I’ve been asked a million times about the origin of FRed Lobster. So I’ve decided to once and for all share what I know of the history of this amazing place. Of course we enjoy the benefit of hindsight, and this story comes to you from the soft comfortable side of history, but let me assure you this is no fluffy fairy tale. You'll find no happily ever after here.
I’ve spent many years compiling information, and have taken many trips to verify my facts and speculations. Everything that I will tell you about the history of FRed Lobster is the honest truth, or as close as you’re gonna get from me.
I like to think of this story as a long road trip, a sure enough twisted windy story at best. “Wide is the path that leadeth to destruction…” as my mother used to say. You'll probably ask yourself many times during the story if we're even headed in the right direction. Rest assured, we'll get there eventually. If you'd like to hear more, get in the truck, buckle up, throw away the map, get a good grip on the “Oh Shit” handle and enjoy the ride.
An Introduction from
The State of Gladewater Historical Society
The oral history of FRed Lobster, that had been handed down from generation to generation, was thought to have been lost forever. However, a copy of the original manuscript has recently been discovered. Unfortunately the first 3 episodes were hand written in a barely legible, extremely ancient language and we are having difficulty translating it. For now, we have decided to release the parts that have been translated from the strange language that the last episodes were written in. I believe the language was called "Koon-ash" or something similar to that... The following is the best translation of the original text that we could acquire. All that being said, I hope you enjoy
The History of FRed Lobster :
Episode IV - A New Hope
The Homestead
Frederick Lambhugger Halley was born in Bangher, Maine, a suburb of Bangor, in the early 1800s. His father, like most of the men in the area, was a lobster fisherman. Fishermen were extremely respectable in those days, much like a good CPA would be nowadays. His mother, not a bad looking woman, worked at one of the houses in Bangher. Although it's not agreed upon exactly what she did at these houses, it is reported that she charged a reasonable price for her services and was also well respected in her trade. Frederick was the middle child of three boys. The oldest was named Red (Remember that name for it will be important later in the story) and the youngest boy was christened Ted. It's not entirely certain what became of Ted. It's thought that he never made it past childhood though.
Some of you might already be familiar with the surname “Halley”. Frederick Halley is the great, great, great,great,great, grandfather of my pal Scott, plus or minus a great or two. I know Scott on account that he used to live across the road from me. I say used to because he doesn't live there anymore. It seems he was run out of town on some false charges. Supposedly some neighborhood farm animals were mistreated. Truth is, that guy in the video didn’t even look like him…. but I digress.
He's doing alright from what I hear though. I hear that he's opened up his own bar several towns away. “The Blue Light Lounge” I believe it's called. No known affiliation with K-Mart. Well… that's enough about Scott for now.
I’m gonna lightly touch on Frederick’s middle name, he got it from his uncle back in the days when a man’s name reflected what he did, or was accused of anyway. It's worth noting that they didn't have video cameras back in Frederick's day.
Now back to the story... As you can imagine, lobster being plentiful in Maine, it was hard to make a living because they were so cheap. Well, Frederick and his brother Red came up with the idea to haul lobster to St. Louis with the hopes of getting a better price per pound. This is where the real adventure begins.
Dang... I’m out of beer. I gotta get to the beer store before they close. Head on over to chapter two and I'll be there in a minute.
Lost and Found
Okay I’m back… Now where was I? Oh yeah, I was about to tell you about the trip west.
Well Frederick and Red sold everything they owned so they could buy four mules and outfit themselves for the trip west. Early one morning they loaded the mules with all the lobsters they could pack, kissed their mama goodbye, and hit the trail.
The first night of their trip they realized they hadn’t thought of getting a dang map. Being it was the 1800s there wasn't a lot of Walmarts around, so they were in a bit of a pickle. Don't be discouraged my friends, as luck would have it, late in the evening as they were letting the lobsters graze (a lot of dang work tending lobster), a Chinaman walked into their camp. The Chinaman unburdened his large pack and introduced himself as Johnny Walker Red Hawk Down but informed us that he usually just went by plain ol’ Johnny. Johnny explained to us that he hadn’t been in this country long, but long enough to have run across a Taiwanese guy. The Taiwanese man had brought over with him a sack full of plastic compasses. The kind that tell directions, not the kind that you use to draw circles with. Johnny was completely smitten with the compasses and immediately offered to buy the whole dang bag.
Frederick, Red, and Johnny sat around the campfire that night and struck up a deal. Deal was, if Johnny would give them each a compass, and help tend the lobsters, he could go along with them as far as St. Louis. Johnny fished out two compasses and joined the merry caravan. Once two, now three, they headed west.
The next couple of months were fairly uneventful and the boys had plenty of time to get to know each other. They swapped stories and become good pals. Everything seemed to be going great until about the middle of the third month into their journey. That's when Frederick noticed that the sun was coming up from the north more often than not, but he chose to not mention it to the others. He didn’t want them to worry about things like the world coming to an end or something like that. Somewhere around the end of the fourth month Red mentioned to Frederick that he thought there might be a problem, ‘cause he had noticed the sun was now setting in the north. Frederick and Red then compared compasses. Then they checked all of the compasses left in the bag and no two pointed in the same direction. That's when they went to work kicking the stuffing out of Johnny’s ass.
Once the dust settled and they had a little time to cool off, Frederick and Red felt pretty bad about the beating they had given Johnny, so they bandaged him up and put him on light duty until he healed. After all, it really wasn’t his fault, it was that dang Taiwanese bastard that screwed Johnny in the first place.
Frederick suggested and Red agreed that they should set up camp where they were until they could figure out exactly WHERE in the hell they were. This would also give Johnny time to heal up some, because he wasn’t much help in the shape he was in.
Two weeks after the incident (that’s what they called Johnny’s ass whipping), a stranger came through their camp. The stranger had a much nicer compass than they did (It actually worked), and told them that they were near Ft Smith, Arkansas. Not too far off track, but they decided to winter camp there anyways.
That’s where Frederick met and fell in love with a large hairy humanoid creature. Later he found out it was what the locals called Ellis (or Bigfoot in different parts) of the south. I'm not passing judgment, because winters are cold and lonely in the woods in Arkansas. In the spring when Frederick sobered up and got a better look at his new mate, he got Red and Johnny to help gather up their gear and got the hell out of Dodge, so to speak.
One last note on the subject of Frederick’s love interest, and this is strictly a rumor, so don't go spreading it around. Word was that in the fall she gave birth to a half human bundle of joy, and named him Tommy. When little Tommy was old enough, his mama sent him in search of his Paw.
Dang, I’ve got to go let the dogs out.
Go on over to chapter three and wait for me there.
The Great Escape
The boys headed northeast, in search of St Louis, or at least that was their plan. St. Louis was their original destination in the first place and if it wasn't for those sub-par compasses, they'd probably already be there. As luck would have it, after a few days on the trail they run into another dang Chinaman, seems like there was a bunch of Chinamen back then.
That night when they made camp, they got to talking with this new Chinaman, and found out his name was Hop Dung. He had been hired by a nearby ranching family, Carharts I think was their name. A fella named Ben had three sons: Big Joe, and Horse, and I don’t remember the other one’s name. They had sent Hop with stagecoach fare from St. Louis to the ranch, but at the last stop, the other passengers complained to the stage coach driver about his smell, so the driver give him his fare back and kicked him off the stage. Later on we figured out the source of the offensive smell. Turns out ol’ Hoppy loved sardines and insisted on keeping the empty cans just in case he needed them later on. The leftover sardine juice had soaked into his clothes and pack giving him quite a singular odor.
Well, he had wandered around lost until he run into this Taiwanese guy with a sack of plastic compasses. He swapped his remaining coach fare for the whole dang sack of compasses. Now he was sure enough lost and completely broke.
Frederick and the boys talked it over, and decided if Hoppy would clean up some, they would let him join the Lobster Club. The warm weather was making the lobsters frisky and the herd was growing all the time. They figured they could use a little extra help keeping the little ones from straying too far.
Hell after Hoppy got introduced to soap, he took a liking to it, and in his spare time he’d just go around singing and cleaning everything in sight. His smell had greatly improved and Johnny figured it was time to give him a better name. They talked it over and since all Hoppy liked to do was clean and sing, and he was a singing little son of a bitch, they settled on his new name, “Hop Clean”. You can't make this shit up. Now armed with a new sack of compasses, they once again hit the trail in search of St Louis.
