Breakfast with Butch

By Scott F. Deem

First and foremost Breakfast with Butch is a roller coaster ride of crash and recovery. After 28 years of marriage, Seymore Butch Busczkowskis life has been turned upside down and lies scattered in pieces around him. With no plan and no clue, Butch finds unexpected support from an old friend. Together they sort through the emotional carnage of Butchs situation- deciding what to keep and what to discard as Butch assembles his new life plan.

Breakfast with Butch is the story of men being men, guys being guys, and friends being friends. No excuses, no apologiesjust the way it is. Ladies: for all the times you have wondered, Whats up with guys? prepare to be pleasantly surprised. Guys: for all the times you have thought, Hey, give me some credit. This is the story for you.

So pull up a chair, fill up your cup, and prepare to enjoy Breakfast with Butch.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463417390

Scott F. Deem

Breakfast with Butch is Scott Deem’s first novel. He is currently working on a story about pregnancy and parenthood. Look for it in your bookstores Christmas, 2011. Maybe. Breakfast with Butch will soon be released as a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston. Maybe.

Book preview

-The Beginning-

Chicago, 1962

This story begins in the far south suburbs of Chicago during the summer—August actually—of 1962, on the hottest, most humid and ridiculously nasty month in the Chicago calendar. Not the ideal time to engage in any outdoor activity, but here I am at high school football tryouts. Not just tryouts but two-a-days: one workout in the morning and another in the afternoon.

Between torture sessions we gorged ourselves on A&W Root Beer and burgers—which would later be deposited on the football field sidelines. Like I said, this was nasty. Despite the unbearable heat and demanding drills, I am as excited as a young boy can be. I have a big advantage over most of the freshmen because I have already played Pop Warner football for two years, so I am officially a stud. I play offensive and defensive halfback. I can run, I can fake and I am fast, fast as the wind. I can score; I catch passes, I return punts and kickoffs. You name it … I can do it. It all comes natural to me … just give me the ball. So now here I am. The big time … my destiny. We are freshmen, and the coach is looking for a few studs to play up on the JV. Such an honor, such an accomplishment, and it’s all I want. That and to be able to go home and tell my dad … yep, you were right, Dad—hard work pays off. I made JV.

We ran drill after drill; no water, no rest. The Spartan approach to football in 1962. It was God-awful hot and God-awful humid. We played in the God-awful dirt—no grass for freshmen. We were maggots; we didn’t even deserve dirt. Now get in there and hit somebody. That’s all I heard, Get in there and hit somebody. Coach stood off to the side, arms folded, new baseball hat, chrome shades like the warden from Cool Hand Luke. He even had a toothpick stuck in his mouth and a clipboard in his hands. He hadn’t said much; didn‘t have to. His steely presence created an overwhelming aura of importance—at least to a star-struck freshman.

He let the upperclassmen put us through the drills and torment us as they saw fit, and then he finally spoke. Gentlemen, he growled like a junkyard dog, "You are supposed to be football players, but you play like sissies, like quitters, like losers. I am not looking for sissies, quitters, and losers. I am looking for fighters, hustlers and winners. If there’s even one of you who thinks he can play football here, for me and with them—he pointed at the upperclassmen—then show me now!"

He tossed the ball to the upperclassmen and said, Bulls in the ring. Last drill, last chance. They had us form a circle and then chose two people—a ball carrier and a tackler—to come into the center of the ring. One of the real football players—i.e., the upperclassmen—would play the quarterback. He’d say, Hut one, hut two, up. The ball carrier would explode from the three-point stance, take the handoff, and run straight ahead into the collision with the tackler. Mano-a-mano. Best man wins. We went time after time until there were only two of us left, and we were barely left. Many had puked, and they sat off to the side. The rest formed the circle around us, hands on knees, breathing hard and dripping sweat like rain.

It was down to me and one other kid. He was about my size but really skinny. He had never played football before but had a natural gift and was the toughest scarecrow on the field. He clearly feared nothing and no one.

The coach walked into the middle of the circle and stood between me and Scarecrow … his mouth was a tight line, and he growled so soft and low we had to lean in to hear him. Three more carries, three more tackles. Throwing the ball to me, he said, You carry. Turning to Scarecrow, he said, You tackle. We lined up and went at it.

I hit Scarecrow so hard the first time, he fell over backward, cursing and flailing, in the dirt. He spat out blood as he got to his feet, and he moaned, Fuck you, asshole. I trotted back to my position, another day at the office, but my vision was off and so was my balance.

The second time, Scarecrow went for a head fake. I spun through his arms … free again, I thought, but somehow he got me from behind and slammed my head into the ground. We both went down in a tangle of arms and legs, and I heard the coach laugh. Scarecrow cursed and kicked the dirt; he got up first and muttered something, maybe, C’mon or asshole. I wasn’t sure what. In fact, I wasn’t sure of anything except we had to go at it one more time.

The third time, I went directly at him again. I gave him my best straight-arm Heisman Trophy move and pushed his head down. He collapsed into the dirt. Touchdown! Thank God!

Scarecrow lay there for a second and then got to his knees. I offered him my hand but he turned his head and spit out something (was that blood?) and got up on his own. We stood there, face–to-face, dirt, sweat, and effort our common bond.

