Come ag’in?
Well, hey! Been a long time!
This here’s Liam! Liam Goodwell, scion ‘n third son o’ us Denton County Goodwells!
You shore been missed!
Well, mostly….when I had me half a minute to think. This here started a long hot bacon-sizzlin’ summer, I tell you what. Been plantin’ an’ mowin’ and haulin’ an’ stuff like that there till I been fallin’ dead to rights on my bed come bedtime with my boots still hangin’ from my feet! Now, my big brothers, they pummice me with pillers ’till I wake enough to kick ’em off…often in their di-rection. Last ev’nin’, bam! Nailed ol’ Linc upside the head! Boom! Smacked ol’ Lawrence in the left elbow.
Then Lawrence, he catched that boot ‘fore it hit the floor and usin’ his pitchin’ prowess, sent a fast and hard strike to my midsection. Oooof. Daddy hollered from the other room, “Hey, you fellers, put yerselves a stop to what’s goin’ on in there ‘r I’m a’comin’ in!”
Game over. Lawrence smirked, victorious once ag’in. His timin’, I’ll admit, rests on the edge of perfection.
Oooof.
But that ain’t here nor there. You been missed and I ‘spect I best claim responsibility, as I ain’t writ fer weeks an’ days. Seems plumb f’ever, somehow.
‘Ppears we Goodwells, however, we have us a sit-iation. Over the course o’ the last seven days, or six, we been gittin’ these visits ‘most daily from our neighbor to the northeast, Leston Pike. Scrawny son of a gun, long and lanky with stooped shoulders an’ long monkey arms what sway back ‘n forth near to his knees. Ol’ Leston, he’s tanned to leather, with a skinny hooked nose an’ a straw yeller hairs stickin’ out his ears. Good feller, but keeps to hisself, hence the mystery o’ his visits. No family to speak of, lest you count his hound dog, Drum. An’ his sister Wandette what lives over to St. Joe an’ who drives over most ever’ Sunday to cook him a proper dinner an’ who fixes hair fer a livin’.
‘Cept Leston’s. That ol’ hair in his ears near always looks the same before she come to visit an’ after she takes off back home in her shiny green Buick. Business must be brisk at her hair fixin’ place.
Well, as I was sayin’, Leston’s been hikin’ over jest past noontime dinner right reg’lar. Him an’ Daddy, they set out on the front porch, sippin’ Mama’s sweet tea. Grandpap, he ain’t a part o’ these here conversations, which I find odd and some disconcertin’. He makes hisself scarce, busyin’ hisself in the barn out out to the garden.
He hums a little bit, too, jest like Mama when she’s a’hoppin’ mad an’ dancin’ with the point o’ no return. This here gives me pause.
That them two on the porch, they never do really look to-wards one another, but talk out to the yard out front, that they talk in whispers, near, gives me yet another pause.
Never did like whisperin’, be it ‘tween goofy gigglin’ girls or fellers down to town on a corner, sizin’ up passersby. Whisperin’ tells me one thing. If what they have to say ain’t fer public consumption, it ain’t worth sayin’. Hairs stand to attention at the back o’ my neck, if I’ve had me a recent haircut. Mama calls it a sixth sense, says she’s got it too, and Law, I do believe her! I could tell you stories.
An’ I believe she and me, we’re kindred spirits that way some, but when it come to soft talk an’ eyes what holler “hush hush” when me or anybody gets too close, well, I don’t speculate so much as jest get mad.
Luce, my next oldest sister, she says I’m jest feelin’ self-important, that I ain’t s’posed to know ever’thing ’bout ever’body. An’ maybe she’s right.
An’ then, maybe she ain’t.
Either way, whisperin’ an’ a’talkin’ an’ sneakin’ ’round ain’t any part o’ what I claim is right.
(‘Cept when it comes, I reckon, to birthdays and Christmastime…but I digress.)
So this day, the burblin’ in my tummy set me in motion and I found me a quiet nook in the gap ‘twixt the porch an’ the leanto me an’ my big brothers call our room. Cool soft dirt what puffs jest a bit when I git myself settled. I give myself some deny-ability (That’s what Luce called it when she found me and tossed me a gunnysack to lay my head) were anybody to find me down in my hide-y hole. Jest restin’ my eyes a bit ‘fore I head back out fer chores, I’d imply.
Now, while I’d imply, I’d never lie. Not out loud. That there, that’d be a sin, and duplicitous in the eyes of the good Lord Almighty! No sir-eee! No sinnin’ fer me!
Jest eavesdroppin’. Ain’t no commandment ’bout that I heard tell of.
I settle myself in an’ wait fer Leston and Daddy to saunter out with their iced sweet tea an’ tell that front yard a thing ‘r two.
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Belles and Whistles 