Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 7

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 7

“Boy, Unk,” I said, sitting in the swing next to him, “that comment about the wrong nails was a bold thing for José to say, being nailed up there in that position.”

“Right you are, Moose, but I remember it as if it were yesterday, for the guy stood there with his eyes blazing and his hammer poised. I thought he would crack José’s head open. But then José said, ‘I’m giving you this friendly advice because I was once a carpenter, and another thing, when you’re driving a nail, let the hammer do the work, don’t force it; you must have missed those nails six or seven times before you drove them home.’

“It was about this time that it happened. All hail broke loose. A thunderstorm rolled in that you wouldn’t believe. The whole sky turned black; deafening thunder rumbled and flashes of lightening distorted everything with crackling, intermittent light. I heard José cry out, looking up at the sky, ‘My God, what’s going on here?’ Then he looked down at me and said, ‘Don’t leave me, Ern; don’t leave me.’

“ ‘Hang in there José,’ I yelled, not sure he heard me over the storm. Everybody, except for me and the poor impaled guys up there, headed for shelter in the caves on the other hillside. Moose, believe me, cold chills migrated from my mid-section, up my body, and into my fingertips; this was just the chance I needed, a Godsend, to make my plan work. I had been keeping my eye on Jud, who had been up front, off to the right, with some off-duty soldiers cheering and clapping scornfully as José was being spiked in up there.

“I had moved over quietly near him, and when the soldiers bolted for cover Jud did too. So, when he went by, I tripped him and pounced on him. With a short, powerful strike to the back of his neck, I knocked him cold.”

“Hey, Unk, that’s how I kill rabbits that aren’t quite dead from the shotgun blast.”

“That’s it, Moose,” Uncle Ernest yelled, grinning to beat the band. “My blow to the neck fixed him all right. Believe me, I now know what José meant by ‘netters of men,’ because I sure had to use lots of cunning to pull off the plan. And I had to be lucky, the same as with fishing. I lugged Jud over under José’s cross, got a crowbar from a pile of tools that the soldiers had left, and climbed up the step ladder till I was face to face with José. Remember, this all took place during a raging storm, with horizontal sheets of rain pelting us up there.”

“Looking back, I don’t know how I ever did it. José sure was a sorry sight, but he looked at me and said, ‘My father told me there’d be days like this,’ and then, actually grinning at me, he said, ‘And my mother told me not to hang around with bad company.’ Moose, it took a long time and a compromising situation, but I finally got some humor out of him. And, do you know, that with a sense of humor there’s no telling what he could do; he was now a practically perfect person.

“But then he sort of broke down, and said with passion: ‘Ern, You’ve been a mess, a handful, but you’re a real Godsend, my savior for sure.’

“ ‘Now, José,’ I grunted, as I pried the nail out of his right hand, ‘that’s pushing it a bit, but to pull this off we’ll need a miracle and we’ll have to work fast. Hold tight while I free your feet and other hand.’ Once on the ground, I told him to strip off his clothes, which he was reluctant to do until he saw me stripping off Jud’s. Then he understood and we made the clothing switch.

“And don't you know, those punctures didn’t weaken him too much, because he helped me hoist Jud up on that cross, and while I held him up José hammered the nails home. José had to turn his head, though, when I messed up Jud’s face a bit with the hammer to fool the authorities. José and Jud looked a lot alike anyway—same build, same hair, same beard, and so forth—so fooling them was a snap. I helped José strap on his sandals, which was tough because his feet had swollen something awful. ‘Those are some ugly gashes,’ I said, grimacing as I examined his hands and feet.

“ ‘Just a few scratches,’ he shrugged. But, knowing better, I pulled a bottle of penicillin and a bottle of Advil from my fatigue pants and told him to take one of each every day until they were gone.

“Then we ran off to the road, with the storm still raging and José limping along comically. When I told José that he should probably leave town for good, he said that it was just as well because his work here was done anyway. He told me he planned to go into the Arab territory, change his name to Mohabie, and help them organize a new club. We said our farewells. José gave me a hug and told me that what I did was miraculous, which made me feel like a million bucks, Moose, even though I don’t believe in miracles.”   [To be continued Friday, 11/02/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 6

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 6

“When we reached the top there was a huge crowd of people waiting for us,” Uncle Ernest went on. “Hundreds of priests and town’s people were yelling and jeering, causing a heck of a stir. At this point the soldiers took those big four by four crosses and sank them in the ground. Then I saw why, Moose, because the soldiers, using step ladders, took those two goobers (who were kicking, screaming, cursing, and moaning) and nailed them up on those crosses like scarecrows. All the while the crowd was partying like mad, as if they were at a carnival or something.

“The one in charge was Pompous duPilot, of course, who at this point lined me and José up and told the mob of priests that he would pardon either me or José. By golly, I knew they hated both of us, but the question was, which one did they hate the most? Well, I found out right away; they all started yelling, ‘Give us Ernie; give us Ernie.’ What a relief, Moose, but I sure felt sorry for poor José, because they nailed him right up there with the other two.

