Lizard Tales (20 page)

W
hen I finally got Lizard Lick Towing off the ground and we started making waves in the repossession industry, I figured I’d bring my best friend, Johnny Perry, on with me. See, Johnny was a little intimidating: he was a mountain of a man with twenty-six-inch biceps, and he looked meaner than a Keebler elf who was demoted to food-packing. Now, Johnny was country as cornflakes and gooder than grits. but because of his size and strength he could tear up a railroad truck with a rubber mallet. So I began training him in the tricks and trade of the repossession industry.

One night after dark I set out in my new truck, fitted with an auto-loader lift specially made to perform repossessions. I was driving, one of my agents was in the middle, and Johnny manned the passenger door. We were packed in there tighter than three wet rats in a wool sock. The night started out slowly with us cruising around, looking for a Chevy 1500 truck. We eased down the street where the debtor lived and creeped by the address. I spotted the truck nosed-in against a wood fence with a car on the right of it and a Ford Ranger pulled crossways behind it. This debtor knew we were coming and had his truck blocked in tighter than a bull’s butt in the middle of fly season.

My agent sized up the situation and said, “Well, you can’t get ’em all.” He was ready to give up. But ol’ Johnny said, “Oh yes, you can!”

The agent looked at Johnny. “You think you can get that truck?” Johnny replied, “Does Howdy Doody got wooden balls?”

It was at that point I knew I’d rather stare at the sun with binoculars than ask Johnny what he was thinking. But before I could say a word, he slid out of my truck faster than green grass through a greased goose.

Johnny started walking down the driveway toward the vehicles as me and the agent sat staring at him in wonder. Now, remember: ol’ Johnny was stronger than mule piss with the foam farted off. He just walked over to the back of that Ranger, reached down, and picked its whole back end up in the air. Then he started walking backward, pulling the truck across the yard, making more noise than two skeletons scroggin’ on a tin roof using a beer can for protection. All of a sudden the porch light flicked on, the door swung open, and there stood a man who looked hotter than two grizzlies fighting in a forest fire. And he had a six-shooter in his right hand!

My tail drew up tighter than a gnat’s butt stretched over an oil drum. That debtor burst through the door at a full run, gun raised, screaming like someone just stole his Oreos. Then he saw Johnny standing there, halfway across the yard, with the truck in the air, arms bulging, staring right back at him.

Johnny said, “Mister, I hope that revolver got eight shots, ’cause six ain’t gonna do nothin’ but piss me off!”

It seemed like time froze. The guy was standing there looking at Johnny holding that truck in the air, and his eyes looked like a raccoon’s in the spotlight after getting caught in the corn bin.

Johnny continued, “Well, you gonna shoot? Or you just gonna stand there lookin’ stupid?”

Without saying a word, the debtor turned and walked back into the house. I sat perfectly still. Johnny started to pull the Ranger the rest of the way out of the driveway so I could back up to the Chevy. Just then, the screen door slung open. I immediately thought,
This guy went and got a bigger gun
—until I saw him just toss a set of keys toward Johnny. Then he shut the door and switched off the outside light.

Johnny walked over to the 1500, cranked it up, and pulled it out of the yard. When he drove up beside me he was grinning like a possum eating crap out of a light socket. He rolled the window down, looked at the agent and me, and said, “If I tell you a rooster can pull a freight train, you’d better hook ’em up!” And with that, he put the Chevy in drive and headed back to the shop with his first repossession.

[More Advice]

F
or years I had been trying to get my pops to change his hunting habits and venture into using a muzzle loader or a bow rather than a conventional rifle. The seasons where the bow or muzzle loader could be used came much earlier in the year, and the hunting was much more difficult—and, therefore, much more rewarding. Needless to say, changing Pops is about as easy as nailing a raw egg to a tree with a sledgehammer. About two months before muzzle-loading season, my years of pestering him finally paid off and he gave in. I was more excited than a three-armed nanny at a cross-stitch convention, so I went out and got him a top-notch muzzle loader with a scope that could see the smile on Lincoln’s face in the back pocket of a tight pair of jeans.

I never anticipated so much griping and bellyaching! As we set that jewel in at a hundred yards, he complained about everything from the mule kick when firing to the color of the targets we were shooting at. I might as well have been wiping my tail with a wagon wheel, ’cause there ain’t no end to that, either. But I made it through and got the inline tradition dialed in so tight you could’ve shot the balls off a dragonfly in a nosedive.

Now, the spot I hunted was a real honey hole. You could poke your eye out with a blunt stick and still see plenty of big ol’ bucks. I’ve shot several out of that patch of woods that were two ax handles wide across the horns. So when
opening day arrived, I was more tickled than a speckled trout at a pole-dot painting party. I had Pops a great spot overlooking a bottleneck where the deer love to funnel through near the edge of a pond before heading out to a cornfield.

Now, I ain’t saying I’m one of the best hunters in the world, but out of the ten best, six of ’em are on my fan page. It was busier than a horsefly in a Hoover that morning, and the deer were everywhere. I sat a ground blind about a hundred yards from Pops and was trying to see what was moving where. I wanted to point out that you can’t hang a key ring and hat at the same time.

Well, about nine a.m., I saw a bruiser coming out of the cut about sixty yards away from me, heading straight at Pops. I was as nervous as a fat bee at a flyswatter convention. I just knew that any second I was gonna hear the pop of the cap and the blast of that black-powder muzzle loader, and Pops would start making more noise than a Sherman tank in a peanut-brittle factory. But after an hour of silence, I saw Pops coming up through the woods.

