2 Heroes & Hooligans in Goose Pimple Junction (23 page)

“Aaaaaaa!” Darryl screamed and jumped, bumping his head on the car ceiling. “What the--”

“Big Darryl, Big Darryl, it’s just me, just me.”

The figure in the backseat sat up, hands raised in an
I surrender
gesture. Darryl glared at Lenny before turning around in his seat and slumping in relief.

Darryl looked in the rear view mirror and addressed his employee. “Lenny Applewhite, you scared the living daylights out of me. What in tarnation are you doing back there? Are you sleeping in the cars? Are you homeless? How long have you been doing this? Man alive, you gave me a fright.”

“Which answer do you want first?”

“You choose.” Darryl’s tone made it clear he was not a happy man.

Lenny rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sleeping. Or trying to. No, I’m not homeless. Uh, what were your other questions?

“How long have you been doing this?”

“Just tonight. I promise.”

“Boy, you got money problems?”

“Naw. I got people problems.”

“Come again?”

“I got a couple of people looking for me, and I’d rather not be found. So I decided to crash here for the night.”

“A jealous husband?”

“No.”

“Drug dealers?”

“Hell, no.”

“Gambling problems?”

“Maybe.” He looked past Darryl at an approaching car and dove onto the backseat again. “Darryl, just drive. I’ll literally owe you big, but can you just drive?”

A dark Chevy Suburban lurked at the entrance to the car lot. Darryl started the Lexus and put it in drive. As he approached the Suburban, he lowered his window and leaned out to holler to its occupants.

“We’re closed for the night, folks, but y’all come back in the morning and I’ll fix you right up.”

Both men in the SUV looked Darryl over and scanned the car lot without saying a word. He sat, breathing hard and watching and waiting. Finally the vehicle slowly began to move, and Darryl watched until the taillights disappeared. Lenny spoke up from the backseat.

“Are they gone?”

“For now.”

“Are you gonna turn me in?”

“No, I’m taking you home—my home—but you got to get your crap together, boy. This could be bad for bidness.”

Darryl sighed as he pulled out of the lot. “I thought I was hiring you. I didn’t plan on taking you to raise.”

You should dress for every occasion; there’s no sense in resembling a washwoman.

~Southern Proverb

T
he third Saturday in October, the day of Goose Pimple Junction’s forty-ninth annual Oktoberfest, was a picture-perfect day. At six o’clock in the evening, the sun was just starting its descent, bringing hints of a slight chill to the warm day. The trees were full of golden, red, and orange leaves. Every once in a while, a gust of wind sent them flying through the air like confetti.

Kids darted around the tables and booths of food and crafts for sale. The scents of spicy bratwurst, grease, and beer wafted over the cool grass while a group of girls talked and giggled, glancing covertly at a group of letter jackets and ball hats who were not so covertly looking back. Feedback from an amp brought all eyes toward the musicians preparing to play, as spectators gravitated toward festival activities. Along the pathway, some old men sat on a bench under the huge oaks and maples of the town green, smiling, nodding, and swapping tall tales.

Costumes were optional but favored at the festival. Most people in town wanted a chance to win the best costume prize—the use of a 1993 Mazda Miata for a year, courtesy of Big Darryl D’s Car Country.

Martha Maye and Butterbean’s feet crunched leaves as they walked down the color-laden sidewalk. Butterbean had to walk sideways at times to squeeze the cumbersome yellow horizontal cardboard cutout she was sandwiched into through the crowd. In the middle of the cutout, she had thin strips of red, orange, and green tissue paper sticking out from her brown turtleneck.

Honey and Maddy Mack were waiting at the edge of the town green. “Aw, look at you!” Honey said. “You look good enough to eat.”

“I’m a taco!” Butterbean said, spreading her arms out wide.

“And you’re the best gosh darn taco I’ve ever seen.”

