James Henderson - Family Thang

Ruth Ann closed the door behind her. Eric gave chase. She was walking casually down the walkway toward the end of the motel when he ran out.

She looked back, saw him running toward her, shrieked and started sprinting. Eric caught her just as she turned the corner.

“Ruth Ann, come back inside.” He pulled her by her wrist.

“Let me go, Eric. Let me go! Stop it now!”

“We have to talk… inside the motel room… like normal people. C’mon, stop acting silly.”

“No, Eric! I said stop. If you don’t stop I’ll scream.”

“C’mon, Ruth Ann. You gonna make people think I’m doing something to you.” He said this calmly, rationally, as if they were on a stroll in a public park instead of him stark naked and her resisting being pulled by the wrist.

Ruth Ann screamed and collapsed into a ball on the pavement. The door directly behind them, room number two, opened and a tall white man wearing only boxers and alligator-skinned boots stepped out.

“Pardon me, young fellow,” he said just as Eric was attempting to lift Ruth Ann into a fireman’s carry. Louder: “Pardon me!”

Eric turned and looked up. The blinking red lights made it impossible to discern the man’s face.

“There’s a western showing on the tube, cowboy. This here ain’t your business.” He returned his attention to Ruth Ann and tried to lift her, but couldn’t get a good hold. “C’mon, Ruth Ann. Stop this nonsense!”

All he had to do was pick her up and carry her the short distance to the motel room. Yeah, he thought as he kneeled to get a better grip, get her back inside, talk to her, bang her real good, and everyone would be happy.

Ruth Ann, arms wrapped around her legs, fingers interlocked, head tucked between her knees, screamed.

“Excuse me young fellow,” the man said again.

“Didn’t I tell you get some business, Roy Rogers?”

“Ma’am, is this fellow bothering you?”

“Yes, he is!”

“Step away from the lady, young fellow. Now!”

“Make me!” He moved to lift Ruth Ann in a jerk-and-roll maneuver when he heard a metallic clip-clap. He froze.

“I’m mighty tired of repeating myself. Step away from the lady, boy!”

Eric swallowed. He knew what he would see before turning—the transition from young fellow to boy was too quick for the man not to have a gun—and when he did, sure enough the cowboy was aiming a weapon at him. Not a gun, uh-uh; not an old rusty revolver, what you would’ve expected from a galoot like him, but a shotgun.

Eric felt his heart in his throat. He raised both hands as he stood up. Where on earth had the man concealed the damn thing?

“You’re moving too slow to my liking, boy,” gesturing with the shotgun.

Eric, moving his head left and right, not liking at all the shotgun shadowing him, said, “Sir, is there a problem?”

“Shut your pie hole, boy. Hey, Ebb, get out here.”

Another cowboy, this one shorter, rounder in the middle, in a pink bathrobe, stepped out of the motel room. “Yes, Harold,” he said.

“Ebb, help the lady to her feet.”

Ebb moved to assist Ruth Ann, but she stood on her own. “I’ll guess I’ll be going now,” she said.

“I called the police,” Ebb said.

“Police!” Eric shouted. “Ruth Ann, tell these cowpokes what’s really going on. We do this all the time, don’t we? Tell em! Tell em, Ruth Ann, before the police come.”

Ruth Ann walked away. “Yes, we do this all the time. I love being dragged to a motel room by a naked man. It’s exciting. See you on the news, Eric. Ta-ta.”

“No, Ruth Ann. Tell em the truth. Ruth Ann!” She’d turned the corner, flipping Eric a finger before disappearing.

Eric smiled nervously. “You guys mind I go to my room, put my clothes on? I’ll come back. Give me a few minutes, I’ll be right back.”

“Mosey along, young fellow.” He lowered the shotgun. “The lady’s gone. But let me share this with you, partner. I don’t saddle up with a man who forces himself on a woman. That kind of thing chafes my hide.”

Eric shook his head. “Sir, believe me, even at gunpoint, I wouldn’t chafe your hide.”

The man spat a wad of tobacco a few inches short of Eric’s feet. “Next time I see you forcing a woman, any woman, to do anything, it won’t go so easy. You see what horse I’m riding, boy?”

Back to boy again. Eric nodded and backed up toward his room, not giving a damn if Silver was hitched around the corner.

Inside the room he closed the door, locked it and threw on his clothes. A siren warbled in the distance. Shit! He ran to the bathroom, pried open the small window and shimmied out. Thank goodness he’d registered under an alias.

He hurried to his truck and hopped in. It whined but didn’t start. The siren sounded closer. “Damn!” No other choice, he got out and ran through the woods.

Albert, an albino boa constrictor, slid across the lawn. Its owner shouted, “Albert, you get back here! You know those people don’t like you.”

Albert kept going, not realizing he was slithering perilously close to the yard next door where his owner’s neighbor had posted a sign on his unfenced property that read All Snakes Will Be Shot.

“Albert, you hear me! I said get over here!” Robert Earl crossed his arms and stomped his feet. “Stupid snake,” and walked over and picked up Albert.

Disoriented midair, Albert wriggled fitfully.

“Bad snake! Bad snake!” Robert Earl tapped the six-foot, orange-and-white snake on its bulbous head. “When I tell you come here, I mean come here!” He tapped it again, to ensure it got the message.

Albert almost wriggled free… Robert Earl grabbed its midsection and held it up eye to eye. “Do you hear me?” Onyx eyes stared defiantly at him, so Robert Earl shook it. “You hear me?”

Albert flitted its black forked tongue.

“Okay, then. Stop acting like you don’t know come here from sic em.”

“Robert,” Estafay called from inside the back porch.

“Yeah.” He couldn’t see her through the wire mesh screen. “Yeah, honey.”

Estafay stuck her head out the door, her eyes never leaving Albert. “Telephone.”

“Who is it?”

“Someone from the mill.”

“Dang! What they want? Okay.”

When Robert Earl, holding Albert, crossed to the house, Estafay quickly retreated. He dropped Albert into the snake house, three plywood boards abutted to the skirting panel. Two days ago Albert had companions, two rattlesnakes, Killer and Diller, who escaped after a storm blew the boards down.

Robert Earl went inside and picked up the phone in the kitchen. “Hello.”

“Robert?”

“This him.”

“Robert, Dale Brown. Over at the paper mill. We were wondering when you were planning to come back to work.”

“Y’all was?” Robert Earl replied, sitting at the kitchen table, stretching the phone cord to its limit.

“Yes, we sure were. When are you coming back?”

“You know I just buried my daddy yesterday. The mound on his grave hasn’t leveled. If there is a mound. Sometimes they don’t cover the hole till days later, you know. Why it’s a good idea to check on em.”

“I didn’t know that, Robert. If you could give us a rough date to when you’re coming back. We need to mark something on the calendar.”

“Uh… I really don’t know when I’m coming back. When a man’s daddy is murdered it takes time adjusting, even though I couldn’t stand the sorry rascal. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be here.”

“I understand. I just need a—”

“Do you really? Or are you just talking? Your daddy probably still alive while mine is six feet under. Worm food. Smelling like—”