THE SECOND COMING

II

                I arrived at Uncle T.J.'s house on time. Clifton was ready. I don’t think that I would have been disappointed if he had thought up an alternative adventure. But he was as determined as ever and we were soon on our way. We told his grandparents that we were going to check our trotlines. I don’t think they even heard us. They were sitting on the front porch, Aunt Hallie snapping green beans and Uncle T.H. reading the Bible. Neither of them looked up. We backed off the porch and across the yard, quietly. Then we simply evaporated, headed for the bayou.

Clifton was giving the directions and I was following as best I could. I was, at the same time, plotting an escape route in the event that old man Ratliff became involved. I didn't mention this to Clifton, of course, for it was his strong belief that if you even thought of an unlucky possibility it was more likely than not to happen. Planning for any sort of mishap, would, in his way of looking at it, invite that very disaster, so why bother?

                "Lucky for us they live on the edge of the bayou," Clifton explained as we crossed the Ratliff's field. "We'll act like that's where we're headed and then we'll just move up in the cover of the woods when the sun starts going down."

                "Sounds good." I tried to sound older than I was.

                "You ain't told nobody, have you?'

                "Who would I tell - Mama and Papa?"

                "Something like this, well you just got to keep it to yourself," Clifton said with a wise nod. "No use letting it get around."

                "You're right," I agreed and fought away the image of old man Ratliff's knife.

We decided to sit for a time on the bank of the bayou to wait for the sun to go down. It was quiet and peaceful there. The shade felt good and there was a soft summer breeze drifting through. We had a few moments - time to ponder the greater mysteries of life.

                "Clifton?"

                "What."

                "Why do men want to?"

                "Want to what?"

                "You know," I struggled for the words.  "See nekkid women."

                "Just something to do," said Clifton.  "Just for fun, like us I reckon. Why else would they want to?"

                "That's what I wondered, myself," and I noticed that the woods were getting darker. "Think it's nearly time?"

                "Purty near," he replied and I felt something inside me tremble like it was cold but I knew it couldn't be in August.

                "Clifton?"

                "What."

                "Do you reckon we'd go to hell for this?"

                "We ain't old enough. You got to get to what they call the ‘age of accountability’ for it to count that hard agin’ you."  He paused for a minute as he chewed on a twig.  "I reckon we're safe from about anything for a couple of more years. Except maybe killin' or something."

                "Oh," I said. I hoped that the relief didn't show through in my voice.

                "So I guess we'd better get going," he said.

                "Yep, I guess we'd better," I said.

                We were able to stay well hidden by hanging close to the edge of the bayou, it being so low that time of year.  We got due south of the Ratliff place just as it got dusky dark for we could make out the two oak trees that stood by the house place. As we began to ease our way up the bank toward a vantage spot, Clifton whispered his final instructions.

                "No more talkin'. Find yourself a low tree limb to sit in and enjoy the show. I"ll whistle like a Bob White two times when it's time to go. Okay?"

                "Okay," I whispered, thankful that I didn't have to muster enough spit to talk out loud.

                "You won't forget this night," Clifton said, and disappeared into the darkness.

                He didn’t have to tell me that. I eased forward toward where I thought the house was and immediately decided to amend Clifton's plan. I wasn't going to climb any tree and risk getting caught there by a Ratliff. No thank you. I'd take my chances on foot even if it meant getting in closer.

                I took each step slowly, easing through the foliage as I had been taught to when hunting, not making a sound, even when walking on dry leaves, the way they said Indians could do. I parted each vine carefully, half expecting some trap to spring, set by a Ratliff as a precaution against...  well against people like me.

All around me the night voices of lowland insects had erupted with the end of the last light and I had never heard them enjoin so loudly. Surely they were alerting the household to the presence of strangers. I stopped, swallowed as best I could, and eased forward again. Never in my life, I imagined, would I ever be as alone as I was now.

                "Surely I'm almost there," I was thinking when the area directly in front of me exploded in light. I froze in my steps. A sharp, electric surge raced across the back of my tongue and I could almost see the front of my overalls bounce with every beat of my heart which I knew could be heard for half a mile. I couldn’t, of course, see my hair but I was sure it was standing straight up. This was it. This was what life had come to for a ten-year-old boy who would never see another adventure, who in fact was destined to die before his first was really underway good. I froze and waited.

                Then I realized that I was still in the shadow of the woods and that, at least yet, nothing was coming for me. As I watched, with blood screeching through my head with every heartbeat, the scene formed before me.

                The light was coming from a lantern which had been swinging from an arm and which now was being set on a barrel. The light framed a clearing about fifty feet across with the Ratliff's chicken house on the back side and the woods on the other three. In the center of the light was Geehaw Ratliff. Her head was framed in its glow and the scene brought back a memory of something I had seen before. But I was too scared to remember what. A picture of something I had seen. What was it?

Then I remembered. In the Bible, the pictures of the Virgin Mary always looked like that. With her head framed in light and all. The Wise Men would be looking at her and the Baby Jesus and the light would glow all around them like this. But this wasn’t the Virgin Mary and the Baby Jesus. It was Gehaw Ratliff and I was not a wise man I felt, just a common sinner, watching something I had no business watching.

She had all her clothes on but there was a number three washtub in front of the barrel and I could see that the tub was full of water. It had no doubt been set out earlier to warm in the sun. As for me, I was completely hidden in the dark, but another step or two would have had me walking into the clearing just as Gehaw did.

                So it seemed that for now I was safe. Gehaw went about her business without looking our way so I guessed that Clifton was safe as well and had a good view. Gradually, my heart stopped pounding and I felt as normal as a person could have felt under those circumstances, I suppose.  Actually if you had known the truth, there were a lot of places where I would rather have been, but I was here so I determined to take her in for all it was worth.

                As my presence of mind returned, I noticed that Gehaw didn't seem in any hurry to take a bath. In fact, she seemed a little nervous and kept looking toward the far corner of the chicken house. I was puzzled. If she was going to take a bath I wished that she would get it over with so I could find Clifton and get the hell out of there.

                Then I saw what she was looking for. There was someone else that had come to take part in this Saturday night ritual, a guest that was surely more welcome than the two of us. He was standing in the shadows at the edge of the building but I could make out who it was and I tell you I was shocked to the bottom of my feet, more shocked still when Gehaw walked over to him like she had been waiting for him all of her life, and shocked further when she took him by the hands and spoke to him so softly that I couldn't hear.

I was so shocked, in fact, that I didn't notice old man Ratliff come around the opposite corner.

