Lizard Tales

by Ron Shirley

  I just smiled. There was this loud crash of thunder and a bright streak of lightning. I looked at that baby’s perfect little face, her soft lips, her tiny fingers, and I began to sob all over again.

  It was pouring outside and my emotions were raging inside. And I thought, Rayne—a ray of sunshine in a flood of emotions: that’s what I’ll name her. We called our baby girl Alexa Rayne.

  I screamed out, “Rayne! Rayne! Baby Rayne!”

  A nurse said, “Mr. Shirley, it’s been doing that since we got in here … and it doesn’t look like it’s gonna stop.”

  With that, I busted out laughing. Luckily, the doctor understood. He turned to me and asked, “Did you learn anything today during this life-changing experience?”

  “I sure did, Doc,” I replied without breaking stride. “Sometimes it’s better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you’re an idiot than to open it and remove all doubt.”

  With that, he smiled and walked away. I stood there holding my Rayne, and was never afraid of the storms or the lightning again, because now I had a reason to survive any rising waters.

  [Mad]

  1. Madder than Janet Reno’s blind date.

  2. Madder than a bobcat tied up in a piss fire.

  3. Madder than a mule munchin’ on bumblebees.

  4. Madder than a pack of wild dogs on a three-legged cat.

  5. Madder than a bulldog crapping rubber hammer handles.

  6. Madder than a legless man at the IHOP.

  7. Madder than a toothless dog in a meat house.

  8. I’m mad enough to stump-whip chitlins with my head.

  9. Someone peed in his cornflakes this morning.

  10. Bo, that makes me so mad I wanna catch a Nolan Ryan fastball with my teeth.

  11. She’s just mad ’cause that house fell on her sister.

  12. Madder than a wet hen at an omelet breakfast.

  13. Madder than a pig at a pork roast.

  14. Madder than a cowboy at a fashion show.

  [Tough]

  1. He’s tough enough to stand flat-footed with a giraffe and slip it some tongue.

  2. She’s tougher than a two-dollar steak.

  3. Being tall don’t make you tough no more than being born in a garage makes you a BMW.

  4. He’s tough enough to chew up a ten-penny nail and spit out a barbed-wire fence.

  18

  Life’s Always Simpler When You Plow Around the Stumps

  Now, Sandy was always the baby of the family. We spent the first half of her life torturing her and the second half protecting her from guys like us. Most kids had little toy soldiers and maybe, at times, played with some sort of baby dolls; but in my house, you’d rather eat a razor-blade sandwich and drink a glass of saltwater than to be caught doing such a thing. So I decided that Sandy was like a life-size doll and a brother’s job was to see how much we could get away with.

  I remember the time when we wanted to play war but didn’t have a hostage. So we tied up Sandy’s arms and legs, duct-taped her mouth so she couldn’t scream for Momma, and hid her under the shed as we set up our base. Well, there was two problems with doing things like this: First, you can’t go to dinner and forget to bring your hostage! We had left her out there when that dinner bell rang. When Pops asked where she was, I got real starry eyed and mumbled, “I don’t know.” It didn’t take me long to remember when he jacked me up like a Sunday-afternoon steak and told me not to piss on his back and tell him it’s raining. So I led Pops and Momma to the secret base. That brought us to problem number two: I didn’t know duct tape had a fondness for long hair. Worse yet, the glue on the tape had melted (due to the heat in the shed). When we tried to take it off, she was hollering like her face was on fire and we were trying to put it out with track shoes. Both Pops and Momma were hotter than a shaved rat in a wool sock in the sauna. She lost most of her hair that day and Pops skinned me like a Texas turkey at Thanksgiving. But we won the battle and saved the hostage—of course, no one found any consolation in that.

