Lizard Tales (10 page)
Authors: Ron Shirley
We rolled out back, loaded into John Boy’s black Chevy truck with the six-inch lift and thirty-five-inch tires, fired that baby up, and let the dual exhaust sing. I was digging on the radio looking for some Hank when the truck cut off. I looked over at Johnny, who was looking bewildered, and noticed the guy from inside the bar standing on the step rail on the driver’s side with Johnny’s keys in his hand.
In a deep voice, he bellowed, “Get on out, ’cause we about to finish this.” The Pillsbury Doughboy stood right in tow behind him.
John Boy looked at me and asked, “Which one do you want?”—like we were in a supermarket picking out the steaks we were about to fire up on the grill. I told him I’d take Doughboy and leave him the light work. I figured that way he could finish quickly and enjoy me rolling this gravy-train-on-biscuit-wheels around the parking lot.
Well, it was only a matter of seconds before I realized
that I couldn’t have melted myself down and poured myself on this big boy. I tell you what: Getting on that 340 pounds was a heck of a lot easier than getting back off! That ol’ boy was beating me like an Indian drum on a wedding night. I started calling Johnny for help, but when I turned to see where he was, all I saw was his feet where his head shoulda been and his arms folded around like a pretzel while this other guy was pounding on his face like a prison crew on a pile of soft rocks.
I haven’t ever been so happy to see flashing blue lights and hear sirens! For the first time ever, the police actually
helped
us. They broke up the fight and Johnny came and helped me off the ground. The two of us looked like two toads that had just been out in a hailstorm.
The cops came over and told us to leave and they’d forget this happened. I was glad to head out with all my teeth still intact. As we were climbing into Johnny’s truck, I asked the cops who those boys were. He told us the doughboy was the starting nose guard for the state football team and the other one, who they called Bear, was the national collegiate heavyweight wrestling champion.
Well, I learned two things that night … besides humility. First, never lock horns with a man named after a forest animal. And second, being big don’t make you bad no more than being born in an oven makes you a biscuit.
[Afraid]
1. That made my nuts draw up so tight, you couldn’t hit ’em with knittin’ needles
.
2. I ain’t never been scared of nothin’ but spiders and dry counties
.
3. Courage just means you’re scared to death but you saddle up anyway
.
4. It’s not the flying that gets you, it’s the landing
.
5. Scared as a sinner in a cyclone
.
6. Shaking like a toothless dog at a bear jamboree
.
[Speed]
1. Slower than a herd of turtles marching through peanut butter
.
2. Faster than a jackrabbit on moonshine
.
3. Faster than green grass through a greased goose
.
4. Slower than molasses going uphill in a January snowstorm
.
5. Slower than a sloth in a peanut butter field
.
6. Slower than turtles screwing in molasses
.
7. As fast as green corn through an old maid
.
8. Slower than a herd of turtles racing uphill through superglue
.
9. Faster than a frog on a fly at a maggot farm
.
10. On it faster than a hobo on a ham sandwich
.
11. On it like Barry Bonds on a Randy Johnson fastball
.
12. On it like a bobcat with climbing gear on a phone pole full of catnip
.
[Ugly]
1. She’s so ugly, she could run a buzzard off a gut barrel at lunchtime
.
2. She’s so ugly, she could make a train take a dirt road on a Sunday afternoon
.
3. She’s so ugly, they filmed
Gorillas in the Mist
in her shower
.
4. She’s so ugly, she’d scare the balls off a low-flying duck
.
5. She’s so ugly, she’d have to sneak up on water to take a bath
.
6. She’s so ugly, she could stop a bucket of calf slobber in midair
.
7. She’s uglier than three miles of Alabama mud
.
8. She’s uglier than a five-gallon bucket of buttholes
.
9. Everybody has the right to be ugly, but you’ve abused yours
.
10. If I had a dog that looked like you, I’d shave his butt and make him walk backward
.
11. You couldn’t melt yourself down and pour yourself on me
.
12. You look like the dog I keep under my porch
.
13. You got more chins than a Chinese phonebook
.
14. That right there is three pounds of ugly in a two-pound sack
.
15. He’s so ugly, his momma had to get drunk to breastfeed him
.
16. He’s so ugly, he couldn’t get laid at a whorehouse with a handful of hundreds
.
17. He’s uglier than a monkey’s armpit after a snot bath
.
18. He’s so ugly that if he walked into a cornfield, the crows would bring back the corn they stole last year
.
19. If her face was her fortune, she’d get a tax rebate
.
Don’t Ride a Horse … Till You’ve Checked Under His Saddle
O
ne summer day Jason, Johnny, and I were walking the strip at Myrtle Beach (which is where we always went when we were broke). We knew we could find some chicks hotter than green socks on a billy goat and get them to let us crash at their hotel. All we ever needed was gas money and clean clothes and we could easily pull off a stint at the beach.
Well, I remember that when we got there this particular day it was so hot you could sweat 150 pounds of fat off a 125-pound hog. So we figured we’d better hurry up and find some gals who wanted to hang out, and talk them into heading to their hotel until the sun went down so we could cool off and get some free grub.
