Chapter Eleven

Jason helped himself to a little sausage from a waitress carrying a tray. He bit the squeaky sausage, decided that it tasted pretty good, and followed the waitress with the intention of pilfering a few more. He next tried the shrimp in red sauce when it came around on a tray, and the meatballs, and the cheese squares, but passed on the carrot sticks slathered in white dip. He cleared his palate by downing a cup of red punch, and then in honor of his sister—a vegan that week—he ate a mushroom stabbed with a toothpick. It wasn’t horrible at all.

The pastor brought the lovebirds together. He read from the Bible through small reading glasses, his eyes magnifying hugely when he looked up at the assembled crowd of family and friends.

“I do,” Aunt Marta promised before she dabbed a tear.

“I do, I do,” Bill said before he puckered up and gave his bride a peck on the cheek.

“I do, too,” Uncle Mike had answered much earlier in the day, when Jason and his uncle arrived home from downtown Fresno. Uncle had promised his sister—and his brother-in-law—that he would clean up his act. He began by apologizing for the metallic-colored sneakers. He admitted that he should have known better. Bright as they were, the sneakers could make a bigger splash in spring.

“Do you see how you’re influencing Jason?” his mother snarled.

“Yeah, I do,” Uncle Mike answered, glancing at Jason’s feet. A smile crawled across his face. “I know I’m not the best role model, but—”

“It’s not funny, Mike. You got to grow up!”

Uncle Mike and Jason’s mom and dad had a heart-to-heart. Jason’s parents devised a payment plan for the money they had spent paying for the outstanding tickets. His father, a math genius when it came to figuring out the costs of roofing, came up with a scheme: Uncle Mike would have to pay the family $200 a month for sixteen months.

“And we won’t charge interest,” Jason’s father announced proudly from his throne, the La-Z-Boy recliner. “After all, we are family.”

But Jason wasn’t certain that his uncle could change. He certainly didn’t look like he had changed. At the wedding, held in the banquet room of Rodeo Bar & Grill, his uncle was wearing the suit the nice old lady had given him. Although the suit had been taken in, it still fit large on his body, and it looked as if two or three skinny people could also jump inside. Jason thought his uncle resembled a down-and-out clown. All he needed was a red foam ball on his nose, and maybe a painted frown, plus a flower that squirted water in his lapel.

But Uncle Mike didn’t possess a frown muscle in his face—this much Jason knew. He saw his uncle joking with the female server with the shrimp tray, slowing her progress as she went around the room. Jason’s image of his uncle as a clown changed to his uncle as a shark: he was after those shrimp! He was trying a joke about a penguin elected as president of a South American country. Unfortunately, just like the penguin, the joke wasn’t flying.

Jason heard his mother say, “Jason, since you’re the youngest here, perhaps you can make the first toast to your aunt and Bill.”

“Huh?” Jason asked.

“A toast, make a toast,” she demanded with a smile that Jason recognized as meaning, “You better do what I say, Buster.”

Initially, Jason thought he should head off to the kitchen to ask for toast. Then, he remembered: a toast was a cheerful speech in honor of a person—or persons—or something like that.

“Ah, yeah,” Jason began. He smiled at Aunt Marta and—now—Uncle Bill. Jason was holding a cup of red punch and saw that it was empty. So he plunged it into the punch bowl, scooping up more sugary liquid. He tried to remember a toast from his past. When he was little—seven? eight?—he went to the playground, where they’d promised free food after the dedication of the new slides and swings. At the dedication, a councilmember in a suit and tie—Jason realized that at the moment he himself was wearing a suit and tie—had begun with something like, “As a representative of our great City of Fresno, I dedicate these swings…” Yes, Jason remembered the words of the councilmember, and remembered how he had actually placed his large butt in a swing and kicked pretty high for an old guy.

So Jason cleared his throat of cracker dust. He raised his mug and proclaimed, “As a representative of the family and someone-who-should-know-better, I say that it’s great that Auntie got married to Bill, who was a barber but is now just one lucky dude. It’s good stuff.” He threw back his punch and wiped the corner of his mouth with his thumb.

The wedding party clapped, cheered, and threw back their drinks.

Then Jason’s father made a toast, and Uncle Mike made one too, but first he gave the joke about the penguin one more try—once again, his wit failed to launch. Then a few family members on Bill’s side made toasts, including his oldest daughter, who said, “Dad, you were the greatest barber on the south side of Tulare Street, and the best dad in the world. I am happy that you have found love again.” Bill was a widower of four years.

