The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis
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cajole: verb; to persuade someone to do something by sustained coaxing or flattery
Popeye was not as good at cajoling as he was at conniving.
But Elvis elbowed him and whispered, “You ask her. She likes you better than me.”
So Popeye was going to try his hand at cajoling.
“I bet you make the best Yoo-hoo boats in Fayette,” he said.
That was the flattery part of cajoling.
“Shoot, I bet you make the best Yoo-hoo boats in the whole state of South Carolina,” he said to Star-letta.
That was adding more flattery to the cajoling in case the first flattery wasn’t enough.
Starletta did not look particularly flattered.
She tossed some rocks into a rusty metal wagon and said, “Wanna help me build a monument?”
Popeye looked at Elvis, who gave a little nod and made some faces like he was sending Popeye a secret signal.
“Um, a monument?” Popeye said. “What kind of monument?”
Starletta tossed another rock into the wagon with a clang. “Just a plain ole monument,” she said.
“Uh, sure.”
So Popeye and Elvis helped Starletta gather rocks, filling the wagon until the rocks began to tumble over the sides and the wagon was so heavy all three of them together could hardly pull it.
Boo sat in the shade under the porch steps, snapping at the gnats that flitted around his droopy eyes.
While Popeye looked for rocks with Starletta, he worked on the sustained coaxing part of cajoling.
He asked her where the dead dogs lived. (Three times.)
He reminded her that today was Wednesday. (Twice.)
He told her that Dooley and Shifty were digging out the Holiday Rambler right this very minute so Elvis would be leaving any time now.
But nothing worked.
Starletta just kept looking for rocks and digging up rocks and carrying rocks over to the wagon without saying a single word.
Elvis looked like he was about to bust wide open. His face was red and his fingers clenched into fists until his knuckles turned white. He kicked at dirt and puffed his cheeks out and let go with big, sputtering sighs that blew his hair up off his forehead.
Popeye was starting to think that he would never get the hang of cajoling.
But then he got an idea.
“Hey, Starletta,” he said. “If you show us where the dead dogs live, you can ride in the Holiday Rambler.”
Starletta froze, holding a dirty rock over the wagon with both hands. “Really?”
“Yep.” Popeye nodded. “Right, Elvis?”
Elvis’s face lit up. “Sure!”
Starletta dropped the rock into the wagon and raced toward the garden calling, “Come on!”
24
POPEYE’S INSIDES WERE SWIRLING in a yippee kind of way as he raced around the garden and into the woods with Elvis and Boo, following Star-letta to the dead dog place. A thick layer of rotting leaves and clumps of moss carpeted the narrow path that zigged and zagged and zigged some more. From somewhere through the trees came the faint, water-flowing sound of the creek. Popeye and Elvis and Boo hurried to keep up with Star-letta as they jumped over logs and pushed aside branches.
And then . . .
. . . the path ended.
The sky was suddenly open and bright above them, no longer hidden by the thick, overhanging branches of the trees. Boulders and tree stumps and dense, overgrown shrubs lined the edges of the clearing. On the far side, a gravel road disappeared over the slope of a weed-covered hill.
Starletta threw her arms out and said, “Ta da!”
Scattered around the clearing, nestled among the weeds and wildflowers, were grave markers.
Some of them were stone.
Some of them were wood.
Some of them were old and crumbling and falling over.
Some of them were shiny and clean and standing straight.
And some of them had pictures on them.
Pictures of dogs.
“See?” Starletta said. “Dead dogs.”
A dog cemetery!
Popeye was dumbstruck.
dumbstruck: adjective; so shocked or surprised as to be unable to speak
Starletta pointed to a sign nailed to a tree at the edge of the cemetery:
ONLY CEMETERY OF ITS KIND
IN THE WORLD;
ONLY COONHOUNDS ARE ALLOWED
TO BE BURIED HERE
“What are coonhounds?” Elvis said.
“Hunting dogs,” Starletta said. “They hunt raccoons.” She pointed to a tall stone monument surrounded by a rickety wooden fence in the middle of the cemetery. “That’s where Troop is buried.”
A sign at the base of the monument read:
TROOP
FIRST DOG LAID TO REST HERE
SEPTEMBER 4, 1937
Popeye walked around the cemetery, studying each of the graves, reading about the dogs who were buried there.
BIG ROY
FAITHFUL FRIEND
DIED 1976
AGE 14
BEAR
BORN AUG. 1, 1965
DIED OCT. 9, 1971
BELOVED COMPANION OF
HARLEY T. JANSON
KATE
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
1978–1990
OLD BLUE
HE WAS AS GOOD AS THE BEST
AND BETTER THAN THE REST
1953–1965
Most of the graves had vases or soda bottles holding colorful plastic flowers. One grave had a little plastic raccoon sitting on top of a crumbling stone etched with the name Loud.
