Contest: Dog Days of Summer; Inspiration: Tom Sawyer (childhood summer mischief: “real” or imagined)
This is an imagined story based on real characters.
Froots Frum Arr Actshins (Fruits From Our Actions)
By WEGoss2
Escaping the city, my brothers and I would spent hot Louisiana summers at our grandparents. There, we had someone responsible to watch us. Our parents felt we couldn’t get in real trouble under our grandparents watchful eyes. These summer intervals also helped to relieve my mom’s fears. She was always worried that we’d do something and be sent to the boy’s home, the mystery destination, which was the threatened last stop for all bad boys.
If you’ve never stayed in the country on a red dirt gravel road, you’ve missed some great times. These roads leave their mark, especially on young boys. Anything that disturbed the dry powdery red dirt sent up a dust cloud thicker than you could see through. The humidity of Sang Pour Sang Swamp and the Red River only allowed the cloud of dust to settle in slow motion, clinging to everything. By half-way through the day, our bare backs and bellies would be covered in a layer of dust, topped by beads decorating our neck crafted in dirt and sweat. The only types of baths that were acceptable in the summer were those taken either in a bucket of cold water from the well or by a jump in the bayou with everybody sharing the same bar of ivory soap and single wash rag.
Spending the summer in the country was an adventure. Either, we would get to go work with papaw building houses; or, stay with mammo. Fussing in Creole French, she wouldn't let us stay inside or on the porch, chasing us outside the house to “go play.”
Outside, we would slide downhill in the pine straw on an old box. Maybe we would go to the crawfish hole outfitted with a stick for a pole and piece of salt meat bait tied to end of red quilting thread. Sticking to it all day to catch a half a paint bucket full of crawfish or maybe a mud turtle or two.
Papaw always came home with a treat for himself and for us. Getting up from the coolest part of the porch, he’d take a swig from a half pint gin bottle he had iced in his water cooler. Chasing it with a can of Dixie Beer, he would reach into his shirt pocket for a yellow pack of Juicy Fruit Gum. Taking a stick of gum, he’d eyeball it and tear it in half. Making sure each was as equal in size as possible before handing it over. He didn’t want to show favorites.
During the week, my parents worked in town. Daddy drove an in-town delivery truck. He would get up and bring my momma to her job at the J. C. Penny and picked her up at the end of his shift. They stayed in town all week and joined us at our grandparents on the weekends.
Every Sunday started with a trip to church. The Baptist Church sat down slope just off the state highway. Turning into the church’s parking lot reminded me of looking down at an old hound dog’s long white face. The front door and windows made the nose and eyes. The tongue was the stairs that entered at the front door. Two white outhouses to either side of the church added to this image as the hound dogs long ears.
Getting to church was all red dirt and gravel roads. To help us stay clean, we rode on Sundays in papaw’s 1962 Rambler Classic station wagon. It was his pride and joy with factory air condition and a three speed push button “Flashmatic” transmission. Riding in the Rambler was a little bit of heaven on Sunday mornings in the summer.
If riding in the air conditioned Rambler was heaven, then attending the air conditioned deprived church was closer to hell. The only source of ventilation besides the windows in the building was a big fan mounted in the wall in the back of the church. Its best use was the regular rattle that kept time with the a cappella singing. The whine of the fan's belt sounded just like that old hound dog was despairing as it slept in the heat. Outside, cars passing on the roads kicked up the ever present dust that drifted close and was then fan sucked into the church. In the hot, gritty, sticky pews, the head of Jesus could be seen shaking back and forth as the ladies in the congregation furiously attacked the heat and their melting make-up with funeral home fans.
Those two dog ear outhouses were the real treat at summer services. It was an excuse to sneak outside and get some relief. But, it was a special tactic that had to be saved for special reasons. Like when it was really hot; when the preaching was particularly boring; and when your brothers were really being pest.
One particular Sunday, my brothers kick fighting in a back pew made the trifecta and I asked to be excused.
Momma, in a whisper, ordered, “Take them with you!”
Outside, in the parking lot, the sun’s heat was glaring off the car’s paint not even dulled by the layers of dust. It was only making it hotter. I drug my finger through the dust of the parked cars walking to the little piece of shade in the parking lot. Parked at the Church, no one locked their doors or took their keys out of the car.
Lance looks at the Rambler and says to me, “How yah thank that air cundishin feels?”
I answer as I wiped the sweat on my shirt tale, “Reel good.”
My brother goes on, “Think it’d be O-K to get in n sit wit it on?”
“We’ll get’n truble fur that.” My voice of reason answers.
Lance challenged me, “Bawlk-bawlk, chick’n-n-n, dair yah!”
Brinker, my youngest brother follows along, “Bawlk-bawlk, chick’n-n-n, duble-dawg dair yah!”
Everybody knows that a chicken double dog dare from you brothers must be taken. We climbed in my papaw’s love.
In the summer heat, the windows were raised only as protective barriers from the dust. This made the inside of the wagon as hot as an oven. The Rambler’s vinyl seats seared the back of our legs through thin Sunday dress pants. I turned the single key stuck in the ignition and the Rambler started. None of us knew how to turn on the air condition, so we pushed buttons and turned knobs. Lance and I pushed button and turn knobs around the air condition. Brinker pushed the buttons for the “Flashmatic” three speed automatic transmission. The car jumped. In a panic, I turned off the key but the wagon kept rolling.
After what seemed like forever in slow motion, my papaw’s Rambler rolled into the men’s outhouse.
It wasn’t a big wreck. The wagon stopped before the outhouse was knocked over. The building protected the Rambler from being baptized in outhouse blessings. The outhouse leaned a bit and was kicked just off-center the hole. But the biggest thing was the long scratch on the side of the station wagon.
Inside the church, it must of sounded like old Satan himself was paying a visit. Three boys all screaming accusations full of amateur cussing and just plain hollering.
The whole church came running. Even Mrs. Bonds who had to lie down in the church pew, managed to come out the door at the commotion. In front of the crowd, country handsome in his white shirt with dust tinged sweat stains was my daddy, the preacher. His collar was open.m His skinny tie loosened for the breathing for hard perching in the summer heat. He had the “mad fire of the devil” in his eyes.
Papaw looked at the Rambler, shook his head and then stepped in to save me. Speaking with my daddy, he calmed him down, “Sun, ramember bout yuse an dat plow mule. We’s all gonna reep tha froots frum arr actshins.”
I still don’t know what that meant. But, the devil left daddy’s eyes. He turned around and went inside to make the altar call. Accompanied by the rattling of that old fan the people sang Amazing Grace and three boys listened to the song with a new appreciation.
Daddy was mad for a while but he didn’t send any of us to the boy’s home. For three years, my momma wouldn’t let me go pee during a preaching service. My daddy never told me what happened with the plow mule.
My papaw never said he was mad. He just stopped measuring the Juicy Fruit.
