Buddy and Papaw
Last Summer

 Where’s Buddy? is a running joke at all of our family functions. Let me explain. 

 My brother and I have been playmates, best friends, always-together friends since he got here. Okay, actually first I hated him a little because I was only a year and a half old and suddenly nobody thought I was that cute anymore with a new baby around.

The little booger grew on me, though. At the time my brother entered my life, I dragged around a battered and beaten “My Buddy” doll, popular with late-80s toddlers. Though my Mom had nicknames in mind for my brother, he instantly became my new “My Buddy.” The real life version!

The name stuck, was shortened to “Buddy,” and here we are today.

We played and hunted and skipped rocks and drank Nana’s Kool-Aid and rode around on Papaw’s tractor and basically lived the life dreams are made of, the one I write about here. That is, until I started kindergarten.

Suddenly, I’m told, I no longer had time for my pesky little brother. I had new friends, cool ones, and we went to school and did big kid stuff while he got left in the dust. I don’t remember this at all. In fact, since the time I actually can remember, I’ve been chasing him down, trying to be friends.

Three years ago, that no-good, pesky little brother of mine joined the Air Force. He hopped on a plane, had a few weeks of training, and made something of himself before we ever got out there to celebrate with him. Currently stationed in Korea, my brother has been missing family functions, get-together, holidays, birthdays, etc. for a few years now.

When I call home to chat with Nana, one of the first questions she asks is, “Have you talked to Buddy lately?”

For Father’s Day last year, Papaw was late to lunch by 45 minutes. Buddy called and he didn’t want to cut him off, so I sat waiting in the parking lot at the restaurant for an hour (after driving an hour to meet him there), fuming.

At Thanksgiving, Sissy makes deviled eggs that are to die for. You’ll never guess who she cites as the one who most enjoys those deviled eggs of hers… Every time we have a large family meal, the presence (or absence) of deviled eggs ensures a mention of my illustrious sibling.

Seeing that it irked me, my lovely family members couldn’t let up about it and so without fail, someone in the family always asks at an opportune moment, “Where’s Buddy?” It’s all (mostly) in good fun now, and we even took a moment to highlight this little Matlock family tradition at our most recent gathering – other little brother’s high school graduation. Can’t you just see the joy?

Oh, by the way, before I forget – Have you talked to Buddy lately?

Hot Summer Rain

Hot, hot breezes blow through the yard while we play by the warm glow of the Security Light. Lightning bugs waver unsteadily in the force of the wind. Glancing up from our game, we see bursts of light behind the dark clouds in the distance. A thunderstorm is rolling in.

The first fat raindrops fall one at a time. Plop. On my elbow. Plop. On top of my head. Plop. On my brother’s eyebrow. Plop. Plop. Plop. As the hot dust under our feet turns to gooey muddy madness, we run and jump and shout and twirl, soaking the rain into our skin.

“Get in here! You’re going to get struck by lightning!” Nana calls from the front door.

Grudgingly, we take our time trudging, jumping, splashing our way back to the house.

The inside air is sharp and cold against our hot, wet skin. We shiver and toss our wet clothes on the floor, instead piling on socks and sweats and blankets. Nana brings us a Zebra cake and sweet tea as we watch blocky images dance across the TV screen. The jolting, robotic voices and stuttering scenes mean that the storm is blocking satellite reception. Soon we only see a black screen with floating blue words telling us we need to check with our service provider. The signal has been lost. Outside, rain drums against the windows and thunder threatens to shake the whole valley awake.

We lose power. Nana starts lighting candles all over the house, which were standing at the ready just in case of an outage. We all end up in the living room, our faces glowing warmly in the candlelight, and I feel like we’ve stepped back in time. Every Little House on the Prairie story I’ve ever read is coming to life in our living room. Well, except for the one about tying up a pig’s bladder and using it to play catch.  In this moment, we all sit quietly, almost reverently silent, watching the flames dancing at their stations around the room and listening to the rain.

