Matt poked a stick into the log fire,
sending sparks on the October breeze into the starlit sky.
“Hey, watch it,” his wife Denise
yelped. “You’ll set my hair on fire. And I don’t need all that smoke coming my
way.”
“Smoke goes toward the prettiest
one,” Matt poked her butt that stuck out of the back of the lawn chair. Denise
pushed the stick away. “Behave yourself.”
“You like me better when I don’t,” Matt
grinned and took a final swig from the beer he’d been nursing, tossing the can
over his shoulder and onto a pile ten feet behind. It rattled when it hit. “Ha,
you guys hear that? Hit the pile without even turning around.”
“Speaking of behaving,” John,
Carrie’s husband, broke the trance caused by the dancing flames, the warmth
coming off the logs, and the evening of grilled steak and alcohol. “What the heck’s
with Brian these days? He find Jesus or what? I saw him at the mini-mart
chatting with the kid behind the counter nice as can be. Asked how I was with a
big smile instead of growling about any and everything like he usually does.”
“Brian? You sure it was him?” Denise
cut in. “His younger brother looks a lot like him now that Brian shaved off his
beard.”
“That too,” John added. “That SOB had
that beard since he got back from Iraq. Said he’d never shave again in protest
of wars over oil.”
“SOB is right,” Denise chimed in.
“That guy has no manners. He’s all
my-way-or-the-highway. I don’t know how Heather puts up with him. And she’s the
sweetest thing. Always smiling, never a bad word about anybody. Willing to help
out without being asked.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,”
John’s voice was loud in the quiet night. “He fall off his Harley and shake up
his brain? He got a kick in the head somewhere along the line. He’s using
please and thank you like I’m sure he was taught as a kid ‘cause I know his
folks, and they never raised him to be a badass.”
“Heather said he was selling the
Harley,” Carrie, who normally let conversation pass without her, spoke up. “She
asked me how to put it on Craigslist. I went over there to show her.” She
paused to pull a roasted marshmallow off the stick and blow on it before
popping it into her mouth. “I asked her if Brian knew she was listing it. I
didn’t want to see her face bashed in. She said he told her he’s done with it.
Same day as he shaved his beard.”
“Strange,” Matt shook his head. “Real
strange. A man don’t wake up one morning, shave his beard, sell his Harley, and
turn from an asshole with a capital A to a nice guy. Just don’t happen.”
“Why not?” Denise asked him. “You
turn from a nice guy to an asshole with a capital A every time you come home
from work ornery.”
“That’s different,” Matt shrugged her
off. “I got reasons to be ornery after a day at work. And going from nice to
ornery is normal. Going from ornery to nice takes some effort.”
“Sure does,” John said and they all
agreed with a yeah true. He got up and grabbed another log from the pile
beneath the porch and tossed it on the fire.
“Only thing I ever saw make a man
change is a woman. And he’s had the same woman since just after high school
without changing. A new woman maybe?” Matt asked.
“Better not after what Heather has
been through having to apologize for him left and right,” Denise responded.
“You know, people stopped inviting her places because of him. When he was
deployed, Ryan and Dayna helped Heather out a lot. Picked up the kids. Helped
with the yard work. Dayna was friends with Heather in high school. They didn’t
really know Brian that well. Dayna told
me when Brian came back, they just couldn’t have him in the house. His language
was so bad around the kids. He’d talk rough to Heather in front of them. You
know Dayna and Ryan are church-people. They didn’t want their kids hearing
that. Maybe Heather threatened to dump him.”
“So, it was the war that made him
mean?” Carrie asked.
“No. No,” John chuckled. “Brian was
an asshole all his life. He was a bully in high school. Iraq fit his
personality. Heavy metal and amphetamines. You can’t blame Iraq, just like you
can’t blame his folks.”
“You didn’t ask Heather about it when you were
over there?” Matt directed the question at Carrie.
“How she supposed to ask?” Denise
shot back. “Say, ‘Hey how come your asshole of a husband is acting human
lately?’” Matt ignored her.
“Why don’t you ask Brian the next
time you see him?” Carrie said softly to John.
“Novel idea,” John smiled and patted
his wife on the shoulder. “I’ll do that.”
