Yackety-yak!
(Don’t talk back!)
Chris Vincent
Old appliances never die. They just grow old.
Well. Maybe. I remember this Hotpoint refrigerator. That baby never stopped, even after taking two in the chest on a hot summer’s afternoon. Vintage 1950’s. Ice box on top, standard cabin below. Enough to hold two cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon—easy.
It was August. Indiana’s summers stink, and August was the worst. Humidity sticks around like a bad fart that won’t go away—even if you step outside.
That particular summer, 1968, I was working for old man Schlemer at Schlemer’s Auto and Body Repair on Old Decatur Road. A crap job in a crap building with no ventilation. Take this job and shooo-oov-e it! Pa-lease!
To be fair, the old man wasn’t really that ancient. Fifties, I’d guess. His thin gray hair, always a little greasy, and pouchy eyes, made him look older than he really was. And he had a limp. Bad ankle that never healed proper after the war, I guess.
Schlemer loved cars. Shit ones, any ways. Mostly Dodges, Chevy’s, crap like that. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on em; pop open the hood, snoop around. If it was something underneath needed fixing, he’d slide under on his creepy crawler, checking fluids, charges, clicking his tongue every so often if something wasn’t right. I could care less about cars. But I needed money, i.e. babes! and flipping burgers at Mickey D’s wasn’t gonna cut it. I was sixteen and open for business.
I was a Gomie—your basic, all around go-for, trash hauler, floor sweeper, privy cleaner, Gomer Pyle. Sometimes they’d let me do some sanding in the body shop. But I hated that as much as anything. Especially the sticky, sweet smell of fiber glass and bonding crap that turns it hard. You want a bad headache, sniff some of that shit for eight hours a day. Plop me some fizz-fizz, oh, yes-siree.
They, by the way, was Barney Lautenheimmer and old Buzzy-Boo. Barney was okay, and a hell of a car painter. Big guy. Strong and straight. There’s a few tricks to painting cars and this guy knew them all. Like how to remove a paint run (peel it away after the paint’s almost dry with 3/4-inch masking tape). Or how to unclog a paint gun (back flush it with your thumb over the spray nozzle). Buzz, on the other hand, was an A-1, redneck, pisshole grit. He was a few years older than me. Mostly popped dents, plugged fiberglass, sanded, shit like that.
I hated Buzz. His wise-cracking, freckle spotted mouth never stopped flapping. One day it might be the woman he’d just done. Or, a cherry new car he was planning to buy. Nothing but USDA bullshit. Plus, he had a temper and liked to drink. Schlemer was pretty easy-going and as long as you did your work, didn’t mind if you drained a couple toward the end of the day. Buzz drained more than his share most days and, by God, never ever, finished his work on time. I remember once he’d started in real early. He’d go to the fridge, pop open a cold one, gulp it down. Belch loudly. Then he’d stand there a few minutes, reading messages taped to the fridge door. Watching him, I often wondered what went on in that Brill Cream soaked head of his. Sipping, burping, moving his lips as he read the messages. Then the fridge’s old compressor would kick on, ka-chung, ga-chung, ka-chung ga-chung, and he’d jump back, like he was goosed or something. “Yackety-yak! Don’t talk back!” he would shout. Another swig. “Yackety-yak! Don’t talk back!” Just like the song. Then a moronic laugh would clatter from his mouth. It didn’t take much to entertain old Buzz.
***
About the only thing I liked about Schlemer’s was all the shit out back. Rusted car and truck parts, tires, broken glass, car radios, twisted metal. The usual crap. Everything mixed nice and easy with overgrown weeds. Cool.
I would head there most every day about lunch time. Clear my head from the gummy smells inside, maybe down a Coke or cookie bar, find a little shade, mess around. There was an old VW van parked by the fence, scorched all to hell. Nothing but charred metal and burnt rubber. You could still smell it. Probably a crash and burn. Maybe a family on their way to a picnic. Kids horsing around in the back seat. Then boom! Fried baby-fingers. Death stinks.
