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

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Babs, Chapter 2

When Uncle Ernest trudged on towards the house, I climbed high up into the top of our maple tree. I lay back in the crook on a broad limb and watched the endless drove of starlings flow as one amorphous being across the sky, headed east to roost in the deep woods. Nina, they came from the west, above the line of trees, first in the dozens, then in the hundreds, and then in the thousands.

They filled the air, overpowering all other sounds and even thoughts with their incessant, rasping chatter. I clapped my cupped hands together hard, making a loud, popping report that made them split apart, leaving a hole above me, and for a second or two there was silence, till they regrouped and continued just as loud and massive as before. I clapped a few more times and each time their response lessened, until my clapping didn’t faze them at all.

Then, when the starlings let up after a while, I heard, coming out of the northeast, a sort of bugling hoot, and, looking up, saw a line of swans moving swiftly southwestward, towards Swyka’s blacksmith shop. I tried to imitate their call but, not suffering fools, they didn’t even slow down, but kept bugling occasionally just the same, as they diminished into an illegible scribble on the horizon. When they had been directly overhead I had counted thirteen of them and remembered that it was Friday the thirteenth. What do you suppose that meant, Nina?

I then looked south across our ten-acre field, at Junior’s grandmother’s house and thought about what we did a few days earlier. We punched a hole in the bottom of two Campbell’s soup cans and attached each end of a twenty-foot string to each can. It made a pretty good telephone, Nina, because when we pulled the string taut we could hear each other clearly. This gave us the idea that if we stretched a string across the field (about 400 yards), and if we both climbed a tree, we could talk to each other through the cans.

We went to a lot of trouble for nothing, of course, so I went over and we played in his grandmother’s lane. Soon we were arguing like mad over who could imitate Bill Herman’s voice better. I think I must have picked on him or wrestled him down, because he got his grandmother’s clothesline pole and chased me halfway across the field towards home. Talk about a bad day; that was sure one for me. Hearing the swing creak, I scrambled down and again joined a revived Uncle Ernest, ready to resume his story.

“Anyhow, Moose, that gal and I hit it off really well from the start. She gave me a bit of her apple and pretty soon we were holding hands. I whispered in her ear that she was the only girl in the world for me. She was barely believable, and when I kissed her she shivered all over and said that she had never felt like that ever before.

“When I asked her about Bud she told me that all he ever did was play with the animals once in a while, eat fruit, and write numbers in the dirt. When I asked why in the world he did that, she said that the island’s owner, whom she had never met, told Bud that all he had to do to earn his keep was to be fruitful and multiply.”

“Give me a break, Unk,” I laughed. “They were both pretty stupid it seems to me.”

“Right you are, Moose, but Babs (as I decided to call her) and I became boyfriend and girlfriend just the same. After dark that day, we walked hand-in-hand down to a large pond. It was an enchanting sight, for it lay before us sort of quaking in the gentle breeze, barely visible, yet vibrant with a dark shimmer under the stars.

“At the shore’s edge was a pair of blue herons, who, seeing us standing there, walked towards us with their peculiar gait, like small clowns on stilts. They came up and nuzzled us, so we stroked their wing feathers and heads with affection. Then they gave us a parting squawk of friendship and flew off across the pond, showing in flight a superb grace that on land they lacked.

“Babs and I then walked closer to the pond’s edge, where we sat down in the lush grass. It was really comfortable, so dense and thick, five times thicker than any fancy rug you’ve ever walked on. We sat facing the pond, with Babs between my legs, leaning her back against my chest, so that I needed only lean forward to feel the texture of her hair with my lips and smell its freshness. I mean to tell you, Moose-the-Goose, I never felt so relaxed in my whole life, so contented with my life.

“I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and she intertwined her hands with mine. Occasionally we’d rock back and forth, feeling our bodies respond as one—one creature satiated, pleasure jointly personified. Sometimes she’d tilt her head far back, so that I could lean far forward and down to kiss her upside down, so that lips not meshing, not aligned, made the kiss even more delightful. And then it happened, Moose.”

