We, the Coronado Scribes, consist of both professional and amateur writers. We have in common a desire to learn, by sharing our efforts and listening to other writers. We hold pressure-less sessions every Wednesday, at the Coronado Library conference room, starting at 1:30. Often we have guests who wish to just listen. They are welcome, and so are you.
Each week on eCoronado, we feature a different piece of prose or poetry produced by one of our writers. Please feel free to comment or ask questions in the comment section below.
Windy MacKay and the Big Blue, Part 2
Michael Lavin 5/8
Windy promised me, before I departed for home that summer, that if I were capable of flawlessly cultivating the north 70 acres, he would consider taking me on a Big Blue trip.
I was back again for another summer. I just completed cultivating the north 70 with McKay’s new 59 John Deere WD 4 row cultivator. I promised him, as part of the deal, that I would do it, and I did. I turned off the tractor’s engine in the centermost section of the cornfield. Dinner was not for an hour or so I decided to stay, parked, quietly reminiscing here in the warmth of the late afternoon Illinois sun. Endless rows of young field corn everywhere forward and backward, maybe a foot high, changing color as the sun moved the shade. I took out a Pall Mall cig from the tool compartment and lit it. I am fifteen and feeling fine, freewheeling, independent, and confident. Big Blue was in my reach and I felt so cool.
I arrived late for supper. The dinner table was huge since it had to accommodate Ann, the six kids, John McKay, Hoople, and Windy. I sat down across from John M. (Soapy) McKay, Jim’s brother, who was generally distant and laconic most dinners; the death, of his twin sister, Joan, hit while roller-skating out on the hard road years back, still weighed heavy. Hoople just ate and drank.
Jim Windy McKay’s banter dominated conversation. He talked and joked. Most of his conversations raced through religious and current political issues always with a few anti-English slurs. He liked Kennedy and made it known to all. Of course, we all liked Kennedy. If a bomb detonated under this dinner table, there would not be a Democrat in Woodford County. Jim would always ask embarrassing questions like “Mike, why in the hell does your father vote Eisenhower Republican, doesn’t he appreciate the fact he was a recipient of a Roosevelt sponsored medical school loan. Jim was always proud of his dinnertime yarns as well as the speed with which he could say them. He forewarned his kids that another raunchy McKay anecdote headed their way flagging them to leave the table out of earshot. Those youngsters marched in and out of the room as if they were on a continuous military drill.
When dinner ended, the kids ran off, and Windy turned table talk toward gambling and invention schemes. Conversation became louder and more interactive. This crowd loved chatting about the quick fix, the easy remedy. John McKay said his horse shampoo was coming along, and that it was not just for any horse, but for thoroughbreds only. Hoople was experimenting making liquor out of tractor grease. Windy harped about the Big Blue and announced that he would make another batch, with a few chemical adjustments, and then tomorrow hawk for the day. I immediately said: “Jim, I finished cultivating your last 70 acres and you promised that I could accompany you on the next Blue trip
Jim replied, “Yes, you can come as long as you clean the grease and oil off the John Deer engine.” I told Jim that it would be no problem. Tractor grease removal is arduous and time consuming. You first meticulously remove the dark oil with an alcohol-swiped rag used to rub hard over and across the transmission, cylinders, and pistons. The hardest is the crankshaft and gears. It took me three hours but the engine glistened as the yard light shined on the tractor engine. Sleep came easy. “Oh, man! Tomorrow”.
After breakfast, Windy and I walked a path through the soybeans and into the woods. McKay was carrying what appeared to be massive amount of chemicals. We came upon what appeared to be ramshackle chicken coup. McKay opened the bolted door and I saw this vat, a basin made of wood three times the size of a kettledrum. McKay took a water hose from the pump attached to a well below the building and began filling the cask. As the water began to rise, Windy dumped pearl-shaped, slightly blue Sulphate particles into the water. He pitched acid and baking soda, vinegar, and bleach into the mixture. In went more acid, camphor, and some wood turpentine. About the time the vat filled, we both saw a 6-foot long Bull snake slinking across a board above the vat. Jim went over, pushed, and shook the board, forcing the snake to fall into the big blue emulsion. It rolled around and quickly added to the acidic indigo.
The adventure had begun. Next, Jim brought three empty boxes filled with bottles and brought them over to the vat’s faucet. Windy filled the bottles, loaded them into the trunk and off we went. At that time, I did know what the Big Blue was and how it made money. I had to find out.
Petri’s Pour House tavern in Minonk, McKay’s hometown, was our first stop. Windy brought three bottles of the Blue and put them on the bar table. After some mild bantering, the barkeep took a bottle of the blue to the men’s bathroom, poured some of it down the toilet, and returned to the bar. He said it did the job and would buy the three bottles. I was astonished; all this time I imagined the Blue as wine, or beer or shampoo but not a toilet bowl cleaner–not much magic. My disappointment soon changed. After Jim was paid, the bartender gave Windy a beer and a shot. He asked Jim if the kid with you would want a beer. I said yes and he poured a draft into a small schooner and handed it to me. Jim, of course, bantered away to any barfly who would listen. I was amazed that I was drinking in a bar at the age of fifteen. It was not crowded, county music played in the background, and someone camped out on the floor sleeping over by the jukebox. Two schooners later, we were off to sell the Blue. I came to realize that the drinks were part of the Blue sale. Jim and I took the Blue to Benson, El Paso, Eureka, Fairbury, Kappa, Germantown, Cazenovia and Roanoke. We traveled to virtually every tavern in Woodford County. Pitch the Blue, have a drink and made a few bucks. A routine developed where Jim would have a few beers and I would schooner it up.
We traded turns driving across rocks and gravel roads; the worst were the dirt roads, which had turned to mud since it rained earlier that morning. The taverns were mostly raunchy and coarse. The one in Roanoke had a slimy yellowish-brown wall, faded, with flashing Schlitz ads, the smell of Crooks cigars, a small pool table in the back, and spittoons surrounding euchre games. One of the taverns was a strip joint and, as a Big Blue transaction bonus, we watched the first show. I was wearing my John Deere hat, which I partially pulled over my eyes. One of the stripers whirled her humongous breasts into a farmer’s face knocking his hat to the floor. The audience of five applauded.
As the day progressed into the late afternoon, Jim allowed me to make several Blue transactions. I was becoming an expert on toilet cleaner. We were both drunk but I was beyond drunk, I was “schoonered.” We mumbled something to each other about going home. Our car slid off the road on our way back and a farmer, who knew Windy, pulled us out of the ravine with his tractor.
Surprisingly, we did make it back home just before dark. I poured myself out of the car struggling just to walk. I stumbled over to a stack of hay and collapsed. Ann McKay dragged Windy over to my rotating body. “Jim”, Ann said, “you know what the hell is going to happen to you if Mike’s dad hears about your drunken adventure?” I heard it all, the yelling and of course Windy Jim’s meaningless banter. As the tree above rotated and whirled, I thought to myself how much I loved that day more than any other. Despite my murkiness, it was patently evident that I was ready to head back home.
[Several months later, things changed abruptly: my dad died in an automobile accident; my mom stayed home for all our summers; and Big Blue trips were over.] There is an ongoing debate as to whether this last paragraph is necessary. My position is that if provides closure to the mother (without which there would be no McKay story). It also provides closure on my transition.
