Every year at Halloween it
was the same routine, Buzz would keep me guessin’ about what he was wearing and
I would do the same to him. And every year he’d dress up like the Lone Ranger
and I’d dress as Tonto. So this year I
told Buzz that I was goin’ as Tonto – straight out like - and that totally
confused him (as if anyone needed to work at that). He was goin’ real crazy
wonderin’ if I was really gonna dress up as Tonto or if I was just double
bluffin’ my best pal in the world. As if.
To be real honest, I had no
idea what I was goin’ to be, the Tonto costume was real small and I had grown
up a bit. The sleeves stopped at my elbows and I looked like Tonto, The Big
Giant.
I asked Buzz what he was
gonna wear and he said that I was to mind my own bees’ wax. I reckon that meant
he didn’t know what he was wearing’ either.
One night, I kinda peeked
thru’ Buzz’ window and there he was walking about the house in is Maw’s dress.
I kid you not. I knocked the window and he sees me right after his face goes
red, real deep red. He chases me down the street in the dress shoutin’ that him
and his Maw are the same size and she uses him to sow her dresses up.
“Honest Injun.” When he
shouted that I knew he was tellin’ the truth , cause we only say ‘honest injun’
in times of war or emergency. Still he had the whole town watchin’ him as he
ran. Some unkind folks called him Elizabeth for a while but it was soon forgot.
I think I made my mind up
during Math, one afternoon. I ain’t the countin’ type and I ain’t sure if I’ll
ever have a need for countin’. As Buzz says and I have to agree with him –
‘countin’ is as countin’ does’. Don’t ask me what it means, but it sounds like
it means somethin’, so I’m happy.
I decided I was gonna double
bluff Buzz and I was gonna go as the Lone Ranger. I wanted to be a hero and
anyhoo, my mother had bought me the costume and hid it in her bedroom. I only
found it when I was being real nosey like.
I looked over at Buzz, in
class, and he was drawing somethin’ or other with his tongue hangin’ loose with
a life of its own, and his arm around the drawin’ so no one could see what he
was doin’. Becky McAllister tried to see what it was thru' her spectacles
that had been handed down thru’ her family. I don’t think she needed them and I
guess it made her eyesight worse but it was the only thing her Grandmaw had
left her and she liked to wear them.
“Miss - Buzz is drawin’
something and it ain’t countin’,” said Becky who always was a snitch up until
the day she got arrested for makin’ hooch in her Grandmaw’s bath tub. She was
wearin’ her Grandmaw’s old spectacles when she added the wrong stuff to the
hooch and killed three folks, stone dead. She asked the Judge to take her
Grandmaw’s spectacles into consideration, but he just said she was guilty as
anyone he’d seen and was gonna hang. I guess snitches get what’s comin’ to
them.
Anyway the Math teacher,
grabbed the drawin’ from Buzz and threw it in the basket. I decided to try and
get it out of the basket when we were leavin’ class. I stuck my hand in the
basket and pulled out a clump of paper.
I said goodbye to Buzz and
walked home. In fact I ran home ‘cause I was real excited to see what he was
drawin’.
I got the wrong paper. It
was a note by the teacher, she had written about herself – she was always
tryin’ to get a boyfriend and she would put little adverts in Mrs Mulhoon’s
store on Main street.
This one said “Nice looking
lady, early 30s, seeks nice gentleman, no psychos.” I guess she didn’t like it
too much on account she had thrown it in the basket.
So back to the story - you’ll
never guess what Buzz turned up as on Halloween? He turned up as Tonto!
bobby stevenson 2013
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