Lizard Tales

by Ron Shirley

  While this was going on, Roland was screaming at his wife, she was screaming at the dog, and the dog was yelping (because she must’ve been tuggin’ on its leg or ear). In the middle of all this commotion, an old, three-legged cat came hobbling by. Now, I don’t know if this cat was deaf or just plain dumb, but as soon as that dog under the truck saw it, he set off after that cat like a brown cow on chocolate milk. He ran that old fleabag right under the trailer and up an old piece of flexible duct tape that was hanging down. As that cat ran by us on his way to cover, I could see he was already missing an ear and an eye, and his tail was half chewed off.

  All at once the old woman started screaming so loud it curled the ears on every dog out there. Roland just took his hat off, sat down on an old stump, and started scratching his head. She was yelling, “Roland, I’m gonna git my gun and kill that mangy dog of yours! I done warned you if they messed with my cats again I was gonna kill ’em graveyard dead!” Then she took off for the house and came flying back out with a big ol’ pistol! She started crawling under the trailer, giving us a view that was just way too much pumpkin for a nickel. She cussed and screamed at that dog—I hadn’t ever heard words like she used. You could’ve grown potatoes in her dirty mouth.

  Meanwhile, the cat was howling and clawing and we saw the dog come dragging it out by one of its three legs, shaking his head back and forth the whole time. The woman was screaming and trying to aim the pistol, when suddenly the gun went off and the dog went limp.

  She crawled out from under that trailer with what looked like a regurgitated fur ball in her hands. “You see that, Roland! They done killed another one!” She stormed back in the trailer and slammed the door behind her.

  Roland looked up at Pops and said, with the straightest face I’ve ever seen, “The dead one’s free and I still got five live ones to choose from, if you’re interested.”

  Pops’s jaw dropped so far you could’ve put forty dollars’ worth of ten-cent gumballs in it. He just smiled and said, “Roland, we’ll think about it.”

  By that time, me and Jason were already back in the truck. As we drove back out the driveway, Pops said, “Well, what do you boys want next?” Me and Jason knew this was usually the warm-up for the “I told you so” speech. But the only other thing Pops said on the way home was, “From now on, boys, when you have bright ideas, just come to me first and tell me what you need. Then I’ll tell you how to get along without it.”

  [Hot]

  1. Hotter than a hooker in the front row of a Sunday service.

  2. Hotter than forty acres of burning stumps.

  3. Hotter than nine miles of Alabama asphalt on a Talladega Sunday.

  4. Hotter than the hinges of hell on Halloween night.

  5. Hotter than two hamsters farting in a wool sock.

  6. Hotter than a goat’s butt in a jalapeño pepper patch.

  7. Hotter than a billy goat with a blowtorch.

  8. Hotter than a hooker’s doorknob on payday.

  9. Hotter than a pot of collards on the back burner of a four-dollar stove.

  10. Hotter than a two-dollar pistol at an all-night shootout.

  11. Hotter than a two-peckered billy goat.

  12. Hotter than a four-balled tomcat.

  13. Hotter than a blistered pecker in a wool sock in a sauna.

  14. Sexier than socks on a billy goat.

  15. She’s so hot I’d crawl naked up a mountain of broken glass just to hear her piss in a tin can over a walkie-talkie.

  16. Hotter than a pig roast at Satan’s house.

  17. Hot enough to melt bronze in an ice storm.

  18. Hotter than a gasoline-dipped hen at a chicken roast.

  19. Hotter than a June bride in a feather bed.

  [Slick]

  1. Slicker than snot over smashed bananas.

  2. Slicker than a harpooned hippo in a banana tree.

  3. Slicker than the devil in velvet pants in a pool of baby oil.

  4. Slicker than a hound’s fake tooth.

  5. Slicker than grease in a barbecue biscuit.

  6. Slick as a three-legged dog trying to cover crap on an ice-covered pond.

  7. Slicker than snot on a glass doorknob.

  8. Slicker than cat crap on greased linoleum.

  9. Slicker than a skinned Georgia catfish soaked in baby oil.

  [Mouthy]