Some of the graves had been carefully tended. Others were overgrown and long forgotten.
Popeye studied the photos sealed in plastic and taped on the stone markers or nailed to pieces of wood.
A man in a hunting cap kneeling in a field with his arm around a black and tan dog.
A long-eared brown and white dog panting in the back of a pickup truck, one paw resting in the lap of a bearded man in overalls.
Much-loved dogs.
Like Boo.
Elvis darted from one grave to another saying, “Cool!” and “Look at this one!”
Starletta skipped around the cemetery, reciting the dog names on all the graves she passed. “Bubba Dog, Old Blue, Tater . . .” The sequined edges of her butterfly wings glittered in the sun.
Popeye was still dumbstruck.
He had lived on the gravel road in Fayette, South Carolina, his whole life and had never dreamed that on the other side of the woods behind his house, just beyond the creek where he had played a million times, was a cemetery full of dead dogs. A place where grown men left flowers in soda bottles and called their dogs beloved.
Popeye took a deep breath, the sweet scent of honeysuckle tickling his nose.
He wanted to savor this moment.
savor: verb; to enjoy or appreciate completely
So while Elvis darted and Starletta skipped, Popeye savored.
Until Velma stepped out of the woods.
25
VELMA’S APPEARANCE at the edge of the cemetery, arms crossed, face red, was definitely not serendipity. It was much closer to vicissitude. Her livid wrath was like sparks, shooting from grave to grave, from tree to shrub, from Popeye to Elvis.
Popeye wished he hadn’t connived and cajoled. He should have listened to his qualms. Then maybe he wouldn’t have been standing here all shamefaced in the middle of a coonhound cemetery beside a girl with butterfly wings and Elvis with his so-what? face.
Velma stomped over to Popeye and gave him a little whack on the arm when she asked him what in the world had gotten into him. Then another whack when she asked him if he had plumb lost his mind. And another whack when she told him she’d been traipsing through the woods for an hour looking for him. And one last whack when she asked him if he was trying to worry her right into the grave.
Then she spun around and glared at Elvis. “And you
!” she hollered, jabbing her finger at him.
She lit into Elvis while he peered up at her from under his shaggy hair. As she hollered on and on about how he oughta be over there helping with that motor home and nobody even knew where he was and did he want to grow up to be like Dooley and Shifty and all those other no-accounts, his so-what? face began to change. By the time she was done with him, he was wearing a pretty good I’m-sorry face.
Then the quiet drifted down and hovered over them until Starletta shattered it like glass.
“These are all dead dogs,” she said, throwing her arms out. “And they live here.” She pointed to each grave, reading off the dog names like she was taking roll. “Jasper, Connie, Big Tick, Rollo . . .”
“Who are you?” Velma interrupted.
“Princess Starletta Rainey.”
“Rainey?” Velma’s eyes narrowed. “Where do you live?”
Starletta pointed toward the woods.
Velma looked over at the path that zigzagged through the trees. “Is your daddy T-Bone Rainey?”
Starletta skipped in a circle around one of the graves.
JAY BOB
BEST DOG EVER
JUNE 16, 1955
“Yes, he is,” she said.
“I know him,” Velma said. “His daddy used to deliver firewood to me when he wasn’t no bigger than you.”
Starletta kept skipping, not even looking at Velma.
Popeye felt the wrath-filled air swirling around Velma.
“I know,” Velma snapped, “that your daddy would not approve of three younguns running wild and unsupervised in these woods.”
Starletta stopped skipping and thrust her chin up. “That is most definitely not true,” she said.
Popeye’s insides danced with delight at little ole butterfly-winged Starletta standing up to Velma, something he had never done in all his born days and never intended to do, not even when he was old.
Velma’s face twitched. Her hand fluttered up and pushed at her thin gray hair. Popeye could tell that all she wanted to do in the whole world, at that moment, was find herself a rolled-up newspaper and swat Starletta’s skinny legs.
But, of course, she couldn’t.
So she turned to Popeye and said, “Let’s go.”
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THEY TRUDGED SILENTLY down the path in single file.
Popeye, Elvis, Boo, and Velma.
Starletta skipped along behind them, humming.
Every now and then, Velma whirled around and told her to go on home, but Starletta ignored her.
They turned left at the Indian pipes and followed the creek until they got to the dam the boys had made. By the time they reached the field behind Popeye’s house, they could hear the folks up at the Holiday Rambler.
“A little more to the left!”
“Give her some gas!”
“On the count of three . . .”
And then, just as they rounded the curve, the Holiday Rambler drove out of the hole in the road with a roar, sending up swirls of dirt and gravel.
