Lizard Tales (12 page)

O
ne full moon–lit night in early spring, I didn’t have any money, so I called up a lifelong buddy of mine and coaxed him and my brother into going frog gigging. Now, I ain’t saying I’m the best frog gigger out there, but out of the six best in the country, three of them send me Christmas cards every year. I loaded up the johnboat and got my two homemade gigs, which consisted of two six-foot bamboo poles with small, three-pronged forks on the end. I grabbed a bottle of Pops’s ’shine, and me and my brother went to get our friend.

Now, other than being a professional frog gigger around these country towns, I was the most hell anyone had raised in years; rumor had it I was so tough, I could eat gunpowder and fishing weights, wash it down with a Coke and a burrito, lay on my back, and cut one that could drop a deer from a hundred yards away. Fighting was all me and my brother were known for, and we could be meaner than a skillet full of rattlesnakes. So, as brothers do after about the third frog pond and half the bottle of ’shine, we started swapping “who’s tougher” stories.

It just so happened that the Friday night before that, I had an altercation with a guy in a store. The guy jumped in his Camaro, rolled up the windows, and locked the door. Well, I had a gal with me who I fancied, so I was trying to impress her, and figured I’d punch the window and maybe hurt my hand and get some sympathy lovin’. I drew back
and swung on that glass like Ken Griffey Jr. on a change-up and, to my amazement, the window shattered. I connected with ol’ boy’s jaw and he was out like a fat kid in dodgeball. I was happier than a possum eating fish steaks, but the girl wasn’t impressed.

I knew this story made me the top dog of the night, but my brother wouldn’t believe it. There I was, driving my five-speed Ford Ranger to the next frog hole with my friend in the middle between me and my brother, and he’s telling me I’m lying like a rug in a dog kennel. Well, one kind word led to the next, and before you knew it, I locked the truck up in the middle of Jackass Road in Knightdale and we got out to do what brothers do best: test each other.

Jason was always a lot smaller than me, but he hasn’t ever been scared of but two men: Pops and some other guy I ain’t never seen. My brother’s a sneaky little fellow too, and before I knew it he’d grabbed a frog gig and was slinging that mug in circles, screaming like a gladiator on crack and coming right at me. Every time he made a rotation, sparks would fly and the gig would make this crazy screech. I knew I’d better act fast.

I grabbed the other gig and held it by the steel end, and when he got in range, I just popped him with the bamboo end right in the mouth. Everything went silent. He dropped his gig. In the headlights of the truck I could see his lips swelling. Bo, the last time I had seen a mouth like that, it had a bit in it. He couldn’t even talk. He just turned around and started walking off in the darkness.

Now my buddy started in on me: “You can’t let him walk, Ronnie. Heck, if a car stopped they couldn’t even understand him to give him a ride home ’cause his lips are so swollen NASA could orbit satellites around them.”

Swallowing my pride, I got in the truck and eased down
the road, driving up right beside him. I tried to talk him into getting back in ’cause, to tell you the truth, we hadn’t even hit the good ponds yet. The window in my Ranger would only roll down about four inches; I was yelling, “Get in!” and he was mumbling something that sounded like “Spew knew” while my buddy was laughing his tail off and swigging back the ’shine.

Just about the time we crested the hill, I’d had about enough and called my brother yeller. He stopped—and I could see the rage in his eyes. “Yeller” was one of the few words that would get him hotter than a hooker’s doorknob on payday. All of a sudden his temper flared, his eyes went blank, and before I could say another word there was glass shattering all around me and blood pouring out my nose like a broken faucet. I had seen the punch coming, but I was frozen right there in the driver’s seat.

I jumped out of the truck, ready to skin him like a Georgia catfish. We were nose-to-broke-nose when I heard yelling and laughing coming from the truck: “You busted the freaking winder!” I looked back over my shoulder and my brother looked around me, and we both realized at the same time that he had just punched the window out and broke my nose, all in the same swing. We looked at each other and just busted out laughing. Then we hugged, took a shot of ’shine, loaded back up, and headed out to the pond to finish the night.

On the way I told him, “Little brother, if I tell you the creek’s gonna rise, you’d better get some waders. No matter what happens to us in life, we’re brothers, and that means we’re tight as a frog’s butt … and that’s watertight.”

He just smiled. Then he reached into the truck, grabbed a piece of glass, and tossed it to me. Without saying a word I knew he had just one-upped me again.

[Cold]

[Food]

[Hard]

[Enterprising]

I
t was the middle of summer and me, Jason, and Brian were about as bored as a beakless hen at an omelet breakfast. We didn’t have enough money between us to buy misery, but we figured we could go quarter surfing till we got enough gas money for a ride to the beach. Now, if you haven’t ever been quarter surfing, here’s the way it goes: You call all your friends and see what they’re doing, then you invite yourself over to their house. While there, you flop on the couches or chairs and dig like a miner snorting coal for some change. If you hit enough houses, you could come out with ten dollars or more—and we were the quarter-surfing champions. Heck, ol’ Brian could pull a quarter through six feet of garden hose and come out with fifty cents!

