CHAPTER TWO:
I COULD ALWAYS WASH THE FILTH AWAY
My Aunt Fran would come up from Galveston about once a month or so to make sure we were getting along okay. She usually drove up on a Friday or Saturday, but this time she made the trip on a Sunday afternoon. It was my last day as a filthy but happy little boy. I was starting school the next day and Aunt Fran was coming to make sure we didn't screw it up. We all knew she was coming, but none of us was looking forward to it. Daddy and Grandpa had to do their best not to use any swear words. Aunt Fran hated swear words. It was okay to say, "damn," "ass," and stuff like that, but using the Lord’s name in vain, or obscene words with any sexual innuendo would cause Aunt Fran to ramble on and on about God and Jesus, fire and brimstone, and Sodom and Gomorrah until you wanted to smack her in the back of the head with a dead squirrel.
Daddy and I had to clean up the house real good, but no matter how hard Daddy and I worked; it was never clean enough for Aunt Fran. She hated filth. Grandpa never helped. He didn't really give a damn what Aunt Fran had to say. He did watch his language though; he had heard Aunt Fran's impassioned anti-blasphemy speeches on several different occasions, and I do not think he wanted to hear another one.
Aunt Fran used to bitch about Daddy and Grandpa drinking whiskey and beer in the house, but that's where Grandpa drew the line. "Too damned bad," Grandpa told her. "If you don't like it, you can hop in your car and take your fat ass back to Galveston." She didn't bother them about drinking in the house after that.
Aunt Fran wasn't really fat. I guess you could say she was full-figured. She had an ample bosom like my mama and her backside was a little on the wide side. One time, she was going to watch Daddy sing with The Alligators, so she put on a brand new pair of Levis and asked Daddy: "Do these jeans make my ass look big?"
And Daddy told her: "No, your ass makes your ass look big." Aunt Fran's self-consciousness with her weight and figure was a weak spot in an otherwise domineering and confident personality. Daddy and Grandpa would not hesitate to take advantage of that weakness when she got on their nerves.
Aunt Fran always smelled good and wore brand new clothes. Her hair was always perfect, but I thought she wore too much makeup. She was a tall woman, even taller than Daddy was, so her big ass and ample bosom was almost proportionate to her height. She had a pretty smile and big white teeth. Her voice was deep, and as she got older it got somewhat scratchy because she smoked too many cigarettes.
Five men had been married to Aunt Fran, and now she was married to yet another. She blamed all her failed marriages on her ex-husbands. I would bet a buck or two her marriages failed because she was too damned bossy. Her latest husband was a man named Bill, who I had only met a few times. I liked Bill. He was much older than my Aunt Fran was. He was a big fat man who smoked big fat cigars and laughed out loud at almost everything. He would always do silly things to make everyone else laugh too. My daddy liked him, so did Grandpa, but Bill hardly ever came up with Aunt Fran.
One time, after a night of hunting bullfrogs with my daddy and grandpa, he stuck a live bullfrog in Aunt Fran's purse. I was the only one who saw him do it. He pressed his index finger to his pursed lips to let me know I was in on the joke. Then he told me to go ask Aunt Fran to show us the pictures of their new house, knowing she could not wait to dig them out of her purse and show them off.
She was in the kitchen frying frog's legs in my dead grandma’s cast iron skillet. Daddy and Grandpa were sitting out on the back porch, sipping from a bottle of whiskey and smoking cigars Bill had given them, while they stared into the woods beyond our backyard. I listened at the screen door and found that they were arguing about who I was going to sleep with since I couldn't sleep with Aunt Fran like I usually did.
"You otta be ashamed of yourself, boy." My grandpa usually called my daddy the same thing he called me. "Don't wanna sleep in the same bed with your own son."
"It aint that," my daddy whined. "I told you— I got company comin'."
"You caint go one without the dirty-legs?"
"She aint’ no 'dirty-leg', and I wish you’d stop calling them that."
"Ah bullshit! They otta have more sense than to mess round with the likes of you. You otta have more sense than to mess round with the likes of them."
"Well, I don’t. And neither do they."
