Four o’clock came around and I had just got off my part-time job at Moody's General Store. Here it was another Saturday night, and I had no idea what it was that I was going to do. This night was identical to the Friday night that had just transpired before. I had no plans, no hot date, and absolutely nowhere specifically planned to go, but I surely knew that I wanted to go somewhere and do something.

After I hit the time clock, I made my way over to the beer cooler to pick up a twenty-four pack of Coors Regular, my favorite drink at the time. After I made the purchase, then the idea suddenly struck me; maybe I could ready myself to engage in a little entrepreneurial enterprise income midday tomorrow! I had some saved up cash on hand inside my pickup truck, maybe I could ease out and grab a hundred dollars, just to see what I could turn it in to.

Casually I made my way back over toward the beer counter, quickly picking up four more cases of Coors, The Silver bullet. There was a sale going for multi-purchases of this brand on this specific weekend. This was about the only appealing thing about this particular store, even though I was employed there at the time to engage in the enterprise that wanted and be successful at it, I needed to make several more stops on the way home.

As I made my way back toward the area in which I lived at the time, I swung by Woody's Grill, making a casual stop inside where I picked up five more cases. It was mostly elderly people on the inside, and these people tended to only smile while asking a few questions. I had to pay the regularprice here, but in the overall scheme of things, it wasn't all that bad. The total amount that I had already spent was about one hundred and twenty dollars for several twenty-four packs that I would resale later on for two dollars a beer, especially the Silver Bullet brand.

Before stopping in for the night at the old farmhouse where I lived at the time, I needed to make just one more stop. I pulled in an old man, Dick Bryant's Community Food Store. I didn't much care for the hateful geezer, but he tended to have some good deals on evening purchases of beer and other necessary commodities at the time, and everybody knew it for miles around. Besides that, his business was right there by my house. When I walked in through the automatic doors, I glimpsed at him standing there just behind the door with a sun grizzled face hard as stone, never smiling or making motions to indicate that he even saw me. Suddenly out of nowhere, he spoke.

“I thought that was you I noticed stepping out of that flag covered, jacked up Sonoma,” he snarled.

“Yeah, it's just me again,” I replied, attempting to appear jovial in spite of the fact that I detested even being in the same room with this man.

“So I think that it is about time that you decided to marry Jo,” he continued to growl.

“I don't know about that?” I replied in question, forbearing speaking any more on the matter.

“Well, I don't know why not, there son? You've been staying with her now for over two years! She already has one child. The family thinks that it is about time that you made some kind of commitment, for once in your pathetic life,” he spat through a course, brightening, liquor hardened face.

Iwalked on past him, going directly over to the beer counter, and picking up five more cases of The Silver Bullet. I casually made my way over to the check out line, pausing until I could have my turn at the purchase. The old geezer never spoke a single word while I was making this purchase. When I completed my purchase, walking past, he caught me by the right shoulder with his left hand. A thin smile stretched across his face until his coffee and tobacco-stained teeth began to show, as they clenched.

“So what is this? Word has it that you already had a liquor still that you were nearly busted for, so what's this? I mean, that's how it is with you, boy, its just one thing after another! Another scheme, another distant desire, one more crazy plan.., and then what? Just more of the same no good thing is all that I see,” he laughed as he commenced shaking his head from side to side. “I swear, you do beat all-”

“Wait just a cotton pickin' minute here,” I snapped, with a flash of anger that I now attribute to youth. I knew that I should have walked on passed, but he had just struck a low chord nerve with me. That is most of what I hated about this bastard, personally. He loved to provoke people in such a manner.

“Be glad that I stopped here, man. This place is hurting for business. I don't get into the particulars about why it is that you are losing business, so you don't get into any specifics with me about my personal life,” I returned, with a heavy breath.

“My oh, my,” he replied through clenched teeth. “What have we here?” he shouted as he widened both of his arms, taking threesteps backward in dark sarcasm. “ Well somebody needs to get something through that thick head of yours! You've just been stringing her along, is what you have been doing for all of this time. You've just been using her! None of us in the entire family approves of it! We know that she puts up with it, but that doesn't mean that any of us approve of it. I can tell you that much, boy. We hear about all of it. Don't you dare even think that we don't hear of every crazy stunt that you pull, every lie that you tell, and the truth. Why, we even hear of every debauched demand that you make, we- !”

“Well I don't have time for any of this,” I interrupted as I commenced to walk on. “I have a life to live, myself,” I snapped as I passed him by, walking on out through the double glass doors. When I glanced back toward him, he only seemingly clenched his teeth more in that sick, stretched out a grin of his, staring at me hard as I headed through the automatic double doors, and on toward my truck, parked about two places up from the doors.

The old bastard was right, unfortunately, I suppose. I had a well-made liquor still down inside the horse barn behind the house, once not too long before. It was crafted from two twenty gallon pressure cookers, perfectly tig-welded together. One of them had the bottom cut out of it with a torch, the edges buffed down and the insides cleaned out perfectly. In an old pot type still, it would have taken a month to cook down a batch. With this new-newfangled rig, I could cook an entire 400-gallon batch in mite near a week, and justperfectly every time, and do it all on a hot plate powered from a car battery charged with a solar cell. All of this new technology was a real dream to a person seeking clandestine cover.

I could run the liquor back through the still again, and in about three more days I would have double run, but only half as much in this double run batch. Most people in this business let it go with that if they even bother to make a double run. The first time it was that a purchaser had a bad case of the knock knee from just a touch of fuel fuel oil, the producer's line of customers inside his home area was finished, and word of mouth really travels both far and wide. This is a phenomenon called market self-regulation at it's finest example.

My preferred choice was to run the entire batch back through just one more time, giving me treble run, and the very best liquor to be had for miles around. This liquor was smooth as silk and punched like a mule kicks. The whole world loved what I squeezed out of corn sugar, forever coming back to my house in long lines, and willing to pay as much as one hundred dollars an uncut gallon for it! I may have lost three times over in my first run batch volume, but I earned three times what I would have with single run with even more respect, and everybody for miles around well knew it.