I was thinking this one day, when old Buzzy-Boo sneaked up behind me with his .45.
“Gotcha!” he croaked.
I must have jumped a mile because old Buzzy could barely stop laughing to breathe.
Then he clucked, “Set me up a rack, Junie.” ‘Junie’ was short for Junior, I guess. Buzz’s pet name for me. What a guy.
Buzz liked shooting things up. Or should I say blowing things to smithereens with that cannon of his. His ‘racks,’ as it were, were cans, bottles, anything he could get his hands on, small animals, it didn’t matter. I told him to go to hell. “You ass-wipe!” he chortled. “Shit-for-brains mother fucker!” Then the laugh. Always the fucking laugh, obnoxious as all get-out, like those wailing dogs on the National Geographic TV specials. I headed back to the garage, held up my hand and flipped him the bird without turning around. I heard a couple of loud ‘pop-pops’ as I entered the shop. Buzz never tired of pissing away time.
***
A couple weeks before school started, I think it was a Friday, I was buffing the fender of a freshly painted ‘65 Chevy Impala, a personal favorite of Schlemer’s, when the old man called me into his office. His tired, droopy face contrasted nicely with the perky tits on the calendar tacked to the wall. He said he had to go into town to pick up his wife for some doctor’s appointment but wanted me to wait until he got back before heading out to the dump. See, most Friday afternoons I made a dump run with all the shit out back. No problemo, I told him. Then he asked me to find old Buzzy-Boo.
I was always glad to make a run because it was easy work and got me outside for a spell . The land fill was ten miles north, so I could milk my time from the shop a good hour, maybe two. As I was throwing some cardboard and shit into the pick-up, Buzz came by to check things out. His face, except for eyes and mouth, was powdery red with fiberglass dust. What a Bozo. I had to laugh.
“I thought you was supposed to be waxing?” he asked.
I could tell he’d been drinking already. “Old man wants to see you,” I said, still grinning.
Buzz stretched his mouth opened showing surprisingly good teeth. Then he lit up a smoke. He inhaled deeply.
“Fuck.”
Not being one to kill a good conversation, I said, “Yeah, fuck.”
He sucked down another lung full, then moseyed over to Schlemer’s office.
***
About twenty minutes later, I heard the fridge open and the unmistakable clink and pop of another beer. Then the abrupt slam of the fridge door.
Buzz returned with an ice cold Blue Ribbon. “Schlemer leave yet?” he wanted to know.
“You tell me.”
Buzz shrugged, then gestured with an upraised chin at my junk filled truck. “Fuck, I wouldn’t waste my time,” he said. He waved his bottle. “You want a roadie?”
I shook my head.
“Old man’s such a cheap fuck,” he went on. “Pays a hell of a lot better at Earl Sheib.”
Earl Sheib. Since 1937. America’s sweetheart of auto painters.
“Then why don’t you quit? Work there,” I said. Buzz was beyond useless, beyond comprehension.
Buzz kind of snarled. He looked a little pissed. I could tell he didn’t like thinking too hard, especially when pressed for an answer. “Fuck,” he said.
I slammed shut the truck gate. Then slid passed him to get in the cab. There was another pile of trash to load out back.
That’s when things started to get a little hairy. About a quarter past shit-faced, Buzz clamped his arm around my neck and slobbered in my ear. “Let’s go to a titty bar,” he said. “Fuck this place!”
You ever get that feeling like just before you run out of gas your eyes register the needle way below empty and you just know it’s too late and the engine’s gonna puke? I wasn’t exactly alarmed, but something wasn’t right here.
He grabbed my arm. “Let-the-fuck-go!” I snapped, but he wouldn’t give. His pungent BO stuck to my cheeks like a sticky resin. “I gotta get ready to go to the dump!” I said. His grip was a lot stronger then I expected.
“Fuck that shit! Pussy’s calling!” he tittered, like a well-oiled sailor. Then he twirled us around before staggering away. He gulped the last of his beer with one, long swallow, then lit up a fresh smoke.
