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He
awoke to a sunny sky, apparently hours later, his face dripping with slobber
from his panicking redbone. He squalled all the way home. Other than the
obvious burned patch in his short blond hair, the on again/off again tingling
in his right hand where the lightning exited his body and his lost sense of
taste, May seemed to be none the worse from his brush with the hereafter.
The
big plus to this dance with death (other than the good fortune that he was
left-handed) was that with his total loss of taste, he could now stand up to a
dare and chew up and swallow just about any creepy crawly thing handed to him.
People got to where they’d give him prized possessions like Lone Ranger
masks and pistols, Dick Tracy look-alike radio watches and G.I. Joe canteens
just to watch him, in horror, devour earthworm, after cricket, after crawdad.
That whole year May was our own dime-sized freak show.
The
lightning strike was the first of several events that brought us to celebrate
May as the crash test mannequin the rest of us would learn from.
May
seemed to learn all of life’s lessons the hard way. He not only wouldn’t
let a sleeping dog lie, he’d mess with him while he was eating. He didn’t
believe a spangled hen he’d raised from a hatchling would mind him picking
her chicks up until she latched to the top of his head like an angry hat with
claws. Then there was the time his own uncle peppered him in the back with rat
shot one night while he made off with a watermelon. He always managed to light
the dud or misfiring explosives during holidays, found the weak plank or loose
railing in the tree house and ate the wild grapes or berries during a weekend
campout that later had him believing owl people and walking tree stumps were
out to get him.
May
mowed lawns all over town during junior high and into high school with a big,
self-propelled hi-wheel lawnmower. This thing had back wheels not much smaller
than those of a racing sulky and a cast iron, eight horse-power engine. There
was no way to idle the blade and leave the self propulsion mechanism on
without slinging rocks everywhere, so May had to manually push this monster
from yard to yard, sometimes for over a mile.
On
the way home one Saturday, after mowing the Methodist Church property and two
other yards, the chain on the sprocket that turned the self propulsion wheel
began to sag and would occasionally jump off the gear. He didn’t have any
tools to tighten the chain, so he leaned and reached down to hold up the chain
while at the same time pushing forward. You guessed it. The chain and sprocket
snipped his right index finger off at the second knuckle.
That
fall, after it had healed, May was, again, a big hit. It was cool enough for
May to have his nub stuck in his own ear or nose but, a friend of mine has a
photo of May with his nub up a fellow classmate’s nose. It’s a sight you
don’t soon forget.
Once
he got out of high school, he continued his cycle of bad judgment. May was the
poster boy for bad judgment. He bought a house that needed some fixing up. He
was painting the Celotex ceiling in his den and after one coat wasn’t
satisfied with the results, so he immediately added another coat. Still not
happy with the white looking as white as it should, he added another coat.
Just as he left the room, nearly every tile fell from the weight of five
gallons of paint.
Next
on his list of chores was to pressure wash the front walk and driveway of his
new home. May learned that you don’t wear sandals when cleaning with a 3,000
psi washer and if you do, you don’t try to squirt leaves from the top of
your feet. May also learned later that year not to wear sandals while
operating a string trimmer. To this day he’s missing the nail from one of
his big toes from that incident.
He
married a big-boned girl he’d met while going to trade school to become, of
all things, an electrician! After a couple of years she’d filled out pretty
good and decided to go to one of those self-help weight loss groups where you
document your progress each meeting. Some how, May had already riled his bride
earlier in the day over his work clothes not being washed (his wife also had a
full-time job at the Dollar Store). Upon return from her weekly encouragement
session he, quite innocently, asked her how she ‘weighed out.’ He might
have had the chance for fight or flight if she hadn’t just picked his
leather tool belt from off the floor to hang it where it belonged. I’m told
that after that flogging, May eagerly learned to wash and put away clothes,
his and hers.
I
was back where I’m from not long ago and ran into May. In an attempt to be
trendy, he’d gotten a piercing on the back cartilage, near the top of his
left ear. Of course, with his luck, it had become infected and now a
nickel-size chunk of his ear was missing. With his long face, blonde crew-cut
and notched ear, I couldn’t help but notice the striking resemblance he had
to a Yorkshire market hog.
He
was also sporting a new home-made tattoo on his right, upper arm. It was a
blue outline of the Chevrolet bowtie logo with a large letter E with bird
wings. When I inquired about his new ink, May immediately put his arm straight
up in the air and held up three (actually two and a half) fingers. He said the
emblem on his arm turned to a three when in the upright position, thus
representing his beloved but lost Dale Earnhardt. I pretended to admire his
arm all the while knowing he’d inverted the 3 drawing with a mirror.
Every
scar on May’s body had a story and every story had scars.
Disclaimer: The story you just read is based on reality. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. Any likeness any character in this story has to you, your family or anybody you know or have known is completely coincidental.
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