“José didn’t act up the way they did, though, and after a soldier drove in the last nail, he asked José if he had anything to say. Believe it or not, this is what José told him: ‘My fine fellow, I must say you have a lot to learn. You’d save yourself a lot of trouble if you used the proper-sized nails, twenty penny instead of thirty.’ ”

When Uncle Ernest left to freshen his drink, I jumped off the moving swing all the way to the ground, and as I saw it pound against the house, I hopped on my bike, rode it down the steep, little hill next to our lilac bush, crossed the lane, slung the bike into the weeds, and ran through the thistles and tall sage grass to our big brick well. It was hidden by the weeds but I sure knew how to find it when I wanted to. At one time, Pop piped water to hundreds of chickens that he raised in long shanties out back.

My great-grandfather, Old Al, had dug the well and bricked it up before I was born, covering the top with planks to keep animals or people from falling in. By now the planks were rotten and would break through if you walked on them. They were weathered and curled so that cracks could be seen across the entire length. Five feet from the well I stopped running and sneaked carefully up to it. Sure enough, a fair-sized frog was crouched in the shade of a rock next to a crack. He heard me, though, and dived through the crack, making a hollow ka-plunk as he landed.

I pulled a couple planks aside, exposing a mess of frantic ants and a few beetles, and peered down into the cool water. A boy in a plaid cowboy shirt, cool cowboy hat, and tousled brown hair looked back at me, and right away the surface rippled with distortion as the circles from the frog’s entry made their way from the center to the sides of the well. I watched patiently for the frog to surface, as they always did, and after a couple of minutes saw just his nose and then his fingertips emerge at the edge of the well across from me.

To the right of the frog was an elaborate spider web, and in the middle, there she hung, a spider the size of a child’s hand. She was black with a yellow belly and when I tossed a twig into the web she sidled delicately across her web, as only a spider could, to the far side of the well. Then I heard Uncle Ernest’s whistle, replaced the planks, and hustled on back to hear him continue his story. [To be continued Tuesday, 10/30/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 5

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 5

“Yes, indeed, just thinking about that Doomsday Dinner wine makes me want to refill my glass. I’ll be back in a jiffy.” So Uncle Ernest left me again, and I walked around to the back of our house to check the flowers by the rain barrel. I gazed across to the back of our North Field, full of saplings, briar bushes, and scrub pines. Then I took in the tall pines to the right, which marked the beginning of our deep woods. And do you know, Nina, that’s exactly where I got those poor baby crows when I got to be a few years older.

It's a sad story; let me tell you about it. One evening, after supper, Pop was reading the paper, when out of the blue he looked over his glasses at me and drawled, “Here’s a man who says he’ll pay two dollars apiece for fledgling crows. They’re a lot of crazy people in this world, Boy.” Lying in bed that early, summer night, as the whippoorwills called out their sad complaints, I remembered that I had seen a couple of crows flying in and out of one of the tall pines a little beyond our field.

The next morning, before school, I walked out there and, sure enough, near the top and visible from within the woods only, was a fair-sized nest. I came directly home from school that afternoon, got one of Pop’s burlap feed bags from the corn crib, and shinnied up that tree (not an easy task, even for a kid—and, Nina, if you ever try to climb a pine tree you’ll know why).

Reaching the nest, I found myself looking down at three motionless baby crows, hunkered down as far as they could get in the bottom of their nest. All the while—on the way up the tree, as I grabbed them one at a time and stuffed them into that bag and on the way back down—Mom and Dad were beside themselves with anger. Flying around and around, coming close but not too close and squawking their heads off, they made me feel pretty uncomfortable.

But safe on the ground, I ran back to the yard and put them in one of Pop’s small chicken coops. Well, the first thing I did was to slit their tongues about a half inch, right up the middle, with one of Pop’s single-edged razor blades. Then I started feeding them cream with an eye dropper. I talked to them and played with them a lot, and would you believe that within a few days they were tame as could be, and in a week and a half they were calling me to feed them and play with them.

Their voices were almost human sounding, and so loud in the early morning that they woke everybody up. Nina, they made an awful racket. I wish now that I had kept them as pets, but instead I rode into Postell’s store and called the guy who had put the ad in the paper. The next day he drove up our lane in a broken-down pickup truck, put them into a small chicken crate, and counted out six one dollar bills into my hands. That was a lot of money for a kid, and I don’t even remember what I spent it on.

The next day I was one sad kid; I sure missed those young crows, my three buddies. To this day, Nina, I wish I had kept them and taught them how to talk. Then Uncle Ernest returned, so I went back and sat beside him and just swung quietly for a while. “Well, what happened next, Unk? Was Jud gone for good?”

“Yep, and everything was fine for about half an hour. We laid into that capon, and just as I was leaning back and rubbing my belly after the cherry pie, ice cream, and coffee, Jud came stomping in with about twenty armed soldiers. He walked right up to José, said, ‘Ohhhh, lover,’ and kissed him right on the mouth. As soon as the soldiers saw that they apprehended José and started dragging him out of the hall. Then Pete jumped the soldier holding José and lopped off his ear with his straight razor.

“The poor guy winced in pain, and while José pointed at the wound, yelling ‘Heal, heal,’ I caught the Guinea hen that I had seen snap up that ear before it hit the ground. I snatched it out of her beak and stuck it back on, clean as a whistle, with a flesh-colored Band-Aid that I had in my fatigue pants. Those soldiers could care less about a little old ear, though, Moose, because they surrounded us thirteen and drew their swords.