A flash of lightening got me looking up. Storm coming. It was then I noticed something peculiar about the yard. It was dead calm, just me and Buzz.
A slight shiver ran down the small of my back. This was the first time, ever, that it was just me and old Buzz. Schlemer was gone. Barney was va-caing with the family up at Cedar Point. No parts guy hanging around. Or some schlock waiting for his car. This wasn’t good.
If I could just get to the truck things would be okay, I thought. What the hell. No big deal. Get to the truck. Drive over to the Dairy Freeze, nurse a Coke until Schlemer got back. Buzz would go back inside. Pop open another cold one. Maybe watch the weather come through. That’s the ticket.
Nonchalantly, I moved toward the driver’s side, opened the door. So far, so good. Then Buzz kicked it shut, almost violently. Oh, shit.
“You fuck-head!,” he snorted.
“Fuck you!” I shot back. I tried to open the door again, but he stepped in front of me. He glanced inside, then impulsively reached in and took the keys. Double shit.
“You crazy or what!?” I yelled.
Buzz grinned a greasy grin. “I’m just kiddin’. Really,” he said. “Here...”
He held out his hand. I studied his sweaty, dust-smeared face, then lunged at the keys. But all I got was air as he filched them away.
Strike one. Buzz dropped a turd and I stepped in it. Like when you pass a growling dog. You see it from the corner of your eye and pray to God, it don’t see you. Buzz saw me only too plainly. I swallowed dryly.
“You fuck shit! Fine! You load the truck!” I challenged, hoping not to sound scared. I turned and headed inside. Heart pounding, the only thing going through my mind was getting away from this guy. Fast. Grits can be dangerous, especially when thinking impaired. Since Buzz was always this way—even on a good day—I didn’t want to test him any further after midday cocktails.
Inside the garage I started to chill, even though it was hotter than a popcorn fart on the Fifth of July. I grabbed my time card to clock out. It wasn’t long before I heard the fridge door open again—a slight clinking of bottles, another slam.
I punched out and headed for the exit. It was exactly three-thirty-five. Schlemer wouldn’t be back for another hour.
My Gremlin was parked outside, around the corner of the building. By now the sky was working things up nice and heady. I was about ten paces away when Buzz ran up behind me. He had taken off his shirt, wrapped it around his head like some desert nomad. He looked like a skinny, white snake with a turban.
“Ain’t quittin’ time yet,” he drawled. “Where you think you’re goin’?”
I took a deep breath. “Feeling kind of light headed. Must be the heat. Tell Schlemer I left early,” I said.
Buzz grinned, tapped a front tooth with his bottle. Then he pushed me, playful like.
This was when I noticed the butt of his .45 sticking up from his belt.
“Nope. You ain’t leaving just now,” he said. He jerked the beer to his mouth, gulped down another load of suds.
“Fact is, I ain’t never liked you, Junie,” he informed me. “You’re nothing but a chicken shit who thinks he knows everything. Well, I got news for you, buster-fuck, you don’t know squat!” He belched loudly. “Hold this.” He shoved the bottle against my chest. Then he pissed. At first on the ground next to me, then all over my shoes. I jumped like a goosed weasel. “Oopps! Sorry. Did I do that!? Shit,” he mocked.
He played some with his dick. This was making me real uncomfortable. I knew about homos and such, but it never occurred to me I’d ever be in a situation like this. I wanted to throw up. I could feel his hot piss seeping onto my socks, the skin of my feet. Fuck!
He put it away then, zipped up. I wiped some sweat off my brow, exhaled. My insides were shaking.
“Come on, Buzz. Quit fucking around.” This came out like a nervous-Nellie, I know, but hey, I was scared shitless.
He shoved me again. This time a little harder. Then hurled his beer bottle high into the air and pulled out his gun like Billy The Kid or something, except when Buzz did it, he looked more like Grannie on The Beverly Hillbillies. Only Grannie was a better shot. He missed badly each time as the bottle plunked to the ground, exploding into pieces.
Then it started to pour. “Beer call!” he said.
***
Back inside, Buzz got two fresh beers, popped one open for me.
