“What’s the matter, Orville Gene? You eat too much late-summer sweet corn?”
“Naw, but I’m gonna catch the beaver for sure, this time,” I said, as Derbert sacked up the toilet paper and marked it on my bill.
“With toilet paper?”
I smiled. “In a manner of speaking.”
I headed home with renewed hope, unaware that Derbert was already spreading the news that I was losing my grip on reality.
* * * *
The next morning dawned with a promise of a real nice day. I made my coffee and had a whole cup before I grabbed me a fresh roll of T.P. and headed out the back door at a fine clip, figuring that I should reach the pond just in time. Duke started to follow, but I sent him back to the porch. I didn’t need a replay of yesterday’s folly.
My belly was in a fine grumble by the time the pond came in view. I stopped at the edge of the water and was reaching for the buckle on my overalls when I heard someone calling my name.
“Good morning, Orville Gene!”
I was gawking and all the while remembering that my mama had taught me it wasn’t polite to stare, but seeing Mayor Ida and ancient little Adele Clearwater sitting in their lawn chairs on the pond dam with binoculars in their laps took me aback a great deal. And if that wasn’t enough, Maggie Hart had spread a blanket on the ground and was smearing jelly on a slice of bread.
“Ladies,” I muttered and wondered how long I could hold my need to poop. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“Oh no,” Adele chirped. “We just read about your ordeal in the paper this morning and thought we’d come and see for ourselves.” She waved one of those little throw-away cameras in the air. “See. I brought my own camera, just in case that monster shows his face.”
“Monster? What monster?” Then I zeroed in on the rest of what she’d said and heard the whine setting into my voice as I asked. “What ordeal in what paper?”
“Why, the Gazette, of course. You made the headlines, Orville Gene! It’s all everyone’s talking about.”
I made a silent vow to kill Derbert Koomer first chance that I got, then waved goodbye at the women, and made a run for the house just as Maggie passed Adele a grape jelly sandwich.
Mayor Ida got a sassy, smile-biting look on her face. “Problem, Orville Gene?” I will say that I didn’t have to change my britches, but it was close. Real close.
That, however, wasn’t the extent of the problem I now faced. I wasn’t the kind of man who went more than once a day. If I was going to follow through on the plan, I’d have to wait until tomorrow for another try. Only thanks to Katie Bell’s yen for news, I might never have the privacy I needed to follow through.
All morning, I sat on the porch watching first one set of sight-seers and then another making their way toward my pond. Everyone wanted to see the denizen of the deep and the man who’d survived it. Rosie Montgomery, who cooks at Mama’s All You Can Eat Café, even brought me one of her famous chocolate meringue pies, and Nona McPherson, who subs at Mossy Creek Elementary when she’s not in training for her next body-building contest, stopped by after that with a plate of deviled eggs.
Personally, I wanted to wring Katie Bell’s neck, but what was done was done. I did make a vow never to wonder again if I’d made a mistake by not marrying. Women were nothing but trouble, even the ones who could cook. Of course, Derbert had done his part in starting all the hoo-haw, but I figured it was because he watched too much TV.
It wasn’t until mid-afternoon that an idea struck me, and I knew when it hit, I had the answer I needed. I hobbled into the house and headed for the refrigerator. It was all jumbled up and full of cartons and cans that I’d been meaning to throw away. But I distinctly remembered the juice I’d bought after the pre-dart tournament party at O’Day’s Pub the week before. I’d had way too much beer and way too much cheese. If you’ve never had a combination of a constipation and hangover, you don’t know what sick is. Anyway, I was plugged up for two days until I thought to get me some prune juice. I knew there was bound to be some still left.
It wasn’t until I moved the jug of buttermilk on the bottom shelf that I saw it. Madeira Prune. Thick and sweet and the best natural laxative on earth.
