Warning: Some adult content, well, I suppose most of my writing is adult content. I have been thinking a great deal about my uncles Pablo and Pedro (Peter) lately as well as other deceased folks. I suppose this is a normal part of getting older. The memories don’t make me sad or nostalgic (except the ones about my mom and stepfather Steve), mostly they are funny memories. I have been writing for the past two years on a book about my mother and family. This is something I just wrote, inspired by Father’s Day and my Uncle Peter was a very close father figure to me at times, but as you will read he was a particular type of father figure. In a very real sense he was in fact, a crazy funny uncle who helped me a lot in my life. This takes place around 1987 in a very dingy campus apartment that was not only hot in the summer, cold in the winter but was inhabited by countless mice who acted with impunity, venturing out in daylight hours. Casually walking across the rug and staring at us, but also cockroaches that displayed the same arrogance as the mice.
“Bela, Bela, Bela.” the words were spoken in quick rhythm, with stern importance, which to my Uncle Pedro was absolutely the most important thing being said out loud in Columbus, Ohio or even the world at that moment. “Listen, I need to eat something while I’m explaining how you can change the oil in your car.” He was opening cabinets and the fridge, “Bela, Bela, why you don’t have food in here? You always have food.” I didn’t want to know how to change the oil in my car. I had a way, and it was called just keep adding more oil. The car only costs $400, who cared? “Bela! Never mind, I found some bread, do you have ketchup and mayonnaise?
” I could feel his eyes from the kitchen, scanning the fridge, “Jesus, you guys have a lot of beer, but you don’t have any bologna?”
“Beer is more important” I yelled from the couch, “and the bread is moldy.”
None of this mattered to him, he came into the living room with bits of crumbly green bread falling from his lips, “So, Bela, listen to me” one could not help but listen to anybody on the paternal side of my family, they did not have conversations but escalations that would eventually erupt in a stream of “Cono! Ni lo suenos!”, laughter and on some occasions, fist-fights.
Pedro then proceeded to tell me how to change the oil in my 1978 Ford T-Top LTD with the passenger front tire at least one size larger than all the others, the car drove with a limp.
“Garages rip you off man, in fact they look at you with your glasses and say, ‘Man, we are going to fucking rip this nerd off’.”
I yawned, “I don’t care Peter.”
My siblings and I called him Uncle Peter because, apparently, Pedro was too hard to say in a house of a multi-lingual father. Unsolicited advice was a genetic trait on my father’s side of the family. One would say it was a gift in the sheer amount that was given and how much of it was complete bullshit. All three brothers, Uncles Pablo & Pedro and of course, King man-splainer extraordinaire, my father.
Peter sat down on our found-in-the-alley couch, his eyes wincing as he almost went through the cushion, “Bela, you know these springs are shot on this thing? I can help you change them; it is very easy.” Always. The advice. “You buy the springs at a discount store, they are like ten bucks. Do you have wire cutters and a utility knife?”
“No but I have some butter knifes.”
“Those won’t do”, he was now on the floor looking under the couch. Irony was not his strong suit.
“Damn, do you have a vacuum, there is a lot of shit under this couch” he pulled out an empty beer bottle, some unanswered mail and a dirty plate.
“Yes, we have a vacuum. Do you think we are idiots?” I eyed Jenny.
“Uncle Peter, we have a vacuum. I pulled one out of the dumpster, but it doesn’t suck very well” Jenny explained.
“Yeah, it sucks at sucking.” I cracked.
“Bring it to me, I can fix it. Jesus, you guys live worse than me and your uncle Pablo. One time we both ate something that was left in the oven. We couldn’t even identify it but we just scrapped off the mold, heated it up and poured ketchup and mayo on it. The mold has a lot of vitamins.”
“Gross,” Jenny went and got the black vacuum, the plastic covering scraped and somehow dented. Riddled with cracks.
As he flipped it over, I walked into the kitchen and got another beer. The apartment was sweltering. As I walked back into the living room, Peter was laughing.
“Fixed it.” Holding up a filthy green sock he said, “Somebody vacuumed up a sock.”
“That would be Bela” Jenny said dryly.
Taking the sock from his hand, “Damn, I was looking for that sock. Yeah, that would be me. Thanks Peter.”
Having forgotten about wanting to fix the alley-found sofa he sat down again, grimacing he asked for a water. “Don’t you have an air conditioner?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, we are poor.”
“Yeah, dirt poor but not as dirty now that you fixed the vacuum” Jenny sat down on the turned over milk-crate, her yellow thrifted sun-dress climbed her thighs.
“Jenny, why don’t you wear panties?” Peter laughed, “Thanks for the beaver shot.
She didn’t flinch, smiling coyly, “Ohhh, sorry. Marylyn Monroe didn’t wear them, so I don’t have to either.” Logical.
Brining Peter a glass of ice water, I handed it to him with another beer in hand. “Jenny, we need more beer. We only have seven left.” I sat next to Peter.