“The leader pointed at José and said, ‘Do you all know this man?’ To my astonishment, every club member said they didn’t. I stuck my chest out and yelled, ‘I sure know him, you buggers; he’s my main man, José.’ At this, the soldiers dragged the two of us out and threw us in a paddy wagon and locked the door. They took us to the base of a high hill. Then they made José and me, along with a couple of grungy-looking captives, carry crossed four-by-four posts all the way to the top of that steep hill. Each of us had to lift up our cross and follow José. I looked up at José, who was struggling as much as I was, and said, ‘Geez, José, these danged things are heavy.’

“ ‘You bet they are, Ern,’ José said, ‘but if we hadn't done all of those leg squats with weights this trudge would be a lot harder.’

“ ‘I told you the squats and push-ups would come in handy some day; I reckon these posts must weigh 150 pounds.’ The two other guys fell behind so the soldiers whipped the crap out of them till they caught up. Then they gave José and me a few licks just for the fun of it.” [To be continued Friday, 10/26/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 4

Tilting his glass and giving me a sly wink, Uncle Ernest continued his tale. “At about noontime Maggie walked me to the banquet hall, where I kissed her and sent her off to milk the goat and whip up some nice cheese for breakfast that week. When I walked in I saw a long table, chockfull of food and pitchers of wine, located in the middle of the room. ‘Holy smoke,’ I thought, ‘I’m hungry enough to try cannibalism; thank goodness for all of that food.’

“But, you know, naturally I forgot most of what he said in his talk before dinner. I’m kind of a slow learner anyway, remember Moose? I do recall his telling us not to retaliate when people insult us and tell lies about us. People like that I’d like to duke-out, though; you know?”

“You better believe it, Unk,” I yelled, throwing a few punches in the air.

“Finally,” Uncle Ernest continued, “after all the club members arrived, we sat down at the table in a long line, with José in the middle. And just as I took a swig of wine and reached over to grab a nice drumstick, José rose and said, ‘Hold it, folks; I want everybody to pull his chair away from the table for a few minutes.’ And then—and, Moose, this really blew my mind—he went into the kitchen and brought out a huge basin of warm water. With a bunch of towels slung over his shoulder, he knelt down and began washing our feet.”

“Holy crap, Unk! I’ve heard of people having hang-ups about feet.”

“No, no! José said that someday we would understand why he was doing it. Now, when he got to me (whose feet he washed last for some reason), I stuck my dogs into that, by now, dirty basin and told him, ‘Geez José, my feet’ll be dirtier than when I put them in. And, man, that water’s too cold.’ You know, Moose, saying that to most people would have teed them off, but José didn’t say a word; he just went and got some clean, warm water.

“Then, after he washed out my big ugly toe jams, he started drying my feet with the last towel. My feet did feel pretty good, but just for fun I looked down at him and said, in mock irritation, ‘Hey, José, you know, how come you’re not drying my feet with that long, wussy hair of yours.’ By golly, Moose, anybody else would’ve tossed that stinky water in my face, but he really had the patience of Job, for he just looked up at me, with those sad, hang-dog eyes, shook his head, and said quietly, ‘You’re a real handful Ernie, a real handful.’

“José then had all of us raise our glasses for a toast. He said that we were to join in with him as he gave the toast in the form of a song. Believe it or not, he started crooning, and after a while, when we got the hang of it, we all sang with him at the top of our lungs. And do you know, I still remember it.” With this, Nina, that goofy Uncle Ernest began singing the following: "Praise grapes from which all liquors flow/ Praise them to age in vats below. /Praise them then raise a hearty toast. /Praise wine it's what we love the most."

        “Then José said, ‘The hour has come,’ and I thought, ‘All right!’ And after José mumbled a few words we dug in and had a miraculous meal that afternoon. But it was odd how José broke our bread and poured our wine and asked that we remember him in the future whenever we enjoy a nice meal.

“And geez, it’s so peculiar, Moose, because every time I sip a glass of fine, red wine and dip that delicious French bread into my gravy, I think of José and all of the good times we had together in Daveston. During the meal some strange things happened, though. I noticed also that José must have had indigestion because he didn’t make a pig of himself the way we did.

“Then, as I chewed on a nice piece of sugar-cured ham, José said that one of us thirteen would betray him by turning him over to the Reeman soldiers. Hearing that made me feel so guilty that I almost couldn’t eat another slice. All the club members called out that they would never rat on him.

“Pete was especially emphatic, but José told him that he would turn his back on José three times before we had eaten two thirds of the fat capon on the table. Then José broke off a hunk of bread and handed it to Jud, who swallowed it as fast as a hungry dog under the dinner table.

“At this point Jud really burned me up when he grabbed the last bottle of wine and downed it. And the last straw was when he gobbled down the last pork chop. Moose, I really wanted that hooch and chop, so I grabbed him by the throat and busted him up alongside of the head. José parted us and banished Jud from the hall, agreeing with me that he was the one rotten apple in the barrel.” [To be continued Tuesday, 10/23/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 3

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 3

I started to get bored, sitting there, watching the ants on the move, so I was glad to see a smiling Uncle Ernest return with his freshly-filled glass. “So what happened next, Unk? Did you and José wipe out those priests?”