I pulled it out and took a big swig, thinking to myself that it was thicker than I remembered, but I figured age had something to do with it, and it went down just fine. I checked my watch against the amount of remaining sun and then decided to hurry things up and took a big glass out of the cupboard, filled it full to the top and downed it in three gulps. The way I figured, by the time it got dark, the gawkers would all have gone home, and I could do what I had to do under the shelter of night. By morning, that danged beaver would be gone and I could rest easy, knowing that man was the ultimate animal after all.
Sundown came. The sight-seers went. Duke settled down under the porch while I had fried potatoes and greens for supper, along with a small brick of cornbread, slathered in butter. Along about nine, I felt the first signs that the juice had been working and grabbed my flashlight and a roll of toilet paper.
Halfway to the pond, I realized my timing was going to be off and stopped beside a bush. A couple of minutes later, I was buckling up my overalls and regretting the fact that I’d had such a big glass of juice, when I realized there was life in me yet. Hopeful that I still might make it to the pond after all, I started off at a fast clip.
I won’t bore you with the grisly details except to say that I stopped four more times before I made it to the pond, and by then, I was getting nervous. The roll of toilet paper was getting smaller by the hour while the grumbles in my belly showed no signs of letting up.
It wasn’t until I was standing at the edge of the pond and shining the flashlight into the water that I realized I was not only going to have to wade back in the dang-blasted water, but I was also going to have to crawl up on the lodge, and it was growing wider and taller by the day.
However, I hadn’t come this far to quit. I stepped into the water. It didn’t take as long to get to the beaver lodge as I thought. Partly because I’d forgotten about the possibility of water moccasins, and partly because I didn’t want to go in my pants. I crawled up on that lodge, clawing and grabbing at sticks until I was standing smack dab in the middle.
“I’ve got you now, you over-grown rat.”
It was a fine moment and one I’ll never forget, right up to the place where I reached for the toilet paper and watched it roll into the water.
“No.”
Even as I said it, I knew I was beating a dead horse. The paper was a thick, sodden mess and sinking fast, and I wasn’t much better. However, I still had my flashlight, and I wasn’t about to give up. I shined the light around the lodge, then began grabbing at some of the willow leaves and greenery that were still clinging to the limbs. It wasn’t the first time I’d depended on Mother Nature for help, and I wasn’t averse to doing it again.
A short while later, I was striding up the hill toward the house, about five pounds lighter, but a satisfied man, confident that by morning, my troubles would be over.
Again, I had counted my chickens before they’d hatched.
By morning, the itch on my butt that had started around midnight had turned into a full-fledged disaster. And with daylight, I was able to diagnose my problem. My only conclusion was that there must have been poison ivy tangled up in the leaves that I’d used in lieu of paper. Everyone had laughed over Amos Royden’s bout with poison ivy back in the spring. Now it would be my turn. I couldn’t bear to wear clothes, let alone stand or sit, and by daylight, I was also out of calamine lotion. I knew what I had to do, even if it meant lowering myself even more. I reached for the phone.
* * * *
Derbert was watching Regis & Kelly. I heard it in the background just before he hit the mute button on the remote. “I Probably Got It, Derbert speaking.”
“Derbert, it’s me, Orville Gene.”
“Hey, Orville Gene. You’ve gone and become a real
celebrity since I saw you last.”
“No thanks to you,” I muttered, then held my tongue. No sense antagonizing the one man I needed to help me. “I need you to do me a favor.”
Probably feeling guilty that he’d been found out, Derbert quickly said, “Anything for you, little buddy. What do you need?”
“I need you to bring me some calamine lotion. I’m kind of laid up and can’t drive until . . . uh . . . things heal a bit.”
“Sure thing, Orville Gene!” Then Derbert must have realized what I had just said. “Say, you don’t mean that beaver done put you in bed?”
“In a manner of speaking, I guess he did just that. Oh . . . and about that lotion. . . .”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Put it on the ticket.”
“Right.”
