The Plenty

  Chapter 24.

  "What's so urgent?" asked Tommy, bleary-eyed, wearing a baby blue bathrobe and a five-o-clock shadow. On his injured hand, he wore a purple glove.

  Judd observed the attire and asked, "Did I stop at a bad time?"

  "It's a housecoat." Tommy extended his hands, showing Judd the full length of the bathrobe, down to his hairy legs and yellow toenails. He defended himself. "I see you wondering. It's not a dress. I only wear those in private. Behind closed doors, while I dance with a full-length mirror. Does that bother you, Judd?"

  "Yes, but I don't care at the moment. I'm gonna buy a farm," Judd said, stepping past his cousin, into the house.

  "With what?" said Tommy, following Judd past a Foghat poster on the living room wall. "A song? Can you sing?"

  "Like a bird."

  "Better be the saddest song I ever heard. Only thing short of money and music that'll get you what you want in this world is plain old sexual favors."

  Judy, from the living room couch, said, "And you ain't got the right parts for that, Judd."

  "Judd, don't you know," said Tommy, "that the powers that be in the world, they have numbers, ratios, and ceilings – and – what I'm trying to say is math. It's all figured out by…well, I don't know who, some dude in Minneapolis or Washington, I guess. But the numbers, Judd…you can't outfox 'em. And you're too damn uptight to sing the right way anyway. You're liable to get irritated mid-beg before you make your point. A short fuse is what you got," he said, wagging his little finger. "That's what made you a good wrestler."

  "I got a song today," Judd said. "A different kind of song. That's what I mean to talk to you about."

  "Speaking of which, let's have some music," said Tommy, moving to his stereo rack, shopping his stack of cassettes. "As for me, Judd? A song'll always tell me more about the world than numbers, and there ain't no songs that'll move me like a country song or heavy metal. Fiddle, yes, distortion, yes. Both soothe me in the…in the…what's it called…the vacuum? The void. You know? It fixes me – there's a song for every problem. What'll it be? Waylon? Or Megadeth?"

  "Country," said Judd, sitting heavily in a La-Z-Boy recliner.

  "Dour then, dour, aren't you," said Tommy, reminding himself of a song by The Doors. "Dour faces staring at me from the TV tower. I want roses in my garden bower, you dig? Do you know that tune, Judd? I often think of that song when Jim Morrison says 'Dog-face men and their mean women,' I think Morrison must have visited Immaculate. Do you think Jim Morrison ever passed through here?"

  "Are you feeling all right?" Judd asked, trying not to stare at Judy on the couch in her nightgown, her ankles rubbing together like a cricket, making little effort to hide the shadow in her thighs. To avoid staring at her immodesty, Judd inventoried Tommy's possessions – the stereo, a new refrigerator, a new recliner, a large Sony TV. Judd said, "There ain't no songs today that'll move me anyway, except likely to get under my skin. And don't play no songs about a man that's got nothing, cause that's me."

  "That's the tone!" said Tommy. "Maybe you can sing. Now you sound pathetic, that's a good start. But you're not so underfoot as you sound. Just use your head. Quit gambling, for one. Ok, I've selected Charlie Daniels, Southern charm, cuz I get stoned in the morning, and drunk in the afternoon. Relax, cousin. If you want to unpack your mind here with Judy and me, I have the medicine…"

  "No," said Judd. "Not today. That'll just confuse me."

  "Pancho and Lefty, how about that song?"

  "Whatever. I know gambling's a dead end, I know it. But sometimes gambling's the only way out I can see. Just to get in the game. I just want a stake in something."

  "Need, want. Want, need. You got it that bad? Just enjoy being alive. Just be…just be…ah…you know…right?" Tommy held his purple-gloved hand in his other palm and leaned over as he struggled for the correct word. "Just be…content! Content. It's not like your some Mexican just dragged his wife and kids out of the Rio Grande to get here and work at a chicken plant for minimum wage. You ain't missed any meals."

  "Yeah?" said Judd. "Then why do I feel like a immigrant when I pass the likes of Werthers and Yarens on the street and feel like I gotta step down the curb to make way for 'em?"