             "Come out from around there," he yelled and I turned to see him clearly in the light.

I guess, now that I think about it, it was just a regular shotgun. But in that pale light, with the bugs beginning to swirl around it, things took on a bizarre look and the gun sure looked bigger. It looked more like a cannon, I thought, and it wasn’t even aimed at me.

"I got you now," Mr. Ratliff said. He sounded like a man on a hunt that had just trapped a coon in a tree.

“Hot damn boys, I got him now!” I half expected him to say something like that.

                Gehaw didn't say a word, just flattened herself against the building like maybe she could get so that her Papa couldn't see her. 

                "Girl git to the house," he said and motioned that way with the gun. Then he addressed the still hidden figure again.  "I told you once to get around here you son of a bitch. I got a shotgun."

                The other man never moved. I was the only one who could see them both and I could tell that he wanted to run but maybe he didn't know exactly where Mr. Ratliff was or whether there might be some more Ratliffs waiting where he wanted to run. Mr. Ratliff started toward that end of the chicken house.

It was when he was about halfway there that Gehaw let out a scream that curled my toes and that was when we first saw it. We must have all seen it right about the time that she screamed, for I heard the man behind the chicken house yell "Oh my God!" Gehaw was still screaming and even Mr. Ratliff stopped to look.

The shotgun went off.

                Let me tell you, it was confusing for a couple of seconds.  Old man Ratliff must have fired the gun off accidentally when he saw the thing in the sky and when that happened, the other man just disappeared. In fact, there seemed to be movement everywhere.

The spray from the gun hit the roof of the chicken house right over Gehaw's head and shingles flew every which way. She bolted and ran right by me out into the edge of the field and ran smack into a section harrow. The handle was sticking up and she hit it with a thud that made me sick to my stomach. She screamed again but just kept running out of the light and into the cotton field.

                "Come back daughter," old man Ratliff yelled but it was no use. She was gone. He didn't stay long either. He took one more look into the sky, threw down the shotgun and ran for the house screaming, "Mamma get the boys, the world's coming to an end and I done kilt Caroline!"

                “Caroline?” So that was her name. Of all the shocking things going on before me, I remember being most interested in the fact that Gehaw had a real name.

                Then I heard the woods coming alive to my right and in a second I heard Clifton holler, "Bobby, you all right?"

                "Yeah," I hollered back. "I'm right over here."

                Clifton materialized in a second and, after assuring himself that I hadn't been shot, pointed to the sky.  "What in the hell is that?"

                What we were looking was described by a lot of people in a lot of different ways, but I can tell you what it looked like to me, and, if Clifton were here, he would probably tell you the same thing. It was a great ball of fire off to the east and it was moving in mysterious loops looking to the whole world like a fiery host descending toward us ever so deliberately.

                There are those who say it wrote out various messages but don’t believe that. It was just moving back and forth across the sky like it was trying to decide exactly where it wanted to land. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you it was a frightening spectacle.

                "Let's get the hell out from here," said Clifton. I couldn't have been more in agreement.

                We didn't have to take the route back through the woods.  We could hear the whole Ratliff family already heading out to the road, all of them yelling for Gehaw. Clifton and I just skirted the edge of the field until we hit the road and then we started down it like we had been there all along.

  

 

THE SECOND COMING

Part One

By Jimmie von Tungeln

                                                                                                

Now the reason that I got involved in this in the first place was because of my second cousin Clifton who was two years older than me. And the reason I don't mind talking about it when there are so many people who for all those years didn't mention it hardly at all and if they did they almost always said it didn't happen the way someone heard it did and even then usually lied and said they weren't there, is because I don't owe anyone in Hog Eye Bend, Arkansas one blessed thing. The only one I would have protected anyway was Clifton who got killed in the Second World War though they wouldn't take him at first because he couldn't pass the IQ test.

                Mama was to say later that it turned out Clifton was just smart enough to get himself killed but that's not the way I looked at it. I sort of idolized him, him being older and everything, and I felt he had a good mind. It took a good mind to stand out in those days. And Clifton stood out as far as I was concerned.

                “Fun is where you find it,” – Clifton used to say, and I agreed. “Fun is just about better’n  anything’” he  would add. “It keeps us from bein’ mules or such.”  I mean, does that sound like the philosophy of a person who couldn't have passed an IQ test if he had wanted to? Really wanted to?

                Anyway, fun was what we were looking for and it was fun that brought us to where we ended up, which brought us to have a front row seat at the most exciting thing to ever happen in or about our little settlement, and which revealed so many things about so many people. You could say that it was part of the folklore of the Arkansas delta, even if it was recorded by two boys scarcely old enough to realize what was happening, much less old enough to attach much meaning to it.

                I was ten at the time, and Clifton was twelve, he being twenty-one when they hit Pearl Harbor and not living long past that. It was in August when the crops were laid by, that being another reason why so many people got involved. Had it had happened any other time of the year, most people would have been in bed and would never had even known about it.

                "I got it all figured out," Clifton announced one day, no warning, just out of the wild-blue. Just like that.

                "What?"

                "You know anything about girls?"

                "What?"

                "You know!"

                "Oh yeah," I lied.

                "Ever see one nekkid?"

                "Oh my God!  Who?"

                "You won't believe it."

                "Who?"

                "Geehaw."

                "Gehaw?"

                "Geehaw."

                "Why would anyone want to see that?"

                "Cause she's a girl, stupid!"

                "Oh."

                Until that moment, I had never thought of Gehaw as a girl, or as anything else for that matter.  I didn't even know her name except that her last name was Ratliff and she was one of the Ratliff's from south of Pine Bluff - the means ones - the ones that Papa said married one another. I hadn't even heard her talk except to her Daddy's mules which she drove from sunup until sundown every day and all she said to them was "Gee" and "Haw." Of course that's where she got that name.  She was about eighteen, I suppose, real tall and real skinny as I remember.

                "You kiddin'?" I asked.

                "I got it all figured out."

                "What?"

                "How'd you like to watch her take a bath tonight?"

                I tell you I was stunned by the prospect of an escapade of such magnitude. Clifton sensed it. I could tell by the way he looked at me.

                "Take a bath?"

                "That's right!"

                "How do you know she does?"

                "Hell, everybody takes a bath."

                "I mean how do you know she will tonight?"

                "She does every Saturday night, right before dark. Fish Johnson told me and Chester's Gracie told him.

