That Small Town

It's just a small town nestled in the foothills of the Smokey mountains. It's off the beaten path not too far from most places but a long way from anywhere.

This little town is not unlike my hometown, it's small, real small. Everybody knows everybody. They always told me around my hometown that if you don't know what you're doing just ask somebody because they'll know.

I've visited this little town twice now, and I'm starting to fall in love with it. There's not much going on, baseball and softball tournaments in the spring and summer. High school football on fall Friday nights and college ball on Saturday. Sunday dinner at Grandma's house and a big celebration every Easter. Yeah this little town ain't so much different than my hometown and I'm starting to fall in love with it.

The people that live in this backwards little town are good people, God fearing people. Folks who welcome you in with open arms and a smile with a "hey how are you? So nice to see you again."

I feel a strong emotional connection to this town. There is something in the air. It stirs a feeling in my soul that only a small southern town can. I've only been to this town twice, but I've been here my whole life. It's not too far from most places but a long way from anywhere.

Writing Challenge Week #5-The Ruined Place

Word Count Limit: 700 or Less

Actual Word Count: 303

Words to include: Peculiar, Tangled, Rough, Tenacious, Methodical

The little girl was old. Maybe you'd call her peculiar. I knew it the last time I saw her. Her clothes weren't like other little girls; she was young but she wasn't. Her posture was older, wiser, her eyes they were ancient. She had ancient eyes. No, this girl wasn't like other girls at all. 

The last time I saw the girl she came out of the ruined place. How she got there I'll never know, but I looked up from my cruiser on the corner of 8th and Thibodaux and there she was walking out of the ruined place. This girl with the ancient bombardier blue eyes, with the long blonde hair and that was the last time I saw her. What was this beautiful girl with the tangled blonde hair doing in the ruined place?

The girl walked out of the ruined place and with a tenacious look in her bombardier blue eyes, she went south on Thibodaux and I wondered what is this beautiful girl doing? What is this peculiar girl with the long blonde hair doing coming out of the ruined place?

The girl, she was rough. You could tell it by the look in her ancient eyes, by the clothes she wore. She wasn't like other girls; she walked with a methodical step. She was in no hurry to get out of the ruined place yet she walked with purpose, this girl with the bombardier blue eyes. 

The girl, the beautiful, tangled looking, tenacious, peculiar blue eyed girl came out of the ruined place and I didn't know why. This blonde headed, rough, wonderful girl who didn't dress like other girls is my daughter and I don't know her, I don’t know why she was in the ruined place.

                                       The girl is my daughter and I love her. 

Weekly Writing Challenge #3

Word Count Limit: 500 or Less

Actual Word Count: 410

Words to include: Covenant, Bodacious, Squeaky, Solemn, Brash

Every year around the middle of March, before it’d get too hot but after it’d done warmed up, our church would put on a tent revival. It took place on Mr. Slocumb’s land behind his service station out on route three sixteen. We’d bring in some of the most amazing musicians and evangelists from all over. This particular year we had a fella by the name of Reverend Arvin T. Sutter all the way from Arkansas. He didn’t have any musicians; he was a one man show with nothing but his Bible, his worn looking three piece suit and a Fender electric guitar.

Now let me tell ya’ll something, when Reverend Sutter would get up on that pulpit and start spitting hellfire and brimstone down on us we felt like the Ark of the Covenant had done opened up and God himself was speaking. He’d get to dancin’ and stutterin’ and the whole while be jumping around with his Bible in one hand and that Fender strapped around his neck. We didn’t understand half of what he was saying but we all knew he was making a bodacious racket.  Many souls were touched and many a sinner was saved under Reverend Sutter’s sermons that week.

On the last night of our tent revival Reverend Sutter stepped up on stage and started us out with an old hymn played beautifully on his guitar, I can’t recall if it was Amazing Grace or The Old Rugged cross but it don’t much matter, it was wonderful either way. He bent them strings and Lord have mercy it was squeaky clean.  After we’d finished singing and dried our eyes Reverend Sutter stepped behind the podium and in a solemn, quiet voice started to say something when way in the back came a voice “You brash worthless son of a bitch! Think you can screw my Scarlett out behind the tent revival in Tulsa and get away with it. Well Arvin Sutter I’ve done followed you all the way from Oklahoma and now you’re going to pay!” and with that the newcomer pulled out a revolver and shot Reverend Sutter right between his eyes. As Sutter fell that guitar went one way and the Bible went the other and he was dead before he hit the floor.

That’s been almost nine months ago and my wife Lynn is getting ready to have our first child, I wonder if he’ll grow up to be a preacher?

Flea Markets and the Wares Which are Hocked

Something I wrote back in 2009:

Saturday myself, Jessica and my mother in law Robin went to Smiley's flea market in Macon. I love flea markets, they offer such a wide variety of items, used golf clubs, to new underwear to watermelons and puppies, whatever you need it's there. 

As we're walking along I look up and notice a hair salon right there it the middle of the fleas that are being marketed. I made the comment "Yep, that's what I want to get from Smiley's is a hair cut!" Now I understand that you can get everything at a flea market, but a hair cut from a sweaty Mexican guy?? Please tell me folks don't actually do that. Lo and behold this particular hair salon was slap full of people, and not only people of the Mexican persuasion, whites, blacks and hispanics all joined in perfect harmony sitting in Pablo's Cuts! Who would have thought a flea market barber shop would be the cure to racism in the south? 