  Then there was the time we wanted to play war with bottle rockets but couldn’t find enough guys to have a full firefight with. So me and Jason set up camp outside the back door of the house. We got some long metal rods and Jason taped a few bottle rockets together and loaded them in the back with the fuses hanging out. We were both smiling like blind possums in a persimmon patch, just waiting for Sandy to come out the back door. I knew this was one of my best-laid plans yet—this idea was so good it could bond a bad marriage back together. Well, what we didn’t plan on was Sandy having friends over after school that day. So when the back door opened, we lit those fuses and figured we would send her running faster than a jackrabbit on moonshine. Just about the time them gals rounded the corner, the rockets took flight and I couldn’t stop ’em. They looked like three bobcats caught in the middle of a forest fire with gasoline-dipped tails. Me and Jason went to rolling around laughing like two hyenas in a crack house—till we realized that Sandy’s hair was on fire! (I don’t know what it was about me and Sandy’s hair.) I had set her entire head ablaze—and her friends’ hair too! Well, they all went running for the swimming pool and jumped in. When they came up, they looked like they had dipped their heads in peanut butter and rolled ’em around the bottom of a birdcage. I knew when Pops got home, I had better go ahead and give my heart to Jesus, cause my butt was gonna be his! And he didn’t let me down. He not only beat me like a burlap bag full of wet mice in a dryer, he got some clippers and let Sandy shave my head. (Now, you can imagine this big, tan redneck boy with a bright, white gourd that looked like someone had beat my skull with a softball bat. Needless to say, if I had a dog that looked like I did that day, I’d shave his butt and make him walk backward!)

  Well, we went our whole lives back and forth, but you couldn’t split a frog hair between me and Sandy when it came to brotherly love; we were tighter than the girdle of a Baptist minister’s wife at an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast.

  I used to run her boyfriends off like stray dogs—didn’t ever like any of ’em. Each time she’d bring a new one home, I’d tell him straightaway: “Everybody has the right to be ignorant, but when you started seeing my sister, you abused that right.” Some of the boys she’d bring home were greener than gourd guts and pretty easy to scare; others were tougher than two-dollar steaks and took some working on. But in the end, I was always slicker than a minnow’s pecker and found a way to run ’em off.

  I don’t know why she always brought home the types of guys she did. A few smelled worse than the outhouse door on a shrimp boat, and the rest were clueless. If dumb was dirt, they’d cover half an acre.

  Now, Sandy brought many of these ol’ boys over to see if she could rile me up—and a couple of ’em gave me a run for my money. But in the end, I’d teach ’em all that you’d rather eat a cold scab sandwich and a glass of snot than to cross me or date my sister.

  Well finally, one day, she brought home this ol’ boy who was more country than a baked-bean sandwich. He was a lanky fellow; as a matter of fact, he was so skinny his pajamas only had one stripe! And he was a tall ol’ boy too: he stood about six-foot-seven. You could just tell he was a good guy. But I wasn’t letting my guard down that easy. So when she introduced us, I told him to remember that getting on this train was a whole lot easier than getting off. He smiled and said, “Well, it’s a good thing I don’t like to ride trains.”

  So I said, “Don’t think that ’cause you’re a tall fella that I can’t break you down. Bo, I am bad enough to uppercut a giraffe.”

  He smiled again and said, “Then I reckon I shouldn’t ever go to the zoo with you!”

  Well, I knew that this boy was slicker than the devil in velvet pants. When we got to talking, I found out he was a big-time hunter and he had more than four hundred acres of prime deer-slaying land. So I knew right then that me and him were gonna be tighter than Siamese ticks on a dead hound dog. His only downfall was that he was a little short north of the ears when
it came to common sense. But his genuine good heart, the way he treated my sister, and the fact that he had those four hundred acres were good enough reasons to overlook it.

  Now, like I said, I was very protective of my sister. So when I was at the house and got a phone call from ol’ boy and he sounded like he was in tears, I figured he had gone and done something that I was gonna have to make him pay for. He sounded like he had shut his tongue in the door when he was trying to talk, and all I could understand was “It burns! It burns!”

  I said, “Slow down, Bo. If you plant a tater you get a tater—and I can’t help you plow if I don’t know what we’re farming.”

  He begged me to come over, so I jumped in my old truck and hightailed it over to his house. Now, the entire time, I was trying to keep in mind that this boy is so slow he couldn’t catch a cold; but I was sure hoping he hadn’t done anything to Sandy—otherwise I would be forced to make him as useful to society as a screen door on a submarine.

