The Letter

It came in the mail last week, an official letter from the government. I put it on the table with the rest of the bills. I just was not ready to deal with it. I’m still not ready. In June for the last couple of years, the letter has arrived like clockwork. Everyday as I have re-sorted the mail trying to decide what to pay, I have been confronted with the letter. I get a knot in my stomach when I think about opening it and the old wounds.

In December of 1976, my world turned upside down. The month started badly and only got worse. Two of my dogs were injured in a very rare and freak attack. One of them, Dago, was very special to me. Several years earlier my boyfriend, Danny, and I had rescued the wiry-haired pup from the highway. I had thrown open the passenger door and scooped him inside just seconds before he would have become road kill. Since then, my whisker dog had thanked me daily with his presence and protection. In that first week of December, a mountain lion had traveled southward along the railroad tracks, mauling and mutilating pets and livestock. Dago, who had a bit of a Napoleon complex, fought fiercely to defend his neighborhood, but was no match for the lion. Dago spent almost a week in the hospital due to the loss of both ears, and severe facial and shoulder wounds. Blackie, my not-so-bright hound, faired much better. He received only superficial wounds on his hind flanks as he made a hasty retreat. I was happy to have them both home and safe.

My attention turned to preparations for a trip to the Soviet Union with my college Russian Civilization class. With only one week before departure, Mother and I had been shopping all day that second Friday in December. Normally Mother worked full time in my dad’s pawn shop. But being the owner’s wife had a few perks like occasionally playing hooky. When we arrived home, Mother called the pawn shop to remind my dad that they were supposed to go visit his dad in the hospital. That week, our family had a close call with my granddaddy. As far back as I can remember, Granddaddy had had a cigar growing out of the side of his mouth as a permanent fixture. He finally removed the cigar when the doctors removed his jaw and the cancer attached to it. The prognosis for him looked good.

Mother was calling to remind Dad about their plans. Usually the pawn shop closed by five and after a quick beer at his favorite local pub, Dad would wander home. To make it on time for the visiting hours, he would need to take the direct route home. I was in the kitchen when mother made the telephone call. After her first words, I knew something was wrong.
Dad’s small store, Bank Pawn Shop, had only three full time employees besides my family. Willis and Dee worked in the front part of the store with the guns, knives, and jewelry. Debby and my mother worked in the office at the rear of the store. My dad was the jeweler and pawnbroker and the personality that kept everything afloat. His casual customers called him “Mr. Banks.” The long time customers called him “Mr. Mac.” But for those who really knew him, he was Perry McClinton. That Friday, things had been slow so Dad let Dee and Willis leave early. At a few minutes before five o’clock, Dad and Debby were in the closing ritual: all diamonds and guns of value had to be put in the vault every evening; money counted; and the window displays had to be emptied. Alarms, steel bars and iron mesh were not enough of a deterrent for would-be burglars. Normally it took about thirty minutes to shut the store down. When the two men walked through the double doors, Debby was reaching into the window display closing jewelry containers. Dad had walked into the vault to put away a tray of blue velvet boxes, but heard the bells jingle as the men walked inside. One of them stood near the door looking around at the work boots and toolboxes. The other man looked in the glass display cases as he ambled toward the rear of the store. Dad called for Debby to come to the vault. He then he left the ornamental iron-caged office to wait on the men. As he had for the past fifteen years, Dad stood waiting patiently, watching the customers browse through the two long aisles of the store. He was suspicious of these men; they never made eye contact; they walked without purpose. Over the years, there had been several attempts to reach over the case to snatch, grab, and dash. Some had even been successful, therefore Dad tried to watch carefully. After a few minutes of “shopping,” the men again assumed their original positions with one man at the front door. The other one approached my dad at the display case where the handguns were housed. The young black man—later identified as Leon Foy - leaned forward, elbows on the counter, and mumbled something to my dad. Then as if in slow motion, Foy stepped back and pulled his revolver. With no time to wage the consequences, my dad, a short man with the severe Napoleon complex that seemed to run in our family, acted from the gut and pulled a .38 Smith & Wesson from his pocket. Unfortunately, Foy had already taken aim. All but one of my dad’s shots went wild as Foy accurately unloaded his gun into my dad. The wounded assailant and accomplice fled from the store empty handed as Debby screamed into the telephone for help. Daddy slumped to the floor, never losing consciousness.

