by Ron Shirley
I was as scared as a sinner in a cyclone and couldn’t even speak. I wanted to call to Amy, but she was up there just looking at the light and singing—and I couldn’t even mumble. That’s when it happened. I would have rather been a short-legged rooster in a high-water hog pen than to see what I saw next: the bag started moving—like someone was trying to get out!
I knew I would rather be pecked to death by a crow with a rubber beak than to be in the back of that van at that moment. I looked around and saw this broom-shaped thing lying on the floor next to me. Then I did what any tough-as-nails feisty young redneck would do: I grabbed that thing and started screaming for Amy as I laid into the body bag like a fat boy on a chocolate cake.
I was screaming and swinging, and the moaning turned into yelling: “Stop! Stop it! Uhh! Ohh!”
The more it yelled, the harder I swung. I was on that bag and whatever was in it like a pack of cracked-out dogs on a three-legged cat. I was gonna make sure when I was done with whatever had come to life, it was as useless as a cow with crutches.
Next thing I knew, the back door swung open and Amy was snatching me out so fast I thought I was stuck hub-deep to a Ferris wheel. She was screaming for me to stop—and I was screaming for her to run.
“I don’t know what it is, honey, but I’m gonna beat the brakes off of it!” Then I sailed back into the van and onto that bag like a bobcat with climbing gear on a phone pole full of catnip.
Amy jumped back in and lay across the body, which had stopped moving and groaning by then. I just looked at her and said, “Are you crazy? Move so I can kill it … again!”
She reached up and grabbed the zipper. That’s when I screamed, “You’d rather be superglued to the Tasmanian Devil in a phone booth than to let that thing out!”
But she pulled the zipper to the bottom and slung the sides of the bag open. Now, about this time I realized that we were at a major stoplight in Raleigh and there were people all around the van. Half the wedding party had come outside and cars were stopping all over the road. I could hear sirens from a police car barreling down the road toward us. I jumped out and said, “Everybody, back up! I think we have a live dead body in here!”
They just looked at me more confused than a wiener dog in a bun factory. Amy jumped out and pulled the stretcher from the van. All you could see was a body with blood all over it. But it was still moving and groaning and had both hands covering its face. The policeman ran up and wanted to know what was going on; people were all around us trying to see; and there I was with Amy, standing over a stretcher of what I thought was supposed to be a dead man turned zombie. Then he moved his hands and I saw the dead man was Jason.
Seems he had called Amy when he heard my little plan, and they had made a plan of their own. Problem was, when Jason closed the bag, he zipped it too far and couldn’t let himself back out. Well, I learned a long time ago that the early bird gets the worm—but the late bird never gets shot. And if you’re gonna get one over on the Ronster, you’d better be slicker than a skinned Georgia catfish soaked in baby oil.
I had beat Jason so bad with that broom he looked like he had run a forty-yard dash in a thirty-yard barn full of razor blades. He was split wide open and needed some stitches in his face—not to mention I had broken some of his fingers.
Amy was trying to explain the whole thing to the cop just as the news van pulled up and the reporters jumped out. The cop caught on and started trying to disperse the crowd while the reporter was trying to talk to me and find out what had just happened. Amy helped Jason back into the van and said, “Come on. I’ve got to call work and tell them I have to take him to the hospital.”
I said, “Baby, after that I’d rather fight a pack of wild tigers in the dark with a switch than to ever get back in that van. I’ll call a cab and meet y’all at the hospital.”
Jason was still pretty much out of it. Amy strapped him in the stretcher and pushed it back into the van, then sped off with the police car giving her an escort. I just stood there with the news guy, who kept asking me to explain what had happened.
“Bo,” I told him, “I’m not real sure. But I can tell you I’d rather jump off a ten-foot ladder into a five-gallon bucket of calf slobber than to ever go through something like that again. I did learn one thing, though.”
“Please tell the viewing audience what you learned, sir.”
“I learned there ain’t no sense in beating a dead horse—but apparently it can’t hurt none neither.”
