The Brown Bread Brigade

Mum wasn’t officially a member of the Brown Bread Brigade. It was more of a professional association, as there was plenty of crossover between them and the Killybegs Writer’s Group. But to Dad there was little more than a crust in the difference and he used the term synonymous with both groups.

The Brown Bread Brigade were crusty people as most would describe them, not saying they weren’t nice, most of them were very nice, but they all had that crusty element that separated them from true poets and writers, like the woolen jumpers that looked like they belonged to Scandinavian fishermen and the un-kept hair that was always tied back with a rubber band. But I suppose the main difference was that they liked to bake bread more than they liked to write poetry. I remember having some brown bread baked by one of Mum’s friend’s and it was great, not as great as Granny’s, but not bad with a slab of butter and jam on it.

Ester was the leader of the Brown Bread Brigade as far as I could tell. She used to live up above Melly’s Chip Shop, next door to Tony Deany’s. She was always very friendly to Tony and me and her husband (Man friend, I don’t know if Brown Bread Brigade people were allowed to marry, kind of went against the grain of the feminist side of the culture) let us sit on his motorbike that had the Isle of Man TT sticker on it.

Then there was Miffy, her understudy. She lived with Geraldine for a while, who was considered a member of the Brown Bread Brigade, but later she went over to the writer’s side full time. Miffy was very pretty when she was young and we were kids. She went out with Damien Dowds that lived next door to us when we were up St. Cummin’s Hill. Anyway, she was far too good looking to be hiding behind 80lbs of wool and baking bread. I wonder if she’s still in the Brigade?

I don’t know what Dad had against the Brown Bread Brigade, but whenever he and Mum were having a row, sooner or later the phrase “You and that fucking Brown Bread Brigade, why don’t you all just fuck off!” would pop up out of nowhere. There didn’t seem to be any harm in them as far as I was concerned, so what if they were a little new age and crusty.

I was a little too young to understand them completely at the time, but now looking back I can see they had a great way of life; living on the edge of accepted society, not quite Moonies or Hippies, they were their own kind of outsider. They took this quite literally when they moved out to St. John’s Point, a peninsula jutting six miles out into the Atlantic Ocean. I can’t remember if the house was Ester’s or Miffy’s, but I remember both of them being there and my Aunt Geraldine was sunbathing naked down the back of the house. However, we were more interested in the front of the house, where that summer a school of porpoise came close to the coast and for the good shelter offered by the Point and the rich feeding grounds, they decided to stay for a while. It was amazing to watch those giant mammals playing in the ocean like it was some kind of school yard or playground. The docile cows in the fields looked on at them thinking “fucking edgets, would you look at them fecking around like there’s no tomorrow.” Cows are very somber animals and need to relax if you ask me. They could learn a thing or two from the porpoise.

I am not sure if any of them actually worked full time or not (I’m talking about the Brown Bread folks now not the cows), or if they just lived on the dole and government allowances, maybe that’s what pissed Dad off about them. I know that Miffy went to put her fisherman’s jumper to good use and fished on my Uncle Kevin’s boat the Rose De Vore for a while. So did my cousin Lynn Murphy after she got her skipper’s ticket, but I don’t think the Brown Bread Brigade was a good fit for her.

I always liked the sound of the name “The Brown Bread Brigade.” Dad’s use of the word kind of gave them authority and validation. The only other brigade I knew growing up in Killybegs was the Fire Brigade, but as far as I know the Brown Bread Brigade didn’t have a fire engine and were not called out to chimney fires as much. Could you imagine five crusties running up the main street in Killybegs, past Gallagher’s shop and McHugh’s Video shop with loaves in arm and woolly jumpers flaying in the wind shouting: “Out of the way people, we got bread, we got brown bread!” Dogs would bark and kids would cheer them on and old women would complain that they were going too fast and sure it wasn’t like the whole house was on fire.

fecking loaf in the lake and kills a duck. I literally choked on the dentist’s instruments I laughed so hard.

The boy’s mother was the ultimate Brown Bread Brigade member. She was a total save the whales candidate with her “I hate the world ‘cause the world hates me” attitude and over sized woolly jumper! Christ, can you remember the clothes she sent her kid to school in? But then it’s sad when they get home and the mother has tried to kill herself, which made me stop laughing and think about my own mother.

The kid in the movie, Marcus, reminds me of my younger brother Bruce when he was that age. Although Bruce would never sing Killing me Softly out of key, with his eyes closed, but in other ways the kid and Bruce were alike. Both as young boys had mothers who were lost to them and to themselves. Both were gentle, good natured boys with a love of music. Genuine in their gratefulness, like getting the crappy socks for Christmas and when the rest of us would be like “ah fuck great, they’ll go fantastic with my hand knitted shitty scarf” they be like “thanks, I’ll get great use out of them” and actually mean it. I think it was hardest on Bruce to lose his mother, he was the most in need of her, and the sad fucking part of it is that he lost her years before she died.

Mum might not have worn the woolly jumpers all the time, but she definitely had the inclination, she was more of an all-day in pajamas person. When the time came and mum never got out of her pajamas it was like trying to talk to a brick wall, except you could get more response out of the wall than you could out of mum when she was in that one dimensional phase. Drove me fucking nuts. You could never have shouted loud enough that she would hear you. Just nod the head and avert the eyes. She didn’t deserve all the self pity she drowned herself in. There was still too much love floating around her, the buoy was there, all she had to do was grab hold.

Now that I think of it Mum could never have been a full fledged Brown Bread Brigade member, ‘because she like the mother in About a Boy, couldn’t bake for shit.

Friday Nights at Granny’s

Friday nights were always the best at Granny’s house. Derek and I would be off school for the whole weekend on Friday afternoon; I was finished before Derek at 2 o’clock ‘cause I was a whole fourteen months younger and baby-infants and high-infants always got out at two. The thought even of having to stay till three scared me and I wanted to get off school at 2 o’clock forever. Of course, as I got older I had to stay later.

I’d rush home from the Nial Mhor National School, down the hill by the Fire Brigade, up the Back Street and past the Bank of Ireland. We nearly always had to stop to play at the window of Thornton’s, even though they closed down a long time ago. Their window holds magic and not just for children either, because I’ve seen adults play on it when they get drunk – and I’ve been one of those drunk adults.

You have to press your face flat up against the window and look down to the end of it, with one eye closed, where one of your friends would be standing, lifting his left leg and waving his left arm, bobbing his head to and fro and by some crazy law of refraction you are able to see another image perfectly symmetrical to the other and it moves exactly the same except on the other plane and it appeares as one body moving the same way in two directions at once. Cool.

