The Ace of Spades

 

The Ace of Spades

Big-Joe-Radio

My dreams last night consisted of my cousin Ace. It was a scary dream. It wasn’t scary as in I had fear for my life. It was more so because of who he is as a person. It was as if my spirit had just rubbed pants with his spirit. I woke up feeling very anxious. I have not seen Ace in years. I hope that I don’t see him for a variety of reasons. If I were to write stories, he is for sure a good contender to be the bad guy you hate to love.

Ace and I grew up together. My earliest memories in life consist of us hanging out nearly every weekend as young boys, eventually into our teenage years. He was about a year older than me. He was a tall guy with blond hair. His mom was of course my aunt. She was of French and Irish decent. His father was of Irish and Hispanic descent. So Ace was a dark skinned boy like a Hispanic. He had the strong cheekbones of native American. He had the blond hair which almost gave him a Spaniard look to him because of his blond hair, dark skinned combination.

Ace was what I consider tough as tough. He wasn’t too smart, but he was always up for trouble and trying crazy stuff. His mother and father owned a ranch up in the mountains just south of Idaho springs. They had pigs, horses, goats, sheep, chickens, dogs, cats, and even a pet turtle. It was two boys’ ultimate adventure park. Ace was always someone I looked up to as a kid because he was always trying to talk me into doing stuff that would sometimes get us into trouble.

Have you ever had a 70 year old man beat you with the dull end of a screwdriver? Well the consequences of playing near a lake were just that. We were told to stay off the winter ice. When you tell two 8 and 9year old boys not to do something, well challenge accepted. We did just that. One thing that I now realize is that I was kind of Ace’s tester. It was typical. He was always daring me to do something and would call me a pussy if I didn’t do it. He was always doing it right after me, but not until I proved that it wouldn’t quite kill us.

Ace dared me to walk across the ice, at which point I did. Everything was fun for the first few minutes. About 20 feet from the edge, the ice broke, and I was chest deep in freezing water. It was every mother’s worse nightmare, and every boy’s dilemma; surviving our own curiosities and bravery. The water was freezing and although I could stand on the ground below me, I was panicking. I don’t remember thoughts of being scared to die. I just wanted out of the cold water. Ace immediately pulled a dead tree log from the edge of the water and threw it down to me. All I can remember is that I made it out just fine.

That whole situation actually did not scare me. Thinking about it now, that probably should have made the situation that much worse, because if I had no fear after such consequences, what would I be brave enough to do in the future! Ace and I were always testing the boundaries of life. The ice represents the first time life said watch out. We also learned the harsh reality of facing our consequences and being held accountable. My older grandfather had seen the whole thing. He took care of the animals on the farm. He was a world war two veteran. He was rough and gruff, the way good old man should be. I think he was following us that day.

So no sooner than I had stepped onto the safe boundaries of land, did I immediately feel the ass whipping of the old man. He grabbed me and whooped the hell out of my ass with the dull end of a screw-driver. I have no idea why he had the screw-driver. Besides that, who beats a boy with a screw-driver? Thinking about it today makes it all very comical. He did the same thing with Ace. He handed him an ass whippun in the same fashion. I still remember getting my spankings while Ace stood by, not more than five feet. He was more than willing to face the music.

After the crazy screw-driver beating by grandpa, he immediately sent us home with strict instructions to tell our moms how we had played around the lake when we weren’t supposed to. We were balling like crazy, as you can imagine. The walk from the lake to the house, through the forrest took about 20 minutes. No more than five minutes passed and as soon as we were out of grandpa’s site, we were laughing about the whole ordeal. Ace and I were closer than ever at that point. We had come near to death together. We had survived. We accepted our beatings for the whole mess. We were more than cousins. We were brothers.

When we got home, of course the tears immediately came back on. Our moms wanted to know what the hell had happened. We painted grandpa as this mean old man who beat us while we were such darling angels who deserved no such treatment. The lamentations went on and on. We should have received awards for such drama filled acting. We were justly punished anyways. I don’t even think the punishment was even that bad. We probably had to do some extra chores around the farm, which they would have made us do anyways.

So Ace was there with me during my first taste of deadly adventure. I don’t want to get too far ahead and write more on Ace just yet. I can easily include Ace as my villain you hate to love in so many story ideas. We lost our innocence and a little bit of skin off of our hides that day. We also discovered some things about ourselves too. As young boys we were adrenaline junkies. The pattern was always the same. Ace would come up with this crazy idea. I would hope that he was joking, to which he never was when he would come up with these ideas. I would submit because Ace could sell a river if he had to. He was very convincing on cool it would be to do it and how much pussies we would be if we didn’t.

I miss those years. Those were the years of us boys testing the boundaries of life. We never let fear win and we always were more than willing to face the music, as in the case of grandpa with the screwdriver. Ace and I would become so tight as boys, that during our teenage years, we would be cause for great anxiety for our parents. They always knew that we were young boys up to no good. Sometimes we broke bones, sometimes we destroyed things, and sometimes the police were called. Just the life for 2 young boys wanting to have fun

Jissoseph out!