Then I tried to flag down a cab.
[Uglier]
1. He looks like his face was on fire and someone put it out with the spiked side of a golf shoe.
2. He looks like he was inside the outhouse when lightning struck.
3. He looks like someone beat him in the head with an iron pot full of melted quarters.
4. Her face looks like she played goalie for a darts team.
5. She’s got summer teeth: summer over here and summer over there.
6. Her teeth are so crooked, she could eat corn on the cob through a picket fence.
7. He couldn’t get laid in a monkey whorehouse with a fistful of bananas.
8. Her butt looks like squirrels fighting over a walnut in a burlap sack.
9. If she went skinny-dippin’, you could skim ugly off the water for about a week.
10. She might as well wipe her tail with a wagon wheel; there ain’t no end to that, either.
11. He couldn’t get laid if he crawled up a hen’s tail and waited.
12. She looks like she’s been drug backward through a knothole.
13. It looks like two Buicks fighting for a parking place in the back of dem jeans.
14. Bo, that’s a moped girl: the kind you wanna ride but you don’t want your friends to catch you on.
15. That’s way too much pumpkin for a nickel.
16. She looks rougher than a two-dollar hooker on dollar day.
17. That girl could run a fat rat off a cheesecake.
18. That girl is so ugly, her stare could chip paint.
19. Uglier than the east end of a horse heading west.
20. Uglier than a burnt stump.
21. Ugly as homemade sin.
22. She was definitely born downwind from the outhouse.
23. He’s uglier than a melted turd over a hot stack of pancakes.
24. She’s so ugly, she could make a Chihuahua break a bull chain.
25. He’s so ugly, when he was a kid his momma borrowed a baby to bring to church.
26. She’s uglier than a hat full of buttholes at a bean-eating contest.
27. She’s uglier than a stuck duck in a dry pond.
28. He’s uglier than a spit can full of smashed buttholes.
29. He’s uglier than a five-gallon bucket of hairy armpits.
30. She looks like something the dog drug out from under the porch.
25
If I Tell You a Rooster Can Pull a Freight Train … You’d Better Hook ’Im Up
When I finally got Lizard Lick Towing off the ground and we started making waves in the repossession industry, I figured I’d bring my best friend, Johnny Perry, on with me. See, Johnny was a little intimidating: he was a mountain of a man with twenty-six-inch biceps, and he looked meaner than a Keebler elf who was demoted to food-packing. Now, Johnny was country as cornflakes and gooder than grits. but because of his size and strength he could tear up a railroad truck with a rubber mallet. So I began training him in the tricks and trade of the repossession industry.
One night after dark I set out in my new truck, fitted with an auto-loader lift specially made to perform repossessions. I was driving, one of my agents was in the middle, and Johnny manned the passenger door. We were packed in there tighter than three wet rats in a wool sock. The night started out slowly with us cruising around, looking for a Chevy 1500 truck. We eased down the street where the debtor lived and creeped by the address. I spotted the truck nosed-in against a wood fence with a car on the right of it and a Ford
Ranger pulled crossways behind it. This debtor knew we were coming and had his truck blocked in tighter than a bull’s butt in the middle of fly season.
My agent sized up the situation and said, “Well, you can’t get ’em all.” He was ready to give up. But ol’ Johnny said, “Oh yes, you can!”
The agent looked at Johnny. “You think you can get that truck?” Johnny replied, “Does Howdy Doody got wooden balls?”
It was at that point I knew I’d rather stare at the sun with binoculars than ask Johnny what he was thinking. But before I could say a word, he slid out of my truck faster than green grass through a greased goose.
Johnny started walking down the driveway toward the vehicles as me and the agent sat staring at him in wonder. Now, remember: ol’ Johnny was stronger than mule piss with the foam farted off. He just walked over to the back of that Ranger, reached down, and picked its whole back end up in the air. Then he started walking backward, pulling the truck across the yard, making more noise than two skeletons scroggin’ on a tin roof using a beer can for protection. All of a sudden the porch light flicked on, the door swung open, and there stood a man who looked hotter than two grizzlies fighting in a forest fire. And he had a six-shooter in his right hand!