This joviality usually lasted for five or ten minutes depending upon the creativity of the performers. I’d say “see you later” to Declan or call him “Decky” or “Colonel Decker” when I got to the Sail Inn. I’d go up The Hill and he’d go on up to Conlin Road, he lived up past Curan’s shop, next door to Granny’s house, we didn’t walk all the way home together.

I’d trek up Stony Batter with Ciaran and John Martin and some other stragglers and Patrick Caraban but he was younger than us and he mother was English and his dad was an engineer or something. And even though he was younger, we liked him and with his round head and red hair I found him quite interesting, everyone in my family had dark hair and angular features, he didn’t look like any of them.

Without fail, at the top of Stony Batter, John James Burke, John Martin’s father, would be there to relieve us of our ‘mala scoiles’ (school bags in Irish). He must have been the strongest man in the world ‘cause just one bag nearly broke my back with all the copy books and school books and work books and pencils and rubbers and toppers and crusted pieces of bread. But no bother to John James, he took eight or ten bags and carried them the whole way up St. Cummins Hill, which was the steepest hill for miles and miles around. From the half way point you could turn around and see a spectacular view of the harbor with all the fishing boats tied up at the pier, you could see men driving forklifts in and out of the auction hall and the gulls would be shitting all over the place as they swooped down to snatch a stray fish fallen from a box. Beyond that you could see all the big houses over in Ben Roe and beyond that you could see all the way over to Ballyshannon and Bundoran, but you could see them better at night when their lights twinkled like fairy lights on a Christmas tree.

Recently, the County Council had put in a railing that ran all the way up the steepest part of the hill and we used it to drag ourselves up the bastard of an incline. John Martin was real proud of his Dad for carrying the bags. I wondered why my father never carried the bags.

At the top of the Hill, which wasn’t really the top at all, just the beginning of even more hill, was the first house, the Friel’s house. The grey hounds would be barking at us and the donkey tied to the ESB pole would be braying at us and old Eddy Friel, if he was not yet too drunk would be shouting at us and Leo would say hello.

Leo was Derek’s friend and even though he was older than Derek he still talked to me and even played with me, but I was still scared of him. Their house was no. 18 and ours was no. 14 and other people called him a tinker, but I liked him and his older sister babysat us. But I didn’t like the way their house smelled, it reminded me of Jayes Fluid and once I helped carry a baby’s cot for a new baby in the house and I stuck my hand in cat shit, I didn’t like going in the house after that.
At our house John James would unload my school bag and I would go into the house to start watching Bosco or anything else that was on Bog 1 or Bog 2, the names we called the Irish television channels and I’d wait for Derek to come home. Mam would make me a cup of tea and sometimes give me a treat if Derek wasn’t home yet. But my sister Jenny would have to have the same ‘cause she was she was younger and would have a tantrum if she didn’t get what she wanted.

There was a giant birdcage on top of the TV with budgies and cockatiels in it, spitting sunflowers seeds onto the floor. I use to love watching Mam hover them up, it was amazing to see the piles of seeds instantly disappear, sucked up into the Nilfisk. When I was able to, I hovered them myself, it was totally fascinating to see them instantly disappear, it was as near to magic that we got on our house.
When Derek got home Mam would nag us to get ready for staying over at Granny’s, ‘cause we wouldn’t leave the TV alone. So we grabbed the rough sacs and packed pajamas for after our bath and clothes for Saturday because Granda might take us to Donegal or Sligo.

In those days we only got one bath a week and it was always on Friday night, no matter if we were at home or at Granny’s, unless we were at Paddy’s then we didn’t get one at all ‘cause they didn’t have running water. So it became something of an institution among all the people I knew in Killybegs to get really cleaned up on Friday nights and try to stay half-way decent till the following Friday, even if they had hot water all the time and a shower in the house.

We had no car and Dad was always out fishing or working so we walked by ourselves down to Granny’s. He worked a lot since he stopped drinking and now we had a phone and a video and hardly anyone else had those up The Hill. John Martin told Mam that “I had the life of Riley.”

If it wasn’t raining and if we were brave enough we’d go the short cut by The Circle and come out the back of Emerald Park soccer pitch, and come in the back way by Granda’s workshop. But mostly it was raining and we weren’t brave enough cause of the Murrin twins and the Kerry brothers who lived around The Circle. They would try to bully us, they were much older than us and there was nothing we could do. So we’d end up going down St. Cummins Hill and around by the cottages. The cottages were just houses that looked like ours, only they were older and nicer. St. Cummins Hill was very new and we were one of the first families to move into it after it was built. Granny’s house was on Conlin Road, although some argued, like Stephen Laferty, that it was actually Marine Drive ‘cause there was a green sign that said so, like the one that said St. Cummins Hill. But there was no sign for the Circle, so I guess they were part of Cummins Hill too even if we didn’t like them to be. But we all called it Conlin Road; me, Derek, Declan, Mam and even Granny and Granda. Conlin Road was even older than the cottages and some houses had big trees in the front and back gardens.

Granny’s house had the biggest trees and the most beautiful gardens. They’d won lots of trophies for her and she gave the trophies to me and Derek when she didn’t want them anymore. Dad was looking at the one she gave me and the base fell off, it probably wasn’t his fault, but he’d broken my Transformer on Christmas the year before trying to make it into a robot and this Christmas he broke my huge black Gobot Jeep. I thought he was trying to break my stuff and I cried, but I guess they were just accidents.

When you walked up No. 64, you’d get the most beautiful smells from all the flowers and the cherry blossom trees that had coconut shells hanging from it. The shells were used to feed the birds, Granny would put left over fat and lard into them and the birds would go crazy hanging from them and eating the delicious lard. Granny’s garden always had tons of birds in it, more than any other garden in the whole world. There was on rock in it, brought from St. John’s Point years ago, that had a depression in it and collected rain water, the birds used it as a bath and it was amazing to see them playing in it, like they knew it was Friday and time for a bath.

Granny was usually in the garden pulling weeds wearing yellow or pink Marigold rubber gloves and had a trowel in her hand. She loved her garden and it showed by the beautiful growth. Anything Granny loved; grew very well.

She’d greet us with a big hug, she never liked to kiss children ‘cause you just never knew who had a dirty, disgusting old cole-sore and especially she didn’t like people kissing babies. She said that’s why Kenneth Murphy always had a cole-sore ‘cause someone kissed him when he was a baby and now he always has one.