What made my treble run even better was that one could drink it to his heart's content, and never have a hangover. The reason for this was that because all of the impurities had been distilled out, leaving it inside the still pot. We called what wasleft inside the still sugar drippings, bad batter, or possum bait, along with a multitude of additional names. At the end about all that, we could use it for was bait. Everything from possum, to deer, and the bear would come for miles around to get at it.

My only hesitation in using this for bait, however, was the odor that carried for dozens of yards out, even hundreds of yards at times when the wind puffed enough. Nobody in these parts needed any snooping skunk sheriff sniffing his bait patch out a mile down inside the thicket, then busting him for bear baiting and making the world's best shine at the same time! For that reason I had buried all of my leftovers inside a rather small container, then only served it out to the critters in very small batches.

Well, one day I had driven out to Huckle Buck's garage just to pay him a casual visit on the way home from work. Later that evening as I was motoring back home, I spotted the sheriff and a few of his compadres haunting the woods around where I lived at the time. I immediately rushed into the old horse stable behind my place to break my still down before even going inside the house, then I stashed it in an abandoned storm shelter underneath a barn a quarter mile or so away, out on the property of Jo's aunt Clementine. With this still in pieces, and those pieces scattered about in varying places above ground and underneath, in and around the barn, nobody would ever find it; and even if he did, he would never connect the dots enough to figure out what it was.

I never could find out who it was that ratted me out, but in the backof my mind, I always blamed old man Dick for doing it. Jo Jo had run her mouth to her mother, who had run her's to her sister, who then told old man Dick, and Lord knows who else. He really struck me hard as being just the sort of rude, snake in the grass type, who would do such a low down thing.

Thinking of ole Huckle Buck as I motored down the road, made me suddenly take on the idea of dropping by just to have a chat with him, before motoring on back to my place. It was only about 1730 anyway, and far too early for me just to sit around the shack listening to the she-wolf howl, as she always does for some reason. When I eased on into his driveway, I made the right-hand turn rather slowly this time.

There he stood, dressed in a tee shirt and denim overalls, working on a motor sitting so proudly, breather side upward on a cherry picker stand. Some people talked trash when they saw somebody dressed up like old Huck was, but little do they know that these overalls sure are comfortable as bloody hell to work in.

The bib has a zipper with a rather large pocket where all of one's nails, screws, washers, sockets, and other small but handy tools might be stored. On his right side is a loop for hanging a hammer, and a small slip pocket in the bib for holding one's tape measure, and a carpenter's pencil. The dress up really couldn't be beaten at all for pure practicality.

As I came to pause in his driveway, I could tell that he was still coming down off an intense hangover from the night before. He hadn't changed a bit during the whole ten yearsthat I had been knowing him. He still looked the same, all six feet four of him, still muscled up like the Incredible Hulk or some other bodybuilder, even though he never worked out. I never could for the life of me, figure out how he tolerated wearing a full, chest-length beard of red and blond hair, all summer long as hot as it gets around here. I guess that it made him happy to have it though and at the end that was all that really mattered. He smiled great big from inside his heavy beard as I eased up. I rolled down my window as my truck eased into a stop on his driveway.

“Well I'll be Dolly damned!” he said with a laugh and a smile. “Look what the cat just drug up around here!”

“I thought that I would catch you around here, you ole whore hopper, you!,” I said as I returned my laugh. I got out of the truck as we both shook hands and clasped shoulders.

“Well what are you up to now?” he asked with the same grin and laugh. “I know that you are up to something. You have been into something ever since I first met you!”

“Let's snap up some fast money come tomorrow around 1000 hours. What ya say?,” I snapped.

“Oh hell, now, ole hell..! What ya cookin'? I smell somethin'! I hope it's good!” he said.

“Oh yea, its good enough,” I laughed. “The real question is are you in?”

“Well that depends,” he said as his smile suddenly dried up. “We both just got out of jail only a month ago, and I am not really keen on going back.”

“Wait a minute. Just wait a minute here! Just listen to what I got on,” I slurred.

“You know over there, just before wegot locked up, Lake Babon came out with that blue law.”

“Yeah, I remember,” he said scratching his head. “So what's up?”

“You know those RV'ers over on the camp Clear Waterside are not happy about it at all,” I said, “especially the ones from way out of town.”

“So just come on out with it..., what's on your mind now?” he snapped.

“Back when we got out of jail, I picked up a twenty-four pack of Coors regular, and motored over there one day, just out of sheer boredom.”

“Yeah, I bet you were, man. Just be honest about it. You went over there to visit Grandma Sadie's Cook House, didn't you?” he snapped with a broad condemning grin. “Which one is that you really took a shining to, now? Wasn't it the one they call the Bimini Blue Belle? Didn't you even go as far as to take her back into the video room, so I distinctly recollect you telling me in your intoxicated haze, you half baked bonbon? Just wait until I get my hands on that video, man. I'll show it to every broad at the first party I hold over in the hut, way back on Pap's old place in the woods, over there on Sutler's Hill.

“Who told you that garbage, man? What video? Show me one when you find it,” I laughed as I heard him speak.

“Naw, naw, naw!,” I suddenly interjected. “Come on man, just let me finish this story. We'll discuss that deal later on at another time!”

“Alright,” he snorted. “Go ahead with it. But I will definitely be reminding you of that story.”

“Well, I swung on passed there, right in front of the area where the campers were that first Sunday morning, and these good lookin' rich broads came running out, wanting to hop right onmy truck, in the bed and inside the cab with me. One wanted a beer, so I let her have one. Then another offered to buy all of them, and paid me two dollars a piece! So I was thinkin', man….,” I sighed.

“Hold it, now! Just hold it, right there man...I can see it all right now! That's all that it would take to get both of us some more time in the cage, man. I am tired of having to fight just to eat a decent meal. Fight to sleep without being bothered, and so on. I don't ever want to go back there again, man,” he narrowed his eyes and said.

“Come on with me, man. You'll like it. You won't be sorry. It's just enough funds to carry us both on through the month. Any job within five hundred miles is so tough for anybody to get a man, especially one that pays worth a damn. We'll pull it off and it will be a cinch, then we both will have our money while all of the others sweat about it! When you see all of that money and the honey that we'll reap, you'll be so glad that you went in with me, man.”