It was a strange voice that answered the phone. The pawn shop was laid back and any of Dad’s friends might answer the telephone in a pinch, but all knew to say, “Bank Pawn Shop” when greeting a customer. Instead of the customary greeting, Mother heard a tentative hello. She said, “Let me speak to Perry. . . . This is Doris. Who is this? . . . I’m his wife, Doris McClinton! Who are you? What’s going on?”

Mother went pale as her color drained. She held on to the receiver waiting for someone with authority or information to come to the telephone. She looked at me and whispered that something had happened. I stood with my heart in my throat watching, trying to read her face.
“This is Doris, Perry’s wife. . . . What has happened?”

The conversation was short. Returning the receiver to the cradle, mother turned to me and said in clipped, controlled words, “There’s been a shooting. Your daddy is on the way to the hospital. We have to leave right now. You’ll have to drive.”

“Has Daddy been shot?” I whispered.

“Yes.” I could barely speak. “How is he?” I asked.

“I don’t know, they said we need to hurry.” Mother was eerily calm going through the motions of getting her coat and purse.

“I can’t drive, Mother. I can’t.” I hurriedly called Danny who lived a few minutes away. He wasn’t in from work yet so his dad volunteered to drive us to the hospital. Mother and I rode like zombies in the car as he took his dear sweet time on the back roads to downtown. He chattered constantly totally unperturbed by the situation. My irritation with him kept my thoughts occupied. The obvious was too difficult to handle.

When we arrived at the hospital, it was not like in the movies. The people were not nice and helpful. They were too busy trying to save my dad’s life to care about our concerns. They said they were getting ready to wheel him into surgery and “no” we could not see him. I needed to say so many things. In the movies, they always have closure.

As we stood in the emergency room hallway talking to the doctor, I caught a glimpse of my daddy’s gurney heading to surgery. I knew with one quick glance why she did not want us to see him. His crimson face was caked with dried blood. I could see the hole in his neck. Breathe, breathe.

Doctors use a roundabout way of saying but not saying things. The doctor said that I might want to call in the family. As she walked away, a nurse presented me with the bag of Daddy’s clothes. His pants, shirt, underwear, and even belt had been cut from his body. Bullet holes were in every piece of material. The clothes smelled of blood. They were saturated with it. I felt nauseous and faint. I looked at my mother and realized I had to be strong. It was my turn to take care of her. For the first time in my twenty-one years, I had to be the parent.
In the waiting room, my mind raced. Who did I need to call? Aunt Lillian. She was loved by everyone and knew everyone’s telephone number. She would get the word out to my mother’s family and give me any phone numbers that I needed. My dad’s sisters both lived out of state and his mom was visiting the one in New Orleans. How do you tell someone that her brother would probably be dead by the time she arrived? When Grandma answered the phone, I tried to go through the pleasantries but she knew something from my voice. I thought it would be better for my aunt to break the news because at the time I thought 66 was old and fragile.
Each telephone call became easier as I became numb. Each repeating became less real, more surreal, a story — someone else’s story. Within an hour, family started arriving at the emergency room. Before the night was over, the almost fifty friends and family could not fit into the waiting room. We overflowed into the cafeteria where everyone tried to ignore the elephant in the room. As with a wake, there were lots of stories. Perry stories. “Doris, do you remember when Perry . . . blah, blah, blah?” Laughter would erupt, nervous laughter. Periodically a doctor or nurse would come talk to us for a minute and give encouragement as to how the surgery was going. The men tried to alleviate tension with nervous talk and laughter. The women seemed much more comfortable with silence. Daddy’s best friends, neighbors, my mother’s brothers, my cousins that he had employed at the pawn shop through their teenage years, people whose lives he had touched over the years banded to hold my family together.