                Now I wouldn't bank a whole lot on what Fish Johnson said but Chester's Gracie was about as reliable a person as you found in Hog Eye Bend. She shared that common first name with a bunch of other girls about her same age as a result of the Lady Evangelist Gracie Throughgood who had held a week long meeting in Kingsland about twenty years earlier. She must have made quite an impression on the local people, for almost any girl born the next three years was named Gracie. Since they were mostly related, there was considerable confusion until they started getting married at which time they took their husband's first name as an identifier. We had, in addition to Chester's Gracie: Newt's Gracie, Jesse's Gracie, Neddo's Gracie, and Ed's Gracie just on our road alone. And my Grandmother, who was given the name half a century before this all happened, was called “Papa's Gracie” the last few decades of her life.

                Anyway, I never thought at the time about how Chester's Gracie might have come by this information because I was considerably troubled by Clifton's plan. I knew from past adventures that he tended to underestimate both the degree of difficulty as well as the time required for execution. "First you got to get started and then you jest play 'er as she goes," was his tactical battle plan for most undertakings. And his plans tended to get larger and more complicated as we got older.

This one presented a pretty good step up, even for Clifton.

                "You mean we just slip up and watch her?" I asked. 

                "As easy as that," he said and he got that blank look on his face like he did when he was thinking. He hadn’t said so yet but I knew we were off on an adventure.

                Now this discussion took place on Saturday about noon and we were supposed to embark about an hour before dark. Normally, this would have been simple since Clifton and I stayed with Uncle T.J. and Aunt Hallie, his grandparents, most of the summer. But, as I said, the crops had been laid by and Papa used this time of year to make whiskey and that was a problem. 

                The making of the whiskey wasn't the problem as much as the testing of it, a job which Papa trusted to no one else and which often rendered him unpredictable by Saturday night. Once he made a particularly bad batch and became convinced that the "White Russians" were coming after us, whoever they were. That night we all huddled in a corner while he sat in a chair in the living room with a deer rifle across his knee, waiting for the attack.

                "I'll shoot the goddam monkeys," he kept saying all night while Mama kept up a steady line of prayer. It turned out later that he didn’t even have bullets in the gun. That would have been lucky for any intruders, I suppose.

                That was when I began staying with Clifton whenever I could. You never knew when whiskey and imagination might collaborate to create a new enemy for Papa. That might, of course, keep me at home and I sure didn't want that to happen tonight.

Thinking back on it, I don't think it was so much to get to see Geehaw take a bath as it was for the honor of being asked to by a man much older and wiser man than I. That has moved more men than me to stranger adventures, I’d be willing to bet.

                "What happens afterwards?"  I assumed a logical continuity.

                "Nothin’”. We may tell Fish but we may not. He talks too much."

                "What happens if we get caught?"

                Clifton looked at me as serious as death and drew an imaginary knife across his throat.  "Old man Ratliff would kill us I reckon."  Then he looked at me suspiciously. "You in this with me?"

                "Sure," I said and in the saying of it I felt the metallic taste of the knife blade. I had always taken it for granted that, if I were to be killed, it would during some great brave act, like protecting my family for instance … say from an onslaught of White Russians. Only my respect for Clifton could have forced me to face such a sacrifice as the price of watching Gehaw Ratliff take a bath.

                But I was game and this adventure was as good as underway.

                My fears were realized. Papa had tied one on by the time I came home, but luckily for me he had sailed right past belligerence and was nearing a state of bewilderment as Mama tore into him. I could hear them when I reached the front yard.

"You low down sorry outfit."

Silence

“You ain't fit to live!"

                Finally a response: "Shut up for Christ's sake," Papa was struggling to keep his balance. He kept reaching for the garden fence and every time he did he grabbed a handful of blackberry vines.

                “Damn it to godalmighty hell,” he yelled.

                "Blasphemer!" Mamma shouted.

                "Yes, goddammit!" Papa countered, "Now get out of here and leave me alone." I had walked up and noticed the green cast to his skin. "I don't feel good," he said weakly. He tried to look past Mamma to me.

                "No wonder," Mama shouted right into his face.  "You been swillin' rotgut whiskey all day and now git ready for the Lord's turn." Then she looked around at me. "Bobby you get over here and help me pray."

                "I was going over to Uncle T. J's," I said.

                "You get your hind-end over here and pray." Mama said. Then she dropped to one knee.

                "All of you leave me alone - just get away!" Papa shouted. Then his jaw went slack. "I'm gonna be sick," he announced, not to any particular person. He just announced it like it was of some importance to the world at large.

                "You get out of my sight then," Mama said although she needn't have bothered, for Papa had already lurched around the corner of the house. Then she turned to me. "I hope you're satisfied."

                "Me?"

                "You should look after him. You know how sorry he is."

                Papa was making awful noises. Sort of like the gurgling sound that a hog makes when it's stuck, I thought, only much louder and with a lot more thrashing around. I didn't want to draw attention from him so I played it contrite. "I ain't done nothin'."

                "Hush," Mamma said, to my relief. She was listening for Papa, who wasn't making any noise at all now. I looked at her and I could see real concern in her face.

                "You think he passed out?" I asked.

                "You shut your little smart mouth!" Mamma said. I had forgotten that criticizing Papa was a privilege that she reserved for herself.  "He may have died for all you know.  A man that works all day and all week for you and who don't ask nothin, who ain't never done nothin' but smell the backside of a mule all his life and ain't got a nickel to his name for it because he spends it to keep you fed and who you ain't never once offered to help, even once when his back was bent over and breakin', not once, just always off with Clifton doin' God knows what."

                She could have gone on like this for hour or so if she had wanted to. I've seen her. But Papa had walked up so quietly that we hadn't noticed. He stood by the back door and he looked worse than before.

                "I think maybe you had better pray after all," he said softly, his eyes meeting Mamma's.

                "Halleluiah!" she said and forgot all about me.

                It was settled then, I was cleared for action. I changed shirts; that's the only thing I could thing of that might add dignity to the affair.  It was true that the shirt I changed to was exactly like the one I discarded, and that my dress was the same overalls and blue shirt that every young boy in the county wore, but I felt that the impending activities required some sort of special attention, no matter how modest.

                I stopped by a window before I left to make sure that Mamma and Papa were going to be occupied for awhile, and, sure enough, they were going at it in earnest.  Mamma had Papa on his knees with his head in both hands and tears were streaming down her face, which was, of course, raised toward the Savior.

                "Lord, look at this poor drunk sinner." she began.

                "Wait!" Papa cried. "Wait just a goddam minute!"