After the toasts, the couple thanked everyone for coming. Mother marched over to Jason and whispered, “What was that about ‘someone knowing better’? And what did you mean by ‘good stuff’?” Her face signaled confusion.

“Nah, Mom, I was referring to the punch, it’s really good,” Jason answered. A tray of buffalo wings passed, and Jason didn’t lose the opportunity to give the poultry a fair shake. He grabbed two wings. About “someone knowing better,” he informed his mother it was like the talk that politicians spout every day. They didn’t know what it meant, but thought it sounded good when it came out of their mouths.

“Oh,” his mother answered. Her mood sweetened as she stroked his hair. “You look so darling.” She eyed his metallic sneakers, but kept her mouth buttoned.

Jason felt darling, too. He was beginning to like his brown suit, which he thought matched his metallic shoes in a swell way. He had splashed his father’s cologne on his neck and put a part in his hair. He resembled a choirboy with red cheeks. He felt happy for his aunt. He used to think she was a pest, but now he could see that she had just been lonely. And her happiness showed as she went from guest to guest, thanking them all for coming. The happy moments were captured as Blake, future Hollywood director, poked his camera everywhere. It even went into the restroom, but he was rightly shooed away when he started filming one of the guests at the urinal.

Jason had tried to ply Blake with some of the goodies from the passing trays, but his buddy wouldn’t take a break.

“I’m working,” Blake told Jason, and hurried away to capture a scene of two old guys debating whether fishing was better from a bank or from a boat. Their conversation seemed to be heating up.

Work, Jason thought. Was making a video work, or was it fun—or both? Work was what his father did at the roofing company or what his mother did as an occasional seamstress at a garment company. But was pointing a video camera work? He had more buffalo wings as he debated the issue of work and pleasure.

While his teeth were tearing the skin off a lovely buffalo wing, his uncle sidled up to him. He shook Jason’s shoulders roughly, sloshing his drink, which he had to put down.

“Look, little homie!” Uncle Mike cried. He held up a guitar over his head. “It’s mine.”

“Huh?” Jason licked his fingers and set down his paper plate piled high with chicken bones.

“My guitar!” Uncle Mike explained. Jason’s mother had gone to the pawnshop while they were they bringing cheer to the Fulton Mall. It was her gift to Uncle Mike for all the birthdays she had missed. “That’s why when we went to get it, it was gone. Sis had it.”

“Wow,” Jason said. But he wasn’t surprised. His mother had a tough exterior, but her heart was like a ball of chocolate—sweet.

Blake ran between them with his video camera rolling. He moved from Uncle Mike’s face, to the guitar hanging from a strap on his shoulder, back to the men arguing about fishing. He was trying to get a wide spectrum of human interest at a local wedding.

“You know what that means?” Uncle Mike asked.

Jason shook his head no.

“It means, Jason, that I can teach you how to play guitar. Would you like that?”

“Cool,” Jason remarked. He licked and wiped his fingers on a napkin and took the guitar when his uncle offered it to him. To Jason, his uncle was passing the torch—in time, he would light the world on fire with guitar riffs. He would be wowing crowds!

“All you need are five basic chords,” Uncle Mike claimed. “Six would be better, and you might even get away with four. But five is standard.” He made this remark while smiling at the camera.

“Man, it’s heavy,” Jason said when he pressed the solid body of the guitar against his chest. He strummed and produced a brooding sound from its strings.

“Retro, my little homie,” Uncle Mike said. “I was into that sound when I was your age—Black Sabbath, Mountain, AC/DC, and Alice Cooper—but I moved on to songs that make people dance.”

“Cut,” Blake cried as he dropped the camera to his side. He was exasperated.

“What’s wrong, dude?” Jason asked.

Blake hesitated, but finally said in a whisper, “You know, you’re onto really good stuff, but the background is like, well, you know, not pretty.” Blake pointed.

In the background were older people wearing plaid polyester suits and lime-green dresses that made Kool-Aid seem tame in color. The men were thinning in the hair department, and a lot of them had hearing aids falling out of their ears into their drinks. They would fish them out, blow into them, and fit them back into their hairy ears.

Jason understood right away. The scene wasn’t hip, especially the older couple doing the twist that lowered their bodies so far down to the floor that they couldn’t get up without help.

“Let’s go outside,” Uncle Mike suggested.

They exited the nearest door and found themselves in the parking lot. Stars twinkled beyond the security light. The moon lurked behind a billboard advertising car parts.

Uncle Mike pointed. “Hey, we’ll have to make another visit to see Pete.” He undid his tie and the top button of his shirt.

