The old geezer Coors drinker tell us another one from the little weird town where all is mixed up like it is in a Salvation Army holding soup potbelly.
This neighborhood could had been the one that had fascinated and forced Norman Rockwell to paint such charming pictures of rural America, mind you, he was too “clean”, never painted a “moonshine” in his landscapes, nor any a hill-Billy with his bend barrel gun looking for rabbits; America eats ‘em don’t want to see how’s done.
Willard had finished painting the back of the house and was on the far side, painting his heart out, after the encounter with mamma bear his wild turkey appetite had diminished as well as his dog Tiger (Tiger, riiiight!) now slumped on the shadow sleeping (with one eye open mind you) but almost ready to duck for any flying cat coming his direction.
Dog’s life is a bitch!
With only the cooler between me legs, the missus was away visiting my God blessed mother-in-law, back pain that don’t let her travel (God bless her not the pain, don’t misunderstand me, I love her to death, but to be philosophical, the sooner the better for that old battle ax) so, Coors it was.
Doctor said no smoking, but, no missus around to say no-no-no! and Manuel had provided me with a couple of them forbidden tobacco from Fidel, you know? the one who can’t swim and come to Miami? that’s the one!!!
Well, I sat in my back porch, right hand holding a beer bottle and what looked one of Tiger the dog brown on the grass souvenirs on the left…I was in heavens!
The orange cat was up the apple tree, its head moving up and down and from side to side, following Willard’s brush I suppose. That cat is weird.
I squinted the black cat going jut outside the tree line of the forest, not giving a glance on our direction, but I knew he had an eye somewhere on his side scouting the landscape ready to fire his rockets and disappear into the great beyond without missing a whisker.
Drinking beer and smoking a cigar while rocking your chair to and from kind of takes you back to the crib, kind of rocking the boat I guess, if not, why the babies keep on throwing up so much?
Rocking my chair I wasn’t going seasick, just getting all packed with soft cotton of pleasure, them contraband cigars were goooooood!
Then, my next-door neighbor’s son, (no Willard’s, he only produced daughters, som’thing wrong with his shooter I guess) came home after missing the noon chow call; seeing him hardly touching the ground I moved my chair to face their backyard as the high as a kite young man approached the kitchen’s backdoor, I was ready for the verbal fireworks to start with my belly loaded just in case.
I should tell you about my right side neighbor, from where I was sitting, he was, he is and he gonna be a royal pain in the ass as long as he lives.
He doesn’t allowed cats, dogs, birds and God help them door-to-door sales people or Jehovah Witness to even think to come with their filthy wares.
No that we ever saw him marching to the church, but he like to talk everybody like a born preacher that knows everybody is wrong and the good Lord told him he was right even when he was wrong.
You know the kind.
He didn’t drink or allowed it on his property, and the only alcoholic drops ever spilled in his house was when he found a bottle of aftershave made by the Devil himself belonging to his not shaving, kind of modern hippie of a son, that didn’t shave, he just loved to give his Dad that apoplectic facial tone.
The only vice Mr. Right have (is real name is Benson, like that fellow on TV, but our Benson is lily white…if he takes abath) is his corncob pipe…what he smoked I don’t know, but a whiff of air now and then will transport a strand of smoke to my nostrils…there and then I knew how Hell’s smell would be like.
He usually gives me the evil eye seeing me openly gurgling a Coors and minding my own business, usually I give ‘im a fart back if we had beans lunch.
Well that boy wasn’t walking on wood pegs, he had, when passing by, give a thumbs up in my general direction, I don’t know how many me he was seeing.
The thumbs up intrigued me until, long after things calmed down, we got to know that the naughty boy had replaced whatever his Dad put on that pipe, with some Mexican weed more strong than jalapeños and hot chili put together with black powder.
I could hear a few neighbors that didn’t have much to do in the afternoon lining up by the front fence waiting for the circus to come to town.
They didn’t have to wait for too long.
As soon as the boy went through slamming that door it must have disturbed his old man from some war reverie because he started to shout making a veritable racket of chair, tables and pots and pans bouncing around the walls.
Mrs. Benson, after saintly supporting the vagaries of her half for good many years was taken by surprise and panicked out of the front door to try refuge among the understanding shaking in disapproval of her neighbors for her predicament.
Actually, the Benson boy came very sober in a cinch and poured down from an open side window as the first shotgun shot took the screen door form the hinges and out the courtyard.
The echoes of the shot were still blasting when I was half way to the blind side of my porch dragging the cooler, no Coors deserve to be shoot, not anytime soon if they go on brew quality for selected drinkers like me.
The shot had also produces some reaction around me as well.
The orange cat up on the apple three forgot its feline elegance and felt from that tree like a rotten apple does and was gone like the shot was for him.
