Lizard Tales (13 page)

Me and Brian were laughing like toady frogs on a helium high when that ol’ boy jumped to his feet. His girl was laying there looking like she’d been cow kicked by a mule, and ol’ boy was hotter than a four-balled tomcat. And I couldn’t blame him none: after all, he had just been saddled and rode like a ten-year-old government mule. And on top of that, Jason had just ruined any chance that boy had of a romantic night.

I knew he was gonna try to run Jason down and beat the brakes off of him when he looked at me and Brian and asked, “Which way did he go?”

I tried to explain that it was just a case of mistaken identity, and that we were really sorry. But he rolled up on me like Hank Aaron on a fastball. That’s when the tide turned. See, I don’t fancy someone trying to bully me. I knew that Jason was in the wrong, but he was still my brother. I didn’t really want to have to beat that ol’ boy down like a blind gopher in soft dirt, so I said to him, “Bo, think about this for a second. You’re gonna leave a girl that’s hot enough to melt bronze in an ice storm here with the likes of us two rednecks just so you can chase a buck-naked man down the beach? That makes about as much sense as giving a monkey a math problem. See, this is one of those times in life where you either gotta fish or cut bait. So either get to fishing or get to cutting; but whichever you decide, just make sure you get to getting.”

He stood there for about ten seconds looking like I might need to start watering him. Then he mumbled something under his breath and went back toward his girl. Well, I
reckoned he liked the idea of fishing a whole lot better than being someone’s bait mate, and he went right back to attending to his girl. Me and Brian went looking for the water-butt bandit and ended up catching up with him about a quarter-mile down the beach, trying to talk to a light pole and some sand crabs.

“Jason,” I told him, “you need to learn to handle your ’shine or we’re gonna cut you off in the future.”

He just looked at me as confused as a mood ring on a bipolar chameleon in a Skittles bag. Then he looked at Brian and said, “Bo, I’m sorry about your ear; I hope your girlfriend’s OK.” Then he drifted on off to Drunk-too-much-ville.

I just smiled at Brian and said, “Well, if we wanna go fishing ourselves, looks like we already got the bait.” And with that, I headed for the car.

[Pretension]

I
n my midtwenties I got invited by the radio station KFYR 550 in North Dakota to spend a week hobnobbing with the likes of them disc jockeys and stuff. Now, I figured I was slicker than grease falling out of a barbecue biscuit, and I saw a week’s free vacation, so I took ’em up on their offer. It was the most memorable trip I’ve ever taken.

I got to spend every morning broadcasting on the radio, every afternoon meeting the great people of the towns around there, and every evening hunting deer and pheasant. And then, after dark, I’d get more screwed up than a porcupine in a crate of packing peanuts. One night we even camouflaged a Ford LTD and hooked the windshield wiper lines back into the intake and filled it with transmission fluid, so when you hit the Wash button you couldn’t see far enough to know whether to wind your watch or scratch your butt. The best part was that everything was all free, so I figured I’d take in as much as they were willing to offer.

In the middle of the week, I was sitting at a bar called Beers and Gears throwing darts and tossing back Red Eyes, when the owner said, “Hey, they’re having a beer festival tomorrow night in the next town over and you can sample all night for free.” Well, I was all over that like a sewing machine needle: hard, fast, and continuous.

Just after dark, I rolled up to the bar and we headed out. I’ll tell you: it was more crowded than nine miles of
Alabama asphalt on Talladega Sunday, but we finally made our way to the tents. Everyone wanted me to sample their brews and try their dishes—and I just didn’t have the heart to turn down such hospitality.

So before I know it, I had this guy telling me he had the best oysters in the state, and they were just picked that day and shipped in. Now, in my home state of North Carolina, there’s two things we take pride in besides our dogs and our guns, and that’s our barbecue and our oyster roast. I was trying to figure out how they shipped them on the same day! But Pops always told me, “If someone wants to give you something, take it. If you don’t like it, you can always put it in the yard sale next week.” So I stepped on up and got me a whole plate of them deep-fried jewels.

These oysters were a lot smaller than the ones back home, and sliced really thin—but I just figured that was probably a different way of cooking them. So I started putting them away like a crack-house rat on Cheetos. I have to say, after eating about twenty of them, I was really impressed, and smiling ear-to-ear like a baked possum. What could be better than free beer, free food, free transportation, and a free hotel room?

About that time, Disc Jockey Phil came over and asked me how I liked them mountain oysters. I just looked at him kind of cross-eyed, ’cause I hadn’t ever heard of freshwater seafood. So with the intelligence of the southern end of a north-bound jackass, I asked him, “How in the world do you get oysters out of a mountain? That guy told me he had them shipped in today, fresh.”

Phil busted out laughing. “They are fresh. We just cut them ones you’re eating off Milton today.”

I tried really hard to finish swallowing the gunk in my mouth. I knew I didn’t want to hear any more. But before
I could walk away Phil added, “Those are
mountain
oysters—fresh off the bull!”