My tail drew up tighter than a gnat’s butt stretched over an oil drum. That debtor burst through the door at a full run, gun raised, screaming like someone just stole his Oreos. Then he saw Johnny standing there, halfway across the yard, with the truck in the air, arms bulging, staring right back at him.
Johnny said, “Mister, I hope that revolver got eight shots, ’cause six ain’t gonna do nothin’ but piss me off!”
It seemed like time froze. The guy was standing there looking at Johnny holding that truck in the air, and his eyes looked like a raccoon’s in the spotlight after getting caught in the corn bin.
Johnny continued, “Well, you gonna shoot? Or you just gonna stand there lookin’ stupid?”
Without saying a word, the debtor turned and walked back into the house. I sat perfectly still. Johnny started to pull the Ranger the rest of the way out of the driveway so I could back up to the Chevy. Just then, the screen door slung open. I immediately thought, This guy went and got a bigger gun—until I saw him just toss a set of keys toward Johnny. Then he shut the door and switched off the outside light.
Johnny walked over to the 1500, cranked it up, and pulled it out of the yard. When he drove up beside me he was grinning like a possum eating crap out of a light socket. He rolled the window down, looked at the agent and me, and said, “If I tell you a rooster can pull a freight train, you’d better hook ’em up!” And with that, he put the Chevy in drive and headed back to the shop with his first repossession.
[More Advice]
1. Never kick a fresh turd on a hot day.
2. If you’re riding ahead of the herd, look behind you and make sure it’s still there.
3. Never wrestle with a pig. Chances are you’ll get dirty and the pig will like it.
4. Ride hard, shoot straight, and always speak the truth.
5. If you’re gonna take cattle to town, do it on Sunday. There’s less traffic and fewer people to fight.
6. Never sell your mule in order to buy a plow.
7. Psycho women are like herpes. You never get rid of them and they’re a real pain.
8. Never try to teach a pig to dance. You just waste your time … and you’re gonna annoy the pig.
9. Don’t let your mouth talk you right outta life.
10. Sometimes it’s better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you’re an idiot than open it and prove ’em right.
11. When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling. Live your life so that when you die, you’re smiling and everyone around you is crying.
12. Before you borrow money from a friend, decide which you need more.
13. If you think you’re somebody, try bossing your neighbor’s dog around.
14. If you take a drug test and it comes back negative, you’d better get on the phone with your dealer.
15. If you wanna go nowhere in life, try following the crowd.
16. Live your life in such a way that men hate ya, women love ya, and little kids all over the world wanna be just like ya.
26
Some Days You’re the Pigeon … And Some Days You’re the Statue
For years I had been trying to get my pops to change his hunting habits and venture into using a muzzle loader or a bow rather than a conventional rifle. The seasons where the bow or muzzle loader could be used came much earlier in the year, and the hunting was much more difficult—and, therefore, much more rewarding. Needless to say, changing Pops is about as easy as nailing a raw egg to a tree with a sledgehammer. About two months before muzzle-loading season, my years of pestering him finally paid off and he gave in. I was more excited than a three-armed nanny at a cross-stitch convention, so I went out and got him a top-notch muzzle loader with a scope that could see the smile on Lincoln’s face in the back pocket of a tight pair of jeans.
I never anticipated so much griping and bellyaching! As we set that jewel in at a hundred yards, he complained about everything from the mule kick when firing to the color of the targets we were shooting at. I might as well have been wiping my tail with a wagon wheel, ’cause there ain’t no end to that, either. But I made it through and got the inline tradition dialed in so tight you could’ve shot the balls off a dragonfly in a nosedive.
