Sweet Jesus
I don't know what I ever did to Bernadette to deserve that. We're heading out to Saxapaw a little later on, and I was taking a little nap, I don't know, just feeling a little wore out from the grunting and sweating or maybe that tick bite is infected and I gots the Fence Post fever, I really don't know, but I was tired enough for a nap and she comes in and says there's a green truck out there, oh hell maybe I wasn't completely asleep because why would she talk to me if I were, damn I wish I had a been though and the door knocks and I know one thing, I'm too sleepy to think straight, just ignore the knocking I might have said more clear headed, but she's out there answering it, I hear my name drawled out like a warm bit of tobacco juice dripping down a man's chin, and she comes back all sheepish like she just turned me into the law, oh I wish she had, you remember that Bernadette, you turn me into the law but don't answer that knocking in Fence Post. Jim he says, you remember me? I really don't so I just say it, I mean I must of just blocked it out because this guy is married to one of the Claypool women I guess, lives two houses down he says, they almost all Claypools in some fashion out here, it's coming back to me now, he tells me I told him last time--I just woke up from a nap remember--that I said he was trying to tell me what was wrong with my life and I said I'm not sure I would have said that, and then I go, oh you mean 14 years ago? He says has it been that long and I say yep, he gives me a piece of paper and says read the back and hand written are the words "does Sweet Jesus live here?" and I have to be completely honest, I really don't know, well this is all an invite to join his church just around the corner there, ain't gonna be no passing of the plate he assures me, does this guy have 14 year old notes on me? because I might have accused him of being a plate passer, I can see myself saying that but he just goes on and on all syrupy like and I'm trying to maintain eye contact, just trying to be polite...his shirt is too crisp and that after-shave is too strong and I got to get to Saxapaw. We're heading out now.
...more recent posts
Mowing Day
The moon waxes fatter and fatter in Fence Post as burning days pass and the debris of Randy Renter continues to float up to the surface after every rain.
Johnny Woodman brought his Bobcat and blow torch over while I was gone and has started taking apart the last three vehicles--two truck beds and a front half of a small truck--and loading the metal onto his trailer for redemption at the nearby scrap metal place. I ask him if he was making out well enough to make it worth his effort and he said he is getting about 200 dollars for every load. He's been for the last couple of weeks trying to pass a small rough edged pebble through the soft tender insides of his urinary tract so his side work project of helping me clean this place up has suffered some from that.
The over the counter pain killers aren't doing much and my left caliper and lower ball joint are causing me some discomfort but I only mention that in passing so that I can say I would never mention it to a man with a kidney stone.
I did not desire to travel with a box of shit this time so the cat is coming and going through the hole in the floor and is so far apparently taking care of her business outdoors.
It rained here while I was gone so the neighbors' grass, which was brown when I left, has turned green and now while I sit here the sound of their mowing and weed-eating reminds me of the guilty pleasure I would feel sitting inside here while they mowed and weed-eated 14 years ago.
Bernadette is here, has set up a North Carolina office, and is using the bathroom door set atop two saw horses as her desk. Danny Claypool has appeared for the first time this visit and is this minute stirring up dust running his tractor with mower attachment over the few blades of grass in my mostly dirt yard. Pebbles ping the glass of Bernadette's corner office. He has only shorts covering his sun burned body and is wearing wrap around mirror shades. His bearded face is so sun burned it would be hard to tell if he had an alcohol flush. He did this mowing the first time I was here as what I thought was a one time favor and him doing it now is part of a play that if accurately written would be mostly pitiful and half the audience would leave at the intermission. Danny, a three time losing drunk driver with revoked license goes to jail just before the intermission for driving his golf cart on the highway.
I don't like going out on the property during mowing day, I don't know why, I just never have.
The moon waxes fatter and fatter in Fence Post as burning days pass and the debris of Randy Renter continues to float up to the surface after every rain.
Johnny Woodman brought his Bobcat and blow torch over while I was gone and has started taking apart the last three vehicles--two truck beds and a front half of a small truck--and loading the metal onto his trailer for redemption at the nearby scrap metal place. I ask him if he was making out well enough to make it worth his effort and he said he is getting about 200 dollars for every load. He's been for the last couple of weeks trying to pass a small rough edged pebble through the soft tender insides of his urinary tract so his side work project of helping me clean this place up has suffered some from that.
The over the counter pain killers aren't doing much and my left caliper and lower ball joint are causing me some discomfort but I only mention that in passing so that I can say I would never mention it to a man with a kidney stone.
I did not desire to travel with a box of shit this time so the cat is coming and going through the hole in the floor and is so far apparently taking care of her business outdoors.
It rained here while I was gone so the neighbors' grass, which was brown when I left, has turned green and now while I sit here the sound of their mowing and weed-eating reminds me of the guilty pleasure I would feel sitting inside here while they mowed and weed-eated 14 years ago.
Bernadette is here, has set up a North Carolina office, and is using the bathroom door set atop two saw horses as her desk. Danny Claypool has appeared for the first time this visit and is this minute stirring up dust running his tractor with mower attachment over the few blades of grass in my mostly dirt yard. Pebbles ping the glass of Bernadette's corner office. He has only shorts covering his sun burned body and is wearing wrap around mirror shades. His bearded face is so sun burned it would be hard to tell if he had an alcohol flush. He did this mowing the first time I was here as what I thought was a one time favor and him doing it now is part of a play that if accurately written would be mostly pitiful and half the audience would leave at the intermission. Danny, a three time losing drunk driver with revoked license goes to jail just before the intermission for driving his golf cart on the highway.
I don't like going out on the property during mowing day, I don't know why, I just never have.