“Holy crap, Unk,” I said, disgusted. “I hope something happened besides this lovey-dovey, modern romance garbage you’ve been dishing out. What happened? Did an elephant come stomping along and blow cold water on the two of you?”

“Whoaaa, hold your horses for a minute,” Uncle Ernest said in that calm, expressive voice that I knew so well. “As we gazed across the pond to where it met the dark horizon, we could see a speck, a glimmer of light. It was blood-red at first, hardly visible, and then, as it enlarged and rose above the pond—slowly, slowly, inexorably—it became lighter and brighter, so that its beams played upon the pond’s surface in a distorted mirror image of itself. Babs could see the colors better than I, so she described the varying shades of red.

“We then sat speechless, watching it rise in the sky, projecting its contorted twin towards us on the water. After a few minutes I began to hum a favorite tune softly in her ear. She turned around, softened, and laid her cheek on my chest.

“Then I added the words to the tune and, honestly Moose, her tender face cuddled so lightly against me that I could feel her warm breath soothing my whole body. I sang the song twice, after which she joined in, blending her sweet soprano with my shaky baritone. We sang it several times before drifting off to sleep in each other’s arms.”

Now, Nina, do you know what? That simple Uncle Ernest sang the song to me as we swung slowly back and forth on that dreamy, late-summer afternoon. This is what he sang:

♫ Oh, you are the only girl in the world

And I am the only boy.

Nothing else will matter in this world today.

We will go on loving in the same old way.

A beautiful garden just meant for two,

With nothing to mar our joy.

I will say such wonderful things to you.

There will be such wonderful things to do.

Oh, you are the only girl in the world

And I am the only boy. ♫

[To be continued Friday, 11/16/2012]

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

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Babs, Chapter 1

You know something, Nina? I thought I’d never get Uncle Ernest to tell me what happened next with his hot air balloon. But, finally, one afternoon the next week, we got together on the double chair under the maple tree in the side yard. “Where in the world did that contraption land you next, Unk?” I asked.

       “Believe me, Moose, I was so tired after my all-nighter with Maggie that I must have slept for a long while. When I awakened the balloon was descending and I could see nothing but clear blue sky all around and above and below. ‘Geez,’ I thought, ‘I must be in outer space.’ There was so much oxygen that I could breathe effortlessly. I literally felt twenty years younger. As the balloon descended I kept looking below to see where it was taking me this time. What do you think I saw?”

“Beats me, Unk. Did it set you down with a bunch of dinosaurs? What did you see?”

“Nothing! I couldn’t see a blamed thing in all directions but clear, baby-blue sky. After a while, though, I noticed that there was an ocean down there. Then I could see a speck of green, which got larger as I descended. Moose, I was going to land on a vast, beautiful island, with meandering streams and flowered trees of many different colors.

“When I got closer I could smell the fragrant blossoms. It was amazing. I was sure that I had ventured, somehow, onto another planet, but then I could see many familiar animals moving around in different areas below, so I knew I was still on good old Mother Earth.

“After I landed and hid my balloon and basket, I could tell that there was no place like it on earth. I started walking along the river banks and discovered that the living conditions were delightful—perfect temperature, plenty of fruit, nuts, vegetables, and refreshing spring water.

“Even all of the animals were friendly; they didn’t run from each other or from me. I continued walking, checking things out, until I came upon a guy sitting under a tree scribbling numbers in the dirt with a stick, and do you know what, Moose? He was stark naked.”

“Crap, Unk, you landed in a nudist camp!”

“Not really, this guy was just strange. He had an adult body but the mind of a three year old. He was definitely a goofy-looking bird. He had a small head, thin arms and legs, and a gigantic distended belly. The belly was startling, bigger and rounder than the largest pregnant woman’s I’ve ever seen. He was sitting in the dirt with his legs crossed, and surrounding him in small piles was every kind of fruit imaginable: plums, pears, apricots, peaches, bananas, grapes, oranges, and so forth.

