Another story
It's been quite a while since I inflicted one of my stories on you, so I thought I'd throw another one on the fire. This is in the "Crouton War" series. If you remember, it's a bunch of stories told by an old man sitting on his porch somewhere in Kentucky. I hope you like it.
Pocket Knives and Bank Failures
I was down at the hardware store last week buyin’ me some penetratin’ oil so’s I could unstick the cat, when I heard ol’ John Barston in the next aisle over tryin’to find some quarter-inch hemp rope. John, you know, he’s one ‘a them ex-Navy fellas. Spent all ‘a the Korean War hanging from a rope scrapin’ paint offa the front end ‘a some big damn boat in Norfolk Harbor. That’s why his left ear’s so big. I never had no use for him, no-how. The man don’t carry a pocket knife, and never did. He might just as well put on a skirt and be done with it. A man who ain’t got no pocket knife is a man who ain’t ready to do the things a man’s got to do.
I remember this one time, I think it was in 1951, when me and Ott McBee was paintin’ the ceiling of the First Permanent Savings and Loan over there on Crawford Street. It ain’t there no more, a’ course. The bank manager, name ‘a Preston Allen, he took off for Mexico with all the money and a teller named Sarah Walker. Sarah was just a simple, good-hearted country girl, and she didn’t have no idea what he was getting’ her into. I’m bettin’ he made improper advances once they was across the border, though. Why else would she shoot him six times and bury him in the desert? It just stands to reason.
Now, Ott, he only had the one eye on the left. He lost the right one at church, you know. He was always self-conscious about having to wear an eye-patch because he’d heard about thee hundred ‘pirate’ jokes too many. His wife Doreen decided to make things easier for him, and so she sewed a needlepoint eye on the front a’ his eye-patch. Now, she had done a real fine job, and it looked as real as any needlepoint eye could be, but she had sewed it upside-down so that the eyebrow was on the bottom. It always made me feel a little sea-sick if I talked to him for more than five minutes.
Anyway, Ott was balancing on one leg and reaching way out to paint the ceiling over the top a’ this big brass eagle that somebody had screwed to the wall over the door. Ott was reaching out as far as he could, but he couldn’t tell that he was about three feet short on account a’ him havin’ no depth perception. Pretty soon the ladder tipped over and Ott let out this scream that damned near scared me to death. I looked over and seen that he was hanging from that eagle’s head by the strap of his overalls. He was flailing his legs and arms and the paint offa his brush was flying all over. But the real problem was that the bucket a’ paint what was on his ladder had hit the floor and splattered just everywhere. Now, I knowed that if I didn’t act fast, that paint was gonna soak into the marble floor and ruin it and we wouldn’t get paid. Ott yells out to me, “Charlie, fer Chrissake, get me down!” His face was red and his eyes looked like they was tearing up, but I figgered that he needed the money as much as I did. I yelled, “Hang on, Ott, I’ll be right back!” and I took off runnin’.
I ran the three-quarter mile or so to my Mamma’s house, and into that big ol’ garage she had. Well, she called it a garage. It started off as a barn. My daddy never was one to take care a’ things, and bit by bit that barn started falling down. Every time a chunk of it fell down or caved in, he’d just put up a new wall outta the parts that were still good, and make it a little smaller. The thing was, my Daddy didn’t have no eye for a straight line, and never did. That barn ended up being six feet wide in some places and fifteen feet wide in others, and you had to make two left turns and a right one if you wanted to go from front to back. There was little rooms off on the sides that had kinda made by accident, and one a’ them didn’t have no doors or windows. I tried to get into it once, and Daddy caught me while I was at it and told me never to go in there ‘cause it was dangerous. Of course, that just made me more curious, so one afternoon I pulled one a’ the boards out and had a look around. There was nothing there but a cow bone sticking outta the ground a little bit, and to be funny someone had put a shirt sleeve and a wrist watch on it, and even put a few little tiny bones and a gold ring next to it. People will do anything for a joke, you know.
I dug around in the barn for a while until I found an old can a’ turpentine. I ran back to the bank as quick as I could, and only stopped but once to talk to Sally Havers for a while, and since it was so hot I got me a coke. I had to drink it there at the store and leave the bottle since I didn’t have enough money to get one for Ott. But in no time at all I was back at the bank and I poured that whole can a’ turpentine on the floor.
