The Trouble Way Read online

  It was around the time Jake really got to really liking Priscilla that she disappeared from his life.

  Coincidentally, it was shortly after that when he began to question whether Ma was right in what she was teaching him and the other kids in the neighborhood that God watches out for you. So far, he hadn’t seen any clear evidence of it, at least in the things that were important to him. That thought, too, was definitely a thought he was not about to discuss with anybody, especially Ma. He had heard what they called people like that, people who might have a smidgen of doubt about some of those suspicious “walking on water/talking donkey” miracles he kept hearing about. Those people were called Damned Atheists. It was a long time before he found out they were called just Atheist, the “Damned” was a gratuitous addition people threw in for the Halibut, as Jake had heard his grandfather, who was not prone to cussing, say.

  May as well have a sense of humor if you tended toward Atheism.

  Atheists were probably several rungs on the ladder below Catholics according to what he garnered from his grandmother. Maybe they weren’t even on the same ladder; maybe they had no ladder at all; didn’t deserve one. Ma discouraged him and his sister from playing with Catholic kids at school. Atheist kids, if there were such a thing in their community, weren’t even a topic for discussion. He didn’t have to worry about that conversation with anybody.

  Shortly after Priscilla’s family packed up and headed east, all the shit busted loose and a butt-spank of people around him started dropping like flies on a hot windowsill. You’d think those flies would wing it off someplace else not so blistering hot. Maybe that hot windowsill was “fly hell,” or maybe flies are just plain stupid. After all, they chow down on shit.

  Two things lingered in the recesses of Jake’s mind – well, three, counting Priscilla – constantly churning as he pulled on the heavy cable, unwinding it from the drum on the back of the John Deere cat in which Wendell, his uncle on his mom’s side, was seated. There was a butt-load of friction making it damned-near impossible for him to drag the heavy cable across the underbrush and fallen limbs and briars doing their damnedest to keep him from reaching the log he was trying to set the choker on. Things he heard about in high school. There was something about Time and Tide Wait for no Man that bugged him. Well, not so much that it bugged him and it wasn’t even about the time and tide. Mostly it was about the tide, not at all about time. And, it wasn’t just about the tide that kept Jake thinking, it was that something another teacher said, “There’s no such thing as a perpetual motion machine.” He said that people had tried it and every one had failed. It had to do with friction not allowing something to continue on forever without stopping. The laws of motion were involved in there too. Once something was in motion, it stayed in motion unless another force stopped it. That was where friction and gravity came in. And, that’s where Jake got confused; because the tide stayed in motion forever (the time and tide saying). Wasn’t that perpetual? Also, gravity had a great deal to do with the tides, with the sun and the moon and all. Gravity was perpetual. It went on forever and was everywhere in the universe.

  His uncle Wendell had given Jake a job during summer vacation. Not that his uncle was all that goddamned generous. He definitely was not generous. What he actually was, was a cheap skate. He never did anything that did not benefit himself in some way. That is how Jake ended up working for his uncle. It was the state. The state stipulated nobody could log by themselves. He needed a second set of eyes in the woods for safety. And since Jake would be there watching for fires; “How about setting a few chokers,” his uncle suggested, “while you’re at it. It’ll give you some exercise to boot.”

  The real kicker was, Jake’s uncle promised Jake his very own personal log to sell in payment for his fire watching.

  “Come’ere, Jake, take a look at this sonofabitch. This is it. This one’s yours.” His uncle stepped over limbs and fallen logs and branches to show Jake his very own log. He made a big-ass production of the whole thing. “Take this tape and walk to the end of it,” Jake’s uncle pointed to where he wanted Jake to hold the tape. He marked the length and then he rewound the tape did a measurement of the diameter. Noting that, he then pulled a small book from his breast pocket; it looked similar to the tide books Jake had seen fishermen use. Only this was a book of tables that determined the board feet in a log of a certain length and diameter. Once Jake’s uncle found the total board feet, he multiplied it by the going price one board foot of fir lumber.

  “Hell, Jake, this is going to bring in about fifty-five bucks. Not too bad, eh?”

  Not too damn bad indeed, Jake thought.

  Jake and his uncle stumbled through the underbrush quite a few times to look at that fifty-five dollar log. They measured it and re-measured it. As many times as they looked at it during the time they logged off the area his uncle had bid the state for, they measured it. His uncle calculated and recalculated the figures. “It’s worth fifty-five bucks, Jake,” he’d said each time, pointing to the numbers to verify that he was in fact dead on in his calculations and was telling him God’s truth.

  When it came time, Jake pulled the heavy cable from the drum at the back of the John Deere cat and dragged it over fallen limbs, stumps, through tangles of vine maples and thorny blackberry vines, and finally got the choker hooked around his very own fifty-five dollar fir log. He had been doing one hell of a lot of work, pulling cables through the underbrush, but it was finally going to pay off.