"Well it don't matter," said Grandpa as he twirled the big fat cigar between his slimy lips. "That boy pees in his bed and I don’t want him peein' in mine."
"He don't pee in the bed every night. He hasn't for a while now."
"I don't care. He aint sleepin' with me."
"He's your grandson."
"He's dirty and he pees in the bed."
"Fran gave him a bath."
"Shut up boy. You're pissin' upwind."
My skinny bottom lip started to quiver. My stomach turned end over end as my heart plummeted down to the soles of my feet. I hardly ever cried as a child, but I could feel one setting in and there was little I could do to stop it. I looked over at Aunt Fran as she towered over the stove frying frog’s legs in my dead grandma's big cast iron skillet. She had not heard my daddy and grandpa on the back porch. She looked over at me and at once sensed that something was wrong.
"What’s a matter honey?" Her tone was genuinely sympathetic. I could not say anything for fear of bursting into tears. I ran over to her and wrapped my arms around one of her stocky thighs. She was the only person in the house who did not seem to mind sleeping in the same bed with me. I realized then that I loved her— even though she was a bitch. I would hate her again and again over the years, but there and then, I loved her. "What's a matter honey," she asked again as she gently stroked my head.
"Nuffin," I told her.
"It's okay Larry. You can tell me. Did Bill say something to you?"
"No."
"Did your daddy or your grandpa?"
"No."
"Then why are you squeezing my leg?"
"Cause nobody wants to sleep wit' me."
"That's not true. I sleep with you every time I come up here."
"You won't tonight."
"That's because I got my husband with me. You can sleep with your daddy tonight."
"Nuh uhh. He says Dirty-Legs is comin' to sleep wit' 'im."
"Did he tell you this?"
"No. I heard 'im tell Grandpa."
"He did, huh."
"Uh huh, and Grandpa says I caint sleep wit' 'im either cause I pee in the bed."
This angry frown slowly appeared on Aunt Fran's face, as if someone had just called her a fat-ass, or worse. She bolted over to the screen door with me still attached to her big leg. "What in the hell have yall been tellin' this child," she asked Daddy and Grandpa through the screen door.
"What?" Daddy said.
"Did she just say, 'hell'?"I heard Grandpa say.
"This boy thinks he has nowhere to sleep tonight." Aunt Fran barked at them.
"Fran," Daddy sighed." We're gonna fix the boy a big fluffy pallet in the living room right in front of the television. He can watch all night if he wants." Then he looked at me. "You’d like that wouldn’t ya, Larry?" My daddy would call me by my real name whenever Aunt Fran was around.
I did like watching TV until I fell asleep. I did that a lot. I loved watching those movies that came on after the news. I didn't care much for the talk shows. Daddy would make me a pallet on the floor with a quilt my dead grandma had made for me before I was born. I loved that quilt. It was pink and blue because my grandma didn't know if I was going to be a Larry or a Linda. I preferred sleeping on the floor in the living room so I could watch TV all night rather than sleeping alone in my own room, or with my daddy, or even with Aunt Fran. It was the perfect solution, so I nodded my acceptance to my daddy’s bribe. And it seemed as long as I accepted it, then it was okay with Aunt Fran too.
"You sure that'll be okay with you, Sweetheart," Aunt Fran asked.
"Yeah," I told her as I wiped my teary snot on her big leg.
"Sweetheart!" Grandpa cackled, mocking the both of us.
"Shut up, Connie," said Aunt Fran. "Yall should both be ashamed of yourselves."
"We are, Fran. We are." Then Grandpa laughed until he started coughing.
"Oh... Pee on yall!" That was about as vulgar as Aunt Fran could get.
"Yeah Fran, pee on us both."
I don't know why Grandpa thought that was so funny, but he laughed and coughed, and coughed and laughed while Daddy kept slapping him on the back. Then Daddy started laughing along with him, and the more they laughed, the angrier I grew. They had hurt my feelings and then bribed me so they wouldn't have to sleep with my filthy ass and risk being peed on, and now, they were laughing at us.
Aunt Fran huffed and puffed, then turned away exasperated and went to the stove to tend to the frog's legs burning in my dead grandma's big cast iron skillet. I just stood there and watched them through the screen door, and hated them for laughing at me.