“No,” I said.
“Drink up, cocksucker! Last call for al-key-hall!”
“I don’t feel like it,” I said.
“Well, tah-dee-tah. Ain’t that too damn bad!” He approached me, grabbed my beer, took a swig, then gave it back. I didn’t know what the hell that was supposed to mean, but then I never did understand Buzz. I put the beer back in the fridge.
The ceiling lights flickered some. Nice mood lighting as Buzz got philosophical. He pulled out his gun, waved it at me. “Two kinds-a-people in this world,” he slurred “Asshoes, like you, and those in charge, like me. Do as I say, not as I do. You remember that.”
“I ain’t done nothing, Buzz. Why you doing this?”
A sparrow nesting in the rafters flew overhead. Buzz flinched, took aim.
Bam! Bam! The noise echoed in my ears like two slamming doors, making me wince. The little guy escaped easily. Buzz grabbed a handful of shells from his pocket, reloaded, started shooting again. First at nothing in particular, the bullets ricocheting like invisible missiles going every which way. Then, like a lunatic, he shot out every window of that ‘65 Chevy Impala. Schlemer’s favorite. This guy was definitely out of control.
I moved a few feet from the fridge, heart pumping so fast, I thought my chest was gonna break wide open. Buzz was staggering bad, he could hardly stand. Outside it was pouring a shitload of cats and dogs.
Buzz stepped closer, giving in your face, a whole new meaning. His breath stank of grainy alcohol, all beery and sour. He held up his bottle, about to drink again. Then he spoke.
“Schlemer fired my ass today. Piece a shit told me to clock out, never come back!” he whispered. “Fuck-ass!” Buzz twirled the .45, around his index finger, then pointed the barrel at my face. I was sweating so bad, I could hardly see.
“I like big tits,” I stammered. “Why, why don’t we go to that place you talked about?” Christ, what a stupid thing to say, I thought.
Buzz’s mouth opened, but nothing came out as he rolled this over.
Peep-peep. Another visit from Mr. Birdy. Bam! Buzz got off a shot so fast I think it surprised him more than me. Even more shocking, the sparrow dropped dead to the floor, a couple tiny feathers fluttering behind.
He walked over to what was left of the bird, picked it up. “Fuck,” he said, then whistled between his teeth. He carefully set the feathery clump on the polished hood of the Chevy I was buffing, a trickle of blood mixing in with some dried wax.
I gulped, almost choked, my throat so dry it hurt to swallow.
“You like big tits? Really?” he casually remarked. “I got me some magazines. I’ll show you some big titties!” he proudly drooled. Then the look over his face suddenly changed. He locked and loaded his eyes at me. “Fuck you!” he shouted. He raised the gun up again at my face.
I backed away toward the fridge, now about three feet behind me. Except for the rain pounding the roof, it was dead quiet.
Ka-chung, ga-chung, ka-chung, ga-chung! The old compressor suddenly kicked in.
Like he was goosed big time, Buzz reflexively fired two shells square into the fridge’s door. How they got past me without first boring through my head, I’ll never know. But my pants had a notion—my warm pee mixing in with old Buzz’s piss. Christ!
Buzz started yelping again. Like those wild dogs I talked about. Only this time he was howling more like a carnie on speed. He proudly stepped up to the fridge to inspect his handy-work. Two plugs neatly outlined in the chest. “Yackety yak! Don’t you ever talk back!” he crowed. He slowly turned around and looked at me, slapped his beer bottle into my hand.
“You know what? I’m gonna see if I can’t shoot me this out of your hand,” he matter-of-fact said. “Just, jus hold it up a taste.” Another attempt at a swallow froze in my throat. Strike two.
Now I was beyond scared. Beyond shitless. Beyond peeless! Buzz stumbled off as I stretched the bottle away from my body, what else could I do, it was either the bottle or me. He turned to face me from about twenty paces away.