I said, Hey, good job, hand still offered. What’s your name?

I’m Seymore, Seymore Busczkowkski.

Seymore? I mused, See More Booshkowski? Really? Can I call you Seymore?

Only once, and then I have to kill you. He spat again.

Okay. His look said he might be serious. So what do I call you?

Who says you call me anything? Who says we ever speak again?

I thought, Geez, what an attitude.

But again, his look said he might be serious. Well, I don’t know, I just want to know your name. What’s the big fuckin’ deal?

No big deal. My brothers call me Butch.

Butch, I think. That’s good. Okay then, Butch. My name is—

He raised his hand to stop me. I know who you are.

You do? How cool, I thought. He’s heard of me.

Yeah. You’re Asshole, and with that, he punched me in the arm, hard, and trotted away off the field.

Hey, I yelled, I’m not an asshole … you’re an asshole. I ran to catch up to him, which I did because I’m fast as the wind, and when I did, we just kept running side-by-side.

Our conversation went something like this:

I’m not an asshole.

Yes you are.

No I’m not. You are.

You are.

And on and on and on.

When I got home that day, I told my dad I made the JV team, me and another scarecrow kid; to which he smiled and said, Congratulations, hard work pays off.

Yeah, and I made a friend, too.

Really? My dad smiled again.

Really. He’s the toughest kid I ever met, and his name is Butch.

Butch and I went our separate ways after our first year of high school. I transferred to a football powerhouse, but Butch and his team created a football powerhouse. I never grew much bigger, but Butch grew to be a big boy—a bona fide, Big 10 college football player, six feet, three inches, two hundred forty pounds, and the toughest kid I knew. My college playing days were over after my first season, and by my twentieth birthday, I turned my attention to school and parties. Tough transition, I know, but I managed.

-Chicago, South Side, 1971-

After high school and through college, Butch and I kept in touch, in person and through our circle of friends. We visited each other at school and hung out over the semester vacations. When we graduated college, we found ourselves back together on the south side of Chicago, wondering what the hell came next.

For Butch, what came next was a continuous cycle of working and traveling. And by traveling, I mean piling into a van with four or five other crazy twenty-somethings and driving to Mexico or Belize or flying to Jamaica. If other people traveled on a shoestring, Butch traveled on their leftovers.

I took my college degree and marched straight into a job at a downtown advertising agency. Life in the marketing world of Chicago wasn’t for me; I tried for a week, but it was too small a cubicle and too big a rulebook. So I marched right out and back into my old summer job. Now I was doing graduate work in concrete construction, earning multiple PhDs in arm wrestling, whiskey drinking, and pursuing the opposite sex. My college degree was as useful as my mom’s finger-wagging and worrying. I was wasting my life; she knew it, and I really didn’t care as long as I had some cash in my pocket and my friends at my back. Life was good.

Butch floated in and out of that circle of friends, always showing up to the party with stories of his travels and then off again on some new adventure. When he informed me, one hot summer night, that he was moving to Colorado in the fall, I had no idea how that would affect my life. We toasted his future out West, threw another log on the campfire, and watched the escaping embers try to find the midnight stars.

The next time I heard from Butch, he was living in Denver, gateway to the West, and everyone, he said, was welcome to visit. Shortly after Butch left, I began plotting my own escape from Chicago, saving money and contacting Butch and others out West for places to stay.

In February of 1976, I packed all my possessions into my 1959 Chevy pickup truck. The camper shell on the bed provided shelter for me, my few possessions, and my black Lab. Do people do that anymore? Just load up and go—destinations unknown—living in a pickup truck? With a dog? I don’t think so.

Butch’s place in Denver was my first stop on the journey to my future, and he welcomed me with open arms and whiskey. Butch looked exactly like what he was—a tough big kid growing into a tough big man. He worked all day in the hot summer sun, shoveling and sweating on an asphalt crew. The extra weight he carried for college football had been stripped and ripped away. He was a racecar: no extra drag, plenty of horsepower and ready to run. Lean and mean pretty much says it all, with the emphasis on mean. He favored sleeveless black T-shirts and blue jeans—the tough guy look. His steely blue eyes and ripped biceps sent a simple message: there could be trouble; doesn’t need to be, but it’s possible. When we went out at night to bars and clubs, there was a comedic air of danger about us, a feeling we were going to have a good time, so don’t fuck with us. Nothing personal, just don’t fuck with us … having the toughest hombre I knew along for the ride made that a lot easier.

I only stayed a while—a week or two—with Butch, and then I was off down the road. Me, my truck, and my dog, exploring the Wild West and looking for who knows what. I spent spring in Arizona, California, and back to Arizona, working concrete construction for a day or two when I needed some cash, and staying with friends.

It was May, and I was in Arizona, south of Tucson, barely north of Mexico, parked in the desert and simply enjoying life as a vagabond. On this particular morning, I woke up at dawn in a sweat. The back of my truck felt like the inside of an oven, and I was the turkey roasting. When I opened the tailgate, the blast of hot, dry air only made things worse. What the hell? Where was the fire? It was only 6:00 AM and