| General Fiction posted June 12, 2016 |
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trouble teen diary 1118 words
Blunder Road
by LIJ Red
May 22, 1963
Judd Canbury got up so hung over he drank a dipper of water and got drunk again. His wife Jolene poured the pot of grits on his head and ran. She reached the Hi Folks general store as the sun cleared the mountains, and asked if I could take her to work. She was a cook's helper in the elementary school in the county seat. I was eighteen and working as greasemonkey for my father in his two stall garage next door to the store. I asked him if I could give Jolene a ride and he kinda grinned. He told me to pick up a set of points and condenser for a V8 Ford, and ride Grandma Jolene carefully. Then he glanced at the woman pacing around my Studebaker in her tight dress and smirked some more. The rural route schoolbuses were starting their run, and kids with cars and people going to work made as much traffic as our backwoods county ever saw. Jolene sat there with her strong legs crossed and her green dress hem two hands above her knees. She said if it wouldn't leave their four kids without a daddy, she'd leave Judd, or better yet shoot him. Said fifteen-year-old girls ought to be kept in a cage until their heads cleared. I did the math. Carl Canbury, her youngest son and my classmate, had joined the Army last year when we graduated. If Jolene and Judd had one kid every year like the gossip said, she was about forty. She had called me a meddling snotnose the time I asked her how old she was. She said I ought to clean out my rolling pigsty, so I made a left on the one-lane dirt road that looped into the hills past the county trash dump. Along the ridgeback above the sprawling fragrant dump was a dead-end pair of ruts leading into a maple grove. I made a right and stopped. Jolene somehow lost her clothes getting out of the car. I chased her through the huckleberry bushes. When I caught that old woman, I rode Grandma Jolene but not very carefully. I let her off at the school cafeteria looking a little blowsy. The rest of the day was like all others. I scraped oil pans clean of baked clay mud and grease, and drove pistons out of the ring squeezer while Pop guided the rods astride the crankshaft. I made about ten bucks.
May23, 1963.
About seven AM, I met Earnest Fraley in front of the store. He asked me if I still wanted to make a hundred dollars a night, driving a car over Fort Mountain to Dalton and driving a panel truck back. I usually made about a hundred dollars a month as flunky for Pop in the garage.He said all they'd do was fine me a little the first time I got caught. He'd pay the fine and I could quit. They'd caught him so many times, he'd go to the pen if they got him again. While we talked, Judd passed by, taking Jolene to work in his 1950 Chevy half-ton. His nose looked like a strawberry and his eyes like cherries, but his jowls were scraped free of bristles and he drove smoothly enough. I felt like a real shit. He was a good carpenter, and an okay guy when he was sober. He didn't deserve some jackleg kid pinning his wife down in a patch of broom sage. But she made some real sexy noises... If I could make five or six runs I'd have enough money to move to Dalton, and get a job, and not go crazy when an old (but real pretty)woman giggled and grabbed me. I guess you could call me one troubled teenager. I asked Earnest how we'd arrange the run, and he said I could work late tomorrow evening at the garage, and he'd bring me the 57 Chevy I would drive to Dalton. He grinned and said the panel truck was loaded with ground corn and sugar, but nobody ever stopped a vehicle rolling into Bleaker County. We shook hands. I was a blockader.
May 24, 1963
It just happened Pop had a car ready for a brake job, so I worked late tearing it down, and cleaning up parts to begin putting it back together. The whole plan fell to flinders. When Earnest parked out front and walked into the garage, I left Jolene on her knees in a dark corner behind the jacked-up 59 Chevy in the north stall. Earnest deviled me about being so sweaty for such low pay, and handed me the keys to a really slick 57 Chevy hardtop sitting out front. He told me to keep my eyes open, and not to try to outrun anybody and kill my fool self. Then he got in the truck with his boy R.L. and they drove off into the night. Jolene was crying. So I hadn't worked late just to see her. I was going to haul moonshine for that SOB Earnest Fraley. I could just go to Hell, then. She swung her short wide skirts around and stormed out. I chased her, begging and whining.
