Rumination​​
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My cat, Augustus, has a unique way of waking me up in the punishingly wee hours of the morning. He silently creeps to whichever side of the bed my head might be facing, pauses a millimeter away, then sweeps his sandpaper tongue across my eyebrow. When my eyelids rise, as they always do, I find myself upsettingly face to face with the resolute feline.
Just because it is often voiced makes it no less true. Cats are unwavering. They can outstare and outlast the most resolute human. Once committed to a specific outcome, they will not yield until the desired end is achieved. In the particular instance that spurred the remembrance I'm soon to recount, Augustus's goal was Purina Pro Plan Complete Essentials. A vet once told me that where cats are concerned, wet food is steak, but dry food is donuts. And who among us, cat or human, can resist the latter.
If you are at all like me, when you're awakened predawn, you are exceedingly hesitant to rise. Longing for more restful slumber, you try your best to return to the dream you were having or the peaceful coma that had previously engulfed you. The mind however, seldom complies. Once consciousness is switched on, it rarely turns itself off automatically. It seeks footholds, most often in the past, and returns you to times and places and people that may have been dormant for decades, but in reality, have never really left your random access memory. So it was on the night in question, when Augustus licked me awake, and I couldn't go back to sleep because I couldn't stop thinking about another night some sixty plus years ago.
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It was long before cell phones, personal computers, social media...even microwave ovens...had become ubiquitous. JFK had been assassinated. Man had walked in space. Something called the Berlin Wall had gone up. But in my small Texas town, hearts and minds of seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen-year-old males—when not consumed with sexual fantasies—were mostly occupied with an impending high school graduation, the need for a summer job, and of course, stretching the limits of foolhardiness. All of us, at one time or another in life, do stupid things. Many, when we are young and responsible for nothing other than ourselves. Such times are replete with activities both asinine and unforgettable. As is the one I'm about to divulge.
Ding, Grif, James and I were looking for something to do. Ding had straw colored hair, black horn-rimmed glasses and played the Coronet like he was born to it. Grif was shorter than most, friendlier than many, and stout as a fireplug. James was lean, occasionally mean, and certainly the bravest as well as the toughest of the bunch. I was about as average as average can get. I did have one skill however that definitely accrued to my benefit. I could repeatedly sink twenty-five foot jump shots like a metal pellet clipping flippers in a pin ball machine.
We had just come out of the Rialto after watching the main feature, Paul Newman in Hud. The poster had definitely sucked us in. It read, Paul Newman is Hud, and featured the handsome stud in a menacingly defiant stance, one hand on his hip and the other by his side with a cigarette dangling between two fingers. Even though the movie exposed his selfish behavior and inherent loneliness masquerading as self-bravado, we all wanted to be Hud. The tough, cool guy who drove around in a Caddy convertible, drank beer, and got whatever woman he wanted. Well, except for Patricia Neal, but at our age, she was too old to want anyway.
That evening we had some of what it took to indulge our fantasies. James had borrowed his big brother's Lincoln. It was a hardtop convertible whose automatic roof folded up, deposited itself in the trunk, and closed its own lid. He had also appropriated his older sibling's driver's license. With less than a two year age difference, the brothers looked pretty similar. Enough so that James could use the ID to buy beer from the old guy with glaucoma at the package store.
It was a particularly grand Spring night. Stars dotted the sky and a big yellow moon shone in the overhead blackness like the Lord's thumbprint. After securing four sixpacks of Lone Star, we headed for the outskirts of town, avoiding the main highway so we could imbibe as we cruised. On one of those farm-to-market, unpaved roads, and after one and a half longnecks, James pulled the car to a stop. He was behind the wheel. I was riding shotgun. Ding and Grif were in the back seat.
"Got an idea," he said. "This is gonna be fun."
With that, he put the car in Park, the bottle between his teeth, and pushed himself up until his ass was sitting on the back of the seat and his boots were positioned at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock on the steering wheel.
Removing the bottle from his mouth and taking a swig, he said to me, "Scoot over here, and use your left foot on the accelerator."
Tossing my empty into the ditch beside the car, I unwisely did as he instructed.
"Okay, man. Let's go."
We took off, slowly at first, but the farther we went the more he kept saying, "More gas, dude. More gas!"
