Thankfully, Dillard Hawkins was one of a kind. In the jargon of the day, he would have been best described as a "rounder" due to the fact that he spent most of his time drinking which generally led to some kind of foolishness which generally led to time in the crossbar hotel. Our town wouldn't have been described as anybody's Mayberry but we did have our Otis and that was Dillard Hawkins.
Most of us know that alcoholism is a hard horse to break but I think we could solve much of society's problems in this area if Dillard's wife was allowed to practice her brand of intervention. After all, fear is a great motivator.
His personal cure started about daybreak on a Sunday morning which unfortunately, was also Mrs. Hawkins' birthday. Like normal, Dillard passed out on the bed and started snoring like 500 chainsaws in a pine forest but, Nancy had finally had enough. A plan was hatched.
She very carefully pulled the sheets over him and tucked the sides under the mattress. She then retrieved a couple of his good ropes and tied him down tighter than Jack Daniel's granny. Afterward, she pulled up a chair and waited all day for him to wake up. Technically, the cure could have started immediately but a man in Dillard's state of drunkenness doesn't have a hangover yet and it's important for the subject to be at his worst when treatment begins. He wouldn't have felt anything for another six or seven hours anyway.
It was late in the afternoon when Dillard's eyes began to flutter open and by that time, Nancy was madder than a declawed cat in a bird sanctuary. I've had that "morning after" experience a few times in my life. Okay, more than that. (You just won't leave a guy alone, will you?) I can honestly tell you that Dillard's head was pounding like a bass drum in a Shriner's parade. It hurts!
Thanks to an old friend, I learned to drink such exotic concoctions as the Taiwanese Sling-Shot at an early age and after two of those, you'd drink corn syrup from a chimpanzee's armpit. It's bold. It's brash. And you could end up with hair in your teeth. Believe me...I know.
Dillard's pain combined with the normal whiskey haze slowed his thinking process to the point that it took a couple of minutes to realize that he couldn't move. But, about the time it hit him...she hit him.
He could only cock open one eye anyway but when he did, she stepped up and started beating him with an iron skillet. Needless to say, he was squalling like Osama bin Laden on a walking tour of Texas but every time he'd open his mouth to scream, she'd shove a whiskey bottle in it, fill 'er up, and beat him some more.
I could hear him all the way down the street screaming, "Hep me! Hep me!"
Every now and then, Nancy would hit something solid which produced a nice ring and before long, she had settled into a rhythm that sounded kind of like a George Strait, limbo, rap.
"Thud...thud...Hep me!...bong!"
"Thud...thud...Hep me!...bong!"
"Boom!-laka-laka-laka."
"Boom!-laka-ooka-laka."
It was so good that people in town thought it was some kind of spontaneous street dance and began flogging their way all over the town square. I even did a little jig myself. Sorry Dillard.
Later, Nancy called in for a second quart and I knew it was going to be a long night. She was getting better with practice and before long, was whipping out melodies from, "The Best of Buddy Holly" along with choruses of "Paint It Black" and "The Devil Went Down To Georgia". And it was all punctuated by, "Hep me!".
Folks in town nearly danced themselves to death before she stopped the show. Mrs. Ferguson boogied herself into total exhaustion, Mr. Stewart's hens quit laying and we found old man Henderson dancing naked on top of a '37 Chevy with a bottle of Jose Cuervo in one hand and a "green, leafy substance" in the other. Let the nightmares begin.
I know the cure sounds unconventional but, you can't argue with success. Dillard has been drier than a west Texas creek bed since that day. Of course, it probably helps that Nancy keeps the skillet hanging on a nail in the bedroom. But, he's doing very well these days and seems happy to be once again experiencing those things you can't feel when there's a whiskey cloud hanging over you.
He said he had all but forgotten the smell of bacon frying in the morning. He appreciates a good biscuit and seems to notice flowers more. And, he smiles a lot. I couldn't really tell at first but once the swelling went down, it was fairly visible. The only contraindication to the treatment I've noticed is, he's kind of skittish around loud music and bells.
After the cure was complete, my wife looked at me and grinned.
"I know what you're thinking," I said. "Just keep one thing in mind. Don't ever untie that rope."
She just smiled and winked. I haven't had a good night's sleep since.
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