Since a lot of you seemed to enjoy hearing about my cousin Evil Larry who tormented my poor brother so, I thought I’d give you a little more. Like I said, we were periodically subjected to cousinly visits, whether or not we wanted them. Hence, Evil Larry was often around to inflict mayhem. Once he stood on a fence post in our front yard shouting racial epithets at black people passing by. Naturally, we flew in the house to report it. Mother would have murdered us for this type of behavior. She came flying out in a fury, snatched him off the fence, and dragged him back in the house. I was in high hopes, she’d kill him, at the very least, but all she did was threaten him with death by fly swat if he dared show his face in the front yard again. She must have scared him, since he spent the rest of the day out of public sight. That was quite an intimidation act for her, but still disappointing for us.

Another time, when Bill was in high school, he had the bad judgment to let Evil Larry drive his 1949 Ford Truck. Evil Larry took a curve too fast and tore out about a hundred feet of the neighbor’s barbed wire fence. Typically, he said, “Oh ^%#*@ let’s get out of here before the old #@^% catches us!”

Knowing there was no hope, Bill said, “I don’t think that’s gonna work. There’s his son right there, watching us.” It would have been useless to hope for escape anyway. In our community, everybody knew everything that was going on. Besides, it didn’t take a genius to put the scrape marks on the truck and the track marks together. Bill went home and ‘fessed up to Daddy before heading back up the road to face the neighbor and do fence repairs. Of course, Evil Larry had done his part when he tore the fence up.

Evil Larry lived up to his early promise. He never really worked, engaged in petty crime, though he lacked the organization and skills to get into anything really impressive. He was involved with numerous women, fathering several unfortunate children along the way, none of whom he supported. He greatest gift seemed to be a high sperm count. He has made some claims about getting into big time drug-dealing and organized crime and being in the witness protection program, but unfortunately still shows up from time to time, so that achievement seems unlikely. Not too long ago, Evil Larry’s son called up his grandmother asking for money to go to Evil Larry’s funeral, but when she checked, it turned out the whole story was a sham. I guess the bad apple doesn’t fall too far from Evil Larry’s tree.

I spoke to Evil Larry’s mother recently.  She doesn’t really keep up with him but did recently hear that Karma bit him on the butt.  Somehow, through the years, Evil Larry worked enough to qualify for Social Security and filed for disability, the only steady income he ever enjoyed.  When he turned sixty-two, Social Security kicked in.  The State of Louisiana caught up with him then and docks him $100 a month to repay the state benefits his kids got when he was a deadbeat dad.

Some people can’t catch a break.