“I’ll tell you what now; it was bizarre, for he was stuffing himself with the fruit, going from pile to pile, eating with his left hand as the juice ran down his chin and dripped onto his gut, giving it a chartreuse-tinted sheen. With his right hand he was writing numbers in the dirt with a stick, drawing lines under them, and writing more numbers. Then he’d erase it all with a piece of bark and start all over again. The creature was entirely covered with thick hair. His head was slightly pointed and his face was covered with so much black fuzz that I could see only his eyes and flattened nose.

“I'd say he looked to me like a cross between a large chimpanzee and Yogi Berra. He may have been the missing link or something, but he was definitely not completely human. He looked up at me and said, ‘Me workin’,’ and gestured towards a field of fruit trees—cherry, plum, apple, peach and others—that he had planted and numbered. 'Me plant’m,' he grunted. Geez, Moose, he was beyond belief. I've never, ever talked to anybody that dense in my life, not even in Cecil County.

“I said to him, ‘Hey, you’re a whiz; what’s your name?’ When he gave me a blank stare I shrugged and said, ‘Well, I’ll just call you Bud.’ I sat with him for a while and then, bored, walked on towards a large orchard in the distance. I walked into the orchard and saw magnificent wild flowers everywhere. Many species of songbirds were flitting about and perched on the limbs of the fruit trees. A black panther was stretching under one of the trees and, believe it or not, a blue jay was perched on his back, just as unconcerned as could be.

“It was about this time that I saw her, Moose. She was sitting on a log behind a large apple tree, eating a red apple about the size of a grapefruit. She was dark complexioned and had long black hair. But, you know, that’s not the first thing I noticed about her.”

“She was naked, too, like Bud. Right Unk?” I asked, trying not to seem too excited.

“You bet your life, and she was beautiful, and not at all ashamed that she was totally bare. In fact, when I said ‘Hi’ and sat next to her on the log, she wanted to know why I had those funny things hanging from my body. ‘Those coverings must be abrasive,’ she told me, and made me take all of them off so I’d be comfortable. Well, I felt pretty strange for a while, but after a few minutes it felt as natural as could be.

“ ‘My name’s Ernie. What’s yours?’

“ ‘What would you like it to be?’ she asked, showing me that she was a good bit smarter than Bud. When I asked her what the other people in the area called her, she said that the only other person was the guy playing in the dirt, the goof I had just met, Bud. She said that he didn’t talk to her much unless he wanted her to cook him some rhubarb or something, and then he’d call out: ‘Hey You!’

“Then I noticed something really strange about her. She was a real knockout to be sure, but she had no trace of any belly button and, later, when I was able to get a good look at Bud, I saw that he didn’t have one either.”

“Geez,” I said, gulping and wide-eyed, “maybe some aliens from another planet hatched them from eggs and placed them there as an experiment.”

“Beats me, Moose. That idea’s as good as any, but I wonder about it to this day.” [To be continued Tuesday, 11/13/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 9

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 9

Regaining his cheerful disposition, Uncle Ernest continued his story. “After a few minutes I went outside to get some air and I saw Mamie, José’s Mom, coming towards me down the path. As she waved to me she almost fell from tripping over some camel dung, so when she approached I said, ‘Hail, Mamie, you’re certainly full of grace this afternoon. Lordy, but you’re lucky; you must be a blessed woman to have kept your balance like that.’ ”

“ ‘Ernie, you’re still as nuts as ever,’ she smiled, not really meaning to hurt my feelings. ‘And I’ll be sure to pray for you to change before you die.’ And do you know, Moose, I knew that she meant well, because she took my cheeks in her hands and gave them a couple of pats before she continued on down the path to order her favorite lunch, a nice pepperoni pizza, loaded with extra goat cheese.

