Chapter 3
 

Our plane eased down on the scorched runway of the Nevada desert. Once we entered the terminal, we were quickly introduced to what Las Vegas is all about. The walls were lined with gambling machines. Most tourists were there with dreams of winning big, but our reason was different—it was the most inexpensive flight destination from which to begin our journey. From an early age, I had been sufficiently instructed about the sin of gambling, so I wasn’t tempted in the least to give a quick pull to any of the one-arm bandits. We claimed our luggage and picked up a rental car then headed for the Strip—the main street in downtown Las Vegas—to find the Treasure Island Hotel. It was flamingo pink, so we had no trouble spotting it several blocks away.
 

We checked in then ventured out in the afternoon heat for a late lunch. Afterwards, we snail paced around the city in our air-conditioned van, staying mostly on the Strip. I chauffeured carefully, snaking through swarms of people flooding the streets in one-hundred-degree temperatures. They appeared oblivious to the heat—like they had perfectly good sense being out in it.
 

Soon after darkness set it, we said good night to the twinkling city and its show of lights. As I prepared for bed, I began thinking how different Las Vegas is from what I expected. I’m certain decadence can be found within every square block, but on the surface, it’s a playground Mecca for the entire family—something for everyone to escape the harsh realities of life.
 

As I lay in bed, contemplating the extravagance of entertainment by today’s standards, I began thinking how Las Vegas is light years from the colorless life I had on Bowen Creek in the 1940s and ’50s. After fixing my eyes on the dim reflections in the mirrored wall of our room, I drifted into slumber on a river of memories, with dreams of my childhood and the fun we had in our backward way of living.
 

Blessed are the meek: for they shall
 

inherit the earth.
 

(Matthew 5:5)
 

Being the youngest of six kids, it’s difficult to remember the details of life with my brothers and sisters, especially my earlier years. Margaret, the first to leave the safety of our home, was only fifteen when she accepted Truman Sansom’s marriage proposal. I was five—too young to remember much about it. I recall Mother telling various people over the years that she tanned Margaret’s hide not long before she and Truman got married. Once, I asked Mother, "Why’d you let Margaret marry so young?"
 

"Well, she told me if I didn’t, she’d run away and do it anyway."
 

I said, "But Mother, all ye needed to do was tell her she wasn’t gettin’ married, and that would’ve been the end of it. What could she have done? She was only fifteen."
 

Mother answered, "Maybe I could’ve put a stop to it, but that was five kids ago."
 

Then, a year after Margaret left home, Pat married Clovis Hatfield. He took her up the hollow and across the hill on Madison Creek to live with his mother and daddy, Shem and Ida. It always saddened me that I didn’t have more home time with Margaret and Pat. Five and six years weren’t nearly enough. But so is life. Marriage sneaks in and eats at a family until one day they’re all gone.
 

On May 15, 1950, Margaret and Truman were blessed with a bouncing baby boy, Roger Allen, making me Uncle David at the ripe old age of six. They’d spent Sunday night at our house, and Roger was born the next day. Margaret got out of bed that morning and went to the kitchen. Mother was up, fixing Daddy’s breakfast while he slopped the hogs and got ready for work. Margaret said, "Mother, something’s wrong. I’m all wet."
 

Mother glanced at the water streaming down Margaret’s legs then looked directly at her, saying, "Well, Honey, yer water’s broke." Until then there hadn’t been any labor pains, so Margaret went back to the bedroom. She wandered over to the dresser and leaned against it a couple of minutes, pulling a brush through her thick, brown hair. Suddenly, the first contraction struck, nearly dropping Margaret to her knees. Daddy witnessed this initial pain and yelled, "You all’d better get this girl to Doc McClellan’s! She’s gonna have that baby!"
 