Sometime during the wee hours of the morning, a surgeon said my dad might live. The surgery was not over but Daddy had been very lucky. He had been shot six times with a total of eight holes in his body. There were holes from his neck to his thigh. Some bullets had shattered in him, while others went through him. By the grace of God, no major organ, other than a lung, had been hit. Daddy would carry a bullet in his lung for the rest of his life. The surgeon said my dad should have died from so many shots at close range and they were still looking for fragments. He had lost a lot of blood. They would know more by morning. My first deep breath in eight hours almost overloaded my oxygen-deprived brain. I felt weak to my knees. I hadn’t cried yet. I couldn’t cry yet, I still had to be strong for my mother.

About daylight, Daddy was critical but stable. In less than a week he would walk out of the hospital to my car. On the way home, we detoured by the pub for his beer and for him to show his war wounds. Daddy said he wanted to see which holes were going to leak.
For nearly a week, I tried everything possible to get out of the trip to the Soviet Union. How could I go? Everything in me wanted to grasp firmly to my life and not let go. Dago, my granddad and my dad were all in their respective homes recuperating. We survived the first two weeks of December. Mother said if I could get the money back from the travel company, I could stay home. Fate took control and two days after Daddy left the hospital I left for the Soviet Union. Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as I thought.

I didn’t know anyone in my Russian Civilization class. The other students were primarily married couples and instructors. I felt so alone. There wasn’t a soul to comfort or console me until I met Fraser in Leningrad. He was from Georgia, the American state, not the Russian. We played in the snow, were chased by the KGB through Gorky Park, and stood in line for hours to see Lenin’s Tomb. When my call home assured me that my dad was alive and well, I relaxed and fell in love.

Three days before Christmas, I arrived home from Moscow. I was excited to show my gifts and souvenirs to the family. Everyone was in the living room, except Dago. When I called for him, the room went silent. He had died. The autopsy showed gangrene had reached his brain. I had reached my breaking point. The tide of pain and fear that had ebbed in my heart now flowed from me. I finally cried. For three months I cried.

It’s all coming back, it’s all coming back to me now.
The letter is still on the table waiting, intimidating. The Alabama Department of Corrections Parole Board. For over twenty years, I had not given a thought to Leon Foy. For the last two years as an “interested party” I am forced to relive one of the worst times of my life. If I had a crystal ball, maybe I would know what to do. I don’t want to go to his hearing. I don’t even want to write a letter to the board although every other day my mother asks if I have mailed one yet. How do I know if he has served enough time? He did not even go to trial for my dad’s shooting. He was convicted of murdering a customer at a different store that he robbed. I am reasonably sure that the murdered victim’s family would still oppose his release. My dad, who died from an unrelated illness, has been dead almost as long as Foy has been in jail. My wounds and anger are gone now. As much as the memories hurt, I only have to deal with them that month in the summer. If Daddy had died from the shooting, I probably would feel differently now. But the more I think about it, I realize everything my dad did after the shooting was colored by that traumatic incident in his life. In return, I reacted to the ups and downs he suffered. At a time when I had never heard of the problem, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, I was living with a sufferer. Some of the most awful things that happened in my life and in our family can be traced to my dad’s near death experience. Do I want to punish Foy for my first marriage and divorce? Or the onset of my dad’s middle-age crazy phase? Then there was the sense of immortality that my dad achieved from his survival. If six bullets could not get him, why should he worry about his blood pressure? I guess I am still angry at Foy. He is alive and my dad is not.

Maybe Foy has changed, jailhouse religion. We never got a letter of apology though. He had no skills to make a living at twenty years of age, what is he like at forty-five? How has he spent these last twenty years that my dad and his other victim did not get to enjoy? Did he put himself through college with the law books in the prison’s library? Why did he get to live? How many lives does one have to destroy before . . . ? There are so many questions left unanswered, but the answers won’t bring back my dad or change the past.

My sister called to see if I had mailed my letter to the parole board. She too was in a quandary, not sure what to do. I guess I had hoped Joanna, a psychiatric nurse, would tell me what to do. My mother tells me everyday what to do. She would like to rip Foy’s head off, where as my sister and I would just prefer to stick our heads in the sand and never have to hear his name again. If they let him out of jail, I won’t receive any more letters. Then again, if they let him out he might just be on the evening news.

