One of the albums contained a section of pictures dated from nineteen seventy-three. One of the photographs was of my uncle Delano and his then girlfriend, Sherry. I smiled as I looked upon their image. That year I spent an odd and wonderful day with them at my grandmother’s house. It was during the summer and mommy and dad had gone to Detroit for the week. It was a working pleasure trip for my father. He was going to spend a couple of days purchasing items for his business and the rest of the week he was going to spend with mother. They had left the rest of my siblings with an aunt and uncle and I was left at granny’s house because I was attending Vacation Bible School at the local Baptist Church in the evenings. I didn’t want to miss church because they were going to have a wiener roast that Friday and my parents agreed to let me stay with granny so I could go to church.
I don’t remember what day of the week it was, but I do know that it was somewhere in the middle, Wednesday or Thursday. Granny had gone shopping with one of her older daughters and had left me with my uncle and his best friend, Donald.
How these two became best friends is a mystery to me. They looked and acted nothing alike. Delano was tall, dark-haired, light-skinned, dark-eyed and thin. He was terribly handsome and shy in away that drove women wild with desire. He believed in telling the truth at all times even if it was to his detriment. Donald was also tall and thin, but other than that he looked like the photographic negative of Delano. He had blond hair, blue eyes and dark skin. He craved attention and loved being the center of it. If the truth was in him, he never showed it. He was the type that would lie even when the truth would better serve him. Though completely opposite, these two were drawn together like coffee and milk. Apart from each other, they functioned adequately, but together they were a well oiled machine that left a trail of female broken hearts wherever they went.
I was sitting on the porch playing with my toy soldiers and they were sitting on the swing that hung from the ceiling by two chains. They had set up the Japanese soldiers from my Iwo Jima playset and I was busy setting up the Americans.
Once Donald set up the last tan colored warrior, he looked at Delano, smiled and asked, “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
My uncle smiled. “Fire it up. I’ll take a drag or two.”
Donald smiled. He reached in his pants pocket and brought out a small self-rolled Prince Albert cigarette. He placed it under his nose and sniff. “Ah, they ain’t nothing like a good doobie.”
Delano smiled and pointed towards the yard. “Let’s go out behind the house were nobody can see or smell this thing. Besides, I don’t feel right about taking a hit on mommy’s porch.”
“You’d better bring little britches with you,” stated Donald. “If something happens to him, your mom a kill both of us.” Delano motioned for me to follow them and I obliged
Behind my grandmother’s house was a fifteen by fifteen foot shed in which she put her deep freeze and water pump. It also contained a heater and bed just in case it was needed. Granny kept the building clean and changed sheets on the bed every month. It was located about twenty feet from the back porch. Since grandma had no neighbors on the left or right the space between the back porch and the shed was ideal if you didn’t want to be seen. My aunts and several of my cousins would lie back there in their bikinis and get tans. That way they didn’t have to worry about prying eyes. Knowing this, the two young men chose this as the place where they’d smoke their funny looking cigarette.
When we reached the area between the two buildings, Donald placed the “doob,” as they called it, between his thumb and pointing finger. He put it in his mouth and then brought out his Zippo. With three flicks of his wrist he had opened the top of the lighter, fired up the thing and had brought the flame to the tip of the cigarette. As the joint ignited, I heard a crackling sound and then a small pop. “I must’ve left a seed in that one,” stated Donald as he blew out the smoke from his lungs.
“That’s all right,” returned my uncle. “I’ll hit her anyway.”
Donald took another drag off of the cigarette and passed it to Delano. My uncle grasped the thing the same way as Donald, but he looked strange doing it whereas his friend looked perfectly natural doing it. Delano’s fingers were short and stumpy like most of my family. Whereas the cigarette looked normal in Donald’s hands, they made Delano’s look deformed by comparison. I remember laughing because it looked like my uncle was some broken down fairy tale dwarf that was trying to give me the okay sign with his fingers.
“That thing stinks,” I stated as I waved my hand in front of my nose.
“Smells like Heaven to me.” Delano smiled at me and then took another hit off of it.
“Heaven will smell like a willing woman,” piped Donald.
“Don’t talk about Heaven.” I was getting nervous about the situation. I didn’t know what they were doing, but I knew it couldn’t be right or else they wouldn’t be hiding back here where no one could see them. “Mommy says that’ll get you in trouble. Talking about the Lord, I mean.”
