Sweat on the Wheel
A warm, squishy sensation in his right ear woke Bart Simpson from what had to have been the best dream he'd had in three years.
All hopes of meeting back up with Spinal Tap and Krusty for that tribute concert were dashed as his eyes shuttered open and he laid eyes on his wife. Wiping her middle finger on a tissue, Laura sat fully dressed in a neat blue suit at the edge of their bed. Her voice was tinged with great amusement. "Your mom's right - you won't wake up for anything less and an earthquake."
With a mild groan, Bart stuck his index finger in his right ear and wiped it dry. "Whattimesit?" he whined. As his memory returned, he flung aside the quilt and grabbed his work pants off of the floor. "Tell Judge Harmm I had car trouble..."
"Cool down. It's Saturday," she reminded him. "And you're not the one who has an interview today."
Bart dropped his pants to the floor. "Ohh, that's right. Give Vickki Valentine a big raspberry for me."
"Not if I want to get this job as an instructor," Laura fidgeted nervously, displaying a lack of confidence that he'd never noticed in his wife before. "Do I look all right?"
Bart had been going through their bedside dresser drawer, looking for a casual shirt and pair of jeans to toss on. "Gimmie frontsies and backsies," he requested; Laura stood up and pivoted for him. He wolf-whistled. "Woah, you look hot, baby!"
She groaned. "I'm not looking for hot - I'm looking for professional. Five years of dance experience professional..."
Bart pulled out a pair of jeans and his souvenir tee-shirt from Krusty's Kavacade of Komedy Tour and set them aside. "Laura, I know you better than any guy in Springfield, so trust me when I say this - you're gonna knock Vickki Valentine on her withered old butt and get that job in five seconds. Especially if you tell her about the time you taught my dog and cat to waltz."
She smiled. "Thanks. I just have a case of the jitters today for some dumb reason."
Bart shrugged. "You like people and dancing. Isn't that what it takes to teach dance?"
"Yes and no. You also have to have a sharp eye for other people's stupid mistakes."
"Then you're a shoe-in!" she grumbled and he wrapped her up in a big bear hug. "You're a cool, classy lady, Laura Simpson."
"You're a cool dude, Bart Simpson." He gallantly ignored her ignoring the classy part of the equation.
Their kiss was interrupted by the chiming of a doorbell.
"Crap," Bart mumbled. He'd forgotten why he'd begged Laura to wake him up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday; it was time for his annual fishing trip with Nelson, Milhouse and Martin Prince over at Catfish Lake.
She got off the bed and headed out of the bedroom. "I'll go stall Milhouse while you get dressed."
"Got it," he said. It took about ten minutes for Bart to dress and then locate his fishing gear, which had scattered itself all over the bottom of the hall closet. Cursing and grumbling low in his throat, he heard Marge's voice echoing its way from the past, nagging him about his complete lack of organization skills.
As he shoved his feet into a couple of taupe colored oversized Wellingtons, Bart heard Laura exchanging pleasantries with Milhouse in the living room and cracked a smile. His best friend had, over the three years Bart had been with Laura, become sort of a pet project to his wife. To a woman who almost always brimmed with confidence and a skill set that would confound Babe Dickerson, meek and introverted Milhouse seemed to be wasting time yearning after things he didn't have the courage to go after. It had been Laura and Bart's sister Maggie who had hammered Milhouse into swallowing his lack of confidence and look up Samantha Stanky on the internet; now that he and Sam were all-but-affianced, Laura had turned her attention to giving Milhouse pep talks about seeking a promotion at the nuclear power plant.
When Bart emerged with his gear, Milhouse wore a look of complete absorption, a heart-dotted mug of coffee frozen in mid-air inches from his lips.
"...And then you should tell Smithers you're qualified enough to handle the seminar."
"Wow - you really think he'd pick me to run it?"
"You took the ASNC course and passed it. None of the other managers even went, did they?"
"No - but I only went because I was lonely that week," Milhouse admitted. "I think you and Bart were gone on your honeymoon, so I didn't have anybody to hang out with."
"It may've happened by chance, but it's a good building block for what you need right now."
"Yeah - and working beats being lonely. God, I miss Sam."
Before Milhouse could go on another mournful tirade about how much he missed his Canada-bound girlfriend, Bart intervened. "Eh, screw being lonely," Bart said jovially. "You ready to go man?"
"Hi, Bart," he finished the cup and stood up. Bart managed not to groan aloud his horror as he took in Millhouse’s dorky plaid shirt and fishing hat, which was covered with tackles of all shapes and sizes.
"Hey, my cell is on," he told Laura, hugging her quickly, "if anything goes wrong, give me a ring a ding."
"Everything should be fine here," Laura said, with a confident smile. "But zip up your fly before you get on the interstate."
"D'Oh," Bart remarked, as Laura closed the door and pushed them both out into the cold world.
***
"...And they extended her time in Canada AGAIN...BART, YOU'RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO ME!"
