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The snow had been coming down fast and heavy that day. Usually Buster would spend time after school playing outside with the other kids from his and Elwood’s apartment building, but not today. Even though it was the perfect weather for a snowball fight. But, like any good Blues brother, no matter their age, he had a plan. So as soon as he got back home from school, he headed straight to Ms. Linda’s apartment, his bookbag still on his back. She and Elwood had an arrangement that Buster had to check in with her by 4:00 every school day, or else she would call Elwood at his job. Although he was unusually cool for an old guy, he was surprisingly strict at times, telling Buster that he wanted to raise him right, even going so far as telling him that he had to do his homework. All of it! Every freaking day! Whatever. Ms. Linda was cool enough, especially with all her funny stories of Elwood when he was a kid. She had been a volunteer at the orphanage when he was growing up, so she knew all kinds of stuff about him. And, she baked really tasty things every Friday. Which was today.
Buster knocked on the front door of her apartment. The old lady opened the door with a warm smile. “Hi, Ms. Linda,” he greeted her.
“Buster Blues, you’re here early today! I haven’t gotten started on even making the cookie dough yet. But come in, come in!”
He shrugged at her then stepped inside. The sounds of the Aretha Franklin album playing on the stereo filled the apartment.
“Now Buster, I’m surprised you aren’t out there right now playing in all this snow! What are you doing here so early?”
“Well, it’s almost Elwood’s birthday, and I kinda wanna make something for it. I was thinking, you always make good stuff, can you help me make him a cake?”
“Awww, well aren’t you just the sweetest! Let’s go make that cake, then!”
Ms. Linda took out all the ingredients for the batter, pointing each one out and instructing Buster about the order for mixing each of them together and the proper amounts of each. As the cake baked, she told him about Elwood’s tenth birthday, since that was Buster’s age right then.
***
Elwood’s birthday occurred at the same time as Saint Nicholas Day, so there were always some special treats and traditions for that. Even though they didn’t have the money to celebrate each individual kid’s birthday, being a Catholic orphanage, they did celebrate the religious holidays. But that year, Elwood’s big brother Jake had a plan to make his birthday extra special.
Every year, the orphanage continued the Saint Nicholas Day tradition for each kid to leave their shoes out in the hall the night before, and the Penguin would put a nickel in each of them. When the kids woke up, they were always excited to discover they were five cents richer. But that night, Jake stayed up the whole time, quietly watching the Penguin deposit the coins in each kids’ shoe. Once the coast was clear, as quietly and quickly as possible, he collected each nickel into an old sock. There were twenty kids in total that December, so all together, that added up to a whole dollar! Jake kept the sock stashed away in his usual secret hiding spot until the next day, so he could give his brother that dollar for his birthday.
That next morning, all the kids were disappointed to find that nobody got even a penny in their shoes, and tantrums abounded left and right. Nobody could figure out why they didn’t get their usual Saint Nicholas Day cash that day. The Penguin knew exactly who must be behind this, the same two boys who were always behind any sort of trouble there: Jake and Elwood. She questioned them both and searched through their belongings, beds, and bedside dressers, but still, the nickels never turned up. The Penguin swore she would find the nickels and the troublemakers who had taken them. Later that day, after the school day was over, the brothers ran down to the janitor’s basement, who was out cleaning up the classrooms. Usually they waited to go down there until Curtis was done working and he would play all kinds of music for them, teaching them all the ways of the blues. But today, Jake said that he had a surprise for Elwood and he was keeping it down there for him.
Jake instructed Elwood to keep his eyes closed as he opened the doors of the supply closet. Tucked away on the bottom shelf sat the old sock, still heavy with nickels. With a flourish, he placed it into Elwood’s hands. “Happy birthday, little brother!”
“A sock?” Elwood was confused. “A heavy sock.”
“Look inside, genius!” Jake grinned maniacally.
Elwood peeked inside of it, the shine of silver coins gleaming in the dim lighting of the basement, “there’s gotta be at least seventy cents worth of change here!”
“Try a whole dollar! Count it all up, man!”
Elwood dumped out the contents of the sock onto the small table nearby, but before he could get to counting up all the nickels, the doorknob of the basement turned. “Oh shit!” Jake exclaimed, “get ‘em back in the sock! Hurry, man!”
They scrambled to get all the nickels back into the sock as fast as they could, but in their rush, ended up knocking them noisily onto the hard floor.
“What’s all this racket about?” Curtis called from the stairs, his steps getting louder. “Ah, it’s my blues boys, what are you two up to here?”