"Why don't you go put on an apron and help your Aunt Fran, Sweetheart," my Grandpa said, which brought on another wave of laughter from the two drunkards who were raising me.
I did not have to sit under the house with Boo for hours to plan my revenge; it hit me suddenly and accidentally, with the normal biological reaction one gets after drinking four Dr. Peppers and not going to the bathroom. I figured it out all by myself. I looked over at Aunt Fran and flashed a wicked grin. "Uncle Bill put a bullfrog in your purse."
"Why would he do that?" I could not believe she had asked such a stupid question.
"I think he wanted to scare you."
"Oh... Is that right?" She went to confront Bill, and I snuck out the screen door to confront the two elder generations of Lunkleys before me.
My grandpa saw me first. "Oh, lookie here, Sweetheart wants to come out here with us now."
"Let 'im alone," my daddy said as he took a sip and passed the bottle to Grandpa. They paid me no attention. I was used to that. Then they turned around and went right on sipping whiskey and smoking cigars while they stared into the woods beyond our backyard. I was standing about six or seven feet behind them. There was no time to gather my courage—I had to go. I pulled out my tiny pecker and aimed it upward. My pee shot high into the air and splashed down right on the back of my grandpa’s neck. He let out a yell that human beings can only make if they are being peed on by one of their grandkids.
My daddy turned around to see what the hell was wrong. I turned and peed right smack-dab in the middle of his chest. They were jumping around, screaming the Lord's name in vain, and those other obscene words with definite sexual innuendo.
When I was done they came after me, but I was way too young, quick, and nimble for their old, slow, and peed on bodies. I jumped off the porch and they followed. I crawled under the house where they could not follow. Boo was already under there and he started barking and growling at my daddy and grandpa that they had better leave me alone. Bill and Aunt Fran came running out of the house to see what was going on.
Daddy and Grandpa got down on their hands and knees to peer under the house. I could see them, but they could not see me as I hid motionless in the dark. "You better get your ass out here, boy," my daddy yelled.
"What's goin' on?" Aunt Fran wanted to know.
"You think that was funny, boy?" Grandpa asked. I did think it was funny, but I thought it was best I stayed quiet. "You won't think it's funny when your daddy gets a hold of you."
"He aint gonna get a hold of me," I shouted back defiantly. I just couldn’t help myself.
"You caint stay under there forever," Grandpa said.
"Don't need to," I told him. "I can come out when yall get drunk and fall asleep." Daddy had gone to his truck and brought back a flashlight. He got back down on the ground and found me with a blinding beam of light. I squinted my eyes and shielded them with my arm.
"Get out here, boy," I heard my daddy say from behind the blinding beam of light. "Don't make me crawl under there and pull your ass out." That was an idle threat. I knew there was no way in hell that Daddy was going to crawl under the house to come after me. He had on one of his fancy cowboy shirts he wore when he would sing with The Alligators; though it was already peed on. "Dammit, Larry! This aint funny no more. Now get your ass out here."
"Don't use that disgusting language with the child," Aunt Fran told Daddy.
"He aint no child," Grandpa told her. "He's a monster."
"If you treat him like a monster he's gonna act like a monster," she said. "You two are certainly not what I'd call the best examples for him to live up to."
"Fran," Daddy said, losing his patience. "The boy pissed on us." He ripped off his pee soaked shirt and threw it on the lawn. Grandpa had already disposed of his.
"What!"
"That's right. On purpose. He peed on us." I could hear fat old Bill laughing. I started to laugh too. I think Boo was even laughing.
"I don't think that's so damned funny," Grandpa said.
"I sure as hell don't either," Daddy agreed. "What kind of boy pees on his kinfolks? On purpose."
"A boy who has his feelings hurt because his own daddy and grandpa don't wanna to sleep with 'im cause they’re afraid he'll wet the bed. I sleep with the boy every time I come up here and he aint never peed on me."
"Yeah!" I shouted.
"What do you plan on doing once he comes out from there?" Aunt Fran asked Daddy.
