James McKew

It’s a cold Saturday morning, and I’m buzzed on coffee and tossing out Facebook ‘thumbs-ups’ like they’re Mardi Gras beads to Fat Tuesday.  

“Hey, look,” I call to Honeybee, “a guy I know just posted his colonoscopy results with pictures! Way to go, man! Big Thumbs Up to You!” 

Honeybee drifted away from the hypnotic bluescreen in her hand and said, “You have to go to the store today and get some antifreeze.”

“What? Why?”

“The trailer, Jim? You need to winterize it before the pipes burst.”

By ‘the store,’ I think she means ‘The Big W,’ a national chain known for working-class prices, a pajama bottoms clothing expectation, and shoppers who favor NASCAR lingo over Formula 1’s complete sentences. Suddenly, shopping for antifreeze sounded less like a chore and more like a family reunion.

Honeybee catches my eye and runs my thoughts through her invisible lie-detector machine. “Just antifreeze. Understand?”

Well…it’s never really about antifreeze, is it? When I go to ‘The Big W’, the first place I start is the hunting and fishing aisle. My mind turns glossy with the idea of finding the perfect camouflage shirt and ball cap with words Winchester and Mossy Oak stenciled on the front.

Before I know what’s happened, I’m sitting in the cab of my truck, wearing a puffy jacket that makes me look like a Brazilian rainforest, not a drop of antifreeze in sight, and facing a firing squad when I get home.

Somehow, some way, I needed to get the antifreeze without spending another dime.

My fingers drum the steering wheel for answers…then I called Amos.

He’s a guy who always has a workaround for these sorts of things. Last year, he talked his wife into letting him go fishing in Montana on their anniversary weekend…where…he promised her on a stack of Bibles that he would spend every waking moment thinking of her and retraining his lips to form the words, ‘I love you.’

She allowed it.

To hear tell, he’s currently elbow-deep in the rearend of a Jeep CJ-5.

“Listen here,” he says. “I spend my paychecks on guns and gears, and don’t have time for an RV, don’t own an RV, ain’t got no need for said RV antifreeze, and would appreciate it if you’d stop reminding me that my hobbies leave me POOR AND DESTITUTE!”

 He did, however, suggest that I call Scar-fee, who might have an idea.

Now, Scar-fee is an odd-jobs expert we met a few years back who’s doublewide squats on cinderblocks down by the river. My unannounced visit was greeted warmly by the snapping jaws of a bloodhound and the working end of a shotgun pointed at my nose.

“Course not, I ain’t got no freezy,” Scar-fee says. “Annie-freeze ain’t no use ta me. I got my pipes movin’ all year. Crips, why would I need Annie-freeze anyhow? What’s your name again?”

Dejected, limping back to my truck, head down, shoulders hunched inside my new jacket, I imagined a hundred rifle barrels from a firing squad waiting for me when I got home. I was nearly to the truck when Scar-fee called out his screen door. “Hey now! Hold the phone! Ain’t got no freezy, but I might got an answer.”

Across the yard, we dodge puddles of questionable black liquid on our way to a large pile of warped plywood slabs streaked with peeling paint. “Hey, nice skateboard ramp,” I said, trying to sound friendly.

He sneered in my direction. “That’s ma tool shed.”

Inside, Scar-fee dug around and came up with a case of beer. “Here,” he says, grinning, thrusting it in my arms. “Falstaff, 2005. You take that. You’re welcome.”

My arms were heavy from the beer, and I realized for the first time, that I was alone in the woods with a man who probably plays the banjo for kicks, eats frog legs for supper, and thinks Bad Bunny is a cartoon character on Nickelodeon.

Oh, God, I thought, He’s going to baste me in lager and roast me on a stick!

“What exactly am I supposed to do with this here beer?” I asked. “Trade it for antifreeze or sell it on eBay?”

“No, the alcohol, stupid…the alcohol is 5%, right? So, twenty beers…drain them in the trailer. Do the math…that’s a hundred percent alcohol. Plenty enough to keep yer pipes from freezin’!”

Right.