Huck took a big sigh.

“How many do ya have there inside the bed of that truck?”

“Fifteen cases,” I snapped.

“That computes to 360 beers,” he instantly snapped without even pausing. “In other words, that calculates to 720 dollars.., unless we could dare to ask for a dollar more, and how long will it take for us to net this?”

“Maybe an hour,” I retorted.

“But I know you, man. There's something else up your sleeve. I can feel it, now! How much grow room ganja are you planning on trading for God knows what?” Huck reared upand laughed.

I laughed, feeling like I couldn't stop.

“Not nearly enough as I would like to have.”

“I knew it! I knew it! How much? Just come out with it, man!” replied Huck, appearing to become somewhat annoyed with me.

“About a pound of green goo grass.”

“A pound of good ganja?” he snapped with critical excitement. “That's all that we both need right about now.”

“It will all fly away like butterflies high on bootee powder, man,” I went on to assure him. “Man, I mean, these big city dames are a class act, from all over. Just think about it. We might even get some really smooth snoot out of it, or at least a good toot on the ole grindin' flute,” we both laughed heartily for some time at the thought. Ole Huck then kind of narrowed his eyes and tilted his head at me, and said;

“What's the matter there, oh buddy, oh boy, now? Has good Miss Jo Jo lost all of her Mo-Jo?” he laughed as he eyed me narrowly.

“Man she has been cold as a mountain snowfall for quite a while now. I still get my kicks though. She had plenty of advance warning. You know, a man's gotta do what a man gotta do, now.,” we both laughed again for some time.

“Yea, me and the whole community keeps on hearing about it,” Huck spouted as we continued to laugh.

“ Well, you know that you can't ever believe what the rumors speak of. Hell, in reality, there is so much more good stuff to know about that the rumors never pick up on! Tell me about what you have heard tomorrow. I'll be around in about a thousand hours.”

“Yeah? It really won't bother me if you casually just forgot about it, but whatever,” Huck replied as he busied himselfagain with work on his motor.

I shifted gears then slowly I eased backward out of his driveway. I knew that he would come through. He frequently ruffles up that way, but then he always comes through. He was an outstanding mechanic, a mastermind if anybody was to ever ask me. On top of it all, he was a true loyal friend that one could totally trust to the fullest in any situation, and these types are very few and far between these days. He was also an outstanding fighter if that just wasn't enough, and one sure had rather have him on his side, than against him.

Last year we walked over to Food City across the road just to pick up some beer and cigarettes. Some man with a license plate tag on his car, all the way from California was there in the checkout line. This man had a bleached out blond with him that looked just like she had walked off the latest centerfold, only to stand right there before us. We both simply could not help but gawk at her body form alone in utter amazement, let alone that angel's face of her's.

Well, the man suddenly bowed up at Huck, asking him just who did a brute such as himself think that he was, a-lookin' at another man's woman like that. He mouthed on to say that he was a karate champ and knew well how to put his kind right down hard on the ground. Huck just dipped down all of a sudden, and grabbed this man at the crotch with his right forearm, then grabbed him by the front of his shirt with his left hand, hoisting him up all the way over his head.

Casually as if he was carrying a sack of potatoes, Hucksauntered over to the storefront window carrying this man on both hands with his arms stretched upward, then threw the man slam damn through, head first, causing this foreign karate champ to roll out onto the concrete amid all of the blood and glass shards, completely unconscious.

Ten police cars roared up no more than fifteen minutes later, cuffing Huck as they forced him down into the rear of the car, and carrying him away. I made it to the cage in a bit, but it cost me a thousand dollars to bail him out. I got my money back, later on, so losing it was not a problem. In total truth, it never is. This particular incident, however, is not why we both wound up going to jail.

About three months later we had a load of treble run and some good grows room ganja to drop. I think it was skunk bud if I shall recall rightly. Our rendezvous was at a place the old time planters used to call Singe Island, with what folks now would call a gang who virtually ran the entire island community. These inhabitants, appeared and behaved like anything but humans, living in complete squalor, breeding unscrupulously, with ramped violent crime of every sort, and completely disregarding any sort of an attempt at cleanliness at their very best.

There were seven of us, to begin with, and seven of them. Huck and II had cooked up the liquor and the other five men in our group met us at our prearranged drop off site. All seven of us met this gang right there in front of a church building inside the very heart of this riff-raff island community, appearing as a very old, ragged attempt at being some sort of limestone catholic cathedral. The locals claimedthat the church dated to the time of Columbus himself, but nobody had ever made the effort to verify this claim.

Well as we were speaking with them in regard to our trade, one of them suddenly commenced talking about how he didn't like the looks of our stuff, putting it down without even trying it, hoping we would drop the price; but we didn't, we all knew his game. Then out of nowhere ole Huck abruptly reared back with that massive right hand of his, when he tired of listening to the son of a bitch's charade, and knocked this beast completely out cold onto the ground right before the front door of the church; and then the big fight for all time was on!

The other five of our men became terrorized when the violence commenced, racing back toward their truck as though they were half crazy out of their minds with fear. That left old Huck and me alone with these seven brutes, who then turned on both of us as our five cohorts made their exit back onto the dirt road for about four hundred yards, then vanishing to the left once on the paved road.

There was three of them on me, and four of these beasts on Huck! I glanced over and Huck was moving from one to the other, like a fast-forwarded scene in some John Wayne western. All four of them reared backward appearing almost as if they had been shot, rather than punched. That is how solid ole Huck can land a punch. Nobody that takes one can stand in the same place, no matter how big he might be. Before I even knew what was going on, Huck had snapped his famous Swiss Army knife out that he always keeps razor sharp, andcut one of these brutes all the way across the entire breadth of his stomach. When he did so, the brute threw both hands directly up into the air, then Huck reached down with that sun-browned hand of his, and cut him again!

This bastard doubled over, grabbing his stomach with both hands as the blood just came gushing out over the tops of his arms like it was pouring from a water hose turned wide open. He staggered about fifteen feet, then collapsed completely unconscious into a heap right there on the cold ground at his feet. The blood was so thick on the ground for the fifteen feet, that one could not even see the grass underneath. It honestly did appear as though it had been sprayed from a water hose!

