by Oris George
A cheerful waitress with long, blonde, cascading hair made her way to our table. She smiled a disarming smile and said, “May I take your orders?”
Henry looked at her. Lightning shattered the heavens—thunder galloped across the face of the earth—the wind stood still—his eyes popped six inches out of his head. He was in love like never before.
Goldie giggled and said, Henry, put your eyes back in your head.”
Tony laughed, slapped Henry on the back and said, “Take a deep breath, man. Your face is turning purple and your tongue’s hangin’ out!”
The cause of Henry’s turmoil asked again. May I take your orders?”
In less time than it takes a mosquito to buzz an ear, Henry was in charge of the situation. He smiled a smile that went clear around behind his ears and said, “I’m buying. Five large, chocolate marshmallow milk shakes.”
“That’s my man,” Tony said.
The newfound love of Henry’s life wrote the order on the little white pad in her left hand. She smiled at Henry—turned and glided away.
“That’s one good-looking babe,” Henry said.
Sonny laughed and said, “You got that right.”
“Be right back,” Henry said. “Oris ’n me got something to do.” He motioned for me to follow him. We went outside and stood on the sidewalk away from the front window.
“You gotta help me out,” Henry said. “I’m a dollar and a half short. Don’t have enough to pay for the milk shakes.”
“That’s not my problem. You got yourself in this mess.”
“Come on, man! I’ll pay ya back.”
I opened my billfold and found a dollar. My pockets gave up seventy-six cents.
“Thanks, man,” Henry said, and he slugged my right shoulder. We went back to the table.
The reason for Henry’s living arrived with our milk shakes in their frosty glasses. She handed Henry the ticket. He counted out the money, making sure she understood the extra thirty cents was a tip. “Thank you,” she said. As she turned to leave, she smiled at Sonny. Sonny winked at her.
“Whatcha say we finish these milk shakes?” Tony said. “Then let’s drag Main a couple o’ times before we head for the dance at the Grange Hall.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Henry said.
We finished our milk shakes. Tony and Sonny each left a dime for a tip.
We followed Sonny and ended up fourth in a line of seven cars dragging Main. At the west end of Main Street, Tony turned south on Randall Street and headed for the Grange Hall. Henry followed.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Dummy. We’re goin’ to the dance. What do you think I’m doing?”
“Ain’t no way, man, we’re going to the dance.” I said.
“Why not?”
“You know as well as me. We shouldn’t be driving this pickup, let alone go to a dance without our folks’ permission.”
“Are you a wimp tonight, or what? Our folks are out of town—they’ll never know. Quit being such a wimp.”
We parked next to Tony’s car.
“Henry. We’re not going to the dance.” I said.
Tony hollered, “You guys gonna sit in that pickup all night? The dance’s inside.”
Henry hollered back, “I guess not. Sissy pants Oris is afraid his ‘mamma’ will find out he’s gone to a dance.” He started the pickup and drove off the parking lot. He was ticked and didn’t say a word until we were out of town headed home on the county road.
“You make me sick! You’re the biggest wimp I’ve ever seen! Right now, we could be at the dance having a good time. But no! You’re afraid your ‘mamma’ will get mad. She ain’t gonna find out anyway. I heard that foxy waitress tell Goldie she would be there later tonight. I know she likes me. I could tell the way she looked at me. Why do you always have to do everything right?” He was mad and driving way too fast.
“Do you think you are a big shot or what? That chick is eighteen years old. You won’t be fourteen ’til October. You’ll be in the ninth grade this fall, and she’ll be a senior in high school. The only reason she knew you were there tonight is because you had to show off and leave her a big tip.”
“Shut your trap. What do you know anyway—Mr. Goody Two Shoes?”
“Slow down!” I said.
The words had not escaped the inside of the pickup when Henry turned the corner. Going too fast in the loose gravel, the pickup slid off the road and hit a telephone pole. My head connected with the windshield. Henry’s door flew open—he came to a sliding halt on his stomach—the pickup stuttered, coughed and died in a cloud of dust.
