“Oh, lord, seven or eight thousand roaches in that little office,” I mumbled.
We were in a panic now and as we watched roaches climb up the plate glass window, my heart was beating so hard I could hear it, and John Clayton started whining about how much trouble we were gonna be in, and how this little trick was gonna get us sent straight to reform school. Right at that moment I wanted more than anything else in the whole, entire world just to have those roaches back in that toe sack, but it was too late―way too late.
Well, we waited and waited and nothing happened; well, except the roaches had spread out to where you could see them almost covering everything in the office. Where was Miss Tina? Evidently Miss Tina and Doctor Carl had a long talk or something, because she stayed and stayed in the back room.
The more we waited the more John Clayton whined, “Dang, Richard, maybe all the roaches will leave if she stays out a little longer.”
“Nahaa, they can’t go nowheres but in that one little room, and man, thirty-five pounds of roaches is a heck of a lot of roaches.” When I said that I had a little choking feeling, but I tried to act as if the eight thousand roaches in that little office didn’t bother me a whit.
“Oh, oh, oh,” moaned John Clayton.
Just then Miss Tina stepped outta the back room and started toward her desk. Her hair looked a little messed up and she was straightening her dress, and I guess she didn’t look down or pay no attention to the floor ’cause she just went straight back to her desk, sat down and started going through some papers. Nothing happened at all. She just started working and me and John Clayton looked at each other in shock.
“Where are all the roaches?” I whispered.
“Maybe they all ran off because she was in the back so long.”
Then Miss Tina lit a cigarette, started to lean back in her chair, and then, whoa, look out Trigger!—things just went crazy.
“Ahaaaaaaaa! Ohaaaaaaaa! Eeeeeeeeeee! Eeeee! Eeeee! Eeee!”
First, there was a bunch of hair-raising screams, which you could’ve heard ten miles away, and Miss Tina jumped up from her desk, slapped her legs, and danced around while she screeched at the top of her lungs. Shoot, that cigarette just flew outta her hand and she hopped around in them highheeled shoes like some wild Indian, but you know something? You can’t dance on a roach carpet because when you step on maybe six or eight roaches at one time it gets real slick on your shoe, and sure enough, there was another whoop and Miss Tina hit the floor. Well, we watched her go down with arms waving and legs kicking and then―my gosh―there was another scream like nothing I’ve ever heard in my whole entire life, and then she jumped up, and I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles, there was roaches all over her. Well, I ain’t never seen anybody slap and yell so much all at the same time. Course, we’d been kinda shocked to start with because Miss Tina was so wild, but after she fell down and jumped up with roaches all over her we rolled on the ground laughing.
“Ahaaaaa, help, help, ahaaaaaa, Carl, come here! There’re roaches everywhere! Ahaaaaaaa, oh, Carl, they’re on my legs! Ahaaaaaaa!”
Then me and John Clayton really started looking because she pulled her skirt all the way up to her panties to slap one of the faster roaches as she screamed and jumped around the office. Heck, I know I was upset about putting too many roaches in that office, but shoot, after Miss Tina went just wild, I stopped thinking about how we’d done too much, and I rolled over and laughed so hard I thought I’d bust a gut.
Course, her screams brought Doctor Carl outta his office, and he saw the roaches right off because Miss Tina was yelling about them and pointing to the roach carpet on the floor, while she was dancing around holding on to the desk to keep from falling down. Doctor Carl stood there for a minute like he didn’t know what to make of it, and before he could move, a bunch of roaches ran up his shoe and right up his pants leg.
“Oh, oh, whooooo! Whoooo!” Then he yelled some really bad words and grabbed Miss Tina by the hand and headed for the door.
“Tina, get out of here!”
Doctor Carl tried to head for the door, and we heard Miss Tina scream: “Be careful Carl! You’ll fall down!”
Shoot, Doctor Carl was so anxious to get outta that office that he just ignored Miss Tina and yanked her toward the door. Well, he didn’t take two steps until he slipped from stepping on the roach carpet, and took Miss Tina down with him. And for a minute they was a big pile of arms and legs with roaches running all over them.