Well, that sole action saved the day, because all six of them quit fighting with us, then raced over toward him, laying completely unconscious on the ground there just beyond the door of this church building. While they were picking him up off the ground and were laboriously stuffing the one down into a nearby parked car, Huck and I decided to make our hasty exit from the combat zone.

We glanced southward from our present position toward the highway, and the roadway was lined up with police cars like somebody had called in the cavalry to their rescue, imagine that! We couldn't go back down the dirt road in the community where they lived, because we didn't know what was waiting down the road for us. The only way that we could go was out down the old railroad bed through the woods immediately behind this decrepit church building.

It was actually easy walking through what would have otherwise been very dense woods, on the old railroad bed. We eventuallymade it out onto this farm, where there was a straight running dirt road. When we followed this dirt road to the point where it made a T, we rounded to the right, seeking to make our way out toward the paved road to a place where we knew we could catch a ride home; then we walked smack dab into the police who were paused there underneath the trees unseen, as if only waiting for us to arrive.

We both wound up pulling about four months in the pen for this incident. What the hell, though, it was all in a life. We are both free now, and living better than we ever have before. I later heard this troll that Huck sliced had nine pints of blood pumped into him, and eighteen hundred stitches. That 'll teach 'em to jump a Benson man and a bayou mechanic again!

I soon pulled into my own dirt driveway. On the right, as I pulled in, was the mailbox and a head high pink crape myrtle tree. I eased on passed, soon pausing before the door on my home of the day, my headlamps clearly lighting up the closed heavy wooden door to the porch of the antique A framed farmhouse. With my keys, I turned the lock, then opened the door. A slightly over a medium-sized woman with a hardened face, tears streaming down and both hands solidly upon her hips, was standing there to greet me.

“And just where in the hell have you been this time?” she screamed at me in a voice of great distress.

“At Huckle Buck's house,” I snapped.

“I knew it! You had to be over at that piece of trash's place of residence, didn't you?” she raged. “ Or was it some whore way down the road again,Henry? You are about as damn good for nothing, as any there ever was!” she raged as she wept.

“I wasn't at no whore's house, but alas if I was, you bought it on,” I snapped at her.

“And just how was that, might I dare ask, that I brought all of this on?” she virtually screamed.

“Well, all of this bitching that I have to hear all of the time. That's one for starters.”

“Oh yea,” she snapped. “Is that all? Is that the best that you can do to condemn me?”

“No, there's more to this story here. You don't do what I want, so I have to go elsewhere to take care of my business. You made me this way!,” I began to rage at her.

“Me, made you that way? Well, that's a fine excuse for just being no account!”

She walked up, grabbing me by my chin, and forcefully shoving me up against the wall.

“One day I will get tired of your sorry ass, and when I do you'll live to regret the day that you ever lost me, fellow.”

“Oh yeah? Well, where are you gonna go? I mean, in the beginning, you made a half decent woman, Jo Jo, but then you turn and become something else, something that no self-respecting man could ever like being around for the long term.”

“You'll see when it is far too late to reconsider. When it is gone, it will be gone forever, Henry,” she snapped at me in bitter words.

“You'll be back,” I snapped with a sly laugh. “I am not worried at all about that.”

“Oh yeah, and why do you say that?” she spouted as she gritted her teeth in seething anger.

“ Because The Man knows what mama really likes, that's why,” I laughed with a deep rumble.

“Yeah? Don't you dare try andplay macho with me, Henry Lee Benson, because I know better! You might not be able to go on an empty long haul, honey, but I damn sure can; forever more, if I have to!”

The night came and went. Jo and I hardly even spoke. She slept with her back to me, seeming as if she was weeping in the silence of the night, continually shoving my arm from upon her side. What I was thinking of more than anything else, was the big spree planned for tomorrow. That quick money would really come in Jim damn handy. According to our calculations, we both would net over five hundred dollars apiece, in maybe an hours time. Then I had to consider our fringe benefits as well, being surrounded by all of those gorgeous bikinis!

When we awoke, Jo Jo was kind enough to prepare breakfast for the both of us. She cooked up some good cheese grits, bacon and eggs, that always left the house with a really pleasant smell first thing in the mourning when combined with the scent of fresh black coffee brewing inside the pot. Then she dressed and strangely exited the house without eating or even saying as much as a good morning, how are you doing, let alone a kiss.

“Well what's your problem?,” I suddenly burst out as she made her way outside from the porch, toward her car sitting patently there in the driveway. “Can't you even speak? And you wonder why I do the things that I do?,” I yelled in her direction.

The car started, then eased off slowly out of the driveway, with Jo never even glancing backward in my direction.

At least I was free for the day. I had once tried to love Jo Jo. She was a good woman and allof that stuff, but she had ways that just struck me really hard in the wrong direction at times; too many times if you really want to know the truth. We had been together now for nigh on three years, but I knew that it wouldn't last on and on. We had dated my last year in high school, off and on, and she was a good girl way back then, but not the kinda wise man would ever want to marry. I was even aware of that fact way back then.

I had left the area for about four years, and when I returned, she had already married some poor chap who didn't know better, but deep down I knew that it wouldn't last. I called her home place several times over the course of the years, only to have her mother continually inform me that she was still married.

When I finally came back around, I first ran into an old friend of mine, who had just come home after pulling four years in the army. He was supposed to marry this German woman named Margret. She brought over some really fine looking German felines with her. I tied up with one really sleek vixen named Gretchin, who had to have been a head taller than myself, and just as blonde haired as a field of flaxen. To my shock and surprise, all of them had been here in Biloxi now for quite a while! Gretchin had introduced me to a local lady that she had befriended named Joanne, whom I had never met before; and when Gretchin finally traveled back home to Germany, I and Joanne ran tightly together for a good long while.

We tried having a relationship for about six months once during our total time together. Joanneand I decided after that span, that our relationship was not headed anywhere much. She wanted to remain friends, however, and I agreed. As a gesture of good will toward me, she stated that she wanted to introduce me to a recently available cousin of hers who wanted a new relationship and was ready to try with me upon learning from Joanne about our breakup.

