Brokenhearted in Bakersfield

 

6 - NOT IN SO MANY WORDS

It was much later that afternoon I found myself sitting out front on my iron steps on the shady side of my trailer refortifying with my own beers when a neighbor kid, Little Billy Peevy, took to circling around me playing crop duster.

“Bbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!” he’d swoop on by.

“Bbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!” he’d make another pass.

“Bbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!” he’d barnstorm right at me, and then at the last second bank off to the left or right.  (I swear that boy’s mother didn’t see a sober day the whole seven months she carried him.)

It occurred to me that if I wanted a moment’s peace I was gonna have to outsmart the little feller, so I hatched a plan and called Little Billy over.  “Here, Billy, Billy, Billy, Billy.  Here, Billy, Billy, Billy, Billy.  Come on over here, Billy boy.”

As he took another dive towards my south forty I reached out an arm and snagged the little ‘duster.

You wouldn’t say Little Billy was much of a talker, but I could tell from the glare of his gray eyes he wasn’t at all happy about this forced landing.  My arm was wrapped up tight around the skinny ribs of a shirtless little boy wearing a pair of ratty old blue jeans.  His mop of blond hair was matted by sweat, and a mustache of dust and snot shaded his upper lip.  Why, I couldn’t help thinking how much he reminded me of me at his age.

“Hey, Billy,” I tried to get his attention by pointing toward the sky, “you see all them buzzards flying around overhead?”

Little Billy looked up in the direction of my point.

I asked, “How’d you like one of them buzzards for your very own pet?”

Little Billy looked back at me with an expression of total blankness.

“You know how to catch buzzards and make one your pet, don’t you?”

I faced his stony stare.

“Well, you see that irrigation ditch over there across the driveway?”  (Note:  This is not the same ditch where the septic tank drains and our hemp enterprise was to commence later that evening.)  While I pointed, Little Billy looked.

“You go over there and you lay down in that ditch and stay real quiet, and after a little while them buzzards will think you was dead.  And then when one of them buzzards comes down to pick the meat off your bones you just reach right up and grab yourself a new pet.”

I nodded and winked, but I couldn’t tell if that idiot child understood a single word I’d said.  I decided to continue my effort to make outreach.  “Okay, Billy, you go on over there and when you catch yourself one of them birds you give me a holler, and I’ll come on over and help you tame it.”  I gave the little bugger an inspirational shove.  “Go on now.”

And I’ll be damned if he didn’t race right across the driveway and disappear into that ditch like I’d suggested.  I inwardly smiled the smile of a man whose superior intellect had earned him a deserving rest and another beer reward.  I leaned back, closed my eyes, and listened to the soothing sound of traffic on the nearby interstate while sipping another cold one.

You know, if your eyes are shut and the wind is right, and if you use a little imagination, that highway sounds like ocean waves crashing on a beach in paradise.