Maddy Mack was dressed as the Energizer Bunny, and Butterbean reached up to touch the big pink ears attached to the top of her pink hoodie. She wore pink sweatpants, pink thong sandals, a bass drum strapped to her chest, and sunglasses.

Maddy Mack began moving in a circle, beating the drum. “What about me? How do I look?” she yelled over the drumming.

“Maddy Mack, you look like the real thing!” Butterbean said, clapping.

Martha Maye, in a white floor-length dress, with rows and rows of frilly layers draped over a hoop skirt, looked like Scarlett O’Hara.

Her hands rested on top of the wide skirt. “I don’t know how women wore these things.” She took in Honey’s costume and said, “I do declare, Elvira, you look stunning! And more comfortable than I am.”

Honey’s blond hair was covered with a black wig—bouffant at the top, cascading into long straight tresses. Her full-length black dress plunged at the overflowing bustline, nearly exposing her entire chest. With a slit in the skirt all the way up her right thigh, the dress hugged her hips and thin waist. There wasn’t much of Honey’s hourglass figure left to the imagination. Six-inch black heels at the end of long, shapely legs finished the look.

“You put the
va
in
va va va voom
.” Martha Maye hugged her friend’s shoulders.

Quoting Elvira, Honey said, “If they ever ask about me, tell them I was more than just a great set of boobs. I was also an incredible pair of legs.” She parted her long skirt, flashing her entire leg, as well as a huge smile.

“Honey, you’re too much.” She looked around the town square. “Oh look! There’s Tess and Jack! Aren’t they adorable?” Martha Maye waved to the couple.

“They’re just two pumpkins,” Honey said disdainfully.

“Not just any old pumpkins,” Martha Maye said. “He’s a
Jack
-o’-lantern, and she’s a
Jill
-o’-lantern. Get it?”

“No, I don’t. Her name’s not Jill.” Honey frowned.

“Oh, you. C’mon, let’s go watch the parade with them.”

As a pack of dachshunds and their owners walked down the middle of Main Street, Jack was explaining to Tess about the parade.

“For some reason nobody seems to know, Goose Pimple Junction has had an above average number of dachshunds for years. So a while back, somebody got the bright idea to have a wiener dog race and parade,” Jack explained.

“Just so long as they don’t mingle the parade with the bratwurst grilling,” Tess said. Then she noticed Martha Maye. “Aw, look at you! Don’t you make a beautiful Southern belle!”

“I’m not just any ol’ Southern belle, I’m Scarlett.” Martha Maye smiled and swept her skirt side to side in a half-circle to show it off, bumping some people, who turned to stare.

“And I’m a taco.” Butterbean jumped up and down.

“I see you are.” Tess reached out to fluff the cheese and lettuce—the green and orange tissue paper.

“You’re making me hungry for Mexican food,” Jack told Butterbean.

“And
you
, little lady, you look good enough to beat the band,” he said to Maddy Mack.

“Badum ching,” Tess said.

“Well hellooooo,” Honey said. “I feel like a pork chop at a bar mitzvah over here.”

“We were saving the best for last, Elvira. Don’t you poor-mouth yourself,” Tess said consolingly. “You look mahvalous, darling,” she said.

“Mama! Look at Ms. Schottenstein’s Oscar.” Butterbean pointed to a dachshund in the parade dressed as a taco. “She stole my idea.”

There was also a dachshund dressed as a hot dog, one as a dinosaur, one as a cheerleader. Two dogs being walked by the same owner were dressed like ketchup and mustard bottles. Behind them was one dressed as a skunk, another as a banana split.

“They have just about everything here,” Tess said, laughing at a dog dressed as Elvis.

“Oh, this is serious business,” Jack said. “Some of the owners will start planning next year’s costume tomorrow.”

“How long you lived here, Tess?” Honey asked.

“About five months,” Tess said. “I guess that makes me the newbie in town.”

As the last of the dogs passed and the crowd lining the sidewalks started to disperse, Gus Crowley, the owner of the town’s gas station, came by. “Bet I can whoop your butt at horseshoes, Jack.”