Wondering how long it would take Derbert to get there and making a mental note to pay some on my bill real soon before my credit was cut off, I grimaced and scratched as he hung up the phone. To my relief, Derbert arrived within fifteen minutes, expressing his condolences while trying to figure out exactly what awful thing had befallen me that I couldn’t bear to tell. All Derbert knew was that I was lying in bed and covered up to my chin, and there was toilet paper hanging from trees and bushes all over the back pasture.
He left the calamine lotion with a promise to bring more if needed and headed back to the store. I didn’t doubt he was wondering exactly how to tell Foxer Atlas what was going on now without committing an out and out lie.
* * * *
By nightfall, I had gotten some relief and was lying in bed, feeling sorry for myself as I listened to the rain pounding down on the roof. If my trip to the beaver lodge hadn’t worked before the nightfall, it was too late to worry about it now. I was getting so desperate that I even thought about going into town the next morning and putting my money into that gypsy fortune-teller machine and seeing if she had any new ideas.
Along about midnight, the storm had increased in intensity, and I was wondering if I dared make a run for the storm cellar. But the longer I stood at the window watching the rain lashing against the panes, the more convinced I became that I’d rather die in bed. The way my luck was running, I’d probably die from a lightning strike before I ever reached the cellar door.
No sooner had I thought about the lightning, than one big old sucker hit the ground and lit up the night. I caught myself flinching as the windows rattled.
“All right, all right, Lord. I get the message. You’re the one in charge. I’m going back to bed and that’s a fact. If I was meant to share quarters with a beaver, then so be it.”
It was way past sunrise when I got out of bed. I doctored myself good with the lotion again, then put on my oldest and loosest pair of overalls and headed for the pond. I had to check things out, if for nothing more than peace of mind.
Duke whined as I stepped off of the porch.
“All right. You can come,” I told him. “But no sneak attacks, now . . . you hear?”
Duke barked once to show his appreciation, sniffed the backside of my coveralls, then sneezed before bounding out in front of me.
A little indignant that man’s best friend was passing judgment on my doctored behind, I refused to throw him a stick to fetch.
“Yeah, you think that smells bad. You need to be in my shoes, old boy. You’d be too danged sore to sneeze.”
My mood stayed sour all the way to the pond. Partly because I realized the toilet paper I’d used that night in the dark was not only visible from the house, but also from the road. I could only imagine what Sue Ora would make out of it on top of my commode. And added to that, the rain had pounded the paper into the bushes and the grass until it looked vaguely like some vast paper mache project gone horribly wrong.
I stomped and I fumed all the way to the pond where my disposition took a quick turn to the good. I stared at the place where the beaver lodge was supposed to be and started to grin. There was nothing left of it but a floating pile of limbs and sticks, drifting to and fro upon the surface of the pond as the run-off from last night’s rain continued to flow.
Duke’s occasional yap suddenly turned into a vigorous bark as he bounded past me and plowed into the water. Before I could stop him, he was swimming toward the middle of the pond, then through the floating debris with some purpose in mind that I couldn’t see.
It wasn’t until I saw him clamp onto a brown, sodden mass that I realized he had captured my beaver. That it was obviously dead didn’t matter a whit. What counted was that the war was over.
Duke swam toward the shore with it held in his mouth, as proudly as any fine Retriever might do. That Duke was a hound with a suspicious pedigree was, at the moment, beside the point.
“Here, boy! Come here.”
Duke dropped that sucker at my feet and then shook himself dry.
“Good boy,” I praised and patted him hard on the back—just behind the shoulders—the way he liked it best. “Let’s go to the house!”
Duke took one last look at the beaver, whined once to let me know I owed him big, and headed away from the pond at a lope, his big ears flopping as he ran.
I picked up the beaver by the tail and as I did, saw a large, jagged stripe of black down the middle of its back. Curious, I twisted a bit of the hair between my fingers and was more than surprised when they came off in my hand. It felt stiff and dry, unlike the rest of the pelt, and when I lifted it to my nose, it smelled of smoke.