As we're laughing and talking about this salon we come around a bend in the aisle and you'll never guess what mine eyes beholden. What you ask? A TATTOO PARLOR, yes you heard right. Rico's Ink to be exact! Now I would be a little terrified of getting my hair cut from Pablo, but ink from his first cousin Rico? Paleeeeese! Please dear Lord tell me there are not people in here! Well looky looky, low and behold this establishment is slap full too! I again make the comment "Yep, that's what I want to get from the flea market is a tattoo!" My goodness people, a tattoo from a sweaty Mexican named Rico? That is unbelievable, but here they are, lined up like flea market tattoos are going out of style. I had to stop as Jess and her mom walked on and look at Rico the Amazing's work. Dang this guy ain't bad....Dang, this guy is pretty good. Right there in a frame is his diploma from some tattoo school, here is his health certificate from the city of Macon. Man, maybe tattoos at the flea market ain't such a bad idea after all. 

And that my dear friends is how I came home with the burrito inked on my right thigh with a rosary around it........ 

Weekly Writing Challenge #2

Word Count Limit: 500 or Less

Actual Word Count: 500

Words to include: Factotum, Mellifluous, Marvelous, Star, Random

“Boy it don't matter how you feel or what you think yo mama ain't coming back. When you fall beneath the surface of the Santuck rivuh and the watuh fills yo lungs you are dead. D.E.A.D boy. Now quit yo crying and les’ go to the lawyer’s office and see how Opal decided to divide up her worldly possessions.”

It was the summer of 1983; I was a Negro boy from the outskirts of Hattiesburg Mississippi. My mama had just drowned in the Santuck down below the dam. Me and granny never could understand what she was doing in that muddy water, granny always said "it jus’ don't make no sense, that girl couldn't swim to save her life". Anyway, let's get back to the story at hand. Turns out mama was more well to do than most colored folks in rural Mississippi, more well to do than even granny or I could imagine.

Granny and me loaded up in her canary yellow Buick and made our way to Mr Lawson's office to hear the reading of the will. Mr Lawson was a big white man, big tall and big of girth too with a big booming voice, but he spoke words more eloquent than I’d ever heard, words that I didn’t even know the meaning of, like “factotum” and “mellifluous”

 "Virgil! Miss Nanny Mae! I sure was sorry to hear tell of Opal's passing, she was a marvelous woman. Many condolences from me and everybody here at Lawson and Associates Law Firm"

“Thank you suh” granny replied “we’re ready to hear the will if you’re ready”

“Before I start I want ya’ll to know that Opal’s star burned a little brighter than any of us knew. To you, her mother, Miss Nanny Mae Thurgood she left the sum of four hundred thousand dollars in cash. To you, her son Mr. Clarence Virgil Thurgood she left a trust fund in the amount of six hundred thousand dollars, intended to pay for your education and give you a good start in life”

At his words granny gasped and clutched her chest, all I could do was stand there with my eyes glazed and mouth hanging open. “Mr Lawson, how in the good lawd’s kingdom did my daughter come into that much money!?” said granny. “Well Miss Nanny that is the thing, I’m really not sure. I did do some checking around and a source over Shreveport way told me that he’d heard tell that she’d got to running with a Traveling Man and by that I mean a member of the Masons, not a riverboat gambler” “I was told that last time he saw Opal was at Caratuk’s Bar and she was going on and on about enlightenment and the Illuminati. I can’t say for sure, and it’s all conjecture, but if you wanted to find out for sure the All Seeing Eye is where I’d start”

That’s how back in ’83 I wound up on the random path to enlightenment….

Weekly Writing Challenge #1

Word Count Limit: 500 
or less

Actual Word Count: 433

Words to include: Pungent, Consensus, Flatter, Truth, & Select

It was Monday, the work week had only just begun and the general consensus was that it was going to be the week from hell. Truth is unless you're a select few; around here every week is the week from hell. On top of that there was a pungent aroma wafting from the men's restroom area. "Damn old man Janks went to Old Mexico again this weekend" Jobie the custodian explained. 

I suppose I should give you a little back story on me and our company before I just jump right in. My name is William Rutherford, my friends don't call me Will or Bill because I don't have friends. My job really doesn’t lend itself to friendliness. I run the incinerator at the PLEW Virus 112 disposal center. AKA The Zombie Burner. 

That's right, after the victims (I prefer to call them zombies) are killed or sedated something has to be done with their bodies. That's where I come in, good old William Rutherford who before the shit hit the fan was an auto mechanic who wasn't all that mechanical, but could work his way through most anything. I don't flatter myself though; I am the Burner strictly because no one else wants to do it and my iron stomach allows me to. It’s a far cry from my days of turning wrenches, but it pays the bills.

Save for one lonely window all the incinerator room has to offer is egg shell white walls and the incinerator itself and lots of room for bodies.

The reason for this week from hell is the NZSS (National Zombie Search Squad) found a large group out in Boston, turns out Fenway Park was loaded with fans and the vast majority of players in a Sox vs Yankees game when the virus hit. In the coming days I have to incinerate 35,000 faceless, soulless baseball fans as well as Big Papi and A-Rod. There is never a dull moment around this place and I’ve learned not to be surprised by anything.

I guess I could give you the back story to the PLEW Virus 112, but what’s the point? It’s been (for the most part) contained, life is going forward now for me and the other twelve thousand and eleven people that were immune and smart (or lucky) enough to survive in America. President Oprah Winfrey was one of the lucky ones, and we can thank our lucky stars for that, she’s got a plan to make America great again, I’m just glad I’ll be here to see it come to fruition. Let’s get Burning……