Land Grant
It was around modern day Gilmer somewhere that they found a wounded Injun laying in the trail. He claimed to have been shot by a bandit of some sort. They patched him up best they could, and took turns keeping out an eye for bandits while the Injun was healing. It was Hop Clean’s turn for guard duty when a masked man on a big white horse rode into their camp in the middle of the night. Hoppy was so dang nervous that his gun went off shooting the masked man in the foot and waking up the whole camp. Come to find out the masked man was a friend of the Injun and called him “Kee-mo-saw-bee”, or something like that.
When the Injun healed up he took the boys south to meet his tribe. Come to find out he was some big upped up in the Hackasaw tribe. The chief was so grateful for the boys saving the Injun's life, that he give Frederick a piece of land on the Gerbine River right where FRed Lobster is today.
Now I may have to clear up some confusion on the name of the river. Some might not know that what is commonly called today the Sabine River, was originally the Gerbine River. That danged ol’ sign painter really had it out for Fred. More about that later.
My grandfather had a small general store in South Louisiana, and would on occasion go into New Orleans to buy supplies. It was on such a trip that he run into a bunch of drunks in a little hole in the wall honky tonk on Bourbon Street. Well, they got to talking, as men do when drink is involved, and come to find out these guys were on a mission. Seems their boss had hired them to map out and explore the land in that area. Their boss was wanting to purchase Louisiana and needed to know the size of it. Best I can remember my grandfather said the ring leader’s name was Lewis Ann Clark (funny middle name for a man I thought) but my grandfather said he was probably named that to make him tougher.
Anyway, they had spent most of their advance money on beer and whores, and then pissed off what little they had left on supplies and a bag full of plastic compasses. That little Taiwanese guy got around. Well, they were lost bigger than Dallas, and said they would pay my Grandfather to get them across Louisiana.
They didn't know about the log jam up in Shreveport. Apparently my daddy ,who used to be real good friends with Henry Shreve, did and went up the river and broke off a piece of that log jam and floated it down the river. These large log and debris conglomerations, often called “great rafts”, also made really good bridges. With the new log bridge in place and securely lashed to the shore, off they went, and in no time they were standing on the Texas bank of the river. Lewis Ann admitted that they didn’t have the money to pay him, but would give him the river they had just crossed in lieu of payment. My grandfather figured he had made a pretty good deal, with a fish tax and all he figured he’d never see another poor day. A few months later my grandfather sent my Daddy and me up the river to kind of map it all out.
MEANWHILE BACK AT THE RANCH
Frederick, Red, Johnny and Hop Clean discussed their options and had decided to set up lobster ranching on their newly acquired land. Turns out Frederick was a better lobster farmer than navigator. The herd had doubled, almost tripled, in the short time that they had been there. The herd was flourishing, and by now it took several acres to maintain a healthy flock of lobsters. Especially since these lobsters were all of the grass fed cage free variety.
While Frederick and Red were busy building them a house, Johnny and Hop Clean would tend the herd. Seems like Hoppy always got the night shift ‘cause he could sing those lobsters right to sleep. Now that I think of it, that dang little Hoppy could really sing.
MEANWHILE BACK AT THE RIVER
My daddy and me were slowly making our way up the river pretty much living off of the land as we traveled. We filtered water through a dirty sock and ate fresh crawfish right out of the river. We noticed the further up we come, the bigger the crawfish got, and by the time we went under the bridge at Highway 271 (wasn’t called that back then but I was too young to read the sign) two crawfish could feed us both.
Beating Around The Busch’s
Well, we made it up the river a few miles, when we run into this motley crew of Yankees and Chinamen with the biggest crawfish we had ever seen. Come to find out they called ‘em “Lobsters” and they was actually lobster farmers. My daddy said, it was a good thing that they called themselves lobster farmers and not house builders, cause their house sucked. After visiting with ‘em for a while, they invited us to stay for supper. Come to find out they weren’t any better at cooking lobster than they were at building houses, but we were polite and eat our bellies full. We thanked them for the meal and figured we owed them something for their efforts. After supper they invited us to share their camp for the night, and we accepted.
The next morning, my daddy went about showing Johnny how to boil the big crawfish. Dang! It must have been a while since them boys had a good meal, cause they didn’t want us to leave. We decided to hang around long enough to teach them how to cook a few things and we figured then our debt would be settled. I have to say, it was good to be back on solid ground. For the next couple of weeks my daddy taught them how to make the best dang beans you ever eat. He also made up a batch of his famous homebrew, and brother when that beer was cooked off, we had friends for life.
During this time we had got to know the boys pretty well. Frederick the biggest of the bunch was about 6' 4" with sandy colored hair. Red was much shorter and had jet black hair. One night while when we was finishing up supper and drinking cold beer, my daddy asked Red how he come about the name Red. He didn’t really want to say, but after a few more beers Frederick told the story for him. You will remember Frederick’s middle name was Lambhugger, named after his uncle. Well, Frederick never spent much time with his uncle, but Red sure did. Uncle Lambhugger introduced Clarence, that’s Red’s real name, to the pleasures of lamb hugging, if you get my drift. Clarence took to it and liked it, and stayed with the hobby of lamb hugging even after he caught something Ajax couldn’t scrub off. And that is how Red got his nickname.
After a few weeks of my daddy cooking and brewing beer, travelers would stop by and eat, drink and tell what news they had, then move on. Word spread pretty dang fast about the good food and beer over at Frederick the Lobster Farmer’s place. Frederick and Red decided to make a business of it, but they knew that their success would depend on getting my daddy to stay long enough to teach them how to cook and brew the beer.
They offered my daddy a piece of land in exchange for teaching them his bean and beer secrets. My daddy agreed he would stay a while if they would furnish him with some help to do all the cooking. As luck would have it, three brothers come floating down the river the very next day, and they was looking for work. Them three boys was nice enough, and smart enough to learn, but dang they did like to fight amongst themselves. Hell, they couldn’t even agree how to spell their own dang name. One of ’em, put a “C” between the “S” and the “H”. The oldest of the bunch had a dog, don’t remember the boy’s name but the dog's name was Duke, anyway he took to learning how to cook the beans, and caught on pretty quick.
The middle brother, the one that spelled his name different (just out of meanness I think), caught on to making my daddy’s special brew, and wanted to be called a brewmaster.
The youngest one was called George, and all he ever wanted to do was hang around my daddy and learn philosophy and politics. Don’t know if that boy will ever amount to much, but he was a nice enough fella.
Signs of Change
Frederick and Red knew that they would now need a place for their customers to get in out of the weather while they enjoyed their meal. They also knew that they were not the ones to build it. So they put out word that they were in need of a building contractor.
Within a week, a fella shows up in a station wagon (not sure what a station wagon is but that’s what they showed up in). He had his whole family with him and his wife was an amazing woman. She could do things with her tits that I ain’t never seen before. He had a little blonde headed daughter that was maybe the ugliest child I ever seen, but dang that girl was smart. The son was just the opposite though. He was a pretty boy, but dumb as a box of rocks (two fingers short of a full glove), if you know what I mean. Well, the fella said he’d help them out, but they would have to do him a little favor when he was done. The boys were pretty desperate, so they took the deal.
In no time at all the fella had the nice place built, and the boys were ready to open for business, all except for one thing. Like most small business men, they hadn’t thought about a sign until my daddy mentioned it. So now they were in a rush to find a sign painter.
There was only one sign painter in these parts, and he was lazy and he dressed funny but he took the job. They wrote out what they wanted on the sign. He wanted it to say “Frederick and Red’s Lobster Farming and Restaurant and Beer Hall and Whore House”. They were figuring Johnny could run the whore house by hand until they got some women. Well, the sign painter, being the lazy bastard that he was, did it the way he wanted to. The finished project simply read “FRed Lobster”. And that is how they got the name.
They were now ready to open for business, and Johnny spent all of his free time (which wasn’t much, between lobster tending, and single handedly running the Whore house), looking for women to replace him.
Well Johnny finally made a deal with the Hackasaw Chief for a few squaws to work in the whorehouse, and I think everyone was glad, especially Johnny. Everyone, that is, except Red and the sign painter. During Johnny’s stint in the whore house, Red had introduced Johnny to role playing, and good ‘ol fashioned lamb hugging (with Johnny playing the part of the lamb).
