Last Call

by David Lee

  I’ve tried to esplain what she could do

  but I’m afraid it got too complicated

  could you come in here

  see if yougn calm her down any

  sometimes it takes a womern’s touch

  to get to the bottom of the problem

  that’s something I wasn’t borned with

  this time around

  be arunning if you can

  I believe she’s coming unwound

  by the minute

  Third Visitation

  You know what that needs

  is some cattle

  Cattle

  Tie it to the land, the history

  You think

  I do

  about four mebbe real gentle

  grullos and brindles

  that would be like pets

  oncet you got uster them

  Longhorns?

  Indigenous

  that’s a word you said

  I like it

  mebbe even a old feed lot buffalo

  I happen to know where is at

  if we was to fence off heavy

  around the monument

  Buffalo

  Add some color

  some of that aesthetic value

  you educated people talk about

  My place is only twenty acres

  What if you was to get a lease

  on forty more between here

  and that cotton field

  Forty acres

  All right

  you’re gone press me

  eighty then

  you strike a hard bargain

  Where’s all this coming from?

  Cattle and buffalo’s on loan

  I get them back any time I decide

  cattle has the original Slaughter brand

  so I can prove it

  land is a lease

  How much lease do you think I can afford?

  I’d say upwards of a dollar a year

  forty nine years renewable

  through Willy John or his legacy

  would that do it?

  Upwards

  Fifty dollars totaled

  I’d prefer you pay up front

  I don’t want no bookkeeping

  tying up my valuable time

  You sure about this?

  Crew’ll be out to start on fencing

  seven o’clock a.m. in the morning

  I expect you ought to be awarning your Missuz

  some of them boys can be kindly rowdy

  if they don’t get morning coffee

  like it’s supposed to be

  Jacks

  My granddaughter told me

  she was the 4th grade Jacks champion

  of her entire school and could hold her own

  with most girls and all boys

  up through 6th and if I’d like to try her

  she’d clean my clock

  which she couldn’t have done better

  with a Brillo pad

  while doing Around the Worlds

  she informed me it was not a fair contest

  as she honestly believed no boy on earth

  could touch her unless she cheated down

  to make him want to bet on it

  said she took Haygood Sojourner’s milk money

  every day for a week

  then heard him saying

  he Only let her win because she was a girl

  she upped the stakes to 4th grade Championship

  of the Known World after school

  on the varsity tennis court

  so they’d have a perfectly flat playing field

  he could bring anybody he wanted to referee or be witness

  said she practiced all weekend

  got up to Sixies on all variations

  where she knew he was dead meat

  coming in but to make sure

  and Don’t tell Mama

  she wore her dark blue panties

  with bright yellow stars and quarter moons

  said I might not know it

  but if a girl sits cross legged

  when it gets to Pigs in the Pen

  and lets her panties show a little

  there wasn’t any boy up to 7th grade

  who could keep his concentration

  she took Haygood’s milk and lunch money

  his Little League medallion on a chain around his neck

  spinning top, taw marble, new pencil, ball cap

  and his pocket knife he almost bawled over

  begged her to get it back

  because it was his daddy’s

  she said she told him Like my Grandpa says

  A card laid’s a card played

  you went double or nothing and lost

  so grow up and take it like a man

  she knew she could have acted like her elbow hurt

  got him to go to a third round

  and won his wristwatch

  but who wanted it anyway

  being a Davy Crockett

  but if it’d been Cinderella she’d be wearing it now

  she was tired of hearing him whine anyway

  she’d set him up in the first game

  played like she had a broken wrist

  let him get up to Threesies

  where he thought he might have a chance

  then popped the hammer

  said she ate his lunch and then supper

  like it was Belshazzar’s Feast

  including dessert

  then put the Handwriting on the Wall

  went all the way up to Sixies

  before she even let him have a bounce

  he didn’t make it through Twosies

  on Pickups when she pulled her skirt

  up to almost her knees to get his mind

  completely discombobulated

  I asked her if she thought she might ever reconsider

  maybe at least give Haygood back the pocketknife

  she said No

  that was a trophy she intended

  to pass down to her children one day

  as their inheritance

  by then I realized

  between sitting on the hardwood floor

  and the impossibility of ever doing even Onesies’

