“Uh, oh, dogs,” I mumbled as I passed First Baptist Church. Dogs just love to chase stuff, and they’ll chase nearly anything that’s moving. Well, I guess those three dogs couldn’t resist another dog and a boy running down the street by their house, and they took off after us.
“Get! Get! Get outta here, you sorry dogs!” I yelled, but here they came, three big, mixed-breed dogs barking and snarling as they chased me and Sniffer. The first dog was just about to catch up when Sniffer stopped to challenge him.
“No, Sniffer, no, no!”
Sniffer is a hunting dog, in good shaped from all the running he does, and that first lazy town dog didn’t have a chance. Sniffer was all over him, knocking him to the ground, chewing up his ears, and clamping down on his throat―and that would’ve been one dead dog if there hadn’t been two more big dogs right behind him. Soon four dogs were swirling around in the dangest dog fight you ever did see, and just for a moment I started to keep running and break the route record, but I just couldn’t leave Sniffer, who was trying to whip three dogs, all of them as big as him. I stopped and reached in my bag, pulled out a rolled up paper, and waded into the dog fight. I don’t know why, but dogs are just scared to death of a rolled up newspaper. Heck, it can’t really hurt them, and after I whacked them a couple of times, the fight broke up, but they just backed off about ten yards threatening to start the fight again.
“Well, you stupid dogs, you asked for it.” I pulled my slingshot outta my bag, and as soon as that slingshot cleared the bag two of the dogs broke and ran. They were what we call “slingshot shy.” However, the other dog just stood there, stupidly barking, while I just calmly put a nice-size rock in the pouch and drew back. That dog had such a shocked look when the rock bopped him in the head that I almost laughed. He bolted to run but before he could get outta range I sent another rock into his side. Sniffer ran after him for good measure, and then trotted back with a dog smile on his face like, “We showed them dogs who’s boss.” Well, the dog fight costs us the record, but still we were back in the newsstand in less than an hour.
“Doc, I had to break up a dog fight today, but before this summer’s over I’m gonna break that record.”
He grinned, rolled his wheelchair over to the candy country, and pulled out a jumbo Baby Ruth candy bar.
“Richard, the day you run that paper route in less than forty-five minutes you can just walk over here and pick up this candy bar.” Doc smiled and put the candy bar on the cash register.
Heck, I was gonna get that candy bar before the summer was over or die trying.
After running the whole paper danged route, me and Sniffer was so tired we walked back to the farm, and after I finished feeding the mules and chickens, I went in to eat breakfast. Momma was putting breakfast on the table as I walked in the door. I looked at her and I could tell she was just going through the motions. She was so sad. I sat there while Momma did the dishes, and she never said a word. Things were really a mess around our house, and now with me and John Clayton in trouble with Doctor Carl, I was so worried I couldn’t see straight.
After a week passed and nothing else happened, I thought this little mess with Doctor Carl and Miss Tina would pass over, but I was danged sure wrong about that. At first, it was some little things that were happening downtown. Somebody was turning over garbage cans and streetlights were being broken almost every night, and, naturally, Curly was on our case, really bad, and we couldn’t figure out why. Then, after another round of more of the same stuff, Curly went to our daddies and Doctor Carl’s name was mentioned. Curly said Doctor Carl had told him, since he had an office downtown, he was aware of who was doing stuff, and then he told Daddy that Doctor Carl told him we were the only ones around when it happened, and he just really thought it was us. Dang, when we heard that we were so mad we could hardly see, and of course our daddies believed Doctor Carl, and we got a good switching even though we swore on a stack of Bibles we didn’t do nothing. After that last switching we were sitting on the breadbox talking about what to do.
“Dang, Richard, you know that sorry Doctor Carl did all that stuff, and then told Curly just to get us in trouble.”
“Yeah, I know it. We know all the kids that run round downtown, and if it had been one of them, we’d sure know. But what are we gonna do? What if he keeps doin’ stuff like that?”
“Heck, Richard, what can we do? You know there ain’t a soul in town that’ll believe us if we tell them that danged Doctor Carl did that stuff just to get us in trouble.”
