Junior's Luck

Junior's Luck - Chapter 4

The worst effects of the alcohol had worn off by the time Kelsey arrived at home. His stomach growled in anger from the whiskey and from hunger. Soon his parents would arrive: his mother first, then his father. Kelsey grabbed a couple of cookies from the ceramic jar on top of the refrigerator and ate them on the way to his room, where he flopped on the bed and fell asleep.

The smell of frying liver roused him out of his nap. Not liver, he thought. Not tonight.

Whenever Kelsey was starving, like he was at that moment, his mom always cooked the least appetizing food. It was as if she knew he was hungry enough to eat anything, so she used the occasion to get rid of the yuck food that was good for you but tasted awful. Kelsey despised liver the most. He hoped she hadn't added turnips or beets to the menu.

He was relieved to find steaming bowls of fried potatoes and green beans on the table when he took his seat.

During supper, Kelsey mentioned he had found out from his teacher that the blueprints showed secret passages and tunnels, even secret panels. He shouldn't have brought up the subject because his mother said that Kelsey should return them.

"I'm sure the people moving into that house did not intend to throw out those plans," she said.

"But I found them in a trash pile, Mom." Kelsey didn't want to give up the only real blueprints he ever owned. Besides, he'd never find another set like these, so detailed, with hidden doors and secret passageways.

"Fred, tell him it's not right to keep something like that," his mother said to his father.

Kelsey's father gave Kelsey a sidelong glance. "Oh, I suppose we can find out if they want them, but I don't think they'd have much use for them. No one's lived there for years and the auctioneer let Kelsey have them."

Before his mother said anything more about the blueprints, Kelsey changed the subject. "Are we still going to collect cans tonight?"

"Yep," his father said. "Right after we finish our meal and help your mother clean up."

The aluminum can drive to raise money for Junior's operation began shortly after Junior's doctors realized they could not cure him with medications alone. Junior came up with the idea. He persuaded Kelsey to go to the principal and ask for help. Kelsey had never talked to the principal one-on-one before. He didn't know what to expect. He knew him as the man in the parking lot who directed traffic before and after school. To Kelsey's surprise, the principal approved the plan and the student council organized the drive.

So far, Kelsey had turned in three trash bags filled with the crushed aluminum containers. At that rate, he'd never collect enough, not when Junior needed so much money. But Kelsey knew where to get lots of cans in a hurry: Dozens of bars lined War Drive, the road that led to the army base on the edge of town. Kelsey's father agreed to take him there and ask the bar managers for the empty cans.

*****

Late model sports cars and pickup trucks crowded War Drive as the soldiers piled into the bars.

"Have you ever been drunk, Dad?"

Kelsey's father swung their pickup into the parking lot of their first stop.

"Well, not since my college days-before I met your mother."

Kelsey noticed his father smiling in a strange way as he stared through the windshield.

"What's it like to get drunk?"

"It's no fun." His father continued to smile. "Sometimes you get sick and throw up. If you're really drunk, you pass out. You always wake up the next day with a terrible headache and a queasy stomach-a hangover."