On Having Nothing Better to Do

The author, around the time this story takes place

1970.

I’ve got a minimum-wage job working in the kitchen at the university hospital in Columbia, Missouri. I’m living with my friend, Aldo. Aldo is tall with a lot of mass. He has a slaphappy face that can turn scary with drink and drugs. He is awkward and non-athletic, but he’s funny and smart. Like me, he is filled with anger and lacking the skills to navigate one day to the next without chaos.

Our basement apartment is below a split-level and has a picture window looking at winter trees and a worn-down, rutted driveway. It’s cold and uninviting outside, and Aldo and I have spent the day popping reds and drinking cups of black coffee mixed with Bénédictine. When there is nothing left to ingest, we take my blue Plymouth Valiant and go looking for a drug dealer. We don’t find drugs, which is probably for the best, as I black out at the Purple Moon, a popular student hangout, and upend a table and four diners for no good reason. When I regain consciousness I’m in my bedroom, and my friend Donny Hill has come to visit. He flips the light switch and tells me, "Hey, Scotty, wake up, man. Let’s get fucked up."

Donny, a guy named Benny Nelson, and a third guy I don’t know have driven here from Springfield because they have nothing better to do. Donny and I are friends from high school, and Benny is just someone I know who deals marijuana. The other guy is nonessential. They arrived earlier, but no one answered the door, so they broke in through Aldo’s bedroom window. We gather in the living room sitting in a hippie circle on the concrete floor. There is a couch, but Aldo is sprawled from one end to the other, in his white underpants, out cold and snoring; he sounds like air brakes and broken mufflers. Benny has brought beer and marijuana, and we’re having more fun than we deserve.

We’re talking about sex or drugs or music when Aldo sits up, opens his eyes and shakes his head, growling like Frankenstein’s monster. He takes a pack of Marlboro’s from the floor, taps one out, and lights it with his Zippo. He looks at me and laughs. “You were fucking insane, man. We can’t ever go to the Purple Moon again. We probably can’t even go to that part of town.” Now he looks around the room as if just noticing we have company. He nods to Donny and the other guy and then says, “Is that Benny Nelson?”

“Hey, Lunk. Yeah, man. How’s it going?”

Aldo’s unfortunate nickname is Lunk. He says, “I hate Benny Nelson. Why is Benny Nelson in my house?”

“Hey, shit, man, you don’t have to be that way, Lunk. I thought we were friends. You want a beer?”

“Get out of my house and don’t call me Lunk. Who said you can call me Lunk?”

“Hey, well, fuck you. Everybody calls you Lunk. I never did nothing to you.”

Aldo stretches his frame in all directions and then opens a drawer in the desk next to the couch and takes out a handgun. It’s the first time I’ve seen it, and it’s a big one. Aldo points it at Benny and tells him the reason he doesn’t like him is because he’s an asshole and he screwed him on a bag of grass.

“Hey, I’m really sorry man, Aldo,” Benny says. “It wasn’t on purpose, man. I got some weed with me now. You can have it; just please stop pointing that gun at me. That shit’s not funny.” He is hiding behind his open palms.

Aldo is smiling; he lowers his chin and looks at Benny through the sights. “Hey, Aldo,” I say. “Put the fucking gun away, man. You wanna shoot somebody, we can find someone better than Benny Nelson. Think about what you’re doing.”

Aldo tells me he is thinking about it, and he’s going to shoot Benny Nelson.

Benny is pleading, and Donny and the other guy have crawled out of range.

Aldo has his arm out straight; he closes one eye to aim. He says “OK, here we go: one, two, three, fire.” He pulls the trigger and the gun goes click and there is a unanimous sigh of relief, and Benny tells him, “Fuck you, man. You scared the shit out of me.”

“Oh, damn,” Aldo says. “I forgot to do this first.” He pulls back the slide and jacks a bullet into the chamber. He points the pistol toward Benny and pulls the trigger. This time the gun goes boom and puts a round thumb-size hole in the window, about a foot above Benny’s head. Aldo has recoiled onto his back, laughing like he’s got tickle-bugs in his pants. I tell him, “All right, give me the gun, man. Give me the gun, or I’m gonna give you titty twisters.” Aldo hates titty twisters. Benny gets up and runs to the bathroom. Aldo and I wrestle around for the gun, and when I finally get it I unload it. There is a cloud of smoke on the ceiling. Donny says they are thinking maybe they will just drive back to Springfield tonight, and when Benny comes out of the bathroom, pale and shaking, they take off, leaving us with two six-packs and a lid of grass. I get busy and roll a joint.

Scot's first book, Lowlife, was released last year and his memoir, Curb Service, is out now. You can find more information on his website.