One night when Fred (that’s what they called him ever since the sign painters mistake) was making the rounds to be sure everything was closed and locked up for the evening, he stumbled upon Red and Johnny together during a role playing session. That’s how Johnny got his new last name “Lambutt”.
Fred thought on it for a while, and he figured there might be some liabilities involved with his partner screwing the help, literally and figuratively, so to speak. He figured he’d better get rid of them both, so he did. I don’t know for sure, but I heard that Red is doing fine now. He opened up a little restaurant based on the things he learnt from my daddy and Fred, and we all wish him well.
Johnny is doing okay now, too. He started buying beer from my daddy, and opened up a little liquor store right down the road. He was going to call it Johnny’s Liquor, but my daddy talked him out of that. He said there was to many Blacks with the first name Johnny in Gladewater that had bad reputations. He decided to name the store after his last name instead. I don’t know if you can blame the sign painter for the mistake or not. Get a foreigner to say Lambutt though, it does sound a little like Lambert.
We Meet Tommy and Scott
Life was good and business was booming. Between the restaurant, lobster farming, and the whore house, the boys stayed plenty busy. They worked late into the nights, and would sleep out under the stars (weather permitting) and let the sun wake ’em up, then do it all again.
One morning, Fred knew it was time to get up and get going, but it was still dark. He thought it must be a dang eclipse, but as he started to get up, something grabbed him and lifted him straight up. Before he could even think to holler for help, the dang thing started kissing him and crying, and calling him paw.
All of this commotion got the whole camp stirring. When the boys finally got Fred free from this creature they could see that it was just Tommy. As they went about fixing breakfast, Tommy told his story about searching for years to find his paw. Fred could see a slight resemblance, but he wouldn’t admit Tommy was his. He fed the boy, and said he’d let him stay on only if he could pull his own weight. He said he could so they put him to doing odd jobs around the place for food and a place to sleep, but Fred made him quit calling him paw. It seems Fred wasn’t particularly fond of everyone knowing he’d slept with a bigfoot.
I won’t say to much about Tommy now, other than that he caught on quickly to his work, and was good-natured enough. Seems his feet had grown so fast that it had taken all the calcium from his head and had caused a soft spot on his skull. At least that’s the best I could understand from what Fred said about the boy being a little soft in the head.
By now the builder was done with his work, and the place was looking pretty good, so Fred asked the fella what he owed him. The guy says he’d call it even if Fred would keep his son on for the summer as kind of a handyman. Fred agreed, and that was the last we ever seen or heard from the original handyman.
The boy was a pretty good hand and he didn’t eat as much as Tommy, and it give Tommy someone to play with. Them boys was always building something, so for Christmas one year Fred give ’em a Black and Decker tool kit that had a circular saw and a drill motor in it. It was a dang nice kit for the time.
Before New Year's Eve, the two actually became blood brothers. Not intentionally though, it seems they had one of them industrial type accidents. Stubby (that's what we call him now) was cutting through a 2X4 and didn’t stop until he made it through both his glove and Tommy’s boot. Fred took the power tools away and told them to go help in the whorehouse, figuring there'd be some poor customer that was into that.
Well like I said earlier, life was good and business was booming, especially after the state put the railroad through. The train would stop and Fred would send me up to meet it with the mules. I’d pick up any mail that had arrived and bring the crew and passengers back to FRed Lobster for food and spirits. When that was all done I’d haul their drunk asses back to the train.
One day, Fred got a letter from his mother from back in Maine. It seems that one of the women that had worked in the same house as she had, many years ago, had a son that was the spitting image of Fred. Well, that boy had a son, and so on and so on, and now Fred’s great great great great great grandson, plus or minus a great or two, was headed this way to meet him. Come to find out he was coming in on the next morning's train.
Fred knew his mother wouldn’t lie to him, so he got everyone busy getting the place ready for his great great great great great grandson, plus or minus a great or two. Fred sent me to meet the train the next morning and pick the boy up. Says I should easily recognize him, so I’m there first thing the next morning waiting for the train. When the train finally shows up, off steps the funniest looking fella I ever saw. He had on a multi-colored plaid suit, button-up shoes, and a derby hat. He was a lot older than me, and bigger, so I didn’t laugh at him, but I knew he’d catch hell if I brought him back to FRed Lobster looking like that.
Well, I introduced myself and he said his name was Scott Halley. I explained to him that them clothes might work out East, but he ought to get some new ones before we went back to FRed Lobster. He agreed to leave it up to me to pick him out some new duds, said a few folks had already commented on his clothes when the train had laid over in Ft.Worth.
Teaching him how to pick out clothes wasn’t near as hard as teaching him to ride a dang mule, but I never gave up, and he now does a pretty good job with both. Fred added a new job to my already busy schedule, I now had to keep an eye on Scott Halley, as well as Stubby, and Tommy. I was the youngest and smallest of the bunch, hell I wasn’t but a kid back then. Fred's biggest concern was that they would hang out at the whore house, and run up his tab.
Scott Halley Falls in Love
One night while I was out riding the graveyard shift, midnight till dawn (dang anyone feel free to use that in a song). That’s when I seen what I saw. There on his belly, on top of a little knoll, lay Scott Halley looking down at the pond. I said "Hey Scott Halley, what are you doing?" When he saw me, he give me the universal sign of silence, you know the one, where you hold your finger straight up and put it to your lips, then you say “Shut the phuck up”. He motioned me over and when I reached him he pointed down at the pond and whispered "See that beautiful Injun squaw down there taking a bath?" Well, I knew right off he’d been drinking cause I could smell it on him and that creature taking a bath wasn’t no beautiful squaw. Seeing as how he was a lot bigger than me, and quite drunk, I didn’t argue with him. I Just nodded my head indicating that I sure saw something down there.
Well, he eased on down to the pond, struck up a conversation, shared his bottle with the creature, and they headed on into the woods. I got back on my mule and finished my rounds checking on the lobster herd. When I finished my work, I slipped on over to where they were having their little love fest. I knew two things right off. First thing was, Scott Halley needed glasses. Second thing was, I recognized his beautiful squaw as none other than the notorious Johnny Black.
I figured the best thing for me to do was get myself on back to camp and keep my mouth shut, so that’s what I done. I did mention to Fred the next morning that we might ought to do something about Scott Halley’s eyes. Fred agreed but didn’t seem to be to interested in spending any money that he didn’t have, so he just ignored my suggestion at the time.
When Mr. Black showed up a few months later, with Johnny in tow, and being in a family way (Johnny being the one that was swelling), Fred reconsidered my idea about the glasses for Scott Halley. Fred and Mr. Black had a sit down and they agreed that Johnny should go on and have the baby, but it would be up to Fred to make things right after the delivery.
The morning after the baby come, Fred sent Hop Clean down to the river to wash the poor ugly little bastard up a little. Only after a few hours of cleaning they agreed that he wasn’t gonna be able to wash the ugly off.
Fred then realized there was only one thing to do, he’d have to put the boy up for adoption (the old fashion way). He had Hoppy wrap the little bastard in a good soft hide, stuck him in a leaky canoe, and give it a push down river. Scott Halley and Johnny was just a-huggin’ and a-cryin’, that is until the canoe went around the first bend in the river and was out of sight.
Everyone had a beer or two and agreed that it was the right thing to do. Don’t feel too bad for Bubba though, that’s what Fred called him, as it turns out, a family in Swamp City found him and raised him up good. We heard that the boy turned out fine, even became the mayor of Swamp City.
After everything settled down Fred had to pay for Johnny’s operation. It seems Mr. Black figured Johnny’s reputation was soiled, so they decided to turn her into a him. Did I mention she was already bald and had a nice mustache before the surgery?
Chapter Nine
The Adventures of Capt’n Jack
Well, not too much happened for the next few months. That is, until the circus came to town. Capt’n Jack (they used to call the guy in charge of the train Capt’n), brought the circus in on his train. It was certainly something to see. They had all kinds of strange animals, freaks, a bearded lady, and some dang midgets. We had never seen a midget before and one of them midget women was just my size. Scott Halley said he thought she liked me, to which and Tommy and Stubby agreed. So they set us up for a little date (Midget woman and a kid... Get it? Dang that shit is funny).