When in doubt, don’t. I didn’t know what to write to the parole board, so I didn’t write anything. In fact, I never even opened the letter this year. After a few weeks of being shuffled with the bills, the letter found its way to the burn pile. Outside, the fire licked up the letter and other discarded papers. My anger burned again, fueled by years of repressed rage. It will never be over. It will never be over.

My life today is intertwined and entangled with that fateful Friday in December; all the memories and all the consequences. Only a few more months and it will be summer again. The government letter will be here soon, with all the memories and pain. Once again, I will cry.

The Hawk

The April morning is brisk and bright. The mockingbird sings her glorious song. Unlike other songbirds with their repetitive simplicity, her song has a stanza, chorus, bridge and refrain. Her voice is hypnotizing. I listen for a pattern wondering if there is a reason to her rhyme or does she just sing as she is inspired. I have heard her many times outside my window in the wee hours of the night with her loud and melodious voice breaking the silence. This morning her song is interrupted by the piercing cry of another lady. The shrill, high voice of a red-tailed hawk carries across the sky. Her cry is not a melodious song, but is similar to the shrieks of the seagulls on the gulf. Unlike the birds harmonizing in the trees around my porch, her loud cry is coming from across the pasture. As I follow her voice into the open field, I see her perched in a bare, massive, water oak. My presence is unnoticed or of no concern to her. Her silhouette is sleek against the cirrus clouds. From a red oak on the far side of the field, another hawk, her suitor, answers her cry. For a few minutes, they converse and then she takes to the wing. Over the wide field, she dances. Her graceful form pirouettes in the sky. Then with several strong strokes of his wings, her suitor glides across the sky to join the dance. He has no bright plumage to attract his mate, but his magnificent, sultry form appeals to her. At first, they make figure eights as their paths weave. They then become synchronized in their steps, a waltz. From nowhere, another hawk appears. A young female, is trying to cut in. Both ladies are dancing seductively, vying for his attention. The three hawks catch a current and float higher and higher as their elliptical paths criss and cross. Unable to lure him from her beautiful rival, the latecomer accepts defeat and sails away. The pair continue with their hypnotic moves. I see their silver bellies gleaming above me.
The encounter this morning turns out not to be the mating dance. I am disappointed. I was hoping that I would see the hawks mate mid-air like eagles do. What a wondrous thing that would be to watch, not a flogging on the ground like chickens or geese, but a tango in the sky. The hawks would unite in the air, then spin, dip, dive and ultimately soar away.
This morning may have not been the right time for her, but I know her internal clock is ticking. Their dance will happen soon.