A cheer rose into the warm summer air.
Prissy, Calvin, Walter, Willis, and Shorty whooped and clapped.
Dooley and Shifty high-fived each other.
Glory and Furman Jewell grinned down at everyone from the window of the motor home.
Elvis yelled, “Hot dang!” and ran over to join the others.
Velma nodded at Dooley with the teeny-tiniest little smile at the corners of her thin lips.
Starletta skipped over to the motor home, her wings flapping so much it was a wonder she didn’t lift right up into the sky like a bird.
It seemed like everybody was just as happy as happy could be.
Everybody except Popeye.
When Popeye saw the shiny silver motor home drive out of the hole in the road, a wave of melancholy settled over him.
melancholy: noun; a deep sadness
If the motor home wasn’t stuck anymore, then the motor home could drive away.
If the motor home could drive away, the motor home would drive away.
And Popeye would be left behind.
Left behind with nothing but the shed and the mailbox and the weeds and the ditch.
“Come on, y’all,” Glory called from the window of the motor home. “Let’s go for a ride.”
When the door of the Holiday Rambler opened and everybody piled in (even Boo), Popeye’s melancholy followed him like a rain cloud. He sat in the diner booth squished between Elvis and Calvin, across from Walter and Willis and Shorty. Velma and Dooley and Shifty sat on the fold-down bed. Star-letta and Prissy hopped around in circles, holding hands and giggling until Glory told them to sit down and behave.
Then the motor home began to move. It bounced and squeaked and rumbled up the gravel road, but when it turned onto the main highway, it settled into a steady purr. A warm breeze blew through the open windows, sending napkins and candy wrappers swirling around them.
As Popeye watched the road signs and telephone poles whiz by him from his seat in the diner booth, a little buzz of excitement began to stir inside him. He thought back to that day when the rain had left rivers of muddy water in the driveway and he had seen that tilted motor home gleaming in the morning sun for the first time. And now here he was, zooming up the highway in a silver dollhouse jammed with kids and paper plates and sneakers and notebooks full of country-western songs. Before long, Popeye’s cloud of melancholy began to lift, higher and higher above him, until it drifted right out the window and disappeared into the Carolina sky.
When they got to the shopping center out by the interstate, Furman turned the motor home around and drove back toward Popeye’s house. As they rumbled down the gravel road, Popeye looked out the window. There was his little house with the shed and the drainage ditch and the rusty trailer in the backyard. Tomorrow he would wake up to see the heart-shaped stain on the ceiling of his bedroom and hear the tick, tick, tick of the clock in the living room.
Tomorrow, Velma would recite the kings and queens of England in chronological order and holler at Dooley.
Tomorrow, Boo would snore on his quilt by the woodstove.
Tomorrow, everything would be the same.
But different.
Because tomorrow, Popeye could reminisce.
reminisce: verb; to think about past events
He could reminisce about the Holiday Rambler with the howling coyote and the glittering lightning bolts.
Where would it be?
Zipping along a highway somewhere?
Bouncing up a gravel road?
He could reminisce about that passel of wild kids. Prissy and Calvin and Walter and Willis and Shorty—and most of all, Elvis.
What would they be doing?
Playing cards and eating sandwiches?
Jumping on the fold-down bed?
Fussing and fighting while Furman drove and Glory wrote country-western songs?
And tomorrow, Popeye could start his very own Spit and Swear Club (and he could be president).
Tomorrow, he would have a few great insults to use, if he needed them.
He could even be a Royal Rule Breaker, if he wanted to.
And long after the hole and the tire marks in the gravel road were gone, long after the summer wild-flowers had yellowed and died, when the mossy rocks were slippery with frost and the edges of the creek were crusted with a thin layer of winter ice, Popeye could look for the path where the Indian pipes had grown that summer. He could whistle for Boo to come with him to find Starletta, and the three of them could go visit the place where dead dogs live.
Popeye and Starletta sat on the big rock on the bank of the creek with Boo snoring beside them.
They unfolded and cut and unfolded and cut all afternoon.
After they had a whole pile of Yoo-hoo boats, Popeye tore a strip of notebook paper and wrote with a blue colored pencil:
The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis
He folded the strip of paper.
Once.<
br />
Twice.
Three times.
He tucked it inside one of the boats, then stepped down into the creek and set the boat on the water. He moved the branches and pushed aside the rocks and mud that he and Elvis had used to dam the water.
The little boat began to drift slowly down the creek. Before long, it picked up speed, dipping and bobbing in the flowing water. It bumped against rocks and slid over tiny waterfalls while minnows darted in curious circles around it.
Farther and farther it drifted, growing smaller and smaller, until it was a tiny yellow, brown, and blue dot that rounded the curve in the creek and disappeared.