“I don’t know, maybe Peg will believe us. Whata you say, we go talk to Peg?”
“Can’t hurt, but it’s probably a waste of time.”
We hopped down from the breadbox and started walking toward the pool hall,
but we hadn’t walked ten feet, when all of a sudden tires squealed and a pickup truck
pulled up beside us. It was old man Odom.
“Whoa, you two!”
“Oh, dang, get ready for some big-time yellin’,” I whispered to John Clayton.
Sure enough, old man Odom was so mad he could hardly see, and he jumped outta his truck, pranced around like a wind-up toy, yelling and pointing his finger at us.
“Y’all thinks you’re pretty smart, huh? Do you? Do you?”
“Uh, well, we don’t know what you’re a-talkin’ ’bout Mr. Odom,” I lied.
“Oh, you damn sure do! Yes, you do! Think you can make a fool outta me, huh? Puttin’ that big watermelon on my front porch!”
Well, he was just going nuts talking about us making him look stupid, and finally, he drew himself up, shaking his finger at us as he pulled out a ten-dollar bill.
“Y’all see this ten-dollar bill?”
“Yes sir.”
“It’s yours, all you hafta do is steal one more watermelon, and I’ll give you this ten-dollar bill. Shoot, you boys is always wantin’ a little extra spend money. All y’all hafta do is get one more little melon. I dare you!” With that old man Odom jumped in his pickup truck still hollering at us. “Come on out to the patch boys! Just get one more melon! That’s all you hafta do!” Tires squealed again, and he roared off.
We stood there for a few minutes, and I knew exactly what John Clayton was thinking. I nodded my head as I said; “Yep, we’re gonna get us a ten-dollar watermelon before this summer’s over.” John Clayton smiled and we walked on down the street to Peg’s place. Peg’s Pool Hall wasn’t open yet, but Peg was inside straightening up chairs and wiping off the domino tables. We stuck our head in the door and called out to him: “Peg, its Richard and John Clayton. Can we come in and talk to you?”
“Sure boys, come on in, but John Clayton you better not let your mother see you. You know what she thinks ’bout this pool hall.”
“Yes sir, but she’s in El Dorado today so I don’t have nothin’ to worry ’bout.”
Peg was sure right about John Clayton’s momma forbidding him to go in the pool hall. In fact she told him if he even looked in he was gonna get a switching.
“Sniffer, sit, stay!” Sniffer plopped down by the door, and we walked inside smelling the stale beer and cigarettes.
“Here, boys, sit down at this domino table, and tell me what’s on y’all’s mind.”
We sat down and I looked at Peg who though it was funny that we were coming to talk to him about something.
“First off, Peg, you gotta promise not to tell a soul what we’re ’bout to tell you,” I said. Peg’s interest was up now, and he leaned forward in his chair.
“Hell, boys, you know me. If you wanta keep this a secret, I swear I’ll never tell a word you tell me.”
John Clayton, who was really excited about just being in the pool hall, couldn’t wait to tell Peg all the details.
“Peg it all started when we were under the stairs at church”… and John Clayton went on and on, not missing a single thing. He even told Peg about the roach trick, and Peg laughed so hard he nearly fell outta his chair. After John Clayton finished with the
last part about the turned-over garbage cans and streetlights being knocked out, Peg leaned back and shook his head.
“Boys, y’all ain’t the kind of kids to do little stupid tricks like garbage can turnin’ over and knockin’ out streetlights. Hell, y’all into big time stuff―them roaches, oh, oh, ha, ha, ha, that was one hell of a stunt. Anyway, I know you didn’t have nothin’ to do with that other stuff, but let me tell you something. That Doctor Carl shor has people fooled, and if he said his cat ate carrots people would believe him. Y’all got a problem, but listen, I’ll keep my ears open, and if I hears or sees anything, I’ll let you know. Boys, just keep your noses clean and maybe things’ll calm down.”
We walked out of the pool hall a little encouraged, because Peg was the only person in town beside Joe Rel and Billy Ray, that believed at least part of our story, and we felt like that if anything else happened he’d be on our side.
“Heck, Richard, maybe Peg’s right. You know we got even, they got even, and we got switched. Maybe it’s all over now.”
