Shame on It All

by Zane

  “Troy, you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing. Do you?” Chester asked, walking toward him.

  “No, sir,” he readily admitted.

  “Give me that.” Chester yanked the rifle and ammunition away from him “With your fingers trembling like that, you’ll never get the damn thing loaded.” Chester loaded the rifle and startled Troy when he swung it upward, directly in line with Troy’s chest. “So, what exactly are your intentions with my daughter.”

  “I—uh, what do you mean, sir?” Troy stuttered, taking two steps back.

  Chester lowered the rifle and guffawed. He looked from Troy to Robbie and back again. “For supposedly successful men, you two sure do a lot of stuttering.”

  “I just don’t know what you mean, sir. Plus, I thought you were pointing that thing at me,” Troy replied, realizing that Bryce’s father was trying to test his manhood.

  “I thought I saw a raccoon.” Chester lied. He hadn’t seen a damn thing but underbrush. “I mean, are you planning on marrying Bryce or just continue dipping your fingers in the treat jar for free?”

  “I’d like to marry Bryce. I do love her, sir.”

  “You do?” Chester asked suspiciously.

  “Yes, and she loves me.”

  “Are you responsible for her getting rid of that ugly-ass hair weave?”

  “Not directly, but…”

  “But what?”

  “She did get rid of it shortly after we met.”

  Chester grinned. “Then I want to shake your hand.” He almost tore Troy’s hand off his body. “Whatever you do, don’t let her put that shit back on her head ever, ever again.”

  “Yes, sir.” Troy, flexed his wrist back and forth to try to regain some feeling in his hand.

  Chester walked back over to Robbie. “You go to medical school with Lucky?”

  Robbie jumped up off the rock and stood up straight, determined to face him man to man after witnessing what Chester had just pulled with Troy. “Yes, sir.”

  “What kind of doctor are you going to be?”

  “A cardiologist.”

  “Fixing hearts, huh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I hope you don’t intend on breaking any hearts along the way. Namely, Malcolmenia X’s.”

  “No, not at all, sir,” Robbie replied loudly as if he were in the Marines.

  “Gonna marry her?”

  “When the time is right, sir. I feel like Lucky and I need to finish school first and get settled into our careers before we consider that type of commitment. When I do it, I want to do it right.”

  “Good answer.” Chester was impressed and wanted Robbie to know it so he repeated, “Damn good answer.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Chester stood there debating about which of them he could bother next with more questions when he heard something in the distance. “Shh! I think I hear something.”

  “I don’t hear anything,” Troy said.

  “Be quiet, dammit!” Chester whispered angrily, pointing to their right. “Look, over there.”

  “Is it a deer?” Robbie asked, not seeing what he was talking about but anxious to finally be doing some hunting.

  “If it is, it’s a big one. It must be an elk,” Zachary commented, seeing a shadow but not the actual animal.

  “I have one question for you boys,” Chester said coolly.

  “Yes, sir,” Robbie said.

  “Did you ever climb trees when you were younger?”

  “I did,” Zachary answered.

  “Me, too,” Robbie replied.

  “Me, three,” Troy responded.

  “Then I suggest you hightail it up the nearest one now!” Chester yelled out, already pulling himself up to the first branch of the tree right beside him. “That’s not a deer.”

  “Then what is it?” Robbie asked, still totally confused.

  “Something that begins with a b and ends with an r and would just love to have you for dinner,” Chester said, looking down at them and wondering what was taking them so long to move.

  “Oh, shit!” Troy screamed out. He looked around and realized he was the only one with his feet still on the ground and started climbing.

  27

  Catfish and Catfighting

  “Here’s another load of fish to clean,” Rachelle Whitfield said, plopping an aluminum pan of catfish down on the dining room table.

  “Wonderful. Just great!” Lucky said, faking excitement.

  They’d been cleaning fish for more than two hours for the family reunion traditional Friday-night fish fry. Her grandmother fried it outside in a giant black pot over a fire. People came from near and far to get a fish sandwich.

