Love Songs: The Wrong Note - A Collection of Short Stories

2

We'd all been looking forward to the game.

It was our first day out of school. Summer stretched before us, and it felt like we had two or three years ahead of lazy days, play, and chores.

But Mother Nature obviously had other plans.

"We could go to the club house and smoke those two cigarettes we found in the street," I said.

"Naw," Lockerby said. "It's Wednesday. Prayer meeting night. Ma's sure to smell smoke on me if we do that."

Everyone smiled.

We were certain Lockerby would grow up to be a preacher. His mama made sure his seat warmed the pew every time the meeting house doors were opened.

"We could dig up that jar of shine we stole from Hoochie Tig's still," Sooki said.

Sooki was the smartest in the bunch. Her clear eyes burned with mischief.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to discern that Sooki's suggestion was going to get every single one of us grounded until we were seventy-five.

We jumped at the idea like a fly on filth.

All of us except Lockerby. He begged off, saying that his mother's oldest sister was due at the depot on the One-Fifty-Seven.

"Aunt Matilda never packs light," Lockerby said. "Probably take me ten trips to get her luggage home."

We all wished him well on his portering duties and headed toward Flat Stone Stream.

There was an ancient birch tree with huge roots growing above the ground. Like giant anacondas, they grew in a serpentine tangle of wooden artistry.

Of course, digging in such an area was out of the question, but about twenty feet from our landmark was an open area of soft dirt. A well-placed rock in the center of the clearing showed us where our deepest, darkest secret was buried.

"This is gonna be better than snuff," Deck said, setting off Pee Wee's giggle machine.

Pee Wee's great grandma was an avid snuff dipper. There wasn't a brand that Maw Maw Gulf's bottom lip hadn't pocketed. That was until Dead Eye and Pee Wee decided to crush up black ants and mix them with her very exotic and expensive extra-fine Brand-New Delhi Blend.

Dead Eye had pulverized his ants to fine dust. Pee Wee was not so meticulous.

The ants bit Maw Maw's bottom lip so many times, it swelled up and looked like a hot dog hanging below her top lip. The old woman's words could not be deciphered as she cursed the two boys, threatening them both within an inch of their miserable, worthless lives if they so much as thought about desecrating her tins of snuff ever again.

Dead Eye and Pee Wee escaped punishment when Anton-Leigh burst through the door and breathlessly proclaimed that Sweden Starlight had been spotted in the drug store buying feminine unmentionable products before heading out to the Grand View Theatre to sign autographs.

Sweden was hotter than Tabasco sauce after landing a thirteen second gig as an extra in Hitch Peterson's latest sci-fi thriller, The Giant Mole-Mantis: Killer from Mars.

Maw Maw was into anything Sweden ever since the girl had let them put her face on the very exotic and expensive Swedish Rough Cut Snuff tins that Mayor Flintstrom was peddling from his rusty T-model Ford truck.

Mayor's latest tobacco crop was deemed unsaleable at the Brody Brothers' Warehouse. And Sweden, Mayor's niece, photogenic and a bona fide film star, was just the ticket to launch the latest snuff ship from the totally landlocked Cankerdroodle County.

Mayor had printed and packaged twenty gross of the tins, and Maw Maw Gulf was quickly becoming his best customer.