Lay on, McDuff

Bug was nervous. I saw that as soon as I walked in the store. He’d been working for old-man Martin for four years and was practically running the place on weekends; Not bad for a sixteen year old. Of course, most everybody older was either across an ocean fighting or at some base somewhere getting ready to. The whole town was talking about Germany surrendering soon, especially since that asshole had shot himself, but I still had a brother somewhere in the Pacific and it didn’t sound like that was going to end anytime soon. Me and Bug couldn’t join up for almost two years. I wanted to go now, but since Mike was already in the navy, daddy had been killed on the train, and my other brother had been killed in France, they weren’t going to let me get away with lying about my age and mama wasn’t going to help me go and probably get killed. 

I walked around the store for ten minutes or so pretending to look at things. If you made me admit it, I was nervous too. Mama had made me go to church three times a week at Ebenezer since I could remember and stealing was definitely a sin in the book they read out of there. Martin treated Bug like shit, but he did that to everybody when he got a few into him, which was most days by the afternoon. Bug had shown me all the spots in the store where Martin stuck a bottle so he’d never be more than a few steps from one. Every once in a while, when I could build up the courage, I’d sneak a slug from one of them and pretend I was the cowboy in the picture shows that walked into the bar and snarled, “whiskey,” to the bartender. Of course, more times than not, either the bartender was going to get shot by the cowboy or the cowboy by the good guy thirty seconds later, but I wasn’t too worried about that. I did keep an eye out for Martin though. 

When we got the telegram that John had been killed, I’d run over to the store to tell Bug. I don’t remember much after that and he told me I went from hidey-hole to hidey-hole around the store,  taking big gulps from every bottle until I stumbled into a shelf, knocking cans everywhere and falling down in the middle of an aisle. I have a vague recollection of Martin standing over me and then being moved to the storeroom. When I came to, Bug was sitting in a chair staring at me. “Damn, boy. Don’t throw up again. I’m tired of cleaning it up.”  

My head cleared and I jerked to sit upright. “Oh, shit. Is Martin going to kill me?”  

Bug shook his head. “Nah. He just told me to let you sleep it off and then get you cleaned up before you went home. Your mama don’t need to see you like this. Right now in particular....”. His voice trailed off and he acted like he couldn’t look at me. 

I continued to stare at him, confused. “What’s wrong with him? He grow a heart all of a sudden?”

Bug’s eyes flashed at me and then cooled, “He’s not that bad. He’s just sad sometimes.”

“Well, he’s got a funny way of showing it,“ I replied. The room was starting to spin on me now and I laid back down. 

“We took the telegram today.... Before Walter walked it over to your house....He already knew about John.”

I laid there on the floor and I could feel my eyes get hot and then the tears running down my cheeks. I stayed like that for a long time while Bug finished cleaning up and then we walked back home. 

On the day we left, May 3, 1945, a Wednesday, the lights went off and back on while I was pretending to look at a pocket knife in the display case against a side wall. That meant the store was going to close in fifteen minutes and Martin was giving everyone notice to wrap it up and get out. I walked up to the register and said, “Gimmee a pack of Chesterfields,” and when Bug handed them to me, I gave him a dollar. He stuck it deep in the till and counted out change for a twenty back to me. I could hear his voice crack when he started counting off the fives. I nodded, took the money, stuffed it in my pocket, and walked out to wait on him to finish up so we could get on the road. A few minutes went by as my heart started slowing down, but, when I reached into my shirt pocket, I noticed my hands were still shaking right before I realized I hadn’t even taken the smokes. I smiled and thought as I waited. “Well, I’m not that big a thief then, am I?”

I’d been pacing the dirt track on the side of the store for thirty minutes before Bug came around the corner. “Let’s go,” he said and took off walking. I grabbed my bag off the ground and followed, running the first few steps to catch up. 

“Did he notice?”

Bug didn’t turn his head; he just kept walking. “No. He was too busy telling me how stupid I was for leaving right now. Told me there wouldn’t be a job for me when I got back because the war would be over and all those boys coming home would get all the jobs. I told him I wasn’t ever coming back and he could give the job to whatever poor son-of-a-bitch who wanted it.”

I backed off a step so Bug couldn’t see the smile. I know he didn’t say anything like that. It wasn’t his way to burn bridges. Martin was an ass alright, but Bug had kept that store afloat while Martin had been sinking under the weight of all those bottles and they both knew it. I’m sure he wasn’t happy about Bug leaving, but I think Bug might not have been too happy either. As bad as things had been around our house the last few years, nothing compared to what had been going on at Bug’s his whole life and he was walking away from the only solid thing in his life with that store. Well, except for me of course: I’m a peach. 

“Well, listen to you, big man,” I said. “I bet his eyes about popped out of his when you said that.” He deserved some support from me after what he’d done after all. 

“He didn’t know what to say. He just walked to the back and left me there so I left. Serves him right.”

I noticed his story changing already and knew it was going to have some more twists and turns before the truth finally came out. That was the thing about Bug back then; he couldn’t lie for long. He’d try to tell a good story but facts always eventually came out and got in the way. 

I slapped him on the shoulder and picked up the pace. “Come, my boon companion.” I laid on the biggest limey accent I could like I’d done in Mrs. Adluh’s English class when we’d had to recite Shakespeare, “Lay on, Macduff, and damned be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’” 

Bug smiled a little at that and he lowered his head in determination or resignation or probably both and we kept on walking west.