“Terrance, I done told you to lay off
that rot-gut.”
“It ain't rot-gut, ma, it's just
whiskey.”
Terrance never was too bright, and when
his ma told him it was rot-gut, he should have just believed it was
rot-gut. A kid can't go around second-guessing his ma too long,
'fore something bad happens and he winds up hurtin', dead, or dumber
than he was before. Like that story of the brush chipper I was
tellin' you all about – how Jared Austin got hisself all up and
killed just by being a little too careless.
But then, I already told you about
that.
Terrance always got that rot-gut
whiskey from that man up in Blanchers who was known to have a still
out back of his barn and who kept it hid behind a bunch of old
machinery. Sheriff Morgan never went 'round there to check out
things, and everyone says that there might have been some kind of a
deal struck there. I ain't sayin' that, mind you – that's just
what everyone says.
I ain't sayin' it.
So Terrance would get that rot-gut and
go off on a wild spree, drinkin' and cuttin' up, and hangin' out with
his friends up in Cotton City. He lost his job at the mill, and took
to livin' back at home – that's how his ma got to knowin' about
his drinkin' in a real first-hand sorta' way. She seen' it. His
aunt Lila seen' it. The mail delivery driver seen' it – seen' it
when he was passed out in the culvert with his coveralls bunched up
'round his ankles 'cause he was drunk and didn't want his ma to hear
him having the trots in the house. Dumb, drunk Terrance saw it fit
to do his business out in the culvert, and he was still there when
the mail came around.
Word travels fast, and folks 'most
already knew the truth, anyway.
There was time that Terrance had to
spend in the pokey in Haverland, 'course, and I think Sheriff Morgan
liked havin' a little fun with him whenever he had the chance. No
one said a thing, even though some seen' it. Lotsa' folks suspected
it, but none could ever prove it.
Terrance didn't last too long. He
wasn't near' as old as his old man was when he passed away. Terrance
done dumb things, and then he done some dumber things. Dumbest thing
of all was ever getting' started down a road that he shouldn't have
set foot on. You know how that goes? You know roads like that? You
know how a road can look like it's goin' in one direction when you
set out, and then by the time you ain't too far down that road,
you're headin' right' different.
And so it was that his ma looked at the
piled up dirt on the grave and thought about things a ma should say
and things a ma just can't. You know how it is. I ain't never been
a ma, but I think I know as well as anyone – we all do. Anyone
that has seen fit to ever think about right and wrong or even just
been faced with the difference. You see it and you can hardly not
think about it. You can't hardly let the thoughts form ideas and the
ideas form words and those words form right into the shapes on your
tongue and on your lips and they damn near come rollin' out your
mouth. Even rollin' out words when you're lookin' at piled up dirt on
a grave.
“Terrance, I done told you to lay off
that rot-gut.”
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