“I’ll take that bet and add a game of cornhole to the wager, too,” Jack boasted. “Come on, y’all, be my good luck charms, and come watch me kick Crowley’s behind.”

They strolled through the town green taking everything in. There were pumpkins everywhere—short ones, tall ones, fat ones, skinny ones, big ones up on rocks. Most had been turned into jack-o’-lanterns, some had not.

Tables set up on the town green were loaded with food—barbecue, turtle soup, pork chop sandwiches, potato salad, green beans, corn pudding, zucchini bread, pumpkin bread, apple cobbler, and ice cream. Smoke billowed from a grill, sending the smell of bratwursts into the air, along with that of the fried apple pies bubbling in deep fryers, and apple butter simmering in big cast-iron kettles. It was nothing short of a feast, just as the decorations of pumpkins, cornstalks, and colorful leaves were a feast for the eyes.

By seven o’clock, the festivities were in full swing. Butterbean kept bumping into people with her taco shell costume every time she turned around. She and Maddy Mack wanted to enter the pumpkin carving contest and visit the face-painting table, so they begged off watching the cornhole and horseshoe contests, and Jack and Tess went on without them.

After they carved a tall pumpkin into a scary jack-o’-lantern and a big fat pumpkin into a silly jack-o’-lantern for the contest, the girls had bright orange pumpkins painted on their cheeks.

Next, Maddy Mack and Butterbean wanted to ride in the hay wagon. As they walked toward the tractor, they found Louetta, dressed as a nurse, and Ima Jean, dressed as a doctor.

“Aunt Imy! Look at you!” Martha Maye held out her arms. “And Mama—y’all look great!”

“I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV,” Ima Jean said.

“Want to take a hayride?” Butterbean asked them.

“Well sure, hon, that sounds like fun.” Lou grabbed her granddaughter’s hand.

“Martha Maye, y’all go on ahead. I’ll catch up to you,” Honey said, disappearing into the crowd. “I have to see a man about a horse.” She waggled her eyebrows.

Lou leaned into Martha Maye. “She maybe has to see a man, but I’d bet a day’s pay it ain’t about no horse.”

With Lou and Ima Jean in tow, the girls and Martha Maye again headed toward the hay wagon, but this time Lenny stopped them. “Carrie Lou!” Lenny, a few meters away, yelled. “Come say hello to your daddy.”

She turned to look at him and nearly knocked over Mrs. Schottenstein’s four-year-old daughter.

Like a baseball catcher, Lenny squatted, his arms outstretched for a hug.

Butterbean looked up at her mother, unsure of what to do. Martha Maye reassured her. “Go ahead, Bean. I’ll be right here.” She kissed the top of her daughter’s head.

Butterbean nervously looked from her mother to her father to Lou, to Ima Jean, and back to her father. Then she slowly walked toward Lenny, scuffing her feet in the grass with her head down, like she was heading to the gallows.

“How about a nice Hawaiian Punch?” Ima Jean yelled at Lenny, her fist held high in the air.

“Shhh now, none of that, Imy.” Lou patted her arm, pulling her hand down. “Come on, Bean doesn’t need an audience. I can’t stand to watch anyhow.” The two moved on.

As Martha Maye stood by, arms crossed defiantly and eyes shooting daggers at Lenny, Johnny appeared at her side. “She’ll be all right. I’ve got my people all around here. He tries anything funny and he’ll get nabbed before he can say ‘kerfuffle.’“

Martha Maye smiled up at him. “What the heck is a kerfuffle?”

He looked down at her with a serious expression. “A commotion or a fuss.”

“Hey, Clutterfield, I thought I told you to leave my wife alone!” Lenny hustled past his daughter and stopped a few feet away from Johnny and Martha Maye.

“And I told you to stay away from this woman, Mr. Applewhite.” Johnny stabbed his finger in the air at Lenny.