We’d all go in the house and throw our stuff in Magella’s old room. She was now living in Aileen and Pat’s old room and we’d go in there even though we were told not to and she had pictures of naked women on the walls. Her room was very exotic, we learned that word from Mam, and interesting, we loved to explore it. There was an old clog covered in barnacles that rested on a shelf, we were told Kevin, her boyfriend, lost it and when they found it, all the barnacles had grown on it. There was also a peacock’s feather in a vase and we would tickle our faces with it, but the naked ladies always took the most of our interest. There was one lady inside a glass bubble and it looked like she was on the moon and all alone and I wanted to be in there with her and kiss her, then she wouldn’t be alone at all. Derek liked the one of the lady swimming naked on her back, the sun was setting on her and she glowed red.

Her old room was not quite as exotic but there were still plenty of fun, cool things to root through, like the wooden box that had old Irish money and English money in it, along with postcards and fancy soaps that smelled great. There was a calendar with a blue train on it, but it wasn’t Magella’s, ‘cause we were there when Granny and Granda got it in Sligo at the train station and Kenneth Murphy stepped on the side of the real blue train and Granda told him not to and people thought he and Lynn were sisters ‘cause they had the same furry gold colored coats and Santa gave him a girl’s present. That made him very mad and when we teased him about it he tried to beat-up me and my cousin Paddy.

Granny would tell us that dinner was at half-six and to bring a cup of tea out to Granda in the work shop. Granda would be in the office with Bruce the dog at his feet. Grand was always wild excited to see us and no matter how busy he was he’d get up and bring us into the part of the workshop with all the tools and where his inventions were and where Miles and Johnny worked. Johnny was a “useless bollocks” Granny said and Miles was a great young fella from down Glenties way. She said Johnny was always stinking up her bathroom. If a new order of equipment had come in then the big box under the bench would be full of the best boxes and bubble paper. Derek and I would root through it until we found what we wanted, making sure to shake off the cigarette ashes that Johnny flicked in there.

Then we would say we were off to the Cunnigham’s, Declan and Kevin’s house, which Granny and Granda and even Mam called The Boyle’s. They called it that ‘cause Una Cunnigham, their mother, was Una Boyle before she married Colm Cunnigham and Granny and the rest couldn’t get use to the name change for the house, ‘cause the house was there longer than they were married.

Declan was my age but Kevin was a year older than Derek, but he still played with us when his own friends were not around, some of them were mean and they didn’t like our cousin Kenneth at all. I hated being around Kenneth when people came to bully him, ‘cause they’d pick on us too and when Kenneth wasn’t there they usually left us alone.

After playing with Declan and Kevin and having dinner and taking a bath and getting dressed in warm clothes by the coal fire, it would be late enough to turn on Channel 4 and watch horror movies. Borris Karlov and Long Chenny were the two names that Granny would say and sure enough one of them would be in the movie every Friday night. I liked the Werewolf movies best if all, but I didn’t like the Mummy movies so much. Derek and I couldn’t figure out why the hell the screaming woman didn’t just run away and damn those tannin leaves, ‘powerful cup of tea’ as Granda would say. Dracula ones were good too, but no matter how he died at the end, he would be back the next week, leading the Werewolf and Frankenstein in some crazy scheme to chase after the stupid screaming girl again; run for Christ sakes, run!

Granda would fall asleep in his chair and Granny would wake him up to go to bed and she’d tell us not to stay up too late, but of course we did. We stayed up until all the channels closed for the night. We got to hear the Irish national anthem and the British national anthem and then there was just fuzz. We’d silently creep up the creaking stairs and jump into our cold bed, but then we’d feel a warmth at the end of the bed. Granny had put hot water bottles in the bed for us and we stopped shivering as soon as we warmed up enough. There was a book on the side of the bed and we’d look at the pictures in it for a while. The Titanic was in there and The Lusitanian and a giant squid, the book was called Forgotten Titans or something like that. By then our eyes were getting very sleepy and Derek would make me get up and turn the light off and I would try to make it back to bed in the dark without knocking the pee bucket over. There was no upstairs toilet so you had to pee in a bucket when you had to pee at night. I often missed the bucket and peed on the floor and on my hand.

I would always wake before Derek the next morning ‘cause I knew Transformers was on TV and you had to get up good and early to catch the first part of the show, but I’d also watch The Pink Panther on Anything Goes and The Gobots, Centurions and He-Man. I loved it when it was just me in the sitting room and I could be in control of the television and nobody could tell me what to do. Before I turned on the television the room would be very silent and there was a slight feeling of warmth from the dead ashes in the fire and the only thing that broke the silence was the tick-tock of the broken coo-coo clock that always ran five minutes fast. There was a big painting of Granda above the mantle piece in his hunting jacket and there was a gun up on the wall and the cabinets were filled with Granny’s antiques that Derek loved. Granny’s house was much nicer than our and I loved it there.

Then the rest of the house would be waking-up after nine and Derek would come down and try to change the channel and Granny would make us cereal with warm milk and bananas and Granda would be up for his tea and then go down the town for the paper and after that out to the office.

If we were lucky Granda would need to make a run over to Sligo to pick up rough sacs for making his electric fishers. Granda had a huge blue Ford Granada and we would lie on the floor in the back when we got tired. Once I was leaning in the middle when I was told not to and Granda had to hit the brakes very hard and I hit my face on the dash, so I learned never to do that again.

Even when we were going to Sligo, Granda would stop in Doherty’s Fishing Tackle Shop in Donegal Town and talk to the owner for a while and maybe buy us a pen knife or a torch. Granny would tell him not to be too long as she wanted to go to Dunne’s when we got to Sligo. She had to buy a 3.99 chicken for Sunday dinner.

Derek and I played a game along the road counting the different makes of cars and there was always more Fords than anything else. Star cars were popular too, Granda called them Mercedes’. When we weren’t playing the game I stared out the window and imagined that I had a huge blade sticking out of the car and as we passed all the trees and telephone poles I was slicing them down, but I’d make sure to lift the blade when we buzzed past a house. I didn’t want to hurt anyone.

You could see a Princess’s Castle when you drove up the hill before Kelly’s garage outside of Mount Charles. Granda told us that Rupunzel lived there and we always wanted to go up there, but nobody ever took us. So it had to remain a castle of our imagination, like the girl on the moon in the glass bubble.

Sometimes we’d call in to see our rich uncle Barry in Mount Charles. He owned a giant mansion down by the sea and it had a giant conquer tree beside it and we could dig around looking for chestnuts and collect as many as we could find. We didn’t really know our cousins, who lived there, but we loved playing on their toys, they had so many toys and we were all very jealous of them and my aunt Madge wasn’t very nice to us and Granny didn’t like her either.

When we got back to Killybegs after being in Sligo all day and we were well behaved, then we were invited to stay another night at Granny’s, even though she might be going to Bingo out in Dunkineely or down in Ardara. Granda would go down to Melly’s and buy us fish and chips, smothered in salt and vinegar and we’d eat it at the little table in the sitting room and watch the television.