"He's gonna tear his butt up like he deserves," Grandpa said.
"Over my dead body," Aunt Fran told them.
"Now honey," said fat old Bill. "This aint none of our business."
"The hell it aint. That's my sister’s baby and that makes it my business."
"What he did was wrong, Fran," Daddy said. "He's got to learn right from wrong."
"You never did," Aunt Fran roared at Daddy. "What makes you so high and mighty all the sudden?"
"He's the boy's father," said Grandpa.
"Oh, shut up old man," barked Aunt Fran.
"Now honey," said fat old Bill.
"You shut up," Grandpa barked right back at Aunt Fran. "You fat-ass, big-mouth bitch,"
Then Aunt Fran took a swing at Grandpa and popped him right upside his head. Daddy had to hold Grandpa back so he wouldn't break our family's oldest commandment. Bill had to hold Aunt Fran back so she wouldn't break Grandpa's jaw. I was starting to get a little scared. Things were getting out of hand. They all started yelling mean and hateful things at each other, except for Bill. He was doing his best to wrestle Aunt Fran into their car as she kept screaming at my daddy and grandpa. Bill finally got her in the car and they took off.
"I'll be back," Aunt Fran yelled out the window as they drove off. "And yall better not lay a hand on that child."
Daddy and Grandpa sat out in the yard and waited for me to come out from under the house. As they sat babbling, I quietly snuck out from the other side of the house and went inside the house through the back door. Boo followed me up on the back porch. I gave him a bunch of fried frog's legs to take back under the house with him. I went into the living room with a couple of frog's legs of my own and listened to Daddy and Grandpa though an open window as they waited for me. I didn't know who was the dumber dumbass.
I laughed at them. I pitied them for drinking so much and becoming so stupid when they did. And I knew even at that young age that they were clueless mush-heads to the appropriate ways of raising a child. Grandpa was an old man, and sure enough he had fathered three children, but it was my dead grandma who had raised them. Daddy was a young man who had lost a woman who was perhaps way too good for him, and now he was stuck with me. He had his whole life ahead of him and he had big dreams. If he was on his own or at least had a wife to be a mother to me, maybe he would have been a happier man.
Sometimes I wondered if Daddy ever wished I had been killed in that horrible crash, though I knew that was a stupid thing to think about— Daddy loved me, I knew that. I know he has lived with the hellish guilt of that night every day of his life. But surely the thought must have crossed his mind at least once: life would sure as hell be a lot easier if I didn’t have this little monster to tend to.
"You're gonna have to learn to make that boy behave," I heard my grandpa say as I tore into my second frog leg.
"What do you want me to do, Daddy?"
"Whip his ass."
I had heard this threat of whipping before, but neither of them had ever followed through. My little butt was untouched from the disciplining hands, paddles, belts, or switches of parental guidance.
"Whip him?" my daddy said. "You never whipped me."
"The hell I didn't."
"If you did I don't remember it."
"Well, I damn sure did."
"No, you didn't."
"I did too, boy."
"Nope. You were supposed to one time, but you didn't."
"I whipped your ass plenty of times."
"No you didn't, Daddy. Maybe you whipped Larry, but you never touched me or Grace."
"Maybe I whipped your ass so good you don't remember."
"No... I remember Mama whipped me one time."
"Mama? Your mama never whipped any of you kids. God rest her soul."
"Yes. Yes, she did. She whipped my ass for stealing a handful of gumballs from Charlie's Landing. And I remember her crying about it."
"I remember when you stole them gumballs, but—"
"And she whipped me good."
"Well, you ought not have been stealin'. Especially from Charlie."
"I know."
"He was a good man. He was good to us. You were stealin' and you got what you deserved."
"I know that, Daddy."
"Then what the hell are you bitchin' about?"
"You were supposed to do it."
"I was supposed to do what?"
"You were supposed to whip me, but you didn't because you couldn't. So you made her do it."
"Well, I don’t—"
"And she cried."
"Well, that aint the way I remember it."
"That's the way it was, Daddy."
"I don't agree. I'm goin' to bed." My grandpa stood up to go in the house, but Daddy pulled him back down in his chair.