John didn’t expect that the next time
he would run into Brian was at Denise and Matt’s bonfire two weeks later. Denise decided that since Brian was a changed
man, which she had confirmed with two other folks at the mini-mart, and both
she and Carrie liked Heather, she would invite them over.
Heather didn’t ask what dish she
could bring to pass, which was unusual for her, but Denise figured she’d bring
something and was surprised when Heather came round to the backyard empty
handed. Brian was all smiles as he handed Matt a bottle of Jack Daniels Old No.
7. Matt and Denise exchanged a quick look. Three years before, they had agreed
the bonfires would be beer and wine coolers only because people got out of hand
on hard liquor. Even John and Carrie, who never said a nasty word to each
other, had a rip-roaring fight one night after the fifth round of margaritas.
John ended up sleeping it off on their couch.
“That’s for you two” Brian winked.
“Not to pass around tonight. I got beer in the cooler. Here, I’ll put that
bottle inside just to make sure.” Brian took the bottle back and headed in the
patio door. Denise followed him in to pull some shrimp out of the freezer and
make a dip to go with a box of Ritz since now they were short a dish. Heather
had pulled a chair up to watch John build the fire.
“You know, if you put some newspaper
underneath the kindling it starts better,” she instructed John in a tone you’d
use with a kid. Then she got up and went into the house, bringing back a brown
paper bag that she ripped into pieces and tossed at him. “Ball it up.”
John did as he was told and tucked the
paper into the kindling which was already throwing enough flame to light the
logs.
“Did the Harley sell?” Carrie asked
Heather.
“Yeah. Didn’t get shit for it though.
What kind of fool sells a bike in September. You wait until spring when people
are itching to ride.” Heather took a long slug of beer and belched. “Said he
put half the money on the mortgage and made a couple extra payments on the car.
I’ll see when the statements come in. For all I know, he could’ve gambled it
away.”
Carrie and John exchanged a look.
Brian came back from the kitchen
carrying shrimp dip and crackers then proceeded to portion it out onto plates
for the others. “Here you are, dear,” he said passing a plate to Heather.
“Ya know I don’t eat shrimp.
Christ-sakes.” Heather pushed his hand away.
Brian sat down and carefully scooped
some dip onto the cracker. “Nice fire,” he said to no one. “Beautiful night.
Thanks, Matt.”
After several attempts to make
conversation with Heather, Carrie went inside to help Denise bring the rest of
the food. Matt retreated to the grill, bringing back a plate of meat. The three
couples then ate in near silence with Brian starting conversation that Heather
would quickly shut down with some snarky remark. Matt, thinking all they needed
was to loosen up with a couple more beers, guzzled his and handed out more as
soon as he noticed the cans tipped at an angle to the mouth indicating the last
draft was swallowed.
“He don’t need more beer,” Heather
snapped when Matt offered a can to Brian. Brian smiled and put up his hand
indicating he was OK.
Even
stoking the fire up to roaring didn’t take the chill out of the air, so the
evening ended early with Heather grabbing her purse and saying a quick good-bye
without a thank you tagged on. Brian shook hands with Matt and John, nodded and
thanked Denise and Carrie, then grabbed the cooler as he hustled out.
“What
the hell was that?” Matt asked after walking them to the car.
“Damned if I know,”
John pulled the logs apart to kill the fire. “He got Jesus and she got the
Devil, I guess.
Suzanne Zipperer
Suzanne Zipperer grew up on a farm in
northeastern Wisconsin with a dream of seeing a baobab tree as pictured in her
third-grade geography book. Her curiosity about other places and cultures took
her from riding a bike past the migrant workers’ camp to ten years overseas
living in Europe and Zimbabwe. On her return to Wisconsin, Suzanne did
community work in Milwaukee where she continued to learn about the “others.”
Her writing is as varied as her life, and she continues to be curious. Suzanne
has published short stories in “Ariel Chart,” “The Literary Yard,” “Across the
Margins,” “Made of Rust and Glass,” “Adelaide,” “The Write Launch,” and poetry in
“The Crone’s Nest,” and “American Journal of Nursing.” She was a semifinalist
in the Wisconsin People and Ideas Short Fiction Contest in 2022 and
2024. ”
Can picture this happening tho I don’t have names. Change is hard. To do and to accept.
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