Jason remembered. Pete had the bumpers for his father’s Chevy that had been parked in the garage since the beginning of time. But he was broke, and his uncle was broke, and his friend, Blake, was probably broke after purchasing the video camera. Jason ignored his uncle’s suggestion, but heeded Blake’s.

“I want you guys to sit over there.” Blake pointed to a low-lying wooden fence.

They did what they were told.

“Uncle Mike,” Blake ordered. “Pretend like you’re teaching Jason guitar.”

“Pretend, heck. I never pretend. With me, you’re always learning. I’m the real thing, a guitar desperado.” He had to laugh at himself, as he poked a finger in his ear. He looked at his finger and wiped the wax on his pants.

Nephew and uncle sat on the fence. Jason, still marveling at its weight, embraced the guitar. He placed his fingers on the strings.

“Now D chord,” his uncle ordered.

Easy, Jason thought as he positioned his fingers on the strings and located that chord.

“Now C chord.”

Piece of cake, Jason whistled in his heart.

“G7!”

While Blake recorded the moment, Jason was beginning to see the possibility of moving from air guitar to real guitar. True, without an amplifier, the guitar wasn’t producing a loud sound, but he could hear it all right. He was making progress. He was changing chords swiftly, nicely, coolly. His fingers burned from the metal strings. Like anything worthwhile, there was the pain of practice. But it was coming easily. He could see that his uncle was having him play “Wild Thing,” a song with easy chord transitions.

When a young couple from the parking lot appeared and stopped to listen, Jason sensed that he was on the right track. He was really convinced when the couple held hands, the girl’s head on the boy’s shoulder.

The young man asked, “Are you the band tonight?”

Uncle Mike chuckled, “Not tonight, friend. But we’ll be auditioning for a gig real soon.”

The couple left humming “Wild Thing.”

Blake joined them on the wooden fence rail. He had taken enough footage to make a documentary and was telling them he wasn’t sure if the theme would be serious or funny.

“Make it funny,” Uncle Mike suggested. “The world needs funny.” He even suggested a title: Down and Out, and Up Again.

“But I thought we were supposed to do a wedding video?” Jason asked.

“We are—sort of,” Uncle Mike answered. “You’ll have enough footage for the newlyweds and some left over to make a documentary for, for…”

“For YouTube,” Blake completed for Uncle Mike.

“That’s right. Music first, love second.” He sighed and clicked his tongue. “Sorry I had to let poor Sylvia go. Hope she gets over me.”

Dream on, Unc, Jason thought and strummed the guitar. He realized that Sylvia What’s-Her-Name was out of his league. She was a woman with a job, and possibly a boyfriend—or maybe she was married.

“Sweet,” Blake said as he watched at Jason’s fingers move across the strings. “Let me get a closeup.” Blake focused the video camera on Jason as he strummed wildly.

“Move over, Justin Bieber,” Jason sang, not bothering to look up from his strumming. Playing the guitar was an art, and he had it in him, he believed. Forget basketball, forget sports. Music was the thing to live for.

“Now something new,” Uncle Mike said. “The chord that’s really hard is the F chord.” He took the guitar, demonstrated, and then handed it back to Jason.

“You’re good, Uncle.” Jason was glad to have an uncle that had toured the world of hard knocks. He was glad for Blake, who had stood up and was again capturing the moment on film.

The moon had appeared from behind the billboard, and Jason was learning the chords to “Home on the Range,” a song that might get them a gig at the Rodeo Bar & Grill.

“Real nice,” Uncle Mike whispered. “Better than me after six months.”

Jason was happy for this guitar lesson—and his lesson on family and friendship. The moon was rising and he felt like he was in the limelight. The twinkling stars were a quiet applause. His fingers worked over the chords while his foot tapped in time with the music.

“That’s it! You got the F chord down!” Uncle Mike praised, his head bobbing to the melody. “You’re a fast learner.”

And from the dark a pigeon sailed down from the roof and waddled across the pebble-covered parking lot. The pigeon, working the night shift, stared at them—first Uncle Mike, then Jason. He pecked at the ground and turned in a full circle, as if dancing.

“What do you think, bird?” Uncle Mike asked.

Jason felt something like love for his uncle, a prophet for the down-out-out, but more honest than anyone he had ever met. Jason could feel the warmth of his uncle’s fingers touching his as he helped him change chords.

“You’re doing good,” Uncle Mike praised. “You’re doing real good.”

That’s it—he would always side with his uncle. And out of the corners of his eyes—his head was bowed as he watched each chord transition—Jason saw the pigeon move closer, and not for handouts and crumbs. No, he was there for the music of a boy doing his best.