"I tell you what," Daddy said. "You think I should whip Larry?"
"That's what I said."
"I'm not gonna do it."
"The boy aint never gonna learn."
"Why don't you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Whip him."
"Me?"
"Why not?"
"Cause you're his daddy, not me."
"Well, you're his grandpa and I'm giving you permission to whip my son for pissin' on us." Grandpa just sat there, looking at Daddy as if he was delirious with some kind of fever that makes you invite people to whip your children.
"Sometimes I think you're crazy, boy… And I see where your son gets it."
"Look in the mirror, Daddy— you'll see the source of all our craziness."
Grandpa went to bed after that. He didn’t even see me sitting at the window as he stumbled through the living room and into the bathroom to wash the pee away. I looked out at Daddy and saw him grab his flashlight to look for me underneath our house. "Where are you, boy?" he yelled as he lay flat on the ground under the floor beneath me.
"I'm in here, Daddy," I said through the open window. I heard a thump from under the floor.
"Son of a—!" Daddy shot up, rubbing the back of his head.
"How'd you get in there?"
"I tricked yall," I told him, and he laughed.
"I reckon you did."
"Are you still mad at me?"
"Nah... You still mad at me?"
"No." He nodded his head and I knew everything was okay.
"You want to sleep with me tonight?" he asked.
"No," I said.
"Why not?"
"Aunt Fran’s gone. I can sleep in myown bed."
"Yeah, I know. But you can still sleep with me in my room if you want." He smiled at me and I could not help but smile right back at him.
"That’s okay."
"All right," Daddy said as his head bobbed up and down. "Let’s go to bed."
Daddy had me go to the bathroom to wash the dirt from underneath our house off my body. He said I didn’t have to take a bath but I had to cleanup and put on clean drawers.
I was squirting toothpaste on my toothbrush when I heard a terrified scream from Grandpa's room—almost like a woman's terrified scream. I ran to Grandpa’s room just as Daddy was throwing open the door.
"What!" Daddy shouted. Grandpa was standing there in his boxer shorts with a look on his face that matched his womanlike scream. He sucked in deep breaths as he seemed to regain his composure. He held up the bullfrog Bill had put in Aunt Fran's purse.
"Did you put this bullfrog in my bed?" Grandpa yelled at me.
"No," I told him, wishing I had.
Eventually that night faded into memory. Apologies were offered and accepted— some sincere, some not. Grandpa was a grudge carrying S.O.B. He did not talk to Aunt Fran much when she came up, and when he did say something, it usually was not very nice. So it didn't take long for Aunt Fran to turn back into the bitchy woman we had all known before.
Anyway, when she got to our house that Sunday before I started school; the first thing she did was order me into the bathtub. That was the first thing she always did when she came to our house. This time I thought I was ready for her. I had taken a bath about an hour before she came and I told her so. Then she checked behind my ears and made me look up while she inspected my neck. I must admit; I probably did not bathe myself very well at that age.
So there I was, sitting in a bathtub full of soapy water. Aunt Fran was sipping on a bottle of Coca-Cola and smoking a cigarette, standing over me making sure I bathed every crack and crevice on my filthy body—especially behind my ears, all around my neck, and down there.
"How come Uncle Bill doesn't come up with you anymore," I asked her as I scrubbed under my arm with a soapy washcloth.
"Oh... He's got work to do—stuff like that."
"Are you getting another divorce?"
"No," she snapped at me. "I told you, he's got to tend to his business."
"He must work really hard."
"I suppose he does."
"What kind of work does he do?"
"He's a contractor."
"A what?"
"He builds things."
"What kind of things?"
"Oh... buildings and such."
"What kind of buildings?"
"I don't know... Just buildings, markets, restaurants— stuff like that."
"What kind of markets and restaurants?"
"All kinds."
"Do yall get to eat free at the restaurants?"
"I wouldn't know. Uncle Bill never takes me to restaurants."
"Do yall get free stuff from the markets?"
"No."
"How come Uncle Bill don't take you to no restaurants?"
"Cause he gets home too late or he's too damned tired."