“Ahaaaa! Ohoooooo! God!” That was just a few of the things Doctor Carl said as he tried to get up, and, of course, Miss Tina let out a scream to end all screams as they tried to get to the door, but heck, after stepping in all them roaches, their shoes were so slippery that they’d take a step, fall down again, and then crawl through more roaches than you’ve ever seen in your entire life, cursing loudly, slapping roaches off as they slipped around on the slick floor. Doctor Carl finally crawled to the door, grabbed the doorknob, and started pushing, trying to get the door open. They was so many roaches on his white doctor coat that it was almost brown. We could hear him from across the street.
“The door won’t open!” he screamed as he pushed with Miss Tina yelling in his ear to let her out of that office or she was gonna die. Course, all the commotion and stomping on the roaches got them roaches all upset. You know, most of the time, roaches just scurry around on the floor and crawl up walls, but if they get all worked up they can fly. Well, these roaches—after being cooped up in a sack all night and now being stepped on and slapped―started to flit around like a bunch of super mosquitoes, and pretty soon the office looked like a big brown blur of flying water bugs, let me tell you something right now: Stepping on roaches and slapping them off your leg ain’t nothing compared to having them fly into you face and hair. We thought things couldn’t get no worse, but, shoot, when them roaches started dive-bombing Miss Tina and Doctor Carl the whole dang thing just went out of this world crazy.
“Carl! Carl! They’re up my leg again! Ahaaaaaa! They’re in my hair! Ahaaaaaaa! One flew in my mouth! Help me Carl! Open that damned door, or I’m going to die!”
Doctor Carl pushed and pulled that door so hard that he slipped down again, and knocked Miss Tina back against the front wall where about fifty roaches fell off right down in that Yankee red hair. You ain’t never seen a woman’s hands move so fast trying to knock them roaches outta her hair. Doctor Carl only made it to his knees before he fell down again. After cussing like crazy he crawled over to an office chair, picked it up, and yelled at Miss Tina.
“Tina, get away from the door!”
Then Doctor Carl threw the chair through the door glass, stepped through the broken glass, and managed to pull out the board we’d put under the door. Finally they both ran out still slapping at roaches. Miss Tina was so upset she was just a-quivering, and Doctor Carl grabbed her and pointed to his car across the street.
“Quick, get in the car!” he yelled.
When he said that, me and John Clayton looked at each other and almost split a gut thinking about Miss Tina jumping in Doctor Carl’s big car which was full of roaches. We could see them sticking to the car windows from across the street.
Miss Tina pulled her skirt down, and she and Doctor Carl ran over to his car, opened the doors, and jumped in.
“Ahaaaaa! Ahaaaaaa!”
“Whooooo! Whooooo!”
Miss Tina let out another ear piercing scream and another and another.
“The car’s full of roaches!” screamed Miss Tina as she frantically tried to get out. Well, Miss Tina was pretty fast getting outta that car, but since she’d sat down on top of maybe thirty or forty roaches a bunch of them got out of the car with her hanging on to her skirt, and a few managed somehow to get in that funny colored red hair. Doctor Carl was cursing and yelling like nothing I’ve ever heard, while he knocked roaches off his suit, but Miss Tina was a whole ’nother thing, and I thought for a minute she had totally lost it as she danced and screamed while trying
to rid herself of the more active roaches.
“Carl, help! Get this damn roach out of my hair!” she screamed.
Doctor Carl slapped a really big one right above Miss Tina’s ear and roach gunk splattered everywhere.
“Oh, oh, damn you, Carl! Now I’ve got roach guts in my hair!”
Finally, they knocked off the last of the roaches, and with Miss Tina crying hysterically, they hurriedly walked around the corner of the block, and I was danged sure they were going to look for Curly.
“Come on, John Clayton, let’s get outta here! Grab that piece of wood you put under the door, and run for the back of Echols Grocery!” John Clayton grabbed the plank he’d shoved under the door, and we high-tailed it to the back door of Echols Grocery. We slipped in, and there was Donnie stacking feed.
“Hey, Donnie, need some help?” I said.
“You’re dang right I do.”
“Well, listen, if we help you, will you promise to tell everybody that asks that we’ve been here all mornin’?”