I was dang near ten by then, or would be on my next birthday, and I had just come into puberty. Although I didn’t have any real first hand experience in the ways of the world, I’d been around the whore house enough to know how to make a baby. I’d seen ol’ Sarge in action enough to know how to make a puppy and I went for a puppy.
Well, everybody enjoyed the circus and most everybody got drunk, including Capt’n Jack. He was so dang drunk, he accidently drove the train off the track. Fred sent me and the gang down to see if we could get it back on the track. While Scott Halley, Stubby, and me was sitting down figuring how to get it back on, Tommy picked up the front tires, and put them on the track. He needed a little help to lift the rear, but between all of us, we got her done. Capt’n Jack was still drunk, and I figure that’s why he hired Tommy on the spot.
He was gonna teach Tommy to drive the train so he could sleep it off. Just as he’d get the train rolling Tommy would oversteer the dang thing, and it would jump off the track again. I figured if I just tied the steering wheel up, marked the throttle one color, and the brake another, Tommy could handle it. Sure enough it worked, and I hear that they don’t even put steering wheels on trains anymore.
After a while everything settled back down to normal. We all missed Tommy some, but I was too busy waiting to hear from my girlfriend to miss him too much. It had been over two months and still no puppies. Dang, I think it was almost a year later before I heard from her. She sent a bundle and a little note by way of Capt'n Jack and Tommy. The note said her name is “Kelly”. Well, you can imagine my surprise, and disappointment. I was expecting a puppy. Lucky for me Stubby wasn’t too dang smart and I swapped the bundle with him for a three bladed pocket knife with one broken blade. I sometimes feel bad about doing that to him.
Scott Gets Glasses
Now that Tommy worked for the railroad, we could ride the train for free. Fred sent us to Ft. Worth to get Scott Halley some dang glasses. Fred give me four dollars and said to get Scott some good ones. Stubby tied Kelly up to the front porch, put out fresh food and water, and the three of us caught the train west.
We got into Ft. Worth just about dark, and Capt’n Jack said the eyeglass store was closed and we would have to wait till morning. We hung around the train station until Tommy got the train unloaded, and we all headed downtown. Hell, I had a pocket full of money, and we was gonna spend some of it.
None of us had ever been to a picture show (movie theater), so that is what we settled on. We were in luck too, the marquee said "NOW PLAYING : Zorro Rides Again ". We didn’t know who Zorro was, but we were all happy that he could ride again. Back then, there was no sound other than a piano player, and you had to read what they were a-sayin’. Seeing how I was the only one that could read, I had to read the whole dang movie out loud for the rest of the gang.
As it turns out, this Zorro fella, was a gentleman rancher by day and a crime fighter at night. He’d change into his Zorro costume and with a whip and a sword, he’d kick the bad guy's butt. We all enjoyed the movie, but Scott Halley thought it was one of them Divine messages, and he went to a-thinkin’. After the show we all went back to the train yard to find an empty boxcar, so we could get some sleep.
Just before daylight Scott Halley woke me up to tell me the plan he’d been working on all night. Seems he wanted to be a gentleman lobster rancher by day, and rid the world of evil at night. He wanted me to use the rest of his eye glass money to buy a whip and a sword. I said we’d have to get the glasses first, cause I didn’t want to piss Fred off.
At daylight, we were hunting the eyeglass store, and when they opened we were the first customers. The lady that was selling the glasses was a real tall blonde haired gal. She was very helpful, and talkative too. She told us that she rode an Indian. Scott Halley said, “Hell lady, I've been riding Injuns for years”. (Scott had slipped off to the whore house a couple of times.) Well, when she heard that she got all excited, and said since we all rode Indians, we was brothers and we could get a discount. We were happy for the discount, but we had no idea of what the hell she was talking about. Did I mention she was blonde?
Between the cost of the picture show and the glasses we still had about a dollar left. We went off in search of a whip and a sword, and boy was we surprised to find out the cost of a whip and a sword. Only thing in our price range was a box of darts or a dead rat on a string to swing it with. Scott Halley was sure disappointed at first, but I explained to him that he didn’t want to copy Zorro exactly. He finally agreed and we got the darts. Some other kid got the rat and string combo. Said he was gonna trade it for a chance to whitewash a fence.
Strangers in a Strange Land
With his new glasses Scott had a pretty good eye for throwing darts and now all he needed was a costume and a name. Scott Halley had kept his multi-colored plaid suit so he went to work on modifying it. He ended up making a very nice cape out of the suit coat. When he showed it to me though, I said “Dang Scott Halley, if you're gonna wear that you had better wear a mask, cause people are gonna laugh at you.” So he took one of the jacket sleeves and cut a couple holes in it and just like that a superhero was born.
Now what I’m fixin to tell you is a sure enough secret, so before you read any further you’ll have to swear to secrecy. (Go ahead and swear now) There are evil doers all over the place that would love to know the true identity of Dartanyun.
Armed with his new costume and box of darts, Dartanyun would saddle up my mule every night and go off looking for evil doers. The first couple of months were uneventful, not a lot of evil doers in our neighborhood. Then I found out he was never going further than the shadows of our camp. Turns out, Dartanyun was afraid of the dark. I wasn’t an evil doer fighter, but I became his sidekick so he could go a little further at night.
One night while we were out riding, graveyard shift, midnight til dawn, the moon was bright as a reading light (dang someone needs to use that in a song), we come upon a camp of strangers. I said, “Dang Scott Halley, look at that, there’s a camp of strangers.” He spun around in the saddle so fast that it knocked me off the mule (did I mention that we had to ride double? He didn’t have a horse at that time). He said “Don’t ever call me by my real name when I'm in this Dartanyun suit”.
He helped me get up, and we eased over closer to the camp. They were strangers alright, and they were definitely strange looking. We had never seen anyone that looked like them before. They were dressed all funny, and they talked funny, too. My goodness there must have been a couple hundred of them weirdos. We knew we were outnumbered and hightailed it back to FRed Lobster to tell Fred what we saw.
The next morning Fred took over some lobsters and introduced himself to the new camp. When he come back home he told us that they were a tribe of Huns, and that their leader Attila had invited him to a big shindig that they'd be having that night. So about dark, Fred got all cleaned up and went on over to the party in his canoe. Me and Scott Halley waited a couple of hours, then he put on his costume, and we slipped on over in the shadows so we could watch what was going on. Dartanyun didn’t trust them folks at all.
Well, their party itinerary consisted of drinking, eating, more drinking, and then a virgin sacrifice. They explained to Fred that they had to sacrifice a virgin every year so they could continue to prosper, and continue with their pillaging, raping, and killing. Attila wasn’t too happy about tonight's sacrifice ‘cause they was down to their last virgin, Tila the Hon. She was Attila’s two year old daughter, a beautiful little blonde headed girl.
Well me and Dartanyun, knew we had to do something. While the Huns were drinking and partying, we snuck over to where the baby was playing. While Dartanyun stood guard, darts at the ready, I snatched the girl up. We headed to the river but we hadn't really planned much farther than that, so we had to plan some more. Luckily, I thought of something that I'd seen in a movie. We wrapped the baby in a soft hide, placed her in Fred’s canoe and give her a little push. We then went back to keep an eye on the party, hell them Huns got so drunk they didn’t realize that they hadn’t made the sacrifice.
Not to worry about the beautiful baby Tila, we heard some nice family in Swamp City took her in. She wound up marrying a nice Catholic boy, at least we figured he was Catholic, because he worked for Mass Theology, or something like that. Last we heard he moved his family to Hawaii, grew his hair out long, dressed funny, and chased bad guys on television.
Nez and Her Pet Snake
It was long late in the evening when he rode into our camp, on a little brown pony he called Chaw. With brogan boots and overalls, a tougher looking sight, we had never in our lives before had saw. He said his pa had married twice, and his new ma beat him every day or two, so he saddled up ol’ Chaw one night, and lit a shuck this way, thought it time now to paddle his own canoe. He said if we would give him work, he’s do the best he could, but he didn’t know straight up about a lobster. (Dang, it’s gonna be hard to make something gel with lobster) So the boss picked him out a bunk, and kindly laid him down, cause he sorta liked our little stay some how. (Dang, I couldn’t do it).
