Good Eye/Bad Eye

He met her in church on a Sunday morning. Since he was in town for only one day he invited her to breakfast afterwards. They got along so well that he gave her a couple of passes for the evening’s match in Boofterville. To his surprise she showed up with her brother. They returned with him to the dressing room for a few minutes and her brother got his autograph, saying that he was a huge fan. She wished him luck and then they went back to their seats.

He was slated for a later match, against Sgt. Big Bo Scrumble, 400 pounds of fighting Marine. Finally he heard the announcer, slapped the patch over his left eye, did a couple deep knee bends, and made his way to the ring. “And now, at 367 pounds, all the way from Vinegarroon County, Indiana, the most schizophrenic man in professional wrestling—Good Eye/Bad Eye!”

People strained to see which eye was uncovered. “It’s Good Eye,” the disappointing word spread. He stepped into the ring to cheers and shouts. He had just made her out in the crowd when Big Bo attacked him from behind, before the bell had even rung! Before he knew it he was on the canvas and Big Bo was applying a sloppy arm-bar-drag. Good Eye screamed in pain as Big Bo nearly pulled his arm from its socket. He struggled to his feet.

Big Bo kept the pressure on as he shouted epithets: “Ten hut! Stand at attention when I’m talking to you, maggot!” Then he kicked Good Eye in the ribs knocking him back onto the canvas. As Good Eye struggled, gasping for air, Big Bo showed his contempt by performing a few calisthenics while Good Eye pulled himself painfully to his feet.

Things didn’t get any better after that. Big Bo dropped him on his head a couple of times, even tried a DDT, which Good Eye managed to slip out of before he was knocked unconscious. Then Big Bo slapped him through the ropes and he lay on the ring apron, lights whirling around his head. The roar of the crowd seemed very far away.

He could barely make out the referee counting him out as Big Bo capered in the ring to the boos of the fans.

Suddenly someone was standing over him. “He’s killing you!” she anguished. “Ah, ’tain’t nothing,” he smiled unconvincingly through bloodied teeth. Someone tried to shepherd her away but Good Eye stopped him. “Wait.”

“You’ll never beat him, this way. I’m sorry,” she said as she grabbed his eye patch and pulled it over his one good eye. The crowd gasped. Big Bo stopped his prancing and a look of fear crossed his face. “It’s Bad Eye!” Someone screamed.

Without looking back Bad Eye climbed into the ring and viciously raked his fingernails over Big Bo’s face, blood flowing like the Red Sea. After a couple of good forearm shots Bad Eye had him down, stomping him unmercifully with his big black boots. After a couple of elbow drops he climbed to the top rope where he waited like some monstrous malevolent crow while the shaken Big Bo struggled to his feet. As Bo turned around Bad Eye pounced, leaping over his stunned opponent, capturing Bo’s head between his boots and performing a Flying Head Scissors that sent his opponent whirling into ear-ringing oblivion. “1–2–3,” the referee counted, it was over but Bad Eye wasn’t done yet. He chased the referee out of the ring, grabbed a chair, clobbered the announcer and would have finished off Big Bo except Captain Ace Hardy and his tag team partner, XNOID, led a group of wrestlers out of the back and subdued Bad Eye after twenty minutes of frantic pummeling that left the ring area shattered, several tables broken, three wrestlers and two managers unconscious, and the refreshment booth a wreck. Hotdogs, ice, popcorn, and soda were strewn from one end of the arena to the other. The crowd shouted for more.

Finally, six wrestlers held Bad Eye down as he growled and snapped at them. “We can’t hold him long, get that gal up here!” yelled Cap Ace and soon Bad Eye was glaring up at a young woman, tears in her eyes as she gently grasped his sweaty, bloody eye patch. He tried to pull away but she slid the patch across his battered nose until it covered his one bad eye.

Good Eye looked up and smiled.

He was in love.