The lights on the pickup had gone out. I fumbled around and found the door handle. I called to Henry. I couldn’t see him in the dark! “Are you okay?” I heard him coughing. My head hurt. My nose was bleeding all over my shirt. I stumbled around behind the pickup and tripped over Henry. He was sitting trying to cough his socks up.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Hell no! I’m not okay! My mouth is full of dirt and this dust is choking me. Are you okay?”
A car came around the corner. It stopped as the headlights flooded the scene.
A man’s voice said, “What happened here? Are you boys okay?” The voice belonged to Ben Canterbury, the county sheriff. He helped Henry to his feet. Henry was a little wobbly but okay. “You boys go sit in my car. I want to see what I can do about stopping Oris’ nosebleed.” He handed me a handkerchief and said, “Hold this under your nose. You have a bloody nose and the grandfather of all bumps on your forehead. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, sir. I’m okay.”
“What are you boys doing driving around at night? I know neither one of you has got a driver’s license.”
“We been to town,” I said.
Sheriff Canterbury, huffing in his mustache, walked around the pickup. He said, “The front end is all messed up. It will have ta be towed. Here’s what I’ll do, Oris. I’ll take you home and see how your dad wants to go about getting his pickup home.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat as big as a baseball and said, “My folks aren’t home. They won’t be home until tomorrow night.”
“Okay then. I’ll run you by your Granddad Fletcher’s.”
For once in his life, Henry didn’t have a thing to say.
“You know something? You two boys, between you, don’t have as many brains as a turtle has feathers. You could a done yourselves a world o’ hurt.” The silence in the sheriff’s car was as quiet as math class when Mrs. Carter asks for a volunteer to work a problem on the blackboard.
When we topped the hill and looked down at our house, I stopped breathing. The house was lit up. A soft glow from kerosene lamps spilled out of every window.
We drove into the yard and found Dad’s car and Grandad Fletcher’s pickup parked in the yard.
Dad, Mom and Grandad and Grandma Fletcher were standing on the porch steps. Mom and Dad had come home a day early.
Sheriff Canterbury said to Dad, “Charles, look what I found along with your wrecked pickup.”
My heart dropped to my feet. My stomach filled with butterflies. I knew I was in serious trouble.
Elmer’s Bull
Oris, what have you done now?” Mom asked.
“Nothin”, Mom.”
“I know better,” she said. “You’ve got that innocent look all over your grubby face. When I see ‘that look’, I know you’re trying to cover up some atrocity that only you can find to do!”
At 15 years old, I wasn’t sure what the word ‘atrocity’ meant, so I figured I was home free. It would be a disappointment to Mom if she thought I didn’t know the meaning of the word. (She was always telling anyone who would listen how smart I was.) She’d say, “Oris knows everything. No one can tell him a solitary thing.” I didn’t want to upset her by admitting there was something I didn’t know, even if it was the meaning of some unimportant word. Little did I know that for the rest of my life, on occasion, that hot summer in 1948 would bub
ble to the surface of my memory.
Henry and I had just walked into the house. We had been gone for two days and nights working for Grandad Fletcher. I was smiling and thinking of the prank we had pulled on ol’ Elmer Tillitson. Mom always thought the worst when I’d been away from home for a few days. She knew Henry was perfect in every way. He had an infectious personality. He was tall, athletic, with thick blonde hair, bottomless blue eyes, and a smile that Clark Gable would die for. He could charm the stripes off a zebra. In Mom’s eyes, Henry could do no wrong. (Little did she know.)
If Henry was so perfect, why did she worry so much when we were together?
Summer hit full swing.
Henry’s parents, not wanting to spend the hot summer in town, had gone to visit family in northern Montana. They planned on being gone most of the summer. Henry pitched a fit and didn’t want to go with them. My mother suggested Henry stay with us. Dad offered to pay him to help around the ranch. On days we didn’t work, which wasn’t often, we fished, went swimming, shot magpies and prairie dogs. That is, if Mom didn’t force us to do hard, humiliating labor, like hoeing weeds in her vegetable garden.
After the hay was hauled and stowed in the barn, Dad told us we could take a few days off. We decided to go fishing. Dad lived to fish He always emptied the coffee grounds at the foot of an apple tree in the southeast corner of the garden. Hungry worms ate those coffee grounds and grew big and fat. (While he was baiting the hook, the fish would jump right up on the creek bank and fight to see who’d get the fat, juicy worm.)