                "A blasphemer and a drunkard," Mamma expanded.

                "Wait," Papa said again and he tried to rise but Mamma had him in salvation's grip. He simply rolled over on his back.

                "You be still, "Mamma said, and she raised her face once more toward heaven. "Lord, this drunk sinner needs forgiven. I wouldn’t do it if it was me, but you’re a better person, I think."

                This time Papa prevailed. "Don't tell Him I're drunk, dammit, tell Him I're sick!"

                "I can't lie to the Lord," Mamma said, and she raised Papa's head up until his eyes met hers. "I won't lie to the Lord, even for you."

                "Just tell him I're sick, then, that part's the truth. Just don't mention the drunk part."

                "I can't Homer, not even for you."

                "Oh please just this once. Who’ll know?"

                I listened to them go on like this for a few minutes and I guess you could say that Papa finally got his way, for as I left for Clifton's house I could hear Mamma's voice drifting out over the cotton fields. It was sort of musical, like some misty plea for mankind itself.  "Help this poor sick sinner, Lord.  He ain't worth a ten cent bucket of lard, but could you help him please?  He ain't much, but he's sick and he's all we got."

                I skedaddled before Papa got his strength back.

 

Of Times and Tides

By Jimmie von Tungeln

             The man awoke before daylight entered the barracks. He had been dreaming, and his first task was to remember where he was. In the dream, he had been trying to walk, but couldn’t because his feet didn’t touch the ground. Nor could he crawl. Staring into the dark, he recalled that, in the dream, neither could flapping his arms enable him to move. He was only human. In the stillness, it came clear to him. He was still in this place.

            He sat upright in his bunk and swung his feet around to touch the floor. The linoleum was cold and he reached to his left for the socks stashed under the head of his mattress. Cursing the cold, he put the socks on his feet as he continued to gain focus. Outside, the false dawn would soon come and daylight would follow. As he turned his head toward an open window, a morning breeze carried in the first smell of the ocean like a playful puppy bringing a toy. He took a deep breath and smiled.

It would be a cool morning marked by overcast skies until the sun dissolved the clouds to reveal a deep blue sky. The sky would end in a teasing horizon, a simple straight line between the sky and an ocean that had drawn humans to it since first they had begun recording time. Then the wind moving inland from the cold waters of Monterey Bay would circle the deserted streets of the forgotten parts of the city and maintain a pleasant nip in the air, washing the city with the smell of rotting fish and drying vegetation. It would be a good day for walking, maybe a great day for walking—without doubt a good day for thinking. Would it be a good day for making decisions? He would see.

The barracks was a nondescript block building seemingly dropped at random among the historic masterpieces that once housed the Del Monte Hotel. Now those old structures, and newer ones, served as the United States Naval Postgraduate School, a learning center for promising officers. For most of the enlisted personnel, it was a temporary berth, offering easy duty before a permanent assignment. He had found no cause for complaint there. Now he had orders to leave.

He moved to a bank of lockers. As quietly as possible, he removed a chain from around his neck and found a key between two dog tags. He opened his locker, took out his travel kit, and replaced the lock, making little noise as he turned toward the lighted “head.” Inside, he completed his morning ritual of shaving, brushing his teeth, and running a wet hand over the short stubble that protruded like tiny rays of golden light from his head. When he had finished, he placed his belongings in the kit and moved quietly back toward his bunk. The barracks hummed with the sounds of men breathing, snoring, and turning restlessly in their sleep. A pair of eyes opened in an upper bunk and stared at him as he passed. They were dark and wide, receiving, but not comprehending, the figure moving before them. For a brief second, the man could see the darkness of humanity lurking behind those eyes and he felt fear. Then their owner broke wind, closed his eyes and returned to that warm place where men linger and feel safe in the false dawn of life. The man moved on.

Soon, he had dressed in civilian clothes, including a handsome and serviceable corduroy coat, and was ready to leave. He walked from the sleeping area into a dimly lighted hallway and then through a day room. Stopping before a bulletin board, he checked the orders of the day for August 12, 1967. After affirming that he was not listed for duty, he left the building and greeted the day. A faint rim of red sky emerged from the eastern horizon and the air was heavy with a morning chill. He walked toward a soaring flagpole, stark and bare in the morning sky. He stopped and studied it. There was something proud about a naked flagpole, ready to serve, standing its singular vigil in the night, loyal but not needed. He saluted the spire and walked on past the majestic buildings of the campus.

He was surprised to find a sentry at the main gate. Normally, it was manned only during working hours, primarily for the purpose of furnishing information to visitors. This morning, he found a young Seaman Apprentice named Wells, from somewhere in South Texas on watch. As the man approached, Wells came from the guardhouse and greeted him with a smile. “Man,” he said, “am I glad to see you. You got a cigarette?”

“Don’t tell me you came on the mid-watch without cigarettes,” the man said. He fished into his coat pocket the produced a partial pack of Marlboros. “Will these do?”

“Hell yes,” Wells said, taking one from the pack. He lit it, inhaled deeply, exhaled, and said, “I had some, but goddam this has been a long watch.”

“Why do they have a guard tonight?”

“A cruiser docked in the harbor and some of its crew came over to the EM Club. Some of their officers came over too, to hobnob with the brass I guess. They got into a big fight with some of our guys, the enlisted men did. Didn’t you hear about it?”

“No, they gave me a couple of days off and I got back from San Francisco last night and went to bed real early. Why were they fighting?”

“Hell, nobody knows. Just wanted to fight I reckon. Ain’t that the way it usually is?”

“Anybody hurt?”

“They were all too drunk to hurt anybody.”

“So what happened?”

“They sent a vehicle from the Presidio and took them back, the ones that was fighting. I was on duty so they put me out here to make sure they didn’t come back.”

“Did they?”

“No, but I’ve been worried about what I’d do if they did.” He patted his pistol. “They gave me this, but they didn’t give me no bullets. It ain’t hardly right to put somebody in danger without any foresight is it?”

The man ignored him. “Any trouble?”

“One of them cruiser boys nearly puked on me when they left, some of those who weren’t involved in the fight and stayed around. Not an officer but some Bosun’s Mate striker. His buddies got him going again. I guess they made it back. I don’t give a shit one way or another.”

“Here,” the man said, handing Wells the cigarettes. “You keep them.”

“All of them? What’re you gonna do?”

“I can buy some more,” the man said. “I’m stopping for something to eat, anyway.”

“What the fuck are you doing up this time of morning?”

