Growing Up Southern: November 23, 2017

Rupert and Ronnie Austin and I thought we were some pretty fine fellows, almost grown after all. Rupert was nearly 13, I was 12, and Ronnie 11. Younger brother Larry, now Mayor of Mansfield, Arkansas wasn’t old enough to go on manly-type adventures. So the three of us set out, a small band, but as unstoppable as an entire division of well-armed troops.

The Austin boys lived near my grandmother in Cleveland County, Arkansas, in a place called the “Pleasant Ridge Community,” pleasant enough as I remember, but boasting no ridge of which I am aware. I visited there often, mostly in the summer months.

They lived about a mile and a half from what was then known as “The New Warren Road,” that connected Pine Bluff and Warren, Arkansas. The community was large enough, and the road heavily traveled enough, to boast a grand grocery store owned by a man named Barnes. It figures in this adventure.

My grandmother caused it all by telling us how her brothers had taught her how to smoke grapevines when they were kids. Of course, we had outgrown grapevines by then. Besides, if you got one that was too hollow, they tended to burn your tongue. We were practically grown men, and had that strength of purpose born of the certain knowledge Southern boys possess that anything they think of should be put into action without delay, particularly potential endeavors tinged with a slight salting of sin.

“How much do you reckon they cost?”

“A quarter I think.”

“Lucky Strike or Camels?”

“I ‘spect they’s all the same.”

“No, I meant what kind do we want?”

“Daddy smokes Camels. We could say they are for Daddy.”

“Our daddy’s dead.”

“Hell, I know that. Tell you what, Boogie Shannon told me if you looked in a certain spot, you could see a nekkid woman on a pack of Camels. In the hump, I reckon.”

“I’ve looked and I never.”

“Well, we might try again.”

“All right then. Let’s say Camels. They’s just this one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve only got a dime, and that’s my ‘picture-show’ money.”

“All right then, we won’t do it.”

“I never said that. I just meant I hate to take a chance on something I never done before and spend my picture-show money at the same time.”

“Well,” I’m fixna spend money I was saving to buy a twenty-two.”

“If we ever get a television, I’m gonna buy me one of them Winky Dink kits.”

“Shut up. That’s kid stuff. Ya’ll in or out?”

“In.”

“In.”

There’s a time in the southern summer when heat settles upon a stifled world that becomes almost oily from the weight. Adults and other sane members of society avoid direct exposure to such an indignity. Thus, unsupervised and unfettered young boys use it as the time of their greatest and most nefarious adventures. A mile and half walk down a graveled country road is but a pleasant jaunt. If the walk is ennobled with the promise of a glorious moment of sin at its termination, so much the better. Lying to a kindly old man named Barnes is simply practice for adulthood.

Walking back may lack the original luster, at times anyway.

“Were you pukin’ back ‘air?”

“No, I was, uh, spittin’ out a bug that flew in my mouth.”

“Sounded to me like you was a’pukin,”

“Do they really like to do this?”

“Who?”

“Men.”

“Hell yeah I reckon. You never seen John Wayne pukin’ from one have you?”

“Not yet. Do you like it?”

“It’s okay. I don’t think I’d walk a mile and a half ever day for one.”

“Anybody want the rest of mine?”

“No, you can have it all.”

“How many’s left in there?”

“All we started with but three.”

“What we gonna do with the rest?”

“You keep them.”

“I don’t want ‘em.”

“Maybe we can trade them to Luther Wayne Rodgers for something.”

"I don't 'spect we will. He still remembers them glasses you sold him that was supposed to let you see through a girl's dress."

“I don't know about these thangs. They must use different ones in the movies. They couldn’t be this kind.”

“Probly. Oh Christ, Ronnie, go over to the ditch to do that.”

“I think I’ll just stick to grapevines from now on. I like picture-shows a lot better.”

“Yeah. Ya’ll ‘scuse me just a minute.”

We shall leave these nearly grown men now with this thought: the road to manhood is a rocky one and one filled with surprises emanating from adventures seemingly chosen at random. Some are pleasant friends. Some are harsh teachers. All offer a gift of the pedagogical if we pay attention.