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Eastern Valley, there was a princess of rare beauty and talent. Everyone knew this was true because King William said so. The king’s first child, a prince, was born with an infirmity. When the young prince died, the king put his whole heart and life into the life of his little princess. He vowed that he would spoil her so rotten that no knight could ever steal her away. Every wish that flickered in her thought was granted. The king gave her jewels and gold and promised her land in the Dry Valley she loved so much. In return, the princess would play music nightly as the king drank his ale. The king drank much ale. He was full of melancholy and the ale and music soothed his aching heart. The loss of his precious prince was a blow that the king would never overcome.
The king and queen of Eastern Valley were from different worlds and spoke different languages. Thus the age old dilemma of husband and wife communications. They just didn’t understand each other. Sometimes they would ride amicably in the same carriage but usually their interests kept them apart. Miraculously, a second princess was born. Emasculate Conception.
The queen, an excellent seamstress and gardener, busied herself with the princesses. She took them to the Cathedral, to the art museum, and to the cinema. The king took the princesses to the pub, to the market and to the business district where everyone would see his girls. He was very proud of his heirs. Secretly, the queen determined the princesses would marry someone that spoke her classical language and would improve their station in life. The king also had high hopes for his princesses. He sent them to Mountain Brook to be educated with all of the other proper and privileged young women of the region. Lessons were forced on the compliant elder daughter. She learned to paint, and to play the guitar. She studied voice with two instructors and keyboard with four teachers simultaneously. The elder princess had a difficult time standing up to the oppressive and obsessed queen. The younger princess defied the queen and joined the Navy to see the world. She did very well for herself with castles in Florida and North Carolina. The younger princess is unsure whether she will ever move back to the family kingdom.
The older princess was a good and obedient daughter. She was mainly discreet and never embarrassed the king or queen publicly. In return for pleasing her parents, she too was able to travel the world. The princess felt she was very lucky.
The elder princess had her choice of suitors. But, the king hoped his eldest daughter would marry the financial planner from Atlanta or the Harvard lawyer or even the FBI narc. Unfortunately, the elder princess was attracted to men like dear ole dad. She wanted a man who was exciting, unpredictable and passionate. Robin Hood, Henry VIII or an occasional Don Quixote seemed always to be lurking in the courtyard. Henry’s path veered sharply after high school and the queen breathed a sigh of relief. Midway through collegiate studies, the princess contemplated marriage to Robin. A piano, of the grand kind, was promised if the princess would remain unmarried until after graduation. By that time, the princess had met the financial planner and did not want to marry anyone.
During the week, the princess sold castles and taught peasants how to play the piano and organ. On the weekend, she danced the nights away. The princess thought her life was perfect.
One day, a highwayman attempted robbery and assassination of King William. After that, he found life, love and happiness fleeting. The king became restless. He set out on a quest to find the meaning of life. In his search, he soon found a silver convertible and his Dulcinea. They spoke the same language, American Legion. He left his palace and princesses behind as he found himself, amazingly enough, in a trailer park. Everyday the queen assured her daughters, he would come home soon.
But he didn’t, and the elder princess acted impulsively just like her father. Robin Hood had first proposed six years earlier and numerous times since. The princess told him if he still had a death wish, she would marry him. She took his proposal off the table. They married the next day in the back room of the real estate office where she worked weekends. She held a potted poinsettia for a bouquet as the part-time minister-drugstore-clerk officiated.
Robin was exciting and dangerous. Sometimes he stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Other times, he stole and just kept it. He obeyed the laws of the land as he saw fit. The king liked Robin, but threatened to kill him if he made the princess unhappy. Sometimes the king and Robin drank ale together. Robin drank ale with everyone. Eventually the king and queen reunited and the princess realized her mistake. Unfortunately, the king died before he could execute Robin.
The princess hated the merry men with whom Robin Hood spent his time. They went to the forest every weekend to hunt furry creatures. One of the merry men, Little Roy, decided to help Robin with the bitchy princess. Little Roy thought Robin Hood would inherit the kingdom of Dry Valley at her death. Roy knew much about collecting from insurance. The carriage of the princess was sabotaged several times until she told the authorities that Roy and Robin were trying to kill her. Amazingly enough, her carriage never had anymore problems.
The first time Robin called the princess from a dungeon was the last time he called her from a dungeon. The divorce decree was nailed to the door before his bail was posted. So, Robin Hood returned to the forest from whence he came.
The princess lived happily in her kingdom in Dry Valley with her two little hoods for the next six years. Occasionally the princess would go to Atlanta, see the financial counselor, and remember why they never married. Then one day, twenty-five years after their last conversation, Henry called. Like a jester, he made her laugh. After a few months of laughing, they married. She moved away to the mountain where Henry had his castle and left her beloved kingdom behind. The little hoods moved to the forest with their father not wishing to move away with the princess. Henry, who had been through numerous wives, assured the princess that they were all evil wenches of the sluttty kind. The princess naively believed him. After a few months, the laughing stopped.
After six months, on the day set aside to celebrate Mothers, Henry pronounced that he would kill the princess. She had defied his laws and she must be punished. The princess fled to unknown territories to hide from his wrath. After a month, when Henry’s anger subsided, she returned to his castle where he promised things would be different. Eighteen months after their wedding, the princess moved from the castle on Sand Mountain and returned to her kingdom permanently. She thought it would be safer since she did not seem to be able to keep from causing him to behave badly. Unfortunately, Henry decided to move to Dry Valley also. He promised to prove that he had really changed. On their second Mother’s Day together, Henry screamed at the princess. “I should have already killed you!” She escaped death with only minor bruising. The Sheriff helped Henry find his way out of the county safely. The little hoods were looking to impale him.
For the next three years, the princess lived alone in her Kingdom of Dry Valley. At first, she was very lonely. She had never lived by herself. Then she began to enjoy the peace, quiet, solitude and walking naked in the house. Occasionally, she visited the financial planner in Atlanta but he had a problem with her marital status. Again, she remembered why they never married. Since Henry did not get the pleasure of beheading his wife, he would not sign divorce papers either. Maybe he was a trifle miffed at the grounds: performance anxiety.
Robin Hood got a little woods nympho in the forest pregnant and is now raising a wife and a pre-schooler. For ole times sake, Robin offered to help the princess with her marital situation. He proposed to dethrone Henry, permanently. The princess contemplated the ramifications of that proposition. After three years, Henry tired of his vendetta. The princess was finally free.
The two little hoods have their own merry men and women. One raises hell on the Southside of Birmingham and the other in the County of Chilton.
The princess is happy again. She has caller ID and rarely talks to the unknown or her mother the queen. The princess paints her world with flowers, songs and words. During the week, she designs gardens for the gentry. On the weekend, she dances the nights away. Her life is almost perfect.