“Just out for a walk,” the man said.

Wells started to say something but stopped. He drew from his cigarette and exhaled. He adjusted the pistol holster he was wearing and then said, “Don’t guess I blame you.”

“You keep our base safe,” the man said. “America is depending on you.”

“Anchors aweigh,” Wells said. As the man began to walk away, Wells yelled after him, “Hey Hinson.”

The man stopped and turned around. Wells said, “That’s some goddam shitty deal they gave you.”

Hinson nodded and said, “Yeah, a real goddam shitty deal.” He gave Wells a mock salute, then turned and disappeared into the morning fog.

He reached Del Monte Avenue and turned to the west. There were few cars out and they made a muffled roar as they sped by in the fog. A pair of gulls flew overhead, teasing and taunting one another with fierce, happy squeals. During a quiet moment, he heard the sounds of seals from the direction of the bay. It was a still, lonely time, and he wished he had kept a cigarette for himself. As the sky began to light, he felt a chill. Thrusting his hands into his coat pockets, he walked on.

He stopped at a service station and purchased a fried pie and a Coca-Cola. He sat in a small park and ate his breakfast. Finishing, he leaned back and watched as the sky continued to grow lighter in the east. The east … somewhere out there, his family was up and tending to the farm. Closing his eyes, he conjured the smell of bacon drifting and felt the hot summer breeze announcing another day in the Delta, the Arkansas Delta. Then he shook his head, opened his eyes, and kicked the grass in front of him. He stood and took a deep breath, turned sharply, and continued west.

Daylight had come as he drew near Alvarado Street.  Before he reached its sad desolation, he heard the sound of equipment roaring to life. It was an odd sound, so early in the day. He hurried do the dusty street, lined with empty buildings, and turned in the direction of The Keg.

Then he saw it. A giant construction crane was moving in a swivel, swinging a massive wrecking ball toward the building that housed The Keg, a favorite place of his. In horror, he saw the ball tear into brick and wood and a huge portion of the building stood no more. He could only stare as the crane swung the ball around and the steel tracks move the apparatus a few feet forward. The next swivel took out another portion of the wall. He couldn’t watch anymore. When he turned his head, something caught his eyes in the grass to his right. He walked over and looked. A case of liquor had been dropped and left alongside the walk. What was left was a pile of broken bottles, the glass glistening in the morning light with the sharp smell of whiskey floating upward like siren’s call. He kicked at the glass and saw one unbroken bottle of bourbon whiskey amid the ruble. He bent over and lifted. I was an expensive brand that he had rarely tasted and he carefully brushed away the shards of glass still clinging to its surface.  He wedged the bottle into the pocket of his coat and turned back to what was left of the building.

At the edge of the scene, a man wearing a construction hat watched silently, smoking a cigarette and holding a clipboard. He leaned against a truck and nodded as Hinson approached and said, “What in the world is going on?”

“Progress,” the man said with an air of disgust, “they say.”

“Why are you tearing down The Keg? I was the only business left on the street.”

“I’m just following orders,” the man said. “It ain’t my idea.”

“Did someone buy it?”

“The city bought it,” the man said. He turned and reached in the truck and produced a cardboard poster 11 by 14 inches in size. “Welcome To a New Monterey,” was emblazoned across the top. Smaller letters read, “Watch as we build Monterey’s historic past into a new future.” Below it was an artist’s rendering of a modern hotel complex.

The man took the poster from Hinson and pitched it back into the truck. “Urban renewal,” he said. The then spit and flipped his cigarette butt toward the wreckage.

“I was just in there last week. The place was full of soldiers from Fort Ord,” Hinson said.

“Gone,” the man said.

“The soldiers were having a great time shooting pool with some hookers.”

“Gone,” the man said.

“What happened to the old guy who ran the shoeshine stand across the street during the day? The one who came over and played the piano at night?”

“Gone,” the man said. “Gone, gone, gone.” He looked at Hinson and studied his face. “You from around here?”

“No,” said Hinson. “Navy. I’m from Arkansas.”

“John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts used to drink together in there,” the man said. “All gone.”

“Why are you here so early?”

The man laughed. “City fathers got worried that someone might remember how great this place was and start protesting to stop progress.”

“Oh,” said Hinson, “I see.” But it was apparent to the other that he didn’t.

“So they called ‘Daybreak Demolition’ to make sure the building was gone before the people woke up. It just fell my lot.” He looked at the remains of the building and saluted.

The two stood in silence as another portion of the building disappeared into a pile of rubble. As the last walls began to fall, the man said, “I was born in this town.” When Hinson didn’t reply, he said. “It’s gonna be a sad night for me, but what the hell. I’ve already almost lost my job over it.”

Hinson nodded and reached for the bottle protruding from his pocket. He handed it to the man. “Here,” he said, “I found this. Have a drink tonight for all of us who have had to watch things we love disappear.”

The man looked at the bottle, then took it and said, “Thanks.” He raised it toward Hinson. “Here’s to fair winds and a following sea.” Hinson nodded in understanding as the two watched the crane move forward a few more feet for the sake of progress.

When the demolition was complete, Hinson used the opposite sidewalk to walk past what had once been a happy place where friends met, drinks were shared, music was enjoyed, and business transacted, now all gone. He walked away and didn’t look back.

He continued along Alvarado, passing the empty buildings now coated with the dust from demolitions. He came to the Drake Avenue intersection where the Del Monte Express hit and killed Ed Ricketts in 1948. He descended on to Cannery Row, a desolated forgotten street covered in patches and lined with the metal buildings in which a major fishing industry had once thrived.

He walked along the street, studying the overhead walks that spanned it. At a low, wooden building, he stopped and contemplated “Doc’s Lab” of literary fame. He sat on the curb in front of its redwood walls and long row of windows. He closed his eyes and imagined the street full of activity, with people entering and leaving functioning businesses. His mind drifted in and out of reality and fantasy seeing “Doc” in his mind crossing the street for a quart of beer.

            A voice startled him from his reveries. “Hey mister,” it said.

            He opened his eyes and saw a shabbily-dressed man standing in front of him. He was of indeterminate age, with a week-old stubble of gray beard and stringy, unkempt hair. Though he was standing three feet or so in front of Hinson, the man’s foul odor defeated all the other smells of tide and land. Hinson stared.

            “You got a dollar for an old bum?” the man said. “Just a dollar for something to eat?”

            Hinson continued to stare. The man stared back and neither spoke for a full minute. Then Hinson said, “You live around here?”

