'd said through suspicious eyes, at which point I'd find the nearest exit and run like hell.
But I can still remember the ride home that fateful evening.As I sat in the passenger seat listening to Mr Wise let loose on how he just couldn't figure his son out I began to think about what he'd said.
MOVE IT, before the cops show up and haul you off.
Bubba's father was in the process of spinning his own yarn. He was dodging Johnny Law in the same manner that we spent our teenage lives attempting to. It made me realize that you never really step out of the Bullshit business. You never really stop trying to cover your ass. There's always going to be another story to tell.
Unless you're a nodder.
posted by Michael Witmer @ Monday, March 08, 2004
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