The next weekend, her cousin arrived at the place Joanne and myself were living in at the time. I couldn't tell much from peering through our living room window above the couch back in our living room. The hundred and fifty-year-oldfifty-year-old glass panes had not only thickened at the bottom of the pane, with years of gravity pulling down on the glass, these individual window panes had also clouded inside the glass itself. All the scrubbing with Windex or whatever in the world would never clear them again.

After I heard this heavy knock, I nearly fell over backward when I opened up and saw Jo Jo standing there at the door! I wasn't sure how I would even feel about any of this arrangement anymore. Joanne didn't mind me paying her an occasional visit. I dropped by off and on, rather frequently, and to be honest about this situation, I never really stopped altogether. Just because I was now seeing her cousin didn't cause her to place any forbearance on me, and that made me happy deep down on the inside. Joanne was all real woman to the bone as far as I was concerned, but things just didn't work out between us at the time. Without realizing it, I think that I was hoping that somehow we would eventually tie up for the long term.

My friend Wild Dog, who had just gotten out of thearmy, said that all of us would go visit the ladies over in Germany very soon. He was going there anyway in a month to tie the knot for good, so then I could always swing by Gretchen's place when I was in Ram Stein if she was still single. Margaret assured me that she would be, the German men were just far too picky, she continued to afirm..

I honestly had nothing to lose in this deal with Jo Jo, that was more and more appearing to be soiled for more reasons than only one, I thought at the time. In all honesty, we probably should have just allowed our affair to simply die on the limb. Real life at times, however, just doesn't work out that easily.

After Jo Jo had left for work at the local rest home nearby, I kicked back with my cup o' coffee, then turned on some Skynard at the stereo deck on my right-hand side, sitting beside the antique living room couch. I think that I was listening to the Smoke House Jamboree when I suddenly decided to ease out back to the barn and investigate my secret stash of ganja. The April morning really felt pleasant as I quickly placed my stash inside an empty five-gallon bucket, nonchalantly making my way toward the toolbox, pushed up tight against the cab in the bed of my pickup truck.

Over inside the barn stood a rather large 1955 refrigerator. It still worked well after all of these life long years! It kept certain food cool and other miscellaneous matter, but what it kept cool most of all was beer! This time it had been filled to the bloody rim with Coors regular and the Silver bullet. Quickly I loaded all of it up into three emptyColeman coolers, icing it all down heavily with what I had inside the refrigerator until Huck and myself made our way out to Lake Babon. In a flash I was over to the truck bed, dropping these tightly closed coolers inside.

It didn't take me twelve minutes to ride over to Huck's garage. There he was, dressed just as the day before, standing tall with his massive arms crossed. He was shaking his head as I eased up, pausing immediately in front of my rig. I rolled down my window.

“Well good morning!,” I said with a smile that nearly transformed into a laugh.

“Yeah, its morning alright. I haven’t decided if it's good yet,” Huck snarled.

I almost burst out into laughter.

“You'll change, you ole sodbuster, you. Just wait till you get your hands on that free and clear money. Just imagine the picture, while you are shufflin' hard cash with your left hand, you got a fine Yankee centerfold lettin' you shuffle some grouse with your right one! You know that you can't wait.”

I resumed laughing once more again, only this time I thought that I might fall out into the floorboard of the truck.

“Yeah, you keep on laughing, but when we get caught you'll quit that laughing. Then you'll wish that all you had to worry about was dodging Yankee hornets nests that you mistook for grouse. I will tell you that much in a hurry,” rumbled Huck.

I commenced laughing once more again. I couldn't resist punching the gas pedal, causing its open mufflers to roar, then taking my foot off the pedal just to let the rig rumble. I was still laughing, but I did it just because I felt completely free as a bird. Huck suddenly appeared to come nearly unglued.

“Are you crazy here, Henry Lee? These people aroundhere live only to sit in front of their windows searching for something out of place to cry to the police about. You are attracting attention and giving them just what they are looking for!” he shouted as he unfolded his arms, walking closer toward me.

I simply couldn't stop laughing. I was almost to the point of crying.

“Get on in here, man. Let's go! We have money to make and ladies to love. Just think about it… How many average people get chances such as this, man, and here you are..the likes of you.., getting that chance. There are people who live their entire lives out and never have days such as this one, man. Just think about it!”

Huck never replied, he just sat there all stone-faced. I punched the gas pedal hard, causing the truck to take off suddenly, giving both of us a feeling as if it had rocket boosters in the engine. The needle on the odometer read ninety, which was my usual speed anyway, then one hundred, and on beyond until it stopped. When the truck body felt as if it was skipping or gliding on air, I figured that I must have been traveling somewhere around one hundred fifty miles per hour.

“Are you crazy, man? Have you lost your cookie or something? What in the damn hell have you been into? Did Jo Jo get her MoJo back last night, all of a sudden?” Huck roared with a look of distress. “Its one damn thing to pull time in jail, it's another one to wind up in the graveyard. I have no intention of doing either one today. Do you hear me? You hear me, man, through that deaf ear and into your thick skull?”

In a zip we were slowing down at a turning point,we only had to make a left and soon we would be on the Camp Clear waterside, where the business and the good bootee was. Even though it was only April, I still saw a number of colorful bikinis on some really tight female bodies strutting passed on the roadsides as we slowly cruised along. I honestly think that they really were in love with my truck. Virtually all of them gave me a smiling thumbs up. Two of them that we passed by gave me the thumbs up, then the most busty one dropped her top, and shook her exposed breasts from side to side.

“Damn son, did you see that? Look, boy, look! Wi Wish Wu Wood Wook Wat Wat, boy!,” I screamed to Huck, who to my shock and surprise, was still rather stone-faced. “I'm all speechless, son!”

“Yeah, I always knew that you could be deaf and damn dumb at times,” Huck rumbled with his arms still crossed. “Don't you know that these sluts around here are already half high this time of year?” he growled as he turned to face me. “She's probably got hold of some fruit loop weed or something if the real stuff hasn't shipped in here yet.”

“You mean Jimson weed, don't you, man?,” I asked as I laughed.

“Yeah, that and damn morning glory seed. That's why you see these bitches takin' their clothes off like that, man. I mean, really..”