Jason was always the pretty boy. And even though he had Champagne taste and a beer wallet, he usually could talk us into a group of girls and get us set for a few nights’ stay. Now, I’ve heard it said that nothing is impossible—and I agree, because we had been doing both for a few years. But on this particular day, we were making about as much progress as a pogo stick in quicksand. It was getting hotter, we were getting tired and sunburned, and naturally our patience was wearing pretty thin. Jason had always made these trips worth the ride, but that day he was striking out like a blind batter facing Nolan Ryan.
Well, we rounded the corner and there was this girl standing there by herself. She had long, flowing, silky
black hair to the top of her waist, legs that looked like they ran all the way to Georgia, and a pair of booty shorts hugging her behind. Jason puffed up like a rooster at an all-you-can-handle chicken feast and walked on toward her. Me and Johnny just waited, knowing we had this one in the bag: she was alone and Jason was in rare form.
Jason walked up behind her and said, “Do you know what would look really good on you?” He paused for effect. “ME!” She didn’t even flinch.
About ten seconds went by. Jason thought maybe she didn’t hear him, so he said, “This isn’t a beach; it must be heaven with fluorescent lighting and you’re the chosen angel.”
Before he got the last word out of his mouth, the girl started to turn around. Her black hair fanned out in the breeze, her long legs pirouetted, her shoulders glistened in the sun. It was like a movie in slow motion. Then I noticed her Adam’s apple. This beautiful, sexy, long-legged, black-haired angel was a
dude!
To top it off, he must’ve had thirty facial piercings, and on the left side of his face was a full tattoo. This guy was so horrid that if he would have walked into a cornfield, the crows would’ve brought back the corn they stole last year.
Jason looked like the bear that had just got his head stuck in the hive. A deep voice bellowed, “Look, chump, I appreciate your compliments, but this rear has an Exit Only sign on it.” With that, he turned and walked away.
Now, Jason, being a man’s man, was more tore up than a pay toilet in a diarrhea ward over the idea of hitting on a dude. Of course, Johnny and I were in stitches, having watched Jason try to pick him up like a lost dollar. So not only had he just crossed the gender line, but he crossed the bender one too! We started singing the Oscar Mayer
song:
“My bologna has a first name, it’s O-S-C-A-R …”
While we serenaded Jason, he got madder than a wet hen in a Laundromat dryer, but we couldn’t resist riding him the whole rest of the day.
Well, needless to say, our chances of picking up a girl that day were shot. Jason was so upset, he couldn’t have pounded sand into a rat hole. As we laid out on the beach that night, listening to the waves crash and looking up at the stars, we started planning our course of attack for the next day. When Jason finally spoke he said, “I reckon Pops was right when he used to tell us, ‘Boys, God gave y’all two heads, but He only gave you enough blood supply to run one at a time.’ ”
Johnny looked over at him and answered, “If you’d played your cards right, you could’ve had three heads tonight—and a few stickers to boot!” Then Johnny and I just started whistling the Oscar Mayer theme song again.
Jason threw us a few choice words and rolled over. I heard him mumble, “I ain’t ridin’ no more horses till I check under the saddle.”
We all drifted off to sleep on the beach that night, but I couldn’t help but wonder,
What would Jason do if this story ever got out?
I guess now we’ll know!
[Dumb]
1. He’s so dumb, he’d try to run the forty-yard dash in a thirty-yard barn
.
2. He’s a few bricks short of a wheelbarrow load
.
3. He’s not the sharpest tool in the woodshed
.
4. He’s a few sandwiches short of a picnic
.
5. He’s a doughnut short of a dozen
.
6. He’s so dumb, he tried to slap his reflection
.
7. He’s so dumb, he thought Johnny Cash was a pay toilet
.
8. He’s definitely nine dimes short of a dollar
.
9. He’s so dumb, he couldn’t get into college with a crowbar
.
10. He’s so dumb, he couldn’t hit water if he threw himself off a boat
.
11. He’s so dumb, they had to burn down the school to get him out of fifth grade
.
12. He’s as dumb as a barrel of spit … and half as useful
.
13. He took an IQ test and the results came back negative
.
14. If dumb was dirt, you’d cover ’bout half an acre
.
15. If brains were dynamite, you couldn’t blow your nose
.
16. I know you’re not as stupid as you look, ’cause no one could be
.
17. I tried seeing things from your point of view, but I couldn’t get my head that far up my tail
.
18. The closest you’ve ever been to a 4.0 was your blood alcohol level
.
Me and Jason with my first sooner, Lil Jo (sooner be this kinda dog than that)
Mom locked me and Pops in the stockades at Busch Gardens
Feeding pigeons at the capitol building in Raleigh
Me, Pops, and Jason modeling our Christmas hats
Me and Shane Murray at Atlantic Beach
Catching some walleye in North Dakota with the KFYR radio guys
Pops—just not giving a damn
Packing a rat to give to my pops for Christmas—he hates rats!
Me and Jason bar-hopping back in the day
Hunting in Maine: the bear that made Pope and Young status
My sister, Sandy, and me at Momma’s house
Jason working on the roof of the very house where I was struck by lightning
Johnny Perry with Amy and me at our first powerlifting meet with our four first-place trophies