Well, the rest of the week I couldn’t stop dry heaving. I don’t think I said more than a hundred words over the next three days, and I assure you my body got as dehydrated as a dead pig left out in the sunshine. I now know to ask what’s on the plate before partaking of the bounty, even if it is free. I just wished I’d understood Momma when she used to tell me, “If it’s got tires or testicles, it’s gonna give you trouble.” Now I get it.

[About Ron]

I
was one of those kids who didn’t have a lot, but knew it all. I believed, from day one, if I told you a mosquito could put out a forest fire, there wouldn’t be any need to call backup in. If there was anything I didn’t know, you’d rather be duct-taped to a polar bear waking up from hibernation than to try to teach me. Needless to say, I learned things the hard way: by running headfirst into many a brick wall. (Of course, it never hurts the bricks none; didn’t even put a dent in ’em.) So when I married my first wife (and I use that term as lightly as I do “apple butter”), things weren’t that different.

I was standing at the stairwell that led to the altar when my brother, who was my best man, opened the side door of the church. His ’87 yellow Corvette convertible was sitting there, facing out and running. He said, “I’ve got a bag packed, a hotel room reserved at Myrtle Beach, a tank of gas, and a gallon of ’shine. Let’s make like a baby and head on out of this mother.”

I just smiled. “Jason, I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Since when did you start doing the right thing?” he replied, and shut the door. “I’ll leave her running, just in case. And remember: I love you, but I’m telling you, if you lie down with dogs, you’re gonna get fleas.”

I sure wish we would’ve cut outta there like a ponytail at an old-fashioned barber shop because I think the whole time I was married to that woman, she was still
mad about that house falling on her sister in Munchkin Land. My brother was right about lying down with dogs; I
still
have the fleabites! Unfortunately, I was more stubborn than a corpse and didn’t realize that getting on that train was gonna be a whole lot easier than getting off. Plus, the departure was gonna be twice as expensive as the original ticket. I did learn a valuable lesson from that, though: 100 percent of all divorces start with marriage. In spite of that considerable downside, though, I did get one great gift: my firstborn—whom I call Daddy’s Little Angel. I thank God for allowing one of His angels to leave for just a little while—and for sending her to someone as undeserving as me. But you would’ve never known that at the time of her birth. See, like I said, I knew it all, and what I didn’t know I could teach you. So when they came to me and said I needed to take Lamaze classes about childbirth and breathing, I told them they were as crazy as a crack-house rat in a flour factory. Women had been birthing babies for thousands of years with no problem. So when the time came, I figured me standing there saying, “Now, remember to breathe” would be about as useful as boobies on a boar. Besides, all my redneck buddies would think that I had turned soft—and I’d rather ride a tornado through an ape pen wearing banana underwear than lose my image.

So I skipped the nine months of Lamaze classes and figured I’d wing it; but the closer we got to the delivery date, the more nervous I got. When my wife finally said it was time to go to the hospital, I was more nervous than a Saturday-night hooker in the front row at a Sunday-morning church service.

We got to the hospital and I tried to act like I had it all together. When we got into the delivery room and the nurse asked how I felt I said, “Just call me butter ’cause I’m on
a roll.” But the inside of my head felt like someone had slapped it around with the business end of a nine-iron, and my legs weren’t none too stable neither. I felt like I was standing on a banana peel in the middle of an ice rink. To top it off, there was a severe thunderstorm outside. It was raining cats and dogs and, if you weren’t careful, you’d step right in a poodle.

I had been struck by lightning and almost killed before, and that storm didn’t make me any calmer. Plus, I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why the nurse put my wife’s head at the window end of the room instead of her feet. Here I was, a man’s man, watching the birth of my first child, and I had turmoil in front of me, lightning streaking behind me, everyone screaming around me, and people yelling at me to “tell her to breathe and calm down!”

Trays full of tools were being wheeled around. Everybody was wearing a mask. And all of a sudden I realized that I was as confused as a tree-blinded possum! I didn’t know whether to scratch my watch or wind my behind—but I sure wasn’t gonna let anyone in that room know I was losing control.

A nurse said, “Mr. Shirley, do you know what you’re supposed to be doing?” I said, “This isn’t my first bull ride, lady. I’m on this like a pigeon on Big Ben. I got it covered.”

’Course, what I was really thinking was that maybe I should have gone to some of those classes and at least learned the basics—but it was too late for that.

Next thing I knew, the baby’s head was coming out. It was right then I knew I would have rather had a broke back in hell while pushing lava rocks than to be seeing what I was seeing! Now, you women know what goes on during a birth; but when us men have the birds-and-the-bees talk, we don’t discuss the honey-and-scrambled-egg breakfast
that accompanies childbirth. I was sure that this whole thing would run off me like water off a duck’s back, so I just kept trying to act and talk like I had control of the situation.

I said, “It won’t be long now! We’re almost finished!” Well, my wife must’ve had a frog in her pocket, ’cause that’s the only “we” that was almost done. I was just getting started. Before I knew it, the room was spinning like RuPaul at a Chippendale’s show—and I got as sick as a green goose drinking gasoline.