  1. Her mouth is dirtier than a boardinghouse toilet.

  2. She could suck a golf ball through a twenty-foot garden hose with a mouth like that.

  3. She’s got enough mouth for four sets of teeth.

  4. She could suck the feathers off a duck with a mouth like that.

  5. You could grow potatoes in that dirty mouth.

  6. You couldn’t melt butter in that mouth.

  4

  Trains and Trouble

  When I was younger, my parents always took me and my brother to Topsail Island for summer vacation. Now, money was as scarce as feathers on a toad in those days, so once we got there we spent most of our time on the beach or the pier instead of at the arcade. Well, this one particular summer they let me take a buddy of mine named Shane with us. We spent all morning on the pier, but the fishing was so bad we couldn’t have caught a cold naked in the deep-freeze that day. So we started devising other ways to entertain ourselves.

  Now, Shane was a great guy, but at times he was so dumb you’d have to water him. And my intellect back in those days was such that, if brains were dynamite, I couldn’t blow my nose. So usually I followed right along with his plans. Well, we got to noticing all the seagulls at the end of the pier and the people throwing them Cheetos. Those birds would come down, practically eat out of their hands, and then fly away. This gave Shane a brilliant idea. He said, “Let’s go under the pier, take the fishing rods, and put some Cheetos on the hooks. Then we can catch us a seagull and fly him like a kite!”

  Even though that made about as much sense to me as giving a grizzly bear a backrub with a handful of razor blades, I had to admit it would be pretty cool to have a live kite, so I was all over his idea like a hobo on a ham sandwich. We scoured the pier and found some chips and Cheetos, and then headed out to do a little “fly” fishing.

  We got set up, gave about a twenty-yard buffer from where we set the bait, and hid with a rod in hand behind one of the pier legs. Didn’t take but a few minutes before a gull swooped down and jumped on that Cheeto like a monkey in a banana warehouse. So there we were, with our live kite about fifty yards in the air, thinking this was the coolest thing since ice cream, when a huge crowd gathered on the pier. About that time we both realized that maybe we didn’t think this thing through, so we started trying to reel that gull in with the intention of letting him go and getting our tails on outta there. Problem was, the gull was stronger than our reel and all he was doing was pulling drag. Shane started yelling at me, I started yelling at the bird, and everyone on the pier started yelling at us. That’s when I saw the blue lights coming down the beach.

  The cops rolled up in a four-by-four jeep and jumped out, heading straight for us. They looked madder than wet hornets. One of them yelled, “Do you kids know it’s a five-thousand-dollar fine to harass seagulls out here?”

  With that, Shane was off like a prom dress, and I was nervous as a dog crapping peach pits. One cop broke out after Shane and the other threw me into the sand and slapped on the handcuffs. He wasn’t no small cop either; in fact, he was fatter than an outhouse spider. So when he picked me up and slammed me on the hood of the jeep, I assure you he was about as gentle as a peach-orchard boar in a patch of strawberries.

  So there I was, lying on the hood of the patrol jeep looking down the beach, scared as a whore in the front row at church about what Pops was gonna do to me, when I saw the other cop hauling Shane back to the jeep. Problem was, Shane didn’t have his britches on! In his quest for freedom, he had tried to swim for it. I don’t know where he thought he was gonna go, but there wasn’t a lot of chlorine in his gene pool. Shane
told me later that when he jumped in the water, he figured the cop wouldn’t follow—and he was right. The cop just stood on the shore knowing he had to come back … because he had nowhere to go. After a few minutes of treading water, Shane had the same epiphany and headed back to shore. But when he had nosedived into that water like a skeeter in a tailspin at a blood bank, he’d lost his swimming shorts. Unfortunately, it was colder that day than my mother-in-law’s heart, and there’s Shane free-balling it! I was covered in sand, with my face pretty bloodied up from the gentleness of the good cop, and everyone on the pier was laughing and clapping.

  We both got loaded into the back of the jeep, headed for jail. I just knew when Pops got a hold of us he was gonna stomp a mud hole in our butts and then walk it dry. But Shane managed to find humor in the situation. He said, “You know, Ronnie, you can pick your friends and you can pick your boogers, but you can’t wipe your friends on your seat.” I just sat there petrified as to what was about to happen.