Then when we were all cleaned up Declan would call on the phone and he’d be allowed to come over. Me, him, Derek and Granda would get out the Technic Lego and make things. I only knew how to make the same rally car over and over again, but it had an electric motor and it was very fun to play with. Derek had the yellow bricks and they had pneumatic pumps and he kept trying to make a digger, but it was very hard and didn’t look like much fun compared to my electric rally car. Declan was very skilled at making things with the lego and even had his own tool box out in his father’s shed and made things with us in Granda’s work shop. Granda showed us how to make catamaran boats with sails and we sailed them out at Fintra beach and Declan’s was the best one. He had Lego that you could make a fire station with and when we completed the station Granda took a picture of it.

When Granny got back from bingo Declan went on up home ‘cause he didn’t like to stay over. Granny told us we had to go to bed earlier ‘because we had to get up for Mass in the morning. We didn’t have to go to Mass when we were at home, but Granny made sure we went with her and we sat up the front, just one row back from the very front. I got to see lots of people from school at Mass and I even got to see a girl I liked, but she didn’t know I liked her and I was too shy to tell her. I often imagined she was the girl inside the bubble that was all alone on the moon and I was there to kiss her and make sure she was not alone. But she was rich and everyone knew her and I was not and nobody knew me.

Near the end of mass when the priest gave out communion I had to sit by myself for a few minutes, ‘cause Derek had just made his first holy communion and he went up with Granny and Ganda and the Murphy’s to receive communion. He made loads of money at his communion and I was excited to make mine next year, so I didn’t have to sit and I could go up in the line with everyone else and I would have loads of money.

After mass we got some pocket money to go to Molloy’s sweet shop and Granny went on home with Granda in the car to get the dinner finished. At Molly’s you could ether get ice-cream put onto a square cone with a knife or a quarter pound of canned sweets or boiled sweets. Cola-cubes were great but they stuck together in your pocket and bon-bons looked good but didn’t taste too good. If I couldn’t decide then I got a cone. There was a stack of newspapers on a small table by the chocolate bars and I always looked through to see if I could find the one with Dad’s name on it. If it wasn’t there then he was already up and about and if it was still there then I knew he was going to be in soon. Sometimes he came in when we were trying to make our minds up and he’d give us some more pocket money and you could get a can of smack pineapple or cola to go with your sweets or ice-cream.

Everybody in our whole family came to Sunday dinner at Granny’s house. The whole house smelled like food and it was a lovely smell. She’d have the best roast potatoes and corn and mushy peas, which I didn’t like, and stuffing. There was always a fight to see who’d get the leg and Mam would say to Dad, “Jaysus I wish your father would invent a chicken with ten legs.” My Granda Vial, who I didn’t really know, was a geneticist, but I didn’t know what that meant, but he lived in Dublin and worked in a big office.

Mam would tell us that we had to come home soon and we’d beg her to let us stay longer, but she’d remind us that we had school in the morning and we still had to do our homework and if we were really good then we could come and stay with Granny next Friday or go to Aidan and Francis’s house in Carrick to see Paddy. We wouldn’t argue and when we were full we’d go out the back to play and watch a game of football in Emerald Park.

If there wasn’t a game of football, then after we were finished playing, Derek and I would get our things at Granny’s and slowly walk back up the Hill to home and go back to our other life at 14 St. Cummins Hill. I loved my life better at 64 Conlin Road, but that was only my weekend life, the rest of the week was my real life and by Wednesday I loved that life just as much, until Friday came along again. And it was warm pajamas and roast potatoes and trips to Sligo and Lego and Vampires and Frankenstein and stupid Mummies and even more stupid screaming girls that wouldn’t run away. Damn those tannin leaves, powerful cup of tea.

Happy New Year

It’s that time of the year again when you have to work through all the holidays and your wife and friends or boyfriends or girlfriends have the night off and you feel like you are the only one in the whole world without the night off.

You smile your way through Thanksgiving, then sarcastically laugh your way past Christmas Eve and Christmas Day “Another refill? Coming right away sir, NGFY!” Then New Year’s Even comes along and you had to work on your birthday the day before and you are at your wit’s end and you thank God for the small mercy that the boss opened some of the cheapest sparkling in the house to share with the staff and as you count down “5,4,3,2,1….” You start counting down the hours till your shift ends and you can go home, open a special bottle of wine you’ve been saving all year and settling in with the misses at the God awful hour of 3am.

But then seconds before they all scream “Happy New Year” your wife staggers in the door, red faced not from the cold but from a Magnum of Concha Y Toro bucket wine and instead of hurrah, you think “ah fuck!” You can see the eyes are gone and she is trying to drag you out of work to come party with her, but you know you’ve still got lots to do before you can leave and she starts nagging and walks off in a stormer. You’ve to go after her and tell her, “Hey I’m still at work, do you mind, sit in the bar and I’ll be right with you.” An hour passes and she keeps filling up at the bar and finally you are ready to take her home. But you’re not going home yet, the party is still going on at her sister’s house and she wants you to be with everybody else and you try to explain that you are tired and don’t want to go, but you are reminded that she hangs out with your friends “all the time.” So you go to her sister’s house and she can hardly talk and everybody there is ready for bed and you make small talk and you turn around and your wife is gone.

You find her outside trying to walk down Independence Ave at two o’clock in the bloody morning and you have to chase after her less a drug addict or prostitute tries to sell her something. Then she falls down and you have to carry her back to the car and you hope she just passes out in the back seat, but as you are driving down I-35 she stirs awake and opens the back door to get out. So you’ve one hand on the steering wheel, one hand on her arm and you’re screaming at her to close the door “fer fuck’s sake.” She tells you to leave her alone, ‘cause you’re in the wrong, it’s her right to open the car door and get out on I-35 at 70 miles an hour.

Eventually you get into the driveway of your house and she falls down nearly killing herself on the edge of the pavement and it’s your fault again. Then you get inside and the dogs have shit in the hallway ‘cause she never let them out earlier in the day and started celebrating a tad too early. So the house smells of shit and she starts crying and you tell her to ignore it and you’ll clean it up and for her to just lie down and take it easy.

You find her a receptacle to barf up into and get her a glass of water and fix up the bedroom for her so she can pass out safely and you can unwind, take your work clothes off have a New Year’s Eve beer for yourself and try and save some sanity from the night.

Then you turn around and there is shit all over the house! She has grabbed the dog blanket with runny shit on it and dragged it through the house and down into the basement and the washing machine is going full blast. You find her in the basement (still crying about the smell of shit) but now the washing machine is about to blow up ‘cause she over stuffed it with shitty dog blankets and the motor has ripped the drum off it’s base and the machine is full of shitty blankets and shitty water. Ahhh, you scream for God’s sake go to bed and leave the fucking shit alone!