Ott was pretty quiet, and when I looked up at him where he was hanging I seen that his eyes were closed and he was breathing slowly. I never knew a man who could fall asleep like Ott McBee. I called out to him to rouse him, but he didn’t even flicker an eyelid. I decided to let him rest, and I got down to cleaning the paint offa that floor. I used all the rags we had, and then I used Ott’s jacket, but there was still a pretty big mess. I had run outta turpentine, so I went out down into the cellar and found where somebody had used a piece a’ rubber hose to fix where a little water line had broken off. Since it was an emergency, I took my knife and cut off about three feet of it and used it to siphon three or four gallons a’ gas from Ott’s truck. Pretty soon I had that marble floor lookin’ just as good as new. Mostly good as new. Pretty good, anyway. You could tell there was a spot, and I didn’t want us to get into trouble, so I took the rags and made the rest a’ the floor match the spot. Problem solved.
The air was pretty thick with gas fumes, and Ott had been asleep for quite a while. Not that I minded. I was never one to avoid hard work, even when some lazy no-account son of a bitch was takin’ it easy. It’s just my nature. I set up the ladder and climbed up to him. I tried to wake him up, but he was out like a light. That man didn’t even wake up when I whistled in his ear and smacked him in the face two or three times.
Well, you know that if you fall down, it’s best to be relaxed. It’s tensing up that will get you hurt. I figgered that Ott was about as relaxed as a man could be, so I took my knife and cut the strap a’ his overalls. His feet hit first, and then his butt hit the floor, and that was fine. The problem was that his head snapped forward and he mashed both of his eyes onto those knobby knees a’ his and it knocked him out cold. It must have knocked him out, ‘cause he still didn’t wake up.
I had put in enough work for one day, so I dragged Ott out to his car and drove him home. I left him to sleep in the car and walked home. I didn’t hear from Ott for quite a while. It turned out that when he was hangin’ from that big brass eagle, the crotch a’ his overalls had kinda divided his man parts and cut off the circulation to the left side, and the doctor had to remove his nut. The doctor said that if his truck hadn’t run outta gas and he’d gotten there sooner, it might have been saved. His wife Doreen tried to make him feel better and told him that he was better balanced now, what with him missing his right eye and his left nut, but Ott never did have much of a sense of humor.
We never did get paid for that job. The next morning that bank manager was smoking a cigarette when he opened the door, and what with all the gas fumes in the place it just took the roof right off. It would have been worse if the cellar weren’t full a’ water when the floor collapsed into it. The chief of the volunteer fire department told me so himself. I didn’t take no credit for cutting the water line, because I never was one to put myself forward. But here’s my point: if Ott had carried a knife, he could have cut the front a’ his pants out and saved his parts. I say that because if I was him, I wouldn’t take the chance a’ cutting the strap to my overalls and fallin’ to the floor with with a knife in my hand and risk losing my other eye. A man with a knife is a thinking man, is all I’m sayin’.
Pocket Knives and Bank Failures
I was down at the hardware store last week buyin’ me some penetratin’ oil so’s I could unstick the cat, when I heard ol’ John Barston in the next aisle over tryin’to find some quarter-inch hemp rope. John, you know, he’s one ‘a them ex-Navy fellas. Spent all ‘a the Korean War hanging from a rope scrapin’ paint offa the front end ‘a some big damn boat in Norfolk Harbor. That’s why his left ear’s so big. I never had no use for him, no-how. The man don’t carry a pocket knife, and never did. He might just as well put on a skirt and be done with it. A man who ain’t got no pocket knife is a man who ain’t ready to do the things a man’s got to do.
I remember this one time, I think it was in 1951, when me and Ott McBee was paintin’ the ceiling of the First Permanent Savings and Loan over there on Crawford Street. It ain’t there no more, a’ course. The bank manager, name ‘a Preston Allen, he took off for Mexico with all the money and a teller named Sarah Walker. Sarah was just a simple, good-hearted country girl, and she didn’t have no idea what he was getting’ her into. I’m bettin’ he made improper advances once they was across the border, though. Why else would she shoot him six times and bury him in the desert? It just stands to reason.
Now, Ott, he only had the one eye on the left. He lost the right one at church, you know. He was always self-conscious about having to wear an eye-patch because he’d heard about thee hundred ‘pirate’ jokes too many. His wife Doreen decided to make things easier for him, and so she sewed a needlepoint eye on the front a’ his eye-patch. Now, she had done a real fine job, and it looked as real as any needlepoint eye could be, but she had sewed it upside-down so that the eyebrow was on the bottom. It always made me feel a little sea-sick if I talked to him for more than five minutes.
Anyway, Ott was balancing on one leg and reaching way out to paint the ceiling over the top a’ this big brass eagle that somebody had screwed to the wall over the door. Ott was reaching out as far as he could, but he couldn’t tell that he was about three feet short on account a’ him havin’ no depth perception. Pretty soon the ladder tipped over and Ott let out this scream that damned near scared me to death. I looked over and seen that he was hanging from that eagle’s head by the strap of his overalls. He was flailing his legs and arms and the paint offa his brush was flying all over. But the real problem was that the bucket a’ paint what was on his ladder had hit the floor and splattered just everywhere. Now, I knowed that if I didn’t act fast, that paint was gonna soak into the marble floor and ruin it and we wouldn’t get paid. Ott yells out to me, “Charlie, fer Chrissake, get me down!” His face was red and his eyes looked like they was tearing up, but I figgered that he needed the money as much as I did. I yelled, “Hang on, Ott, I’ll be right back!” and I took off runnin’.
