Salubrius?
The joke’s been on Splay Depth ever since the coal company gave it that name at the turn of the 20th century, no doubt inspired by Scalp Level, another godforsaken coal patch town up above Johnstown. It can easily be said that both towns have become a dark, negative silhouette of their former bustle three generations ago. The real cruel joke has been on the people who didn’t get out with the coal. Their lives have become as diminished as the turtles in the quiescent egg water of Turtle Creek.
Saturday afternoon at the Hunky club brings in a more mixed crowd than any other day. It’s a working crowd, and along with the garbage men, tank coaters, truck drivers and machinists there could be an occasional schoolteacher, lawyer, or bricklayer. And here on the last Saturday of the month, everyone hoped they would get lucky in the drawing for $1,380. Nobody has hit since back in the winter. You don’t have to be present to win, but your ticket has to be there. That means most people here have not only their tickets but also several others’. When the rule was changed a few years back, the main reason given was the club couldn’t easily accommodate all the people. The fact that someone might have something else to do was hardly mentioned.
Each time the buzzer went off, most conversations briefly stopped to see who was let in by the bartender. A guy, perhaps 28 or 38 walked in, head up, eyes forward, with dark hair slicked back, a black leather jacket unzipped to a blue shirt tucked into jeans that were tucked into black engineer boots. He’d obviously been on his Harley. He wouldn’t wear these clothes if he were walking.
“Jockley. How’s it going?” came from Johnny Earl, the first guy inside the door. As always, he sat near the door, maybe to compensate for his glass eye. The eye comes with a glass face that in spite of an occasional laugh or countless beers never changes expression. He’s built like a blockbuster brute but nobody has ever known him to knock heads. His teachers called him slow and he was that or something else to get banished from bowling at the Moose for lofting the ball. Nice old Paul Tapsavic had warned him, but he bowled like a brute and when his fingers stuck in the ball again, instead of firing it down the alley, he launched it straight up. It damn near hit the ceiling, and when it came down with a shattering thud, nice old Paul told him to leave. Even then his expression didn’t change. Johnny Earl’s twin sister Jeannie came out all right, got married, and lives in another state.
“Doin good, doin good.”
“I see you’d bin ridin. Where’d ya go?”
Stopping to face Johnny Earl, he answered, “Oh I went up thru White Valley over to Five Points to get some sweet corn my mother wanted for our supper. Comin back thru Tree’s Mill, I got distracted by a woman hanging clothes and a damn squirrel ran out in front of me in a flash and scare’t the shit out of me. I almost put it in the ditch.” Both guys laughed.
“Jockley. How’s it goin? You want the usual?”
“Fill me up, Luscious.”
“Jockley I told you not to call me that. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She was right. While the tight sweatshirt showed off her best assets, the tight jeans did not. A highlighted shag made her look sassy; dishwater hands made her look old. Tending bar here for the last ten years made her a familiar, well-worn fixture who could take it and dish it out with the best of them.
While she poured an Iron City draft, Jockley walked over to the back of the bar where two older men sat. “Hi doc, whadaya know good?”
Doc Ham’s been pulling teeth in town for as long as most people can remember. He gave Jockley’s uncle Dino a new set of teeth when the first bunch rotted out from chewing tobacco. He was the cheapest around, that is if you could handle the pain. He didn’t use much Novocaine.
“Not much. You been behaving yourself?”
“As far as I know, the cops ain’t after me. Besides, I don’t have enough money to get in trouble. ”
With his half smoked cigar in the right side of his mouth he said, “Hey if you want to make some extra money, the Kalopa boys can’t do my place anymore. They got another bank to clean. I’d be pretty flexible to what night you’d want to come over and sweep up.”
“Let me talk with Chippy and see if he wants to get into that. We’d need to buy some equipment.”
“Yea, the big thing is a machine for the floors.” He pulled the dark Deluxe out of his mouth with short stumpy fingers.” Let’s talk about something more important. So what’s the word today?”
“The word’s sup-pew-rate”
“How do you spell it?”
“S-u-p-p-u-r-a-t-e.”
“What the hell does it mean?”
“It means pus coming from a cut.”
“All that junk you handle, you ought know about that.”
“Yea I can identify with it. Hey do you know brass is over a dollar a pound?”
“Jockley, here’s your beer.” He reached over and took it from Luscious.
“So what’s new with you doc?”
“I was just telling Stush here I’m doing some work for Bob Zaganinni.”
Jockley looked at him with a tilted head, “What the hell’s a dentist doin workin for an undertaker?”
“The state told him he couldn’t cremate anybody anymore because of mercury emissions from the amalgam fillings in their teeth. He didn’t want to give up that part of his business so he asked me to pull teeth with fillings before he cremated them.”
“If that ain’t something. So you’re in the junk business too?”
