Velociworld

SHORTY LAMB

This post has waited months in the wings. Those who knew me when have in all likelihood cringed at the thought that I would eventually get around to it. I'd considered it, but decided to do like the English of Olde did with pheasants, and leave it hanging in the sun for a few weeks until it got sweetly rancid. So here we go:

Shorty was a diesel mechanic with a shop in Garden City near the old Traffic Circle. Basically a huge quonset hut where he worked on big rigs. He was about 4'11", and his right leg was about 4 inches shorter than his left. He told me once when I asked (kids always ask) that it had been cut off in a speedboat accident, and when it was sewn back on it was shorter. I believed that. I had no reason not to.

Shorty had a gray crewcut, smoked a pipe, and was a wiry weatherbeaten little fucker when I knew him. His wife Sadie weighed in at about four hundie, and she was the snaggle-toothed salt of the earth. Their two girls were nice kids, their two boys were worthless fucking reprobates.

So my Dad had befriended Shorty in one of those ways you don't care to explore. Lock up the law practice and stop off at Shorty's on the way to the farm. Sit in Shorty's "office" and drink Wild Turkey, smoke hand-rolled Bugles, and swap outrageous lies about the pussy you never got. My brother and I would go outside to the drainage canal and throw rocks at sewer rats the size of raccoons. Cokes were a dime in Shorty's machine. The little six and a half ouncers. Real Cokes. Once those assholes switched to beet sugar instead of cane sugar they were peddling a bastard product. But I digress.

Dad, being Oliver Wendell Holmes Gentleman Agrarian, gave Shorty a piece of land on the edge of our farm to build a house on, so that Shorty would be in close proximity to "work on our farm equipment". Therefore Shorty was always around. My mother found him disgusting and appalling, which accounts for my father's desire to keep Shorty close at hand.

A couple of things about Shorty, just in case you thought he was human. He once beat a decorated black Vietnam veteran senseless with a tire iron for the offense of requesting service on his car. He also had a dog, half-wolf, chained up in his garage for security. He told me to stay away from the dog, because he was so mean. Said Shorty, "I hope somebody tries to break in tonight, because the only thing he gets to eat is niggers, and he ain't eat for a week."

Classic Shorty: he was at our river house in Bluffton once (God knows why; Vagabond Villa was supposed to be my mother's safe haven, or panic room, if you will) and my little brother went into the bathroom to take a leak. Shorty was already in there, and when my brother (all of 9 or 10) tried to leave, Shorty would have none of it. "Come on in, boy, there's room enough for both of us!" Shorty had to hike his short right leg up on the edge of the toilet to keep his balance while whizzing, and my brother had to try to tinkle while Shorty shot out a huge thick stream of hard yellow piss that foamed up the entire bowl. My brother referred to it, I think, as a "saffron rope". Said it stank like hell.

Shorty. Think I'm done with him? In your dreams.