The sleeping dog wasn’t sleeping any more; he too was gone bulky as he was like a gray hound after the electric rabbit.
A split moment of silence and I heard Willard going down that ladder like it was on fire, and from the street the clap clap clap clap clap clap of feet trying for the 100 yards dash neighborly world record.
In a moment, the world was as silent as the OK Corral after the fireworks.
Some busy body called 911, people can’t have a little of fun.
From the far corner of the house, I wasn’t going to fart against a crazy man holding a loaded shotgun, I saw old man Benson coming out onto his back porch waiving side to side the gun like he was looking for someone or something to shot at, a enemy, a intruder, someone from another planet.
At first I took him to be drunk, but…nah! he didn’t drink, then, I thought that at last his boy had pushed him over the reason’s cliff and his marbles weren’t there anymore.
A little gust of breeze moved the big leaves of his melon patch and suddenly he saw an army of green Martians crawling towards him, startled he stopped for a second and then enraged he charged the Martian army and started to shot and shot and shot, getting his front covered with the reed gook after shooting few Martian’s heads at short range.
I heard the poh-lice patrol car approaching siren and then it’s rainbow lights hit the surroundings with psychedelic hues that gave old man Benson more reason to go berserk.
Then, there he was, the stuttering Deputy Sheriff himself holding a black torchlight long as a bad year in the left hand while the right was carefully placed over the butt of his side gun, he had heard the shots (I thing that even the Pope heard them and was ducking), and was coming cautiously between the houses to yet another domestic disturbance that he could live without.
In a shoot out with a gang you knew what to expect, 9mm, Uzi’s, dum-dum bullets and Molotov cocktails.
But a domestic inoffensive brawl provoked by a cold soup or not so hot chili con carne, could escalate to a full metal jacket confrontation and you get hurt.
Deputy stuttering Sheriff didn’t like to be hurt.
“Sir!…Sir!!!” he said to Benson in a voice he thought was authoritative but sounded like he was ready to throw up, “ popolice! ppput ththe gun dddown…now!” thanks even he didn’t a TV one screaming freeze! against a man pointing with at you with a long mean looking tunnel.
Benson, with squinting eyes, tried to locate the source of the talker, he hadn’t heard but someone on his rear shouting, if the damn green men thought they had him surrounded they could think again, because he was faster than Jesse James and turning around nearly keeling over he pointed at the new comer attacker making sure that his flanks were free of those little crawling men.
Despite the unstable gun, he couldn’t possible miss, but first he need to find the sucker with eyes that refused to focus and gave him a few superimposed images of everything, he didn’t knew that he was pointing directly to the guts of a policeman that didn’t like to be hurt.
Suddenly there came a roar, “ police!!! put your gun down or I blow your head off” the stuttering cop wasn’t stuttering no more as he was talking what he thought was the inside of a tunnel, the only thing wrong with the picture was that he was pointing Benson with his torchlight.
At last, the old man found his target, the world stopped for a few thousand years until the metallic click of the shotgun told the silence that Benson had pulled the trigger on an empty chamber.
To the Deputy Sheriff the click most have sounded like Armageddon because he too pulled the trigger of his torchlight and the world went dark in front of him, he was shot! he was shot! but it didn’t hurt, he felt warm going down his legs and thought of blood, “how much one can bleed before getting in serious trouble?” but he wasn’t bleeding, just his bladder giving up.
Old man Benson was jumping up and down like he won some battle, then stopped and smiling idiotically went falling backward stiff as a slab over the debris of his beloved melons with the pipe still clenched in his mouth.
From somewhere a scared dog howled a long protest, like a coyote jumping on a cactus instead of a lam.
I don’t know why all of it makes me think about bouncing weed.
wonderul tale Georg...got me all humored up...like I might be lined up on the fence waiting for the circus...but I might have missed it...because it is right here in front of me.
excellent...
John
Reviewed by Annette Hendrix Williams
9/21/2007
A very loud and long burst of LOL, followed by some more loud, long LOL bursts and repeated indefinitely long, loud LOL bursts. (Indefinitely means we do not know how long and loud this is going to be.) Continued indefinitely until the indefinite continuation finally finds a place to stop from exhaustion. Thank you. You have brightened my day. You also made my day.
Deputy Dave Jenkins sets out to find the murderer of the local high school principal, aided by a voice from the grave that is sometimes helpful and sometimes misleading.
"Murder isn't usually this funny."
Amazon reviewer
This neighborhood could had been the one that had fascinated and forced Norman Rockwell to paint such charming pictures of rural America, mind you, he was too “clean”, never painted a “moonshine” in his landscapes, nor any a hill-Billy with his bend barrel gun looking for rabbits; America eats ‘em don’t want to see how’s done.
