“Oh,” I said, “so that’s how you’re going to be?”

I grabbed some snow from the pile alongside the driveway and quickly packed a snowball and threw it towards Molly who was now running and giggling her way across the front yard. Swish. I missed her completely.

“Nice throw,” said Molly as she packed another snowball together. Thump. She hit me in the knee.

I gathered up some more snow and started to chase her. She ran across the street over towards my front yard. She tried to jump over the snow pile left on the side of the street by the plow, but her foot caught the top of it. She flew over and disappeared from view.

I quickly ran to her to make sure that she was ok. Splat. As I crested the snow drift, she nailed my forehead with another snowball. She lay on her back in the snow giggling.

“All right, that’s it. I’ll give you something to laugh about.”

I jumped down from my lofty perch on the mound of snow to where Molly lie. I began to tickle her.

“Think you’re clever do you?”
“Yeah,” she said between laughs.
“You think you’re funny, don’t ya?”
“Yeah.”

I tickled her for another couple of seconds, let her catch her breath for a second and then tickled her some more.

“You’re evil,” she said smiling.
“Yep.”

I stopped tickling her and her giggling gradually subsided. We stared into each other’s eyes, her chestnut eyes looking deep into mine. I sensed at this point I should lean down and kiss her, but being full of insecurity and self-doubt, I could only continue to stare into her lovely eyes.

“Lucius!” yelled my mother out the front door. She did not see Molly and I behind the snow fort Scooter and I had built.

The spell was broken. I sighed, knowing in my gut that for a shy thirteen year old boy, opportunities like that are rare as ambergris. I stood and helped Molly up.

“Right here,” I said to my mother.

“Oh. Oh, hello Molly.”

“Hi Mrs. Van Dyke.”

“I’ve got to go get your dad.”

“It’s not five-thirty yet,” I said with some aggravation.

“Don’t give me a hassle Lucius. Come inside and watch your brother.”

“He’s old enough to watch himself.”

“Lucius,” she said in a you’re getting on my last nerve tone.

“Can Molly come in?” I asked hopefully.

“Today’s not a good day Lucius. Goodbye Molly. Tell your mom I said hello.”

“I will, Mrs. Van Dyke. Bye Lucius.”

“Bye Moll.”

I slouched my way back into the house and into the living room where Scooter was watching afternoon cartoons. A female black cat had just slipped underneath a freshly painted iron gate leaving a white stripe painted down her back. Pepe le Pew was immediately smitten, pursued her, all the while she desperately tried to get away this amorous and odorous fellow.

“I’ll be back in a little bit,” said my mother.

Twenty minutes later, I heard the car pull up the driveway. My mother came in without my father.

“Lucius, come give me some help please.”

I sighed heavily and pulled myself up from the couch where I had so comfortably been watching cartoons. I walked outside to the garage with my mother to see my father passed out in the passenger seat of the car. I opened the door and shook his arm. He wearily raised his head and looked at me.

“Lucius, m’boy, you’re old man’s not feelin’ well.”

I could smell his whiskey steeped breath as he spoke. He reached out his arm, looking for help getting out of the car. I supported him as he wobbled to his feet. He put his arms around mine and my mother’s shoulders, much like an injured football player being escorted of the field would. We eased him down the basement stairs to his office and deposited him on the green glider in the corner. The damp coolness of the basement always seemed to ease his hangovers.

My mother and I went back upstairs. I could tell that she was holding back tears, trying to appear strong in front of me.

“I’m going to go lie down for a while,” she said.

“Ok.”

“I don’t know how much…” she started to say before reconsidering. She put her hand on my shoulder and then retreated upstairs.

•••••••••

I poured some coffee into my travel mug and walked out of our Hollywood apartment stopped in my tracks. I was disturbed to see the little man who wanted a dollar sitting in the bus stop shelter. The bus was due in three minutes. There was naught I could do but wait there with him. I stood at the stop and pretended not to see him, opting to inspect my fingers at close detail.

“Hello chum,” said the little man.

“I don’t have a dollar,” I said.

“No worry, my friend. I got my buck, bless my luck.”

“Ah.”

“Never underestimate the kindness of strangers.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“De bus, de bus,” said the little man, doing an incredibly accurate impersonation of Tattoo from Fantasy Island.

I hopped on the bus and found a window seat. The little man sat down next to me.

“I was a munchkin,” he said. “An Oompa-Loompa too. Damn orange paint made me break out.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a candy bar. He pulled back the wrapper and took a bite and then offered some to me.

“No thanks.”

He shrugged, carefully re-wrapped the chocolate and put it back in his pocket.

We rode in relative silence for a while as Latino ladies boarded the bus for their hour long bus trip to Bel Air, which would be followed by an hour long walk up steep hills to get to their jobs as underpaid nannies and housekeepers in the homes of wealthy Angelenos.