“After a couple of weeks I got awfully bored, so I decided to head on back to Wilmington to see how the ponies were faring. I called an urgent club meeting, and the night before we met I broke the news to Maggie. Naturally, she was heart-broken and pleaded for me to take her with me. But I made it clear that partying and gambling with me in Wilmington would not be the life for her. She finally agreed and that night we had a nice intimate party. We sipped some mighty fine wine and enjoyed some mighty nice snuggling all night.

“At the next club meeting I told everybody goodbye and asked them what they planned for the future. The original charter members were all there (minus José and Jud of course), along with Mamie, Maggie, and a roomful of prospective members. We elected Pete, president; Matt, vice president; Jimmy, secretary; and Tom, treasurer.”

“Then everybody talked about their plans. Mamie said that she was going to devote her life to Josanity, in honor of her son. Maggie, with bloodshot eyes and sobs, said that she was going to fight for women’s rights and become a Josain nun in order to further the cause of Josanity.

“Pete gave a powerful speech, saying that he planned to take a course in masonry at the famous Daveston Vocational School so he could build a big church for the ever-expanding club. He said that he hoped to get big contributions from some rich members so he could construct a beauty, which he planned to call Sir Pete’s Cathedral. You know, Moose, it’s sad, because I’ll bet that, after I left, the club must have folded. I’ve never, ever, heard of Josanity or Sir Pete’s Cathedral. Have you?”

“Heck no, Unk, but I don’t know didly about fancy clubs or religions. I only go to Sunday School one Sunday a year, in July, so I can go to the church picnic at Port Herman.”

“Well, as I said, it’s a shame, because José and the others worked their butts off to get something started only to have it all go down the tubes. Anyway, after saying our goodbyes—amidst sighs, kisses, and hugs—I hopped a camel caravan back to that lake where I had first landed. I found my balloon right where I had hidden it in the cattails, inflated it, and ascended high into the heavens over that great walled city of Daveston, which got smaller and smaller until it became just a speck in the vast desert below.”

“Did it take you on home then, Unk?”

“Shoot no, Moose, it took ten more long years to get home. You won’t believe where it set me down. But you’ll have to wait a while to hear what happened. I have some important business with Dolph tonight.”

Yeah, well, that meant that he would be partying in Dolph Wharton’s Tavern all night, chewing the fat with the local yokels and doing who knows what else. He might make it back by morning, but I had my doubts.

        And so, Nina, when Uncle Ernest left I zipped around on my bike for a while, threw a bunch of stones at the clothesline pole and, retreating from the approaching darkness (and the mosquitoes it would bring), went into the house to see if Pop would read me the funnies before it was time to climb the stairs for bed.  [To be continued Friday, 11/09/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 8

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 8

“Then,” Uncle Ernest explained, “poor José hobbled on down the road away from the city, while I jogged on back to Maggie’s, where I slept like a baby until ten the next morning. For the time being I didn’t tell anybody about what had happened, so they all thought that José had gone on to his heavenly rewards. The authorities would probably wonder where Jud disappeared to, but they wouldn’t bother trying to find him; nobody likes a rat.”

“You bet, Unk,” I agreed, as Uncle Ernest made his usual trip to refill his glass. I walked over to the north edge of the porch, pulled off a Seckel pear from the small tree Pop had planted there, and sank my teeth into it. I peered towards town and saw that our steel drawbridge was raised to its full height to let a ship pass through. I thought about how often we had to sit in our old 1941 Ford, waiting impatiently for the bridge span to lower so we could head to Elkton or Wilmington.

As we approached the bridge in that worn-out Ford, Pop would always say, “Look, are the weights at the top? If they are it means the bridge is down and we don’t have to wait.” Many times the weights were down, however, and we’d sit and watch the ship coast through. When it passed we’d hear the steel-on-steel grinding that the cables made as they raised the weights to the top and lowered the bridge surface so we could labor across.

