FLASHING MY SHORTS

Say what you want 'bout the man, he ain't bad.

He owns the next farm over. Ain't like we is tied up in his business, but you know how folks be. Idleness or hard work—don't matter. Both can be the devil's workshop, 'specially in winter time, settin' our faces 'fore the cracklin' fireplace can get mighty quiet. Dowright borin'. So we kinda look for trouble, pokin' noses where they ain't got a right to be.

Usually Beth starts the yarn ball rollin'. “Where's he get off walkin' proud like he's somebody?”

I shrug my shoulders. Half a shiver, half response.

“And that son of his, tall plank of deadwood we call 'Abomination'? The old man sings his praises as if he was some angel come to Earth in overalls to preach in Reverend Foster's pulpit. Don't he see the way his son bends his wrists real prissy like? Prancin' round? When them curtains fall and the lights go out, bet he sleeps in his nighties!”

I rub my hands together. Blow some hot breath into 'em. Even the fire ain't enough to take the bite out this Vermont winter. Meantime, Beth's yappin' away to beat the band. She don't never need no listener. She eggs herself on. Rants 'bout the old Swede and his son what don't like girls much as boys.

“Let it rest,” I tell her.

She gives me that wounded look of hers that says, “You don't much care for 'em either.” Then she says it with her mouth after she rolls it into a circle of surprise. “Now Aaron, you said yerself they was low folk. Immigrants what can't even speak American like the rest of us. You hear the old man askin' Bledsoe if he had a “yob” for his son to do after his chores? A yob, Aaron!”

“He's from Sweden, Beth. 'member?”

“And he shoulda stayed in Sweden. Wagged that meatball of a son round Sweden. Not here in Small Town, Vermont!”

Valter Sklar has been runnin' the old Caspar property since the old man died and a little time after Valter, his wife Birgitta, and baby Nils, come to America from some farm in Sweden. Birgitta died of Spanish Influenza 'bout a year later, just days into the new 1920 year. It was a chance for Small Town folks to offer sympathy, make friends with 'im, but nobody much cared to. Them was ocean crossers comin' over with their foreign speakin', their old-country ways, tryin' to muscle into our America.

Become kinda natural to shun the Swedes. Gossip 'bout 'em. Why, Beth went so dang far to start callin' 'em “The Scars”! And it catched on like forest fire. Fore long all Small Town knowed 'em that way. More 'n twenty years water under the bridge now, but I wager most new folks don't have an inklin' their real name's Sklar.

Beth's still at it. I tap a full bowl of Caporal in my pipe, light it, puff a thick smoke I imagine's an undeserved halo round Beth's old gray head. She waves it away. Forces out a couple hefty coughs, then goes on with her backbitin'.

“When that prissy Nils crosses over one day the Lord's gonna say, 'We ain't lettin' in no gays here,' then'll send him on to the bad place.”

“Come on now, Beth. No need judgin'. Leave that up to the Lord.”

“Bible says 'Abomination,' don't it?”

“Yeah, but--”

“Hell ain't full yet, Aaron. Care to join the Scars in the fiery pit?”

I'm thinkin' to myself, I really don't mind the Scars. Sure, the old man's a Swede with a talkin' that ain't much American and what he says always sounds like a question. And his son Nils can do a Marilyn Monroe 'pression better 'n her without even knowin' he's doin' it or carin', but that's for Nils to worry 'bout, not me.

I'm thinkin', seven winters back, caught in my old truck in a blizzard, plumb out of gas, wheels spinnin' in a ditch, freezin' to the bone, prayin' for help, who comes along? The old Swede with his sidekick son Nils. He stops his truck, the two of 'em shuffle down to where I'm sittin' and they start tyin' a chain to the bumpers of both trucks, and pullin' me up and out. Fact is, he pulls my dead truck all the way home whiles I'm sittin' in his truck between him and Nils.

“Really thankful,” I tell him, but he just nods his gray-blond head. He don't say one word. Not him, not his son. I'm wonderin', and been wonderin' ever since, what's the point of condemnin' a man what ain't afraid to show kindness to a neighbor what don't deserve it?

“Leave 'em alone!” I tell Beth, loud enough to make her flinch. “The Swede and his son, they saved my life, 'member? Not for them I be dead seven years now and you, woman, you be standin' here now hollerin' your fool head off in this cold farmhouse to nobody but the four walls and the howlin' wind bangin' 'gainst the winder panes!”

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Salvatore Buttaci, author of Flashing My Shorts 

and soon-to-be released 200 Flashing Shorts

from All Things That Matter Press