Chapter 1
October 2024
Central California coast.
Fight! Fight!
I’m TNT, I’m dynamite.
I’m TNT, and I’ll win the fight.
TNT, I’m a power load.
TNT, watch me explode!
AC/DC.
Fuck, yeah! Can’t hear an AC/DC song without doing some air guitar. It’s the law…
My wife Olivia laughed, “Jesus, Ray. How high are you?”
Heh…
My potent marijuana edible had fully kicked in, but I still took a hit off my THC vape and passed it back to Olivia and her younger sister Kris. The two siblings, now in their early seventies, displayed a closeness that my sister Natalie and I almost matched.
Heh, we’re only in our sixties. Maybe we’ll catch up…
California campgrounds in the 2020’s were overflowing with scenes just like ours. Old folks sitting around a campfire, listening to classic rock, stoned out of their gourds, and raucously telling funny stories of days past. I finished my clumsy Chuck Berry style guitar strutting, then resumed a new favorite tale.
“So, I’m sitting there on the beach at Lake Michigan, a perfectly innocent and very well-behaved lad of just six years. All of a sudden, my much older and bigger sister…”
Kris interrupted. “Hold on, Ray. Natalie is only two years older!”
I held up a pontificating index finger. “True, true. However, at that wee age, two years is like forty percent older. Maybe thirty. Uhh, thirty three? Point, three?”
Stoner math…
I took out my phone and started to open the calculator app. “Ahh, fuck it. Anyways, remember that in addition to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity applying to our ages, I was a very small little boy. So tiny was I, that I earned the nickname, Mousey.”
Raising a hand to the six-foot-high top of my head, I needlessly explained, “I got bigger.”
Olivia coughed. “Kris, Ray’s grandmother still called him that until she passed away. She was ninety-three or something. Go on, Mousey.”
“Okay, ladies. So, on that lovely 1970 summer day, I was hard at work, digging a new trade route to China, when all of a sudden, Natalie dumped a forty gallon bucket of water over my head.”
Olivia scoffed. “Forty gallons?”
I shrugged. “It sure seemed like it. Listen, when you are drowning, it’s hard to accurately measure liquid volumes. Okay, for the sake of pedantics, we’ll go with two gallons. Happy, now?”
I didn’t wait for their responses. “The brutal attack left me bawling in tears. Like a baby, which I essentially was. Now, ten years ago, when we all watched the old home movie of this horrendous torture, Natalie claimed, “We didn’t see what happened before this scene. I’m SURE Ray deserved it. It was for his own good.”
Olivia chimed in. “Ray’s parents, his uncle, and his cousins all agreed with Natalie. You totally must have deserved it.”
Impersonating Rodney Dangerfield, I straightened an imaginary necktie. “No respect, I tell you. Fortunately, last week, my cousin sent me the clip, which I just texted to both of you.”
Olivia pulled out her new jumbo Samsung and clicked on the four second grainy video to show Kris, who said, “Hmm. I must admit, that’s pretty convincing. Natalie really bullied you?”
I answered, “Yes. Just like I’ve always said. Over and over. I just never had the proof before. What about you, Olivia? Did you bully Kris?”
My wife’s legendary quick wit produced the perfect retort. “Mom put me in charge, so I did whatever was necessary to keep Kris in line. It wasn’t bullying, it was discipline.”
Olivia lit a cigarette. “Plus, just like you, Ray, she deserved it!”
Kris feigned terror. “I deserved it? Even when you put clothes pins on my ear?”
“Well, Kris, it was for your own good, because you were going to steal mom’s earrings to wear. Okay, that was pretty funny. But, no, Ray. I wasn’t a bully. In fact, in high school, I stood up for the girls who were getting picked on. And when I was ten, I took down the neighborhood bully, Buddy Repperton.”
I urged her to stand. “Oh! Let’s hear it!”
One of my favorite things about my enchanting wife was hearing her tell stories. Especially while loaded, I hung on Olivia’s every word and gesture. I pulled my folding chair next to Kris and whispered, “I love her.”
Olivia fluffed her long thick blonde hair behind her and the firelight made her still bright blue eyes shine. She flashed her prize-winning smile and began.
“This was in 1961, when we still lived in Minnesota. I was heading to the lake to meet my friends, but Mom stopped me, because...”
Vivid images formed in my mind, enhancing Olivia’s compelling narrative.
“… Kris was at a neighbor’s home, late for dinner. As usual…”
Thanks for reading, don’t forget to vote and comment.