The bus came to a stop at Santa Monica and Highland. I looked up.

“My stop,” I said. “Good luck.”

“Luck’s the confluence of the right knowledge and the right situation. Remember that,” said the little man.

“Will do. Take it easy.”

I stepped off of the bus and glanced at my watch, ten after nine. Shit. My boss was an asshole about time. I opened the door and stepped into the Wilcox Agency, a firm that considered itself an high power advertising agency, but in reality was so low on the food chain, it had to be content with being the company who was the primary provider of sign holders in the greater Los Angeles area. That was my job, I was a sign holder. That is, I was one of the guys you see standing on the corner of the street with an arrow shaped sign pointing in the direction of the latest condo project, apartment building, restaurant, or massage parlor trying to encourage drivers to stop on in for a look.

I wandered to the back of the office where the meeting room was. Dan Templeton, my boss, was briefing my fellow sign holders as I walked in.

“You’re late Van Dyke,” said Templeton.

“Sorry, bus was slow.”

“Leave earlier next time.”

I sighed heavily.

“Twenty dollars,” said Scooter sarcastically. “Sure beats building our snow fort.”

“I know, I know.” I said, scooping up another two inch, fifty pound load of snow.

“I’m done,” said Scooter, throwing his snow shovel down on the snow pile next to the driveway.

“You’re what?!” I exclaimed.

“Done” said Scooter emphatically. “Enjoy your twenty dollars.”

He turned his back on me and started walking towards home. Five seconds later, I tackled him into the snow.

Greek gods looked down from Olympus with pleasure at the epic wrestling match taking place below them. We rolled through the snow tight in each other’s grasp, occasionally breaking free just to pounce on each once again, neither doing much damage through the heavy padding afforded us by our winter wear.

I flipped Scooter onto his back and pinned his arms under my knees. I grabbed a big handful of snow and packed it in preparation for shoving it in Scooter’s face.

“Hey guys.” came a soft voice to my left. “I thought you could use some help.”

There stood Molly Ravenhardt wearing a pale blue ski jacket with matching snow pants, shovel in hand.

I knelt speechless on top of my brother. He squirmed underneath me, pushing me with his knees.

“Get off”

I stood and offered a hand to Scooter to help him up. He slapped my hand away and stood on his own, not wanting any help from the brother who attacked him only moments ago, and was now only offering this act of kindness in the presence of the lovely Molly.

“I’m going home,” said Scooter.
“Bye Scooter,” said Molly sweetly.

Molly dug her shovel into the snow. I grabbed my shovel with gusto and verve, plowing through the wet snow, each shovelful weighing no more than an ounce.

LVDIII

“What the hell was that?” asked Noel.

“Some bum. Wanted a buck,” I said as I tossed the pack of Sixlets to Noel who was laying on the air mattress on the floor, our sole piece of furniture.

I laid down next to Noel and turned on our thirteen inch black and white TV with the vertical hold problem. I gave the television a good whack on the right side and the picture of news anchor Paul Moyer stabilized.

“…leaving prosecutors dismayed at Mark Furhman’s use of the ‘N’ word. Furnell Chatman is standing by at the courthouse…”

I reached over and flipped the dial to channel 11 for reruns of ‘The Simpsons.’ Noel snuggled up against me and we drifted off to sleep.

The next morning we awoke to the obnoxious Fox 11 morning show. I reached over and flipped the TV off. The phone rang.

“Hello,” I said.
“Noel Carver please,” said the female voice on the other end of the line.
“One sec,” I said. “It’s for you.”

Noel took the phone from me.

“This is Noel… uh-huh… sure. Ten o’clock. No problem. I’ll be there.” She hung up the phone.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Leeza Gibbons… I’ve got to get going.”

Noel was on call with a company called ‘Unlimited Audiences’ that provided a service that is not common knowledge outside of Hollywood. If a show like Maury Povich, Montel, or Sally Jessy Raphael didn’t fill all the seats in their audience, they could go to a service like Unlimited Audiences and hire audience members for ten dollars and hour, three hour minimum. This was not Noel’s first time to the Leeza Gibbons show.

Noel headed for the shower and I wandered into the kitchen to make some coffee for us both. I stood absentmindedly watching the coffee brew when a commotion outside the kitchen window caught my attention. I looked outside and could only see my neighbor Stan walking quickly towards his car in the building’s carport.

“I don’t have a goddamned dollar! Leave me the fuck alone!” shouted Stan. He fumbled for his car keys, clumsily shoving them into the lock. He yanked the door open, jumped in, and slammed the door quickly behind him.

The little man tapped twice on Stan’s trunk as the car passed by and then turned around spotting me in the kitchen window. He kissed his index finger and then gave me the universal ‘number one’ gesture. I ducked down below the kitchen counter just as Noel walked in.