“You want to talk about the Lard?” asked Donald. He was mimicking a preacher when he said that. “If you want to talk about the lard, then I’ll tell you about the lard, huh.” He then put his hand over his mouth and began prancing around like the Old Time Baptist preachers do when they are giving a sermon.
“I know all about the lard, huh!” he continued. “I have met the Lard, huh, and he is good. Once the Lard gets into your system, then peace will follow, huh!”
“Preach on brother!” shouted Delano. I glanced at my uncle and saw him prancing around like a crazy man. “Tell it like it is. Lord help him to preach the word!”
“Stopped it!” I screamed. I was petrified by what they were doing. God was going to strike them down like those sinners in the time of Moses.
Donald pointed straight at me and continued to preach. “Silence, you sinner! Don’t ever interrupt a man when he’s preaching about the lard.”
Taking his friend’s lead, Delano pointed at me and shouted, “Blasphemer, Hell is too good a place for the likes of you.” With that, he fell on the ground and began to jerk around as though he was having an epileptic fit.
As Delano was flailing around like a man taken leave of his senses, Donald ran over to my uncle called for the demons to exit his body. “Come out of there you spawn of Hell. We will not allow you to possess this child of our Lard!” Delano began to jerk even more wildly for a few seconds and then went deathly still.
Donald bent over him and put the cigarette into my uncle’s mouth. “Take this. Draw the lard into your lungs. Let him into your being. Feeeel the comfort that he brings.”
Delano took an exaggerated drag off of the joint and began shaking and praising the lord. That was all I could take. I began to run towards a large culvert located near grandma’s house. Once I reached it, I crawled inside as fast as I could. I sat there trembling like a frightened puppy. I was expecting lightening from Heaven to strike these two down and I didn’t want to be around when it happened. I was hoping that were I hidden in the open drain, God would not see me and thus would not strike me dead as well.
“Where you going?” It was Donald. I was too busy running to answer him. “What’s eating him?”
“I don’t know,” returned my uncle. “He’s got his own way of thinking. Could be anything for all I know.”
They spent the next few minutes preaching and taking hits off of the cigarette. When they got to the end of it, they sat on the picnic table located at the far end of the backyard and near the culvert where I was hiding. They were less than sixty feet away and I could hear everything they said. Over the next few minutes, they remained silent accept for various outbursts of laughter. One would look at the other and begin cackling like a lunatic and, soon, the other would join in with him. After a few seconds, this would die down only to be revised a few seconds later. This went own for about half an hour before they quit.
Once they quit sniggering like drunken fools, Donald began to speak. “You know there’s nothing like a good doob.” He paused for a second and then continued. “A good burger or a bad woman might give her a run for her money, but a good joint is hard to beat.”
“I’ll take a bad woman over a good joint any day of the week,” injected my uncle.
“Yeah me too,” agreed Donald and then he stopped and changed the direction of the conversation. “You ever wonder about a woodpecker?”
“You see one?” asked Delano.
“No, not really. I was just wondering about a woodpecker. How come they don’t get brain damage from all that beating and pecking?”
“Please, tell me you’re kidding.”
“Why would I kid about a stupid bird? I think about stuff like that. Aren’t you even curious about stuff like that?”
“Look,” said Delano. I could hear the serious tone in his voice. “All I care about is having a good time and getting through college. We’ve finished up junior college and’ll be starting UK this fall. If I can’t drink it, eat it, toke it, shoot it at a backboard or rub bellies with it, then I could careless about it. And I could care even less about a stupid woodpecker!”
“Whatch you all riled up for? I was curious about a bird that’s all.”
“Would you forget about that thing? I’m hungry. You?”
“Now, that you mention it, I could go for a burger at that.”
“Good, you drag the grill over here and fire it up and I’ll go slap some meat together and we’ll throw them on that thing.”
My uncle began making his way to the back porch. About the time he got to the first step, he turned and shouted back to his friend. “You want some tater chips?”
“Yep, what kind you got?”
“Barbeque, plain and green onion, I believe.”
“Plain, no wait, green onion; I really don’t care. I’d like to have some french fries, but I’ll take chips. What about little britches?”