Boy, was John Clayton wrong about that.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Arrested
We were downtown that next Monday morning walking by Peg’s place when Curly spotted us and even before he got to us we knew something was wrong.
“You boys done gone too far now!” he yelled. “Y’all is under arrest, and it’s gonna be more than a switchin’ this time. I done called the Sheriff’s Office, and they’s comin’ from El Dorado to pick y’all up.”
“What? What on earth for?” I said.
“Hell, boy, don’t give me that. Y’all knows what you done. Them hotel windows didn’t break out by themselves.”
“What? Curly, we didn’t do it! We didn’t have one thing to do with it!” we yelled.
“Humph, we’ll see. It seems someone saw y’all runnin’ away right after them windows broke.”
“Oh, no!” I looked at John Clayton, and we knew Doctor Carl had broken the windows and then told Curly he saw us do it.
“Y’all just sit right here while I call your folks, and tell ’em to meet us at the Sheriff’s Office in El Dorado.”
We sat there just stunned while Curly went in Peg’s to use the phone, and in a few minutes a sheriff’s car pulled up.
“Deputy, handcuff these here boys!” hollered Curly.
The deputy sheriff walked over to where we were sitting and shook his head.
“Hell, Curly, I ain’t gonna handcuff no little kids. Boys, come on and get in the car; we gotta go to the courthouse.”
“Dang, Billy Earl. I thought y’all always handcuffed criminals,” said Curly.
“Well, yeah, Curly, but hell, these kids ain’t criminals. Now come on boys, let’s get on over to El Dorado.”
Peg had come out of the pool hall and was standing there watching what was happening.
“Peg, will you watch Sniffer for me?”
“Sure, Richard. I betcha this is just some little misunderstandin’. You boys didn’t break those windows. Y’all don’t worry none, everything’s gonna be okay.”
Curly escorted us over to the car, and we all got in the back seat. I guess that was the longest day of my life. The ride into El Dorado and then the sheriff’s deputy escorting us into the courthouse where our folks were standing waiting for us, and then after our mommas cried and our daddies gritted their teeth, we were taken in to see the judge. He ordered a hearing set for the following week and then, after a lecture about private property and a whole bunch of other stuff, he turned us over to our folks. Boy, the ride home was even worse, because Daddy was so mad he threatened to stop on the side of the road and switch me, and Momma kept saying over and over, “Oh, I can’t believe a son of mine would do such a thing.”
Course, I tried to tell ’em I was innocent, and that me and John Clayton weren’t even downtown when the windows were broken, but they didn’t believe a word I said, and I knew, unless the Lord came, a major thrashing was gonna happen just as soon as we got home.
“Richard, cut me a switch, and it better be a good one!” Daddy yelled as soon as the car stopped. Shoot, I’ve had plenty of switching, but this set a never-to-be-broken record. My legs were covered in stripes.
Daddy went downtown and checked the damage to the hotel, and sure enough someone had thrown two rocks through the cracked big front windows of the old abandoned hotel. It turned out the hotel was now owned by some out-of-state folks who could care less about anything happening to the building. Daddy and Mr. Reeves bought some plywood to put in the windows, and Daddy handed me the bill, which was six dollars and sixty-five cents.
“You can pay for this out of you paper route money.”
I went to bed that night still whimpering from the switching. My legs were covered with welts from the willow switch, and as I tried to go to sleep the thoughts of the hearing before the judge just stuck in my mind. What was he gonna do? With that sorry Doctor Carl telling everybody I was guilty, I didn’t have a chance. Finally, I dropped off in a fitful sleep, tossing and turning for most of the night. It was five o’clock before I knew it. I slowly crawled out of bed, put on my shorts, and headed down to the newsstand with Sniffer right by my side.
Doc was just cutting the strap on the papers when I walked in. He looked at the big clock above his desk and said, “Well, I’ll be damned―you’re on time. I think I’m gonna drop dead.”
“Aw, Doc, I’m in trouble. Real bad trouble and it’s gonna get worse,” I said as I turned around and showed Doc my legs.
“Richard, what on earth happened to your legs? You’ve got plenty of switching before, but those welts are terrible.”