“Aw no, Moose. A couple of days later we club members (José, Pete, Andy, Jim, Jack, Zeb, Phil, Bart, Tom, Matt, Jimmy, Jude, Jud, and yours truly), along with Maggie, Mamie (José’s Mom) and a lot of other people assembled at the top of a mountain to listen to José’s speech. He was such a great speaker, and I was glad to hear him use the techniques I had taught him. He was a fast learner for sure. But about five minutes into his speech, Maggie and I messed up big time.

“She was sitting next to me, naturally, and I was feeling kind of lovey so I pulled her up on my lap. She sighed, ‘Oh Ernie … now cut it out …oh my’ when I hugged her tight and nuzzled her all over. I blew little puffs of air into her ear, making her giggle and toss her head back and forth, which made that gorgeous red hair fairly dance, shimmer, and sparkle in the sunlight.

“Then, when I settled her down a bit, I started nibbling gently on her ear lobe, whispering ‘You’re my beauty, Maggie.’ This made her go limp, and she buried her head in my chest and snuggled her face up under my neck, tickling the daylights out of me. I laughed despite myself and blew a stream of air down the back of her head, parting somewhat that luscious stream of red.

“And then, Moose, she sat up, straddled and faced me, grabbed my head with both hands, and began a series of slow kisses starting at my forehead and continuing down my face (lingering delightfully twice as long at my mouth) till they reached below my chin. Her prisoner, I lay limp as my body tingled with supreme relaxation. I've never had such satisfaction before or since."

"Crap on it, Unk! 100% junk!

“Now, it was about this time when I noticed that everything was dead quiet, for José had stopped speaking and was watching Maggie and me. Not only that, but the whole crowd of people were watching us intently as if we were two zoo animals. Well, Maggie’s face matched her hair in redness as she dismounted, slid into her chair, and slouched down.

“I just lowered my head but kept my eyes looking up at José, who shook his head and said to the crowd: ‘Folks, Brother Ernie is really a handful. Brother, come up here please,’ giving me the curled-finger, come-here sign. He shook his head and said, ‘You’re impossible, Ern.’ ”

Uncle Ernest had his eyes closed, Nina, and was quiet for a time while I fidgeted. Finally, he continued: “So then, Moose, when I sauntered on up and stood next to him, he told the audience to remember all that he had spoken to them that day and to pay attention to the poem that he was about to recite—dedicated to me. José then recited the poem, dismissed the crowd, and gave me the parchment to keep.”

Then Uncle Ernest recited the poem, as I listened intently. I mean to tell you, Nina, as I sat there that summer evening listening to his voice, time stood still for those magic minutes. I couldn’t believe he had done so many nifty things. How could one Uncle have been so smart, so dumb, and so ornery all at the same time?

He then gave the parchment to me, and, for what it's worth, here's the poem that José dedicated to Uncle Ernest and told the crowd to remember to recite when they were depressed and needed to realize that there was somebody in the world worse off than they were:

               Our Brother, who dwells in Daveston,

                   Hollow be your name.

                   Your stories spin,

                   Your jibes dig in,

                   On us as we live in Daveston.

                  

                   Give us your say,

                   Our faces red,

                   And forgive us our moaners

                   As we forgive your groaners.

                  Lead us not into elation,

                   But deliver us from detestation.

                   For you, Ern, are the gooniest,

                   And your tales are the looniest

                   That we’ll ever hear for a long, long time.

                   So long, Brother!

               

“Hey, Unk, I’ll tell you what! That would sure lift my spirits all right,” I said, grinning my head off.

“Right, Moose, but my visit was swiftly coming to an end at that point, I’m sorry to say. The very next day, José called us together for what I call the Doomsday Dinner. It was cooked exclusively for the Josana Club, or the "Dirty Baker’s Dozen" as we sometimes called ourselves.” [To be continued Friday, 10/19/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 2

After a nice, long pull on his drink, Uncle Ernest continued his story. “I remember one day when José and our club members went into the temple to meditate. Most of the priests were there. They were using the temple as a financial trading place, auctioning off jewelry, bickering, and exchanging gold coins of different values.

“Well, Moose, you won't believe what happened. José wanted change for a twenty dollar gold piece and they cheated him—gave him three fives instead of two tens. Well, José went nuts. He turned over the whole table of money and yelled, ‘You’re all a bunch of thieves.’ Then he and I overturned all of the other tables, sending all the jewelry and the valuables crashing to the floor. A big fight broke out between our guys and the priests and their body guards.

“It turned out that José was quite a scrapper. He had a nice left-right combination and a powerful front kick. The other club members weren’t bad either, except for Jud, who wimped out by just flitting around saying, ‘careful, careful.’ I used my karate to full advantage—wasting seven or eight big body guards with round house kicks, uppercuts, and knee strikes.

“We won the fight and threw the bums out of the temple on their butts. All the people, folks who wanted the temple for meditation, thanked us for restoring order. They patted us on the backs and said that we were terrific.”

“Wow, Unk, great!” I cheered.

