When we got to the front door and knocked, the youngest girl, Elizabeth, let us in. You could tell she'd been crying. The oldest girl, Hannah, was sitting on the couch encircled in the arms of a teen-aged boy with a fat lower lip. It took me a minute to recognized him as that boy of Wanda's with the steel plate in his head. Little Jimmy was standing beside his daddy holding a big chunk of ice on top of his daddy's head. The ice was melting and running in streams down Jimmy's face.
Jimmy was sitting in that armchair straight as a poker. He was holding a glass of milk in his left hand and sticking out of the very center his mouth was a nasty washrag, rolled up like an over sized cigar, half soaked in blood. When we greeted him, he removed the washrag with his free hand, curled back his swollen lips, and showed us the empty space where his two front teeth had been.
"Fonofabitch knocked my teef out" he said. "But, I safed 'em in thif milk fo they can fut 'em back in." At this, he held up the jelly glass of milk holding the missing teeth.
Well, when he displayed his mouth and the bloody rag, the girls started crying all over again.
"What happened here?" the preacher asked.
Jimmy had returned the rag to the vacancy in his mouth, so Wanda's boy had to take it from there.
Seems that this Indian feller from down the street had been over, and there had been a little party, and him and Jimmy had been sharing a jug when the party turned nasty. This Indian was a rough customer named Tommy Tink. He drove a red pick up truck with a sticker on it that said, "I'm a lover and a fighter and a wild bull rider," was the truth, mostly.
"He wanted to fight me," J.D. (Wanda's boy) said. "Said he was the best fighter south of Marietta and had whupped ever'body worth whuppin' and what did I thank about that? I said I would fight him, at least rastle him, so we pushed back the furniture and went at it. Well, I pinned him to the floor and it made him mad, so when I let him go, he slapped me across the mouth. That made Jimmy mad, so he came in between us and Tommy hit Jimmy in the mouth. Jimmy jist stood there, kindly dazed, spitting his teeth into his hand, when Tommy hit him again on top of the head when he had his head down. Then he said he was going home to git his fuckin' gun and was goin' to kill all of us, including the puppy."
"Puppy?" the preacher inquired.
Jimmy took the rag the rag out of his mouth again and took up the story where J.D. had left off.
"Yeah, I waf tryin' to get the kidf a Chrifmas preffent. Tink haf thefe bull dog puppief and I traded him for one of them for the kidf."
Elizabeth went into the kitchen and brought back a little brindled bulldog pup that was yawning from being waked up.
"Ain't he purty?" remarked J.D.
Well, he was at that, but that wadn't the main thang on our minds at the moment.
"You think Tommy means business, E.D.?" the preacher said to me.
"Well, he ain't one to mess with, especially if he's had enough of that cheap whiskey."
The preacher thought for a minute, and said, "Here's what I think we'll do. We'll take the kids to the parsonage and put them to bed. I'll stay there and sit up til you get back. You take Jimmy to old Doc Grey and take J.D. home. When you get back I'll take you to Bomar. You kids, get your stuff together. You won't have to go to school tomorrow, today, that is. What do you think, E.D.?"
"That'll work," I replied.
"What about the puppy?" the kids said in unison.
"Well, J.D. can take him home with him. The missus won't mind three children and their daddy, but that pup will be pushing things."
Well, we got their stuff together and turned off the gas stove and were all going down the steps when Jimmy stumbled and dropped his glass of milk. The tumbler went tumbling and its contents were spilled in the grass. There was Jimmy on his hands and knees feeling around for his precious teeth, while the kids and J.D., along with the pup went and got into the preacher's car. The preacher got a flashlight out of the car and after a long spell, the three of us managed to find the missing enamels. Jimmy wanted to go back and get more milk, but the preacher told him that it was an old wives tale about keeping them teeth in milk anyhow. So, we all piled into the front seat to start our early morning mission.
As soon as the preacher slammed his door, the smell of dog do filled the confined space. The preacher was already wound up and that jist pushed it a little too far.
"That does it!" he shouted, "That damned dog has shat in my car!"
Well, we was all kinda quiet at this unministerial outburst, and I was holding back a grin, when in the quiet, J.D. says,
"Oh, goody! We'ved been tryin' to git him to do that all day long!"
Now, I couldn't help grinning after that.
"Well, you go in that house and git something to clean it up with!" the preacher said.
Now, we all got out of the car while we waited for J.D. to get his cleaning materials and went about his job. When he finished, he jist dropped the paper and its contents on the ground by the car and started to get back in.
The preacher said, "Boy! Were you born in a barn? Get out and take that around back to the trash can."
Maybe J.D. wadn't born in a barn, but his manners had the smell of a barn about them. He jist didn't know any better.
Well we got them kids and the preacher over to the parsonage, got Doc Grey up to look at Jimmy, (between Doc and Jimmy that little examining room smelled like a distillery), and I started with J.D. down to White Rose. The little pup jist slept on his lap.
J.D. directed me down the roads and turns and we came up to Wanda's place.
Now, instead of that old shack I had heard about, there was this brand new trailer house sitting there.
"Goodness gracious, sake's alive, boy!" I exclaimed, "Y'all surely have come up in the world! How did your mama manage that?"
J.D. jist slapped himself twice up the side of his head where that steel plate was and said,
"Old man Killibrew done that when mama threatened to take him to court on account of it bein' his mule that kicked me! Won't never have to work a day in my life, neither!" With that, he took the pup and got out of the car and went into his new home.
I jist sat there awhile takin' in all that had happened in the past two hours, finally grinning to myself. When J.D. came back to the door to see what the matter was, I waved, reversed the car, and headed back to Thackerville and the scene of the crime...
To be continued...
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