Before long, we were speeding down the dirt road yelling, laughing, drinking, and kicking up a rooster tail of dust behind us as James maneuvered the Detroit iron with his wellworn Justin Ropers. At the time, it didn't occur to any of us that should we need to stop in a hurry, a quick move of my foot from the accelerator to the brake would likely toss James over the windshield, onto the hood, and under the wheels of our vehicle or one coming our way. Such is the intelligence degrading capacity of cold beer and excess testosterone.
Apparently, God had a soft spot at that time for the idiotic behavior of wild ass Texas youth. We eventually came to a stop without damage to ourselves, the car, or the remaining two cases of Lone Star. But the night was young.
Oil fields have a series of gravel paths that lead from one well to the next, one line shack to another, or one or two exits to the main road. After our aforementioned acrobatic drive, we decided (for reasons that still escape me) to traverse a number of them. In those days there was still the occasional wooden derrick among the steel girder replacements and the confluence of metal rocking horses that pumped round the clock. Anachronistic to be sure, but in the eyes of well-oiled teenagers, these symbols of a fabled past deserved to be celebrated. I don't recall exactly which one of us came up with the idea of climbing one, but I do recall the suggestion was met with unanimous approval.
It was agreed that James and I would go first, each of us cradling a remaining six-pack under one arm as we clawed from one rung to the next with our free appendage. Grif and Ding would follow and be responsible for catching any beers that might slip our vice-like grips and fall prey to unapologetic gravity. Of course, it never crossed our minds that we, rather than our liquid bravery, might take the ultimate tumble. That sort of logical appraisal of potential pitfalls had long since been adequately drowned.
Against all odds, each of us reached the top safely. We took seats on the railing rimming the rig and proceeded to begin consumption of the remaining Lone Stars. Our celebration was enhanced exponentially when Grif revealed that he had buttoned a family-size bag of Fritos under his shirt, which we could now all share. It wasn't long before someone suggested that a song might be in order.
"But is there a song where we all know the lyrics," Ding asked.
"The Star Spangled Banner," James answered.
"Patriotic," I said. "But the high notes are a bitch."
"Nearer My God To Thee," Grif suggested.
"I'm an atheist," Ding remarked. Though none of us believed him.
All of a sudden it hit me. And I realized what would immediately bind us all together. I didn't even have to say its name. I just started singing.
"The stars at night are big and bright."
Drunkenly discordant, all piped in, "Deep in the heart of Texas."
We got through two or three verses before insanely cackling at our woeful performance, then slowly but surely slipping into silent reflection. In my experience, it is impossible to drink beer and eat highly salted corn chips forty feet above the ground without feeling the need to explore the meaning of life. So we did. With each of us contemplating just how long it might be before we ever had another night together such as this one. The question was hard to answer. As it dealt with facts that often intrude upon alcohol-fueled philosophical conjecture. Ding had won a music scholarship and would soon be leaving to become part of the famed Texas Tech Goin' Band From Raiderland. Grif would be starting work next week in his dad's food and grain store and marrying Louise, whom he had recently, but accidentally, impregnated. I would be headed for a partial basketball scholarship at a Junior College in East Texas. While James, with a draft number below one hundred, and without either a student or dependent deferment, was basically looking at a stop in Fort Polk Louisiana for training and a subsequent ticket to Viet Nam.
When the last Lone Star was passed round and tossed over the rail to crash noisily among those that had preceded it, all felt that some sort of referential denouement was needed. Ding, who always carried his Coronet's mouthpiece in his pocket, whether he had his Coronet or not, suggested he might play something appropriate. "Agreed," the rest of us echoed.
He blew Taps.
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***
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As I mentioned earlier, it has been approximately sixty-two years since I thought of that particular night. And even longer since I've seen those involved. But I heard about them occasionally, from old friends, Facebook, LinkedIn, X and the like. Grif never left our tiny municipality, but his family blossomed and helped the town grow. Ding became a teacher of music as well as a performer of it. James came home from Saigon in a flag-draped coffin. I landed a job that grew into a career and took me all around the world on other people's money. But now, like so many others who have traveled far, I've returned to Texas and expect to be here for the duration, and whatever lies beyond it.
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My cat, Augustus, licked my eyebrow, woke me up, and I couldn't go back to sleep.
​​​​​By Joe Kilgore
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Joe Kilgore is a multi-award-winning author of novels, novellas, screenplays, and short stories. He lives and writes in Austin, Texas.
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