The Pirate of Peppercorn Creek

It was the time of year that many in the Liars Bunch lived for. When the streets of the village of Jocobo were packed with strangers looking for a good time. They were searching for an answer and the Liars Bunch—a’settin’—on their bench, were there to give it to them.

Some of the boys even dressed up for the part although it was hard to figure out what part exactly they were playing. Joe “Peets” Moss might have looked the artistic type if it hadn’t been for the cheap all-sport shoes he was wearing. Zack Hardy affected the hog farmer style, with the bibs and the softball sized chaw tucked demurely in his cheek. The expensive watch on his wrist kinda gives his game away, though. Erv Roadapple looked like a bum, but it’s only because he’s not married and hates ironing his clothes. Harry Whelp, the one-eyed dentist, rarely bothers changing from his work “whites” with their splotches of dried blood arcing across his shirt and pants. Old Bart, however, is the very picture of a small town sage in his black slacks, white shirt, and thin black tie with a silver clasp. A cowboy hat wards off the hot sun and his silver belt buckle is cast in the shape of a lone American eagle, pouncing, with its wings flung high and talons extended.

A stuffed eagle sat in one corner of Calamine Pete’s cabin. It was a trophy he’d taken from an English “naturalist” right before he’d made him walk the plank. He hadn’t even bothered to pause and watch the lubber drown. “Let Nature take her course,” he chuckled.

Oh, yo ho ho
You dirty old dog,
Gonna cut you up
Like an ol’ fat hog!
Yo ho ho
And a bottle of beer . . .

“Jimmie!” He heard his mother calling him. “Jimmie!”

“All right,” he thought, “make that a bottle of root beer.” He got up from his favorite spot along the bank of Peppercorn Creek with a sigh, watching as the little reed boats he’d made that afternoon floated forever downstream. He wished he could go along, he thought, while starting home for supper. He could still hear the pirates singing their song.

Yo ho ho,
And a cask of scum
Effin’ you see us comin’
You better run . . .

Vinegarroon County was not the kind of place you’d expect to find a band of scurvy pirates but there they were, inside the head of the dreamy little boy sitting in the back row of the classroom. They were starting classes earlier every year it seemed. Why, summer wasn’t even close to over and here they were already learning geometry! He’d show them some geometry, by golly—the geometry of chasing Spanish treasure off Haiti and Jamaica! The geometry of a well-placed shot into ships’ rigging! The geometry of walking the plank! Ho ho ho!

“Um, could you repeat that question again, Mrs. Greech?”

Abby Greech shook her head with disdain. “Jimmie Bartholomew, you may want to stay after today’s class and clean the blackboards.”

“Aw.” Pa would have a fit if he wasn’t home in time to start his chores.

Later, with the room empty, as he stood beside her desk, Mrs. Greech said. “Jimmie, I told a little fib. I don’t want you to clean the blackboards.”

Jimmie looked up at her questioningly. Mrs. Greech was an old woman, at least 30, but she came from the city and had university training and so she was a little bit scary.

“I want you to write on the blackboard exactly what it is you’re daydreaming about during my class. You can go home as soon as you’ve finished.” She handed him a piece of chalk and walked out of the room.

“Gee whiz,” he thought, scratching his head. He stared at the board for quite some time before shrugging. “Why the heck not?”

He wrote down what was in his head until he’d filled up one blackboard and continued on to another. When he’d filled that one up he continued writing on the one in Mr. Grassgold’s room, then the room across the hall. Oh, Pa was mad that night and he’d gone to bed without supper and grounded for a month, but the growls his belly made were like the sweet groans of the mast as the sails shifted with the evening breeze.

Mrs. Greech had made him a writer. And he had had a wonderful career as the gadgets columnist in Popular Morbeau Magazine. Over six million readers worldwide and they even paid him, too, somewhat.

The warm breeze felt good to Old Bart as he snoozed on the Liars Bunch’s bench.

