Of Boys and Beer

Of Boys and Beer

Eddie Fooglie was about the stupidest kid I knew. He wasn’t retarded or anything; he just went at things without using much sense – prob’ly because he didn’t have an ample fund of it to draw from.

Eddie lived up on the hill above us there in Onaway, Michigan and his father, like ever’body else in town, worked in the steering wheel plant. His mother was religious and didn’t hold with drinkin’ or swearin’ or smoking – which was okay for her; it was just too bad she foisted the program off on Eddie because it put him on the outs with the rest of us in the neighborhood. And maybe that’s why he stole ol’ man Minor’s beer.

Ol’ man Minor worked in the steering wheel plant like all the other men in Onaway. He was a tall, skinny fella, and kinda grouchy. Well, no; he wasn’t kinda grouchy, at all; he was just plain grouchy. We kids figured it was either because his health wasn’t so good or because his wife was so fat. She was as fat as he was grouchy. But she was about the jolliest person I ever knew and, as she was a great friend of my mother’s, I got to know her pretty well. She used to come to see my mother pretty near ever’ day and she’d sit in our kitchen with my mother and talk and laugh.

Occasionally, Mrs Minor would have a baby. She had three of ’em in all, about five years apart, ever’ one. Her havin’ babies was always a great marvel to us kids because you couldn’t tell to look at her that she was carryin’, she was that fat. I always wondered how the Minors even managed to make a baby, what with him bein’ grouchy and her bein’ fat. I mean, the mechanics just didn’t seem to be in it, from my point of view.

Not only did all the men in Onaway work in the steering wheel plant, they all made home-brewed beer in their cellars. It was cheaper to make it than to buy it and, back in the late 30s, we did ever’thing the cheapest way we could, even when we didn’t have to. It sorta became a tradition. Ol’ man Minor made beer, my dad made beer, ever’body made beer. Well, Eddie Foogley’s dad didn’t: his wife wouldn’t let him. And, except for Eddie Foogley, all of us boys in the neighborhood drank beer – not great draughts of it, no; but our dads would allow us a bottle or two a week. So it wasn’t because we lacked beer that my brother and I stole ol’ man Minor’s beer. Not at all. Floyd and I stole it just for the fun of it!

I never knew why ol’ man Minor hid his beer under the floor of his garage. Prob’ly some quirk left over from Prohibition. And I’d ’a’ never known about his stash if I hadn’t listened to Floyd’s dumb idea about snaring a squirrel up in a tree. I was up in one of the big oaks across the street from the Minors’ house foolin’ with Floyd’s snare when I noticed Minor do what I thought was a peculiar thing. His garage door was open and I watched him throw his Model A out of gear and shove it backward to just inside where the garage door came down. He then went to the front of the car and lifted the floor planks just ahead of the car’s tires. Into the spaces between the floor joists, he put maybe two dozen bottles of home-made beer! Then he replaced the planks, but he left the car sit.

Now, this was somethin’ to investigate!
I wadded the snare into my pants pocket, climbed out of the tree, grabbed my bicycle – which I had leaned against the trunk for a ladder – and walked it across the street.

By this time, ol’ Minor was fiddlin’ with one of his busted downspouts.

I went up to him and said, “Mr Minor, could I borrow a pair of pliers for a couple of minutes? The seat on my bike is loose.”

“In on the workbench,” he replied, “an’ you put ’em back right where you found ’em when you’re finished.”

While I was in the garage for the pliers, I took the opportunity to acquaint myself with those loose boards in the garage floor.

Like all the other men in Onaway, ol’ man Minor liked to fish. It was his habit to leave his house and his fat wife before dawn most Saturday mornings and head for his favorite fishin’ hole. The Saturday after I had borrowed the pliers, Floyd and I were up early and in the squirrel tree, waiting for him to leave. After he had driven out of sight, we snuck into the garage.

We each took one beer.

Sittin’ on the curb to drink ’em would’ve been foolish so we hiked up the hill to Eddie Foogley’s treehouse and drank ’em there.   
The next Saturday, we repeated the process – only we hadn’t figured on Eddie spending the night in his treehouse. Thus it was that he popped up from a pile of smelly old quilts when we came bustin’ up the ladder. And thus it was that we ended up sharing our prank and our beer with Eddie.

Three days later, ol’ man Minor turned up at our house to talk to my dad.
After he left, Dad talked to me and Floyd.

“Did you boys get into ol’ Minor’s beer?”

We were both wide-eyed with innocence.

“Why would we do that? If we want beer, we can drink yours.”

“Why?” he shot back at us. “For the hell of it, that’s why. You boys stay away from Minor’s place.”

Well, we’d had a good prank at Minor’s expense; and although my dad had a good sense of humor, disobedience  was not something he found very funny; so we thought it wisest to turn our attentions elsewhere.

A week later, though, Minor was back – and this time he was foaming at the mouth. Somebody had relieved him of ten of his beers!

Floyd and I swore up and down that we hadn’t done it, which was the truth because we hadn’t; and then Dad and Minor got into it because Dad believed us and Minor didn’t.

When Minor left and the smoke had cleared, Dad said, “If you boys know who did take Minor’s beer, you’d better have ’em put it back.”

We knew, all right. It was that dumb Eddie Foogley.

We went straight for his treehouse.

He was in it and so were the beers – well, some of ’em. Four, to be exact. He’d drunk the other six between the time he’d taken ’em – which was two nights ago – and this particular afternoon.

Floyd and I hauled him up by his besotted little shirt collar.

“You’d better put those four beers back, Eddie,” I warned, “and scratch up another six somewhere, ’cause if you don’t an’ ol’ Minor comes lookin’ for us again, we’re gonna come lookin’ for you!”

We pitched him back on his pile of smelly quilts and left, feeling confident that we’d handled the problem in fine style.

And, all in all, things worked out much better than we’d planned.

Living up to his reputation for not having good sense, Eddie Foogley drank the four remaining beers – one after another. Figured to pee away the evidence, I guess. He might have, too, if he hadn’t been so drunk that he fell out of his treehouse while standin’ in the window peein’. It was about a ten-foot drop. He broke his wrist.
He staggered into his kitchen and his mother bundled him off to the doctor’s.

The doc was concerned with Eddie’s broken wrist but Mrs Foogley was worried about Eddie’s wooziness: she was afraid he’d landed on his head and had gotten a concussion.

“Hell, Gussie! This kid doesn’t have a concussion,” the doc told her. “He’s falling-down drunk! Can’t you smell the beer on him?”

Ol’ Gussie took a sniff close-up, I guess, and turned red-mad right then and there.

“Well, then, he’s gonna have a concussion!” says she.
And with that, she drew back and walloped Eddie across the left ear so hard it almost took him off the doc’s table!

The story was all over town by evenin’ and by the time we ran into Eddie to get the embellishing details, Floyd and I had already laughed ourselves sore. I guess even fat ol’ Mrs Minor got a kick out of it, though she prob’ly did all her laughin’ in our kitchen.

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Copyright © February 2017 Kenneth E Ely