“I’ll take care of him. He likes cheeseburgers and plain tater chips.”
“You got any pop in there?” asked Donald. “If you do, bring me an RC or a Pepsi.”
“Gotcha,” said my uncle has he raised up his thumb. “You want any toppings?”
“Bring ‘em all.”
Delano hadn’t been in the house a couple of minutes when he came out the back door carrying a large stereo speaker under each arm. He set them on the porch so that they faced the picnic area. He then went back into the house. Within a few seconds, the song Smiling Faces began to blast across the yard. It was followed up by the Coca Cola, theme song I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.
I had moved from the center of the culvert to the edge of it so that I could get a better look at the two of them. Over the last few minutes they acted like a couple of drunken fools even though I knew for a fact that they hadn’t touched a drop of booze that whole day.
I began to laugh as I watched Donald dancing around the grill. His body swayed to the music as the flames roared higher. He looked like an evil witch doctor from an old Tarzan movie. I began to laugh as I watched this future engineer shake his hips like a hula dancer. To see him act all silly like that, you never would have known that he carried a genius level IQ in his head.
After the flames died down, Donald began poking a stick into the charcoal. I assumed that he was spreading the briquettes like my father did when he barbequed. About that time he tossed the stick, Delano exited the back door carrying a platter in each hand. He walked over to the picnic table and placed one of the plates on it and handed the other to his friend who began to drop the hand-patted meat on the grill.
Within a few minutes, the aroma of that sizzling delight reached my nose. I began to lick my lips. I tried to stop, but the scent of that meat was overpowering. Without even realizing it, I began to wipe my mouth. I must have looked like a southern preacher pouring out a sermon because I was raking my lips four or five times a minute.
Part of me, the greedy sinful part, I thought, wanted to go over and ask for a cheeseburger, but the sensible part was not going to allow that to happen. I was convinced that this was some kind of trick that God was using to get me over there next to them so that He could take all three of us out with only one lightening bolt and I was not about to give Him that chance. I had heard from one of my friends that God was only allowed to use one strike per day. Therefore, I was determined not to get near my uncle and his friend. This, I assumed, would decrease the odds of my getting hit by some stray fragment. I made up my mind that I was going to stay in that culvert until grandma got home.
Once the burgers began to cook, Delano made his way back into the house. He was in there only a few minutes before he returned to the grill. He was carrying a roll of paper towels, three large bags of chips and a pack of buns when he came back.
“I called the girls and they’ll be here directly,” he said. “They’re going to stop and get a six pack of beer.”
Donald was nodding his head as he flipped the meat. “You tell them that we had some weed?”
“Yep, but Sherry doesn’t like it. She prefers alcohol to pot.”
“Janice’ll smoke her as long as you got her.” The blond shook his head. “That girl is something else. Were I wanting to get married, I’d…”
“Whoa, are you crazy? These girls ain’t the marrying kind. They’ve been with every man on the creek. You want to marry a slut like that?”
“Don’t call Janice a slut!”
“What am I supposed to call her? She ain’t no saint! You cuckolded Deanie to get her. Are you forgetting what these two did on our first night together?”
“No.”
“You want a wife like that? No, you don’t! A wife is supposed to be like our mothers. They’re supposed to be good and pure; the exact opposite of these two. These girls have their purposes, but marriage ain’t it. These girls are just like us. They’re in it for a good time and nothing else. If you think she’ll not drop you for a better deal, you’re crazier than a loon.”
“All I was saying is that she can do things to you that you never even dreamed of.”
“Enjoy it. If she’s willing to degrade herself that low, let her. Ride this pony for all it’s worth, but don’t you dare fall in love with her. These girls are good for one thing and one thing only and that’s…”
I catch the last word he said.
“You’re right,” agreed Donald. “But, what about us? Aren’t we playing the hypocrite? Sure, we want our wives to be good girls, but we only run around with the bad.”
“That’s what a man does; been that way since Adam and Eve. I once read that Adam had a woman named Lilith before he had Eve. She was supposed to be a bad girl. If he can do it, then why can’t we?”
“You don’t believe that hogwash do you?” I could hear the caution in Donald’s voice.
They both began to laugh. “Not really, but is makes a good story.”
I was sitting there contemplating what I was going to do next when a purplish AMC Javelin pulled up into the yard. I looked to see who it was even though I knew it was the two girls they were expecting.
