ARTFUL DODGER
The first thing I did when I awoke in Jebdo's trailer was
make coffee : I'd told him, 'Even for a hillbilly, you live
pretty low.' Making coffee? He claimed not to know. I
had to put the flies in order too - since they were at most
everywhere. We were there to build a shed : so I said,
'Raise high the roofbeams, carpenters, and let's get
going.' He didn't get me at all. There was cat twirling
aimlessly in the rising sunlight, and the small corn
crib nearby - which he had transferred years back
to trash - was getting filled pretty high. 'My liege,'
I snickered, 'dost though not think a trip to yon dump
be in order as well?' I might as well have tried pissing
on one of those flies - he'd didn't get me at all.
-
I'm not too impatient with really bad things, they just
make me nervous that's all. Inside this thing he called
a trailer-home, there were two curtains of burlap -
'Crenell's Country Feed Store' read the big tag, and
the bags had once held some sort of powder. I'd guess
at, but not right at all. A pair of girl's flowery-pants
was thrown over the chair - 'whose are those?' I
asked without commitment. He smiled that piggish
grin - 'That's May-Linda from down the hill. I made
her run home with no pants on the other day. Ha! She'll
be back, and I bet today.' The sunlight now was blasting
in like a shotgun pump in an empty canyon's echo.
'Well, that's one way to keep a relationship going,
I guess.' He grinned, 'Yep, it is.'
-
The first time I was ever here, it was on a work detail
with the Purvey Township Road Crew, doing a community
service stint. We were spreading tar along the gravel and
dust road. I was following slowly the big orange truck,
and I'd slosh hot tar with a Dooby-Stick (it was called)
on the cracks from the hot bucket I was carrying along.
It at least had wheels, so I could push, but it was still
hot as ever and a real pain to do. We got to Jebdo's
trailer and he came bounding out to kill. They had
some real doing to convince him they had a right
and that everything was good - above-board,
not snitching, no damage, We smoothed out
his road, and I finally went home.
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