A Fine Kettle of Fish

by Lou Bradshaw

  After checking Liz’s window, I went to bed, but I didn’t go to sleep right a way. I kept thinking how glad I was that Mack was having doubts about being a priest. I knew that was a good thing to be, but a person has to make those choices for the right reasons, and not because someone else wanted it. Furthermore, it’s bad enough that I’m not getting laid due to my own ineptitude and gross bad luck, but Mack wouldn’t be getting any by choice. Man, that was a sobering thought.

  Now that I was sober or practically so, I started, thinking back to last summer when Mack, Mickey, and I went into Springfield to a Commercial Street whorehouse to get our ashes hauled for the first time, and might I add the last time for me. The way things are going it may be the last time – period. Mickey tells a good tale about tail, but I think it’s 99.9% imagination. I don’t doubt that Mickey has sex, just not with another person. If Mack’s two sisters knew about that episode, they would be sure that I was the anti-Christ, but it was Mack’s idea, and we just liked the idea – still do. In fact, I thought it was such a good idea, I decided that the following night I would take him back there as a going away present even if it left me penniless.

  Mack went back to Cape Girardeau and the monks with a smile on his face. Things settled back into the same boring routine. Lucy stayed until her mother was somewhat on her feet. I guess she figured that Doubling needed somebody to take charge. You know, pass a bond issue, get some streets repaved, or overhaul the sewer system - that sort of thing.

  Lucy’s determination to turn Mack into a priest seemed to be like a bulldog obsession, and I couldn’t figure out why. Then it hit me like a sledgehammer, the old lady’s money! Mack said it himself. As a priest, he would take a vow of poverty. So, what would happen to that money? It would most likely be split up amongst the immediate family – Mrs. Taylor, Betty, and Lucy. I made a note to use that line of reasoning if Mack’s 70% sinner potential started to slip, or I could hedge my bet with yet another visit with one of Springfield’s working girls.

  * * *

  Luther Bates continued stopping in just about every week, always in a different set of wheels. Once he paid for his gas with a company credit card from South Memphis Motors authorized by a Francis Bardone. I found out later that Francis (Frank) Bardone was a well-connected Memphis hood, but that didn’t mean anything. It seemed that hoods and gangsters were getting established into all sorts of legitimate businesses. Anyway, I liked Luther, and I think he felt comfortable stopping at Brick’s. Some of those red neck places back down the highway might be inclined to give a colored guy a pretty bad time.

  Chapter 6

  April of 1960 looked as if it was going to be okay. I was a new man, and I felt pretty good about myself, I wasn’t stealing anything. I was, however, still doing a little fencing of stuff that may have been a little stolen or tainted of ownership, but that wasn’t stealin’ – that was dealin’.

  We (the members of the Senior Class) were all getting antsy, we were ready to graduate, and get shut of high school. Everybody had plans for what they were going to do with the rest of their life…except me. Some were planning to get jobs and get married. Some were going to college, mostly commuting to Southwest Missouri State College in Springfield. A few were going into the military right away. The military didn’t appeal to me at all. I figured they’d come and get me when they wanted me, and that would be soon enough.

  Brick thought I should commute to Southwest, live at home, keep working, and someday take over the business. What he was thinking was that he would be able to run the business from a bass boat on Table Rock Lake. That meant I could put in all the hours I wanted to at 75 cents per. That didn’t have any more appeal to me than the Army, but since I had given up the criminal business, I had to look for a respectable career.

  Mom wanted me to go to college and so did Nan, so I thought, “What the hell, I may like this college boy thing – get my own pad and, swing.” I went ahead, applied, and was accepted. As I understood it, they would have accepted Rin-Tin-Tin if he had a high school diploma. Liz was going to Southwest, so was Mickey, and I had a hunch that St. Macklin would wind up there come September. I didn’t mention my hunch to Mrs. Taylor.

  She was doing pretty well and anxious to have Mack home even if he never became a priest. She couldn’t drive or lift stuff, so usually I made myself available for errands and such. I checked in with her at least every day, and if I didn’t, I caught a little bit of hell from Mom.

  * * *

  One evening in mid April, just ahead of sundown, I rode out into the country with a business associate. He had a stash of stuff he wanted to sell with no questions asked. He had it all tucked away in a shed out in Amish country where no one would likely be snooping around.

  We had a lot of Amish and Mennonites around there and frankly, I didn’t know there was much difference, except one group wore black and the other wore blue. Both groups depended a lot on 4-legged horsepower, but Mennonites (the ones in blue) would use a tractor and drive a car. The Amish on the other hand, wouldn’t drive a car or use electricity, but they would ride in your car all day and cram as many kinfolk in as possible. We would see them come into town with a whole community piled into some generous though infidel neighbor’s vehicle. Imagine what that would be like with about 14 steaming bodies in wool clothing, with the heater going, and it’s too cold out to roll the windows down. Now that would be bad enough on a Monday, but on a Friday, it would have been 6 days since bath day.