Margaret, Truman, and Mother readied themselves quickly to leave for the six-mile drive to the doctor. To complicate matters more, Truman’s truck got stuck in a deep rut in front of the house. With Daddy’s help, though, they soon dislodged it, enabling the three to hustle along to West Hamlin. There was no need for such hurrying, though. Roger didn’t arrive until two hours after they got to Dr. McClellan’s office.
 

Later that day, an ambulance transported Margaret back to Bowen Creek for recovery. Now I had the half-wit I’d waited for so long. Mother coddled my sister and spoiled Roger for the next couple of weeks. Margaret had lain in bed nine days, then on the tenth, Mother cautioned her to lie extra still so her bones could move back in place. Poor Margaret’s bones had to readjust themselves four times after that because she had five kids by the time she was twenty-three.
 

Before Margaret and Pat moved out, I remember them both amusing themselves periodically at my expense. Their methods of entertainment, however, bordered on child abuse by today’s standards. Each summer we could hear the road grader in the distance, bumping its way down Bowen Creek, scraping its silvery blade over the rocky and sun-baked road in front of our house. Margaret knew how to get me riled in a flash. She’d grab an eight-pound lard bucket from where she had it hidden and dangle it in front of my face two or three times. Then, she would sashay out of the house and slam the screened door behind her. Next, she’d tromp to the center of the road and set the bucket down with its bottom side up. Finally, she would plop herself on the bucket and yell above the noise, "Come and look, David! I’m gonna let the grader run over me!" Well, I’d go wild—wouldn’t know what to do. I’d bob up and down in place, panic-stricken and screaming my lungs out. I clearly envisioned Margaret being rolled repeatedly in front of the blade, mutilated beyond recognition. I’d think the driver wouldn’t be able to see her, positioned high in his seat, his eyes transfixed and surveying beyond the blade at the miles of road surface he had to smooth before his shift ended. Oh, why was I ever born?

I usually got her back for the mean things she did, though. One way was to tease her about a boy who lived a short distance up the road. Hardly a day went by without one of us saying, "Doyle Bias, Doyle Bias."
 

To this she’d retort, "Eat a peck o’ rice. Eat a peck o’ rice."
 

Pat was no different from Margaret with her relentless tormenting. She was an expert at doing the disappearing act, always hiding from me while Mother was off with her gang of four—hoeing corn, beans, tobacco, or whatever else that needed the weeds whacked out of it. Once, Pat hid inside a fodder shock behind the house, and I couldn’t find her for what seemed like a week. That’s how long three minutes can feel to an innocent five-year-old.
 

On the other hand, Pat could be a lot of fun. She found the best places to hide me from Philip or vice versa. She became a master at finding these hideouts inside our house—unsuspecting spots like the old Victrola cabinet Mother used for storing pots and pans. Sometimes she’d curve us around the aluminum agitator of Mother’s wringer washer then slam the lid shut, sealing us inside. We’d nearly suffocate in that dark, little prison, sweating and waiting with pounding hearts to be found. Pat may not remember doing this, but how could an impressionable youngster ever forget so much fun?
 

Kenneth thought he was heir to the throne when Mother and Daddy were away. Before taking off for work one morning, Daddy gave instructions for the weeds to be hoed out of the patch of corn on the hillside. Kenneth, Nila Jean, and Philip were to do all the work. I was too young to participate and thankful to be a mindless observer. My task was simple—find something to occupy myself and stay out of everyone else’s way so they could get the job done in the shortest time possible. Still, I was bored from having nothing to do except piddle the day away. The jelly biscuits I’d brought with me—more for entertainment than nourishment—had long since been eaten. The blackberry jelly had seeped into the biscuits, turning them an unappetizing, blue-gray color. But, I shoved them down anyway, in spite of how they looked. July’s sun was straight overhead, and beads of sweat began to dot my body. It meandered down my legs to mix with the dust on my feet like splatters of rain on a dry streambed. Sweat bees joined forces to do their dirty work—nibbling at the tender and naked bend at the back of my legs, tormenting me without mercy. No relief was in sight, so I cried out in pain, begging to go to the house. Kenneth tolerated my tormented squalling for a while, but when he’d heard enough caterwauling, he offered something worse than a sweat bee’s bite to howl about. He broke a switch from a young willow tree, making me wish I’d tolerated the sweat bees in silence. When I related my sad tale to Mother, her statement was profound—"Sweat bees just bite lazy people." Now, that made me feel really good inside.
 