  Pigs in the Pen much less Double Bouncies

  I conceded the match when she passed into Foursies

  called Daniel and the Angel to come down

  and claim all the credit and glory

  to which she said Now, Grandpa,

  we have to go double or nothing for keeps

  and I said I didn’t know we were betting

  she said You weren’t but I was

  I told you my personal championship strategy

  and if I win this round

  you will have to swear tick a lock secrecy

  to never tell it to anybody you can’t trust

  for the rest of your life

  until I get old and graduate from high school

  get married and have a baby

  when it comes time

  to learn Queenship Mastery

  you can share it only with her

  there are some things a mother

  just can’t tell a daughter

  that’s what Grandpa’s are for

  So get ready Buster

  now I’m going to show you

  once and for all, no holds barred

  how Jacks are played

  Elder Johnny Bert Ezell’s Attempt to Re-resign as the Young Adult Men’s Sunday School Teacher

  Brother Parker

  the Only time in my life

  I ever got anything taught

  to anybody was when

  my boy Charles was six

  and on that day I taught him

  in one lesson why it’s best

  not to pick up a cat

  by the tail

  I’ve thought hard

  and even prayed about it

  but I just can’t find any wayr />
  to bring scripture up or down

  to a practical level

  From the Pickup Cab on the Back Road to Adolph’s

  There are a couple of things

  about this moving into the golden years

  that fall into the category of pesteration

  Being?

  I can’t hear anymore

  can’t see anymore

  can’t remember a damn thing anymore

  and those are the things that still work

  I heard a bad rumor there comes a time

  when you give up on the usefulness of memory

  but you can designate friends to remember things for you

  and when you outlive your friends you’ll have your children

  but most of all you’ll have your wife

  to correct and amend all those things you misremembered

  I still like it when I can fall

  into one of my unadulterated remembrances

  and never worry one bit about drowning

  or being rescued

  Sorta like throwing a rock

  through the plate glass window

  of your current perception

  What’s the other botheration?

  The fact that on our 50th

  the wife asked me if I’d like to come upstairs

  we’d try a poke

  I had to tell her

  anymore I had just enough energy

  to do only one chore on a day

  Is that a swear-to-god true story?

  That question makes me wonder

  if I’m the kind of fool you might think I am

  and I’m wondering if you’ve considered

  whether or not

  you might have misunderestimated me

  And I can’t remember

  far enough back to answer that one

  Like another one of my heroes said

  Drive for Christ’s sake

  look out where yr going

  Are we there yet?

  Nope

  but we’re gaining

  The Third Miracle

  Score: South Plains Monument 1: Tornado 0

  —Photo caption: Avalanche Journal

  All night the huge twisters

  played hop Scotch and

  wreaked mayhem

  across the Caprock rim

  2:12 a.m.

  Willy John snapped the photograph

  that graced the Avalanche Journal’s

  Sunday front page

  the sculpture draped

  with St. Elmo’s fire

  around its suppliant base

  the cattle’s great horns ablaze

  from a lightning ravaged sky

  like the finger of God

  stretched toward the obelisk:

  a tornado funnel floating in abeyance

  Monroe

  Monroe Newberry’s life turned on a pivot

  the first day of class his fifth grade year

  when he met Mr. Byron Edgers

  the first male elementary school teacher

  in the history of our town

  who in order to get to know his class

  began the day calling roll backwards

  to let them know his class was going to be different

  which resulted in him calling Troy Newberry before Monroe

  asked him all the appropriate questions

  then Monroe next and said

  Are yall you and Troy twin brothers then?

  Monroe said No

  which was about the length of most sentences he spoke

  Troy he’s almost two years oldern Monroe is, said Butch Bowen

  I asked Monroe, not you said Mr. Byron Edgers

  let him speak for hisself

  how come you’re in the same fifth grade class?