The fury of a storm just passing had left Calamine Pete and his scurvy crew helpless as a British frigate approached. The King Canute had no mercy for pirates. The battle was short and brutal as the Canute battered them from afar. Explosions ripped the deck and killed his men as Calamine Pete labored in vain to strike back. Finally the British ship of war approached deliberately, menacingly, grappling hooks pulling at what rigging was left. Calamine Pete and a few crewmen made it over the side and into a dinghy only moments before the bomb they’d set in the magazine took both ships in a towering gout of flame.

Old Jimmie Bartholomew sighed as he opened his eyes and gazed benignly out on the peaceful scene in downtown Jocobo on a warm summer’s evening.

A Quick and Dirty Tour of The Liars Bunch

“Vinegarroon County is one of those places where anything can happen,” reflected Babe Martin to the visitor as he absent-mindedly guided his hurtling pickup down the steep, winding mountain road. The guardrail was bashed and bumped and occasionally breached but Babe never gave it a thought.

When they reached the overlook he pulled the truck to a sudden halt, tossing a few empty beer cans into the trash barrel there. “The cops in Jocobo are getting a mite ambitious,” he reflected. “They don’t need much encouragement to open an investigation.” Babe roamed Vinegarroon County like a nervous dog, never able to lie down long.

They could see a good part of the county down below. Every ledge and rocky outcropping had a home, small farm, or small community nestled there.

“Jocobo is down that way,” Babe pointed towards the county seat part way down the side of the old volcano. “It was named for "The Kissing Saint" by the first white man who may or may not have passed through this way over 200 years ago.

“Lake Doofus is over there and you can just see an edge of Clyde’s Fungal Growth Park and below it there is Bone Head and Sleepyville. This place is full of legends and ghosts, artists, writers, wannabees, and just plain folks—like you and me.” Babe slipped the truck back into gear and soon they were once again hurtling down the state highway.

They soon reached Jocobo. “Whataya want to see first? Don’t blink. Ha ha! Hey, there’s old Quink Otis. Street-singer, but he ain’t much appreciated.

There’s Eustice Wigg—don’t look!—the nosiest gal around. What was that? You think calling her a gal is demeaning? Jeez, Louise, get used to it, the ’90s are so over!”

Suddenly Babe stopped the truck.

“Here’s some guys you really ought to talk to,” he said after they stepped onto the sidewalk. They were as far downtown as Jocobo got, by an old brick courthouse in the shade of an immense sycamore tree. There wasn’t much moving, especially on a long bench outside the courthouse where several mostly old men sat peacefully.

“No, they’re not dead,” Babe snorted. “Well, not so’s you’d notice, anyway. Let me introduce you. This is Chas Boatwell, Pops McCreakle’s the one that needs a shave. The fella on the end is Horse Chotely, ’cause he’s so pretty. Harry Whelp, the one-eyed dentist, is over by the Vietnam War plaque and Taney Applegaw is the one coming over here with an ice cream cone and his sweet little crying granddaughter, Tweena.”

“Rawk!”

“Oh, yeah, that’s Nevermore, the Liars Bunch’s raven. Why are they called the Liars Bunch? Guys?”

“It’s because we’re short men with tall tales,” replied Pops McCreakle.

“Some of us are tall men with short tales,” Granpappy Labas immediately contradicted.

“Every small town had its liars’ bench where crotchety old coots set a spell, carefully watching the world go by, careless with their opinion,” Babe said quietly, after looking around to make sure no one was listening to them. He needn’t have worried. They were all listening to themselves. “I blame the tourists, they encourage ’em,” Babe added. “But what can you do?”

Old man Croesus was holding his own conversation at the other end of the bench. “Have you noticed how people say ‘absolutely’ nowadays when they mean yes? Like yes isn’t good enough anymore, it’s too vague or something. I guess yes isn’t definite enough.”

“Yeah, absolutely,” replied the others without cracking a smile except for one young fella who said sincerely, “You know, I never noticed that before.”

“Psst!” Babe hissed. “It’s past time we were moving on.”