“Sure, but why? You gotta tell me. What have y’all done now?”
“Okay, Donnie, we’re gonna tell you, but you gotta promise not to tell. It’s a secret.”
“Yeah, yeah, I promise. Now tell me why y’all are so anxious to help me.”
For the next ten minutes we told Donnie the entire story, and although he didn’t believe the part that we overheard at the church, he thought getting even for a switching using roaches was really funny. About that time Mr. Echols came in and said hello, and me and John Clayton made sure Mr. Echols saw us working.
It took Miss Tina and Doctor Carl a few minutes to find Curly, and by the time he got to Doctor Carl’s office most of the roaches had crawled out or had gotten back in wall cracks. Since Miss Tina and Doctor Carl had left both car doors open, almost all the roaches were gone from the car, and we had taken the plank that we had put under the door. They didn’t have much of a case to go on, but Doctor Carl and Miss Tina yelled and yelled at Curly, telling him how many roaches were in the office, and how they were dead sure somebody had put them in there and then stuck a plank under the door, and they knew exactly who did it, Richard Mason and John Clayton Reed. Curly agreed he’d go ask us about the roaches, and after a short walk around town, he found me and John Clayton sitting on the breadbox still giggling about the roach trick.
“Shusss,” I said, “here comes Curly.”
Curly must have come from Peg’s Pool Hall because he was pretty unsteady on his feet.
“Boys, Doctor Carl and Miss Tina is sure ’nough upset, and they swears you two done dumped a whole bunch of roaches in their office and in their car, too. Miss Tina is nearly gone crazy, she’s still a-shakin’, and her voice is so shrill it hurt my ears. Said she might just have a nervous breakdown. You boys done really caused a hell of a big problem, so I’m gonna hafta arrest y’all.”
“Curly, we’ve been here at the store all mornin’ helpin’ Donnie stack feed. Just go ask Mr. Echols,” I said.
“I damn sure will, and then I’m comin’ back for you boys. Don’t you leave that breadbox.”
Curly went inside and sure enough Donnie told him we’d been stackin’ feed all morning, and then Mr. Echols walked over to Curly and said, “Heck, Curly, I saw ’em workin’ back there myself.”
Well, Curly was stumped, because he thought we probably had something to do with the roaches, but he couldn’t prove a thing. In fact, after Curly came back out of the store, we started going on about roaches being everywhere and Arkansas was probably the roach capital of the world, and the roach headquarters in Norphlet is the old Central Hotel, which is right next to Doctor Carl’s office, and how a-scared Yankees are of roaches.
“Heck, Curly,” said John Clayton, “it probably was just a couple of ’em, and being Yankees they imagined it was a whole bunch of ’em. Shoot, remember a couple of days ago Miss Tina nearly went crazy ’cause of one little roach?”
I think Curly bought the idea of roaches being everywhere, because I was in Curly’s house last year, and I can tell you, he had more than a few roaches living with him.
Later that day, Doctor Carl had a man from El Dorado come over and set off a gas bomb that killed everything in the office. A colored lady came in and cleaned up later, and she told Mrs. Echols them people must be the dirtiest folks in town going by the number of roaches she swept up.
Well, course, we was a-hoping that the roach trick would get us even, and maybe even make them pack up and leave, since Miss Tina was so scared of roaches, but no such luck. In fact they didn’t even miss a day of work, and you know, looking back on it, we did way, way, way too much because that danged roach trick sent things just plumb outta control. It started the very next day.
CHAPTER SIX
We’re Even Ain’t We?
We were sitting on the breadbox the next morning bragging to each other about how we’d pulled off the perfect crime and how we’d gotten even, and how they’d probably pack up and leave any day now.
“Yeah, that’ll teach em to fool round with us,” I said. John Clayton throwed his head back and just hoo-hawed.
“It was the funnest thing I ever did see, and when Doctor Carl smacked that roach in Miss Tina’s hair I thought I was gonna die laughing―uh, oh, dang—look who’s comin’ our way.”
My gosh, it was Miss Tina heading to the grocery store to buy some cigarettes.
“John Clayton just act normal and smile, ’cause they don’t really know it was us.”