“Henry. Dig some worms while I get the fishing poles.”
Each of us, with a pole over the right shoulder, started down the hot, dusty road. Grandad Fletcher, in his rattling 1927 Model A Ford coupe, came chugging up the road in a cloud of dust. The Model A clattered to a stop.
“Where ya two boys off to?” Grandad asked (as if the fishing poles weren’t a dead give away).
“We’re gonna catch a mess of fish for supper,” Henry answered.
Grandad smiled, scratched his nose and said, “Ya boys have annoyed them fish in the creek so often this summer they’ve gone ta safer waters. They probably went north ta Canada or Maine ta ’scape yer pathetic attempts at fishin’. Fish like a challenge, not the fumblin’ o’ two young boys.”
“Grandpa, come and go with us,” I said.
“I can’t do that, boy. Got lots ta do taday.”
“Mr. Fletcher,” Henry said, “we’ll catch a big’n for you.”
“Thanks, boys,” Grandad said. He put the Model A in gear and rattled away.
Henry picked up a rock and threw it at a magpie sitting on a fence post. He missed. A dust devil danced across the road in front of us. A hawk circled overhead as we walked on down the dusty road. Just before we got to the creek, we heard a car coming behind us. It was Grandad. The brakes squealed and the Model A ground to a halt. It backfired and blew a perfect smoke ring when Grandad turned the key off.
“Well, men,” Grandad said. “With no fish in the crick, and ya needin’ somethin’ ta do ’sides go swimmin’ these few days, Oris’s dad says ya can goof off. Instead a wastin’ yer time tryin’ ta catch fish that ain’t anywheres near, hows about comin’ ta work fer me? Got fence needs fixin’, some hay ta haul, and a chicken coop what’s in need of a good cleanin’. The good part o’ this deal is all ya can eat three times a day, and ice cream every night. Ya can sleep in the twin beds upstairs. Out o’ the kindness o’ my big heart, I’ll pay ya each four dollars a day.”
With not a penny to my name and a new show at the movies I wanted to see, I said, “Okay, Grandad. Sounds good to me. Whatcha say, Henry?”
Henry thought for a few seconds before he answered. (The only thing Henry could ever make a quick decision about was how much pie he could eat.) I could see his pea-brain thinking, ‘If I hold out for a few minutes, maybe Mr. Fletcher will offer four dollars and twenty-five cents.’
“Well, boys, I gotta go. So how does my offer sound ta ya?”
Henry looked at me and then at Grandad. “I will be more than happy to help you out, Mr. Fletcher.”
“Good. Jump in. We’ll take them fishin’ poles back ta the house and ya can pick up a change o’ clothes. I already talked ta Oris’s dad. He said it’s okay.”
We worked the rest of the day and collected our first bowl of ice cream.
Grandad rousted us out at 5:00 a.m. Grandma fed us a hearty breakfast of eggs, ham, biscuits and milk.
“Henry, drink your milk,” Grandma said. (Henry didn’t get along with milk. He wanted coffee.)
“Oris, I gotta run inta town this mornin’,” Grandad said. “You boys stop at the shop an’ pick up a posthole digger, two shovels, the wire stretchers, a hammer and a can of staples. Go over ta the fence ’tween me ’n Elmer’s and replace them five rotten posts before Elmer blows a gut.” Elmer was Grandad’s nearest neighbor. They shared a fence.
We harnessed Buck and Jack, Grandad’s buckskin mules, and hitched them to the Bains wagon. We drove around to the shop and loaded the tools. Henry started around the back of the wagon and almost collided with Tom, Grandma’s big pet tom turkey. (Ol’ Tom was a sharp dresser. He had on a cowboy hat, a pair of tennis shoes, a black bow tie and was smoking a Sherlock Holmes pipe.) He looked at Henry, spread his tail feathers and said, “I own this farm. I bought it from the bank, so walk around me you numbskull kid or I’ll chase you clear to New York City.”
“Better leave that turkey alone, “I hollered. “Or he’ll fightcha.”
“Ain’t no dumb turkey gonna bluff me,” Henry said. For once, he showed good sense. He walked around Tom and climbed up on the wagon seat.