ANYONE KNOWING WHERE I GOT THAT FROM WINS A FREE WEEKEND FOR TWO AT FRED LOBSTER! ! ! ! ! !
The next morning Fred had Hoppy cleaned up the kid a little while we decided what to do with him. You can imagine our surprise when we was watching Hoppy clean him up down at the river and found out that he was actually a she, and a dang handsome one at that. Seems Hoppy had better luck scrubbing off the ugly on Nez than he had on Bubba. I don’t think I mentioned that the kid's name was Nez yet.
Now we was sure enough in a dilemma, the only gals we had working for us was the whores, and although she had the hips for whoring, she was a little slight in the other department, if you get my meaning. Scott Halley come up with the idea to poke sweat socks in her braz-zeere and that seemed to work, she looked fine. No matter that she looked good, none of the customers wanted anything to do with her. They all said she had a smell of stinky feet. So Fred give up on whoring her out and put her to work running the bar. She caught on quickly, and did a hell of a job. The customers liked her better after she took Scott Halley’s sweat socks out of her braz-zeere. Seems Scott Halley had given her a used pair of socks.
Well, we all agreed Nez was a natural born leader, she had that bar a humming. Life was good until one day a dang peddler who called himself Hogeye showed up and said he was selling telephones. Fred says “What the hell is a telephone?” Hogeye tried to explain to the gang that if you had a telephone, you could talk to anyone in the country that had a telephone. He said that one day everybody would have one of them there telephones. Scott Halley said “Bullshit”.
Just as all salesmen are, ol' Hogeye was a smooth talker, and when he took to sniffing around Nez, we knew we was in trouble. Fred had already banned him from the whorehouse on account of he carried a pet anaconda in his britches. He had pretty much done wrecked all the whores for the normal men.
Well, he took to putting on the charm, and poor Nez was defenseless. It wasn’t too long before we watched him saddle up ol' Chaw , and took Nez off to the city (Swamp City). I remember Fred and the boys watching them go down the trail, into the sunset, and Fred says “With all the whores here for that son of a bitch to choose from, why Nez?”
Guitars and Cadillacs
Fred was despondent for a few days after we lost Nez, but then he pulled himself back together, and got back to business. Hell, we all missed her, did I mention her hips? Fred’s first order to me was to get the rest of the crew pulling their own weight. Finding Stubby something to build wasn’t that hard, but I knew finding Scott Halley a job wasn’t gonna be easy. I mean, he ain't really good at much.
While I was a thinking about it, the train pulled up and Tommy blew the whistle. That was the signal for me to take the mules up to the train, and pick up the crew, and passengers. So me and Scott Halley saddled ’em up and went to get ’em. Well, there was a fella carrying a guitar, he was just a lad, nearly twenty two, neither good nor bad, just a kid like you. (Here is another chance to win a weekend for two at FRed Lobster. First son of a bitch that knows the kids stage name wins).
Well, the boy introduced himself, said his name was Hiram, he left his home in Alabama, was headed for Nashville to seek his fame and fortune, but he was, (here comes clue number two) like a rolling stone, all alone and lost, for his life of sin, he paid the cost, when he walked by, all the people would say, just another guy, on the lost highway.
As it turned out he had left Alabama walking with only his suitcase, a guitar, and $8.00, but when he got to Montgomery he run into this Taiwanese guy. Yeah, the same dang compass peddler that every one else had run into. Then he wound up walking to Ft. Worth before he realized he was heading in the wrong direction. So he throws his new compasses away and hops on a train heading in the right direction.
His train ticket had busted him, and he was hungry, so Fred give him a few dollars and a couple of lobsters for his guitar. After the kid had eat and drank a couple of beers, he sang us a few songs. There was one about some food he had eat in Louisiana, one about a bird that couldn’t fly, and a few more that I don’t remember. He was pretty good, but when he was leaving Scott Halley said “Boy you sang good enough, but if your gonna make it in Nashville, you’re gonna have to change that name.”
****DANG IF YOU AIN’T GOT IT BY NOW, YOU JUST AIN’T GONNA GET IT, SO LET'S MOVE ON. ****
Anyway we now had a guitar, so I figured that if I could teach Scott Halley how to play it, he could then carry his own weight. Dang what a job that was, but I finally got him to making a few chords, and after weeks of practice he was ready to lead the FRed Lobster house band. While he was a playing one night, Hop Clean joined in singing with him, dang that little Chinaman could sing. In fact he sang so good, that Scott Halley suggested we change his name to Hop Sing.
My job was now getting easier, with Stubby building a new outhouse, and Scott Halley playing in the band, I had my days pretty much freed up. I still had my side kicking job, but that didn’t start till after dark when Scotty Halley was done entertaining the dinner crowd.
Rivers and Fortunes
By now my daddy had made enough money to start building a house up on the hill. He bought the material, and put Stubby right to work on it. Then he got the sign painter lined out to go up the river, and paint a sign at every road crossing the Gerbine river. It should have been easy enough, all he wanted was my Grandfather's initials and the family name, Samuel Adams Gerbine. All the signs should have read “S. A. Gerbine River”. He paid the sign painter up front and helped him load his canoe with paint, and sign blanks. They strapped a ladder down on top of the heap and the painter was off to get the job done.
My daddy was a pretty even natured fella, but a couple of months after the sign painter had left, folks started showing up at FRed Lobster calling the river the Sabine River, they said there was signs everywhere that read “S.A. Bine River”, and dang was my daddy pissed. When he got through stomping another hole in that sign painter’s ass, the painter give him what money he had left and the deed to his little sign shop. He then took his lazy, funny dressing ass off to South Texas somewhere and we haven’t seen him since.
My daddy intended to get the signs fixed, but that's about the time he got word that he needed to come home. He left me in charge of the house building and the sign shop and headed out. With Stubby building the house, I didn’t have much to worry about there because he liked working by himself. I hired a kid to run the sign shop and life was good. Well almost...
Scott Halley had been trying to court this Injun Princess, but she didn’t want much to do with a son of a bitch that rode double on a mule. Scott Halley was still afraid of the dark so I’d have to ride over to her teepee with him to pick her up. All three of us would try to get up on my poor mule but she didn’t much go for that.
I’ve got to say, during daylight hours, Scott Halley was just your average everyday, run of the mill type son of a bitch, but after dark, and about three beers, he could show signs of pure genius. It was on such an occasion that he developed our new plan, making fighting evil doers profitable. The plan was simple enough. The way he explained to me was money was the root of all evil and I agreed with that. He says “Let's just get the evil doers money before they have a chance to do evil.” That made sense to me, so I says “How are we gonna know if they're evil doers before they do evil?” He says “That's not a problem. He could tell a liar right off. So all we had to do was ask ‘em?”
Dang, that plan worked pretty good. After dark we’d go hide out on the trail, my job was to hold the mule, and when somebody came by Dartanyun would jump out and ask ‘em straight up if they was up to no good. If they said yeah, we took their money, if they said no, Dartanyun would bitch slap ‘em for lying, and then we’d take their money. It was a win-win deal for us.
Now that we had money, you would have thought that Scotty Halley would have been happy, but he wasn’t having much luck with his Injun Princess. We was sitting around talking about it one day, when we heard the train whistle, so Scott Halley helped me saddle up the mules and we went down to pick up any passengers or crew that wanted to come to FRed Lobster for food, drink, or whores.
We had made it almost to the tracks when we hear this hell of a noise. Folks were all piled around watching this guy on a bicycle with a loud-ass motor on it going around in circles. Seems it was a demonstration for these three yankee fellas from Milwaukee that was down here selling what they called a motorcycle. They had been to Shreveport, and was on their way to Ft. Worth to open up a motorcycle store. Me and Scott Halley knew right off we had to have us one of them motorcycles, so we asked the guy how much it cost. The fella named Bill said that we couldn’t afford it. He was kind of an asshole, but the other two were brothers Art and Walt, they were a little nicer, and they told us what it would cost.
Them boys didn’t know that we had a pocket full of money. Fighting evil doers was real profitable now since Scott Halley had come up with our plan. With the cash we had and the tab them boys run up at the whore house that night, the next morning we had a dang nice motorcycle, and a Sidecar.