“Not so great in the long run, though,” Uncle Ernest said, shaking his head slowly. “Those priests really had it in for us after that. They got the military rulers from Reeme on their side, convincing the emperor, Pompous duPilot, that our club should be crushed. They convinced him that José was determined to overthrow the government by winning over the multitude of people. Moose, José told us that he could be convicted—put to death for treason at any time. So this was the beginning of the end, and as you know, all good things come to an end.”

“I was waiting for that, Unk; your luck always runs out just when things are going well.”

“You said a mouthful,” Uncle Ernest admitted, rising uneasily to replenish his drink.

I slid off the swing to sit down on our concrete steps so I could watch some ants scurrying in and out of their hole in the ground. In a few more years, Nina, I would be involved in a joyful pastime: trapping muskrats in the swamps and the banks of Back Creek. I trapped both sides of the river, using a collection of steel traps that I bought with the money I had made from working at the Chesapeake Boat Company. I liked it so much that I would get up hours before school to check my traps.

Sometimes, if the tide had come in far enough, the rats would drown and be dead before I got there. Many times, if it was freezing, a rat would be just a ball of ice. But often they would be alive, so I’d have to bust them on the nose with a stick. I would take them home and skin them, stretch their hides on a board, and gut their carcasses. They made a fine dinner, Nina—dark, red meat that was better than chicken or pork.

One brutally-cold winter I trapped the banks of the north side of the Back Creek, which meant that I had to row my small skiff across the river and a few hundred yards east of where I docked my boat. I remember one morning well. The temperature had been below ten degrees for several days, and on that particular morning the entire width of the river was covered with ice floes about four to five inches thick. The ice had been broken by ships and tugs, so some of the floes were stacked upon each other and the whole mass was moving slowly with the tide—crackling, creaking and popping eerily as they drifted.

       I couldn't row because the oars wouldn't go through the large chunks, so I had to shove the ice away from the bow and push an oar through the ice from the stern to scull across and back. It was dangerous fun and I loved it, in those days when nothing, except homework, seemed to be too much trouble. [To be continued Tuesday, 10/16/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 2

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 2

After a nice, long pull on his drink, Uncle Ernest continued his story. “I remember one day when José and our club members went into the temple to meditate. Most of the priests were there. They were using the temple as a financial trading place, auctioning off jewelry, bickering, and exchanging gold coins of different values.

“Well, Moose, you won't believe what happened. José wanted change for a twenty dollar gold piece and they cheated him—gave him three fives instead of two tens. Well, José went nuts. He turned over the whole table of money and yelled, ‘You’re all a bunch of thieves.’ Then he and I overturned all of the other tables, sending all the jewelry and the valuables crashing to the floor. A big fight broke out between our guys and the priests and their body guards.

“It turned out that José was quite a scrapper. He had a nice left-right combination and a powerful front kick. The other club members weren't bad either, except for Jud, who wimped out by just flitting around saying, ‘careful, careful.’ I used my karate to full advantage—wasting seven or eight big body guards with round house kicks, uppercuts, and knee strikes.

“We won the fight and threw the bums out of the temple on their butts. All the people, folks who wanted the temple for meditation, thanked us for restoring order. They patted us on the backs and said that we were terrific.”

“Wow, Unk, great!” I cheered.

“Not so great in the long run, though,” Uncle Ernest said, shaking his head slowly. “Those priests really had it in for us after that. They got the military rulers from Reeme on their side, convincing the emperor, Pompous duPilot, that our club should be crushed. They convinced him that José was determined to overthrow the government by winning over the multitude of people. Moose, José told us that he could be convicted—put to death for treason at any time. So this was the beginning of the end, and as you know, all good things come to an end.”

“I was waiting for that, Unk; your luck always runs out just when things are going well.”

“You said a mouthful,” Uncle Ernest admitted, rising uneasily to replenish his drink.

I slid off the swing to sit down on our concrete steps so I could watch some ants scurrying in and out of their hole in the ground. In a few more years, Nina, I would be involved in a joyful pastime: trapping muskrats in the swamps and the banks of Back Creek. I trapped both sides of the river, using a collection of steel traps that I bought with the money I had made from working at the Chesapeake Boat Company. I liked it so much that I would get up hours before school to check my traps.

Sometimes, if the tide had come in far enough, the rats would drown and be dead before I got there. Many times, if it was freezing, a rat would be just a ball of ice. But often they would be alive, so I’d have to bust them on the nose with a stick. I would take them home and skin them, stretch their hides on a board, and gut their carcasses. They made a fine dinner, Nina—dark, red meat that was better than chicken or pork.

One brutally-cold winter I trapped the banks of the north side of the Back Creek, which meant that I had to row my small skiff across the river and a few hundred yards east of where I docked my boat. I remember one morning well. The temperature had been below ten degrees for several days, and on that particular morning the entire width of the river was covered with ice floes about four to five inches thick. The ice had been broken by ships and tugs, so some of the floes were stacked upon each other and the whole mass was moving slowly with the tide—crackling, creaking and popping eerily as they drifted.

I couldn't row because the oars wouldn't go through the large chunks, so I had to shove the ice away from the bow and push an oar through the ice from the stern to scull across and back. It was dangerous fun and I loved it, in those days when nothing, except homework, seemed to be too much trouble.