On our left, between the bridge tender’s shack and the Rio movie theater, sat the small white barber shop, where I got my first haircut and watched the screwy antics of Jumpin’ Jim, the barber. The white building was square, with just enough room for Jim’s barber chair, his counter lined with barber implements, a washbasin, and chairs lined up along the wall facing the canal. Jim always had the radio on, usually tuned in to comedy shows such as Amos and Andy, Fibber McGee & Molly, or The Great Gildersleeve.

I remember Jumpin’ Jim and his customers laughing at the jokes as he pranced around his victim in the barber's chair, snipping rhythmically with his scissors or waving his straight razor with a shaky hand and talking, always chattering small talk as he bounded around the chair, lunged to the washbasin or to the counter, and skipped back again to the chair.

Every so often he would swoop to a back closet, reach in and lift up a bottle in a brown paper bag, and take a quick swig. I never found out what the heck was in that bottle, and I don’t know anybody else who ever did either. Then he’d prance on back to the barber's chair. Whoever named him ‘Jumpin’ Jim’ got it right. He took a long time cutting a head of hair, and when he finished with the combs and scissors, he’d always mix up hot lather with his brush and bowl, and brush lavish amounts onto the back of your neck and around your ears.

He would then spend half a minute sharpening his razor, with rapid, snapping strokes, on a leather strop that was attached at one end of the barber's chair. Then he’d say to his helpless captive, “Now don’t you move; sit still now. I’ve never cut anybody yet.” And with a shaky hand he’d brandish his straight razor, come in and shave a small area, bounce back out and wave the razor in the air, come in and shave another small area, and in this manner finally get the job done. And all the while he’d be gabbing away or laughing at the radio jokes.

Then he’d put a hot, damp towel on your neck, scrub off all of the extra lather, rub sweet-smelling lotion in your hair (kneading it into your scalp vigorously), part it and comb it, and set you free by flinging off the big apron with a deft flourish that comes only with much experience. After some more small talk, Pop would pay him the fifty cents and we would head on back to the farm and return in a couple of weeks to go through it all again.

“Hey, Moose,” Uncle Ernest yelled from the swing. So I ran on over and slid in beside him, still gnawing on the pear.

“Something bothers me. You know, Unk, I can’t figure out why all the priests wanted to save you instead of José?”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know at first either, but I figured it out lying in bed the next morning at Maggie’s. They yelled to save me because I had won so much money from them in all the poker games we had played since I had been there. If they kept me alive they at least had a chance to win their money back. I really had to lie low for a while though, so Maggie and I cooled our heels in our little love nest for about three days, and just as we were going stir crazy with each other in that confined area, who should sneak in, disguised as a homeless guy, but our José.

“He said he was feeling fine under the circumstances, but we checked out his wounds just the same and found that they were healing pretty well. He said that he had to see all the club members one more time, and asked me to organize a brief club meeting so he could conduct a decent farewell. So, I got the gang together for that afternoon, and when they came in and saw José they just about crapped themselves. I never did tell them about how I had saved him; I just let them draw their own conclusion. But do you know something? If I hadn’t had the sense to give him that penicillin, he would have been off to his heavenly rewards after three days instead of meeting with us.

“When José showed them his scars they were shocked and didn’t know what to say. Then José shook hands with each of us and said, ‘Take care of yourselves, brothers.’ He asked us to say hello to all of the good townspeople for him. Then he made us all join hands for a song. He started the singing and then made us join in. We sang it about five times, and it was quite touching, Moose, even for me, so much so that I remembered it.” And, Nina, incredible as it seems, Uncle Ernest sang it to me. This is what he sang: “♫A farewell to you Brother, and to my friends and to our long friendship/As it was in the beginning, is now and always will be, friends till the end, great friends, great friends.♫”

“Whoa! That’s enough of that, Unk,” I begged. “What happened next?”

“Too bad you don't appreciate good music, Moose; that's all I can say. Anyhow, before José left for good he pleaded for us to keep the club going. ‘Expand Josanity; make it a success for me, guys,’ he declared seriously, and then he limped on out and ambled down that dusty road as we all sat around feeling pretty low.”  [To be continued Tuesday, 11/06/2012]

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]