  Well, when I pulled up, he was lying on the front porch in the fetal position, tears were streaming down his face, and he was holding his crotch area. Immediately, I thought, Oh no! He’s gone and done something he ought to have known better than to do and Sandy has John Bobbited li’l boy! But I didn’t see no blood, and he was still conscious. So I tried to ask him what was wrong.

  He just said, “Please—get me to the hospital!”

  I could tell he was circling the drain, so I loaded him up and headed into the city. He wasn’t making any sense in his mumblings and I couldn’t get it out of him where Sandy was. I kept trying to call her cell phone, but it was going straight to voice mail. The only thing I could make out was, “I’m dying! I’m dying!”

  I said, “Bo, I don’t know what you’re dying of, but you’d better not get any over here on my side of the truck or I’ll be on you like a termite on rotten wood!” He didn’t even respond; he just kept wailing and stayed folded up all the way to the hospital—making more noise than a blind fox in a henhouse.

  When we got to the ER, I carried his lanky tail in. That must’ve been a sight! I looked at all the people in the waiting room with their jaws open so far they needed Wide Load signs, and I said, “You’d rather have hemorrhoids the size of grapefruits than say somethin’ to me right now!”

  We got him into the trauma room and the doctor tried to rush me out. I said, “Doc, you got a better chance of selling ice to Eskimos outside on Christmas Eve than me leaving. If this ol’ boy’s got something contagious, I wanna know so I can get cured too!”

  Well, they stripped him down and gave him a sedative. And when they pulled his boxers off, I felt like a dog choking on peanut butter. It looked like someone had set his entire crotch area on fire and put it out with an ice pick and a bag of fire ants. Up until then, I had never been scared of nothing but spiders and dry counties—but I was fear stricken at that sight! And I said, “Doc, I ain’t got no dog in this fight, and I don’t want none of that. And I need to go find my sister, ’cause whatever it is has probably done ate her up too.” I grabbed the doc with concern in my eyes and said, “Is whatever that is catchable? I mean … am I gonna get infected too, Doc? Is my sister gonna be OK? She lives with this guy.”

  Meanwhile, the nurse was ordering tests and blood samples; she was talking about a flesh-eating disease and VDs and asking about his sex life. I said, “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! He dates my sister. So if he ain’t celibate I’m gonna be madder than a toothless dog in a meat house. You won’t have to worry about the cure, ’cause that problem is fixing to be a lot worse.”

  He looked up and said, “Ronnie, you might want to leave the room so I can talk to the doctor. And see if you can get Sandy here.”

  I said, “Bo, you’d be better off shoving an umbrella up your tail and standing outside waiting for a hurricane than to say what I think you’re gonna say. ’cause even a dog knows the difference between being stepped on and kicked. The only person I’m calling is my momma.” (Well, you know when a country boy breaks down and calls his momma, it’s time to brace the doors, nail up the windows, and call the dogs in, ’cause it’s on like Donkey Kong.)

  He started screaming, “Don’t you call your momma!”

  I said, “I’m calling Momma!”

  So there we were in the middle of the ER. He was buck-naked and his nether regions looked like a war zone for bull ants. Doctors and nurses running around in a frenzy, machines beeping, people looking around the curtains—and we were having an argument about me calling my momma. Just then, Sandy came running in with tears in her eyes and was yelling at me, “What did you do to him? What did you do to him?”

  I said, “Baby, I just brought him here to the ER. He called me ’cause he couldn’t get you, and he says you did that to him.”

  Well, that was about as subtle as an unflushed toilet. So then she was yelling at him. I was telling him I was gonna call Momma. He was crying and begging me not to. Meanwhile, he was trying to talk to Sandy.

  Finally, the doctor yelled, “Wait a minute!” He looked at him and said, “Son, there is a white gel around your buttocks and down your leg. Have you got into anything?”

  Still in pain, he said, “No, Doc. I took a shower and when I got out I just started burning. I looked down and this is what I saw.”

  The doctor asked, “Son, what did you use in the shower?”

  “Just my normal shampoo. Oh—and I was out of body wash, so I used my girlfriend’s.”