[To be continued Tuesday, 10/16/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 1

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 1

Now, Nina, I’m sure you remember how Uncle Ernest was in the middle of telling me about his strange adventure with José in that primitive city, Daveston. Time had run out the previous night, and Uncle Ernest, eager to party with his friends, had to leave without telling me the end. I was hoping he would be able to continue his tale soon and, sure enough, the very next afternoon he walked out of the house, rubbed his eyes with both fists, stretched widely in the muggy afternoon air, and settled uneasily into our front porch swing. As I scooted in next to him he said, “Where did I leave off, Moose the Goose?”

“Ahhh, well, you had just settled down that crazy guy who tried to kill José. Remember? You, José, and the club members were taking a walk through the streets of Daveston.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. Well, after that bit of excitement,” Uncle Ernest went on, leaning his head back with pleasure, “we came to a little park furnished with some concrete picnic tables and stools, so we all sat down to take a breather for a while. José sat next to me, and, pulling out some parchment paper and a pen, he asked me to give him a hand with something.

“ ‘Ern,’ he asked quietly, ‘I have some very important speeches to give soon, and I wonder if you could help me with my presentations.’

“ ‘Why, I’d be glad to, José,’ I said, eager to help my good friend. ‘I was once a member of the toastmasters’ club in Wilmington,’ I explained. ‘We’d finish our speeches, talk about the ponies, jaw about some of the hot babes in town, and …’

“ ‘Hold on, Ern; hold on!’ José said firmly. ‘Spare me all of that. Can you help me give better speeches?’

“ ‘Oh, sure thing. Sorry, José. I think you can improve your speeches by developing some proper methods of getting and keeping your audience’s attention.’

“ ‘Slow down some, Ern. Please? I need to write all this down so I won't forget it,’ José said, scribbling on his parchment with the worst handwriting I had ever seen.

“ ‘If you want your listener to really understand an important point—have it sink in totally— you need to relate a story that illustrates the point indirectly. For instance, if you want to stress the value of forgiveness, develop a tale about a father who has two grown sons. Make one of the sons very devoted to his father and family, one who works hard, behaves himself and stays on the family farm as he’s expected to.’ All this time, Moose, José was writing like a mad man, getting it all down.

“ ‘Then,’ I explained, ‘make the other son the total opposite of the first one, a real scoundrel, who, after years of debauchery and trouble-making, returns home to stay with the family to enjoy the benefits of the father’s and the first son’s long-term sacrifice.

“ ‘Now, and here’s the kicker, have the father treat the second son, the rascal who has returned, better than he treats the first son, the devoted one. And when the first son complains, have the father say something like: “My son, we should celebrate and be glad, because your brother was dead, and now he’s alive again.” ’

“ ‘Geez,’ José said, ‘I never thought about that before. Thanks a lot, Ern. As a matter of fact, I like that example so much that I’d like to use it in one of my talks, with your permission of course.’ ”

“ ‘Certainly, José, I’d be honored,’ I said, genuinely complimented by the prospect.”

“ ‘I have so many thoughts to convey,’ José explained, ‘and thanks to you I’ll now have a good way of doing it. But another thing, Ern, pretty soon I have to give my most important speech to a lot of people on a mountain top. How can I hold their attention and reinforce my ideas?’

“ ‘Hmmm … Oh, OK, José,’ I said, ‘you can use a technique called parallelism, a series of repetitive, rhetorical phrases guaranteed to hook your audience. For instance, if I wanted to give an address on karate, which I know a lot about, I might say the following: “Blessed are the aggressive fighters: for theirs is the championship trophy. Blessed are they with hard sidekicks: for they shall prevail. Blessed are the quick: for they shall inherit the crown. Blessed are they with solid back-fists: for they will gain victory.” ’

“ ‘All right, Ern, all right; that’s enough. I get the picture—excellent! I might change the words a bit, but I’ll be sure to put it to use.’

“Yeah, Moose, I’ll tell you,” Uncle Ernest said in a serious tone of voice. “I really felt good about being able to give José a hand like that. José was quite a nice guy on the whole, practically perfect, and I guess the only thing he lacked was a sense of humor.”

“Right, Unk,” I laughed, “but you had enough for the both of you.”

“I suppose,” Unk shrugged. “But seriously, I was having a fun time for those couple of years in that old city. I had José, a great friend and smart leader of our club, Maggie, a sweet, loving girlfriend, and a whole bunch of priests of the city to drink and joke with half the night and play poker with a couple of times a week. What more could I have asked for, Moose?”

“It beats me, Unk, maybe a swimming pool and a dog like my Wiggsey. But crap, from your tone of voice I get the feeling things were about to turn sour for you again. Am I right?”

“I’m afraid so,” Uncle Ernest said, shaking his head slowly. “A bunch of things started to go wrong for José and our club. All of the rich and powerful priests of the town were jealous of José because of his growing popularity.” [To be continued Friday, 10/12/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – Maggie, Chapter 7

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Maggie, Chapter 7

After Uncle Ernest raised his bottle like a bugler to take a long, grateful swig, he grinned down at me and went on with his story. “With the sound of the cheering crowd ringing in our ears, we strolled on down the street, and after a while came upon a crowd of people in the market place. When we walked through the area people started cheering José and pleaded with him to give a little speech. When he agreed, somebody turned a crate upside down and lifted José up onto it.