She jerked the passenger door open and sat down in the Chevy and slammed it and locked it. I ran around and opened the driver's door and Jolene screamed like she was on fire. I told her to hush, and sat down. I cranked the 283 small-block and drove onto the county highway. Jolene crossed her legs and glared out the window. We headed over the hump to Dalton. Talk about humiliating. A T-man with a Murray County deputy backing him up pulled us over at the Horseshoe Bend. Jolene started bawling and begged them not to give her little boy a ticket, he was just driving her to see her sister in the Dalton hospital. Blockaders didn't usually have tearful mommies with them. They let us go. We left the car where Fraley told me, in back of a black pool hall in the Newtown section. The panel truck had tow sacks of meal and paper bags of sugar. Made a real good place to repay Jolene for saving my bacon, on the Muddy Knob logging road at the mountain crest, with all them late spring stars twinkling through the fresh green leaves. We got home in the deep dead of the night. We found old Judd laying on the porch passed out. I helped Jolene drag his fat arse inside, out of the chill. I locked up the panel truck in the store lot and went home. My moon running career was over.
May 22, 1963
Judd Canbury got up so hung over he drank a dipper of water and got drunk again. His wife Jolene poured the pot of grits on his head and ran. She reached the Hi Folks general store as the sun cleared the mountains, and asked if I could take her to work. She was a cook's helper in the elementary school in the county seat. I was eighteen and working as greasemonkey for my father in his two stall garage next door to the store. I asked him if I could give Jolene a ride and he kinda grinned. He told me to pick up a set of points and condenser for a V8 Ford, and ride Grandma Jolene carefully. Then he glanced at the woman pacing around my Studebaker in her tight dress and smirked some more. The rural route schoolbuses were starting their run, and kids with cars and people going to work made as much traffic as our backwoods county ever saw. Jolene sat there with her strong legs crossed and her green dress hem two hands above her knees. She said if it wouldn't leave their four kids without a daddy, she'd leave Judd, or better yet shoot him. Said fifteen-year-old girls ought to be kept in a cage until their heads cleared. I did the math. Carl Canbury, her youngest son and my classmate, had joined the Army last year when we graduated. If Jolene and Judd had one kid every year like the gossip said, she was about forty. She had called me a meddling snotnose the time I asked her how old she was. She said I ought to clean out my rolling pigsty, so I made a left on the one-lane dirt road that looped into the hills past the county trash dump. Along the ridgeback above the sprawling fragrant dump was a dead-end pair of ruts leading into a maple grove. I made a right and stopped. Jolene somehow lost her clothes getting out of the car. I chased her through the huckleberry bushes. When I caught that old woman, I rode Grandma Jolene but not very carefully. I let her off at the school cafeteria looking a little blowsy. The rest of the day was like all others. I scraped oil pans clean of baked clay mud and grease, and drove pistons out of the ring squeezer while Pop guided the rods astride the crankshaft. I made about ten bucks.
May23, 1963.
About seven AM, I met Earnest Fraley in front of the store. He asked me if I still wanted to make a hundred dollars a night, driving a car over Fort Mountain to Dalton and driving a panel truck back. I usually made about a hundred dollars a month as flunky for Pop in the garage.He said all they'd do was fine me a little the first time I got caught. He'd pay the fine and I could quit. They'd caught him so many times, he'd go to the pen if they got him again. While we talked, Judd passed by, taking Jolene to work in his 1950 Chevy half-ton. His nose looked like a strawberry and his eyes like cherries, but his jowls were scraped free of bristles and he drove smoothly enough. I felt like a real shit. He was a good carpenter, and an okay guy when he was sober. He didn't deserve some jackleg kid pinning his wife down in a patch of broom sage. But she made some real sexy noises... If I could make five or six runs I'd have enough money to move to Dalton, and get a job, and not go crazy when an old (but real pretty)woman giggled and grabbed me. I guess you could call me one troubled teenager. I asked Earnest how we'd arrange the run, and he said I could work late tomorrow evening at the garage, and he'd bring me the 57 Chevy I would drive to Dalton. He grinned and said the panel truck was loaded with ground corn and sugar, but nobody ever stopped a vehicle rolling into Bleaker County. We shook hands. I was a blockader.