I ran the three-quarter mile or so to my Mamma’s house, and into that big ol’ garage she had. Well, she called it a garage. It started off as a barn. My daddy never was one to take care a’ things, and bit by bit that barn started falling down. Every time a chunk of it fell down or caved in, he’d just put up a new wall outta the parts that were still good, and make it a little smaller. The thing was, my Daddy didn’t have no eye for a straight line, and never did. That barn ended up being six feet wide in some places and fifteen feet wide in others, and you had to make two left turns and a right one if you wanted to go from front to back. There was little rooms off on the sides that had kinda made by accident, and one a’ them didn’t have no doors or windows. I tried to get into it once, and Daddy caught me while I was at it and told me never to go in there ‘cause it was dangerous. Of course, that just made me more curious, so one afternoon I pulled one a’ the boards out and had a look around. There was nothing there but a cow bone sticking outta the ground a little bit, and to be funny someone had put a shirt sleeve and a wrist watch on it, and even put a few little tiny bones and a gold ring next to it. People will do anything for a joke, you know.
I dug around in the barn for a while until I found an old can a’ turpentine. I ran back to the bank as quick as I could, and only stopped but once to talk to Sally Havers for a while, and since it was so hot I got me a coke. I had to drink it there at the store and leave the bottle since I didn’t have enough money to get one for Ott. But in no time at all I was back at the bank and I poured that whole can a’ turpentine on the floor.
Ott was pretty quiet, and when I looked up at him where he was hanging I seen that his eyes were closed and he was breathing slowly. I never knew a man who could fall asleep like Ott McBee. I called out to him to rouse him, but he didn’t even flicker an eyelid. I decided to let him rest, and I got down to cleaning the paint offa that floor. I used all the rags we had, and then I used Ott’s jacket, but there was still a pretty big mess. I had run outta turpentine, so I went out down into the cellar and found where somebody had used a piece a’ rubber hose to fix where a little water line had broken off. Since it was an emergency, I took my knife and cut off about three feet of it and used it to siphon three or four gallons a’ gas from Ott’s truck. Pretty soon I had that marble floor lookin’ just as good as new. Mostly good as new. Pretty good, anyway. You could tell there was a spot, and I didn’t want us to get into trouble, so I took the rags and made the rest a’ the floor match the spot. Problem solved.
The air was pretty thick with gas fumes, and Ott had been asleep for quite a while. Not that I minded. I was never one to avoid hard work, even when some lazy no-account son of a bitch was takin’ it easy. It’s just my nature. I set up the ladder and climbed up to him. I tried to wake him up, but he was out like a light. That man didn’t even wake up when I whistled in his ear and smacked him in the face two or three times.
Well, you know that if you fall down, it’s best to be relaxed. It’s tensing up that will get you hurt. I figgered that Ott was about as relaxed as a man could be, so I took my knife and cut the strap a’ his overalls. His feet hit first, and then his butt hit the floor, and that was fine. The problem was that his head snapped forward and he mashed both of his eyes onto those knobby knees a’ his and it knocked him out cold. It must have knocked him out, ‘cause he still didn’t wake up.
I had put in enough work for one day, so I dragged Ott out to his car and drove him home. I left him to sleep in the car and walked home. I didn’t hear from Ott for quite a while. It turned out that when he was hangin’ from that big brass eagle, the crotch a’ his overalls had kinda divided his man parts and cut off the circulation to the left side, and the doctor had to remove his nut. The doctor said that if his truck hadn’t run outta gas and he’d gotten there sooner, it might have been saved. His wife Doreen tried to make him feel better and told him that he was better balanced now, what with him missing his right eye and his left nut, but Ott never did have much of a sense of humor.
We never did get paid for that job. The next morning that bank manager was smoking a cigarette when he opened the door, and what with all the gas fumes in the place it just took the roof right off. It would have been worse if the cellar weren’t full a’ water when the floor collapsed into it. The chief of the volunteer fire department told me so himself. I didn’t take no credit for cutting the water line, because I never was one to put myself forward. But here’s my point: if Ott had carried a knife, he could have cut the front a’ his pants out and saved his parts. I say that because if I was him, I wouldn’t take the chance a’ cutting the strap to my overalls and fallin’ to the floor with with a knife in my hand and risk losing my other eye. A man with a knife is a thinking man, is all I’m sayin’.