  Amish kids had to go to school; it was the law at least until they were 16. No one ever took it too seriously. There were kids that you just never saw after the third or fourth grade. Most of the boys and many of the girls would miss a good deal of school around harvest time or planting time, and the schools accepted that. I had a few classes with some of them. They generally didn’t mix much and rarely smiled, but maybe they didn’t have any thing to smile about.

  Anyway, there I was in a shed, in the woods, in the middle of Amish country looking at a bunch of junk that wouldn’t make me gas money to haul it into Springfield. While we were in the shed it had gotten quite dark, and we were stumbling around by the light of our Zippos. When we got outside and almost to the car, there was a sudden flash of headlights coming down the cow path of a road we had come down. My associate yelled, “Jeesus! The Sheriff!” With that, he jumped into the car, slammed the door, and took off down that cow path in the opposite direction.

  Meanwhile, I was tangled up in junk and falling on my butt. Fortunately, I was able to scramble around to the back of the shed before the headlights could sweep the area. All I could see of my pal were flashes of taillights going through the trees. A few seconds ago my friend had said something about Jesus being the Sheriff. I knew that wasn’t so, and I knew for certain that those headlights belonged to neither, because I couldn’t imagine either one driving such a beat up old hillbilly truck. When that piece of junk pulled up to the shed, an old farmer in bibs got out and yelled at the blinking taillights, “ Don’t you know this is private proppidy? You little basturd!” I was sure he wasn’t expecting an answer, so I didn’t.

  He looked around a bit, but it was so dark he couldn’t see much, so he got back in his truck and left the way he had come. When he was a couple of hundred yards down the cow path, it dawned on me that I was stranded. I reasoned with myself that that wasn’t so bad. I could have opened my mouth when that farmer was here and gotten shot. Stranger things have happened in recent months. Whether I made the right choice or the wrong one didn’t matter, what mattered now was I was stuck in the boonies afoot with about 3 miles of cross country hiking in the dark.

  I knew where I was and where I wanted to go, but I wasn’t exactly sure what was between here and there. The first thing I had to do was get the hell out of those woods without falling down a ravine and killing myself.

  For folks who may not know what the Ozarks are like, let me say in a nutshell – rugged, rocky, and hilly. Not high enough to be called mountains but cut wi
th streams, gullies, and bluffs several hundred feet straight up…and down. There is some level land where some folks try to plant crops, but the soil is thin and rocky. What does best around here is grass and trees. Where you have grass, you generally have horses and cows. Where you have cows, you generally have barbed wire fences (known in Missouri as bob wire) and bulls. So, if I didn’t get gored and trampled, I’d probably fall down one those rock-strewn ridges and break my neck, and me practically a virgin.

  It was from one of those rock-strewn ridges that I saw the lights of a house. I couldn’t place who lived there, but at least it was a light. As I got closer to the buildings, and there were several, I could see that there was a large barn, a house and a few out buildings. I could tell by the weak kerosene light coming from the windows that it was an Amish place. So, I figured to just go on by. At least they would have a road of sorts, which would lead to the county road and to town.

  As I was just about to come around the backside of the barn, which would have shielded me from the house, and put me near the road, I herd someone moving between my objective and me. He was coming my way. The first question that came to mind was, were the Amish gun shooting people? I guessed that they probably were, so I just slipped back around the corner of barn. Then I moved along the wall until I found a door, which I went through.

  Feeling my way around in the dark and trying my best to be a good Injun and be absolutely quiet, I touched some things in the dark that I’m sure I wouldn’t have touched in the light. I could feel the presence of the horses and other critters. I could hear them stamping and moving, and for certain I could smell them. Finally, my hand found the ladder to the loft, and up I went thinking, “Now this is just great. How in the hell do I get myself into these messes?”

  I couldn’t see a thing, but I could hear someone coming through the same door that I’d just used. “Oh crap,” I thought, “if he comes up here, I’m going to have to find myself a hole.” I kept waiting, but if he was moving around at all then he was being a really good Injun, because all I could hear was the animal noise. For what seemed like hours, I lay on that loft floor looking down into nothing. I’m sure it was just a matter of a few minutes, but it seemed much longer. There must have been a million bugs and ants crawling all over me because I was going crazy with itches. It was like having one of those personal kinds of itches in a room full of girls and you can’t scratch it.

  After a week or two, what I figured to be the front door started to open, and a dim pool of light flooded across the floor immediately inside the door. “Damn,” I said to myself, “a few more and we’ll have a quorum. Then we can have a regular meeting.” That light was the product of an old railroad lantern being carried by a young woman dressed in black. As I had said earlier, the Amish are partial to black. I couldn’t see her face, but she was young and trim probably still in her teens. She looked around nervously and then hung the lantern on a peg across from my position in the loft.

  She started fussing with the horse that was in the stall, not really, doing much more than patting and rubbing it. Some women get to be real horsy – I’m told that they like the power and brute strength. I guess Amish women are like regular women in that I don’t know anything about ‘em. She turned around once, and I saw her face. I recognized her from school but didn’t know her name.

  Just as I was beginning to wonder how long I was going to have to stay up there with all those bugs and ants crawling over me something moved below me. A man came into view from the stall just below where the bugs and ants were having their supper. He took a few soft steps into the runway and stood looking at the girl. His back was to me, and it was a pretty good-sized back at that. All I could see in that light was that he was tall, broad shouldered, and had a large flat brimmed hat which made him look evil.