Chuckling he replied, “I was glad to help him out. Him and his dad Jake have been runnin the only funeral parlor in town for years.”
“Ya got that straight. Whadaya do with the fillings?”
“After I melt them down, I reuse them.”
“You mean to tell me ya put them back in other people’s teeth?”
“They won’t know the difference.”
“Doc, that gives me the hebegebes.”
“It shouldn’t, like everyone else around here you live in a house that a dead person used to live in.”
A good laugh went out and Jockley walked over to a seat a few stools past Doc Ham and sat down with his beer. He took out a Winston and a silver lighter. After he got the smoke going, with a slight jerk of his wrist, he closed the lighter cover making that distinctive click all Zippos make. As if prompted, Doc Ham took out his gold Zippo and re-lighted his Marsh Wheeling Deluxe.
A chunky woman from across the oblong bar spoke. “Hey Jockley, you still doin them words?” It was Peggy Kudrich. She lost her husband Bernie years ago when he was killed on Rt. 22. She’s not doing too bad these days living off his life insurance and social security. She even had money for boys to cut her yard and for the regular painting. Because of her, the club always keeps some Gallo wine.
“Yes I am.”
“What are ya tryin to accomplish with that?”
“Well see I didn’t take school very seriously and because of that I didn’t get educated. So now I’m tryin to educate myself by picking a new word everyday and use it at least ten times ‘cause if you don’t use it you’ll lose it.”
Johnny Earl shouted, “What are ya tryin to do, be smarter than us?”
Doc Ham spoke up, “Today’s word is suppurate. Why don’t you use that in a sentence for us? I want to see you use this word.”
The people at the bar looked at Jockley who then said, “Back when I had pimples, I used to have to squeeze them a lot because they would suppurate so much.”
After the laughter passed, a man sitting near Peggy said, “Don’t let them make you out like a polliwog. You’ll grow up one day into a frog.” It was Mr. Overly who teaches science at the High School. When he first started teaching at the same school he graduated from, rumors circulated that he was seeing Diane Daly, one of his students. It was true. A year after she graduated they got married. Most Saturdays he’s here and usually Mr. Piles, the gym teacher and Mr. Gluckitts, the shop teacher, join him.
Another laugh started up. It was doubtful anyone knew what that word meant but it sounded funny.
“What the hell you callin me that for?”
Molly the bartender joined in. “So what was yesterday’s word? I wasn’t here.”
“The word was Ob-trude”
“Ob-trude?”
“And how do ya use that word?”
“Well it means to butt in with an opinion.”
Mr. Overly across the bar chimed in, “With all these obtrusive people around here that’s something that happens a lot.”
Jockley’s eyes lifted to the unfamiliar word “All I know is I’m an improved man since I done this to expand my word power. You’d be surprised how many chances there are to use your vocabulary. And Mr. Overly I’m glad to have the chance to talk with someone who knows so many words and is way smarter than me.”
“Yea you should have seen him last week. He kept saying he would usurp this and usurp that, and something got usurped.” She turned to Jockley. “And what was that other word you kept using? What the hell was it?”
“Sa-sinked.”
“That’s it. Sa-sinked. He kept saying it ‘cause he liked the way it sounded and it felt good to say.”
Peggy asked, “How do ya spell that?”
Jockley reached for his jacket on the next stool.” I just happen to have N thru Z with me.” He looked the word up in a worn paperback. “Ok, sa-sinked, s-u-c-c-i-n-c-t. Sa-sinked.”
“Now he’s goin to win the spelling bee,” came from Doc Ham. “Buy that man a drink.” He waved a dollar in the air.
Molly reached for Jockley’s glass and he said, “ Hey is it too late to get a ticket for the drawing?”
“Ya still have time. They don’t shut it off till 4 o’clock.”
He reached into his money in front of him on the bar and handed her a ten. “Here give me five. And with the other five bring me a cheese plate and a shot of Wild Turkey.” Before she could get to the cash register he added, “Oh, and put some of that apricot marmalade you put on my toast the other day on the plate too. I got a taste for something sweet.”
“Jockley, you’re a weird guy.”
Tomorrow the Catholics and some of the Presbyterians and Lutherans will go to church. Some of them will be back here in the club. Some of them will go over to the Polish club where they’ll have pigs in the blanket and Stoney’s on tap. If someone hits the drawing, they’ll talk about him and if no one wins, they’ll talk about how much next month will be worth. Jockley will probably check with Chippy Meyers about their next load of scrap and doing Doc Ham’s job, then take a ride out to Tomer’s lake around dusk to see if the Bluegills are biting. On the way back from Tomer’s he might go by George Alden’s place and see if anyone needs something torn down or put up. Maybe George will have his telescope out. He keeps up with all the eclipses and meteor showers. But first thing he’ll open N thru Z – probably to the S’s.