  After Pops bailed us out, we got in his car and no one said a word. We drove about five minutes before Pops spoke. And when he finally did, all he said was, “Son, from now on, remember: When you think you have a brilliant idea, the light at the end of the tunnel is usually the headlight of the oncoming train.”

  Looking back, Pops always had a way of giving good advice. And since that day, I’ve spent much of my life trying to avoid trains—and trouble.

  [You’re My Kind of People If …]

  1. You’re so country, your diploma reads SCHOOL OF TAXIDERMY.

  2. You’d rather dip yourself in honey and jump into a bear’s den.

  3. You see a turtle on a fence post and can’t figure out how he got there himself.

  4. You know women are like artichokes; you have to go through so much to get so little.

  5. You’re born an original and don’t die a copy.

  6. You were so poor when you were young, your momma put a loaf of bread on layaway.

  7. You’re slicker than whale crap on an ice floe.

  8. You’re tougher than a woodpecker’s lips dipped in cement.

  9. You’re so backwoods, you chapped your lips on the cow’s udders getting milk.

  10. You’re so redneck, you’re Appalachian American.

  11. You’ve got more sense in your pocket than your head.

  12. You’re surrounded by the absence of sophistication and an abundance of ignorance.

  13. Your family tree has only one limb and it’s broken.

  14. You’re as useless as an ashtray on a motorcycle.

  15. You didn’t fall off the turnip truck—your parents did!

  16. You make Forrest Gump sound articulate.

  17. You lost your tongue trying to open up a can of Copenhagen.

  18. You’re slicker than a greased pig on a Mongolian barbecue.

  19. You’re slower than Stephen Hawking in a blizzard.

  20. You’d give me change back if I asked you for two cents.

  5

  Chasing Your Tail Gets You Nowhere Except Back to Where You Started

  When it comes to animals, my daddy loves them more than he loves his people. If you mess with Pops’s animals, he gets madder than a blind man at a nude beach.

  When we were growing up, they’d have twenty-nine-cent hamburgers at Hardee’s every Tuesday. The cheeseburgers were thirty-nine cents. My daddy would take us to Hardee’s and he’d refuse to spend the extra dime for cheese. Pops would always tell us we could put cheese on them when we got home. I mean, Pops was so tight at times, I’ve seen him squeeze blood out of the eyes on a penny. But every week, Pops would still buy ten hamburgers and ten cheeseburgers. As soon as we walked out of Hardee’s, Pops would unwrap the cheeseburgers and throw them to the two dogs in the back of his truck. That always made me and Jason hotter than a wildcat in a forest fire with an overcoat on.

  That’s just the way Pops is about animals. Whenever Pops cooks steaks, his dogs are eating steaks on the floor before we even get our plates. When it comes to his animals, I truly believe Pops loves them more than he loves his own family. But they are always there for him. See, Pops is a hard man to get along with, and he’s more stubborn than the northern end of a southern-bound pack mule, and them critters can’t talk back.

  Of course, Pops’s favorite pet was always Wildman, the stray cat we caught in the rabbit trap and gave to my sister. Even though Wildman hated Pops and used to attack him as soon as he climbed out of his car, Pops learned to love the cat over time. Even though Wildman would attack Pops like a one-legged man at IHOP, their hatred for each other really became their bond. It became a chess game between the two. It would take Pops five minutes to get from his car to the house, because Wildman was always hiding in places and waiting for him just like a kid. It was the funniest thing you ever saw. A grown man running from a tomcat looking as scared as a blind mouse in a rattlesnake pit is an image I’ll never forget.

  Eventually, Pops wouldn’t let you mess with Wildman. I remember one day when my grandfather saw Wildman attack Pops. Grandpaw picked up the cat and said, “Y’all want to see this cat disappear? Best magic trick I know.” We all nodded our heads in excitement. The closest thing we’d ever seen to magic was Mickey Mouse on a cartoon. Grandpaw picked up that cat by the back of the neck and swung him into the top of a tree. He said, “Look boys, he disappeared.” Bo, my daddy jumped on my grandfather like nothing you’ve ever seen. He was like a Viking in a panty raid. It was then we knew we’d better never mess with Wildman.