In the morning, the ground is damp and springy and giant earthworms slither and creep through the yard. Grandma Dori told me once that a little boy found a bunch of earthworms and picked them up, but they were actually baby snakes and they bit him and he died. I have been terrified of making that same mistake ever since. When the worms get too wiggly in my hand, I’m certain I have made that fatal error and toss them quickly to the ground.

In the misty morning sun, our yard has become a tropical rainforest with trilling birds and chirping insects and heavy humidity. Another summer storm has come and passed. We race to the creek knowing it will be full and flowing. Our next Summer Adventure awaits.

Mr. Fitzgerald teaches health class. He was my mom’s health teacher too when she was in Junior High. When you raise your hand in class and ask to go get a drink, he always says, “As long as you make it non-alcoholic!” with a wink and a smile. In his class, we study the effects of smoking on the respiratory system by running up and down the hallways and then trying to breathe through straws. We make carb charts and present about whether apples really help you avoid the doctor.

Mr. Fitzgerald has a very special talent. On afternoons when we have taken all of our notes, graded our homework, and finished our tests, he lets us play a game. He has a key that he keeps at this desk. He hands one of us the key and leaves the room. We then scramble and pass it from hand to hand and decide who will hide it for when he comes back in the room.

People stick it in their shoes or under their seats or up jacket sleeves. Mr. Fitz, after several minutes, comes back into the room. We all sit still and try not to look at the real key holder. Some of us act as a red herring, attempting to trick our telepathic teacher.

He takes slow, measured steps up and down each aisle. He pauses here and there, a finger to his lips, considering this student and then that one. He makes idle remarks that offset the deep concentration it takes for him to play this game.

We always think we will fool him. We are always wrong. We never play a single key game that he doesn’t win. It remains a mystery, how he does it. How he knows every single time. Is he psychic? Telepathic? Does have a way of seeing into the room from outside in the hallway? A mystery.

– except –

I know.

I sit here, over 10 years later, and I know. I know the secret to the key game. Even now, I’m not sure I should reveal it. Who knows? Maybe everyone found out before we left BCJHS. But then again, maybe there are still a few believers out there. And I was entrusted with this secret. I think I slipped up a few days after I learned it. I vaguely recall telling a girl who was only at school one class period a day, thinking she wouldn’t have a chance to tell anyone. I have no way of knowing if she ever did.

A decade later, I still feel inclined to keep the secret; it’s not mine to share.

That’s what you get for being the nerdy girl with her giant Harry Potter or Christy novel tucked under her desk during lecture, reading with the book balanced on your knees. For stopping in the middle of the basketball game to tell the referee that you traveled and he should take the ball to give to the other team. For having to sit next to the weirdest kid in 6^th grade because you were “mature enough” and your classmates weren’t, so you suffer through a year of him studying the hair growing on your arms and calling you the Jolly Green Giant.

And one day, after the bell rings, Mr. Fitz asks you about the book you’re reading. He walks with you down the hall a little ways and then stops. He looks straight into your eyes, something teachers hardly ever do unless you’re in trouble, and he says, “Sarah, I have something I would like you to help me with, but it will only work if you keep it a secret.”

At recess, we’ve been training for Track and Field Day. Mrs. Klinger makes us run relay races around the playground and hosts sprints that the same people win every time.

Only fifth and sixth graders get to go to Track and Field Day. It’s in Nashville at the high school. Mom says they did Track and Field Day when she was in fifth grade too. The Nashville Elementary kids always win because they get to practice on the real track. Lucky ducks.

I already kind of hate running, so I sign up for one race and all of my other events are field events. High jump. Long jump. Shot-put, which is really a softball throw since they don’t want to injure our little muscles.

We all get matching t-shirts to wear that day. It is easy to spot the Nashville kids when we get to the track. They are walking around like they own the place. I’ve heard about them. Their parents run shops in Nashville and they are bit more citified than the rest of us at the elementaries on the outskirts.