Well our lives changed after we got that motorcycle. It had a headlight, so Scott Halley could go off in the dark without me. That Injun Princess that didn’t want much to do with him before, now thought he was the coolest son of a bitch around. She’d get drunk and ride that motorcycle a-whoopin’ and a-hollerin’ up and down the dang road. It was something to see ‘cause if she got drunk enough, she’d go to tearing off her dang clothes.
The Redheaded Stranger
This chapter could just as easily been titled “The Bitch That Ruined My Life” ,but that might have ruined the surprise inside. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Scott Halley knew that he couldn’t ride that motorcycle in the daylight and at night as Dartanyun, or someone would figure out his true identity. He decided that he'd settled on using it only at night. He wanted to paint it so no one would recognize it. Probably a good idea, but I had to talk him out of painting it light blue and naming it “My Little Pony”. He finally agreed to paint it black, but we still couldn’t agree on a name for it. I wanted to name it “Black Beauty” but he liked “Snowball” better, so that's what he ended up named it.
One morning we didn’t have anything better to do so we walked up to where Stubby was building the house. We hadn’t checked on it, or him, in quite a while. Dang were we sure surprised to see the progress he had made. He was already doing the finishing work inside. As we come up from the pasture we could see him at the kitchen table eating something. We hollered in at him, but before we knew it, a dang redheaded son of a bitch come out on the veranda and hollered down at us to be quiet. Well we let her know real quick who in the hell we were and that she couldn’t tell us what to do. Dang if she didn’t start throwing stuff at us. I was just fixin’ to tell her that Scott Halley was fixin’ to come up there and kick her ass when she started climbing down the veranda. Scott Halley said “Come on let’s go.” but instead of just saying it, it came out more like a whimper.
As we were walking back down to the river I asked Scott Halley if he was scared of her. He said “HELL NO!”. Then I asked “How come we’re leaving?” and he said, “Cause Fred told him to feed the mules, and we had better get back and feed ‘em.” so then I says, “Okay, but what are we gonna do about the red headed son of bitch that run us off? Ran us out of our own dang house.” He says, “Don’t worry about it. Dartanyun would take care of that shit tonight.”
I was still slightly worried because I had never heard a whimper in Scott Halley’s voice before. He didn't even make weak sounds like that when we went into the Devil worshiper’s cave down on the river. I can’t tell y’all exactly where that cave is because after the shootout with the head Devil guy, we sealed it up and made a pact not to ever tell anyone the location of that wretched place.
I figured this situation was gonna get worse before it got better and boy, was I ever right. That afternoon, Stubby come down to the FRed Lobster to get some more material and we asked him where in the hell that red headed son of a bitch come from? He said, he didn’t know, she just showed up one day and started cleaning up the place some. The next thing he knew she had moved her stuff in and just took over the place.
When it got good and dark me and Dartanyun jumped on Snowball and made our way up to the new house. We parked in the pine thicket behind the house and Dartanyun told me to stay with Snowball, and he would go and get this straightened out. He kinda creeps up to the side door, darts at the ready, and then all hell breaks loose. I couldn’t see what was a happening but I could dang sure hear it. There was blood curdling sounds, mostly coming from Dartanyun, and then I see him headed back walking funny. I asked “Dartanyun you ok?” He says “Shut up and help me get these darts out of my ass.” It seems that things didn't exactly go as planned. I tried to find out what happened but he said that he didn't want to talk about it. I swear I thought he was about to cry, but that was probably just his allergies.
On the ride back to FRed lobster, after he got his emotions, I mean allergies, under control he says “That woman is pure evil and we’re gonna have to get a priest to exorcize her.” I said “Dang Dartanyun, she don’t look like she needs no exercising, seems she’s in better shape than you are right now.” He didn’t say anything else, he just knocked me out of the Sidecar, and kept on going. I could see his allergies were coming back as he drove off.
The next morning, we rode the mules up to the catholic church and talked to a priest there. He agreed to meet us at the house that afternoon and exorcize her. About 4 o’clock that evening he showed up with his satchel of crosses and holy waters and marched right up to the front of the house. That red headed son of a bitch invited him in and from inside arose such a clatter. We were still outside, so we couldn’t see what was the matter. We could hear stuff breaking and the screaming was ear shattering. We waited patiently figuring that the priest had done this before and knew what he was doing.
Somewhere around six the priest finally comes out, without his satchel, and ask us if we could give him a ride over to the Methodist church. It seems that the experience had given him a new outlook on life and he wanted a job with them folks. He said it was on account they didn’t do no exorcizing in that church. He told us he had never seen anything like it and the only thing he knew for us to do was to find someone even more evil than that red headed son of a bitch to run her off. He also asked to let him know when that was happening so he could leave town.
Dang it felt good to have a plan. We set out to find the most evilest son of a bitch we could find. This turned out to be a little more difficult than we thought. It seems that there had been a lot of retirements in that field of work here lately. I'm guessing that our little red headed friend had been making the rounds.
After several weeks, Tommy showed up and said that his boss Capt'n Jack knew of a woman in New Orleans that was just what we needed. He handed me a wooden business card that simply read “Marie Laveau”. Capt’n Jack said if she couldn’t help us, no one could.
There wasn't a number on the card and besides, we didn't have any phone lines down at FRed Lobster anyways. There was a brand new phone at the new house, but Scott was too scared to go get it. We eventually got Tommy to talk Capt’n Jack into letting him use the train for the weekend as long as we'd filler her up on the way home. Finally, we were headed to New Orleans.
Chapter Sixteen
A Train Ride to Remember
Dang this next part is gonna be exciting. Hopefully I can get it from head to my fingers. Y'all hang on, this is gonna be good.
Ok where were we? Oh yeah, we had got the train from Capt’n Jack, loaded up our grip and Snowball, and headed for New Orleans. Fred give us $8.00 for gas, and we was off.
We had packed us a couple of lobsters each and bid farewell to the rest of the gang. That's when Tommy tells us that the battery is dead on the train. Me and Scott Halley had to push start the dang train to get it going again. We later found out that Tommy had left the radio on and it drained the battery down.
After getting underway, I asked Tommy if there's anything we can do to help him out. He says no, he’s got it all under control, and me and Scott Halley can go back to the club car and make ourselves comfortable. He says we should be in New Orleans by midday tomorrow. Well we climbed over the coal car and made our way to the club car. We fixed us up a lobster each, and after we eat we figure to catch a nap before we got to Shreveport.
I woke up when Tommy pulled up and stopped at the fuel pump in Shreveport. I watched him go in to pay for the gas. Sure seemed like it was taking him a long time, so I gets out and head over to where he is talking with this little foreign looking fella. When Tommy sees me he ends his conversation and comes on back to the train. I really didn’t give it any thought and crawled back up to the club car and in a minute, we were back underway.
Me and Scott Halley was pretty worn out from having to push start the dang train, so we slept in a little longer than usual. I had noticed that we stopped and started a lot during the night, but really didn’t give it much thought. When I got good and awake the next morning, I notice there were passengers in dang near every seat. I knew that Capt’n Jack had put us on a route that wasn’t supposed to haul any passengers or freight because Tommy only had his beginners permit.
I woke Scott Halley up, and I says “What the hell is going on?” Scott Halley says he don’t know, but for me to shut up and let him sleep, so I did. About noon Scott Halley wakes up and comes over to where I’m serving all these passengers lunch in the dining car and says to me “What the hell is going on?” I says “I don’t know, but every time the train stops some people get on and some get off. Whenever they get on they’re all asking me how much do they owe me for the ride. I just pick a number, and they pay me.” Scott Halley says “Okay, but we'll split the money.” I says “Okay, but you’ll have to help me handle all these sons of bitches.”
Scott Halley says he’ll open up the bar car, and for me to come help him when I’m done feeding these folks. By now we had three passengers cars full of hungry, thirsty customers, and it’s all profit.
Earlier, I had noticed a blind fella that had on dark sunglasses and was carrying a cane. He was a dang good tipper, so I checked on him often. On the other hand, there was an old lady wearing a straw hat with flowers all over it. Her hat also had this little bee hooked on a piece of wire, so that every time she moved her head, the little bee would bounce and bobble around like it was going from flower to flower. Worst of all, that old bitch didn’t tip for shit.