Hummers

Greetings from the great county of Chilton, heart of the Heart ofDixie, geographic center of Alabama. A farmer might would say that Chiltonites are a different breed of chickens. That would not offend me since I am a transplant, not a native. I am from Jefferson County,which is viewed by the locals with the same disdain as people from Birmingham view people from Atlanta.
I have discovered that we also have a different breed of hummingbirds here. I noticed today that my feeder was empty. I had bought a big, strawberry-shaped feeder in May for the little critters. I had picked a red feeder so that I could use clear sugar water. (I have heard that red food coloring is bad for them, it can make them hyper.) All summer it remained full, no birds in sight. Then, about the middle of August, a hummer appeared. Within a few days, there were two, then three. I have had three birds as steady feeders for a couple of weeks now. I know there are three birds, because I see them fighting all the time.
Today, I brought the feeder into the house to refill it. Popping the top, I realized the liquid was fermented. Those three little buggers had polished off a half gallon of moonshine. They weren't fighting over their territory, it was drunken brawling I had witnessed.
It is autumn now. The little lushes have probably migrated further south, like to Autauga County. If not, they are going to be very disappointed with their sugar water here. Maybe I should relent and give them a little pick-me-up, say like red dye #6.

Pastoral Reverie

Ridge Circle Farm, sole proprietor, female, farmer, that’s me: Lady Farmer. I guess it’s better than being the farmer’s wife, but not nearly as much fun as being the farmer’s daughter. I was a farmer’s daughter for a short while. My dad was a gentleman farmer, part of the landed-gentry. His farming involved the weekend trips to feed the cows someone else tended and pick the corn someone else planted. We had picnics, barbecues, quail hunts and dove shoots. Not quite the fun I heard farmer’s daughter had, but it wasn’t quite farming either. The real farming came later when I moved from the suburbs to the country.
Once upon a time, there was a farmer’s husband. He was handsome in a red-neck sort of way, with curly black hair and green eyes that could talk me in to most anything; I blame those cursed pheromones. I cured that problem with a nose job and he became my ex-husband. Taylor, my oldest son, was born before Danny and I lost our collective mind and moved to the country. Taylor is a city child at heart. The pulse of the Birmingham’s Southside beats through his veins. He was fearless on the farm; fighting geese and protecting his little brother. Now, Taylor is a neurotic urbanite. He might as well move on to some unnamed northern city. My younger son was born after we began farming and as with most of our farm animals, his birth was at the wrong time in the wrong place. The lady at the 7-11 store told me that castor oil would coax that baby right on out and I thought it was worth a try. So, I drank two small bottles of castor oil, had two hours of labor, and then had to listen to two people in the truck saying, “you can make it, you can make it.” Of course, they were wrong. Clint came into this world raising hell. He’s a carbon copy of his dad. It’s nice to know I’ll always have a part of his dad with me forever, lest I forget the twenty some-odd years I spent with Danny. As a child, Clint was afraid of everything. Now, he is invincible, just like his dad.
Fencing was first priority when we moved to the country. In order to string new fence, the vines, brambles and other underbrush had to be removed. One memorable Sunday, Danny and my dad were clearing around an old barn. Clearing is a euphemism for what drunks do with a lighter and a can of gasoline. I thought the fire was spreading too quickly. They assured me they could handle it. Our barn was not in imminent danger, just the Tree Farm on the other side of our property. Daddy, a short man with short little legs, was running in every direction at the same time trying to beat out the flames with pine boughs. As I stomped the jumping flames, I could hear Daddy under his breath, “**##**+# shit.” That was the evening when we met our neighbors for the first time. We also met personnel from two fire departments, Rangers from the Alabama Forestry Commission, and a Chilton County Sheriff. Neighbors’ kids brought marshmallows and played around the embers. Welcome to the neighborhood. We have a reunion around a fire about every three or four years, any sooner and there would be legal ramifications, i.e. jail time.