May 24, 1963
It just happened Pop had a car ready for a brake job, so I worked late tearing it down, and cleaning up parts to begin putting it back together. The whole plan fell to flinders. When Earnest parked out front and walked into the garage, I left Jolene on her knees in a dark corner behind the jacked-up 59 Chevy in the north stall. Earnest deviled me about being so sweaty for such low pay, and handed me the keys to a really slick 57 Chevy hardtop sitting out front. He told me to keep my eyes open, and not to try to outrun anybody and kill my fool self. Then he got in the truck with his boy R.L. and they drove off into the night. Jolene was crying. So I hadn't worked late just to see her. I was going to haul moonshine for that SOB Earnest Fraley. I could just go to Hell, then. She swung her short wide skirts around and stormed out. I chased her, begging and whining.
She jerked the passenger door open and sat down in the Chevy and slammed it and locked it. I ran around and opened the driver's door and Jolene screamed like she was on fire. I told her to hush, and sat down. I cranked the 283 small-block and drove onto the county highway. Jolene crossed her legs and glared out the window. We headed over the hump to Dalton. Talk about humiliating. A T-man with a Murray County deputy backing him up pulled us over at the Horseshoe Bend. Jolene started bawling and begged them not to give her little boy a ticket, he was just driving her to see her sister in the Dalton hospital. Blockaders didn't usually have tearful mommies with them. They let us go. We left the car where Fraley told me, in back of a black pool hall in the Newtown section. The panel truck had tow sacks of meal and paper bags of sugar. Made a real good place to repay Jolene for saving my bacon, on the Muddy Knob logging road at the mountain crest, with all them late spring stars twinkling through the fresh green leaves. We got home in the deep dead of the night. We found old Judd laying on the porch passed out. I helped Jolene drag his fat arse inside, out of the chill. I locked up the panel truck in the store lot and went home. My moon running career was over.
Judd Canbury got up so hung over he drank a dipper of water and got drunk again. His wife Jolene poured the pot of grits on his head and ran. She reached the Hi Folks general store as the sun cleared the mountains, and asked if I could take her to work. She was a cook's helper in the elementary school in the county seat. I was eighteen and working as greasemonkey for my father in his two stall garage next door to the store. I asked him if I could give Jolene a ride and he kinda grinned. He told me to pick up a set of points and condenser for a V8 Ford, and ride Grandma Jolene carefully. Then he glanced at the woman pacing around my Studebaker in her tight dress and smirked some more. The rural route schoolbuses were starting their run, and kids with cars and people going to work made as much traffic as our backwoods county ever saw. Jolene sat there with her strong legs crossed and her green dress hem two hands above her knees. She said if it wouldn't leave their four kids without a daddy, she'd leave Judd, or better yet shoot him. Said fifteen-year-old girls ought to be kept in a cage until their heads cleared. I did the math. Carl Canbury, her youngest son and my classmate, had joined the Army last year when we graduated. If Jolene and Judd had one kid every year like the gossip said, she was about forty. She had called me a meddling snotnose the time I asked her how old she was. She said I ought to clean out my rolling pigsty, so I made a left on the one-lane dirt road that looped into the hills past the county trash dump. Along the ridgeback above the sprawling fragrant dump was a dead-end pair of ruts leading into a maple grove. I made a right and stopped. Jolene somehow lost her clothes getting out of the car. I chased her through the huckleberry bushes. When I caught that old woman, I rode Grandma Jolene but not very carefully. I let her off at the school cafeteria looking a little blowsy. The rest of the day was like all others. I scraped oil pans clean of baked clay mud and grease, and drove pistons out of the ring squeezer while Pop guided the rods astride the crankshaft. I made about ten bucks.