After a few hours of serving all these folks, I realized that I hadn’t seen Scott Halley in a while. I went to looking for him seeings how I could use a little help, and we was supposed to be splitting to profits. Well, I had no luck finding him, so I go to check on the passengers. That's when I notice that the blind man no longer has his glasses, and then I see that the old woman is now hat less. Well, about the sixth row back in the second car I see a fella with dark glasses, a bee bouncing around on his hat, and he’s got a drink of whisky in each hand. I says “Mister, you doing ok?” and he says “I’m doing just fine.” Well, as soon as he spoke, I recognized his voice right off. I says “Scott Halley?” He says “I’m sorry sir, you must have me confused with someone else. I’m Drunkman.”
Well, I was just fixin’ to tell him I knew who he was and I needed some help with all these folks if we was still gonna split the profit, when the train come to a screeching halt. I poked my head out of the window and I could see a dang tree laid across the tracks. Before I could even say “Dang”, a group of outlaws jumped on the train with guns a blazing. Them sons of bitches was going from passenger to passenger taking all their money and valuables.
When them outlaws got to where me and Drunkman was and they told me they didn’t want my money cause I was just a kid. The head son of a bitch turns to Drunkman puts a gun to Drunkmans ear. He says “Give me your money.” Well, Drunkman gives the son of a bitch $1.58 in change and then he stammers out “X x x x excuse me, but I have to go to the ba ba ba bath toilet.” Well, all them outlaws just went to laughing and carrying on. They figured they'd done scared the shit out of this old boy. The head outlaw, I heard one of the other outlaws call him Jesse, says to Drunkman, “Go on… and make it quick”.
I was watching Drunkman as he staggered up the aisle and I thought I seen him pick up Scott Halley’s satchel on the way to the bathroom. Jesse calls out to another one of the outlaws and says “Frank, you keep an eye on that drunk”. So Frank goes over and stands by the bathroom door. Well, As soon as Drunkman closed the door, he was like lightning, he had on his Dartanyun costume and slipped out the Window. He run around and come in the front door with darts a-flyin’. Them sons of bitches never knew what hit ’em. Next thing I know, there's outlaws stapled to walls everywhere. Some on the ceiling, and even one upside down.
Dartanyun has me pick up their guns and knives and all their extra ammo. He says to the outlaws “ If you sons of bitches give back all the money you took, go to church next Sunday, and promise to stay out of Louisiana and Texas, I’m gonna let y'all go.” The one called Jesse says “That's not a problem. We’ll give back the money, and go to church, but mister, we ain’t never been to Louisiana or Texas. This here is Missouri.” Dartanyun said “Bullshit!”, but all the passengers backed up the outlaws on this, so Dartanyun let the sons of bitches go.
Me and Dartanyun make our way up to the train engine and we see Tommy with all these colored plastic things spread out all over the dashboard of the train. I says “Tommy, what the hell is that?” When he sees us, he tries to cover up the plastic things and says “What’s what?” Well as it turns out, when Tommy was paying for the gas in Shreveport, he run into a little Taiwanese guy selling plastic compasses. That's how we wound up in Missouri.
Dingleberry Finn
We finally figured out exactly where we were with the help of this kind old white haired gentleman. He said we weren’t too far from his hometown of Hannibal, Missouri and there was a place for us to turn the train around there. Me and Scott Halley introduced ourselves and the old fella said his name was Sam Clemens. He said he’d been driving a steamboat down on the Mississippi, and was now headed back home to Hannibal. He figured he’d try to write a few adventure stories, but he admitted he hadn’t had that many adventures to write about. He seemed like a nice enough old guy, so me and Scott Halley told him we had plenty adventures. We decided to tell him a couple and if liked ‘em good enough, and if he wanted to, he could use ’em in his book.
We told him about the time we built a raft and helped our buddy escape from some hunters by taking him up north. We told him about the big picnic and about us hiding out in a cave. Oh yeah, and about the time we tricked some boys into painting a fence. Well, before we knew it, Tommy is a-tootin’ the horn and we’re pulling into Hannibal. Ole Sam asks “You boys don’t mind if I write some of them stories down do you?” We tell him that’ll be fine, but to change our names, because we didn’t want no big fuss made over us. He agrees to do that and we help him get off the train. While Tommy was turning the train around, I had a minute to say goodbye to Sam, and that’s when I tell him to call Scott Halley’s character “Dingleberry Finn”. He agrees, but asked where the name come from? So I tell him that Dingleberry Finn was Scott Halley’s best buddy back at home. The truth was that Robert Dingleberry Finn, most folks just called him R.D., was a two-bit crook that hung around FRed Lobster bumming free drinks and never paid his tab at the whore house. Sam said he’d send us a copy of his book once he got it published. Tommy finally got the train turned around, and once again, we were on our way to New Orleans.
About a year later we got a copy of the book about our adventures, but I guess old Sam told the story to another fella and he wrote the book. This guy’s name was Mark something and he screwed up Scott Halley’s name. Called Scott’s character “Huckleberry” instead of “Dingleberry”. Oh well.
We finally made it back to Shreveport and Scott Halley made me go in with Tommy to pay for the gas this time. He didn’t want any more mishaps like we had the last time. It was a good thing I did too, ‘cause there was a telegram from Fred. All the telegram said was “NEZ GETS NEW SOCKS. WANTS JOB BACK. ADVISE. FRED.”
Well, when we got back on the train and were headed south, I told Scott Halley about the telegram, and that Fred wanted our opinion. He said we’d have to wait until we got back so we could sniff Nez out first.
We pulled into New Orleans late Friday afternoon. By the time Tommy found a place to park the train, it was already getting dark. Scott Halley and me unloaded Snowball and went off in search of Marie Laveau's place. A sign on her door said she was closed for the weekend and wouldn't be open until Monday morning. We were real pissed ‘cause now we had to spend the whole dang weekend in New Orleans. There wasn't nothing to do but drink, eat, listen to good music, and chase whores.
Scott Halley picked out a little hole in the wall bar and we set up camp at a table in the back. After four or five drinks, Scott Halley says he better go find Tommy and let him know where we are. He says for me to stay here and hold down the camp. So I settle in and have a few more drinks.
Just then, this fella comes over to my table, and he shows me a photograph of this other guy. He ask me if had ever seen him before. I says no, but how come you askin’? He says that it's his job to find this guy. I asked him if he was some sorta policeman. He said “Well, Kinda.” Well, after talking with this guy for a little while, I find out that he used to live in Swamp City. We drink to Swamp City, and we drink to FRed Lobster, and then, just for good measure, we drink to anything thing else we can think to drink to.
Our waitress was a cute little thing and my new friend was tipping her plenty good because of her excellent service. After a few hours, she tells us that she was getting off work now and thanked us for our business. My new pal asked her if she wanted to have a drink with us. She says ordinary she would, but she has got to go to a party. Well we ask her where’s the party? She looks us over real good for a minute. Then she says “Well, if you're not a racist, a sexist, or a homophobe I’ll draw y'all a map to the party.” What that deputy said next was no doubt the funniest thing I have ever heard in my entire life. It’s a dang shame that I was too drunk to remember it.
More Cowbell
After a while Scott Halley shows back up and says that he found Tommy. He figures Tommy is safe enough wandering the streets of New Orleans ‘cause he done got hooked up with a tambourine player from the Salvation Army. He said they was gonna go get a cup of coffee when she was done playing amazing grace.
Scott Halley says let's blow this joint ‘cause he done spotted a place he wanted to check out. We stumble out to where he had parked Snowball, he pokes me in the sidecar, and off we go.
What happened next depends on whose story you listen to. I say the reason that son of a bitch pulled us over is because Scott Halley was driving too fast and he run a stop light. Scott Halley prefers to blame it on me. He says the reason that son of a bitch pulled us over is because I was standing up backwards peeing out of the sidecar. I guess we'll never know for sure.
Lucky for us, he wasn’t no real cop. He did have a gun and a badge, oh yeah, and he had a dang whistle too. It seems that there had been a storm down there and the government sent the Army in to help the real cops maintain law and order. Well when Scott Halley found out this guy was in the Army, he tells him that our good friend Tommy was dating a gal in the Army. That seemed to help a little and the Army cop kinda eased up on us some. He said if we had a pal named Tommy, we couldn’t be all that bad, cause his name was Tommy too. He was gonna let us off with a warning when I says “What kinda cop wouldn't have a car or a horse or something to ride around in?” He says he was hoping to get a Hummer. Scott Halley says come on and go with us, he knew a place where he could get a hummer for two dollars. We was lucky enough that he just took the keys to Snowball and told us to stay out of trouble.