  "Werther? Well, that's his job, he's tight for a reason. And Yarens, do you really want what they have? Sure, new trucks and tractors, but they got more debt than the U.S. government. So they got four sections of land, so what? How's your lack of four thousand acres of land stopping you from being happy? Talkin' like that. You ain't dour, you're sour. Hating everything and everyone. Not much good living by your heart if it's hate. I ride a Harley, and that means peace and harmony."

  "Peace with a pricetag. Just like everything else in this world. You ain't no Harley man."

  "I am so," said Tommy, defensively. The first verse of the song started and Tommy became lost in the music. "Ah, listen to the guitar. The piano in this song. Christ, it makes me feel…feel…very present. Very here, and now. Here and now and now and here. Feel my heart." Judd yanked his hand away when Tommy groped at it. "I feel like I'm really occurring…at this instant, this very second right…now. Very present." Tommy played mock piano on top of the couch, miming Stevie Wonder. He switched to guitar, touching his stomach with his gloved hand, tapping fingers to palm on the unwounded hand. "Something in this song, the chords, I don't know what. All in a song. I can't think of a better dollar spent in this world than on an album."

  "You're stoned."

  "To the bejezus," Tommy said, breaking away from his musical rush. "I didn't think it was that obvious. You can tell? I know why. Cause I'm talking fast? That's what happens when I smoke, I can feel the words and sentences piling up somewhere in this part of my head." He touched the back of his head as if picking an apple. "Some place in the back part of the skull, a vault of words, backing up in a convoy, and the only pressure release is mouth."

  "I've seen you stoned before, Tommy. I know."

  "My hand was hurting so I decided to tame the flesh, high-center myself on the mind for a few hours this afternoon. Doc Parker, that Civil War sawbones smart-aleck, he didn't give me no proper pain prescription. So I had to improvise, write my own meds – or I should say roll my own. But even if I'm floating right now, I feel the same about this song any time…" He abruptly stopped talking and attempted to sing the melody, forgetting certain words. "Shoot, I forgot which verse Merle was singing." Just as abruptly, Tommy returned to an earlier thought. "And I am so a Harley man, Judd. I even got a tattoo that says so. Judy can vouch for me. Right, Jude?"

  Judy lay on the couch staring at a music video, in a trance, locked into the TV, unjarred when Tommy waved a hand in front of her face. Tommy said, "She seizes on occasion. But in a nice way."

  "I know how much you paid for that motorcycle," said Judd, and poking his chest, added, "Maybe I might like to walk into a dealership and buy something someday that ain't twenty years old and covered in rust. And then, like you, just re-invent who I am. My head!" He slapped his palm against his forehead, "All that I see goes into my head, it keeps me up at night. All I can think about is what I ain't got, and even more about what others got, and that includes you, Tommy. Everybody else got to screw around when they were kids. But they got nest-eggs waiting when they're ready to get serious about life. What have I got since Dad let Grandpa's farm go? Squat and shit, that's what. You just don't see what I mean, because Hank had the nuts to make a bet on snowplows. I've been dealing in nothing since mom put me in Salvation Army clothes and sent me to school."

  "Wait. What're you trying to say?" Tommy asked. "That I didn't do nothin' with the business?"

  "Well, did you?" Judd asked, examining Tommy's face. "You tell me. Was it you that started the business, or was it Hank's idea and you on piggyback?"

  Tommy placed his hands in the pockets of his housecoat. "It was Hank."
/>
  "You had someone make a play on your behalf – and now you got something to lay your head down on at night, a house."

  "It's not a fancy house."

  "And something to think about each morning, a business. That's what I'm trying to get – but I need a start. I got no name. And you're the closest thing I got to a benefactor. I know we're only cousins, it ain't like being brothers, but…"

  "What do you need?"

  "A down payment."

  "Talk to me. I'm good for it. I got your back. Blood, water, thickness. A stitch in time. When the chips are down. Motivational posters. I'm seeing colors." Tommy put a knee down on the carpet to catch his balance. "But even with some money, how are you going to get Werther to approve anything for you?"

  Seeing the opportunity opening, Judd produced the pictures and divulged his secret about Josh and Shannon. After several minutes of flipping through the stack, Tommy closed his eyes. "Let me call Hank." He pulled a pack cigarettes out of his housecoat pocket and put one in his mouth, before sitting on the couch, and purposefully crossed his legs to disgust Judd. "But no promises. Hank doesn't like you all that much, you know, since you broke his antenna off his truck that night."