  Rachelle fingered Bryce’s hair. “Bryce, I can’t get over how nice your hair looks. Please keep it that way.”

  “Yes, please keep it that way,” Harmony said sarcastically, picking up another fish and going at it with vengeance. She was ready to get the ordeal over with.

  “Thank you, Momma,” Bryce said, rolling her eyes at Harmony across the table.

  Rachelle headed back to the kitchen. “I’ll go see if your grandma has any more fish back there.”

  “We can hardly wait,” Bryce snarled. As soon as their mother was out of earshot, Bryce started complaining. “This stinks and it’s making me sick. I should’ve stayed at the hotel and taken a nap.”

  Harmony leered at Bryce. “While Lucky and I clean a ton of fish? I don’t even think so.”

  “I know that’s right,” Lucky said nastily.

  “It really is making me sick,” Bryce continued. “Whoever thought up the idea of going under the water and pulling these skank things out to ingest into the human body was a psycho.”

  “Is that why you’re always the first one in line with a plate at every family reunion fish fry?” Harmony asked jokingly.

  “Maybe, but it doesn’t stink as bad when it’s cooked,” Bryce said defensively.

  Harmony had had enough of Bryce’s whining. “Maybe you should try cooking your coochie then because I can smell it all the way over here. It’s drowning out the fish smell.”

  Bryce pointed a scaling knife at Harmony. “Harmony, you better be glad that I was raised better than to act a fool in Grandma’s house. Otherwise, it would be on.”

  Harmony picked up a handful of fish scales and flung them at Bryce. Bryce flung some back. They all fell out laughing.

  “What are you all laughing about in here?” their grandmother asked, coming into the room to check on their progress.

  They all got quiet and started wiping up the scales with paper towels.

  “Nothing, Grandma.”

  “Are we going to stay up here all day?” Robbie asked, swatting gnats away from his face.

  Chester gazed at him like he was foolish and replied, “Looks like it.”

  The bear had given up on trying to get to them up in the trees and had moved on to rummaging through the backpack containing the eight pieces of Bojangles’ chicken and half a dozen biscuits they’d bought on the way up there.

  “Why don’t you just shoot it?” Troy asked, afraid that if he stayed in his current position much longer, he wouldn’t be able to use his legs well enough to make it back to the truck. Not to mention he was scared shitless and wasn’t trying to be caught out there after dark.

  “Who me? I’m not shooting a poor, innocent bear,” Chester stated adamantly.

  “Poor, innocent bear?” Troy asked incredulously. “Don’t bears maim and kill?”

  Chester chuckled. “If you get close enough to them, I suppose they do.”

  “Troy, you shoot it. You’re crazy, anyway,” Robbie suggested.

  “I might be crazy, but I don’t know how to shoot a gun.” Troy glared over at Zachary, three limbs over from him. “You shoot it, Zachary.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m shaking too damn much,” Zachary confessed.

  “This is insane. We can’t stay up h
ere forever,” Robbie said, shaking his head in dismay and wondering why he hadn’t listened to Lucky and stayed behind. “Somebody’s going to have to shoot the damn thing.”

  The three younger men started bickering among themselves while Chester looked on, trying to suppress a laugh. They were amusing to him, even though the situation wasn’t. Chester really had no intention of shooting the bear. That wasn’t what he’d come out here for, but he quickly changed his mind when he spotted the bear ripping into his Timberland boot that had fallen off when he’d started climbing.

  “Damn, the stupid thing just ate my boot!” Chester yelled out, and started blasting away.

  The fish fry was really getting crowded. Whenever someone fried fish in the country, you were likely to see friends and relatives that you thought were deceased show up to barge in line with a plate.

  Lucky was pacing back and forth in the yard, glaring at the street whenever she heard an engine. “I wonder where they could be.”

  Bryce and Harmony were sitting at a card table covered with a plastic tablecloth, totally exhausted and overheated from all of the fish preparation.

  Rachelle had just come outside with a fresh pitcher of lemonade.

  “Daddy had no business taking them hunting, Momma,” Bryce said accusingly, as if her mother had had something to do with it.