“Okay, Richard, but she looks as mad as a wet settin’ hen.”
And she did, she really did, but she took a deep breath, turned her head, and it looked like she was gonna ignore us. I guess I’m kinda orney ’cause I can’t resist trouble, so I smiled and said, “Good morning, Miss Tina.”
She stopped and looked around to be sure we were by ourselves, and then she walked over and shook her boney finger at us and just nearly bit our heads off.
“Listen to me, you little ruffians! We know you put those roaches in our office and car, and if you think you’re going to get away with it, you have another think coming! We’ll get you little delinquents, if it’s the last thing we do! You’re as good as on the bus to reform school!”
“But, Miss Tina, I don’t know what you’re a-talkin’ ’bout,” said John Clayton, and he did this little grin of his that looked like, “We gotcha!” Boy, that sent Miss Tina into a cow-dying fit.
“The hell you don’t! Just watch out, because when we get hold of your little asses you’ll regret that roach trick for the rest of your short little lifes! Oh, oh, every time I think of roaches running up my legs and getting tangled up in my hair, and we fell down and they got all over me, I just shake all over, and you did it, you worthless little brats!”
My gosh, Miss Tina was so worked up that we both knew a swing was heading our way and sure enough she made a wild slap just as we jumped off the breadbox. We walked on down the street talking about one wild, mad lady—or I might say woman, because she sure weren’t no lady.
“Shoot, Richard, I ain’t never seen nobody that mad. Do you think there’re gonna try to kill us?”
“Naw, they ain’t gonna kill us for a bunch of roaches, but I’ll tell you one thing, we’d better lay low for a while. Heck, John Clayton, I ain’t never seen nobody that upset, and that roach trick just might be enough to get rid of that sorry bunch. Shoot, Miss Tina might be packin’ her bags right now.” But sad to say, I was wrong, because they didn’t leave town and the stuff with Doctor Carl really started just getting outta hand.
I got home that afternoon just in time to hear Walter Winchell give the War news. Listening to Walter Winchell was about the only thing Momma and Daddy would do together. Momma would sit at one end of the table and Daddy would sit at the other end, and I’d sit in the middle between them in charge of the radio. When Walter Winchell came on I turned up the volume and didn’t say a word until the newscast finished. Course since the War was about over, and we’d a
lready whipped them sorry Germans, I wasn’t as excited as I’d been when my two uncles were fighting the Germans. Well, Walter Winchell started rattling and I turned up the radio.
“Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North and South America and all the ships at sea … let’s go to press. American and Australian troops mop up the remaining Japs in Borneo. American bombers strike Tokyo again with fire bombs which cause major damage and huge fires which are raging out of control… .”
Well Walter Winchell went on and on about how many Zeroes had been shot down and how close we were to actually winning the War.
I went to bed that night tossing back and forth thinking about Momma and Daddy’s problems, but, finally, I thought about Doctor Carl slapping that roach in Miss Tina’s hair, and I smiled and drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A Paper Route Record and Old Man Odom
Clang! Clang! Clang!
“Dang, it can’t be five already,” I mumbled. But course it was, and after pulling on my shorts, I ran outta the house heading for the newsstand.
“Sniffer, Sniffer, here, boy!” I shouted as I ran out the front gate and headed down the road toward Norphlet. Sniffer was by my side in a minute, and we trotted up to the newsstand just five minutes late.
“Hey, Doc, look at the clock,” I bragged.
“Damn, Richard, you’re the only person I know that would brag about being only a little late.”
“Heck, Doc, these Monday papers are so light I’ll be through in record time. It’s fifteen after and my all-time record is forty-seven minutes. I’m gonna break that record.” I grabbed my paper bag, stuffed the last papers in, and dashed out the door. Boy, I was really covering some ground as I turned and crossed the railroad track at Front Street. As I ran along I’d reach in the bag, get the paper ready and throw it at the front porch as I ran by. Shoot, I was doing great as I rounded the corner at Kennedy’s Grocery Store and started sprinting down Main Street heading for the newsstand.
Lyin' Like a Dog, The Yankee Doctor, The Danged Swamp! 3-Volume set Page 24