            The man nodded. “You ever read that book, ‘Cannery Row’ before?” he said. He pronounced it “Can-ree.”

            Hinson nodded. “Several times. Have you?” he said.

            “Hell, Mister, I was in it.”

            Hinson made a face. The man nodded gravely. “At book was all about me and my pals,” he said. “I was called ‘Mack’ in it. That’s me, Andy, but in the book they called me Mack.” When Hinson didn’t respond, the man continued. “We didn’t make a penny off it, the book I mean. But it was all about us and some whores. Of course we was all younger then and and the whores left a long time ago.”

            Finally Hinson gained his voice. “You mean you were the person that the character ‘Mack’ was based on?”

            “At’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you,” the man said. “Now ain’t meetin’ somebody that famous worth a dollar?”

            “You knew the author?”

            “Oh,” the man said, “I knew Mr. John Steinway real good. Me and him was close.”

            “You and John ‘Steinway’ were close.”

            “I even helped him think up some of the names,” the man said. “Now ain’t that sumpthin’?”

            By god, that’s something all right. How much did you say you wanted?” Hinson reached for his wallet.

            “A do…,” the man said before he stopped himself. “At least a dollar. For somebody that knows John Steinway personally, it might even be worth more.”

            “You’re goddam right it might be,” Hinson said. “Let me see how much I have here Mack—or Andy—whoever the hell you are.”

            “All them other boys are gone,” the man said quickly. “Dead, in jail, moved on, lost with no forwarding … I’m the only one left.” He peered, with hope in his eyes, as Hinson opened his wallet.

            “Let’s see,” Hinson said, pulling out several bills. “Looks like I’ve a ten, one five, and three ones. Is that enough for such a famous person,”

            “I reckon it would be,” the man said. He cast a suspicious look at Hinson. “You mean all of it?”

            “Every goddam bit,” Hinson said, handing the bills over to the man. “No, wait,” He said. The man drew the bills to his pocket quickly. Hinson stood and the man stepped back. “I’ve some change, too. He reached into his pocket and produced a handful of coins, much to the relief of the other, who took and crammed the change into the pocket with the bills.

            “Bless you mister,” the man said. “People ain’t as good to us old bums as they used to be.”

            “You’ll use it wisely, I presume,” Hinson said.

            “I would never do otherwise,” the man said. He took two more steps back in case Hinson experienced a sudden change of heart.

            “Tell you what I’ll do,” Hinson said.

            “What’s that?”

            “If I ever happened to meet Mister …uh… Steinway, I’ll tell him we met and you said say ‘hello.’”

            “Oh,” the man said, his eyes suddenly darting from side to side, “now it’s been a while ago.”

            “Oh,” Hinson said, “He’d never forget a friend like you. I’ll tell him I met his ‘Mack’ and that he was doing well.”

            “You do that,” the man said and turned to hurry off. After a few steps, he turned his face back toward Hinson. “You do that,” he yelled, and soon disappeared behind a building. Hinson laughed and walked away to his right and underneath a lattice-covered walkway.

            The northwestern end of Cannery Row was blocked by a large, deserted, building announcing itself as property of the Portola Company. Hinson continued around the end of the row and past Monterey Boat Works, its large white building flanked by boats raised on elevated frames and supported by leaning timbers. Hinson stopped, studied an elevated boat, and considered how something looking so frail and ungainly on land could be so graceful in its true element, the bright blue ocean visible in background.

            He was soon walking along Ocean View Boulevard. He stopped once to rest and watch the fishing boats moving through the bay. They danced over the waves like ducks in a shooting gallery, joyful in the eternal optimism of those who set forth to fish. The sight warmed him as did the morning sun that was beginning to chase away the chill. He took off his coat and continued with it draped across one shoulder. He began to round the northern end of the headlands and sank into deep thought. As he rounded the point, Ocean View Boulevard became Sunset Drive. When he looked around, the Point Pinos Lighthouse soared above him on his left. He knew he was almost to the place where his life would change.

            In a few minutes, he was there. The Great Tide Pool stretched before him. Being at full flood tide, the water stood with only the tops of the larger rocks showing. He knew that soon the waters would recede, capturing the rich life of the Pacific in the small pools of water left between the rocks. It was an ideal place to observe life and make decisions. He threaded his way among the dry rocks until he came to an outcropping near the water’s edge. He stopped and reached into the inner portion of his coat. He produced a fat, white envelope and held it away from the water as he folded his coat into a cushion and placed in on the smooth surface of a stone. Then he sat and opened the envelope.

            Inside were several pages of folded pages. As the ocean lapped around his feet, he viewed the topmost sheet. He scanned the now familiar words: “Naval Security Forces … weapons training …Naval Support Activity … Da Nang … Vietnam.” He raised his eyes and stared across the Tide Pool, toward the open sea and to the west.  For several minutes, he didn’t move. Then he took that sheet and placed it under the rest.

            Next were several pages of small, lined, paper covered in a finely executed hand. It began, “Dear Son.” He skipped the opening paragraphs filled with family news that a mother would deem important.  He turned to the next page, skipped down to where he read, “I know you don’t want to be like your Uncle Harold and make such a fool of yourself that they would let you out. There is always a life to live after the navy. And we want to be able to live it proud with you and not have to explain ever time we seen somebody. Our family has always had the respect of others. We ain’t had no money but we had respect. Ha ha.  I don’t like them orders at all but you just have to trust in yourself and believe that it will be alright in the end. I’ll close. He says he’s writing something so I’ll put it in with mine. Son, take care. It was signed simply “Mother.”

            Underneath these sheets was a single page of yellow paper, taken from a Big Chief tablet. In pencil were these words:

            Son, jist a note to let you know I am fine. That cow that wus jist a heffer when you were here had her first calf this week. Big bull calf. Both are fine and she is proud of it. You remember Bob Ashcraft dont you? His grandbaby got kilt. She was playing in Bob’s garage and a can of lawn moer gas got knocked over beside the hot water heeter. He’s not doin well atall. If you wus here you could  take him fishing like you used to and git his mind offn it maybe. He’s not in good shape atall. I reckon I’ll try to rite more when you git where your going. Your mama bawls a lot.”

            It was signed by his father using his full formal name. Hinson smiled and placed both letters in the back of the stack.

            Single-spaced typing filled the last sheet. He studied it carefully, stopping often to view the ocean. Words floated in and out of his thoughts. “Will complete your route to Canada… proceed from San Francisco … your decision will be final … duty to avoid this illegal war … we cannot be held responsible for your decision … free will … unlikely that you would ever be allowed to return.”

