Tietam Brown by Mick Foley Read Free Book Online

like football, had only one or two friends on the team, was ostracized by her fellow cheerleaders for being a prude or a “CT,” as they called her (a phrase that took me a while to decipher), and hated the coach’s guts. Then she smiled and gave me an answer that was hard to refute. “Because I know you like the way I look in the sweater, big boy.” And when I blushed and looked down, she picked up her offense. “Come on, Andy, admit it. You might as well. Because I saw you staring that very first week. Staring at my boobies, Andy. Yes you were, you bad boy.”
    Now she was reprimanding me as if I was an untrained pup caught in the act of chewing his master’s new shoe. I loved every second of it.
    â€œCome on, Andy,” she continued, “tell me your thoughts, you naughty young boy, why were you staring at my boobies?”
    Maybe you had to be there to understand, but trust me when I say that the tone was not sexual in the least. It was fun, and gentle and innocent, and when she told me to be careful, because they were actually dangerous weapons, well who was I to disagree. And when she ran after me with both boobs in her hands, yelling in sixties-horror-film-style, “GONNA PUT THEM ON YOU ANDY . . . GONNA PUT THEM ON YOUUUU!” I had no choice but to run.
    When I looked back at her, as strange as it sounds, it wasn’t the dangerous boobies that first caught my eye. It was her smile. The happiest, friendliest smile in the world.

October 30, 1985 / Evening
    Tietam Brown looked out the front window, his arm pulling the curtain back, his face pressed to the glass like that of a five-year-old looking for the faint glow of Rudolph’s red nose on Christmas Eve. He stood in that position for so long that I became a little concerned. “Dad . . . Dad, are you okay?” I said, and then waited for about a minute for some type of reply. Without moving his face from the glass, he finally said, “Will you look at that, Andy, will you look at that?”
    â€œLook at what, Dad?” I replied, and Tietam Brown just said, “Damn Sugling,” and continued his long stare before adding, “Always trying to show me up . . . damn Sugling.” Finally he turned away and summoned me to his special reconnaissance perch, where the glass was still fogged from his breath.
    I looked, expecting some type of small emergency, and instead saw Charlie and Gloria Sugling erecting a small scarecrow, surrounded by a couple of simple pyramids of pumpkins, outside on their front lawn. Behind me, I heard my dad say, “Can you believe it?” and I wondered in silence just what the hell he was talking about.
    He then whispered, as if we were caught up in some web of conspiracy, “Always trying to get one up on ol’ Tietam, Andy, always trying to stick it to your old man.” Finally I couldn’t take it anymore, let out a nervous laugh, turned from the window, and said, “Dad.”
    â€œYeah, Andy?”
    â€œYou’re starting to scare me a little.”
    â€œWhy’s that, kid?”
    â€œBecause I have no clue what you’re talking about. All I see is Mr. and Mrs. Sugling decorating their yard.”
    Tietam put his palm to his balding head, joined me by the window, put his arm loosely around my neck, and said, “Exactly. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. They’re decorating their yard.”
    Great. That cleared up everything. Now my dad really was starting to scare me.
    â€œAndy,” he said, “last year, before we got back together, I put up a hell of a Christmas display. Lights, an electrical Santa Claus, the works. Then Sugling, who had never so much as had a tree in his house, decides he’s going to become Thomas Allen Edison and light up his whole house like it’s Yankee Stadium. People were coming around in their cars just to look. So now here it is, October, I put out a hell of a Halloween