The Belch Of A God
Everyone knows that the big God has long white hair, and a long white beard. They know that he wears long white robes, and sits on a big white throne, and looks out for everybody from up in heaven. Likewise, they know that there are other smaller gods that walk around on the earth, like kings, and presidents, and other kinds of potentates, but the gods that go unnoticed are the little boys in blue jeans and tennis shoes wearing baseball hats that fall down over their ears. Seldom comes the time when, either by accident, inspiration, or a mystical mixture of both, a boy is set apart from the great family of mortals by performing a feat so magnificent that all others stand before him in awe. Seldom in life is a person blessed to witness this transformation in his best pal, right in front of his very eyes, but in the fall of nineteen sixty-five, Petey � the Pancake � Flannery was thus blessed. Petey had himself attained to godhood earlier that same summer when he ate forty-seven pancakes in thirty minutes, beating his closest competitor, Gino Frachetta, by twelve pancakes, and took home the blue ribbon for the most pancakes eaten by anyone, ever, at the Chambers County Fair. He cherished the shiny blue ribbon, and hung it on his bedroom wall next to his Colt 45�s pennant, but the greatest prize of all was right after he ate the pancakes, when all the fellas clapped him on the back and �hoorahed� while he threw up, and gave him the nickname, � the Pancake.� No greater honor can be bestowed upon a boy than to have the fellas crown him with a nickname that heralds his grandest achievement. So it was that Petey Flannery took his rightful place amongst the gods as Petey � the Pancake.� All the rest of that summer kids from school, even some he didn�t know, said � hey� when he stood at the checkout at Weisz�s Grocery, or sat in the barbers chair getting a trim, or even when he rode his bicycle down the road. Shoot, it didn�t matter; even sixth graders joined in on it. There was one problem, though. Petey�s best pal, Billy Hennigan, felt that in order to remain best pals he had to accomplish a feat of great magnitude to pull up along side of Petey to get everything equaled out, and be a god himself. The problem was god-making events didn�t happen every day, and even though Billy tried everything he could, nothing he did impressed the fellas enough for them to give him a nickname. The summer passed away. The very evening before school began, right after supper, and before the rest of the fellas showed up at the empty field across from Gino Frechetta�s house to play ball, Billy stood there with Petey and spat through his front teeth and spoke his mind. �It ain�t right,� he said, � you being way up there in importance, and me being down here with the rest of the fellas.� Petey � the Pancake� nodded his head, and agreed, sadly. � Yep,� he said. � I gotta do something so tall that everybody will clamor in and give me a good nickname, too,� Billy said. Petey agreed. They had to find something magnificent for Billy to do. The first thing they tried was after school the next day when the fellas snuck over to Bruce Biltmore�s daddy�s rice farm and went swimming in the irrigation canal. Next to the canal stood a giant oak tree, with gray witches hair hanging down from the branches, and when they shucked off all their clothes and dived in, Billy shinnied up the tree, and walked light a tight rope- walker out near the end of a fat branch hanging out over the brown water. The water bugs buzzed around him while he balanced. � Hey, fellas,� he said. � Look at me.� They all stopped splashing and looked up at him. He took a couple of wobbly steps farther out on the limb with his arms out to his side, then, he stopped, put his hands over his head like he was praying, bent his knees, sprang up tipped down and splashed into the water. He came up and blew water out of his nose. � Whatcha think about that?� he said. He coughed and rubbed his eyes. Timmy Houlihan said,� Awww- that ain�t nothing.� Danny Winteroad, who always agreed with Timmy, said, � Yeah. That ain�t anything.