Now, the spot I hunted was a real honey hole. You could poke your eye out with a blunt stick and still see plenty of big ol’ bucks. I’ve shot several out of that patch of woods that were two ax handles wide across the horns. So when opening day arrived, I was more tickled than a speckled trout at a pole-dot painting party. I had Pops a great spot overlooking a bottleneck where the deer love to funnel through near the edge of a pond before heading out to a cornfield.
Now, I ain’t saying I’m one of the best hunters in the world, but out of the ten best, six of ’em are on my fan page. It was busier than a horsefly in a Hoover that morning, and the deer were everywhere. I sat a ground blind about a hundred yards from Pops and was trying to see what was moving where. I wanted to point out that you can’t hang a key ring and hat at the same time.
Well, about nine a.m., I saw a bruiser coming out of the cut about sixty yards away from me, heading straight at Pops. I was as nervous as a fat bee at a flyswatter convention. I just knew that any second I was gonna hear the pop of the cap and the blast of that black-powder muzzle loader, and Pops would start making more noise than a Sherman tank in a peanut-brittle factory. But after an hour of silence, I saw Pops coming up through the woods.
“Pops, didn’t you see that vanilla gorilla with cream horns pass by?”
“Nah—I seen nothin’ but squirrels and foxes.”
Now, it was about that time I started to think he couldn’t see a set of bull’s balls if he was standing between its hind legs.
“I must’ve seen twenty-five doe or more,” I told him. “You’re blinder than a rugby bat at midnight!”
Wasn’t much more to do that morning, so we went and got lunch, then headed back early that afternoon to get settled in before the deer started moving. By about an hour before dark I had, once again, seen enough deer to run a maggot off a four-day-old gut barrel. None of them were real shooters, though, so I broke out a grunt call, which simulates a buck who’s marking his territory. These grunts let all the other deer around know he’s the big dog in the local pound. Well, no sooner had I hit that jewel for a few blasts when out to my right steps a massive eight-pointer with the most beautiful set of chocolate horns. He was all bristled up and madder than a one-armed paperhanger with jock itch.
He marched forty yards below me, in line with the creek I was overlooking, which fed right into the corner of the pond Pops was at. So once again I let a shooter walk, knowing Pops was getting ready to lay the smack down with that ol’ smoke pole. And once again, about an hour went by
with nothing but silence. Finally, I saw Pops tromping through the woods with his flashlight on.
“How did you not see that deer?” I asked him. And as I told him what I saw and where that deer went, I saw him squint his eyes.
He said, “So you mean to tell me you not only grunted a deer in during muzzle-loader season, but you passed up a shooter buck in the same day?”
It was at this point I realized he thought I was lying like a cheap rug in a Laundromat.
He continued, “I didn’t see no deer … especially no bucks. Are you sure you’re not stretching the truth a little?”
“Pops, when it comes to hunting, I’m as honest as the day is long—and I got over twenty head mounts to back my play.”
“Well, OK, then. Tomorrow morning I’m sitting with you.” I agreed with about as much excitement as a dead pig in the sunshine.
So the next morning we headed in—both of us—to sit in my one-man ground blind. Now, the first thing I noticed was that Pops made more noise than a blind fox in a henhouse. When we got to the blind, it was a sight to see two fully grown men trying to squeeze into a small ground tent with two chairs, two guns, two backpacks, and a cooler. After getting madder than a wet hen with hemorrhoids, I said, “Let me set all my stuff outside and just sit on the ground beside you, so we have room.”
Finally, we got settled in and I was as comfortable as a fat turkey at the slaughterhouse the day before Thanksgiving. Then I started realizing why he hadn’t been seeing any deer: he never stopped moving around! I couldn’t figure out if he had a bee in his bonnet or ants in his pants, but he was louder than a drunken cowboy in a whorehouse on dollar day.
Sure enough, we hadn’t seen anything all morning because of Pops, and he was glaring at me like a hoot owl over a barrel of mice. Then I remembered my grunt call and whispered to him that I was going to give it a few blows and he should be looking around. I pointed to where that big eight-point came from the evening before.