Kenneth joined the navy when I was eleven. It was in the fall, a usually sad time of year for me, but even sadder after Kenneth left. He’d quit school at sixteen and had gone to work at the shoe factory in Huntington. He worked for a while then decided he wanted to see what life was like in other parts of the world. I thought we’d have to bury Mother when Kenneth left for boot camp in Great Lakes, Illinois. Her display of emotion when he left for basic training, however, was mild compared to the scene a few days later. Once he arrived in Great Lakes, they mailed all his personal belongings back home. The day our mail carrier delivered the package, Mother hugged Kenneth’s shoes to her bosom and cried, "It couldn’t hurt any worse if they’d carried his casket in." Seeing her cry like that over something so ordinary as my brother’s stinking shoes was heartbreaking. It was almost as bad, though, when Kenneth came home on leave the first time. Mother cried a river of tears, but that was different. This time they streamed down her face from joy. We all were happy to see him. It’d been four long months. We overflowed with excitement and sat up late his first night home, listening to him relate story after story about his experiences at boot camp. It was good having him back home, even if it were only for a short while. Reuniting a family can do more to warm the heart than anything I know.
 

Before quitting his job and joining the navy, Kenneth managed his money well enough to buy our family its first television—a Majestic floor model with a solid wood cabinet. He surprised us with it after work one Friday, and we sat in front of it—spellbound—until it signed off late that night. We woke early the next morning and turned it on as soon as our feet hit the floor, but nothing happened. Not even its tiniest tube beamed a trace of hope. The entire household was devastated over this new family member being snuffed out so soon. But Daddy was quick to respond. He hoisted this ailing body of tubes and wires into the trunk of his Chevy, secured it with a rope, and hauled it to a technician in West Hamlin. Of course, Daddy had put a few scratches on it, but it was repaired and back home the following Saturday. We warmed it up just in time to hear Tonto say to the Lone Ranger, "Me not know, Kimo Sabe." Once again, we sat mesmerized all the way through wrestling late that night. I watched from Mother’s lap, got mad at one of the wrestlers, then threw my gum and hit the TV. Mother said, "I want ye to quit actin’ like that." But, I wasn’t acting. I fully intended to hurt the guy pummeling my idol, Don Eagle, in the face. Before long, I fell asleep on Mother’s lap, missing the movie at eleven-thirty. Not being one who could function in a semi-conscious state, I had to be helped to bed like some doddering old man.
 

Nila Jean did her share of setting me off, too. It was common for us to take turns riding bicycles on the dirt road in front of our house. We made a circle from the top of the hill, down to a spot called the mud holes, then back. Since these were actually potholes that turned muddy when it rained, we called them mud holes. It didn’t matter if our days on Bowen Creek were as dry as the Sahara Desert or flooded like the Amazon River, they were always mud holes to us.
 

One day, I was at the top of the hill on my bicycle, and Nila Jean was there, ready for her turn on Kenneth’s, since she didn’t have a bike of her own to ride. I’d gotten off to tie my shoelace that was dangling near the sprocket chain. When I bent over, I caught a glimpse of Nila Jean through my spread legs, barreling down the road fifty feet behind me. Suddenly, she lost control, shot over the steep embankment, then tumbled into a thicket before jolting to a stop. I had immediate images of Nila Jean in a white coffin, being lowered into a six-foot hole and then a mound of fresh dirt rising above the ground, covered with gladioluses, mums, and other fresh-smelling interment flowers. I knew in my heart she’d been killed at the scene and would later be officially pronounced DOA in the emergency room. But I was wrong. Somehow, she caught hold of the surrounding sumac bushes and ironweeds, pulling herself up to the roadside. She’d sustained a six-inch gash on her right side but was hee-hawing her head off. From the way she was howling, I thought she had a head injury, too. Instead, Nila Jean’s hysteria was caused by my display of grief following her—what I thought was a fatal—accident. Some people have a perverted sense of humor.
 