I begin laughing, again feeling as though I couldn't stop.

“That's the craziest thing that I have ever heard man. I hope that they smoke plenty more of it, myself.”

“I know you, son of a bitch, you thought that it was your truck, didn't you, you damn dumb ass! ” Huck thundered suddenly.

At the same time that I am laughing, I reply to his statement.

“Well,of course, I did man. What woman wouldn't be turned on by a jacked up Sanoma pickup truck, painted with the flag of succession turned sideways on both sides, with the divine circle of twelve stars on the hood center? Not to mention a bored out 302 Boss V8, bearin' two open dually mufflers that will really growl like a junkyard dog, just to let all of them know what this bad machine likes! I honestly think that the sound alone, let alone her looks, acts as a shear aphrodisiac to these big city Yankee queens that come all around here this time of year, man!”

“That's the fruit loop weed, you damn dumb ass,” growled Huck again.

I continued laughing as I made that left hand turn into Camp Clearwater. The excitement was really running high inside of me. I allowed the truck to idle into a smooth rumble, as it coasted in toward the area of the RV campers. The idle of the motor and the slow turn of the camshaft just eased the truck along all on its own, without me even having to press the gas pedal. Soon I was in the virtual center of this camping facility. I eased into a pause, gently tapping the break. I shifted the gear shaft into neutral, about the time I punched hard down on the gas pedal, causing the truck to roar like a mighty lion wanting to awake the dead, then let off so this bad assed cat could just purr, as she called in her beautiful little Koochie kittens to come outside and play.

At least thirty nice bikini clothed flesh angels raced from inside the RV's. By this time Huckle Buck's face had cleared up considerably. He had even commenced smiling from inside that thick chest length redand blond beard of his. Yes, all of you sweet honey bunnies, there really is a face neath all that hair.

“Watch this Huckle Buck, there. I forgot to tell you what I rigged up,” I said as the cute little rabbits commenced to play all around my truck.

I bumped a smaller gear shift down in the floorboard sitting tightly against my seat. Instantly the truck dropped on the rear end, then rose back up into level height, then dropped back down. I punched the gas pedal hard again while the truck was in neutral, letting this sleek lion roar one more time.

“Son, the king is tellin' these little angels what he likes, when he drops up and down like that!,” I said as I slapped ole Huck hard on the thigh. Soon the truck leveled out and the girls flooded it, filling the bed up, wanting to sit inside the seat with both of us.

One of them was a very toned up redhead with shoulder length hair and a bust that had to have been sized double Ds. She sat right dead in Huck's lap, kissing him like she never wanted to come up for air. When she finally pulled away, all that Huck could do was just gasp and stare, seemingly totally speechless. I began to laugh until I felt like I could hardly breathe.

“They call me Double D Darlene, but you can call me DD if you would like. We all know that you and your sidekick here have the stuff. We can see that the three coolers are filled with it.”

“Well take what you want,” Huck snapped as he gasped. “They're only three dollars a can.”

“Three dollars... Three dollars a can? What kind?” she purred.

“Coors, Coors regular and The Silver Bullet!,” I spouted out.

“Gimme a can andI will let you touch one of the double D's,” she said, as she gazed with glazed over eyes at the two of us. She turned her bosom toward Huckle Buck, as she sat right there in his lap. Her hands slowly eased on up the inside of his thighs.

“Well, they're his, not mine!” Huck suddenly snapped at her, pointing his left thumb toward me sitting patiently underneath the wheel as he spoke.

“Well, he can touch too. Don't you dare be stingy with 'em now! There's enough to go around for you both,” she purred as she gazed at both of us with those glazed over eyes. “What's the matter, you too scared that the big bad wolf will get you or something? Now what are you waiting for, here,?” she said as she shoved her well-endowed bosom forward.

Huck suddenly reached up and went to rubbing one of her exceedingly large and firm appearing breasts with his right hand. I soon followed, being careful to mash the left side rather firmly but not sharp or hard, as I gradually moved my hand up and down as if I was massaging it tactfully. With a short passage of time, the look on her face told me that it was taking effect. About that same time, she glanced up into my eyes.

“Enough! Stop it, right now!” she yelled, as she grabbed our hands with both of hers. When we released, she gradually calmed back down again into her same previous disposition. “Well, that will be two beers worth that you have taken already. So pay up right now, and then we might talk about a little more, and how much it will cost you,” she said with a smile streaking across her sun-browned face.

The other girls had commenced to virtually mobbing ourthree coolers sitting inside the truck bed, quickly opening them, and shoving handfuls of cash money through the opened window in my rear glass. All that I could do was grab the cash and stash it in wads inside a slip box that I had built directly into the seat behind the calf of my legs. I stacked the cash into neat stacks inside. As the money came pouring through, ones turned into tens and tens into the twenties! At a mere glance, I counted three hundred dollars, and I still had a huge stack inside the box behind the calf of my legs! I simply could not believe it. Only God knows how they'll act when we give them this really outstanding grow room goo ganja that I have stashed behind my seat here!

In no time flat, the beer was all gone. I began to count the cash and simply could not believe my poor wanting eyes. We had netted over two thousand dollars cash on this deal! Maybe it really was the magic in my one of a kind truck or something.

“Well Buck, we didn't make out half bad on this deal, their son. According to my count, we have netted around two thousand and twenty-five smackers here inside this box.” I said with what I know was a show of real delight on my face.

“Its about time, cause more time has passed than we could ever realize here. We've been here well over two hours already. Amber Ray 'll be wondering where in the holy hell it is that I am, right about now; and how will I ever explain this to her?”

“Well just wait a cotton-tailed minute here now boys. You mean to tell me that you both think that you are just goin' to takeall of our money and ride away like that?” suddenly spoke the busty redhead.

Now things were starting to get really sticky. I laughed slightly, then asked.

“What do ya mean, take all your money? We sold you a beer, and good beer at that, I might add.”

The busty redhead suddenly smiled as she laughed, then she turned toward the mob of women, some clothed in bikinis, some already nude, and she asked aloud.

“Hey girls! How do you feel about handing the boys here some hard earned money, and all that they want to do is just run off and play when there is so much work to do around here?”