The boys were stooping down on the ground, trying to contain all the nickels into the sock as fast as they could, but Curtis spotted them with the coins in their hands. “Say, boys, those wouldn’t happen to be the Saint Nicholas Day nickels that the Sister’s been looking for all day, would they?”
Elwood froze, silent. Although he and Jake were frequently in trouble, he never knew exactly what to say. Luckily, Jake always did. Kneeling, he held his hands up toward Curtis, looking contrite, “oh, please, Mr. Curtis, don’t tell the Penguin nothin’, these nickels are all mine, honest. I didn’t steal nothin’ from nobody.”
Curtis’s usually friendly demeanor looked serious now and he raised an eyebrow, “now, Jake Papageorge, don’t you lie to me. Are these the nickels that the Sister was giving out to all you boys for Saint Nicholas Day?”
Jake hung his head, “I just wanted to give them to Elwood for his birthday is all.”
“That’s very nice you want to do something for your brother’s birthday, Jake, but you just can’t do that by stealing, you understand? Just give him something you got honestly.” His expression softened, “come on, boys, why don’t you two stand up.” They followed his instruction, both of them hanging their heads sheepishly. “Now, what say you two that we have a little jam all together? In honor of Elwood’s birthday. Happy birthday, boy.” The brothers cheered. “Ah, but first, Jake, you know what you gotta do.”
“Of course, Mr. Curtis, we gotta go get Elwood’s harmonica!”
“Well, yes, he’ll need to get his harp, but you gotta come clean to the Sister. You need to live honest, boys.”
Jake refused at first, but eventually relented, because those were the conditions that Curtis had set: if he didn’t tell the Penguin, there would be no jamming that night. And of course, he wanted to jam, and how could he cause his brother to miss out on a jam on his birthday? He wouldn’t want to deny him that, so he sucked it up and came clean to the Penguin.
***
Buster was curious, “so, what happened? Jake got in big trouble, didn’t he? Did the Penguin whoop his ass?”
“Buster Blues, language! He had to give back all the nickels and yes, he did get in trouble. And because he stole all that, they switched to giving the kids chocolate coins instead.”
“Aw man, you mean we could have been getting actual money instead of those old things? Thanks a lot, Jake! But wait! He had to give the money back? That means he didn’t get to give Elwood anything for his birthday.”
“Well, as you know, Blues brothers always have some tricks up their sleeves. Turns out Jake had bought Elwood a pack of Twinkies, so he did get something for his birthday after all.”
“Wait, the old guy liked Twinkies?”
Ms. Linda laughed, “oh yes, he still does, they’ve always been one of his favorite treats. Come on, Buster, let’s check on that cake, the timer will probably be going off any minute now.”
Sure enough, there was less than a minute left on the timer. Once the cake was set up on the countertop and cooling, Ms. Linda taught Buster how to make frosting. As he mixed everything together, she left the kitchen to go to the bathroom. Jackpot. Finally, he could put his plan into action. He quickly stuffed the cake still in the pan into his backpack and grabbed the bowl with the frosting. He bolted to the apartment that he shared with Elwood, slamming the door behind him and went to town with eating the frosting and freshly made cake.
***
Elwood was nearing the end of another shift at the propellant factory. He really was very happy to have this job back, not because he was particularly passionate about working in a factory, but because of the direct access he had to so many propellants. There was always a wide variety of them on hand there, and one never knew when one would have need for such a product. One of the shift supervisors came over to him, to let him know that there was a call coming in for him. Nobody ever called him there, but he did have that arrangement with Linda regarding Buster-shit, what did that kid get himself into this time? There was that time he had set a small fire in the courtyard outside their apartment building. What kind of trouble was he up to this afternoon?
He held the phone up to his ear, getting right to business, “hey, Linda, what did Buster do now?”
He immediately recognized her laughter on the other end of the line, “oh, Elwood, it was the darndest thing. Buster came over early after school, saying he wanted to make you a cake for your birthday. When I stepped into the bathroom, he left, and…” she laughed harder, then took several deep breaths, “and he took the cake and frosting with him.”
Elwood chuckled, “that little shit. Listen, I’m going to be done here real soon, and I’ll talk to him, set him straight.”
“Oh, but don’t be too harsh on him, it reminded me of the mischief a certain young boy and his brother got into when they were that age.”
Through the end of his shift and on his drive home, Elwood thought about those times with Jake, a pang radiating from his gut. He felt like laughing and crying all at the same time, reminiscing about all those memories he had with his brother, and choking back a sob at the thought that he would never have those times with him again.