Getting injured during the bike incident served her right, though. Once, she caused me unnecessary pain when she placed me on top of a boulder behind the chicken house, ordering me to jump. Instead of catching me like she said, I thumped the ground and whacked the back of my head against a sharp rock, puncturing the skin. I still wear the scar to prove it happened, but only my word bears witness about how it occurred.
 

My greatest tormenter of all, however, was Philip. Sometimes God places burdens on us for extended periods and for unknown reasons. I know He works in mysterious ways, but did he have to give me Philip for a brother? He was a first-class tormenter—the type that works and gnaws its way right through your skin—burrowing deeper day by day. Good slaves must forever be within hearing distance of their masters, so I remained in close proximity to Philip. "Warm me up a can of chicken noodle soup. Shine my shoes. Iron me a pair of pants." All Philip had to do was issue commands, and I jumped. When, or if, he wanted a Snowball cake from Emmit and Lessie’s store, he’d say, "David, go down to the store and get me a Snowball cake," and I was off like a shot. To beat it all, he hated coconut! I only refused this order twice, though. The first time he tossed it out and I resisted, he put a butcher’s knife to my throat and growled through clenched teeth, "Are ye gonna go to the store and git me a Snowball cake?" Now, how could I turn down a request like that? The next time I rebelled, he took Daddy’s single-shot rifle, put a shell in it, then barked, "If ye don’t go to the store and git me a Snowball cake, I’m gonna shoot myself." I should’ve said, "Go ahead an’ shoot yerself, smart-aleck, an’ see if I care one bit," but I was too much of a chicken. I was convinced he’d do what he said, and I didn’t want to shoulder the burden of causing a suicide for the rest of my life. Several years later I discovered there was no firing mechanism in the gun. The only way that rifle could’ve killed anyone was if they were whacked over their head repeatedly with the butt end of it. I was so stupid!

Both of us had to milk a cow each morning before school. I pitied myself on winter mornings before daylight, having to crawl out of a warm bed to go milk an old cow—one that didn’t give a moo if I lived or died. I liked drinking milk as well as the next person, but I didn’t want to suffer child abuse to get it. Of course, back then we didn’t know anything about that kind of harm toward kids. I’d lean my sleepy head against the cow’s flanks as I milked, warm myself by the heat radiating from her body, and many times nearly doze off in that manure-laden stall. Then, in the evening we’d plod up the hill to herd the cows to the barn for milking again. One evening Philip chased both cows around the hillside from where they’d been grazing in the meadow. My job was to head them through the gap and down the hollow. But how was I to reroute stampeding cattle—ones headstrong and not intending to let it happen? I was helpless to stop either of them. They rumbled past me like thundering buffalos. Philip didn’t like it, to say the least, and to show his displeasure, he picked up a sharp rock, hurling it in my direction. It caught me on the left elbow, peeling back the skin with precision, as if he’d used a surgeon’s scalpel. Now, I had him! The instant he saw what he’d done, he came running toward me, the fingers of both hands intertwined—in a semi-prayer position—begging me, "Please, please, please, don’t tell Mother." His humility was nauseating. If I remember it right, he even promised to let me win the next time we had a boxing match in the barn. We’d made a ring out of sea grass string and tobacco sticks and had it all professional looking. Anyway, when we got to the house and Mother asked what happened, I told her, "I fell an’ scraped my elbow on a sharp rock." I have no idea how those words jumped off the tip of my tongue so easily, but I blew my chance to prance around with Philip wrapped around my little finger for the next couple of weeks. He didn’t let me win the next time we put on the boxing gloves either. This is a perfect example of why they never inducted me into any of the programs for the gifted. I did live to see him get his comeuppance, though. The next time he climbed in the barn loft to throw hay down for the cows, he came down with it, straddling the manger that waited below. Justice was momentarily served.
 