The mob of women began to say “boo!” in unison, then one of them suddenly spoke up.

“That's so not nice of them to do a thing like that.”

“Work to do? What you mean by that?” Huck began to ask with a concerned look on his face.

The busty redhead began to laugh hard all of a sudden. A nude woman with a perfectly symmetrical body suddenly spoke up.

“Yeah, none of us gave you our hard earned money for nothing now!”

“But you have our beer,” we both said in unison.

“But the beer was only two dollars a can,” replied the busty redhead. “We gave you a whole hell of a lot more money than what fifteen cases were worth. What did you think? That we were goin' to just give you money for nothing?”

“How do you know that it was fifteen cases?,” I snapped.

“Do you think that we are dumb, or something?” another woman interjected. “You got to earn your keep around here, baby.”

Soon the entire bunch walked up close to the truck, with their hands on both of their hips. Thinking back, it really was a funny sight, with part of them withouttops, another part without bottoms, some fully clothed in bikinis, and the others totally nude. “Yeah,” they all said, “you two have a job to do around here!”

“What kind of job? What are you talking about?” I snapped in shock.

“You two, out of the truck.., now!” spouted the busty redhead.

We both exited the truck, standing there before the crowd of women.

“Now both of you take your clothes off..!” spouted the busty redhead with a new raging voice.

“Well, we have ganja! Some fresh goo grows room. Right here!,” I suddenly spouted without thinking, only to regret it later.

“Let us see it,” spoke two of the women.

I walked back over to the truck, reaching behind the seat, and pulling out the pound weight that I had in the bag, holding it high, and shaking it.”

One of the nude women walked up and snatched the bag, smiling as she opened it, sniffing the contents a multiple of times.

“We'll take it,” she said.

“What?,” I yelled as she tossed it into the motley crew. Several women raced away from the truck, gathering a few yards away, taking the contents of the bag and speaking in a chatter that was barely understandable.

“That helps,” spoke the busty redhead, but that doesn't get you off the hook. Like I said earlier, take it all off, my little pretties!”

Something about this situation had suddenly taken the taste out of my mouth. I just didn't like the way that all of this was headed anymore.

“Can't you hear me? I said strip it off, and now!” she shouted. Some more time passed.

“Hey Sooy, there,” she turned and yelled. “Come over here and help us strip these two boys down if you could,” requested the busty redhead toward what seemed to be the crowd.

“Oh, it would be my good pleasure,” spoke astrange voice from the back side of the crowd. All the other women quietened suddenly, seeming to step aside to form a narrow aisle. Then in walked the largest whale of a woman that I think I have ever laid eyes on in my entire life. Huck simply hung his head as if he was about to weep. He placed his hands over his eyes, rubbing them, then said.

“Oh hell, here Henry! You've damn sure done it this time. What kind of mess have we got ourselves into now? I suddenly don't like the looks of this one bit!”

This monster of a woman waddled up to stand before both of them dressed in a bikini so tight that it appeared as if it would squeeze her to death.

“It appears to me that we haven’t met,” she said with a broad smile. “They call me Thunder Bootee my two chickadees, and there's nothing I love to do better than to break it down right here in broad daylight on such a nice warm spring day! Now you heard the good lady there, take it off! Take it all off, and take it off right now!”

“I think that you are goin' to have to just strip them down your self, TB there!” spoke a voice from the crowd.

“Seems like you two don't hear or just don't understand too well. When I say take it off, then I mean for you to, damn it, take it all off!,” she shouted as she reached behind her back and produced a brand new Ruger P39. “When I say something, I mean what I say,” she turned to DD, asking her to come to hold the gun on us for a bit, while she gives emphasis to her hard demands. When she handed the gun overto DD, she walked up to me and slapped me across the face so hard that I fell back up against my truck. She grabbed my T-shirt, ripping it from my body.

“I wanna see some meat here, goddammit!” she screamed.

I reached up and unbuckled my pants, standing there before her just as naked as the day I was born. Huck did the same, though somewhat reluctantly.

“Ooowee gals, just look a here at this display! They don't look half bad to me! What about all of you?”

“Well since you did all of the work there TB, looks like you should be the one to reap the first reward !” yelled another half-naked woman from the crowd. “Show them what ya got, TB!”

This great big whale of a woman pulled her top off, slinging her breasts from side to side so hard that I could hear the flesh slap both of her sides.

Ooowee, there is nothing that I don't love better than to take on ten head at one time!” she screamed with a wide smile to the crowd.

“Show him the low Joe! Show him the low Joe!,” the same woman screamed from inside the crowd.

TB pulled down her skirt and panties, taking them off and slinging them to the ground. She stood before us so that we could clearly see all.

“Now!,” spoke the busty redhead. “Both of you are going to get inside that drop top Thunderbird that is pulling up. And you are going to do just what we all tell you to do, how we tell you to do it when we tell you to do it! And I'll tell both of you right now, we want it all! We want you to do everything! And you are going to start with good ole TB right there in theback seat of that car as we go along on the way to the back door party shack! And one more thing, we WILL get our monies worth out of you two!”

“What about my truck?,” I asked.

“That damn truck will be right there when you two get back. You might not be able to drive it, though. Aint that right TB?”

“You damn sure got that right,” she spoke with that cankered smile of hers.

Well, Huck and I got into the car, and four of the women got into the car with us. I unfortunately, was chosen to ride in the back seat with TB. She commenced to kissing me all over just as soon as we entered into the seat. I rode her hard for what felt like an hour before the car came to a stop. I glanced up over the rear seat, seeing seven other vehicles pulling down this long dirt road, and parking in front of the same beach house appearing cottage that we had parked in front of. The last vehicle that came bouncing down this road was my truck, strangely enough to my own surprise. I breathed a bit easier then. The whale and I fell out of the back seat of that Thunderbird, directly onto the ground, never missing a single stroke.

A really attractive nude woman with shoulder-length hair walked up to see the sights, so I stood up onto my feet, then reached over and kissed her deeply, just to see how responsive she was to me. Huck fell into the opened door of the car for his own turn with that great big whale of the tail, TB. Soon I was down on the ground again but with this fine thing, doing the Jim Dandy from the back side, while the cheer-filledcrowd had gathered all around to watch.