  “I’m sure it was some sort of intimidation tactic, sweetie,” Rachelle responded hesitantly. She’d been worried herself, but trying not to let on. She hadn’t even met Troy or Robbie yet and Chester had them who knew where, more than likely torturing them in some fashion.

  “Well, he could’ve intimidated them here,” Bryce countered.

  “Yeah, over horseshoes in the backyard or something,” Harmony added, in total agreement.

  A fifteen-passenger van pulled up and Rachelle was relieved. She was dying to get her daughters’ minds off their men, and she knew the new arrivals would do just that.

  “Look, here comes your cousin Sally,” Rachelle said, pointing in the direction of the van.

  Their cousin Sally was in her midthirties and had a ton of children. Bryce, Harmony, and Lucky never missed an opportunity to voice their opinions.

  “And her fifty-eleven kids,” Bryce said, the first to make a lewd comment.

  Lucky giggled. “All I can say is that must be some potent stuff Gary has between his legs. He couldn’t possibly be shooting any blanks.”

  Harmony, Bryce, and Lucky cackled while Rachelle shook her head. “Hush, now. I think it’s great that someone’s having babies. At least your aunt Janice is a grandma,” Rachelle said, referring to Sally’s mother.

  “Yeah, at least ten times over,” Lucky added, wondering how in the hell Sally could stand to push that many babies out of her pussy.

  The three sisters shut up as Sally approached with a set of stair-step kids surrounding her and one on her hip.

  Rachelle gave her a hug and kiss on the cheek. “Hey, Sally. Wow, how your kids have grown.”

  “Yes, they sure have,” Harmony said, rubbing one of the girls, about five, on the head. “You must be little Alexandra?”

  Sally corrected Harmony. “No, actually that’s Alexis. Alexandra’s the one in the blue.”

  “Oh, okay.” Harmony searched for the one in the blue and spotted her hiding behind Sally’s sundress. “How many do you have now?”

  “Eleven, with one in the oven.”

  Bryce giggled. “Dang, that’s a lot of breast-feeding.”

  “Bryce!” Rachelle exclaimed, totally ashamed of Bryce’s behavior.

  “Where’s Gary?” Lucky inquired, wanting to see how the bowlegged stud muffin was holding up after working his thing so hard.

  “Parking the van. He’s letting Gary Jr. help him,” Sally replied.

  “Is Gary Jr. old enough to drive?” Bryce asked.

  “He has his permit.”

  “Dang, I feel old now,” Bryce said, smacking her lips. She remembered when Gary Jr. was in diapers. Scary thought.

  “Me, too,” Harmony agreed, having the same exact flashbacks of the child in diapers.

  “So is the one you’re carrying now the last one?” Lucky asked, still cringing at the thought of pushing out one baby, rather less damn near a dozen.

  “I’m not sure. Gary says that if we have thirteen, we don’t have to pay taxes.”

  No one commented about that statement. It was too easy to lay into her about it, so they just watched her move on to talk to some other relatives. Rachelle went back into the house to get some more cups. She figured they would need an extra pack for Sally’s family alone.

  “That’s just downright trifling,” Bryce finally said with disdain, once Sally and her entourage were out of earshot.

  “And stupid,” Lucky agreed.

  “Mega-stupid!” Bryce hissed.

  Harmony spotted them first. Chester and Zachary were in the cab of the pickup while Robbie and Troy were on the flatbed. They all looked like they had been to hell and back.

  “Look, here come the Four Stooges.” Harmony giggled.

  The three of them walked down to the dirt driveway where Chester was backing up against a tree.

  “What took you all so long?” Lucky asked, getting to them first.

  “Long story,” Robbie answered, jumping down off the bed without even bothering to lower the rear gate.

  Bryce went to the opposite side to help Troy down. THE MAN or not, she didn’t want him busting his ass trying to dismount. A country man he was not. She was about to take his hand when she spotted the mound of bloody fur. She jumped back. “What the hell is that on the back of the truck?”

