pixietastic | LJI Season 9, Episode 1

Earle sits in his tattered old lawn chair, you know the kind, with those maybe-plastic, maybe-cloth woven straps on a cheap metal frame, the kind that your pudgy aunt Martha fell through last summer at the family reunion? Yeah one of those pieces of shit. Every day Earle sits on that chair on the left side of his wrap around porch on the corner of Middleton Street and Sassbury Bay without fail, every day at noon, rain or shine, summer or winter Earle sits out there and sips his old mason jar of home brewed beer. In the summer months he'll strike up a conversation with lady Gwendolyn the friendly older lady next door while she pulls up the dandelions in her flower beds, making more room for her lilies and creeping violets.

Earle aint exactly friendly, sure he likes old lady Gewn alright, probably because she stays out of his way, doesn't even complain when his grass is overgrown and full of weeds making her garden ripe for their seeds to spread, nah lady Gewn's just plain nice, but Earle, he's a real bastard when he wants to be. His kids are grown now, the wife left some 20 years back took the kids and they never came around after that, left Earle with a big old basset hound and his beers, the basset hound sat out there with him every day after she left, never took his sleepy eyes off the old man sippin his brew.

That dog died some years back, I was about 11 or 12 at the time, it wasn't long after that, that my momma started sending me down to mow the lawn and shovel the snow for the old man. She said it would "build ya some character" to deal with the old coot. At first I was just plain afraid of him, the grumpy bastard drinking his beer sneering at the neighbors.

"Boy," he'd yell at me, "y'aint got the gumption in ya ta cut that grass right, kids these days are too damn lazy for push-mowers."
"Sorry Sir," I'd mumble looking at the laces in my sneakers.
"That's Captain Sir, to you kid. Aint got no respect for us vets ya damn kids don't, Imma get up off this porch and whip ya good if ya missed a spot." He shouted.

Never did get to whip me good, and I think my momma knew he wasn't really able to beat the piss out of me like he'd holler about. Old man with a cane and a bum leg, sitting on his military pension just drinking his beer and hatin the world. But my momma, being a good neighbor, a good church goin lady wasn't about to let old Earle "fall to shambles" as she called it, so over I went being the oldest and only boy in our house to help with repairs and keep up with the old shack.

As I got older, he'd tell me stories, some of em I just hoped to God he made up, gruesome stories where peoples limbs were hangin on only by the threads on their clothes, stuff like that, others he claimed were funny but I guess I was "too young and too dumb" as he called it to get em really.

He'd holler at me with his slow scrambled drawl after one too many beers, while I nailed another new board on his front porch "the enemy only attacks at two times" he'd say, "when they're ready an when you aint."

My 14 year old self never seemed to get much outta that line, but it stayed in the back of my mind anyway, every time he'd say it and then tell me I had shit for brains.

These days he's tamer, still tellin bloody combat stories and bad jokes, just the other week, he got into his fourth beer and started in.

"There was this group o new soldiers standin in line on base. The Drill Sargent shouted "All right! All ya idiots fall out."
Well all but one o dem soldiers walks off, so the Drill Sargent walks right over till he was eye-to-eye with that one remaining private, and then he raises just one eyebrow. And that soldier he says, "Sure was a lot of 'em, huh, sir?" ya get it kid?" Earle grinned, "ah Jayus Chripes kid how'd ya ever get anywhere with yer fancy pants schoolin if ya didn't even get that joke?"

"Sorry Captain Sir, guess I'da been that one poor bastard standin there after all the smart ones had gone," I replied.

Old Earle broke out in an ear to ear grin, "yer alright boy," he said, "even if I aint need no help around here. Yer momma taught ya good, you'll do alright."

"Thank you Captain Sir," I replied.

"Ah, kid, ya can just call me Earle, I think after all this time, ya done earned it."

I still go back there every Sunday after church, did all through my schooling to become a "fancy pants mechanic" as he called it, make sure old Earle's holding up alright, guess momma did teach me right. And some days, I just sit there and watch him drink his beers, talking about the war, and bitchin bout the weather, sittin on that frayed old lawn chair hatin the world.

This weeks topic was: "Jayus" Definition for those unaware: "From Indonesian, meaning a joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh.”

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