“Doc, Daddy gave me the worst switching I’ve ever had, and it’s for something I didn’t do.”
“Now, Richard, your Daddy’s a fair man, and I can’t think of any time you got switched when you didn’t deserve it.”
“Yeah, Doc, switchings is just something that happens when you get caught doing stuff you shouldn’t do. But, heck, Doc, you’re not supposed to get switched for something somebody else did.”
“Huh?”
“Me and John Clayton got switched ’cause Doctor Carl said he saw us break out the windows in the old Central Hotel, and Doc, we weren’t even in town when it happened.”
“Oh, Richard, you’re not blamin’ this on Doctor Carl again are you?”
“Your danged right I am!”
“Richard, I know you and John Clayton play in that old hotel. Maybe somebody else broke out the windows and he just happened to see y’all right after they were broken.”
“Naw, Doc, he’s makin’ it up. He’s just tryin’ to get us in as much trouble as he can.”
“Well, Richard, I’d like to believe you, but as much trouble as you and John Clayton have gotten into over the past few years, nobody in this town would believe you over the word of a respected doctor.”
I just shook my head. It was hopeless.
Me and John Clayton met later that day down at the breadbox to talk about all the trouble we were in.
“Heck, Richard, this thing ain’t over yet. You know that judge has set a hearin’ to determine what he gonna do with us. What if he puts us in prison?”
“They don’t put kids in prison.”
“Well, then, what do they do with them?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s probably like being saved. You know we aren’t accountable until we reach a certain age―Oh, wait a minute, I know― reform school, you know that’s what that sorry Miss Tina keeps tellin’ us.”
“Yeah, you’re right, but what if the judge says to our folks to take us home and switch us every day for a week and then send us to reform school?”
“Well, that could be terrible, but shoot, I’ve got to deliver papers for a whole two weeks to pay for that plywood our daddies put in the hotel windows.”
John Clayton was worried and so was I. Just the idea of going up before a judge and having someone lie about something you didn’t do, and then just knowin
g the judge wasn’t gonna believe you, and he was gonna give you some kinda sentence. I could hardly sleep all the week before the hearing.
I wished going before the judge was the only thing I had to worry about. Ever since I heard Momma yell at Daddy about seein’ Miss Simpson, things just hadn’t been right. You could feel something was wrong in the house. Before Miss Simpson came into our lives, Daddy and Momma would hug and joke a lot, and just being around them was fun. But no more. They’d just about stopped speaking, and Daddy had started going out more during the week. And every time he came in, Momma just glared at him even though he hadn’t been drinking, and this really upset me. I tried to talk to Momma about what was happening, but she wouldn’t talk to me. I didn’t know how bad it was until a few days later when Mrs. Echols came over one afternoon while Daddy was working, and she and Momma went into Momma’s bedroom and shut the door. I knew something was up, and I was gonna find out what. As soon as she closed the door, I ran outside and stood with my ear to the window. What I heard scared me to death.
“Adel, I’m certain Jack is seeing Helen Simpson. You know when a man is fooling around, you can tell it, and I can tell you, Jack Mason is guilty as sin.”
“Oh, Sue, are you sure? Maybe it’s not serious.”
“I’m afraid it is serious. Jack’s a different man, and he’s even mentioned divorce.”
“Divorce? Surely not, Sue. You know the refinery superintendent frowns on anything going on with the men and women working at the refinery. He could lose his job.”
“I know, but he’ll just wait until I can’t stand it any longer, and I’ll leave town. Then he’ll tell everybody I left him.”
“Leave town? Sue, what are you thinking?”
“Adel, I can’t live here with the way Jack’s acting. Sooner or later everybody in town will find out, and I can’t stand the embarrassment. I’ll just have to take Richard and move back to Momma’s house in Oklahoma.”
I didn’t wait around to hear any more. Move to Oklahoma! Leave all my friends! Momma and Daddy are getting a divorce? Oh, my gosh, I’ve gotta tell John Clayton! I ran outta the yard and headed toward town to find him.
Lyin' Like a Dog, The Yankee Doctor, The Danged Swamp! 3-Volume set Page 25