            He folded the pages and held them as he studied the Tide Pool. The flood tide had peaked and the waters had begun to recede. The ebb tide was beginning to form life-teeming pools that would sing the endless songs of the sea. He watched the foam ringed pool near his feet and he searched for an activity that might untangle his thoughts. He locked on a tiny octopus fighting for its life. With its tentacles flashing, it sought escape from the confinement of the pool. One tentacle caught hold and pulled the rest, along with the body, over the ring of rocks forming the pool and the creature scudded free into the great ocean. Hinson smiled.

            He continued to watch. Some creatures fled confinement before the sea moved away. Others lay captured. Some would die in the sun. Others would survive until the next flood tide. Hinson nodded and said audibly, to himself, the organisms around him, to the Great Tide Pool, and to the Pacific Ocean itself, “It’s just a great big goddam dance after all, isn’t it though?”

            He pulled one sheet from the stack of papers and began to shred it into small squares. When he had made the squares as small as he could, he tossed them into the receding tide. He watched the typewritten lines disappear as the paper turned a dark gray from the waters of the tide pool. He placed his orders and his letters from home back into the envelope and stood. He reached for his coat—his prized piece of civilian attire. As his hand touched it, he suddenly drew it back.

            “No,” he said, thrusting the envelope into his pants pocket. He turned, leaving the coat on the rock where it had cushioned him, and walked away from the Great Tide Pool toward whatever the future promised.

           

 No Vacation for a Pirate

By Jimmie von Tungeln

             The following happened in different times. Not ancient times, just different times. Most mothers were home all day then. Most fathers were away working. Children followed their own instincts and must have been particularly annoying. Mothers missed no opportunity to be shed of them for a few hours, or even all day. As I was to learn, it was also a time set aside for my religious instruction, specifically for a consolidation of my vague images of Hell, in form of a particularly nasty institution known as—one can still almost hear thunder and the neighing of horses at the mere mention of the word—Vacation Bible School

            Perhaps the ill-timing of it all fueled my extreme reaction. They seem always to plan these things in summertime and this was a particularly bad bit of scheduling. It seemed to be set out purposely to interfere with the duties of a group of ten-year-olds who had no other mission than protecting both the physical and reputational well-being of their community. We had, over the last few months, coalesced into the sort of group about which folk songs were written during the Dark Ages. We were heroic. We were virtuous. We were protective of our lands and people. In short, we had responsibilities, and they didn’t include religion.

            A group of invaders from north of Bayou Bartholomew, for example, was in the process of building a raft with which to ravage the settlements to the south. This was the established territory of our little band of privateers. Who would stand between the invading hordes and our men and women folk if we were to be called away? There were forts to be built, traps to be laid, and counter-offensive craft to be built.

            The alternative spelled utter disaster. Ben Shannon explained it to us as we gathered around a hastily built campfire near the bayou’s edge. He was not our leader, per se, just older and more educated. “They’ll come rapping and pillaging our women,” he said. “At tar’s pure histry.”

            We shuddered at the thought as our blood ran hot and fired our anger like an open circuit suddenly lighting a darkened room. Rapping and pillaging indeed! (As adults, when we absorbed the difference between rapping and raping, many of us would come to think we would prefer the latter, but that’s a story for another day.)

            Pirates were only a part of our problem. At the same time, a group of rustlers from the Union Community had begun to range perilously close to our hideout on Ferdinand Thompson’s land. We had to settle affairs with them once and for all and it wasn’t going to be a sight that innocent folks should witness.

            On top of that, a group of semi-professional baseball players from the Hog-eye Bend area was threatening to descend upon the field on the edge of Ridgway’s dairy land and issue a challenge to any locals brave, or dumb, enough to meet it. We weren’t the type of fellows to back away from anyone, even from a team that reportedly fielded a player who could re-wrap a baseball with electrical tape so tight that it hit almost like a new one. We’d knock his fancy ball right back in his face.

            In the midst of all this, the two Hester boys, O.G. Stanford, Bobby Joe Benson, his brother Robert, and I all heard the sentence pronounced.

            “Unity Baptist Church is having a two-week Vacation Bible School and I have signed you and your sister up,” my mother said. She said it so softly and matter-of-factly that she might have only been stating we were having leftovers for supper. It failed to even register in a mind that was filled with sword-fights, running gun battles and strikeouts.

            “That’s nice,” I heard myself say, not realizing the doom to which I had just sentenced myself.

            I forgot it all until the next Sunday evening. I had lived through another Sabbath and was preparing to assume my duties as the gang’s quartermaster the next day. In my kit, I had packed a penny-box of matches and a book of cigarette papers filched from my father’s grocery store. Eddie Holland had been swiping pinches of Bull Durham from his daddy for weeks now and we had the goods to provide a swell smoke for the entire gang. I also packed away a five-cent package of firecrackers left over from Christmas and a picture of a Marilyn Monroe in a bathing suit that I had torn from a Parade Magazine. I had my Uncle Jack’s survival knife from the Korean War and a magnifying glass that was useful for starting fires, and also for frying ants. It was going to be a good Monday.

            Then I heard my mother yell from the living room, “Jimmie get in there and lay out some clothes for Bible School in the morning. Misses Cochran’s coming at 8:30 and you better not make her wait.”

            My blood froze. Bible School? Was she kidding? I answered back immediately in my best pirate voice. “Huh?”

            “You heard me.”

            “Did you say something?”

            “Now don’t even think about opening that little smart mouth of yours to me. You get ready.”

            “Aw momma.” Did she want to be rapped and pillaged?

            “Don’t you ‘aw momma’ me. I gave them a love offerin’ and you’re goin’.”

            “But Sonny Averitt has a new snake and he said we could come over and look at it in the …”

            “Don’t make me have to come in there.”

            So, the gang of prisoners dutifully reported outside the church next morning. There were five of us. Bobby Joe had rubbed some mustard in his eyes and convinced his mama that he might have the “chicken pops.” True pirates are born to embrace suffering.

            Anyway, we lined up as if we were awaiting the boat to Devil’s Island outside the church door. They let all the girls in first, including my sister who was older than the rest of us and ended up being a sort of guard for the duration, in addition to her normal job of reporting my every movement and utterance to the authorities at home. There were about 10 of us boys in the group, and not a happy face among them.