“José then began talking about all kinds of things, much of which I missed because Maggie kept blowing in my ear and tickling me as we stood there arm-in-arm, snuggling away. I did hear him say something about the idea of a nose for a nose and an ear for a ear not being such a good idea (which went way over my head, Moose), but at that point some wild, maniac jumped  up on the crate with him and slapped José hard on the cheek. The guy was filthy dirty, with his hair shooting out in all directions and his eyes blazing with insanity. Now, what do you think José did when that mad man slapped him?”

“Why, he decked him. Right, Unk?”

“Nope. José didn’t blink an eye; he turned and presented the other cheek so that guy could smack him again, which he did, even harder. We all jumped the wild guy then, every member of José’s club. But he was strong as a bull and kept screaming, ‘José, you dirty rat, you have come to destroy us.’

“The other guys had him by the arms and legs and I had him in a sleeper hold. And then, as he kicked, twitched, and struggled, I thought of what to do. All through school and even as an adult, I had been very hyperactive, so I always carried a bottle of tranquilizers that the doc had given me to control myself. I reached into the pocket of my fatigue pants with my free hand, got the bottle, and somehow managed to grab a handful of the pills, which I forced down the idiot’s throat, holding my hand forcefully over his foaming, slobbering mouth.

“In the meantime José had been commanding: ‘Heal! Heal! Come out of him evil spirits! Heal! Heal!’ Gradually, after some scuffling, the guy settled down, leaving Matt with a bloody nose, Jimmy with a dislocated thumb, and José with two red cheeks. Then the wild guy became completely normal and started sobbing and thanking José for healing him. After José finished his speech, as we made our way through the crowd to continue our walk, everyone clapped and cheered José like mad. Moose, you’d have thought the Babe had just homered to win the World Series.”

As soon as Uncle Ernest took off for the house again, I ran to my bike and, leaping in the air, mounted it from the rear, as the cowboys did with their horses. Almost falling, I flipped up the kick stand with my left foot, zipped across the lane, past the plum tree, and pulled up to the flat stone step at the entrance to our corn crib. I went in and began turning the handle of Pop’s corn sheller. It’s still there, Nina, remind me to show it to you sometime.

The handle turned a heavy wheel, about two feet in diameter, which removed the kernels from the cob, flipping the cobs in the air to the right and dropping the kernels into a bucket underneath. Shelling corn required the strength of an adult, but I enjoyed grabbing the handle with both hands, spinning it with all of my strength, and then letting go to hear it whirl to a gradual, whining stop.

To the left of the corn crib was the stump of a large, long-dead osage tree, with a hole in the middle that extended from the flat surface to the gnarled roots at its base. When chicken dinner was planned, Pop would come out of the chicken house holding a couple of squawking fryers by their legs in his left hand and a hatchet in his right. He’d lay their necks on the stump and with two whacks lop their heads off. Sometimes, though, when his aim was off, he’d smack one of them right between the eyes and have to take another stroke.

He’d toss the headless chickens on the grass and for the next five minutes they would prance around haphazardly with diminishing vigor, hopping headless around the yard like congressmen on the campaign trail. When their death dance dwindled to a few twitches, Pop would dunk them into near-boiling water, pick off the feathers, singe off the fine hair-like remains ( phew, what an odor), gut them, and put them in the icebox.

Pop would use the hatchet head to push the chopped heads into the stump’s hole. The heads tumbled to the bottom and provided a tasty meal for the rats. We always had a few families of rats living under the stump or in burrows under the corn crib. At the time, we had Trixie, a little mean-spirited rat terrier.

One day I was out there with Trixie watching Pop’s decapitations, when, all of a sudden, a rat as big as Trixie ran from under the corn crib. He scurried towards the chicken house in a fairly wide arc, and, quick as a flash, Trixie cut him off, in a straight line from next to me to the rat. I couldn’t believe Trixie’s quickness, Nina. He had the rat in his mouth, biting and shaking the life out of him. The rat bared his teeth and fought back, but in a few seconds he was doomed.

I remember another thing that happened one afternoon after lunch, the day before Uncle Ernest arrived for the weekend. I was driving Pop crazy by begging for a pony. “Pop, I want a pony; please buy me a pony, Pop.” I followed him to the corn crib, begging him over and over again about 200 times.

He shelled some corn into the bucket and scattered the kernels across the grass. Then, as I pleaded constantly, he hurled the bucket at me, nailing me on the leg. Believe me, Nina, it really hurt, but it shut me up in a hurry. It was the only time in my life that Pop ever hurt me, but it sure was justified.

Hearing Uncle Ernest call, “Hey there, Moose,” I cycled on back to listen to more of his story. When I got there, though, he was dressed for a night of partying and had already started strolling down our dusty lane towards town. I rode my bike next to him until we reached the last telephone pole, and then I spun around in the dirt, causing dust to fly up and blow back onto my bare legs. “When can I hear the rest of that José story, Unk?” I called after him.