So we made a few calls and ended up at the house of one of Jason’s lady friends. (He had more women than Picasso had paint.) If you went to a girl’s house, there was always money in the furniture because they were too scared to crack a nail digging around for it. It didn’t take us long to scrape up enough to gas up and get to the beach. Of course, the lady was none too happy when she realized we just played her like an Alabama flat-top box—but that was Jason’s problem. Me and Brian were thinking saltwater, sunshine, and small bikinis.

The day was so hot, the hens were laying boiled eggs. Since we didn’t have much money, we figured we would
swing by my grandpaw’s house and see if he would give us some of his homemade ’shine. Now, Paw was partial to his ’shine and it was easier to steal the coins off a dead man’s eyes than to get him to come off his elixir. But I also knew Paw took a nap every day at eleven and, if I was quick enough, I could sneak a bottle out of his cupboard. I also knew he had a string tied to the back of the door that was attached to tin cans. But if I slipped that off, I could sneak in and get the ’shine.

We parked down the road and walked by his living-room window. He was fast asleep on the couch. So we eased into the kitchen and slid the door open to the pantry. I undid the string and knew I was gonna grab that bottle and be outta there like a fat man at a New York marathon. Brian and Jason were as nervous as long-tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs, but this wasn’t my first ’shine swiping, and I had this plan laid out.

Well, as with most things I learned in life, I learned the hard way that there’s more ways to choke a dog than to feed him peanut butter. It turns out Paw was ready for me. He had a big old rat trap hid up with the bottles and when I reached up to get one, that trap set down on me. You would have thought I was passing a kidney stone the size of a grapefruit when I let out my scream. Jason and Brian broke out; I turned around, and there was Paw with gun in hand, tears rolling from his eyes.

I begged, “Paw, please get it off! Please get it off!”

He looked me square in the eye: “Boy, if you’re gonna try and steal my ’shine, you’d better be pretty slick—I can tell ya this is one test you ain’t never gonna pass.”

As he pried the trap from my now-broken fingers, he couldn’t help but laugh. Then he turned around, walked over to the sink, reached under it, and pulled up an old
mason jar. As he blew the dust off the top, he said, “I keep the good stuff in plain view, ’cause no one ever looks there. And since it seems as you’re gonna be hurtin’ for a few days, here’s some pain remedy.”

I was happier than a long-armed monkey with three peters. Paw said, “Y’all boys just stay outta trouble—and tell Jason I’ll deal with him next time I see him.”

I just gave him a hug and headed back to the car, smiling like a possum eating fresh peaches. Jason and Brian were waiting. Jason asked, “Did you get any?”

“Do rattlesnakes kiss gently?” I replied. I didn’t have the heart to tell him.

Paw saw him, so I just handed him the jar. “Hit this and it will cure what ails ya.”

Now, Paw’s brandy was a lot like a garlic milkshake: smooth yet strong. So it didn’t take too much to harelip the governor, and before we knew it, we were so tore back we couldn’t pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel. Somehow, we made it to the beach and headed for the water. We spent the rest of the day neck-deep in the ocean, slinging the bull and polishing off the brandy.

At dark, we decided it was about time to make like a cow turd and hit the trail. We didn’t have any money for a room and there wasn’t anywhere to go quarter surfing. Then me and Brian noticed a guy and girl laid up in the dunes making out. Well, I looked at Brian and said, “We can go home or get a free show. And my goer is skipping a little bit right now, so I say we stay for the fireworks.” So, being typical guys, we eased up there on our bellies to get a bird’s-eye view of the proceedings.

That ol’ gal was hotter than a spayed mink, and that boy was just like a pet raccoon: his hands were on everything.
We were just lying there watching the show and had forgotten all about Jason, who was as tore up as a dollar whore on nickel night with a mattress for a backpack. Things were getting hotter than a billy goat with a blowtorch in a room full of dry cotton, when, all of a sudden, Brian started slapping my arm and pointing back at the beach. I turned just in time to see Jason, who had stripped down naked as a jaybird, running right at us.

Now, I have seen a lot of sights in my life, but I would have rather stared at the sun with a set of high-powered binoculars than see that coming at me. Me and Brian both figured he was about to launch himself on us. I started yelling, “Jason! You’d rather be superglued to a bar of soap on the shower floor of the men’s prison than to sling that tallywacker on me!” Then, to my amazement, he went by us like we were chained to an oak tree, and sailed right onto the back of the boy we were watching.

He grabbed that boy’s hips and starting riding him like a borrowed motorcycle. He apparently had seen that guy and was so drunk he thought it was Brian, and he was gonna have some fun with him. But Brian, who was laughing hysterically with me, started screaming, “Yeah, get it boy! That’s how you ride a bull, Jason! Nail that to the ground like a legless duck in a dry pond!”

I reckon Jason thought he was rodeoing cattle. He held on a good eight seconds while that ol’ boy was trying to sling him off. But Jason can be slicker than cat crap on linoleum, and since he thought he was riding Brian, he latched on even tighter and reached over and bit the guy on the ear.

Of course, that made the guy madder than a pig at a pork roast. Then Jason jumped up, laughing like a hyena on crack, and ran outta there quicker than green corn
through an old maid. I’ve seen full moons before, but watching Jason head down that beach with a butt whiter than a bleached dogwood tree was better than a buttered biscuit to me.