“What are you doing?”
“It’s that guy. Get down.”
“What guy?” asked Noel.
“The dollar guy last night.”
“I don’t have time for this.”

Noel grabbed her travel mug from the sink, rinsed it out, and filled it with coffee.

“You working today?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“See ya later,” she said as she bent down and kissed me.

I slowly stood and peeked out the window. The little man was accosting someone else in the parking lot. Good, I thought. Since we didn’t have a car, Noel would be going out front to catch the bus. Hopefully, I’d be lucky enough to avoid him as well when it was time for me to leave for work.

—-

“Lucius, it’s time to get up for work!” screamed my mother Elizabeth up the stairwell. “Your eggs are getting cold”

Scooter and I sat at the kitchen table listening with anticipation to the AM radio on the counter. It snowed during the night and we hoped beyond hope for a snow day.

“Scooter, drink your orange juice,” said my mother.

My father stumbled down the stairs and slumped into the kitchen chair. He rubbed his unshaven face and ran his fingers through his unkempt hair.

My mother set a plate of bacon and eggs before my father. He looked down, burped slightly, picked up his coffee mug and handed it to my mother. She dutifully filled it and handed it back to him.

“…and now for local school closures,” broadcast the radio.
“I hope we don’t have to go,” said Scooter excitedly.
“Shhh,” I hissed at him.

The radio announcer listed school after school for what seemed an eternity to Scooter and I.

“…and finally, Boardman local is closed today.”
“Yay!” screamed my brother and I.

My father winced in pain.

“Boys, keep it down for your old man would ya?”

He took a sip of his coffee and looked up at the clock.

“We best get going Lizzy.”

My mother sighed. She hated being called Lizzy.

“Lucius, look after your brother,” said my mother. “Don’t go outside until I get back.”

“Ok.”

My mother and father climbed into their winter jackets and walked out the garage door to the car. The Impala rumbled to a start, backed down the driveway, and into the street with my mother driving, my father sipping his coffee in the passenger seat, hungover once again.

Scooter flipped on the television and tuned it to channel 43 WUAB out of Cleveland. It came in kind of fuzzy, but it offered better fare than our local network stations’ morning news or, god forbid, the educational shows on PBS.

Frankenberry and Count Chocula battled it out for who had the superior sugary cereal on the TV screen. Frankenberry came out ahead in that commercial, though Scooter and I disputed that. Count Chocula was by far the superior cereal. It had, after all, sugar and chocolate.

The strains of “Good Old Days,” the theme song for the The Little Rascals faded in. It was the one where the gang was invited to sort of a charity luncheon for poor kids by some wealthy matrons and Stymie discovered a cigar smoking “infant” stealing ladies necklaces aided by a fellow “child.” Stymie had little luck in persuading the rest of the gang that these two kids were actually midgets in disguise.

We sat, satisfied with the Gang’s escapades for a good half hour until my mother returned from dropping my father off at his job working at the loading dock of a dental supply company. He would occasionally bring home cast off mis-manufactured dentures much to the amusement of Scooter and I and the disdain of my mother.

“I’m home boys,” said my mother as she closed the kitchen door behind her.

Scooter and I flashed across the living room like lightning bolts making a beeline for the front hall closet. We pulled on our boots, climbed into our coats, and yanked on our gloves.

“Don’t stay out there too long! Don’t you catch pneumonia!” yelled my mother.

“We won’t,” we said as we flew out the front door to see the glorious white wonderland our front yard had become.

I jumped off our front porch into the snow and found myself up to my knees. Scooter took a running leap and did a belly flop, virtually disappearing beneath the crusty surface of the snow.

The snow was the perfect mix of cold and wet that makes for a great snow fort. Scooter and I spent the better part of the morning rolling four giant snowballs into place to make the base of our fort. We were just adding the crenelation when I heard my name being called from across the street.

“Lucius… Lucius!?” called Mrs. Ravenhardt from her front door. “Would you and Scooter like to make twenty dollars shoveling my driveway?”

“No,” said Scooter under his breath.
“Shuddup,” I hissed at him. “Sure, Mrs. Ravenhardt.”

I started across the street. Scooter did not follow.

“Come on!”
“I don’t wanna”
“It’s twenty bucks”
“I don’t care. I want to build our fort.”
“Come on. It won’t take that long.”
“No.”

“Dammit Scooter,” I sneered at him. He knew once I sneered at him he could either do as I ask or face retribution later.
“You just wanna see Molly,” whined Scooter.
“Shuddup.”

He was right of course. I would have shoveled the entire street with a spoon if it meant a chance to see the beautiful dark haired Molly, middle daughter of the Ravenhardt clan.

I quit playing the game a couple of weeks ago. I am trying to recover my personal and professional lives and I look forward to returning to this story. Hopefully soon I will return to my former output.

Sincerley,
LVDIII