“Tomorrow, maybe, if you behave yourself in the meantime,” he called back as he made his turn towards town. So I spun on back, set my bike against the house and, noticing that darkness was about to smother out the light, pulled open that screen door once again, hoping that there would be a decent show on the radio before I had to hit the hay.   [To be continued Friday, 10/09/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – Maggie, Chapter 6

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Maggie, Chapter 6

When Uncle Ernest took off for the house again, I had some bitter-sweet memories about what we did in Wilmington one December day. He took me shopping in downtown Wilmington one afternoon about a year and a half before. We got on a trolley at Fourth and Union and took off for Market Street with the clattering vehicle poking along and stopping to take on and let off passengers at every block. That old trolley was really something, Nina. It was powered by electrical wires overhead, which were connected to the vehicle by a long pole, and as the trolley moved and turned, the pole swayed and the top wires sparked and snapped occasionally.

Yep, the sounds on the trolley were really peculiar. After the passengers settled in their seats, the trolley lunged ahead, and as it accelerated, a loud whine assaulted the senses, rising gradually to a high pitch at top speed and dropping gradually to a low pitch as it decelerated to an abrupt, jolting stop. This happened at every stop, Nina, until we reached Market Street, and for a kid just off the farm it was terrific.

        We walked into several stores and I think Uncle Ernest bought some items. In one of the stores, while Uncle Ernest was talking to a salesgirl, I remember playing with some small trucks that I thought were neat. I was rolling them back and forth, making truck noises all the while. Then Uncle Ernest grabbed my hand and said, “Let’s head on back, Moose.”

We got off the trolley a block early on Fourth Street so Uncle Ernest could place a bet with his bookie. I had an idea what he was doing, so I asked, “Is this where your bookie lives, Unk? “Shut up!” he hissed, under his breath. “There’s a cop!” Sure enough, there he was across the street at the corner twirling his Billy club. He didn’t see us, though, so Uncle Ernest told me to sit on the steps while he went in to place his bet and chew the fat a while. When he came out I was playing with a little metal truck and he said, “Now where did you get that?”

“I didn’t want to tell him at first, but finally, at his insistence, I said, ‘Back there, at the store.’ I mean to tell you, Nina, he blew his stack. He hustled me on back to that store and made me hand the truck back to the salesgirl. I felt awful, but it was a lesson I’ve never forgotten; I haven’t stolen a single truck since.

Uncle Ernest also took me to see my first movie. The Park Theater was on Union Street, two blocks south of my grandmother’s house. I must have been about four, and not happy at all to be in that dark, scary room. The film that afternoon was a war movie with Spencer Tracy, and when the shells went off and soldiers started falling in the trenches, I began crying so hard that Uncle Ernest had to take me out.

The next movie he took me to was Bambi, so he thought I’d be all right, but when Bambi’s mother was shot, I bawled until he again had to take me out. “My God,” he told my grandmother, “I don’t know what’s wrong with that boy.”

And then my thoughts returned to the present, for Uncle Ernest came back out, sat down, and took a nice, long swig of his drink. “So what did you, Maggie, and José do next, Unk?”

“Hmmm, let’s see now,” he said, stroking his chin. “Oh yeah, now I remember. José had taken on a few more followers so we decided to form an alliance, which we called the Josana Club. Well, one day we all started walking along a narrow street following José, who said that we were going to see what the town folks were up to. As we strolled past the entrance to one of the houses, a guy bolted out of the door and started yelling: ‘Help! Help! Somebody help! My son is dying. What am I to do?’ José calmed him down, put his hand on his shoulder and said softly, ‘Lead us to him my good man.’

“When the guy took us inside we saw that the family had been eating dinner, but now they all stood looking down at a young man lying on the floor. He didn’t move at all and his face was a deep purple. ‘Ohhhh! My only son is dead. May God help him!’ the father yelled. Believe me, Moose; José went to work right away. ‘Grab him and hold him up, Ernie,’ he commanded, so I latched on to him under the arm pits and held his limp body erect. José held the poor kid’s head in his hands, closed his eyes and started mumbling a strange chant. After a few minutes, the kid started to get heavy as a sack of feed, so I knew I had to do something fast.

“On the table to my left was a partially eaten leg of lamb. ‘Ah ha,’ I thought, ‘this kid must have a piece of that lamb stuck in his throat.’ So I performed the Ernie Maneuver (thrust my fist above his gut and pulled hard). I mean to tell you, a chunk of meat the size of a golf ball shot out of that kid, bounced off the top of José’s chest, and rolled under the table, where a long-haired cat snatched it up and took off. What a shame that I didn't patent that maneuver instead of some guy named Heimlich who saw me do it. I could be on Easy Street now, Moose.

“Oh well, anyhow, when that kid started kicking and choking—regaining consciousness you know—everybody cheered like mad. ‘José, you are the greatest; you are something special, our savior,’ the kid’s father cried. The kid’s color came back, and as he sat breathing deeply, he looked at José and said, ‘My God, what happened?’ José lowered his head, placed his hands on top of the boy’s head, and said, ‘Peace be with you, my son.’ As we said good-bye and walked out into the street, everybody cheered and clapped for José, who turned, bowed, and replied, ‘Peace be with you, brothers and sisters, until we meet again.’ ” [To be continued Friday, 10/05/2012]