� They swam over to the bank, clambered out of the water, and climbed like jungle kids up the tree and dived in. After they did it, everybody else followed. Petey looked at Billy, and shrugged his shoulders. The next day, Billy made things worse when he told everyone when they got to school that he was going to jump off the roof of his daddy�s barn. Not from the low part by the eaves, but from the peak. The fellas stood around and mumbled with dumbstruck looks on their faces and stayed clear of him the rest of the day so as not to jinx him. All that day they whispered together about the chances of Billy breaking his arm, or his leg. Timmy Houlihan was downright opposed to it from the very start, and said so in the cafeteria during lunch. � He�s liable to break his fool neck,� he said. Danny Winteroad agreed, but if Billy pulled it off, he would get a nickname for sure. That afternoon when the last bell rang, they all bolted from Miss Ball�s music room, and jumped on their bicycles and rode like lightning to Billy�s house and huddled together in the barnyard. Billy swung the heavy, oak, barn doors open and walked through the dark inside to the ladder that led to the upper hayloft. The smells of hay and feed were strong, and the fellas whispered to each other while he climbed up. The barn was taller than a two-story house with a cedar shingle roof, and the sideboards were faded red, gray, and splintery. A door in the upper loft opened out to the barnyard, and directly above it a loading post with a block and tackle hanging from it jutted out from the wall. Billy pushed the heavy wooden door open and held on to the jamb with one hand and leaned out. He grabbed the rope from the block and tackle and pulled himself back in with his other arm. He licked his lips, blew out a gust of air, and looked down at the fellas. He swung out the door, and then heaved himself up the rope. He swung back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until he got enough momentum to throw a leg over the top of the post. He struggled to lift himself. His blue jeans scraped and chafed on the rough post, and his ball cap tumbled off his head and fell to the ground, and when he finally managed to pull himself over the top, he hugged the post tight with his arms and legs. The fellas backed up, and held their breaths. Timmy Houlihan stepped forward. � You better get down, Billy,� he said. All the other fellas nodded their heads in agreement. � We won�t hold it against you.� Everyone knew it was a lie; they had to hold it against him. It was the law. If someone said they were going to do a daring act they had to do it, or they were chicken. The only thing worse was if someone took a dare and didn�t follow through; then they were a yellow belly chicken. Billy looked down and Petey nodded at him, and then grabbed the rope with one hand and slid sideways off the post, slipped down the rope, and swung back into the barn. He slumped down in the open door, crossed his arms, and dangled his legs over the side. All the fellas, except for Petey, meandered off with their heads down, got on their bikes, and rode away. Petey stayed in the barnyard with his hands in his pockets, and nudged dirt and a dried cow patty around with his foot until Bruce Biltmore circled back around on his bike and told him to come on. Petey looked up at Billy and saw him wipe his eyes, then looked away. Petey knew that in the fellas� eyes not only was Billy not a god, but by law he was a chicken. He hung his head and walked slowly over to his bike and got on, but instead of riding off to play ball with the others, he rode home. The next morning like a ballet, the fellas rode into the schoolyard together and coasted up the sidewalk to the bicycle stand, and without stopping, aimed their front wheels into the space between the vertical steel bars, and jumped off their bikes at the same time. The schoolyard was full of kids all swirled around together like different colors of noisy paints in a can. Girl�s hopscothched, and chanted rhymes while they jumped rope, and boys threw baseballs and creamed each other with red, rubber, dodge balls against the wall of the cafeteria. Billy was already there sitting on the steps leading up to the front door of the schoolhouse. Petey waved, then trotted off with the rest of the fellas to join in the dodge ball game. When they got there, Ricky Dougherty, the most feared sixth grader in the whole school, who according to reliable rumor had eaten a third grader for cutting in front of him in the lunch line, threw the ball with all his might and hit a kid in the head with it. The kid lifted off his feet and slammed up against the wall, and slumped to a heap on the ground. He lay there and flopped and gasped for air like a beached fish, and Ricky�s friends cheered. Gino Frachetta looked at the fellas and said, � Better stick together.