"Maybe he's scared to go to a restaurant."
"I don't think your Uncle Bill is scared of any restaurant."
"Maybe he's scared he'll eat too much and explode like a tick or somethin' because he's already so big and fat."
"Maybe," she laughed. "Look up. Let me see your neck." I looked up and showed her my neck. "Okay. Now dry off real good and put on your pajamas, and I'll fix you a big bowl of ice cream."
"Pajamas?" I slept in my underpants and a t-shirt, or long johns when it got cold. "I aint got no pajamas."
"Oh, yes you do." Then she pulled a pair of brand new pajamas out of a Woolworth's shopping bag. "Surprise!”
Those ladies from the Baptist church never had any pajamas with the clothes they brought over for me. Mostly it was just bags of jeans and t-shirts their own kids and grandkids couldn't wear anymore, and most of it didn’t fit anyway. I had always wanted a pair of pajamas. I had seen Opie and Beaver Cleaver wear them on TV, so I figured I would like a pair, but not these pajamas.
"I'm not wearing those," I told Aunt Fran.
"What's wrong with them," she asked.
"They're baby pajamas."
"They are not. They got cowboys on them. You like cowboys."
"Yeah, but they got feet like baby pajamas."
"They’re not baby pajamas. They got feet in them so you don’t get your feet dirty when you're walkin' around on the floor."
"I don’t like 'em."
"Put them on, Larry."
"No!"
Aunt Fran grabbed me by my arm and pulled me to her. I could feel her long painted finger nails digging into my skin. "Listen to me you little brat. I paid good money for those pajamas and you're gonna wear 'em. When somebody gives you a present you say, 'thank you.' You don't whine and complain because it's not exactly what you wanted. You understand me?"
"I didn't ask you to buy 'em for me."
"I know. I bought 'em out of the kindness of my heart, because I know you sleep in nothing but your dirty underpants. Now put on the pajamas and don't say another word about it. You understand me?"
Daddy and Grandpa both laughed when they saw me in my new pajamas. Grandpa said I looked "very cute," and then he cackled and coughed. Aunt Fran told them both to shut up as she handed me a big bowl of vanilla ice cream. I did not feel like being laughed at so I ate my ice cream in my daddy’s room where Aunt Fran and I would be sleeping. She said I had to go to bed early anyway.
I was a little scared laying there in my daddy's bed, thinking about the next day. I hoped that the teachers would be nice and pretty like Opie's, Beaver's, and Wally's. I hoped that the other kids would not be mean and laugh at me or beat me up. I was a funny looking kid with ears like an elephant and a forehead big enough to land a plane on; I was not handsome like my daddy and Uncle Larry. I wished I had a friend to go to school with.
Daddy had only recently showed me how to scratch my name in the dirt, but I still had no idea what those letters meant. I knew how many one, two, three, four, and five were, but beyond that I had to use my fingers, then my toes. I thought I was a pretty smart kid. I watched a lot of TV. I knew that Lyndon B. Johnson was our president because Lee Harvey Oswald had shot President Kennedy. I knew I could outsmart my daddy and my grandpa when they were drunk. But I also knew that I had never really been in the company of any other kids.
Was I as smart as the other kids were?
Was I a dummy?
I did not know, so I was scared.
Sure, I had been off the farm before, but most of those times I was just a baby, so obviously, I don't remember those times. I had gone fishing with Grandpa many times, just the two of us. Sometimes we went to this old shack on the river called, Charlie’s Landing. It was a store of some kind and this man as old as my Grandpa ran the place. His name was Charlie. He mostly sold minnows, worms, bamboo fishing poles, and all kinds of fishing stuff, but he also sold soda, candy bars, gumballs and potato chips.
I don't remember Charlie that well, but I do recall that he and Grandpa seemed to be the best of friends. I think that the happiest I had ever seen my grandpa was when we were at Charlie's Landing, and he and Charlie would fish off the pier, play dominoes, or just talk. I'd only been there a couple of times, and until I heard Daddy and Grandpa mention Charlie's Landing the night I pissed on them, I thought it was just a place my little mind had fabricated.
