Shootin’ Lloyd McNiel’s boy was a blessing in disguise, for me anyway. I truly did not want to tell the Wife about bein’ absent for Thanksgiving dinner. She don’t deserve such torment, and that would have caused real upset seeing how Thanksgiving was, by far, the most important Thursday on her calendar. She’d break out her mama’s recipe box and put together a feast worthy of Elvis himself. Pearly Mae and Owen would come over, and of course Uncle Dave. Plus Smitty and his wife Charlotte, the Copenhafers, the Patcheks, and Lloyd McNiel with his brood. Although I got the very distinct feelin’ that the latter might pass on this year’s invite.
But the superintendent called me into his office first thing Monday morning, and I suddenly found myself unemployed; Burst from my moorings and set adrift. Julio sat me down to explain:
“Ollie, you’re a hell of a teacher but you’re also a hell of a liability. You know we’ve overlooked a lot of your…let’s say…shortcomings…and behavioral issues over the past five years. But we got no shot at state this year thanks to your shooting up Lloyd’s boy in front of everyone, and folks want to see some consequences now. Concrete ones for once. You put me in a bad spot here and I’m going to have to let you go to keep from getting my head tore off and stuck on a pike by the Oddfellows, the Masons AND the gawdamned Elks. The damn season’s over and we didn’t even manage a District Championship trophy. I’m sorry Ollie.”
Yessir. And that was that. I’d get paid through November, stick around for Thanksgiving and then head to the big city with an open return in my pocket.
And come hell or high water, them crows weren’t hitchin’ a ride back.
At that point there was nothing left to do but tell the Wife what all had transpired, and what the plans for the immediate future were. Bein’ unemployed wasn’t gonna cut it, and since the whole damn town looked to be placin’ blame squarely upon the shoulders of your’s truly regarding the lack of titles gonna be won this year on the gridiron, local job prospects were less than grim. But I figured I could not only solve all my ornithological issues up in the big city, but I could make some decent coin while I was at it. No way was I gonna even try and teach in an environment like that, but I could cut meat and I could fix shit. Among other things. And I could live on the cheap in one of them men’s hotels up on Capitol Hill, assuming they were still as numerous as they used to be back in the day.
It was an eight hour drive from Mud Creek to Denver. Folks who ain’t familiar with our great state typically don’t realize just how massive its rectangular footprint really is. So it ain’t like I ever spent a great deal of time up in our capitol, but Uncle Dave and I used to visit on occasion back when Rock Island and the 15th Street Tavern were still open. We caught some truly historical performances around that town that still ain’t been superseded by any damn bed-wetters come since. Dinosaur Jr. opening for My Bloody Valentine? Primal Scream on the Screamadelica tour? Crash Worship at the Aztlan? JSBX and the Beasties? Fuckin’ Shudder to Think opening for the Pumpkins right after Siamese Dream came out at the Gothic? D’arcy even gave me the little toodle-ooh fingers from back of the stage after I waved at her from the balcony, trippin’ balls on a Lars’ dose while Craig busted out Hit Liquor. Like to have melted my heart, that whole deal. And even though I knew more than a few of them venues had long been shuttered, I had no idea just how different D-town had become since I was a young man, first experiencin’ the introverted pleasures of a mile’s deep narcosis while sleepin’ in the passenger side of the Cherry Popper, parked in the lot out front of Casa Bonita because we only had enough money to barely get back home.
But I gotta pump the brakes here, get back to the story at hand before we get anywhere near them big city lights. I still had a Wife to inform, and a Thanksgiving celebration to attend. One of those things would go better than I’d hoped, and the other worse than I ever expected.