He parked in his usual spot and took a deep breath, “pull it together, Blues.” He had to go attend to Buster’s antics right now.
Elwood walked into the apartment, noticing a half eaten bowl of frosting sitting on the kitchen table, but no Buster. “Hey, Buster,” he called out. When there was no response, he walked over to the kid’s room, but it was empty. The whole apartment was unusually quiet. “Buster? You here?” Where the hell did the kid go? He made his way back down the hall to the living room, but the sound of vomiting coming from the bathroom broke the silence. “Uh huh, that’s where you are,” Elwood pushed open the door, seeing Buster kneeling in front of the toilet, puking his guts out. “Oh, shih-shoot, Scribbles. Welp, that’s what happens when you eat that much frosting, little man, especially when you steal it from a nice old lady.”
Buster glared at him, “what do you know about that?”
“Ms. Linda called me, told me whatcha did. Man, you can’t do things like that, it’s not okay to steal like that.”
“Man, you steal things all the time!”
“And I’ve been mending my ways, that just ain’t a way to live life. Ya gotta be honest in life, kid, and stealing just ain’t it.” Buster threw up again and groaned. “As ye sow, shall ye reap, little man.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You get what you give, kid. Okay, you clean yourself up, and then you’re gonna clean up Ms. Linda’s stuff and give it back to her. And you’re gonna apologize for taking her stuff.”
Elwood watched to make sure that Buster cleaned up everything and apologized properly to Linda, who was doing her very best to look serious but was clearly holding back laughter. “I forgive you, Buster, and thank you for doing the right thing,” she smiled warmly at him. Turning to Elwood, he noticed the twinkle in her eye, “oh, you Blues brothers, always up to something.”
That night, after saying goodnight to Buster, Elwood lay in bed, thinking about how this was his first birthday since finding out Jake was gone. Sure, they hadn’t always celebrated every single one of their birthdays together, especially when they had been separated by imprisonments. But this was completely different, Jake wasn’t even alive anymore, there was no longer the comfort in knowing that he’d still see him and they’d celebrate, just another time. No, Jake was completely gone now. No more birthdays together, no holidays, no nothing. The ache in his gut came back and now spread to his chest. Tears sprang from his eyes and he sobbed silently, until sleep overtook him.
***
That whole Saturday, Elwood had been quiet, unusually quiet, even for him. Buster was weirded out by it, finally asking him “hey, why’ve you been so quiet, old man?”
Elwood sighed and didn’t answer right away, but after a few silent minutes mumbled, “tomorrow’s my first birthday without Jake.”
“Shit,” Buster replied. He knew Elwood was really bothered when he didn’t even reprimand him for cussing. He didn’t even say anything the rest of the night, and went to bed really early. Buster wanted to help Elwood, really he did, but he had no idea what he could do. He paced around the living room, thinking, thinking, thinking. What could he do to make him happier? Suddenly, he knew exactly what he could do! He ran into his room and dug through the drawer that held the Ziploc bag that contained all the coins he had been picking up from the ground over the past months. He had no idea how much it all added up to, but his little mission could work.
As quietly as possible, he snuck out the door, closing it slowly and silently behind him, then ran out to the nearest convenience store. He made a beeline to the aisle that had the Twinkies and grabbed all the boxes. He set them and his bag of coins down on the checkout counter, where a bored looking teenager sat popping bubblegum and reading a magazine. The teenager stared at the bag of coins and then at Buster, rolling his eyes then counted each of them up. It turned out that they added up to be the exact amount for all ten boxes of Twinkies, tax and everything, right down to the penny.
He ran back to the apartment and was satisfied to discover that he hadn’t been caught sneaking out, even if it had been for a good cause. He was still recovering from being so sick yesterday, and he just didn’t want to deal with getting in trouble. He brought the bags containing the boxes of Twinkies into his room, stuffing them into his backpack for safe keeping for Elwood’s birthday tomorrow.
***
That Sunday morning, Elwood was up making some dry white toast. There was a flurry of activity and noise behind him as he stared at the bread popping up out of the toaster. “Say, what are you doing up at this hour?” He heard some things fall and turned around to see Buster with his arms full of boxes of Twinkies.
“Oops,” he picked up the boxes he had dropped. “Well, happy birthday, old man.”
Elwood burst out laughing. He was sad, missing Jake and all, but at the same time, he was glad that this bizarre and often rude little dude was in his life. Perhaps this birthday wouldn’t be so bad after all.