Immediately, I thought of the lightning I’d seen hit the ground, then looked back at what was left of that lodge. My mouth fell open.
Lightning.
It was the only explanation.
As sure as I was standing there, I knew that the lodge and that beaver had been struck by that lightning. I looked up at the bright and shining blue of heaven and right then and there made a promise to myself to attend church more regular.
“Well, Lord, I’m right beholden, and considering the issue Katie Bell would make of this . . . like probably calling it a miracle and designating Great-Granddaddy’s farm as some holy shrine . . . I won’t tell if you won’t.”
I took my beaver to the barn, and even though I was feeling the need for more calamine lotion, I skinned him right then and there and tacked his big, burn-striped hide to the barn door for everyone to see.
And that’s the truth of it all, and I’m only confessing it now because I got saved last Sunday in church and don’t see as how it seems right to let people keep on thinking I felled the beast alone. Besides, I don’t want the animal lovers to sic the Bigelow County Humane Society on me. I tried my best to keep that beaver alive. I doubt he could say the same for his intentions toward me.
And I’ve also been thinking that when the time arrives, I just might attend the Mossy Creek reunion after all. Just because I didn’t graduate from the high school don’t make me any less of a hero.
I am, after all, the man who survived the Creekite Denizen of the Deep.
IDA
IDA
Reading from the Heart
It’s an old Southern tradition, keeping up the graves of loved ones. But even in Mossy Creek—where traditions are lovingly set in stone and even the most peculiar rituals are accepted with a wink—my son Rob and I are said to have gotten a little carried away.
Rob reads books to his dead father. And so do I. People regularly spot one or the other of us sitting on a handsome bench under a canopy of oak trees at the cemetery. A book in hand, we read to Jeb Walker, our voices begging to turn back time with the soft recitation of stories Jeb loved. In summertime, birds flit around us, filching berries off a fat Mahonia shrub beside the dark-gray stone over Jeb’s grave, as if they knew he had always been a tough but forgiving man.
Rob showed up one Saturday afternoon while I was reading from a ruffled, spine-broken paperback of Jeb’s favorite John D. McDonald novel. “This guy writes about real life,” Jeb liked to say. “Morals and mayhem, sloe-eyed women with no shy ideas, men who’ll risk their own hide to
defend what they believe in, and cigar-smoke philosophy. Perfect.” Yes, that description had fit Jeb’s own life—and our life together. I had been his sloe-eyed woman.
“I need to talk to you, Mother,” our son said, sitting down next to me with his shoulders hunched inside his father’s old leather bomber jacket. Rob laid his big, competent hands on the knees of nice gray slacks, and once again I wondered why he wanted to spend twelve hours a day under the fluorescent lights of our tame department store. My son, the president of Hamilton’s. Selling home goods and goods for the heart. Such an honorable but conservative life to lead.
“You have some kind of trouble at the store to discuss?” I asked.
He frowned. “You think I’m always consumed by work. I’m not.”
“What are you consumed by, then?” I closed the novel and laid it flat on the lap of my pale wool slacks, then pulled a large cashmere scarf closer around my shoulders, like a shawl against a slight chill in the October air.
Rob looked into a distance only he could see. “If Dad had lived—if he’d been there when the high school burned down, he’d have been ashamed of me.”
After a long, stunned silence, I finally managed, “Your dad loved you like his own life. He was always proud of you—”
“Not if he’d known what I did that night.”
My breath caught in my throat. I laid a hand on his arm—on the softly burnished leather of the same jacket that had kept Jeb Walker’s strong arms warm and safely around us. I had long suspected that our son harbored something deep and painful, but nothing to do with the fire at the high school.
“All right. Then tell the truth to your dad and me,” I said. “Read to him from your conscience.”
Rob bowed his head and told me what he’d done the night of the fire at Mossy Creek High.
The Mossy Creek Gazette
215 Main Street • Mossy Creek, Georgia
From the Desk of Katie Bell, Business Manager
Reunion at Mossy Creek Page 27