In my family of “Mixed Nuts” Cousin Corwin was the winner, hands down. When he was about twelve, he and his twin Kelvin got in a little “dust up” with the police, so it seemed like a good time to get out of town. Aunt Essie called Daddy, asking if the twins could come spend a few days. Now if the image “twins” brings to mind thoughts of “barefoot boys with cheeks of tan,” think again. Kelvin to all intents and purposes, could have passed for normal, but Corwin was nuts. At five foot eight and two hundred and sixty pounds, he was physically intimidating. His pale blue eyes blazed with madness. He ripped through a fried chicken like a chain saw. Mother had to double the amount she normally cooked the minute he arrived.
Aunt Essie’s call for relief was well-timed. Mother and Daddy were just about to leave on a much-anticipated vacation. Though Mother could only hear Daddy’s end of the conversation, it was clear he was assuring Aunt Essie “taking the boys will be no problem. I’ll straighten them out. We’ll come get them as soon as we get back. They can stay as long as they want. They’ll always have a home with us.” He hung up, turning to Mother. She was murderous! Like any right thinking human with twelve years’ experience with Corwin, she despised him. She’d spent most of those years defending her girls from his attacks.
“Are you crazy? I don’t want that maniac out here! He is not coming!”
“Yes, he is! I’ve already told Essie we’ll come get them as soon as we get back from vacation. I’m going to bring those boys out here, put ‘em to work and straighten ‘em out. There’s not a kid in the world I can’t conquer!”
“You can’t straighten them out. You deserve what you get! Go get them whenever you want to. We’re not going on vacation!”
Conceding that point, Daddy left, returning several hours later returning with two sullen, hostile boys. Since neither Mother nor the girls had anything to say to him either, it was a quiet house except for chicken bones crunching when Corwin ate. Corwin was exhausted after his big supper and brush with the police so Mother showed him to his bed right after supper. As soon as she cleaned up the kitchen, she went on to bed, leaving Daddy up by himself. He was horrified to find Corwin in his bed when he got ready to turn in. He went to find Mother. She bunked in with the girls, partly to protect them.
“Corwin’s in my bed!” Daddy roared.
“Yep. You may as well go ahead and get started straightening him out tonight.” She turned over, the bed shaking with her giggling. Daddy knew when he was whipped.
He got up, blasting the boys out of bed the next morning about six. They were sullen, rubbing their eyes. He was full of false cheer, enjoying the prospect of teaching them to work, turning them into productive humans. They dragged away from the table, out into the dawn’s early light. They were back at noon, to eat and rest in the heat of the day. The boys were unhappy. I don’t think their morning had gone well. Daddy was trying to force a good mood on everybody. After an hour and a half’s rest, he had them back at it. They ate, bathed, and fell in bed that night. The next morning, he had to drag them out of bed, openly hostile. They took potshots at him at breakfasts before he dragged them off. By noon, things clearly had heated up.
By the fifth day, Daddy was sick of them, but stuck in the nightmare he’d created. He had alienated everybody. In one camp, Mother and the girls hated him. In the other, he was spending his vacation trying “straighten out” two juvenile delinquents who openly despised him and made his life a misery on every turn. It was a challenge having to having work like a dog trying to teach them to work when he’d planned to be on vacation.
There was no escaping the nightmare as he spent his nights with the corpulent, malodorous, psychopathic Corwin, snuggled up against him. One morning Daddy got up to find he had no clean underwear in his drawer. While he was searching, the putrid scent of feces drifted from the general area of his closet. He investigated, finding that Corwin had suffered digestive issues, soiled his dainties and concealed them deep in Daddy’s closet, rather than admit to his weak sphincter. Exhausting his underwear wardrobe, he’d helped himself to Daddy’s, which he also soiled and concealed. Daddy had had enough. He made Corwin take the whole disgusting pile outdoors and wash it. Corwin found he didn’t care for washing aged crap out of his (and Daddy’s) drawers, retching the whole time. He felt Daddy ought to wash out his own, even though Corwin had crapped them all and was doubly insulted when Daddy insisted he scoop up the piles of poop and haul the filthy wash water far from the house to dump it. He would have had absolutely no problem leaving the slimy, stinking mess lying on the ground next to the faucet. To everyone’s relief, Corwin called Aunt Essie, begging to go home. That saga had ended with Daddy finding a kid he couldn’t conquer.
To be continued
Aunt Essie, like all of my aunts, was a wonder of fertility, if not child-rearing acumen. She raised seven of the meanest boys outside Alcatraz. Thank God, her reproductive equipment gave out before she managed more. I thought Mother was exaggerated when she said they’d all end up in jail or dead before they were thirty. She was wrong. Only four of the seven did jail time, and of these, one died in a bar fight after he was released at the age of twenty-eight. Most of rest passed their time boozing it up at Aunt Essie’s house when they weren’t begetting children or needed in jail. Contrary to Mother’s unjust prediction, all made it past thirty. The meanest of the lot turned out to be pretty boring. He opened a very successful auto body shop and became a deacon.