  Jake stood back and watched as his uncle dragged the log out into the clearing and Jake helped as they finally got it loaded onto the old army green, WWII era flatbed truck that had been converted to a log truck. Most of the green had disappeared, having been repainted in broad strokes by Oregon’s paintbrush, rain, replacing the Army green with the red of Oregon rust. Jake rode shotgun as his uncle double-clutched it through eight gears as they bounced their way out of the woods on the muddy logging road onto the county road into the small fishing town. Jake watched his uncle rev the old six-banger army truck up through the gears and double clutch it down again at each incline on their way down to the docks where they cueued with the other log trucks. A gigantic crane worked lifting logs from trucks ahead of them in the line. Jake watched as gigantic machines gripped the logs and stacked them in a vast area in wait to be reloaded by longshoremen onto ships which took them to Japan. There they would be cut into lumber or made into furniture and shipped either back to the United States or to other countries.

  After all the logs on his uncle’s truck were scaled and unloaded, his uncle went into the shack where the paperwork was filled out. Jake watched his uncle emerge from the shack with a yellow check in his hand.

  “How about a burger,” Jake’s uncle said and he slipped the check into the breast pocket of his red and black, plaid, flannel shirt. They headed to Pat and Len’s, a tiny café near the edge of town. Wendell pulled the truck to the side of the street and they climbed down from the cab and walked into the café and took seats on the swivel stools at the counter.

  “What’ll it be Wendell, you ol’ swindler?” Len, a man who obviously had his share of burgers and shakes, asked as he sidled as close to the counter as his stomach would allow, his belly bouncing with the laughter his lame joke caused.

  “A couple of burgers and fries and two chocolate malts.” Wendell said, ignoring the insult.

  “Plain or do you want those burgers dee-luxe?” Len said the word as if it were two. “Dee-luxe includes mustard and chopped onion.”

  “We’re celebrating, give us the works, make them de-luxe.” Wendell said.

  “You got it. Two dee-luxe burgers with mustard and onion coming right up.”

  Jake sat at the counter watching as Len put two patties on the grill and, after the paddy started juicing up, flip it and put one half the bun on top of it and the other he placed on the grill to brown. He grabbed a fist of fresh cut potatoes and put them in a basket and lowered them into hot grease that bubbled up over
the fries. As the burger and fries were cooking, Len set to work on the malts and put the metal container in the milk-shake machine and went back to the grill. When the burgers were done, Len slid the spatula under the patty and put the burger and bun on the plate, grabbed a handful of chopped onions and spread them over the patty. On the other bun, he spread mustard and put that on top the onions and by then the fries were done. He slid the burgers in front of Jake and Wendell and poured two glasses full of the thick chocolate malt.

  “There you be, two dee-luxe burgers, fries and two chocolate malts,” Len said as he slid the meal onto the counter in front of Wendell. “Watch out for this ol’ bastard,” Len said, tilting his head toward Wendell and giving Jake a wink when he put the order in front of Jake. “Better count your money when you get home. Make sure it’s all there.”

  “Get the hell outa here,” Wendell said and Len chuckled and walked to the end of the counter.

  As Jake remembered it, not word one was mentioned about his goddamn fifty-five dollars or that yellow check sticking out of his uncles breast pocket. Jake kept looking at the check, waiting. His uncle talked about a lot of crap but was silent on the matter of the check as they ate their burgers. The engine noise was too great to talk as the gears ground each time Wendell down-shifted on the inclines on the ten miles to the logging site. They got into Wendell’s green pickup and headed for home. He stopped to let Jake off at his mailbox at the end of his drive. Jake hesitated long enough to make himself uncomfortable, in hopes his uncle would give him some cash. Not a damn word about the fifty-five smackeroos. He got out and walked the hundred yards through the drizzle up the rutted drive to his home.

  Would it hurt the bastard to tear out one of those beige checks in that blue plastic checkbook he carried is shirt pocket, write Jake Forest in the “pay to the order of” line and fifty-five and no one-hundreds in the “dollars” line? Not a goddamned bit.

  No need to check his pockets for any missing money. Except for some pine needles, his pockets were as empty as they were that morning when he left to work in the woods with his uncle.

  “Pig-fucker,” Jake said as he walked up the steps to his back porch. He smiled. The only positive shit he ever got from the bastard all summer, a couple of de-luxe burgers and some really classy cuss words.

  When he thought back on it, his experience in the woods with his uncle and the fifty-five dollar log, or more accurately, the dee-luxe burger, fries, and chocolate malt log, it was his earliest lesson on how The Man takes advantage of the powerless working stiff; it would not be his last. Too bad The Man had to be family. He’d worked his ass off all summer for a fast-food meal. He was too timid to confront his uncle on the subject, the fucker was a gypo-logger and infantryman in Italy during the big one; Jake was fifteen, for Christ sake. On top of that, there was his uncle’s temper. Jake witnessed more than once Uncle Wendell flip out. Once, when a nut wouldn’t loosen on his John Deere cat, Uncle Wendell’s face turned purple and he flung the eighteen-inch crescent wrench into a pond. That was the first time he’d heard “pig-fucker,” but it was far from the last. Uncle Wendell didn’t give a tinker’s damn who heard him. Jake’s grandmother was sitting in the truck when Uncle Wendell displayed that particular dramatic talent. Jake looked at a similar wrench at the hardware store and saw the price tag. It was darn near half the amount of what Uncle Wendell owed him.