After a struggle you get her to bed sans the shit on her pants, and it’s after three thirty in the morning and now you’ve to start cleaning up the shit that is smeared on the wall on the stairs and just about every where. So instead of feeling like shit, you now smell like shit.

After a shower you lay on the couch, crack open a beer, sit back, take one sip and completely pass out from exhaustion, Happy Fucking New Year. Let’s do this again next year.

Sheriff Bewler’s Day Off

Three a.m. is a very late time of the night to be going to bed or very early time of the morning for that matter, either way Sheriff Bewler was exhausted. Driving up and down Highway 11, stopping drunks, domestic violence calls, none of those things are fun. It’s not covert, gun slinging, door breaking police work like you see in the movies. Starsky and Hutch, fucking fantasy Ford Taurino paradise.

Six a.m. comes fast after you lay your head down and the annoying high pitch digital chime of the alarm clock is not very welcome. A blind hand slithers out from the covers and hits the snooze button, for the additional seven minutes of heaven on earth. Seven minutes later his hand automatically performs the same function. That’s 14 minutes past wake-up time. 14 minutes later than he would get into the shower, 14 minutes later than he would hit the road back into town, 14 minutes later than he would open the sheriff’s office on Main Street. But you know what? It felt good, and the world could fuck off for 14 minutes. Back to Snooze!

Needless to say, he surprised the shit out of himself when he finally woke up and saw Nine a.m. on the clock. He’d snoozed before, but never actually slept. His adrenaline didn’t pump, fight or flight mode didn’t kick-in. He just stared at the clock, as the digits went 9:01 AM. Time: what a wonderful concept he thought and pulled his comforter tighter to his body and thought ‘bacon sounds good for breakfast.’

Usually at 9:15 AM he’d be talking shit with Alice, the secretary girl, over his third cup of shitty coffee. He’d be flirting with her, even though he was graduating high school when she was born. But she liked it all the same and if he hadn’t such a noticeable position in the community, he might have asked her out long ago. Christ he thought, there were some tribes in the world where a nine year old could marry her grandfather – interesting bit of knowledge gleamed from the Discovery Channel.

Sheriff Bewler hauled himself out of bed at the crack of ten a.m. and lumbered all the way to the bathroom: Shit, Shower and Shave? Just the first two today thanks. As the warm water washed down his back he could hear his phone ring several times. Normally he could be in and out of the shower in five minutes or less, but today the water felt good and half an hour must have gone down the drain before he turned the water off and toweled himself off.

He checked his phone, six messages, as he slipped on a comfortable sweatshirt and lazy pants. He’d check those later, right now he had to get the bacon cooking. Bacon makes everything taste better and with two eggs and some thick slices of Texas toast the saying was not wrong at all. But he had to laugh with himself, just a little chuckle, the old bacon, pig, cop Trifecta. Been a while since someone had used that slang with him, last time it was his cousin Francis and he received a serious kick in the head for the affront.

11:15 AM, by now he’d have ticketed five cars along Main Street in the two hour parking zone, before the lunch crowd headed down to Mel’s diner for Pork Tenderloins and Chili Cheese Fries, ooh, that sounds good, a late lunch at Mel’s it would be. He just ticketed five cars a day ‘cause he knew that people had to park somewhere and as long as he made his monthly quota and generated a little revenue for the city then the old checks and balances were up held.

With the bacon and eggs giving him a little burst of energy he picked up his living room that looked like a refugee camp with clothes and shoes and bags and food containers spewed all over the place. He knew there was a couch under there somewhere and a TV. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually sat down to watch TV since he dragged the 32 inch flat screen back from Best Buy on an impulse buy nine months ago.

Oprah sucked, it was Book Club Day. As The World Turns, could keep on turning. The Weather Channel was predicting a cold day with an even colder night, followed by a week or more of cold to not so cold weather with chance of snow, sleet and freezing rain! But the Sci-Fi Channel was showing a re-run of the Original Predator movie with Arnie and Apollo Creed from Rocky running around the jungle and man he loved that scene where Jesse the Body Ventura was killed and Mack picked up his mini-gun and they shot the shit out of the jungle and hit nothing. How many times had he wanted to do that when they were up in the woods on the far side of town freezing their asses off as at a turkey shoot.

1:15 PM? Time for that Pork Tenderloin. He checked his phone again: Fifteen Messages. If he had a deputy, they would have been out checking on him by now, but he was the entire law enforcement team in town besides Alice at the office. Shit, the town would be fine for another few hours without him.

His feet crunched noisily on the gravel of his driveway. He looked over to his Crown Vic’ Interceptor then looked the other way and got into his VW Golf GTi. He bought the car three years ago after taking it for a test drive at Sam’s Auto Gallery on Mass’. The little red pocket rocket blew him away, but since then he’d barely put 2,000 miles on the clock ‘cause he was always in the Crown Vic’ chasing people in little sports cars and muscle cars that thought the highway was their personal race track. But throwing caution to the wind he snapped on his seat belt, tore down the road to the highway and planted the accelerator through the floor and had the little German hatch back up to 120 MPH in no time. He didn’t have to worry about being pulled over, since he was the only one that did any pulling over within 20 miles.

The Golf was a lot more fun to drive than his patrol car and could see why so many people speed at insane speeds. He promised himself he’d let the next speeder off with just a warning. He felt alive as he wrangled the gear knob through the slick little gear box, feeling the car respond to his every impulse. Past the Myers’ farm at about Ninety and back onto the big straight before hitting the bridge into town and slowing down for the traffic lights just before the railway tracks.

His town is what outsiders refer to as “a sleepy little rural American town. Sheriff Bewler had his own knickname for it “But Wipe MO.” He’d been born and breed in this town and lived there with the quiet resentment that people have for the place they grew up in but could never escape. Some people genuinely didn’t want to escape, but there are always those few who are afraid of the outside world. Afraid that they would never be accepted like they are in their home towns. In the outside world nobody cares if you are the quarter back of the high school football team, nobody cares if you were the home coming queen, in fact they don’t give a damn if your science project won first place at the county fair. But in your home town they do care, and that blanket of comfort is what keeps a small place like this populated, when all common sense says to move the hell away.

Sheriff Bewler could be considered one of these people, in a sense he rule the roost in this town. Everyone knew him and he knew everyone even better. He knew who beat their wife after too many Bud Lights, he knew who slept with an out of town business man for $500, he knew who was on parole for narcotics possession, hell he even knew who had a hit and run last year and continue to be a community leader. Sometimes this knowledge was too much, it ate away at his insides like a cancer. If he lived in a big city, and worked a regular nine to five job, he’d have anonymity and he wouldn’t know shit and people wouldn’t know shit about him either. But not here in Butt Wipe, MO.