Other than going fishing with my grandpa and to Charlie’s Landing a couple of times, I can only remember being away from the farm twice.
One time, my daddy took me with him to Tuckerville. To me, Tuckerville might as well have been Houston. I had never seen buildings and houses so close together. I actually thought we were in the city. We were going to the supermarket for food— which consisted of cornmeal, red beans, buttermilk, flour, vanilla ice cream, whiskey, beer, candy bars, and a few other necessities to sustain life on a farm for two drunkards and a toddler.
I liked the supermarket. Daddy put me in the baby seat of the shopping cart and pushed me around as he picked stuff off the shelves. I liked that too. I wanted to pick stuff off the shelves. So I did. I didn't know what I was grabbing, but I liked the way that stuff looked in the packages, so I would grab it off the shelf while Daddy was looking at something else, or he was talking to one of the many ladies who were also shopping. That supermarket was full of ladies doing their shopping and they all cooed at my daddy and me. Some of them knew him as Fard. And others were just shameless hussies in pursuit of the affections of an incredibly handsome man. I would see some of these ladies again as they stumbled out of my daddy's bedroom in the early morning hours while I sat on the floor in front of the TV, eating ice cream for breakfast and watching Captain Kangaroo.
I would throw all kinds of stuff into our cart and Daddy would catch most of it and put it back in a place where it did not belong. He quietly scolded me and told me not to grab things off the shelves anymore unless I wanted a whipping. I didn’t want a whipping, but I swear I thought I saw a picture of Boo on a box of dog biscuits. When Daddy turned away to grab a bottle of aspirin, I snatched the dog biscuits off the shelf and stuck them behind me. When he turned away again, I stuffed the box of dog biscuits in the back of my underpants. I was sitting on them by the time we got to the check out line.
Daddy yelled at me the entire drive back to the farm; he had traded with those people for years and I should be ashamed of myself for embarrassing him. I did feel silly when people started laughing at me as daddy lifted me out of the shopping cart. Comparatively speaking, that box of dog biscuits was about twice the size of my little ass, and my under pants did nothing to help in concealing it. The box was about flattened, so Daddy had to pay for it.
Grandpa tried to scare me by suggesting I should have to eat the dog biscuits instead of Boo. But when I gladly took one out of the box and bit into it, and liked it, and took another bite and liked it too, Grandpa and Daddy didn't know what to say. So I ran off, found Boo, and watched him eat the whole box of biscuits.
Truth be told; I hated the taste of that dog biscuit, but I wasn't going to let Grandpa know that.
Another time, Daddy took me to Clymon's with him. Daddy was shooting pool and drinking beer with Randy Bowman. I was eating a Slim Jim and sipping on a Dr.Pepper. I was bored so I wandered out the back door to do some exploring. I found other offspring of redneck farmers out there. The Willard boys were both older and bigger than I was. I don't remember exactly what they were doing, probably because Julian Willard—the oldest, biggest, meanest, and ugliest—threw a rock at me and hit me right between the eyes. I went back inside crying and bleeding.
"What the hell happened," Daddy asked as he inspected my bloody forehead.
"Dat boy hit me wif a roooooock," I sobbed as I never sobbed before.
"What boy?"
"Doze boys outsiiiiiiide." Daddy wiped the blood from my head with a bar rag. Then he took me by the hand and dragged me outside to identify the rock thrower.
I heard Randy Bowman ask Daddy, "What are you gonna do Connie? Beat up a little boy?"
"Shut the hell up!" Daddy told him as he burst through the back screen door— damn near tearing it off its hinges. The Willard boys were still playing out there. They both looked up at Daddy in horror and straight away knew they had thrown a rock at the wrong little boy.
"Which one of you little shits hit my boy with the rock?" Daddy roared at them. But they were both too scared to say anything. "Speak up, you little cowards!" They just stood there with their mouths wide open, unable to move. "Yall aint talkin'?" Daddy killed what was left in his beer bottle with one giant swallow. "Here," he said, handing me the empty beer bottle. "Go hit 'im back."
"Connie, you caint do that," Randy told him.
"The hell I caint," said Daddy.