  On the flip side, he’d had lots of time to think of time and tides and a perpetual motion machines. Another plus, he packed on some muscle that summer in the woods.

  Guess I’m officially enrolled in the school of hard knocks. This is what I learned so far: Lesson Number 1: Avoid working for relatives. Lesson Number 2: Never, ever work for your cheap-ass Uncle Wendell again. Lesson Number 3: Same as Number 2; that’s an important one.

  Events going the “Trouble Way” slowed down for the first three years of high school and everything seemed to be going hunky-dory. Things were better when he got his driver’s license the first day they tested after his sixteenth birthday. The family was still poor as hell but he did snag a few jobs, like whacking weeds at the ol’ holly farm for one. He raked in a buck an hour for that gig. That gave him gas money. His mom let him drive the family ‘56 Chevy pretty-much anytime he liked. After all, he was the man of the family since his ol’ man checked off the last item he was ever going to cross off on his bucket list, complete or not.

  Priscilla showed up darn near on his doorstep one time shortly after Jake turned sixteen. She belonged to her school choir and was on a tour with her high school class and ended up in Portland, a hundred miles from where Jake lived. She had written him a note and they planned meeting at one of her choir events.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Please don’t cry.” Jake said when his first comment out of his mouth when he saw her was, “Boy, you sure did get tall.” He had caught up to her and passed her by two inches; she was six feet tall.

  “Under the circumstances, I forgive you, Jake,” she said. “After all, it’s been years.” She wrapped her long arms around him and gave him the same tight squeeze he remembered from when he had last seen her eons ago. “I still really, really like you, Jake,” she whispered into his ear causing Jake’s freckle face to feel as though he had spent the day in an outdoor pool on a sunny day without lotion.

  “I really, really like you too, Priscilla, more than ever. You are gorgeous.”

  They didn’t have much time together. There were enough chaperones around to choke a good size herd of dairy cows so it was not in the cards for them to spend any serious alone time. So, after about an hour of talking about riding horses, picnicking by the creek under the alder trees, and getting caught up on their lost years, they parted once again.

  “Keep in touch, Jake.”

  He leaned over to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek, chaperones be damned.

  “I will … you too.” He tucked her address into his wallet and walked up to her and gave her a hug. Then, on some weird impulse, he kissed his cousin on the lips and she didn’t shy away, she kissed him back.

  “Oh, dear,” she said and then he turned and left her standing ten feet from the nearest chaperone on the steps of the high school the choir was to sing at that evening. He didn’t have the price of a ticket, so he couldn’t go to that. Probably just as well, Priscilla had a boyfriend, David. He was a Mormon so he was David, not Dave. David made a quick appearance but had to go practice for that night’s performance.

  “Nice to meet you Buddy,” David said and gave Jake a noodle handshake. He almost made Jake puke. He nearly responded with, “My name’s Jake, you can call me Jacob,” but he resisted the temptation. He didn’t want Priscilla to start blubbering.

  Jake got into the ‘56 Chevy and headed home, thinking of Priscilla’s soft, luscious lips, kissing her in his mind a thousand times during that windy-ass hundred plus miles back along the Columbia River to home. She disappeared from his life for the second time, forever, for all he knew.

  Jake had begun asking girls out the first Friday after he passed his driver’s test. Mostly, he took girls to a drive-in movie down near the ocean or, if he was short of cash, which he nearly always was, to the local Finnish Cemetery. All the girls, he soon realized, were nearly as eager to go to the Cemetery as he was, even those uppity church going Lutheran girls. In fact, two of the churchiest girls even suggested the Finnish Cemetery before he got the courage to broach the subject. Nobody bothered them there, except for the one time when a County Mountie came nosing around with his flashlight and caught in him at the exact moment he was about to mount a frontal assault on Alice’s blouse. Jake was so occupied that he hadn’t noticed the patrol car pull up beside him. Boobs can be pretty, pretty, pretty distracting.

  Alice taught him to kiss. Bernie taught him rejection ... bitch. And Janis taught him the meaning of real Trouble with a capital T that rhymes with P that stands for Phucking. That Bitch with a capital B that rhymes with P that also sta
nds for Pregnant which, in anybody’s Phucking language in 1963, stands for Marriage.

  So, travel down Trouble Way resumed once again and continued for four more years while Jake spent his time, first eloping with Lunatic Janis to Idaho and then, on the expert advice of her equally Lunatic father, joined the Air Force.

  As it turned out, the advice of her Lunatic father wasn’t such bad advice after all. Jake hadn’t had the fortune to become the hero he’d always dreamed of being but he accumulated some veteran’s benefits which came in handy when he attended Oregon College of Education.

  Her father was eventually exposed as a child abuser, wife beater, and cross-dresser who came out in grand fashion by getting spotted by a state patrol officer while he was running down a county road wearing Janis’s favorite fuzzy white sweater and her dark pleated skirt.

  Jake went through ten months of excruciating misery and three additional years trying to extricate himself from his legal commitment to Janis. Those three years of nearly constant anxiety was followed by a relatively calm period of college years and on to several years more of working as an assistant manager and finally a manager of Big Richards, a discount retail store.