Most people didn’t know his red Golf, so thinking about anonymity, he decided to drive around the town and see what people did when they thought he wasn’t looking. He dipped his ball cap and put on his sun glasses, totally undercover.

He drove down Main Street, not much going on there, just a few cars illegally parked here and there. He stopped at the light at the cross section of 2nd and Main. A mid 80s Camero pulled up alongside him revving its engine. The driver looked over at him with that “Wanna Race” face. Sheriff Bewler revved his engine in response and then stared straight ahead at the red light waiting for it to turn green. Wheels screeched and rubber burned as the Camero speed away furiously. Sheriff Bewler didn’t even put the Gti in gear, but made a note to himself to give Al Johnson’s son a talking to next time he was over that way. Punk kid.

He took a left on 2nd and made his way towards Mel’s diner on Mass’. The usual line of illegally parked cars were outside, so he said to hell with it and joined the line. The smell of hot grease wafted through the air as he got out of his car. Something’s cooking.

Soon as he walked in and removed his hat Mel shouted over to him from across the counter “Heard you’ve been playing hookie at work Sheriff!”
“Nah, not playing hookie, just taking it easy, you know, having a day to myself.”
“Do you hear that everyone, Sheriff Bewler is having a day to himself.” Melf and all the other patrons around the counter laughed and one of them chimed in “why don’t you get your legs waxed while your at it!” Jeers of approval came from around the room at this comment “good one Dick, get your legs waxed, well I never.”
Sheriff Bewler took the cheap humor in his stride, thinking to himself, you all better watch out for me next time your parked outside of here, been a while since he’d actually towed a car to the impound, have to correct that soon. “Good one Dick, very funny, is that what you do to your head? Haven’t seen skin that smooth since I changed my nephew’s diaper!” The crowd of funny men didn’t like that retort, a mumor of “oohhs” came from them, ‘cause everyone knew that Dick Brady had been bald since he was 25 and his $20 toupees didn’t do a great job of hiding that truth.

“I’ll have the truck stop Mel, over easy on the eggs and give me a side of those chili cheese fries and a coffee.” Everyone seemed to shut the hell up now and get back to their lunch, so fearing no more remarks, Sheriff Bewler grabbed the paper and spread it out in front of him. There was a local paper that floated about once a week, but for the daily news they had to accept the Star from up there in the big city. Nobody like the Star, but everyone read it, so they could heckle the folks up there “driving their Volvos and drinking lattes! City folk don’t know a hard days work, why I’d like to see one of them on my farm for a half a day, I’d have em broke in two by lunch.” But Sheriff Bewler knew that life in the city wasn’t all easy. A few months ago he’d been up there and was stuck in traffic on I-35 just before the Broadway Bridge and looking under the over pass he saw a whole community of homeless people just squatting under there, keeping close together for warmth. Steam was rising out of a vent as one passed a brown paper bag to the other. That wasn’t easy city living. When it’s tough in the country, it’s never as tough as it is in the city. He’d like to see one of these red necks make it through a half day in the city they’d be broke by two!

He laid a ten dollar bill on the counter, said thanks for the lunch and walked out the door leaving the “witty men with their jokes” he mumbled, thinking “I’ve heard that somewhere before?” What he didn’t remember was that that was a line from a W. B. Yeats’ Poem he read in his high school English class: “The witty man and his joke, aimed at the commonest ear” went the poem.

When he’d been reading the paper he say an add for Flight to Europe – Paris and London from $189 each way from Chicago. He’d never been over there, he’ll he’d never been out of the country except to go to Canada for the day once when he was fifteen with his family on vacation in Buffalo New York. Terrible vacation he remembered, his parents shouted at each other the whole time, the air conditioning broke in the car on the way back and his sister got sick allover the back seat. Yeah, he hadn’t been out of the country since. But just heading off to London or Paris or somewhere just like that, now that sounded good. He’d always wanted to go to Ireland, that’s where his great grandfather came from, Cork County or somewhere like that. Fuck it, that what he’d do.
He’d go to the bank, take out his savings, stick half of it into his credit card, rent out his house, take a leave of absence from work, get some replacement in for a few months and piss off to Europe.

Suddenly he felt like a huge weight was lifted of his soul, his head became light and all he could think was “why the hell hadn’t I thought of this before.” He could imagine it already, walking around London lost but not caring, sitting back in a pub in Ireland having a pint, taking a walk along a beach in France, maybe even go to Germany and have some sauerkraut. He drove in a daze as he made his way to the Farmer’s State Bank.
“Hey Sheriff Bewler” said Old Sam the security guard at the bank, “taking a day off I hear?” “Yes, I am Sam, thanks for asking.” “Well, you enjoy it, ‘cause we don’t get many of those these days.” “Don’t you worry Sam, I am.” He laughed at the little rhyme he just made. Today was a good day.

There was only one person in front of him at the bank line and he waved to all the folks in the back as they stuck their heads up in the air to see him. Then as he got to the front and Dorris had started to say “Hello Sheriff Bewler…” He cut her off, “Yes Dorris I am taking a day off. “
“Well, there is no need to be like that about it, I was just going to ask what I can do for you today?”
“Sorry, just a reaction and what you can do for me is deposit five thousand dollars from my savings account in this credit card account and just cash out the rest for me.”
“That’s a lot of money Sheriff, can I ask…”
“No Dorris, you can’t ask what it’s for, it’s for me, it’s my money, thank you Dorris.”

Dorris pottered off to get the Manager to make such a large withdrawal and he watched her as she explained waving her hands and flapping all over the place, her head going up and down like a chicken. The manager went into the big vault with Dorris and dissapered from his vision. He went to turn around to Old Sam and make a joke to him about having his side arm ready for the all the money he was going to be leaving with, but when he turned around he saw Old Sam lying on the floor dead or unconscious, and standing beside him was a youth of about 19 or 20 with his eyes popping out like he had spent one night too many taking Meth in some shack. The youth was holding a gun and was bending down to pick up Sam’s gun.
“Wait there now one minute young fella” Sheriff Bewler said as calmly as he could “we don’t need any trouble here.”
“Shut the fuck up pig, get your fucking ass on the floor and shut the fuck up.”
He didn’t recogonize the youth, but the scrawny fella sure knew who he was, “coulda sworn I knew everyone around these parts,” he thought to himself.
“If I have to ask you again, I’m going to cap your ass pig.” The kid was obviously out of control and he didn’t want him to start shooting in here with all the bank staff around.
He started to get down on the floor when the small rug under his feet slid one way and he went crashing to one side.
The nervous cracked-out youth’s gun went off only once, that’s all it needed to do. That was the last day Sheriff Bewler ever took off again. His ashes were scatted by his sister down by the river where he used to fish when he was a boy, a place he liked to go alone and think. Now he’d have eternity to think and muse on all the things he never did do.