All of us were resourceful in our ability to thwart boredom. Actually, we were poor but unaware of the backward life we were living on Bowen Creek. Everything we needed for sustenance was provided—food, clothing, shelter, water, air to breathe, and, above all, parents who’d stick by us through good times or bad. We found fun in virtually everything. A stick with a string became a horse with a fine leather bridle. Lard bucket lids were steering wheels for our imaginary automobiles, with the hum of our voices powering their finely tuned engines. We stomped on oil cans at Emmit and Lessie’s store, causing them to curl around the soles of our brogan shoes, enabling us to head for home clomping like horses each step of the way. The unchlorinated creek was the community pool, and our barn loft was perfect for setting up housekeeping. A large, flat rock slanted on the hillside below our house served as a makeshift chalkboard, with a smaller rock serving as a writing tool. Grapevines turned us into Tarzan and became our chief means of transportation across the deepest gorges. Rocks sent tumbling from the top of a hill to its bottom were bombs of war. Climbing on the horse’s back made us think like cowboys, while a hulled-out acorn with a hollow stickweed made the perfect pipe for smoking corn silks—something we puffed instead of burley tobacco—as we rode the trails. We rolled cigarettes from torn pieces of brown grocery bags, using a weed we called life everlasting to serve the same purpose as Bugler and Prince Albert tobacco did for grownups. Swaying young trees were our best mode of transportation from hilltops to valley floors. Two saplings sawed to identical sizes were good enough for stilts to help us get a better view of our world, and the list goes on.
 

In the evenings we played outside until almost dark or even after, sometimes. I never hear of kids playing red rover, cheese box, hide-and-seek—something we called hoopey-hide—or tag anymore. And, too, it was much more fun playing these games with Mother and Daddy sitting on the porch, watching. That gave me a feeling of warmth and security. Once Mother said it was time to stop, we’d take her biggest galvanized washtub to the toilet, fill it, and bathe in water warmed only by the heat of summer. After dark, Daddy usually went to the creek behind our house to wash off. Mother was more private, though. She must’ve taken care of herself after everyone else turned in for the night. I don’t know when my mother ever rested.
 

Dropping off to sleep was difficult during the hottest months. We’d never even heard about air-conditioning nor did we own electric fans to cool our hot bodies. My legs ached and kept me awake from all the playing we did during the daylight hours. The only thing to cool us at all was the gentle breeze that sifted through the narrow screens in the windows—that is, if conditions were right for a breeze to stir at all. If the night were uncommonly oppressive, Daddy sometimes slept in the yard on a quilt. One night I slept with him. I didn’t know enough to be afraid of snakes or anything else that might crawl over me during the night. Besides, Daddy was there, serving as my personal bodyguard. So, I snoozed the night away in safety. Daddy got up the next morning and left for work, leaving me asleep in the yard. Hours after he’d deserted me, I was awakened by the midmorning sun boiling down. Andrew Ross from Madison Creek moseyed down the road yelling, "Git up from there, ye lazy hound pup, you!" He was old even then—but lived to be in his mid-nineties—so I thought I had to do as ordered. I jumped up and darted inside the house to my zone of safety. His tone sounded biting to this lazy hound pup.
 