Milhouse's whine brought Bart out of what had been a robotic state of mind. Good thing, he'd nearly missed the turn-off to Nelson's place. "I'm paying attention. My mind was just taking a road siesta."
"Oh...WAIT a minute!" Milhouse grumbled. "Am I talking too much about Samantha again?"
"Nooo."
"If I'm talking too much about Sam, tell me, I'll stop."
"You're talking too much about Samantha."
"But who else am I going to talk about her with?" he whined. "Her stupid boss and his stupid base of operations in stupid Nova Scotia where they don't speak stupid English!"
"Milhouse, they speak English in Nova Scotia."
"Mama Mia!"
"I dunno what the big deal is. Sam's job makes her take a trip once a year."
"Says you."
"It's better than being outsourced to India."
"It's just not a good time right now," Milhouse said.
Weighing that in his mind, Bart's new Powers Cougar came to a stop before Nelson's trailer; to his surprise the terminally-late Mr. Muntz waited for them with his gear. He shoved his way into the back seat and buckled himself in with a grunt. Bart glanced at his friend in the rear-view mirror and noticed that Nelson looked somewhat drawn. He proceeded with caution. "Hey man."
Nelson grunted again, staring out the window.
Starting the car again, Bart pulled back onto the main road and crossed town to reach Martin's place. The sudden silence permeating the car went unbroken until the navy of morning was disrupted by the glow of streetlamps.
"Hey Bart," Milhouse whispered, "I think something's wrong with Nelson."
"Yeah - you ask him about that."
"Why me?!"
"You're the one dumb enough to want to ask!"
Milhouse searched his mind for wisdom; Bart's ever-active mind had gone to another subject, observing that his friend looked eerily like his father Kirk and he hoped fervently that he himself didn't look too much like Homer.
As they waited at a stoplight, Milhouse whispered "I heard from Lisa that Sophie Krustoffsky's moving back to town."
"Woah!" Bart exclaimed loudly, drawing Nelson's beady eyes to the front seat. He feigned a cough and focused on the road. "I thought she just came back for the wedding."
"Lisa said Sophie got a job doing orchestral arrangements at KrustyLu. Her marriage hit the skids a couple of years ago and she's been looking for a way out of Ogdenville for years."
"Hey, what’re you whispering about?" Nelson blurted.
Despite themselves, both men were at least a little afraid of their old bully. "Nothing!" they said immediately.
By some miracle, they were soon in front of Martin Prince's well-appointed suburban house. Bart suppressed a smirk at Martin's gear - he was laden with ever reel, hook and lure known to man.
"Hello, chaps!" he said, sitting down in the rear right passenger seat. "it looks like a splendiferous morning!"
Nelson muttered some sort of suggestion about where Martin could stick his attitude, Milhouse's voice came out in a teary warble, and Bart made some half-conscious mumbles of greeting.
"In case anyone yearns for a repast, I brought along some salmon jerkey!" He thrust a handful of the pink crumbles until Nelson's nose and added, "it's a hundred per cent fat free!"
"And a hundred per cent flavor-free!" Bart chirped in his best Martin impression. He pulled onto Main Street. "Anyone else in the mood for Diabetty's Greasy Grub?"
"Woo hoo!" Milhouse and Nelson said.
"Very well," Martin said agreeably, but continued to nosh on his salmon jerky.
Bart's cell phone chirped. "Milhouse - can you get that for me?"
"Sure!" he picked it up. "Hey Laur - Oh, Mister Simpson! Bart can't talk, he's - what? Well...uh..."
"What?"
"Uh - I don't know - I..."
"Milhouse, whatever he wants just tell him I said 'do it'."
"Bart says 'do it'....Uh....okay, Mister Simpson. We'll be there in a couple of seconds to pick you up." Milhouse quickly hung up the phone and refused to meet the three sets of wide eyes staring at him.
"What?!" Bart cried out.
Milhouse shrunk in his seat. "You told me to tell him to do it!"
"Not 'yes, dad, come on my fishing trip and put us all to sleep with a bunch of stories about 'General Sherman'!"
"General Sherman?" Martin wondered. "I thought your father plays Robert E. Lee in the Civil War reenactments!"
Bart moaned in frustration. "'General Sherman' is some big bass that my dad CLAIMED he nearly caught when he went on a retreat with mom. I pretend to listen to the stories and he pretends he doesn't know about the huge-ass house party Lis and I threw that weekend."
"I remember that! I think my booger sculpture's still under your mom's kitchen table!" Nelson crowed.
"Mom and Lisa and Maggie are out at a Scalding Springs Spa for the weekend, so dad's lonely - damn, I must have let it slip last Sunday while we were watching the Isotopes I was gonna go fishing..." Bart quickly performed a UE, grateful for the silence of the night and the dead very-early-morning streets. "Okay, change of plans - we go to Diabetty's, stop for bate and hit the lake by three. We should be up and out of there by noon before the leafers show up in their powerboats."
"Is your dad good at fishing?"
"He's good at sleeping. That's a PART of fishing..."
A chorus of groans met Bart's ears as he turned on to
Evergreen Terrace.