The family that farms together - stays together, or some such nonsense as that. When you’re farming, there isn’t much time to get into trouble. Farming kept us busy. The only full time laborer we ever had was a transient named Chuck. He fastened himself to my husband as did stray dogs and drunks. Danny had the bright idea to bring Chuck home to live in our RV. Chuck had red curly clown hair and the kind of teeth kids buy for Halloween. Chuck was a tall skinny drunk, the kind that stands on the side of the road in the rain with the sign, “Will work for food.” Chuck was “that kind,” although that was not how my husband found him. I think they discovered each other across a crowded, smoky bar room; the beginning of their meaningful relationship.
Chuck came to live with us to be a farmhand and my husband's new best friend. Danny added the handyman position to Chuck’s resume to quell my objections to his constant presence. Because my husband traveled a lot with his work and was basically inept when he was at home, I needed a man to help with the farm chores. Danny gave me Chuck. I should have asked for a stray dog.
Early in the morning, I would see Chuck walk across the field with Danny’s shotgun. Midmorning he would return, grinning like a fool and swinging a couple of rabbits by the ears. He scared me. It wasn’t that he was intimidating, I could probably have taken him or at least stood my ground in a tussle, but he reminded me of a carnie and I found everything at the circus scary, except the animals. My young sons were thrilled with Chuck; they thought Bozo had moved in with us. In the evenings, Danny would spend hours in the RV “explaining” to Chuck the next day’s chores. I’m sure Danny did most of the talking because Chuck was a stutterer. Beer always helped their communication process though.
Chuck got a bright idea. Bright ideas were catchy around our house - I found out later Danny was the contagion. Chuck thought if he had a truck he would be able to help haul feed and supplies from the co-op. So, with a skill saw, some plywood and black plastic, Chuck turned his classic blue Falcon into something totally, unbelievably ugly, but vaguely resembling a truck.
Two heads are better than one. Then again, there is always that exception to the rule and Danny wasn’t much on rules and would be the first to agree that he was exceptional. Ever heard that saying, “If he had half-a-brain he’d be dangerous?” Chuck and Danny together bordered on half-a-brain. Somehow, one evening their conversation over beer naturally progressed to castration. I thought about it occasionally but in a different context. Danny had seen it done to a cat and thought they could do it to some young hogs.
“Well, we need to get a stove pipe. It has to be snug fit. We’ll put the front half of their body in the pipe with their butt just hanging out. They won’t be able to move. ”
Chuck looked confused. “Www...wh...what? Th...th...that’s not h...how...” Obviously, Chuck wasn’t drunk enough yet.
“Just sharpen your knife tomorrow and make sure you have plenty of lard.”
“L..l...l..lard?
“Mountain oysters for dinner ‘morrow night.”
I made Chuck nervous, which was okay because he made my skin crawl. Our contentious relationship must have reminded him of the wife he had left, because at the end of summer he announced he was going back to Florida to see her. Danny cried.