  The girl’s back was to him but she must have sensed his presence because she turned with a start. Her eyes were wide and her mouth open like she wanted to yell. Her expression melted into a soft smile and went to him and sort of folded into his arms. They went into a panic of hugging and kissing, which made me pretty self-conscious, watching them like that. His hat came off and I got a look at his profile and saw that it was William something or other. We had started high school together, but he dropped out last year. He was a little older, a lot bigger, and had started one of those Abe Lincoln beards, but it was William all right.

  They started getting after each other pretty well and in a bit of a hurried fashion. The next thing I knew they were in the next stall on the straw –dress up and pants down. They did seem to get along well. I was sweating, but the bugs and ants were forgotten. I had a front row seat at a peep show, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch it, but I wasn’t able to turn away. I kept thinking, “How come this big goober can get laid so easily and I can’t?”

  She seemed to be as eager as he was and was enjoying it as much or more than he was. Her face was turned toward me, and her eyes were closed. I had never seen such an expression on a girl’s face before or anybody’s for that matter. Her eyes fluttered for a second then her expression changed from ecstasy to horror. She gave out a whining groan and tried to get him off her. My first thought was that she had seen me watching, but she wasn’t looking my way.

  William wasn’t getting the hint If anything, he was picking up steam. I followed her line of vision and saw a man standing there with a tangle of harness leather in his hand, which he swung at William’s unprotected ass. The next thing I knew this guy was beating the hell out of William with that harness, and the girl huddled in the corner of the stall screaming and crying. William was trying to protect his face and head and get his pants on at the same time, all the while he was taking some pretty salty licks. Every now and then, the man would send a swipe of leather in the girl’s direction, and she’d really start screaming. He grabbed her and pulled her out of the stall. Then he slapped her a couple of times and threw her down in the runway. She started to crawl for the door, and he told her, “Get up and get to the house. You better pray that nothing took!”

  She was up and gone before the man who must have been her father turned back to William and took another swing at him with the harness. I was willing to jump down there and help William kick this guy’s ass, but William didn’t look like he would have needed my help. He seemed only interested in protecting himself with no intention of getting any of his own. Come to think of it – he’d already gotten some of his own; that’s why he was getting a whippin’. But, I still thought he should have fought back.

  The outraged father took a couple more whacks at him with the leather, then aimed a big index finger at William and told him, “ If by miracle there is no child, then she will be sent to live with family in Indiana and will make a new life there. If she turns out to be pregnant, then you both shall bear the consequence.” With that said, the farmer grabbed William by the shirt and shoved him toward the front door, where he swung the harness which took William across the back. He stumbled, but didn’t fall. The older man shoved him through the door and out into the yard shouting, “Get off my land, vermin, and I shall be speaking to the elders in the morning.”

  While that ruckus was going on in the front, I was getting myself out the back. Fortunately, they had left the lantern hanging so I had some light to work with. I can guarantee that I didn’t need much. I was out the back and around the side in time to see the girl’s old man going back into the barn, presumably to get the lantern. I was like the wild goose in winter – gone!

  Somewhere behind me, I heard a door slam and loud voices shouting and wailing, but I was concentrating on speed and distance. The moon had come up while I was in the loft, so I could see the wagon road pretty well. I was huffing and chugging along, cursing the American Tobacco Company with every ragged breath, and swearing an oath to quit smoking as soon as I finished the pack, I’d just bought.

  I caught sight of William just a short distance up ahead in the middle of the road. He must have heard me coming about the s
ame time that I saw him, because he stopped and hunched his shoulders like he was waiting for a blow. I jogged up to him and asked, “Huff-puff, William, are you, huff, okay, cough-cough?”

  He turned to me with no hint of recognition. His face was some kind of beat up. He had some pretty good swelling and bleeding started. I could tell that he didn’t have a clue as to who I was there in the dark and all. Hell, he may not have known me in the noonday sun. It had been a couple of years, and we weren’t exactly close friends, just guys in the same class. “It’s Lee,” I said, “Lee Brickey – from school – we had a couple of classes together.”

  “Oh, oh yes, LeeRoy Brickey, yes, I remember you. I’m sorry but I thought you were someone else.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I saw it. I was up in the loft with troubles of my own when he started in on you. I must have dozed off until that girl started screaming.” I saw no reason to let him know that I was playing peekeeboo.

  “Man, you better get that eye looked at – you’re going to need stitches there!” Good Lord, I was Liz McCord.

  He just shrugged off my medical advice, and we started walking. For a good while neither of said anything until finally I couldn’t stand it any longer and asked, “Why didn’t you fight back? You’re every bit as big as him, a damned sight younger, and no doubt quicker.”

  “He was right and I was wrong.” was all he would say.

  “What happens now?”

  He thought for a moment and then said, “I’m not sure. I’ll face a shunning of some degree. Sarah will be sent to live with an uncle’s family in Indiana, where a marriage will be arranged. If she is pregnant, then I don’t know what will happen. Her father hates me and always has.”