Three a.m. is a very late time of the night to be going to bed, or very early time of the morning for that matter, either way Sheriff Bewler was exhausted. Driving up and down Highway 11, stopping drunks, domestic violence calls, none of those things are fun. It’s not covert, gun slinging, door breaking police work like you see in the movies. Starsky and Hutch, fucking fantasy Ford Taurino paradise.

Six a.m. comes fast after you lay your head down and the annoying high pitch digital chime of the alarm clock is not very welcome. A blind hand slithers out from the covers and hits the snooze button, for the additional seven minutes of heaven on earth. Seven minutes later his hand automatically performs the same function. That’s 14 minutes past wake-up time. 14 minutes later than he would get into the shower, 14 minutes later than he would hit the road back into town, 14 minutes later than he would open the sheriff’s office on Main Street. But you know what? It felt good, and the world could fuck off for 14 minutes. Back to Snooze!

Needless to say, he surprised the shit out of himself when he finally woke up and saw Nine a.m. on the clock. He’d snoozed before, but never actually slept. His adrenaline didn’t pump, fight or flight mode didn’t kick-in. He just stared at the clock, as the digits went 9:01 AM. Time what a wonderful concept he thought and pulled his comforter tighter to his body and thought ‘bacon sounds good for breakfast.’

Usually at 9:15 AM he’d be talking shit with Alice, the secretary girl, over his third cup of shitty coffee. He’d be flirting with her, even though he was graduating high school when she was born. But she liked it all the same and if he hadn’t such a noticeable position in the community, he might have asked her out long ago. Christ he thought, there were some tribes in the world where a nine year old could marry her grandfather – interesting bit of knowledge gleamed from the Discovery Channel.

Sheriff Bewler hauled himself out of bed at the crack of ten a.m. and lumbered all the way to the bathroom: Shit, Shower and Shave? Just the first two today thanks. As the warm water washed down his back he could hear his phone ring several times. Normally he could be in and out of the shower in five minutes or less, but today the water felt good and half an hour must have gone down the drain before he turned the water off and toweled himself off.

He checked his phone, six messages, as he slipped on a comfortable sweatshirt and lazy pants. He’d check those later, right now he had to get the bacon cooking. Bacon makes everything taste better and with two eggs and some thick slices of Texas toast the saying was not wrong at all. But he had to laugh with himself, just a little chuckle, the old bacon, pig, cop Trifecta. Been a while since someone had used that slang with him, last time it was his cousin Francis and he received a serious kick in the head for the affront.

11:15 AM, by now he’d have ticketed five cars along Main Street in the two hour parking zone, before the lunch crowd headed down to Mel’s diner for Pork Tenderloins and Chili Cheese Fries, ooh, that sounds good, a late lunch at Mel’s it would be. He just ticketed five cars a day ‘cause he knew that people had to park somewhere and as long as he made his monthly quota and generated a little revenue for the city then the old checks and balances were up held.

With the bacon and eggs giving him a little burst of energy he picked up his living room that looked like a refugee camp with clothes and shoes and bags and food containers spewed all over the place. He knew there was a couch under there somewhere and a TV. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually sat down to watch TV since he dragged the 32 inch flat screen back from Best Buy on an impulse buy nine months ago.

Oprah sucked, it was Book Club Day. As The World Turns, could keep on turning. The Weather Channel was predicting a cold day with an even colder night, followed by a week or more of cold to not so cold weather with chance of snow, sleet and freezing rain! But the Sci-Fi Channel was showing a re-run of the Original Predator movie with Arnie and Apollo Creed from Rocky running around the jungle and man he loved that scene where Jesse the Body Ventura was killed and Mack picked up his mini-gun and they shot the shit out of the jungle and hit nothing. How many times had he wanted to do that when they were up in the woods on the far side of town freezing their asses off as at a turkey shoot.

1:15 PM? Time for that Pork Tenderloin. He checked his phone again: Fifteen Messages. If he had a deputy, they would have been out checking on him by now, but he was the entire law enforcement team in town besides Alice at the office. Shit, the town would be fine for another few hours without him.

His feet crunched noisily on the gravel of his driveway. He looked over to his Crown Vic’ Interceptor then looked the other way and got into his VW Golf GTi. He bought the car three years ago after taking it for a test drive at Sam’s Auto Gallery on Mass’. The little red pocket rocket blew him away, but since then he’d barely put 2,000 miles on the clock ‘cause he was always in the Crown Vic’ chasing people in little sports cars and muscle cars that thought the highway was their personal race track. But throwing caution to the wind he snapped on his seat belt, tore down the road to the highway and planted the accelerator through the floor and had the little German hatch back up to 120 MPH in no time. He didn’t have to worry about being pulled over, since he was the only one that did any pulling over within 20 miles.

The Golf was a lot more fun to drive than his patrol car and could see why so many people speed at insane speeds. He promised himself he’d let the next speeder off with just a warning. He felt alive as he wrangled the gear knob through the slick little gear box, feeling the car respond to his every impulse. Past the Myers’ farm at about Ninety and back onto the big straight before hitting the bridge into town and slowing down for the traffic lights just before the railway tracks.

His town is what outsiders refer to as “a sleepy little rural American town. Sheriff Bewler had his own knickname for it “But Wipe MO.” He’d been born and breed in this town and lived there with the quiet resentment that people have for the place they grew up in but could never escape. Some people genuinely didn’t want to escape, but there are always those few who are afraid of the outside world. Afraid that they would never be accepted like they are in their home towns. In the outside world nobody cares if you are the quarter back of the high school football team, nobody cares if you were the home coming queen, in fact they don’t give a damn if your science project won first place at the county fair. But in your home town they do care, and that blanket of comfort is what keeps a small place like this populated, when all common sense says to move the hell away.

Sheriff Bewler could be considered one of these people, in a sense he rule the roost in this town. Everyone knew him and he knew everyone even better. He knew who beat their wife after too many Bud Lights, he knew who slept with an out of town business man for $500, he knew who was on parole for narcotics possession, hell he even knew who had a hit and run last year and continue to be a community leader. Sometimes this knowledge was too much, it ate away at his insides like a cancer. If he lived in a big city, and worked a regular nine to five job, he’d have anonymity and he wouldn’t know shit and people wouldn’t know shit about him either. But not here in Butt Wipe, MO.

Most people didn’t know his red Golf, so thinking about anonymity, he decided to drive around the town and see what people did when they thought he wasn’t looking. He dipped his ball cap and put on his sun glasses, totally undercover.