I know some of the girls from basketball teams. Natalie B. goes to Nashville and she’s as tall as me. She has her long dark hair pulled back in a pony tail too. It is no surprise that we are two of the top contenders for the high jump. We tie for second, she and I. I’m excited. I know that everyone gets a participation ribbon just for showing up, but the first three places get special ribbons awarded to them at assembly on Friday morning.

The relay race is the last event. We all gather in the middle of the track and watch our teams duke it out for the title. Our boys put up a good fight, but of course Nashville wins.

Nonetheless, we are all abuzz on Friday morning, sitting in our class rows on the gym floor, waiting for assembly to begin. We all stand and face the flag, and you can hear Mrs. Donovan’s wobbly voice louder than all the others as we sing the National Anthem. Announcements are made - special reminders for the Spring Concert and a Grandparents luncheon next week.

Finally, the ribbons! They are all displayed on a rolling cart that Mrs. Klinger pushes to the center of the gym. Into the microphone she begins announcing names and scores and placements. We clap and clap. It takes forever for her to get to the high jump. I know a second place ribbon isn’t blue, but it’s mine and I can’t wait to show it off to Nana and Papaw when I get home!

She announces the high jump winner, followed by Natalie B. in second place, and my name is called for third. What? I approach the front, puzzled by this turn of events. She tells me later that they could only award one second place ribbon, and since Natalie was alphabetically before me, I got third by default. “Congratulations!”

I am devouring another Romance Novel.

I found a box of them in an old storage shed when Nana and Papaw bought land on Borders. We were exploring these strangers’ things that they just left here, and I came across this entire box full of books. Most of the front covers are missing. Bookworms made little tunnels through the pages. The back covers tell me they were 75 cents brand new back in the early ‘80s.

I am in love.

I read about Marnie, a model turned recluse after some tragedy or other, who is wooed out of her misery by a handsome, stubborn contractor who won’t stand to see her so gloomy. And Rachel, whose grandfather owned a game reserve in Australia that she surprisingly inherits and so must deal with the argumentative albeit insanely attractive foreman.

I read them over and again. I cry when hearts are broken or when another happy ending is resolved. I stay up until 2:00 am on school nights because I can’t bear to sleep until I know that these wayward lovers finally reconcile and live happily ever after.

On the bus, in study hall, at lunch time, riding in the back of the car. I tune out the entire world and let my imagination run away with these beautiful people in preposterous circumstances who are destined to be in love. Pirates, vagabonds, kings… and the women who love them.

My English teacher tells my family that she was initially concerned that I read novels through her class each day, but that my grades are good and I keep up with the assignments so she lets it slide. My teammates on the basketball team show no interest in interrupting my silent descent into these salacious stories, and for the most part I’m happy to not have to awkwardly interact with them. When I have friends over, we read aloud and giggle at the scandalous affairs, inappropriate dinner time behavior, and blushing virgins who become vixens on their wedding nights.

In time, I get picky about my romance writers and am no longer able to simply enjoy them like I used to. Some of the writing is just too awful. I look back on that time, though, with fondness. I fell in love so many times and lived so many stories and enjoyed it all so much.

Real life love, I soon learn, is not really like the kind in books. Better to enjoy those fictional characters and their guaranteed happiness than to risk too much of yourself when it comes to matters such as this.

Mom is about to pop.

Her feet are swollen and she eats salt straight out of the shaker and her long, long hair keeps slipping out of the tight little bun on the back of her head. I have been playing basketball every weekend, as usual. The other moms ask about the baby and the due date and what they’ll name her. Mom smiles at them all, but as soon as we get in the van to go home, she’s a very cranky pregnant lady once again.

I get to skip school on Friday because Mom is being “induced.” I don’t know what this means other than supposedly it makes the baby come out on time instead of as a surprise. She got to the hospital super early, and Dad wakes us up at our regular school time and takes us in to visit her.

She and her enormous belly are propped up on the hospital bed, hooked up to buzzing, whirring machines and dripping bags of clear liquid. The TV is on, but turned down very low. My brothers are restless and Dad takes them to McDonalds when he goes to find brunch. By lunch, they are terrors, so he takes them home. Mom tells him to hurry back or he’ll miss the baby.

