Enduv Road

2. Pithed

Chapter 2

Pithed

Several years earlier, my father had maimed his right hand at the E-J shoe factory in our old neighborhood in West Endicott, New York, but although he had only one useful hand, he always tried to find work. When mom died of leukemia last autumn, Aunt Beaners and Uncle Arty had been kind enough to take us in so Dad could work, which is how we ended up in Buffalo.

Beaners never yelled at us. She must have read a book on 'polite discipline' because she would say things like, “Lefty, the next time you attempt to wash your hair with spaghetti, you should use your noodle instead.” Or, “Children, if you decide to burn your fingers again while toasting marshmallows with Uncle Arty's cigarette lighter, you should first ask his permission to use it.”

At times Beaners would miss the point altogether. One evening during dinner, Lefty abruptly tried to affix my finger to the table with his spoon in what he described as a science 'experient.' After I yelped, Beaners calmly stated, “Lefty dear, you need to think things through. Your 'experient' would have worked better with a fork.” Sometimes we suspected she was kidding, even though she would go about her business and never let on.

Beaners looked out for my dad too, which made me love her even more. She said my father was a genuine war hero who fought in WWII in the Battle of the Bulge where he was badly wounded. One time Dad showed me his medal, but he never bragged or talked about the horror, only the annoyances. He just grinned and said, “I’ll be danged if I didn’t lose feeling in my toes due to holes in my boots while in Belgium, and then I turned around and lost my fingers in a shoe factory in Endicott. Life sure is full of strange twists, pumpkin, but when life gives you rhubarb, make rhubarb pie.”

Dad never let on about his sorrow, but he was sad all the time because he missed my mom so much. I once heard Beaners whisper to Arty that Dad needed to work because it distracted him from his heartache. I wanted to help in every way I could, so I told Lefty that we had to adapt to our new life and help Dad make rhubarb pie. My brother didn't really understand, but he liked the idea of pie, so we both did our part to go along with whatever our father needed. (That is, until the whole topic of Utah arose.)

Even though I missed my mom terribly, I enjoyed living with Beaners and Arty, so I had learned to live with their odd ways. Beaners thought of herself as a shaman. She would often pirouette around the house while waving burning sage and chanting something that sounded like, “s***k me, s***k me.” My brother and I would burst into hysterics, and the laughter helped relieve the pain of losing our mom.

I always suspected Beaners knew her attempts to drive away negative energy lifted our spirits. She burned sage so often that one time she set fire to her hair and had to dump a vase of flowers on her head to keep from going bald. She was a walking sketch-comedy. Uncle Arty complained that for two weeks afterward, her singed blonde hair smelled like the a*s end of a woolly mammoth.

After I was born, Beaners and Arty moved to Buffalo from Endicott where we all lived. Apparently, the Ouija board had warned them to leave town before Punxsutawney Phil reared his ugly head again. What a fat groundhog from Pennsylvania had to do with Endicott was beyond anybody's imagination, but Uncle Arty always seemed to understand her and went along for the serpentine ride.

Beaners claimed the Ouija board never lied, and if other hapless fools would just pay attention, they would be prepared for events that involved unforeseen mischief. When I pointed out that no one had ever heard of any gopher shenanigans in Endicott, or in all of New York State for that matter, she remained adamant. “It could still happen. The board never lies—just like it was right about the mushrooms!”

After my aunt made her announcement about Utah, we spent two days packing. I still had hopes of convincing her to stay. “This is crazy, Beaners,” I complained. “Can we talk about this? I don't want to leave—this is a hostage situation! This whole idea really pisses me off.” (I wasn't allowed to say indelicate words, but “pissed” was a word I often heard my dad say whenever he forgot he had a finger shortage and tried to finger-comb his hair.) The word seemed appropriate for the occasion, and the sharp taste of the word on my tongue helped me fight back the tears biting at the corners of my eyes.

“This pisses me off too,” parroted Lefty. (He pronounced it as ‘pithed.’) “I'm bringing Mickey Mantle with me,” he grumbled as he stuffed his collection of baseball cards into his suitcase. “And Skippy Cimino.” (Lefty’s best friend Skippy lived next door, and I doubt that he or his parents anticipated a possible k********g by shifty Lefty Jackson.)

In spite of my promise to myself to adapt to every new day, the idea of another move seemed overwhelming. When my dad sold our old house on Maple Street and we all relocated to Buffalo, it naturally required a change of schools. I liked my new school, and I had already learned my way around the neighborhood on my bike. My favorite refuge was the local library with its licorice-hued chairs and a glass display case full of brilliant butterflies. However, in Buffalo, the weather was too cold, the classrooms were too hot, and my new classmates were really still strangers. I knew there were plenty of reasons not to miss our current neighborhood all that much, but I just wanted things to stay still for a while.

Dad had taught us never to go down without a fight, so in a desperate eleventh-hour attempt to persuade Beaners to reinterpret her psychic messages, I slammed my suitcase shut and stamped my foot on the floor to get her attention. “Beaners, I think we should discuss this some more when Dad gets home from work. It would be wiser to wait until spring to travel. This is a damn moronic idea!”