“Do you have a pan, or a small cardboard box to put under the car?” he bit into his “sandwich”, “Do you have some peanut butter to put on this?”
Getting frustrated, “Why?” I asked.
“Because it tastes like shit.” Jenny walked into the kitchen and handed him a butter knife and a jar of peanut butter which he proceeded to lather onto the ketchup and mayonnaise sandwich.
“I meant why do I need a cardboard box?”
“You need to have something to collect the oil when you change it. It is against the law to let it spill onto the ground. Do you have $50 to pay the fine?”
“No, but I’m not changing the oil either” I replied to a man that didn’t listen.
He continued, “Then you go underneath the car and there is a small cap you twist off, but don’t have your face under it or you will get a shitload of oil on your face.”
“That won’t happen, because I’m not changing the oil.”
He was now licking peanut butter off his fingers, although he inserted the entire finger in his mouth like a lollipop or a dick, pursed his lips, rolled the finger around the inside of his mouth and pulled it out. I was disgusted.
“This is important, you then make sure the cap is screwed all the way in, if not the oil will leak out and your engine will freeze up and won’t work. Do you have $500 for a new engine?” He stared at me for a few seconds.
“No, but I don’t need it. I’m not changing the oil.”
Standing up, wiping his pants onto the floor, “Then make sure you put four quarts of synthetic oil in the car, don’t get any other kind, they don’t work as well. Then make sure you put the cap back onto where you put the oil in, otherwise it will spray all over the engine.”
This part about the cap I did knew from experience. “One time Bela changed the oil and forgot to put the cap on, there was smoke everywhere, we had to pull over on the highway in his piece of shit car. It was hilarious” Jenny cackled.
“That is because he is a dumbshit. Hey Jenny, do you have any of that wacky-weed, before I go?”
Jenny handed him a small purple ceramic pipe, stuffed with marijuana, Peter took a hit, holding the smoke and handed me the pipe. Waving him off, “I don’t smoke, I hate that shit.” Keeping the smoke in, my uncle made several pip-squeak noises, eyes bulging which caused Jenny and I to erupt in laughter, as he blew out the smoke, followed by a deep cough he handed the pipe to Jenny.
“Here you go Jenny, dat is some good shit right there.”
I walked to the kitchen, fetched a beer, and brought the decrepit revolving fan from the kitchen. Another dumpster find, the back cover was broken in half, making the fan a noisy hazard but as Upon plugging it in, wiping tomato sauce from the base, she explained more to herself than me after she had lugged it in, “this is a keeper, who fucking cares about the back, this will work fine.”
Peter was taking another hit off the pipe, I giggled as he continued with the pip-squeak sounds behind me.
“Bela, Bela, I can help you fix that fan, you can go to the hardware store and buy some chicken wire and ties to make it safer.” He eyed me, pointed to my skinny legs that were barely covered with cut-offs, and because of the heat I wasn’t wearing a shirt. “Jenny, Jenny, you fuck this guy? He looks like a homo. Why don’t you wear pants or a fucking shirt? Bela, if your shorts were any shorter your nuts would be hanging out. Do you know who has big nuts? Your dad, it looked like a mongoose hanging between his legs, Pablo and I would make fun of him.”
“Jesus Peter, I think that’s enough” I moved to get another beer.
“Get one for me too” Jenny said, pipe between her lips.
“Seriously, you fuck him? Look at those legs, he needs to work a real job to build some muscles, you look like a god-damn chicken in shorts.” He was shaking his head at me, smiling as if he were watching a dog ride a bicycle.
“Actually Peter, he’s pretty good at it” she was sticking up for me, at only nineteen the support was welcome.
“Do you want to know the secret to fucking?” he asked but not caring about the answer.
“No. I don’t.”
“Well, I will tell you. Always lick the asshole. Dey love it. Jenny, does he do dat?” he passed on the pipe, shaking his head. “I am high as hell, Jenny you always have the best stuff.”
“For fuck’s sake Peter, why would you ask her that?!”
“Well, if you want to be good at fucking you need to know the tricks, they don’t teach you this shit at school. Can I have another sandwich?
Jenny laughed, “if he came anywhere near my asshole, I would kill him.”
“Sure, go make it but don’t you have to be somewhere?” I had enough of his advice for one afternoon.
“Oh, yeah. I have to pick up the boys from the day-care.”
If you enjoyed this, and if you haven’t already, please consider buying my book: “Love, Death & Photosynthesis” (published by Don Giovanni). Here are links. If you purchase from Two Dollar HQ, they have signed copies on hand. I can’t tell you enough about the importance of supporting indie press and indie-bookstores.
https://dongiovannirecords.com
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Tags: 1980's, alcoholism, Bela Koe-Krompecher, buddhism, Columbus Ohio, family, Father's Day, fiction, Jenny Mae, lo-fi, short stories, short story, travel, writing
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