  One day when Pops came home from work, he climbed out of his car and started looking around for Wildman. The cat didn’t attack him. He walked into the backyard, and Wildman never attacked him. He walked inside the house and still couldn’t find Wildman. Pops was starting to get worried; he looked like a banker at an IRS audit. Wildman never came out, and you could tell it was really bothering Pops. He started getting mad at us, thinking we’d done something to the cat, like we’d locked him in the shed or something. Pops was madder than a bobcat in a forest fire.

  “Pops, I swear we haven’t done anything to him,” I told him.

  Pops sent us outside to find Wildman. We looked in the sheds outside, under the porch, in the woods, and everywhere else. We couldn’t find him. But then I saw a big orange spot at the end of the driveway, right next to the road that runs in front of my parents’ house. I didn’t wanna go see what it was and I sure didn’t wanna go tell my pops. I’d rather jump in a five-gallon bucket of armpits off a ten-foot ladder, but I was the oldest and it was my duty.

  Pops saw the cat lying at the end of the driveway. Now, my daddy is a man’s man—he never cries or get upset. But I’m telling you, he was torn up over losing that cat. To this day, I can still remember the look of sadness on his face. He was more upset than Kirstie Alley when McDonald’s runs out of French fries. I’d never seen my father that upset. I worried he was going to have a heart attack over a dead cat. Pops looked like a dead pig in sunshine.

  I went to the shed, got a shovel, and picked up Wildman. We brought him into the backyard, and Pops made Jason and me dig the cat a grave. We went inside the house and built a small wooden box for Wildman’s casket, and put pictures of Pops and the cat in the box. Then we went into the backyard and had a full funeral service for Wildman and buried him in front of a small tree. Pops even wrote a eulogy for Wildman and etched an epitaph on a piece of plywood for a tombstone. It said: OUR BATTLE MAY BE OVER BUT THE WAR WILL RAGE ON. YOU’LL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN YOU WORTHLESS CUR. I guess he had to make it seem manly, but we never spoke a word.

  It took us two hours to bury the stupid cat. By the time we were finished, I was happier than a bullfrog at a blow-fly convention. I would have taken that cat down the road and thrown it into a lake. I love animals, but an animal is still an animal. A two-hour funeral for a cat was about as much fun as a nosebleed.

  For the next two days, you couldn’t speak to my father. It was like Pops lost a kid. He was so torn up about it. Pops w
ould come home and sit in his car for thirty minutes. It was almost like he was out there waiting for Wildman to attack him.

  The following weekend, Jason and I got up early because we were going to go fishing. I tried to get Pops to go fishing with us.

  “Pops, I know you’ve been upset,” I told him. “Why don’t you come along with us?”

  “Nah, I don’t want to go fishing,” he said.

  I kept pestering Pops to go because I was really getting worried about how upset he was at losing Wildman.

  Pops finally agreed to go with us. We walked outside to get our fishing poles and tackle box out of the shed. Then we climbed into our little Ford Ranger. Now, the Ranger was only used on the weekends, for things like hauling trash off or heading to the fishing hole. So we hadn’t been in it for a few days—as a matter of fact, since the day before Wildman went missing.

  I was driving, Jason was sitting in the middle, and Pops was sitting on the passenger’s side. About the time Pops sat down, Wildman jumped out of nowhere and climbed onto his head. That cat locked onto his head like Rosie O’Donnell locks onto a turkey leg. It was like somebody had dipped a hamburger in honey and thrown it to the bumblebees.

  Wildman hadn’t seen Pops in four days and now he was getting his money’s worth. Jason and I couldn’t help Pops because we were in shock because we thought the cat was dead. We were like, “Where did this cat come from?”

  But Pops was happier than a two-tongued toad in a room full of fireflys. He was trying to rub and love the cat, but Wildman was just scratching up his head and face. By the time Wildman was done with him, Pops’s face looked like it had caught on fire and somebody tried to put it out with steel-toed cleats. He was bleeding from head to toe.