� They all agreed and dashed over to the wall and spread out shoulder to shoulder. Ricky Dougherty aimed a ball straight at Petey, and threw. He missed and the ball ricocheted back to him, but before he could let loose another volley, an unbelievable thing happened. Billy Hennigan walked up behind him, twirled him around, and smacked him hard in the face. Everyone on the playground stopped what they were doing and raced over to see, but before they got there, it was over. Red-faced Ricky Dougherty reared back and let loose with a haymaker that crashed into the end of Billy�s nose, and down Billy went. The fellas rushed over and picked their friend up off the ground. They walked him inside to the nurse�s office and waited while she wiped the blood off his face and gave him some cotton balls to stick in his nose to stop the bleeding. They all milled around outside her door and agreed that he wasn�t a chicken, but thought he might be crazy. Petey tried to ask him what in the world he thought he was doing, but Billy didn�t answer. He didn�t talk to anyone, or look at anyone, or listen to anyone the whole day long. Later that afternoon they sat in Miss Ball�s music room, looked out the window, looked at the clock, and waited for the bell to ring. It was hot. A big fan at the front of the room rotated on its post and shared hot blasts of air with everyone. Gino Frachetta spat in the pocket of his baseball mitt and rubbed it in. Miss Ball asked if anyone knew what a �round� in music was and snooty old Constance Martisek waved her hand in the air and wiggled in her seat like she had to go to the bathroom. She was the teachers pet and she wore those black framed glasses that made her look like a cat, and she always had pink, plastic hair clips stuck in her hair. Since she was the only one who raised her hand Miss Ball called on her, and she launched into her explanation like she was reciting the four score and seven years ago speech. She said a � round � was where half of the people in a group started singing before everybody else, and then the rest chimed in later. It sounded like a whole lot of confusion to Petey, but Miss Ball was intent on trying it. � Class,� she said, � We�re going to sing Row Your Boat in a �round�, and I want this side of the class to start first.� She pointed her little song stick she liked to wave around at Petey�s side of the room. Petey looked back at Billy who adjusted the wad of cotton stuck in his nose, yawned, and shuffled his feet. � O.K,� she said, � Everyone one stand up, stand up straight�� Everybody stood next to their desks. �� and, ready�� She swung her little song stick in the air and everyone on Petey�s side of the room sang, � Row, row, row your boat�� and when they finished up with the �� gently down the stream�� part, Miss Ball pointed her little song stick at the group on the other side of the room, and that�s when it happened. It started off sort of quiet, but by the time the other side of the room got to �� gently down the stream�� everyone in the class stopped singing and turned around and looked at Billy Hennigan. There he stood with his arm raised up in the air like a real singer on a stage, with his eyes closed, his face turned up to the ceiling, with the longest, loudest, belch coming out of his mouth any of the fellas ever heard. Not only that, it was perfectly on key, in perfect time, and they stood there amazed while Billy belched out the entire Row, row, row your boat song without stopping, and finished it off with one of those crescendo things that lasted about a hundred years. When he finished, Billy dropped his hand and smiled at the fellas, and Petey knew it was the belch of a god. The room was silent except for the big rotating fan making the papers on the bulletin boards flap. They stood there, stunned, the moment frozen in time, their mouths hung open, and their eyes gaped wide. Miss Ball stood at the front of the class and stared at Billy with her little song stick caught in a down stroke. Finally, snooty old Constance Martisek broke the spell. � Eewww,� she said, � That�s nasty!� Pandemonium. Noise exploded in the room like a bomb. Timmy Houlihan laughed so hard he fell over his desk and hit the floor, so Danny Winteroad did too. The fellas howled and laughed and cheered and ran to the back of the room and clapped Billy on the back and explained to each other about how swell of a thing he�d done. All of the girls held their noses, and chirped, and squawked, and complained to each other, and Miss Ball slapped her little song stick on her desk, but Petey � the Pancake� Flannery just stood there and smiled at his best pal, and watched him change. A chant went up from the fellas, a chant ringing with the new name of a new god. �Billy � the Belcher� Hennigan! � they said.
Copyright © 2003 Timothy Houlihan |