There is a place in New Orleans, they call the Rising Sun ( dang someone should use that in a song). Anyway, that was the place Scott Halley had spotted earlier and it was just across the street from where we had been pulled over. So, we pushed Snowball to the curb and waltz in there like we owned the place. There was women everywhere in all stages of undress. I says “Scott Halley, I think we hit the jackpot”. About that time the lights go dim and everybody gets real quiet like. The band starts playing and this gal comes out on the stage. She was wearing a long dark cotton dress with starched and embroidered cuffs and collar. Scott Halley says “Tambourine player my ass. Tommy’s new girlfriend is a Hoochie Coochie dancer.” We agreed it would be best not to tell him, so we never did. He still doesn't know.
Well, we hung out there the rest of the night and we met some nice guys from California. Peter, Dennis, and I think the other guys name was Jack. They was wanting to make a movie and had seen us pull up across the street on Snowball. Now they wanted to make a movie about a couple of guys riding motorcycles and partying in New Orleans. Them silly sons of bitches wanted to make a movie about me and Scott Halley, and they wanted us to be in it. We told them we didn’t have time for that ‘cause we was here on a mission. We told them they could go ahead and make the movie, but they would need to find other people to fill in for us. We spent the rest of the night telling them about what we had done while we were there and answered all their questions. They asked if riding a motorcycle was hard, and we said no, if you were drunk enough it was easy riding. I don’t know if them boys ever made the movie or not, but they were nice enough guys.
How much Doo would a Voodoo do?
Hangovers are such an ugly thing. Lucky for me and Scott Halley, we learnt the cure. The cure to a hangover is Dixie Beer.
Sunday passed by real slowly and we didn’t see Tommy at all. Monday morning, however, we were all three sitting on Marie Laveau's doorstep ready to take care of business as soon as she opened up shop. Scott Halley was the better talker so we had agreed to let him tell the story of why we needed her help. He told the whole story and we finally settled on a reasonable wage after a couple of hours haggling over price. She agreed to come back to FRed Lobster with us and to rid us of the evil red headed son of a bitch once and for all. Scott Halley got out his checkbook and happily wrote her a check for a thousand dollars. I had never seen a check that big before. I’d also never seen Scott Halley spell his name “Lou Sanus” before either.
We hung around waiting while Ms. Laveau packed up her grip. Tommy agreed to meet us back at the train, so me and Scott Halley helped Marie Laveau carry her satchels over to the depot. She packed one with clothes and the other three were full of herbs, roots, and voodoo looking stuff.
When we met back at the train I asked Tommy about his new girlfriend. He said he didn’t have no girlfriend, but he would be proud to introduce me to his new wife. I said “Dang Tommy! You sure didn't waste no time.” Tommy’s new bride rode in the passenger car with Marie Laveau and they had become good friends by the time we made it back to FRed Lobster that evening.
Me and Scott Halley had a big time on the ride back. Scott Halley would poke me and say “Watch this shit.” Then he’d go to strumming a few chords on his guitar and we would watch Paula’s foot go to tapping. We must have done that a hundred times on the ride back and it worked every time. It never got old and we laughed every time.
We got back after dark on Monday night and decided to wait till daylight to bring Marie Laveau to face off with that evil red headed son of a bitch. Not that we were scared to go up there in the dark or anything, we just wanted Marie Laveau to get a good look at what she was up against. We were all tired from our long journey, so we decided to call it an early night.
Just as we were about to doze off, someone started calling out “Mark”. Every now and then, the son of a bitch would scream “Mark, Mark”. That went on for quite a spell before Scott Halley sat up in his bunk and he hollered “I’m trying to sleep! Quit calling me, and my name ain’t Mark!” Well that didn’t stop the son of a bitch from calling for Mark. “Mark, Mark” the son of a bitch called again and again. Scott Halley says to me “Go out there and shut that son of a bitch up.” So I get my boots on and go out to see who’s calling for Mark, but I can’t find no one. Then I hear it again “Mark… Mark…” I stumble over to where the sound was coming from and see it ain’t nobody at all, it’s just a dang dog.
I call for Scott Halley to come see my new talking circus dog. I says this son of a bitch is so smart that he’s calling for his old owner I bet. I bet his old owners name is Mark. As you can imagine I was plenty proud to have found a talking dog. When Scott Halley comes out to look at my new found friend, he says “That ain’t no smart talking circus dog. That’s one of them hair-lipped chihuahua dogs.” You can probably imagine my disappointment. (Some of you will say “Dang, that’s an old joke”, but now you know where it came from.)
Daylight come and me wanna to go home. Dang. Sorry, my mind just works that way. Anyways, daylight come and we saddled up the mules with all of Marie Laveau's voodoo stuff and headed off up to the big house. Scott Halley says it will be better if me and him just wait in the pine thicket in back of the house. We’ll let Marie Laveau meet her rival head on alone. I said that I didn’t have a problem with that, and that’s what we agreed to do.
We carried all of Marie Laveau’s voodoo stuff up to the side porch. After we set all of her stuff down, we rang the doorbell and headed towards the back of the house. We hollered “Come on out here you red headed son of a bitch!” as we ran for the pine thicket and left Marie Laveau there to do her job. We figured she was about earn that thousand dollars and we wanted to give her all the space she needed.
Plop Fizz Mike
Me and Scott Halley got to the pine thicket just as the red headed son of a bitch made it to the door. We got turned around and squatted down just in time to see her bust through the door. Then all Hell broke loose. There was a lot of wailing and flailing, but we couldn’t understand anything that they was a saying. We figured it must be some sort of Devil talk. Then, without warning, Marie Laveau dropped all her bags of voodoo stuff and took to running straight out for that red headed son of a bitch. Brother, she come a humming. That red headed son of a bitch, well, she done the same. When they met in the middle, me and Scott Halley had to duck down ‘cause we knew it was gonna be bad.
They met with enough force to knock down any normal person. Then they took to wrestling and screaming, and then, it looked like they was a crying. The next thing we know, the red headed son of a bitch goes over to where Marie Laveau had dropped her bags and helps her carry in her stuff.
Come to find out, they wasn’t wrestling at all. They was a hugging. That red headed son of a bitch was calling Marie Laveau “Mama”.
***Pause for Dramatic Effect***
Me and Scott Halley were just heart sick. We had done gone all the way to New Orleans to bring back Marie Laveau, and she was our last hope of ridding ourselves of the evil red headed son of a bitch. Come to find out, that red headed son of a bitch was actually Marie Laveau's dang daughter. Scott Halley said “She better not try to cash that dang check.”
After a moment of disbelief, Scott Halley says “Let's go back to FRed Lobster, drink a beer or two, and figure this shit out.” I agreed, so we got on the mules and headed back down to FRed Lobster.
That’s when we seen buzzards circling overhead in the south west corner of the pasture. We decide to ride over and have a look see. Once we got close enough, we could see that it was just a buffalo carcass with all of the hide and most of the innards gone. We were just fixin' to leave the buzzards to their work when I noticed something moving around in what was left of the buffalo guts. As I got closer, I could hear what sounded like crying coming from the pile of goo. I got out my knife and started cutting free whatever was moving around in there. After a few minutes of careful cutting, I pulled out what appeared to be a baby boy.
I says “Dang Scott Halley, this buffalo done eat a baby, and the baby was trying to eat his way out.” Scott Halley says, “That buffalo didn’t eat no dang baby.” He says “What we got here is actual living proof that the Injuns phucked buffalos.” Well, I cleaned him up best I could and stuffed him in one of my saddlebags and we continued on back down to FRed lobster.
After I thought about it for a while, I realized that all and all, it had been a pretty good day. I didn’t get my house back like I wanted, but I did have a talking dog and a new half-baby half-buffalo creature of my own. That ain't bad at all.
I was planning to name the Humalo “Mark” so the dog could talk to him, but Scott Halley said that would probably just confuse the kid. We decided to name him “Mike” instead. You know, that little rascal really loves catsup.
The
End