  “Is that a bear?” Harmony asked, peeping over the side to see what Bryce was referring to.

  “Yeah, it’s a bear,” Zachary replied, getting out of the cab and stretching his arms and legs. They were still sore from being stuck in the same position for so long in the tree.

  “I thought you were hunting deer,” Lucky said to Robbie.

  Robbie laughed. “We were until the bear started hunting us.”

  Lucky poked him in the shoulder. “I told you not to go.”

  “Ya’ll had no business out there with Daddy,” Bryce stated with sarcasm. She knew something damn ridiculous would happen with the four of them together.

  Chester looked at all three of his daughters individually as they went on and on talking trash to their men. Finally, he intervened, and as usual, his word was law. “Look, the boys and I had a good time. Now, we’re starving. Let’s go get cleaned up and get our grub on.”

  Bryce, Harmony, and Lucky shut up and watched all the men walk off into the house with Chester in the lead. They were like a colony of ants, traveling in a single-file line.

  “What is he supposed to be, Papa Walton or something?” Bryce asked.

  Lucky shook her head. “For real. They’re following him around like he’s the man.”

  Harmony chuckled. “Maybe he is the man.”

  “Whatever,” Bryce said, then walked off with her mind set on a hot fish sandwich.

  After dinner, it was time for bid whist. Of course, Harmony and Bryce whipped serious ass. And, of course, they were cheating big time.

  “I see you two are at it again,” Lucky said nastily, upset about the 300–85 score.

  Bryce rolled her eyes at Lucky. “Lucky, don’t be a hater. Harmony and I are just the better team. Just face facts, heifer.”

  “Oh, I have your heifer, Bryce!” Lucky shouted, pulling Bryce’s pinkie finger until she squealed.

  “Enough of that,” Rachelle demanded. “It’s only a game.”

  “I agree, Momma,” Harmony said before breaking into laughter. “It’s amazing that we practically come to blows every year over a card game.”

  Harmony and Bryce winked at each other and got back down to business. No one had ever been able to figure out how they cheated, and they preferred to keep it that way.

  Chester had his potential sons-in-law playing dominoes, along
with several other male relatives. They didn’t fare much better, especially when people started placing bets. Even though it was a minuscule amount of money, people were getting highly upset when they lost.

  People stayed up most of the night, doing whatever tickled their fancy, and the sun was almost up before Troy drove everyone back to the hotel to crash.

  28

  The Speedway

  The main event of the family reunion, a Saturday-night dinner/dance, was taking place at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Banquet Hall. While the staff was still setting up inside, Harmony, Bryce, Lucky, and their men all ventured out into the clubhouse to watch the test-driving that was going on at the track. Most of the kids were out in the clubhouse as well watching the action. Normally, on actual race days, people paid a bundle to sit in the enclosed area instead of out on the bleachers enduring the unrelenting sun. However, the air was off in the clubhouse and it was extremely humid, almost unbearable.

  Still, they stayed out there and watched the cars speed past them at well over a hundred miles per hour. Zachary, Troy, and Robbie were all the way in the front row with their faces pressed against the glass, totally mesmerized by the action, while Harmony, Bryce, and Lucky sat in a row farther toward the back.

  “Look at them,” Lucky said, pointing at the three of them. “They’re worse than the kids.”

  Bryce giggled. “That’s because they are kids.”

  “No, they aren’t, Bryce,” Harmony stated sarcastically. “They’re men. Our men.”

  Lucky blushed and slapped Harmony a high five. “Thank goodness we all have decent men now.”

  Harmony shifted in her seat. The heat was really beginning to get to her. “I second that thank goodness.”

  “I third that billy,” Bryce agreed.

  Harmony turned to Lucky and gave her a love slap on the knee. “Remember that bama Bryce used to date? The one that drove the happy-face car.”

  Lucky and Harmony fell out laughing while Bryce rolled her eyes up to the ceiling of the clubhouse.

  “Harmony, why did you have to bring Rico’s trifling ass up?” Bryce asked nastily. She’d hoped that Rico would never again cross her mind in life.