The baby needs to hurry up. I have to leave for a basketball tournament by 4:00pm. It’s after 1:00 and she’s still not here. Finally, Mom starts contracting and having pains and nurses rush in, and then a doctor. They don’t know that I’m not really supposed to be here. You have to be 14 to be present during delivery, according to hospital policy. I am three years too young, but I’m taller than most of them so they don’t question me staying in the room.

Good thing, too, because I am fascinated by this birthing process. I’ve only ever seen it in movies. The amount of blood and guts is unreal. And then the baby?!

Yuck. It’s covered in cottage cheesy stuff and bloody and all squenched-up in the face. The umbilical cord is disgusting. After the baby comes out, I think it’s over. I am wrong. Suddenly, Mom is pushing again and I learn about the existence of after-birth. Double yuck! That stuff is as big as the baby! They never show that part in the movies.

The nurses are busy prepping my little sister for life on the outside. They flip and flop her around, pulling on arms and legs, sucking liquid out of her lungs, pricking toes for blood samples, and eventually cleaning her up for a proper viewing. It’s all very thorough and routine.

When we get to hold the baby, you would think she was a landmine about to explode. It’s all soft, soft touches and slow, deliberate movements. Her tiniest activity causes the whole room to freeze in an instant. Each is afraid one of the others of us will be the one to drop her on her head. A few minutes later, I have to leave for the tournament. My head is so high in the clouds about my new little sister that I accidentally score a layup for the other team. What can I say? I’m smitten.

Here comes Summer.

Spring rains made the Creek rush and rage for a few days, but now it’s perfect for wading and crawdad catching. We find patches of clay that we use as a Slip-n-Slide, hurling our bodies toward the creek bank only to go rushing under at the last second when our feet hit the slick, blue patches of clay in the creek bed.

We run our fingers along the surface of the water and collect handfuls of the slimy green moss that floats on the top. Squeezed dry, it makes a clump the size of a kitchen sponge. We use it to wash rocks, then dunk the moss back into the water so we can squeeze them dry again.

I walk over a snake. Every time. My brother is behind me and I hop from rock to rock or let miniature waterfalls rush over my bare feet, and suddenly my brother calls out, “Snake!” I jump, shriek, and search frantically. It’s always right where I stepped last. They are skinny, short water snakes curled up on dry rocks, enjoying the Summer sun. They don’t even blink when we pass them. Sometimes, we pick on them with twigs and long pieces of grasses, poking at their faces. Mostly, we leave them be and keep an eye out for their comrades.

We collect crawdads in large-sized McDonald’s cups. Mama Crawdads have small, bubbly eggs attached along the sides of their tales. You get extra points for finding one. We find itsy-bitsy baby Crawdads that are all but impossible to catch. Very rarely, we find a Big Daddy. The closest thing to lobster that we’ve ever seen in the wild. We jump backward when they rush under rocks, evading our grasp. When you do catch it, you hold it by the middle, pinchers facing out. He’ll flip his massive tail and clamp his claws menacingly, but he can’t get a hold of you if you hold him by the middle.

We collect rocks of all colors, scratching and grinding them together to make face and body paints. We draw designs on our arms out of clay, and it gets stiff and crusty as it dries. When it gets too hot, we get down on our hands and knees and slurp the water straight from the Creek. It tastes like dirt and fish and Summer.

Trash. Broken bottles. Old tshirts. Lots of things come floating down the Creek. Papaw collects the glass bottles if they’re in decent shape. He digs the mud out of the neck and sets each one out on a shelf in the barn. They are green or blue, fat or tall, and we wonder if they were ever used for moonshine.

When a big rain comes, the Creek turns into raging rapids. The water gets so high that sometimes they close the road and we get to miss school because the bus can’t get through. Sissy and Papaw wade across in their giant rubber boots. Nana fusses the whole time the Creek is high, certain my brother and I have a secret plan to jump in when she’s not looking and get carried away forever.