The car rolled to a stop and out stepped two of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. The girl on the passenger’s side had long flowing naturally curled auburn hair. She looked like Raquel Welch and my heart skipped a beat as I looked upon her. Her companion was a blonde girl that parted her hair in the middle. This one reminded me of Sandra Dee. Both were tanned and fit. Each wore a halter top, cut off jeans and flip-flops, but the thing that really set them off were their oversized Foster Grant sunglasses. They wore them like weapons. As I looked upon them, I feared that a single glance from either of them would slice me into two halves.
The brunette carried a twelve pack of Miller Beer with her as she sashayed towards the men. “You boys thirsty,” she asked and even at that tender age I could hear the seduction in her voice.
“Always,” returned Donald, but I could make out a hint of fear in his voice. That shocked me. Janice was the most beautiful thing I had ever laid my eyes upon and she was his. Were I in his shoes, I’d be shouting for joy, but he seemed afraid of her.
“You girls hungry?” asked my uncle.
“Uh huh,” cooed the blonde. I could see my uncle’s face light up when she spoke.
“We’ve got some burgers on the girl and some chips.” My uncle motioned towards the picnic table as he spoke. “If you want, we also have some pop in the refrigerator. I know you brought some beer, but just in case.”
“Now that you’ve mentioned it,” stated the angelic looking brunette. “I’d like to have a Pepsi if it is not too much trouble?”
My uncle shook his head. “No trouble at all. How about you Sherry, wanna pop?”
“No, I’ll have a beer or two…”
“Or six,” interrupted her friend. I laughed even though I didn’t understand the joke.
As my uncle made his way towards the house, he stopped, turned to face me and shouted towards me. “Randy, you want something to drink?”
I hesitated before I spoke. “Can I have a cheeseburger too?”
That patented grin of his swept across my uncle’s face and he looked like a Hollywood movie star at that moment. “All ready done,” he shouted. “What do you want on it, same as usual?”
“Yep.” My mouth was beginning to water as I thought about that burger.
As Delano stepped upon the porch, he shouted back to his companions. “Donnie, slap some mustard, lettuce and tomato on one of them burgers. Put some plain chips in a plate too. I’d say little man is hungry.”
“Who’s Randy,” asked the Sandra Dee look alike.
“Del’s nephew,” answered Donald.
Janice began nodding her head and then spoke. “I believe I know him. He’s the blond isn’t he?”
“Yep,” replied her boyfriend.
The brunette’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. She clapped her hands together and a white toothy grin engulfed her face. “Sherry, you’ve got to see him. He’s gorgeous.”
“He’s ten!” barked Donnie.
“He’s still cute as a button. I bet when he’s our age the girls’ll knock you down to get to him. I wouldn’t mind having a shot at him when he’s eighteen.”
“You’re such a tramp,” injected the blonde.
“Amen!” shouted Donnie.
Janice threw her hands up and laughed. “All I’m saying is that boy’s going to be gorgeous and ten years ain’t that big of an age difference and you know it. My dad is eleven years older than mommy.”
“But he’s the man,” piped Donnie. “It’s okay for him to have a younger wife.”
“And it’s not okay for a woman to have a younger man?” asked Sherry.
“Times are changing,” said the brunette as she frowned at her boyfriend. “I suggest you get with the times.”
The three were silent for a few minutes after that, but even from my distance I could feel the tension floating around the picnic table. It hung there like the smoke brisling from the grill. It was broken only by the return of my uncle.
Delano stopped at the picnic table only long enough to pop the cap off of that “10, 2, 4” bottle and to pick up my plate. He then made his way over to where I was sitting. As he approached the culvert, he began to speak. “Randy, what in the world are you doing under this culvert? You could get eat up by snakes. Aren’t you afraid?”
“Yep, but not of snakes. I’m afraid of God.”
“God!” He looked at me as though I had just swallowed one of those snakes he had been talking about. “What’s God got to do with you being in this thing?”
“I-I-I was afraid that He’d zap you with lightning and I didn’t want to be killed by it. I didn’t want Him thinking that I was making fun of him like you and Donnie were doing.”
He began to laugh. It wasn’t a hard laugh, but one born out of understanding. I smiled despite myself when I saw him.