I think I’ve mentioned my cousin Corwin was interesting. He was still hauling his bottle around when he started school. His teacher made him leave it at home, so first thing after getting off the bus, he’d get his bottle out of the cabinet, fill it up, and enjoy it along with his after school snack. A hearty eater, he’d grab up a handful of Gravytrain Chunks out of the dog’s bowl as he headed out to play football with his big brothers. As a crawling baby, Corwin had started shoving the puppy out of his bowl and just kind of got hooked on Gravytrain. It added a interest to the game to see Corwin playing football with his baby bottle sticking out of his back pocket. One of his brothers or cousins invariably snatched his bottle and ran, passing it on to whichever kid was new to the game. The chase was on. Corwin carried a grudge to the bitter end and picked up a stick or rock and bash the bottle thief’s head in long after the game of “Keepaway” concluded. His older brothers felt this bit of info was on a “need to know” basis, so new kids had to find out the hard way.
Should goats not choose to lounge about with their bony heads in the fence, they walked through fences like ghosts through walls. Our house was enclosed by a wire fence which was inside the long drive leading up to the house. The pasture presented a third line of fence between the goats and the house. Even the blind goat ran up the diagonal corner brace posts and hopped the fences without even thinking, attaining total access to the whole place. Goats are perpetually in love. None of this fencing got between goats and their aim in life, copulating before as many onlookers as possible: ministers, prissy ladies, and small children, in that order. The tiniest of window ledges presented no problem should the company be saintly enough. Goats crashed my six-year-sister’s birthday party, indulging in a lurid love fest on the lawn, giving the kiddies an eye full till we got it broken up. One morning as the school bus driver impatiently honked for us, a huge Billy Goat chased his lady friend onto the hood of the school bus, consummating their relationship then and there, to the joy of the kids on the bus. Thank goodness, that indiscretion was enough to finally put an end to the goat herd.
I don’t know why Daddy kept goats. In theory, they’d eat brush and he’d have one to barbecue on Memorial Day, Fourth of July, or Labor Day. The fact is, our goats didn’t ascribe to the brush eating theory and were born knowing their life’s purpose was to get their heads stuck in fences, climb on everything and make passionate love. It was clear to the dumbest of them that flowers, grass, garden vegetables, laundry on the line, and almost anything else was better than brush. Only a starving goat would eat poison ivy or bitter weed if anything else is available. I had plenty of experience with goats. Our fences were intended to keep cows and horses in. Goats easily slipped their heads through the wire since they were the philosophical type who believed “the grass is greener on the other side. The problem arose when they tried to remove their horned heads and were stuck fast. In our occupation of unpaid farm hands, my brother and I had to walk the fences to extricate stuck goats. A couple of hazards were manifest. The goats were never appreciative. While we worked to get them loose, they tried to flee, most often smashing our hands against the wire. The second major problem involved randy Billy Goats who thoroughly understood the nannies were in that particular situation for romantic purposes. Resentful Billy Goats can be quite vindictive. If goat testosterone could be marketed, I’d invest.
The visiting preacher came home with us for Sunday dinner. He had a just gotten a new car and spent most of Sunday dinner talking about it. His wife had a bad heart and lay down for a nap after lunch. He whispered “She could go anytime.” This did nothing to lighten the mood. It was clear the new car was the only bright spot in his life. It would look nice at her funeral. They were from out of town so we were stuck with them until time for the evening service. The afternoon looked long and hopeless. The kids escaped outdoors as soon as possible. Our house was on the edge of the farm, sitting inside a larger fenced area where Daddy raised hay and grazed cattle, horses, goats. The driveway was several hundred yards long and fenced separately, enclosing several pecan and fruit trees, and space for parking. As goats will do, the goats had slipped through the fence and gotten in the drive. Brother Smith had parked his nice new car under the mulberry tree in full bloom. Goats love new vegetation and as it turns out, new cars. We saw several hop agilely to the roof of his new car. Before we could get to it, several more joined their friends standing on their back legs to reach the tree branches. There was a big metallic “Pop!!” and the hood caved in, leaving the goats in a bowl. They leapt off. Mother heard the racket and ran out just in time to catch the whole disaster. Her eyes were huge as her hands flew to her mouth. We hadn’t had a new car for years and now we’d be buying this preacher one. Not only that, his wife would probably drop dead on the spot and he’d have to drive a goat-battered car to the funeral.
Original art by Kathleen Holdaway Swain
No little kid should ever be allowed a small, defenseless duck, chick, or bunny for a pet. One of those four hundred pound tortoises would be a far better choice. It could protect itself and the kid couldn’t pick it up. Porcupines or crocodiles should be fine, too. They could probably hold their own against a four year old. Case in point, when I was four, Mother went to the farm supply store to get baby chicks to raise for the freezer. They came in a brown cardboard box with air holes. Naturally, I fell in love with the chicks and begged for one of my own. Thinking I would quickly lose interest, Mother had one put in a paper bag just for me.
Nutsrok 