Velociworld

The Great Watermelon Caper

Or... wherein I fuck up again. Listen, though:

Before we moved to the farm we owned the farm. The old man had originally bought it, and sold it to my mother, as a weekend getaway type thing. And she, in her gloried naivete, swallowed that hook. At first the Senator built a tar paper shack. Well, a little better than that, but not much. It had corrugated asbestos sides, and I remember helping lay cheap shitty tile with what was apparently black tar for adhesive. The place reeked of the decayed, and it leaked vile insects. Earwigs, scorpions, cockroaches. Which stuff boys love, of course. Who wouldn't love a house that bled disgusting creatures that made your sisters wet their panties? It was glorious stuff.

The old man had also let Shorty place his trailer next to our house, so that we would have neighbors, however arboreal and knuckle-dragging and sinfully retarded they may be. It was a 1930's twenty foot pull behind trailer, in faded flamingo pink, scallop-shaped in what passed for white trash art deco in 1935. It possessed rats in addition to our insect creatures. The floor was decorated in mouse traps; a nice touch, I might add.

Anywelter, one fine day, I figure it must have been the fourth of July, because I was sweating like a tampered hog, and there were flags, we set off for the farm. The Senator stopped at a roadside gig, manned by inbreds, for a watermelon. The physician and writer Ferrol Sams from Forsythe, Georgia claims blacks called them wallermillions. And that is true. We had two black fellows, brothers, Peter and Floyd, who called them that. Iffen you would buy them one. Floyd was stupid as a dirt clod, and would wreak havoc on any enterprise the two lit into. Peter was smarter, with a grasping cunning, which landed him in the state penitientiary at Reidsville a few years later. That always saddened me, for Floyd was bereft without Peter. Sad, sad.

But back to wallermillions. The old man pulled up, and told me to get out. As 4th of 5 every now and then mom would nudge the goat to ENGAGE! And so I had to help him select the melon. The Senator liked to thump melons for freshness. He also liked to thump heads. He'd pop your head and say "Sounds empty, boy! Don't want a melon like that!" And of course you'd say "No sir! Don't want a melon like that! Like my head!" But ritual bonding aside, we found the perfect melon, and took it to the farm.

Now it gets good: as my father told me to fetch the melon, I did. And as I brought it out, to the wondering eyes of all around, I dropped it. It exploded. Fuck! It was heavy! You could have heard a pin drop. Everyone expected a huge beating of the Velociboy. I'd screwed the pooch, after all, and as I recall, although the retrospection may be fuzzy, the Senator's eyes were blazing like two red hot coals.

I deserved a whup, but I didn't get one. Maybe a glare from my mother, maybe the old man remembering a dropped melon from his past. We toasted marshmallows. And sweet they were. Even with Shorty's tribe there, barely refraining from licking the goddamed spatulas. But trash is like that. What you gonna do? Anyhoo, it worked out alright, but I knew my butt was beat.