May23, 1963.
About seven AM, I met Earnest Fraley in front of the store. He asked me if I still wanted to make a hundred dollars a night, driving a car over Fort Mountain to Dalton and driving a panel truck back. I usually made about a hundred dollars a month as flunky for Pop in the garage.He said all they'd do was fine me a little the first time I got caught. He'd pay the fine and I could quit. They'd caught him so many times, he'd go to the pen if they got him again. While we talked, Judd passed by, taking Jolene to work in his 1950 Chevy half-ton. His nose looked like a strawberry and his eyes like cherries, but his jowls were scraped free of bristles and he drove smoothly enough. I felt like a real shit. He was a good carpenter, and an okay guy when he was sober. He didn't deserve some jackleg kid pinning his wife down in a patch of broom sage. But she made some real sexy noises... If I could make five or six runs I'd have enough money to move to Dalton, and get a job, and not go crazy when an old (but real pretty)woman giggled and grabbed me. I guess you could call me one troubled teenager. I asked Earnest how we'd arrange the run, and he said I could work late tomorrow evening at the garage, and he'd bring me the 57 Chevy I would drive to Dalton. He grinned and said the panel truck was loaded with ground corn and sugar, but nobody ever stopped a vehicle rolling into Bleaker County. We shook hands. I was a blockader.
May 24, 1963
It just happened Pop had a car ready for a brake job, so I worked late tearing it down, and cleaning up parts to begin putting it back together. The whole plan fell to flinders. When Earnest parked out front and walked into the garage, I left Jolene on her knees in a dark corner behind the jacked-up 59 Chevy in the north stall. Earnest deviled me about being so sweaty for such low pay, and handed me the keys to a really slick 57 Chevy hardtop sitting out front. He told me to keep my eyes open, and not to try to outrun anybody and kill my fool self. Then he got in the truck with his boy R.L. and they drove off into the night. Jolene was crying. So I hadn't worked late just to see her. I was going to haul moonshine for that SOB Earnest Fraley. I could just go to Hell, then. She swung her short wide skirts around and stormed out. I chased her, begging and whining.
She jerked the passenger door open and sat down in the Chevy and slammed it and locked it. I ran around and opened the driver's door and Jolene screamed like she was on fire. I told her to hush, and sat down. I cranked the 283 small-block and drove onto the county highway. Jolene crossed her legs and glared out the window. We headed over the hump to Dalton. Talk about humiliating. A T-man with a Murray County deputy backing him up pulled us over at the Horseshoe Bend. Jolene started bawling and begged them not to give her little boy a ticket, he was just driving her to see her sister in the Dalton hospital. Blockaders didn't usually have tearful mommies with them. They let us go. We left the car where Fraley told me, in back of a black pool hall in the Newtown section. The panel truck had tow sacks of meal and paper bags of sugar. Made a real good place to repay Jolene for saving my bacon, on the Muddy Knob logging road at the mountain crest, with all them late spring stars twinkling through the fresh green leaves. We got home in the deep dead of the night. We found old Judd laying on the porch passed out. I helped Jolene drag his fat arse inside, out of the chill. I locked up the panel truck in the store lot and went home. My moon running career was over.
I fought a terrible urge to make a lot of paragraphs, but the boy in character would not have done so, writing in 1963 in a springbound steno pad, with a pencil. Nor would his grammar and word choice have been perfect. Nor would he have recorded dialog. Ouch. Bummer.
A blockader, or moonrunner, transported the 'shine from the maker to the seller. I think all were designated as bootleggers.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. A blockader, or moonrunner, transported the 'shine from the maker to the seller. I think all were designated as bootleggers.
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