We drove past the chicken coop as a hen cackled to let the world know she had laid an egg. Grandma waved as the wagon rattled past the house. The mules settled into a steady walk. Heel chains on their tugs jingled a happy tune. A meadow lark called.
We unloaded tools and tied the mules to the back of the wagon. “Hey,” Henry said. “I’ll flip ya ta see who digs the new postholes.” I lost and set to work digging holes while Henry moved the barbed wire back out of the way.
“Rats,” I said. “Here comes Elmer Tillitson.” Elmer didn’t like me. Every chance he had he’d tell me, and anyone within earshot, how dumb and stupid I was.
Henry waved and said, “Good morning, Mr. Tillitson. I hope you’re having a fine day, sir.” Sometimes I’d like to knock Henry’s block off. The way he “yes sirred” and “no sirred” Elmer every time he saw him made me wanna ‘puke’.
“Good ta see ya, Henry.’’Elmer said. “What ya doin’ out here on this fence with that brainless Oris?” Elmer glared at me with a look that would take the paint off the side of a barn.
“Sir, I’m staying with the Fletchers while my folks are gone up to Montana for the summer. Mr. Fletcher sent me over here to repair this fence.”
“You’re a good boy, Henry. More ’n I can say ’bout that idiot over there tryin’ ta digga posthole,” Elmer said. He glared at me again.
Henry waved as Elmer gunned his old 1928 Model A Ford pickup and departed in a cloud of dust.
I leaned the posthole digger against the fence and walked to the wagon to get a drink of water from the canvas water bag. “Henry, you make me downright sick the way you always butter up that old stinker.”
“Just ’cause he don’t like you don’t make him a bad guy.”
“You know as well as I do, he’s nothing but a foul-tempered ol’ billy goat,” I said.
We removed the old posts, set new ones, and tightened the five wires. “Come on, let’s take a break before we head back to the barn,” Henry said.
“Sounds good to me.”
We stood in the welcome shade of a majestic old cottonwood tree. Henry put a Lucky Strike between his lips. He scratched a match on the zipper of his Levis, lit the cigarette, and took a deep drag. He blew smoke like he’d been smoking all his life. (He couldn’t inhale yet without coughing up his socks.) “Do you re
ckon your Grandad would take us into town this evening so we can go to the show? The new show Skudda Ho, Scudda Hey opened last night. I’d like to see it. It’s about a team of mules. You’d like it ‘cause you ain’t got any better sense than to like mules.”
“We could ask him. No you ask him,” I said. “You’re so full of crap it makes you better than me at asking.”
“Okay. I’ll ask him.”
The entire time we were cleaning the chicken coop I had to listen to Henry talk about which girl in town liked him the best—which one had the prettiest eyes—which one had the prettiest hair.
We helped Grandad do the evening chores. Henry picked the right minute to ask Grandad if he’d take us to town after supper. “Mr. Fletcher, Oris wants me to ask if you’ll take us to town tonight so we can go to the show?”
Grandad scratched his nose, smiled, and said, “Ya mean ya ain’t tired after workin’ all day? Ya still got ’nough energy ta go runnin’ ’round ta night?” After a few seconds of cemetery-dead silence, a smile appeared around the corners of his mouth. “I suppose I can do that, but you’ll hafta git a ride home.”
“Thank you, Mr. Fletcher. We’ll catch a ride home and be up early tomorrow morning ready for a full day’s work,” Henry said, all smooth and polite.
After supper, I helped Grandma with the dishes while Henry got ready.
“You boys should be going to bed early tonight,” Grandma said, “instead of running around late when you have to work tomorrow. Don’t go getting into mischief. You hear?”
Grandad dropped us off in front of the Rialto Theater. Ramon, Marvin, and Jerry were standing by the curb watching girls walk by. All five of us wore white T-shirts with sleeves rolled to the top of our shoulders, starched Levis with a sharp crease ironed in them, and penny loafers. We had everything under control. Ramon passed around a pack of Lucky Strikes. Henry had a pack of Lucky Strikes rolled in the left sleeve of his T-shirt. No way in heck would he unroll that sleeve. He might not get it rolled up just right again and wouldn’t look all tough and important. (He made a big show of striking a match on his belt buckle and holding the match for the guys to light their smokes.)