He drove down Main Street, not much going on there, just a few cars illegally parked here and there. He stopped at the light at the cross section of 2nd and Main. A mid 80s Camero pulled up alongside him revving its engine. The driver looked over at him with that “Wanna Race” face. Sheriff Bewler revved his engine in response and then stared straight ahead at the red light waiting for it to turn green. Wheels screeched and rubber burned as the Camero speed away furiously. Sheriff Bewler didn’t even put the Gti in gear, but made a note to himself to give Al Johnson’s son a talking to next time he was over that way. Punk kid.

He took a left on 2nd and made his way towards Mel’s diner on Mass’. The usual line of illegally parked cars were outside, so he said to hell with it and joined the line. The smell of hot grease wafted through the air as he got out of his car. Something’s cooking.

Soon as he walked in and removed his hat Mel shouted over to him from across the counter “Heard you’ve been playing hookie at work Sheriff!”
“Nah, not playing hookie, just taking it easy, you know, having a day to myself.”
“Do you hear that everyone, Sheriff Bewler is having a day to himself.” Melf and all the other patrons around the counter laughed and one of them chimed in “why don’t you get your legs waxed while your at it!” Jeers of approval came from around the room at this comment “good one Dick, get your legs waxed, well I never.”
Sheriff Bewler took the cheap humor in his stride, thinking to himself, you all better watch out for me next time your parked outside of here, been a while since he’d actually towed a car to the impound, have to correct that soon. “Good one Dick, very funny, is that what you do to your head? Haven’t seen skin that smooth since I changed my nephew’s diaper!” The crowd of funny men didn’t like that retort, a mumor of “oohhs” came from them, ‘cause everyone knew that Dick Brady had been bald since he was 25 and his $20 toupees didn’t do a great job of hiding that truth.

“I’ll have the truck stop Mel, over easy on the eggs and give me a side of those chili cheese fries and a coffee.” Everyone seemed to shut the hell up now and get back to their lunch, so fearing no more remarks, Sheriff Bewler grabbed the paper and spread it out in front of him. There was a local paper that floated about once a week, but for the daily news they had to accept the Star from up there in the big city. Nobody like the Star, but everyone read it, so they could heckle the folks up there “driving their Volvos and drinking lattes! City folk don’t know a hard days work, why I’d like to see one of them on my farm for a half a day, I’d have em broke in two by lunch.” But Sheriff Bewler knew that life in the city wasn’t all easy. A few months ago he’d been up there and was stuck in traffic on I-35 just before the Broadway Bridge and looking under the over pass he saw a whole community of homeless people just squatting under there, keeping close together for warmth. Steam was rising out of a vent as one passed a brown paper bag to the other. That wasn’t easy city living. When it’s tough in the country, it’s never as tough as it is in the city. He’d like to see one of these red necks make it through a half day in the city they’d be broke by two!

He laid a ten dollar bill on the counter, said thanks for the lunch and walked out the door leaving the “witty men with their jokes” he mumbled, thinking “I’ve heard that somewhere before?” What he didn’t remember was that that was a line from a W. B. Yeats’ Poem he read in his high school English class: “The witty man and his joke, aimed at the commonest ear” went the poem.

When he’d been reading the paper he say an add for Flight to Europe – Paris and London from $189 each way from Chicago. He’d never been over there, he’ll he’d never been out of the country except to go to Canada for the day once when he was fifteen with his family on vacation in Buffalo New York. Terrible vacation he remembered, his parents shouted at each other the whole time, the air conditioning broke in the car on the way back and his sister got sick allover the back seat. Yeah, he hadn’t been out of the country since. But just heading off to London or Paris or somewhere just like that, now that sounded good. He’d always wanted to go to Ireland, that’s where his great grandfather came from, Cork County or somewhere like that. Fuck it, that what he’d do.
He’d go to the bank, take out his savings, stick half of it into his credit card, rent out his house, take a leave of absence from work, get some replacement in for a few months and piss off to Europe.

Suddenly he felt like a huge weight was lifted of his soul, his head became light and all he could think was “why the hell hadn’t I thought of this before.” He could imagine it already, walking around London lost but not caring, sitting back in a pub in Ireland having a pint, taking a walk along a beach in France, maybe even go to Germany and have some sauerkraut. He drove in a daze as he made his way to the Farmer’s State Bank.
“Hey Sheriff Bewler” said Old Sam the security guard at the bank, “taking a day off I hear?” “Yes, I am Sam, thanks for asking.” “Well, you enjoy it, ‘cause we don’t get many of those these days.” “Don’t you worry Sam, I am.” He laughed at the little rhyme he just made. Today was a good day.

There was only one person in front of him at the bank line and he waved to all the folks in the back as they stuck their heads up in the air to see him. Then as he got to the front and Dorris had started to say “Hello Sheriff Bewler…” He cut her off, “Yes Dorris I am taking a day off. “
“Well, there is no need to be like that about it, I was just going to ask what I can do for you today?”
“Sorry, just a reaction and what you can do for me is deposit five thousand dollars from my savings account in this credit card account and just cash out the rest for me.”
“That’s a lot of money Sheriff, can I ask…”
“No Dorris, you can’t ask what it’s for, it’s for me, it’s my money, thank you Dorris.”

Dorris pottered off to get the Manager to make such a large withdrawal and he watched her as she explained waving her hands and flapping all over the place, her head going up and down like a chicken. The manager went into the big vault with Dorris and dissapered from his vision. He went to turn around to Old Sam and make a joke to him about having his side arm ready for the all the money he was going to be leaving with, but when he turned around he saw Old Sam lying on the floor dead or unconscious, and standing beside him was a youth of about 19 or 20 with his eyes popping out like he had spent one night too many taking Meth in some shack. The youth was holding a gun and was bending down to pick up Sam’s gun.
“Wait there now one minute young fella” Sheriff Bewler said as calmly as he could “we don’t need any trouble here.”
“Shut the fuck up pig, get your fucking ass on the floor and shut the fuck up.”
He didn’t recogonize the youth, but the scrawny fella sure knew who he was, “coulda sworn I knew everyone around these parts,” he thought to himself.
“If I have to ask you again, I’m going to cap your ass pig.” The kid was obviously out of control and he didn’t want him to start shooting in here with all the bank staff around.
He started to get down on the floor when the small rug under his feet slid one way and he went crashing to one side.
The nervous cracked-out youth’s gun went off only once, that’s all it needed to do. That was the last day Sheriff Bewler ever took off again. His ashes were scatted by his sister down by the river where he used to fish when he was a boy, a place he liked to go alone and think. Now he’d have eternity to think and muse on all the things he never did do.