“Pops, didn’t you see that vanilla gorilla with cream horns pass by?”

“Nah—I seen nothin’ but squirrels and foxes.”

Now, it was about that time I started to think he couldn’t see a set of bull’s balls if he was standing between its hind legs.

“I must’ve seen twenty-five doe or more,” I told him. “You’re blinder than a rugby bat at midnight!”

Wasn’t much more to do that morning, so we went and got lunch, then headed back early that afternoon to get settled in before the deer started moving. By about an hour before dark I had, once again, seen enough deer to run a maggot off a four-day-old gut barrel. None of them were
real shooters, though, so I broke out a grunt call, which simulates a buck who’s marking his territory. These grunts let all the other deer around know he’s the big dog in the local pound. Well, no sooner had I hit that jewel for a few blasts when out to my right steps a massive eight-pointer with the most beautiful set of chocolate horns. He was all bristled up and madder than a one-armed paperhanger with jock itch.

He marched forty yards below me, in line with the creek I was overlooking, which fed right into the corner of the pond Pops was at. So once again I let a shooter walk, knowing Pops was getting ready to lay the smack down with that ol’ smoke pole. And once again, about an hour went by with nothing but silence. Finally, I saw Pops tromping through the woods with his flashlight on.

“How did you not see that deer?” I asked him. And as I told him what I saw and where that deer went, I saw him squint his eyes.

He said, “So you mean to tell me you not only grunted a deer in during muzzle-loader season, but you passed up a shooter buck in the same day?”

It was at this point I realized he thought I was lying like a cheap rug in a Laundromat.

He continued, “I didn’t see no deer … especially no bucks. Are you sure you’re not stretching the truth a little?”

“Pops, when it comes to hunting, I’m as honest as the day is long—and I got over twenty head mounts to back my play.”

“Well, OK, then. Tomorrow morning I’m sitting with you.” I agreed with about as much excitement as a dead pig in the sunshine.

So the next morning we headed in—both of us—to sit in my one-man ground blind. Now, the first thing I noticed
was that Pops made more noise than a blind fox in a henhouse. When we got to the blind, it was a sight to see two fully grown men trying to squeeze into a small ground tent with two chairs, two guns, two backpacks, and a cooler. After getting madder than a wet hen with hemorrhoids, I said, “Let me set all my stuff outside and just sit on the ground beside you, so we have room.”

Finally, we got settled in and I was as comfortable as a fat turkey at the slaughterhouse the day before Thanksgiving. Then I started realizing why he hadn’t been seeing any deer: he never stopped moving around! I couldn’t figure out if he had a bee in his bonnet or ants in his pants, but he was louder than a drunken cowboy in a whorehouse on dollar day.

Sure enough, we hadn’t seen anything all morning because of Pops, and he was glaring at me like a hoot owl over a barrel of mice. Then I remembered my grunt call and whispered to him that I was going to give it a few blows and he should be looking around. I pointed to where that big eight-point came from the evening before.

Well, you’d have thought I was about to shoot the governor and hang his wife. Pops started in on me like a bear eating bumblebees. So I did what any self-respecting hunter would’ve done: I started blowing that grunt call. See, it wasn’t that I didn’t hear Pops; I just didn’t care what he had to say. And at this point, anything was better than his yapping. I’d got no more than the first few grunts out when that ol’ eight-pointer broke out in a full run from almost the exact spot as the night before.

Pops looked like the cat that ate the canary. We started scrambling around like two blind mice in a round room looking for a corner while trying to set up on this buck. I had Pops ease his smoke pole out the front window and
gave him a stick with a fork on the end to prop it on. That deer started walking the same path as the evening before, so I whispered to Pops, “When he gets to the big stump, squeeze off on him. I’ll try to grunt to stop him. But let me know before you shoot, ’cause my head is right beside your barrel.”

If you’ve ever heard a black-powder gun go off, you’ll know it’s louder than two trains having a head-on in a bell factory, and it shoots a huge flame from the end of the barrel and a big balloon of smoke that you have to wait to clear before you can see if you hit anything. To top it off, you get one shot and then you have to pull the rod from under the barrel, pour the powder down the barrel, stick a patch under the bullet, ram it down the barrel, pack it with the rod, and put a cap on the firing mechanism to shoot it again. Needless to say, it’s easier to herd blind chickens in the dark.

So Pops had his gun out the window with the hammer pulled back. I was right beside him, getting ready to blow the grunt. Just before the buck got to the stump
—Boom!
The percussion of the blast blew out my left eardrum. I was dizzier than a drunk man in a house of mirrors. I couldn’t breathe ’cause of all the smoke, and there was Pops shaking me and screaming, “Reload my gun! Reload my gun!”

Now it was pretty close to dark and he had forgotten the flashlight. And I was more confused than a milk cow on Astroturf as I fumbled through his bag for the powder and caps and bullets. He was all over me like a blind hog on corn, screaming at me—though I couldn’t hear but out of one ear. I tried to pack his gun and look for the deer, and just then I saw its head pop up and then go down again. I said, “Pops, he’s still moving.”

So he yanked the gun from my hand—I’m not even sure the bullets were all the way down. Then Pops starts screaming, “Where’s he at? Where’s he at?”

Now, I know Pops was more excited than a four-armed monkey with two peters, but at that point I personally would’ve rather been superglued to a chimpanzee with a blowtorch in a powder house. I said, “Pops, let me get out; I’ll stand up and shoot him for you.” I grabbed my binoculars and went to get out of the ground blind.