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" Busczkowski's 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 t

• Language: English
• Publisher: TOPLINK PUBLISHING, LLC
• Release date: Jan 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781950256105

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.

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Breakfast with Butch

Scott F. Deem

Copyright © 2019 by Scott F. Deem.

Paperback: 978-1-950256-09-9

eBook: 978-1-950256-10-5

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Acknowledgements

The Beginning

Chicago, 1962

Chicago, South Side, 1971

Summer—Denver, Colorado—1976

Growing Up

The Demise—Denver 2005

Moving Out

Summertime Blues

Meltdown

The Letter: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Once in a Blue Moon

D-I-V-O-R-C-E or N-O-T

Catch Up

Tango

Urban Hikers, Philadelphia, and Fall

Hiding from the Holidays

Holidays, Ready or Not

New Year

Material Things

Embrace Adversity

Down in Flames

The Return of the Urban Hikers

Pull the Trigger

Summer

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

Moving In

Conspiracy

Encore

About the Author

Acknowledgements

This book is dedicated to Butch, friend and inspiration. This story is fiction, based mainly on imaginary events. I have taken artistic license, but some of it really happened.

I thank Butch for being strong enough and brave enough to let me tell this story. I hope it helps him and others enduring a similar challenge.

I love you, man.

The author wishes to thank:

Jesse McKean of Mountain Books for his help and guidance. Kira Ruybalid and JoAnn Henderson for typing and support.

Jo Anne M. Colton and Kristen Moeller for advice. Mark Ruybalid and Joey Ruybalid for cover photo.

Aileen Grayce, MA editor supreme.

And most of all my patient wife and best friend, Jill.

In memory of John Earl Fisher, who never got to read it.

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