Jitterbug Johnny made it to the back of a dozen trucks and sports utility vehicles in the form of a sticker: “Jitterbug Johnny 1965-2023 – ‘Drive faster than an eagle takes flight!’” Jitterbug said the phrase any chance he could: before and after taking a shot, getting out of cold above-ground pools, even while receiving the toothiest blow job.
However, it was a phrase that bothered some folks, sticking in their ear like a stubborn wad of wax. Did eagles take to flight faster than most other birds, they would wonder, shouldn’t this pithy encouragement have more to do with eagles soaring unparalleled heights rather than the immediacy with which they took off?
These were understandable questions to ask of a man who also drove a beat-up sedan that couldn’t reach 30 miles per hour without shuddering and shaking across the land it traversed. And shit cars aside, Jitterbug usually preferred to stumble home most nights, the pounding tread of his unsteady boots his only company at 2:30 AM.
After his death, choking on a chicken wing alone in his studio apartment with no curtains and a crunchy carpet that would scare even the bravest set of bare feet, the truly unspectacular mystery of Jitterbug Johnny’s motto that, without realizing it, garnered years of mental estate by those who knew him, rose to the surface, ready to be evaluated.
Bored by their regular brews, Jitterbug’s bar buddies, a comingling from two different, dimly-lit establishments, met in an agreed upon abandoned parking lot to speculate over who “Jitterbug Johnny” really was and why he proselytized about driving faster than an eagle takes flight.
First, the bar buddies decided to bust down Jitterbug’s front door, a place, they all discovered, they had never been invited back to.
Their first batch of clues was the adornments: a Mexican flag on one wall, just to the side of the bulby TV, and, on the other, just above the couch, hung a life-sized poster of Howie Mandel wearing a burgundy suit—official 2007 promo for the show Deal or No Deal.
The buddies stopped in their tracks, thankful for the safe, cleanish confines of their work boots traversing across the crackling carpet, their feet inside burdened enough, sore, weary, from working their hauls, their men, and their minds throughout the day.
With fewer answers and more questions, the breeze drifting over the felled front door, the bar buddies scratched their beards and polished their bald heads shiny, forgetting why they felt so compelled to come, until the leering face of Howie Mandel sparked a discussion, a speculating as to why Johnny, a live alone bachelor, would have a poster of a sharp-dressed man and not a woman with honeyed hair and cleavage like an overstuffed couch?
What, ultimately, they didn’t say (“Johnny was a queer!”), out of reverence for the dead, screamed louder than what they did (“Deal or No Deal? Solid network TV!”)
Then the baked-in smell of spicy chicken soup, advancing from the hallway, comforted their searching minds and, together, without further debate, they realized Howie Mandel, at heart, was a stand-up comedian, an uncovered masculine aspect to the poster and the dead man who had tacked it up with three rusty nails and one bobby pin (“Certainly a souvenir from one wild nooner,” the bar buddies nudged each another with a grin.)
But the Mexican flag they still cut their eyes at, wanting Jitterbug to be a full-blooded American. That is until one of the buddies, either the one a full inch shorter than the rest or the one who was always “pickin’ his seat,” chimed in, “I remember Jitterbug sayin’ his dad was half Mexican? Or…Maybe…It was his grandfather?”
Ah yes, the bar buddies nodded. They too had a half-Mexican father and/or grandpa.
The buddies split up, combing through the rest of the apartment, hoping to turn over the right “shell” and gain more clarity, more understanding so they could get back to their respective bars and nod with added certainty whenever someone spoke Jitterbug’s name.
Drawers opened, cabinets closed, and fingers of the buddies gripped, tousled, and upturned what they could find only to come up short of filling in the deep gaps of just who all these men had considered a friend.
Was Jitterbug the broken comb wedged under the one recliner, not the one with the blood stain but the one that smelled like box? Was he the TV, stuck on the weather channel for a different state? And where was the car manuals or bird ephemera for all that talk of driving eagles and flying cars. What was the saying again, the buddies shrugged, the permeating soup smell now a given, no longer a comfort.
Tired, the buddies scratched themselves a final time, resting their other available hand on their hip until that posture felt too feminine and they all quickly shoved their hands in their pockets and left.
Back at the bar, a new one, but as divey as the ones they had known, floors sticky, the beer cheap and shitty, the buddies sighed collectively.
“Remember the time Johnny chipped his tooth?”
Yes, they remembered, their smiles flat and foamy. Jitterbug had gotten blackout drunk and smashed his face into the pinball table just because no one had ever thought to give it a try.
“Remember the time Johnny shit his pants?”
Yes, that too they remembered until a bar buddy said, “Which time?”
They all laughed over their beers, promising they’d learn from Jitterbug’s mistake, stopping at three, rushing to the toilet if they felt any “hot chocolate” coming on.
Then a lull settled and the bar buddies noticed the football game blaring from the many screens and the two women playing pool who, yes, did have smaller breasts than they would normally hope for but it would be rude not to chat them up after the next round brought out the courage.
It was this kind of casual moment of nothing, before that chicken wing refused to budge, when Jitterbug Johnny would’ve appeared, telling them all to drive faster than an eagle takes flight. The bar buddies acknowledged his absence with back slaps and mug raises. They didn’t have more any information about their dead, beloved friend. And they still didn’t understand his confounding catchphrase, but one thing was clear: you can argue with your boss for sticking you with the night shift, you can argue with your girlfriend on how best to shut that newborn up, but you can’t argue with the dead.
“Hear, hear!” The bar buddies cried, clinking their glasses, letting the beer spill over the rim as it pooled on the bar top. “To Jitterbug Johnny!”