  But Sandy jumped in: “Honey, I don’t use body wash; I use handmade soap. What did the bottle look like?”

  He said it was a bluish-color bottle with white body wash that had a real funny smell. (At this point, I’ve gotta say, he was looking as confused as a monkey trying to do a math problem.) Sandy hit the floor, rolling in laughter while me and the doctors just stood there in wonderment.

  Still in tears, the ol’ boy asked, “What did I do that was so dang funny?” Sandy finally stopped laughing long enough to say, “Baby, you’ll be just fine—trust me.” And she whispered something in the doctor’s ear.

  The doctor just smiled and told the nurse to go get some gauze and burn cream.

  I said, “OK, now that y’all got me more curious than a new puppy with two peters, let me in on what’s goin’ on here.”

  Sandy smiled and said, “I know that y’all think life is always easier when you plow around the stumps, but you have to make sure you’re not riding in a barbed-wire harness! And if you’re gonna use something on your body, read it before you apply! Nair apparently has some very adverse side effects.”

  I looked over at that ol’ boy. “Now, don’t that just dill your pickle? You used hair-removal cream for a body wash!”

  He said, “I don’t know about dilling it. To me it feels more like deep-fried!”

  [Happy]

  1. Happier than a possum eating persimmons.

  2. Happier than a raccoon in the corn crib with the hounds tied up.

  3. Happier than a possum eating fish steaks.

  4. Happier than a puppy with two peters.

  5. Happier than a punk in a pickle patch.

  6. Happy as a June bug on a tomato plant.

  7. Happy as a mule eating briars.

  8. Happy as a fat puppy chasing a parked car.

  9. Happy as a short-legged pony in a high field of oats.

  10. Happy as a dead pig in the sunshine.

  11. Happier than a horsefly trapped in an outhouse.

  12. Happier than a hungry baby in a topless bar.

  13. Happier than a two-legged dog at a cat show.

  14. Happier than a starving bullfrog at a blow-fly convention.

  [Fun]

  1. More fun than a tornado in a trailer park.

  2. ’bout as much fun as skinny-dipping in a bucket of calf slobber.

  3. I haven’t had this much fun since pigs ate my brother.

  4. Well, that was about as much fun as a nosebleed.

  5. Laughing like a hyena at a pot-smoking co
nvention.

  19

  You’d Rather French Kiss a Rattlesnake …

  When I first started in the repossession business, things were much different from the way they are now. Back then, you had to work harder than a rented mule to get a car. There were no auto-loader wreckers, so we collected cars the old-fashioned way: usually on a rollback, which is a kind of flatbed trailer. Pops always told me to work smarter, not harder; but everything he ever learned I think he got from watching Gilligan’s Island. Nevertheless, I talked to my buddy Brooks, and he agreed to help me nights doing repos. I figured the two of us working together would be smarter.

  Now, when you repo on a rollback, you have to let the bed down, pull out the cable, crawl under the vehicle, hook it up, and then drag it on. So the process is about as slow as a herd of snails going through a field of peanut butter. Meanwhile, you’re very exposed when you’re doing all this. On one particular night we were searching for a Mazda Miata in a high-end neighborhood. Diving around there in that old beater rollback of mine, we were worse off than ducks sitting on the water on opening day of shotgun season. Every light in every house was flipping on, so I knew that me and Brooks were about to be in as good shape as a freshly screwed fox in a forest fire.

  We rounded a bend in the road, and sitting right there in the driveway, shining like a five-carat diamond in a goat’s butt, was our Miata. I told Brooks to run the VIN number on it as I backed up, and he was also to be the lookout while I crawled up under the car to hook the chains. Now, I’ve learned in this business (as in much of life) that it’s always darkest before the dawn—so if you’re gonna steal your neighbor’s newspaper, that’s the time to do it. And even though they could see us coming, with it being so late I’d have time to get hooked up before the debtor got out of bed and ran outside. In retrospect, I think I would have rather been superglued to a tornado in an Oklahoma pigpen than to have Brooks running blocker. Don’t get me wrong: Brooks is a great guy. But in stress-filled situations he is about as useful as chicken crap on a pump handle.