“Look here, my little salty mouth niece, a blizzard is coming, and I don't want to live through another one of those. The snow from the last one was so deep out there we nearly lost Lefty when he stepped off the front porch. No one will find his right shoe until the spring thaw. Buffalo was meant for real buffalo, not for intelligent people like us.”

“And Dad is okay with this plot to go on the lam?”

“I don’t want to go on a lamp,” Lefty chimed in. “We’ll get ‘lectrocutered.’”

“Cream puff, I think you mean ‘lam.’ And Simmy, your father only had temporary work here, but he has been offered a new job offshore on an oil rig in South Carolina. Therefore, he's not gonna care in which state you and your Uncle Arty and ‘Shoeless Joe Jackson’ here live as long as he has a nice place to come home to. We stick together because we’re a family, and I love you, even if you are a bit peculiar.”

“I’m the peculiar one? Me? You're the one who is claiming that an inanimate object told you another h*******t is coming! I know you’re keeping secrets because none of this makes sense!”

“Cimarron Jackson, listen to the universe. Maybe we will learn more as we go.”

“I'll bet that board of yours has never even seen a Buffalo Nazi, and neither have you! This is just another mental mushroom event. To avoid total upheaval, I would please like to see some qualitative data!”

“There are different types of holocausts, you little brainiac. I think the message may be a metaphor for impending chaos.”

“What could be more chaotic than this?”

Beaners looked triumphant. “See, we are in the middle of chaos. You just made my point about why we should leave. And besides, I've already notified our landlord and rented a ranch for us outside a town called Park City. You can toboggan there, and they even have an old jail you can visit.”

Lefty was suddenly on his feet. “Oh, boy! I want to go see the jail,” he yelled. “Wait till Skippy hears we’re all going to Utah!” He grabbed his suitcase and was practically on Skippy’s porch before I could seize the back of his shirt collar.

I had to admit to myself that Beaners had captured my interest. The old house Beaners and Arty were currently renting was a three-story Victorian. Strange noises emanated from the attic as well as from the old furnace down in the basement, so we all found the entire place to be a bit eerie. Even worse, we had to climb the creaky steps to use the bathroom, which I hated, especially on freezing Buffalo nights.

Although I didn’t want to concede, the idea of a lazy, sprawling one-story ranch house sounded much more contemporary than our current residence, and even somewhat promising. And an old jail might be a fun place to visit. I wondered if we could toboggan from our new sleek house down to the jail. (The possibility excited me.)

There was not much time to ponder. As soon as my father came home, he said we had to move everything to the car. After we begrudgingly jammed the last suitcase into the back of the Ford station wagon, which was a feat in itself, Dad pulled Lefty and me aside. “Thanks for rolling with this, kids,” he grimaced. “And don't worry about the h*******t bit. I think Beaners just needs an excuse to get out of Buffalo. I’m sure it’s her way of mourning your mom. And Utah is as good an alternative as any.”

“But what about us?” Lefty cried. “Skippy says his mom won’t let him come with me until there’s a bleu cheese moon!”

“Buddy, Skippy can come for a visit. This move is more about you kids than you think. She is trying to be like a mother to you both, and she read that there are good schools in Utah and lots of room for you to play outside and breathe in the fresh air. You can see beautiful mountain ranges and maybe even have a few pets.”

“Oh, can I get a platypus?” Lefty pleaded. “I read about them in school. I can name it Skippy.”

“Be quiet, Lefty,” I interrupted, “you have a one-track mind!” I then proceeded on my own one-track in a last grasp at reasoning. “Dad, did you ask Uncle Arty to try to talk some sense into Beaners?”

“Actually, I did. He said any attempt at persuasion would be as sensible as trying to put a Band-aid on a bear’s butt.”

“But if we don’t rush, maybe she’ll change her mind. And wouldn't a trip in the spring be more logical?”

“Not necessarily, honey. Aunt Bea is right about a new cold front coming in; however, I think we can beat it. I know this is very last minute, Sim. But you know I have limited job opportunities, so I’d like to take advantage of this chance for employment on that offshore rig I told you about. I’m going to be a cook, so I’ll learn how to make delicious food for you and Lefty. And for about a hundred others,” he added with a laugh. “Now listen, sweetheart, if we leave here now, we can get to Utah by the end of January. That way, you will be able to get settled in before my new job starts. Your Aunt Bea’s plan is a lot wiser than you think.”

“Wise? Dad, I’m sorry to inform you, but Beaners is loony.”

“I suppose I can’t argue with that,” he laughed. “At least your aunt and uncle are entertaining, right?”

After the car was loaded and we had all piled in, Dad backed the car down the cul-de-sac to the bank of mailboxes that served our street so Beaners could grab her last pieces of mail. As we once again passed back by our house, Beaners trilled, “Oh look, everyone--it's the third week of January, and those people in that house still have their Christmas tree up!”

“Um, I believe that's our house, Beatrice,” Arty patiently informed her.

“Oh, so it is, dear. So it is. Nice tree.”

My father shook his head and gunned the engine. “Okay, everyone, tighten your straightjackets—we're off!”