I like continuing stories. I like to wonder what is going to happen in the next chapter. I guess my love for continuing stories came from those wonderful childhood days of my parents reading one chapter at a time from my childhood books. I never wanted them to stop reading. My favorite part of school was the portion of the day when the teacher would have all of us put our books away and listen to her read to us from a childhood classic. Chapter by chapter. Day by day. Year after year. It never got old for me. Years later, when I became the teacher, I broke all the secondary rules and read aloud to my high school students. They loved it. We read novel after novel. We shared reading aloud, we read silently and we read in groups, but the students always loved it the most when I read to them. Chapter by chapter. Day by day. Year after year. It never got old for them.
I guess you know by now that many of my posts for 30-2 Days of Writing will be on a continuing theme. However, my continuing theme is carried over from last year's 30-2 Days of Writing, so newcomers may not know my characters and the continuing plot line. I am going to give newcomers a link to the old posts if they are interested in checking out the lives of Cooter and the gang. When I went back and reread the posts, I became aware of some inconsistencies in the story line as the characters developed from post to post. I was very tempted to edit those mistakes, but decided to leave them as they were for now.
So if you need to catch up, here you go. I hope I can tempt you to come back. Chapter by chapter. Day by day. I hope it never gets old for you.
Speaking of catching up, I shall now attempt to catch up with two days and get back on track. The following post contains two stories with the prompts for the last two days. This has been a public service announcement.
If you are not too worn out after all this reading, be sure to go to We Work For Cheese and read the works of the other participants. They are much better than me. Really. They're all cheesy.
If you are not too worn out after all this reading, be sure to go to We Work For Cheese and read the works of the other participants. They are much better than me. Really. They're all cheesy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barbara Sue was still ranting and raving when Ethyl and I decided we couldn't take anymore. Police sirens were blaring, people were running all over the streets checking on the safety of neighbors and the town's one ambulance was bouncing from place to place like a pin ball on crack. The tornado had left a path of destruction behind, but it was nothing compared to the wrath of Barbara Sue.
I tried to distract Barbara Sue by convincing her to relax on the couch and providing her with her favorite snack, a cold bottle of Coke with salted peanuts poured in the bottom. While she was busy trying to fish the peanuts out with her tongue, Ethyl and I crept out the front door, hijacked Barbara Sue's mini-van and headed back to The Rack 'n Roll Pool Hall.
Buck and Cooter were sitting at a table with a half empty bottle of Wild Turkey and three wide eyed, silent, towhead boys. Cooter stood up as best he could when he saw me walk in.
"I was scared you weren't coming back and I would have to spend the rest of my life with Bobby Lee and these boys. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have talked to you like that."
"Is that an apology, Cooter?"
"It's as close as you're gonna get for now. Don't you owe me apology first?"
"Okay. I'm sorry I went to the football field with that turd, Bobby Lee."
Bobby Lee squirmed under the cross, "I can hear you!"
The pool hall broke into laughter. Ethyl and I sat down at the table while Buck poured us each a shot.
Ethyl stared at the boys in disbelief.
"Buck, did you threaten those boys? I have never seen them so quiet or so still."
"Those boys are fine, Ethyl. They just needed a lesson in manners."
"What did you say to those boys, Buck?"
"I didn't say nothin'. I duct taped them."
Ethyl pulled out the chair of the boy sitting closest to her. Wrapped around his waist and the back of the chair were several yards of silver duct tape.
"Buck! These aren't your kids. You've got to have your own kids before you can start abusing them. You could probably get in trouble with the law for duct taping a kid."
"They were running around here like chickens with their heads cut off, Ethyl. They wouldn't listen to a thing I said. Bobby Lee was even wiggling around and yelling at them from under that cross and they just laughed at him. I thought it was the humane thing to do to just tape 'em down. There is a lot of broken glass on the floor. I probably saved their lives. I know I saved them a lot of pain if Cooter and I had gotten hold of them."
"Well, can you let them go play outside now?"
Buck asked the boys if they wanted to play outside and they all three nodded their heads in unison. Buck stood up and carried each chair outside and placed all three chairs on the porch with the boys still taped firmly in place.
"You boys can watch the police cars go by."
When Buck joined us at the table, the conversation turned to Barbara Sue and her conniption fit.
Buck shook his head in disbelief, "I've never seen her that mad before."
I probably shouldn't have said it, but I just had to. "Do you know what she told Ethyl and me about the tornado and the cross landing on Bobby Lee? She said it was no accident."
Ethyl piped in, "She said that she was so upset about being home alone in a bad thunderstorm while Bobby Lee was out on the town carousing around that she just prayed for it."
Buck and Cooter said it in unison. "Prayed for what?"
I didn't answer for awhile. I was trying to keep the smile off my face.
"She prayed for Bobby Lee to be hit with the healing power of Jesus."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I guess we shouldn't have had that conversation within the hearing range of Bobby Lee. Seems that he wasn't real happy with Barbara Sue's prayer. He was raging underneath that cross. Buck finally gave in.
"He's gonna tear the hell out of the felt on that pool table if we don't get him off of it. I figure he's been bearing the weight of that cross long enough."
It took all four of us to lift that cross off of him. It was a miracle that he was alive at all. However, it didn't appear that he was giving thanks for miracles at that moment. Bobby Lee jumped off that pool table like a banty rooster looking for a fight. We all jumped back out of his way. There had been enough damage done in The Rack 'n Roll Pool Hall for one night.
Without a word, Bobby Lee grabbed the keys to the minivan off of the table where we had been sitting. He was limping a bit and groaning some, but he was moving like a buzz saw through that pool hall. When he got to the minivan, he unlocked the back gate and laid down the seats. He grabbed the first boy still duct taped to his chair and laid the chair in the back of the van. With the second boy, he had to turn the chair and it's occupant on their sides to fit in the van. As hard as he tried, Bobby Lee couldn't get his third son to fit in the back of the van, so he opened the sunroof and placed the chair and the boy upside down through the roof. Of course the chair would only go so far, so the boy was dangling upside down in the car. He was screaming in terror and kicking his legs wildly on the roof of the car.
Bobby Lee never said a word to us. He never even looked at us as he packed his minivan with chairs, arms, legs and blond screaming heads. He just started his car, turned it in the direction of his house and took off. The last thing we saw was a Bobby Lee sticking his hand out his window and flipping us the bird.
Buck, Ethyl, Cooter and I stood on the porch laughing.
Buck shook his head in disbelief, "Maybe he can claim temporary insanity."
No comments:
Post a Comment