“Yeah that’s it. Jus a taste more to the left. Somethin’ to remember ol’ Buzz by. Then when piss-head comes back, I’ll be ready. Only I won’t be aiming at no bottle this time. You get my drif!?” He pointed his gun, tripped backwards a step or two, eyes popping out of his head.
At that particular moment of my sincerely miserable life, but one I wouldn’t trade for the world, I thought I was a dead man. I was going to die in some shit-hole garage. Buzz might, in all fairness, aim for the bottle, but a slightly, unsteady pull from this sloshed hillbilly, would surely air mail the bullet straight into my brain—or any other part of my body, depending on the shooter’s relative concentration and balance. I didn’t like the odds. And the worst thing about it? This fuckup would wake up the next day, and not remember a thing. “Duh, I was only kiddin’. Really,” he would say, as they led his sorry ass off to jail. Meanwhile, I’d be pushing up the proverbial sod and daisies, never having tasted the sweet innocence of teenaged lust. I held my breath, the bottle shaking like a cup of dice.
Then the laugh. He dropped his arm. “Aw, hell, Junie. You know I’m only kiddin’! Fuck that shit! I ain’t gonna shoot ya. Really,” he said. Uh-huh.
He saw the puddle at my feet. “What the fuck!? What the fuck you do?! You go piss on yourself!?”
I wanted to scream! I wanted to tell this piss-hole, fuck head that if things were straight up between us I would beat the living shit out of him so fast he would puke it up and I would make him eat it, raw! I knew this made me bad as him, maybe worse, but what the fuck, I hated this guy with every ounce of my guts!
Buzz looked at me, swaying back and forth. I slowly lowered the bottle, moved away from the fridge as he approached. Was this it? Was the game finally over, was he going to let me walk away with my head still on?
He wiped his mouth with a clammy arm, spit trailing into the air. His bloodshot eyes narrowed as he raised his gun at me for a third time. “Get-the-fuck-outta-the-way!” he growled. Holy shit! Stee-rike three! You’re outta there!
But it wasn’t me he was aiming at. I turned my head and saw old man Schlemer at the garage entrance holding a shotgun. He had it aimed square at Buzz. I was never so happy to see anybody in my life.
Schlemer asked me if I was okay, then motioned me to come stand behind him. He glanced sideways at the blown out Impala, calmly told Buzz to put down the gun. Buzz did his best doggie-howl of the day, then cocked the .45. “Fuck you old man! You’re the one goin’ down!”
Right then and there I could tell Schlemer had been a proper soldier, bad ankle or no. There’s things about killing people and death I’ll never understand, but right then and there, I knew Schlemer would keep me safe and he was not the one going down.
He lowered his shotgun. I think this surprised Buzz, cause he started stammering again. “Fuckin’ fool! You a dead man! Nobody crosses ol’ Buzz!”
What happened next ain’t exactly clear. Just as Buzz squeezed the trigger of his .45, a crack of thunder rang out, not from Buzz’s cannon, but from the fridge! A huge arc of electricity leapt from the appliance straight into Buzz, paralyzing him like a stunned rat!
His body contorted, then slowly began to sizzle, first with just a little smoke coming out of his mouth, then lots of popping and crackling. You could smell hair burning, I swear.
Buzz’s eyes froze up, went kind of whopper-jawed, but I think he saw me, the look of horror on my face as he convulsed and dropped dead to the floor. By now his skin was turning all black and ashy. A sputtering of bluish sparks poured from the compressor motor and then a loud poof, and more smoke. That electricity smell hung heavy in the air. The fridge, I do believe, was singing its last song.
***
I quit work after that. Bad nightmares and such kept me away from a lot things, but mostly it was the thinking of death that got to me. I still think about it most days, who it happens to and why, shit like that. I think about that refrigerator, too. Like it was almost human, and knew it had to put down the bad seed. Or maybe it was pissed off at being made fun of? Or just a freak occurrence of nature as a thunderstorm passed by? Hell, I don’t know.
Buzz was a bad seed. I think there are some people who should never have been born. Nature’s way, I guess. To keep the good going you need some bad. And some help from old soldiers and appliances that never quite die.
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