Philip and I had our own private construction site underneath the house. We mixed some of Daddy’s cement with creek sand and water then poured a curved, eight-inch road on which to drive our toy cars and trucks. After the highway hardened, we sneaked out some of Daddy’s yellow paint and drew a no-passing stripe down the middle, like the one on State Route 10 in Salt Rock. We dredged rectangular ponds here and there to make the drive along the road more interesting than it would’ve been without them. Bucket after bucket of water was drawn from the well in our yard to fill these reservoirs, but it repeatedly vanished into the thirsty earth. I sometimes wonder if our miniature highways still exist. Three thousand years from now some archaeologist may uncover—what they think might be—the remains of an ancient civilization of Lilliputian people, who existed on a small plot of land, at a place called Bowen Creek. They may even unearth tools and other artifacts these ancients used because people uncover things all the time throughout the world. Anyone subscribing to National Geographic knows this to be a fact.
 

Daddy cared whether or not we had things to play with. One day he decided to make us a wagon—one small enough to pull but big enough for several to ride in. Actually, two or three could get in, depending on their size, but it was usually a tight squeeze. One late afternoon in July, Philip and I threw the harness across Old Nancy, our horse, fastened the harness traces to each end of the singletree, hooked the tongue of the wagon to the singletree, then took off clippity-clopping down the road to Emmit and Lessie’s store. We were having a high old time and minding our own business. Suddenly, Earl Nida, our neighbor, spoke in a sharp tone, "Now, you boys’d better put that ol’ wagon away. You know Jack wouldn’t want the two o’ ye out in the road with the horse hooked up to that thang." For some reason, Earl thought he needed to be our overseer while Mother and Daddy were away from the homestead, and we thought we had to do what he said, so we made a U-turn and headed back to the barn where we unhooked and unharnessed Old Nancy. When we turned her out to pasture, she prissed off to nibble grass the rest of the day, unaware of how things turned out in her favor. We didn’t like it one bit—Earl sticking his nose in our business, but we were afraid not to do what he said.
 

Some of our cousins spent a lot of time with us during the summer. Faith came down from Columbus almost every year and enjoyed riding Old Nancy more than anything. I went up to the meadow one day, caught hold of Old Nancy’s mane and bridled her, then brought her down to the gap near the barn. Next, I turned her, making her parallel with the bars of the gap. Faith climbed to the second bar and grabbed hold of the bridle reins, threw her right leg across Old Nancy’s back, and took off. As she rode, she’d yank the bridle with her right hand and say, "Gee-gas." Then she’d give another jerk with her left, saying, "Haw-gas." Since haw-gas sounded like hog-ass, we got tickled, and it was a long time before we could quit laughing.
 

During another one of Faith’s visits, we were in the house one day, engaged in senseless chitchat. She was playing around with rhyming words and said, "Elvis the pelvis." This was even before Elvis Presley had become part of our vocabulary.
 

I shot back with a rhyme of my own—"Enos, the penis"—and naive about having said something improper.
 

Mother yelled from another room, "I want ye to hush that kind o’ talk right now!"
 

Since I’d never heard about a penis, how was I to know I’d said something wrong? Mother always called that part of a male’s anatomy, a tommy. So, in my opinion, penis was a word I’d made up and poetic in tone when following Enos. If I’d blurted out, "Mommy, the tommy," perhaps I could’ve understood Mother being startled with such vulgarity. As it turned out, though, I was confused and embarrassed in the presence of my cousin. Maybe there’s a lesson to be realized: Parents should never avoid using correct terminology with their children. Therefore, misunderstandings of this nature may be averted. Lesson learned.
 

There was a time, however, when most parents said nothing out of place in the presence of children. Adults had respect for kids back then, something lacking in today’s society. If a child came within earshot of talk considered improper for juvenile ears, someone might say, "Shh…there’s a kid. They’ll hear what yer sayin’." Now, kids hear anything and everything from adults, movies, television, books, and computers. They hear it all. Many are free at any age to hear, see, and sometimes do whatever they wish. It’s not anything I agree with, but that’s the way things are.
 