After about three more women, somehow we made it inside of this cottage, and it was on with another one, while the busty redhead screamed out her demands for us to engage. I never thought that I would ever realize it, but the highlight of the entire night was when I had the pleasure of doing Miss DD. By that time, daylight had transformed into night, and I had absolutely no complete idea of what time it was.

When I finished with my last joy ride, I stepped outside for a fresh breather. A noticeable change in the pitch of the frogs singing at night somehow told me that it must be somewhere near morning time. I gazed up into the sky toward the little dipper, and it confirmed to me that the time was approximately 0300. Sunday had already turned into Monday. Boy, we both had a day that we'll never forget in a lifetime. The busty redhead sauntered up to the doorway before us, yawning, as we both stood nude outside on the dew covered spring grass.

“Well, it was a pure pleasure for all of us to do business with you. Don't you worry now, your clothes are inside of your truck outside there? See how kind we are to you? But like I have always said, its all in the name of good business around here. Our business motto is food, brews or screws, nobody flies around here for free, honey; and the biggest one of us always gets the first nip! Now that's the very least a bunch of good girls like all of us can do, wouldn't you two agree? ”

Neither of us said a single word in reply. We just said our goodbyes and walked on over to thetruck parked toward the dirt road leading into the cottage. We both were so sore that we could barely lift our legs to climb up inside. Sure enough, when we opened the doors, our clothes were laying right there in the seat. We casually put them back on, then forced our selves to climb back up into the seat with all of our might. I hurt so badly I did not know what I was going to do about it. Huck returned back to his usual composure, both arms crossed, and stone-faced as poor ole Kaw-lija. Soon as both doors shut, I began laughing hysterically once more again.

“Boy Jo Jo and Amber Ray are going to be howling like two mad house wolves when we both make it home tonight.”

“Yeah, don't remind me, man,” he spouted.

“Son, those broads were getting into it, just like they had gone freaky crazy or something. I never thought that we would have what we had today and tonight. Four at one time, five at one time, on both ends and all the way around! Man! Oh man alive,” I said as I continued laughing.

“Just get me to the damn house, and soon. I need at least a whole days rest and relaxation after this experience,” Huck said as he yawned. “I think that I am just getting too damn old for this type of lifestyle. I honestly think that it is just about high time for me to settle down if anybody should ever ask me. Personally, it ain’t the first time in my life that I have had it this way, but it sure as hell is going to be my last.”

About the time that he finished saying that statement, we were pulling into his driveway. I paused the truck, and he tooka deep breath, saying, “well man, I'll be seeing you around. Just let this be the last time for me.”

I commenced laughing again.

“Yeah, you said all of that the last time we cut the crazy together, just like every other time,” I shouted as I continued to laugh.

“Yeah, but I mean it this time, oh buddy,” he said as he arose from the truck seat and slammed my passenger door. “Enough is just enough for one lifetime.”

I slowly backed out of the driveway. Well at least we made some real cash out of this deal, I thought to myself as I cruised along. I reached down into the slip pocket in the front of my seat behind the calf of my legs. It was empty! It was completely bone dry empty! Those slutty bitches had taken it all. That's all of my beer, my dope, and my money!

Come next day after tomorrow I would show them. I had to work right now, but just as soon as I could, I was going to pay them a kind visit. Before I really wanted to, my truck was turning into my own driveway, and easing to a stop before screened in porch door. I exited out of the truck, then took my key, almost reluctantly turned the lock; and when the door opened there was Jo Jo with tears streaming down her face, and just like I had said, howling like a madhouse wolf on a midnight full moon.

“And you tell me just where in the damn hell have you been? I have been waiting up all night for you, Henry. The very least that you could have done is just call me. That's the very least! And just what the hell is it that you were doing here all day whileI was slaving in that nursing home all day and on up into the night?”

“Why does it matter?,” I asked, trying to play nonchalantly.

“Why does it matter? Here it is that I am working as a kennel bitch, trying to make a life for us, and what in hell's name are you doing? Laying up on your sorry ass like a boar hog, doing nothing? Getting locked up again, for raising hell out on the street?”

She walks up close to me and begins sniffing.

“Who has it been this time, Henry? I can smell her perfume and her damn kitty cat! Just who has it been this time?”

“Nothing, just out trying to turn some dough,” I replied.

“Well, I am just going to be out with it. I've had it with you, Henry. I am going to go on to work, and we'll speak when I get back home about this matter.”

She then stormed out of the house, never even bothering to prepare breakfast, or even as much as to say goodbye, let alone offering me a morning kiss. I heard her car start out behind the porch door, then back away down the driveway. I sauntered over to the couch where Jo Jo and I had made passionate love three nights ago. I relaxed back into the chair, reflecting on everything for the past three years or so.

I heard the landline on the wall abruptly blare its loud outburst. I nearly leaped out of the chair. Lots of time had transpired, I had no idea how much. I was utterly exhausted, but I eerily had a bit more energy now. I picked up the phone. The female voice on the other end spoke just as soon as I picked the phone up and placed it to my ear.

“Well, I just thoughtthat I would call and see how things were going.” Instantly I recognized the voice of Joanne. “ I haven't heard from you in a while now. Hope your life has finally settled down for you these days. Maybe we could talk sometime.”

“Yeah, I think some big changes are in the makes for me, changes for the better. What time is it?,” I asked.

“About eleven thirty,” she replied.

“What are you doing for lunch?,” I asked her.

“I don't have any plans. Instead of us going out, why don't you wait until one o’clock and drop on by the house here? I have a bear roast on the oven, with sweet potatoes,” she said in a pleasant sounding voice.

“That sounds outstanding. I have some homemade muscadine that I will bring.”

“I hope that you and Jo Jo are doing o.k.,” she asked over the phone in a comforting voice.

“We'll talk about it when I get there,” I replied.

“Yeah, I've been thinking for a while on this myself. We really just need to be open with Jo Jo about our relationship. After all, she is still my cousin you know, and blood is thicker than water.”

“Yeah, some really big changes are certainly coming around here, but we will speak all about it when I get there later on. Until then, mi amour.”