  Monroe didn’t say anything

  looked across the room at Troy

  who was busy staring out the window

  I asked you a question Monroe Newberry

  now you have to answer it said Mr. Byron Edgers

  Monroe only scrunched his shoulders

  Monroe Newberry I axed you a question

  he said turning red in the face

  Because I failt fifth grade said Troy Newberry

  I have to do it over again

  which would have been fine except

  the whole fifth grade class excepting Monroe

  laughed

  That’s all right hollered Troy

  least I’m not a dummy and I’ve got a man’s name Troy

  not some movie star womern’s name Monroe

  Shut up Troy said Monroe

  Oh tell everbody how Mama

  wanted you to be her purdy little girl

  grow up to be all beautiful in the picture shows

  had the name Marilyn Monroe Newberry picked out for you

  how she’d say You’re my purdy little boy

  purdy enough to be my purdy girl Marilyn Monroe

  Shut up Troy said Monroe

  How she brought you a yellar dress

  for your third birthday put it on you

  Monroe Newberry jumped up

  ran over and pulled his brother Troy out of his chair

  on the floor his arms swinging like a tilterwhirl

  screaming Shut up Shut up

  before Mr. Byron Edgers could pull him away

  Troy had a bloody nose and a piece of his ear bitten off

  then at recess hit him on the side of the head

  with Janette Hutto’s roller skate

  they had to take him to the school Nurse

  Mr. Byron Edgers transferred Monroe Newberry

  To Gordon Hamilton’s wife

  Mrs. Johnnie Hamilton’s fifth grade section

  for the good of the school

  Principal Ellis Mills called the daddy

  D’Wayne Newberry in to settle it down

  Mrs. Newberry already gone

  some said dead some said

  living with kin in Arkansas some

  said in an insane asylum

  he said he didn’t know what to do

  with them boys they was always

  at one another one way or the othern

  this was the first time he known

  Monroe to get the best of old Troy

  for the next two years

  no one heard a sound from Monroe Newberry’s lips

  his teachers said he was tongue tied

  school Nurse said he was born defected

  Principal Mills who was a church Deacon said

  It might be the Lord’s touch

  students and friends knew Monroe was in there

  he just wasn’t riding the escalator

  until the day in seventh grade

  when he discovered Hooter Hagin’s genuine birth defect

  said out loud Jesust Hooter

  you only got one tiddy

  and the little Dutch boy named Jan

  took his finger out of the dike

  language began to trickle syllables then words first

  few sentences longer than three words

  then five

  bursts of sudden shyness and reversion

  disorientation and confusion

  slowly he rejoined us

  word by word by sentence by month by day

  and then the Saturday

  Troy Newberry and his chosen friends and disciples

  captured Monroe in his bedroom

  told him they were going to find out

  if Marilyn Monroe Newberry had a pecker or not

  and then maybe cut it off

  to see if he’d holler about that at least

  screams so loud calls went to the station

  and the fire alarm sounded

  Deputy Sheriff Junior Shepherd from one side of town

  Sheriff Red Floyd from the other

  raced the fire truck to the Newberry residence

  found four pubescent

  hoodlum-in-training
eighth grade boys bloody

  bruised and battered

  scratch and teeth marks asunder

  like red silk ribbons flowing in abundance

  mauled and abandoned wailing aftermath hog hounds

  Troy Newberry nowhere to be found

  Monroe in the front yard

  holding a broken bed slat in one hand

  a ball peen hammer in the other

  crowing like a bantum rooster

  for the good of the School Board

  Troy Newberry was allowed to

  drop out of junior high school early

  and at the same time take Driver’s Training

  to get his license on his fourteenth birthday

  moved in with his uncle Cephas Bilberry

  and took up immediately with his obese Scotch-eyed daughter

  Monroe finished the year

  graduated from junior high the next

  then went off radar

  disappearing into the realm of myth and legend

  for seven years until someone saw the advertisement

  in the Dispatch and elevated it to first page rumor mill status

  Notice to all Men 17 or older:

  You are invited by your Uncle Sam

  to come to the U S Army Recruitment Office

  3006 24th Street Lubbock, Texas

  see Staff Sergeant Monroe Newberry

  to inquire regarding Career Opportunity

  under the Guaranteed Europe Enlistment Policy

  and even Mr. Byron Edgers

  who was by then the Grade School Principal said

  at the monthly Board meeting

  Well maybe there is a God after all

  and a happy ending besides in fairy tales

  but who’d a thunk it?

  Johnny Bert Ezell

  Head of the School Board that night

  whispered Good boy

  I knew you could do it

  Fourth Visitation

  Look at that cow groom her calf

  that there is a lady of elegance if I ever saw one

  and by god knows exactly

  what I’m saying about it

  don’t you, you persnickety senorita bonita

  I’d appreciate the hell out of it

  you being a man of letters

  if you wouldn’t repeat the following

  until I’m gone

  but her name is Juliet

  I won’t insult you

  by mentioning the bull’s name

  just that this time they made it

  unstrangled by their tethers

  so what do you have to say about that?

  What They Say

  When Larry Joe Williams invoked them

  that evening at Adolph’s Bar and Cafe

  Billy Klogphorne rose like Lazarus from his stool

  to begin walking with a purpose away somewhere else

  to which Larry Joe said Whar you going