Even when television was in its infancy, soap operas were popular, and everybody had their favorite. Some adamantly denied watching them, though. Often the women on Bowen Creek talked about their husbands watching the soaps, and the men would retort, "Now, I don’t do no such a-thang." Then, the minute he’d leave the room or get out of hearing distance, his wife would giggle and say, "Why, he watches them thangs ever chance he gits." As for me, I tuned in to anything that showed on the screen. It could be anything from The Lone Ranger to Love of Life, Pinky Lee, or Meet the Press. Television was television in my opinion. One day I was standing in front of the boob tube ironing towels washcloths, and other items. There, televised live, they started gossiping about one of the characters being—well, I’ll go ahead and say it—pregnant. I’m here as proof that the word pregnant got the attention of this eleven-year-old in a hurry. Mother caught the term as she passed by and snapped, "I want ye to turn that thing off right now!"
 

Before I could think, the words, "Good night, Mother, I’m not gonna do it," spurted off my tongue and through my lips. WHACK! Mother left the print of her right hand on the left side of my face. I scrambled to turn it off and without a word, too. I learned right away the importance of keeping my mouth shut and not listening to such talk with Mother in the house. I think another important issue here is: Why was there a need to iron towels and washcloths, sheets and pillowcases, and underwear in the first place, when nobody except us ever saw them?
 

Life was good on Bowen Creek, but eventually my brothers and sisters left home, sometimes with little warning. Each was swallowed up—into separate lives of their own—by marriage. Kenneth was still in the navy when he turned traitor and married Donna Dawkins, a city girl from Huntington. I was fortunate, though. As it turned out, Donna was more like a sister than a sister-in-law. I’d get mad and pout and make up with her just the same as I did with my own flesh and blood. We’d sit up until all hours of the night and talk, make pizzas, and accomplish nothing. In fact, the first time I heard of pizza was from Donna. She called it pizza pie. I thought she was crazy. Whoever heard of pie made with meat and tomato sauce? It was amazing how fast Donna could wring information out of me. I’d spill my guts, and then get mad at myself because I let it happen. She certainly missed her calling when she didn’t go into psychiatry.
 

One month after Kenneth and Donna were married, Nila Jean married Bub Beckett—the second Beckett boy out of seven—from Smith Creek. His real name was Darrell Ray, but everyone called him Bub. None was better to me than he was. I think Bub would’ve let me stay with them on a permanent basis if I’d wanted to. He entrusted me with his wedding ring while he was fishing one day—wanted me to hang onto it for fear he’d lose it. Bad mistake. I lost it in the very pond where he fished. I believe it upset me more than it did him. Once, I heard him tell somebody I was a smart cookie. It was an instant ego booster because he didn’t know I was listening. I never did forget that he said it either. Bub called Nila Jean Sam but died without my ever knowing the reason. I liked the fact that he did, though. Maybe it was something personal between the two of them, sparking one of those nicknames that gets started and sticks forever. I don’t know. Sometime I’ll ask Nila Jean. She may not know herself, but there’s no harm in asking.
 

At eighteen, Philip married Fonda Ervin, a sixteen-year-old, from Hale’s Branch. Philip once said, "Nobody—and I mean nobody—will ever take the place of my coon dogs," but a short time after he met Fonda, Old Mike and Fury, his two ugly hounds, were nothing but a memory. He had a sudden interest in keeping Daddy’s ’55 Chevy spotless, but I continued polishing his shoes, ironing his clothes, and warming up his cans of noodle soup until the two of them tied the knot. No one was happier than I with the news of his impending nuptials. I was ready to turn Philip and all his high maintenance over to his new bride. I’d butlered for him long enough. He was hardly out the door, though, before I started missing him. My newfound freedom wasn’t anything like I’d anticipated.
 

Time passed, though, and I grew accustomed to life at home without my siblings to torment, discipline, and order me around. I wondered: Will I ever be on the same level with them—no longer viewed as their half-witted, baby brother? Will I actually possess the ability to converse with them as equals? If so, then my trial-filled journey toward this destination will be worth it all.