“We weren’t making fun of God. We’d never do that. We were making fun of the preachers and not God.”
“What’s the difference?”
He thought about it before he spoke. “God isn’t a phony hypocrite like most of the preachers are.” He looked into my eyes and I could see a gentle fatherly side that I had never seen in him before. “God loves you, Randy. And He loves me, Donnie and those girls over there. He loves us enough to send Jesus to die for us.
“He knows each us. He knows our sins and our good deeds. He sees and knows everything and that includes your innards. He knows if you love Him or not. He knows if you are making fun of Him and believe me, He won’t allow that to happen. You believe that?”
I shook my head to indicate that I did. “Is that why you aren’t dead?”
“I reckon He knows we weren’t meaning any harm and has decided that He’d let us live at least one more day.
“Now, you can stay here if you want to, but I’m going over to the table and have myself some lunch. You’re welcome to come with me, but I won’t force you to go. Just promise me you’ll look out for snakes and I’ll leave you alone; deal?”
He left the soda and burger in front of me and made his way towards the picnic table. He hadn’t gone ten feet before I called for him.
“Del, do you think those girls’ll mind if I come along with you.”
“Lord, no. Besides, I think Janice has a thing for you. I know Donnie’s jealous of you over her.”
I was beaming when he said that. I felt as though I could walk on air. I had never thought that much of girls, but every time I got near Janice my stomach felt as though it had worms crawling around inside it. My body would shake and I would dream of what it would be like to kiss her.
As we approached the others, Janice spoke. “Didn’t I tell you that he was a cutie?”
“That you did,” responded the blonde. “And you weren’t lying. He’s as cute as a puppy dog.” I blushed at that statement.
Noticing my beet-red face, the brunette began to make a fuss over me. “No need to be embarrassed, Randy. You’re a handsome boy and I’ll bet the girls are crazy over you at school.”
“I’m only ten-years-old,” I shot back.
“But gorgeous enough to be twenty,” stated Janice. “If I wouldn’t dating Donnie, I’d be all over you.”
“Don’t let me stop you,” injected my uncle’s best friend.
I could hear the anger in his voice. Apparently, Janice did as well, because she responded in kind. “If I wanted to kiss him, you couldn’t stop me,” she shouted at her boy friend.
The two began to argue over his statement. I don’t recall that much about it because I was hoping and silently praying that Janice would kiss me. I had never been kissed before and was curious about it, but given the fact that my first kiss was about to come from a girl on whom I had a huge crush only added to the excitement of the situation.
Somewhere during their argument, Janice grabbed my head and pulled me towards her. She then placed a small but tender kiss on my lips. It meant nothing to her, but my head nearly blew off my shoulders as my body drank in the deliciousness that was her touch. I remember seeing her smile and hearing my uncle laugh but other than that, I don’t remember much more. I spent the rest of the day dreaming about being Janice’s boyfriend.
The next time I would see Janice would be around Thanksgiving of that year. She would stop in with Sherry and see my grandmother. She wasn’t this movie star goddess that I remembered. She was swollen and haggard looking. She was pregnant and carrying one of the more than twenty-five children Donnie was rumored to have fathered during his lifetime.
He dumped her and swore that the child wasn’t his. He began to spread lies about her and claimed that he would support the child if it could be proven to be his, but he stated that he’d never marry the village tramp.
Three years later as the nation was celebrating our bicentennial, Donnie would impregnate my aunt. This would cause a rift between him and Delano that would never heal. In 1993, on his fortieth birthday, Donnie would put a pistol in his mouth and pull the trigger.
Even though they hadn’t spoken in over fifteen years, Delano cried like a wounded kitten when he heard the news. He then rushed to see Donnie’s parents. While there, Amber, Donnie’s mom, gave Del a letter that Donnie had left for him.
All I can tell you about the letter is that it changed my uncle forever. Prior to receiving that letter, Delano hadn’t been much of a man. He had been married three times having been divorced twice due to his constant infidelities. He was a liar, drunkard and well known, but not well-liked.
After the letter, he became a totally different man. He publicly made amends to his first two wives and set on a course that changed his life. Today, he is a state senator and there is talk of him being a future governor or senator. With his looks, personality and charm, I don’t doubt that he’ll do it and unlike his past, he’ll do it the right way this time around.