I took that beer bottle in my hand and ran after Julian Willard, fully intent on cracking his skull wide open. Julian took off and I ran after him.
"Get 'im, boy," my daddy shouted.
The faster I'd run, Julian would just run faster. It was hopeless; I was not going to catch him. About that time, Henry Willard, the boy’s father came out the back door shouting to his boys that it was time to go. When he saw me chasing Julian around with a beer bottle he asked my daddy what was going on.
"Your boy hit my boy with a rock, so I gave my boy a bottle and told him to hit him back. You got a problem with that?"
"No," said Henry. "But you know he aint never gonna catch 'im."
"Then I'll just have to whip your ass."
"Now come on, Connie," Randy said.
"Shut up!" Daddy shouted back.
"Now that aint gonna accomplish nothin'." Henry told him. "This is just boys being boys. I'll tear his butt up later on, but if you think whippin' my ass will make you feel better, then have at it, but it sure as hell aint gonna do much to boost your popularity around here."
Daddy knew that Henry was right. If Daddy whipped Henry's ass because his boy hit me with a rock; it would only make Daddy look bad. Henry was nice man who never bothered anybody and was about twenty years older than Daddy was. Everybody liked Henry, but did not care much for his smart-ass boys. Henry was about as good a parent as my daddy. Plus, due to some kind of freak accident on his farm a few years back— which involved a tractor and a plow horse— Henry only had half a left leg, and had to walk with a crutch.
"I reckon you're right," Daddy told Henry. "It's just boys being boys."
"That's what it is," Henry said. "But I promise you, I’ll whip his ass good when we get home."
"Right," Daddy said. But I don’t think he believed old Henry. And then I heard Daddy shout at me: "Throw it, boy," just as I was about to give up because I was running out of breath— and I thought, yeah, what a good idea. So I put one final burst of energy into getting as close to Julian as I possibly could. When I thought I was close enough to get a good shot at the back of his head, I heaved that empty beer bottle at him as hard as my skinny little arm could heave it.
Daddy yelled at me the entire drive back to the farm. He had to drive with his head sticking out the window because the beer bottle I threw at Julian missed badly. The windshield in my daddy's truck was now a spider's web of cracked tempered glass.
Anyway, I lay in my daddy's bed dreading my first day of school. I figured it was inevitable that I would run into the Willard boys. I thought all the teachers would look at me and laugh, like those folks that worked in the supermarket in Tuckerville. I was scared. And when Aunt Fran came to bed and asked why I was still awake, I told her I was scared. She said it was okay to be scared. She told me that all the other little boys and girls on their first day of school would be scared too. She said that when she was a little girl she was scared of her first day of school. She told me that being scared of new things was just a part of growing up, and the way we deal with those fears determines what kind of people we become.
"The thing is," she said. "You can't be afraid of being scared... Know what I mean?"
"I think so," I whispered. And I think I really did know what she meant.
"Cause being scared isn't somethin' you feel only when you’re young. I'm scared sometimes. So is your daddy. Everybody gets scared sometimes."
"Even Grandpa?"
"Well... Yeah, even him I suppose."
"Hmm... But some people are brave."
"Yes, they are. But they were scared first."
"They were?"
"If you're afraid to go somewhere you've never been before, or be around people you don't know, or be away from people and places that make you feel safe, but you go anyway, and you try to make the best of what you think is a bad situation— that's what being brave is."
It sounded simple enough— maybe too simple. And maybe Aunt Fran’s words of encouragement were just an adult's way of conning a child into doing something he really didn't want to do, or going somewhere he didn't want to go. But at the time, I found some wisdom in what she was saying.
"So if I go to school tomorrow and make the best of a bad situation, I'll be brave and you and Daddy will be proud of me?"
"That's right, but don't worry too much about trying to make people proud of you."
"But I want yall to be proud of me."
"I know you do, sweetheart. But make yourself proud of yourself; for besides God, you have only yourself to answer to."
I was still scared, but I understood what she was trying to tell me. I knew then that I was a pretty smart kid, even if I was filthy. I could always wash the filth away. I knew I would do just fine in school, and everything was going to be okay.
I was ready.