            Finally, our teacher, a Misses Krebbs, appeared at the door and bade us enter the foyer. Once that far inside, she stopped us and, as we huddled in a tight bunch near the coat racks and tables piled with offering plates, taught us the daily prayer we were to utter before we entered the church each morning.

I am a sinner, let me pray,

God has given me this day.

At every step, I’ll stop and say,

He will guide me all the way. Amen

            I think she made it up herself because she seemed mighty pleased with it. After a dozen or so tries, we got to where we could say it together and she allowed us in the church.

            Miss Krebbs was a stout little woman with reddish hair pulled into a bun. She had obviously been through this before, for the first thing she did after she sat all the boys down in the back of the room—the girls were already up front singing songs—was to single out the baddest looking boy in the room. He was a big boy, older than the rest of us, named Terry Clayton and was from the east side of town where they raised the tough ones. We learned later that he was in Vacation Bible School as an alternative to reform school, so he was prepared to endure a good deal of unpleasantness. It started immediately. Miss Krebbs brought him to the front of our little group. He turned and faced us with magnificent defiance, and we all envied his “look.” She then presented him as the type that would reap great benefits from the coming experience. She patted his back. He turned a crimson red, and those of us who were experienced in the ways of the truly fearsome saw dead bodies and raw bloody veins swirling in his head.

            Next, she looked at him and asked, “What do you expect to get from coming to vacation bible school,” she asked.

            Well, she might have just as well asked him what he thought of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Here was a boy who had never planned even a half-step beyond his immediate existence in his life. He turned even redder and finally looked at the floor.

            Miss Krebbs made him suffer for what seemed like minutes before she sat him down, broken and humiliated. Then she asked, “Who in here loves Jesus?”

            Every hand shot into the air.

            I won’t go into great detail about the ordeal that followed. As the remnants of our little band proceeded, without us, to build a raft capable of transporting the band all the way across the bayou to intercept the interlopers, we were cutting out pictures of the prophets to paste on large poster boards. The only part of our day that offered any chance of relief for our tortured mind was singing. It didn’t take long before we discovered that we could change the words of songs ever so slightly without drawing the attention of Misses Krebbs or one of the other guards. Of course my sister was a little more worldly-wise than the adults so we had to be extra careful. She knew the easy ones such as Gladly, the Cross-eyed Bear. We did manage, though, to slip by her such gems as Flour in the Mud.

            But our pleasures were few, all in all. Once, we had to study the Book of Job, which consisted pretty much of a story about how God and the Devil took bets on how this poor guy named Job would act if they played tricks on him. I guess they thought it pretty funny. Actually, we had done the same thing a few times with our gang’s favorite jester, Buddy Austin. We would, for example, twist him up in a bag swing and let it twirl him around a bunch of times and then take bets on how far he could walk before he fell. It was a kid’s game, at best, but I still think we showed more decency than the other two I mentioned.

            The study of poor Job did provide one bit of drama. Toward the end, when the unfortunate man had endured almost more than humanly possible, Misses Krebbs stopped the discussion and asked who could provide an explanation for it all. Well, old Terry Clayton just sat there for a few minutes. We were ten days or so into the sentence by then, and I suppose the imagined peace and manly freedom of reform school were beckoning him like the Sirens of Phorcus.

            He all of a sudden blurted out, it was the first time he had spoken since his opening day humiliation, “I guess it means that when you have nothing to lose, it’s better to be the shooter than the dice.”

            It was the last I saw of him until a number of years later when he stopped me for speeding. He was five years in the police force by then and let me go, a favor from one victim to another.

            On another occasion, they brought in this carpenter who was going to show us how to work with wood. We thought this was going to be really neat until we found that the project would consist of building crosses and not anything useful.

            I immediately got crossways with our instructor because he didn’t like my choice of wood. I was, and still am, partial to the darker woods like walnut. He claimed we should use lighter wood to symbolize the purity of Christ. Jesus!

            After a few days of sawing and bending a number of nails, our crosses began to take a number of shapes, few of them recognizable as the stated intent. On top of it all, the man refused to answer any questions of a practical nature, such as tips on building rafts or stockades for a hideout.

            As the end of our cross-building approached, O.G. Stanford finally asked Misses Krebbs what the finished products would be used for. She didn’t hesitate a second. “You are building them to be donated to the poor nigra churches in town.”

            We just looked at one another. Hadn’t those people suffered enough already?

            The absolute most idiotic thing about the experience was that Misses Krebbs never even learned my name. She knew my sister’s name, and she knew our relationship. But for some reason, she insisted on calling me Jimmie Valentine, for the pure sadistic pleasure of it I suppose. I still have, among my clippings about the Tet Offensive, my photos of a storm at sea, and the results of a tornado which I survived, a small folded certificate stating that Jimmie Valentine had, indeed, survived (it actually says “graduated from”) Unity Baptist Church Vacation Bible School.

            Yes, it, as all ordeals do after what seemed like ten years at least. As always, I am told, it ended with “Boo-Hoo Day.” That’s the day they wrap it up with a children’s sermon from the church’s preacher and, traditionally, all the girls get “saved,” some of them for the fourth or fifth time, boo-hooing louder each time. All the boys declined the honor except for Johnny Staples and that is a complete story in itself. Let’s just mention that he later went to California to become an actor and salvation probably held him in good stead.

            For the rest, we returned to our gang to learn that, in our absence, the remnant members had discovered that rafts made from green pine trees don’t float well enough to support the weight of a pirate gang. To make matters worse, Ferdinand had discovered our cowboy hideout on his land, torn it up, and reported the discovery to my father to whom he handed over the bottle containing a half-inch of bourbon that someone, we denied any knowledge, had been carefully collecting from throwaways for months. Of course the baseball game had to be forfeited and our team was forever known and “The No-shows.”

             A pretty sad experience? Yes, in many ways. The gang never reorganized. The next summer my father secured me a job working on a milk truck and a succession of summer, then part-time, and finally full-time employments followed until one day I awoke to be staring at the face of a grown man in the mirror. Sadly, it was not the face of a pirate. It was a face, however, honed to some degree from raging along the banks of Bayou Bartholomew, once, with a ragtag gang of fierce warriors, protecting an imaginary group of innocent women from the prospect of rapping and pillaging. So I am glad of my youth, even with that summer’s terrifying experience. Outdoor freedoms such as we enjoyed back then seem to have disappeared along with pirate gangs and second-hand baseballs.

Were there lessons learned? There was one, After enduring Misses Krebbs, and vacation Bible school, there was never any doubt in our minds about the true horrors of Hell. That has always provided a little touch of religion in the night.