The work truck outside is humming. The space heater behind me switches on—and then off, like that, practicing to keep this old cracker warm. Outside this red-blanketed guest room window, Paul readies his equipment. He is not shoeing horses today. He has taken off six days to train, with this tramp writer coach who is ten pounds overweight since last we trained. Cold is about to sweep the Midwest. The wood stove is stoked and Paul is off down the farm route just now, the engine roaring in the near distance. The mission is to gather hay bails for insulating the weather side of the house and avoiding frozen pipes. Later we will plan our training.
Yesterday afternoon, Paul met Montius and I in a Kansas town at a famous bar and grill. As this old cracker has lost his dietary discipline with the passing of Guru Rick, Paul has inspired with a carving of himself from 218 pounds over two years down to 155. He is now taking the chisel to the spare flesh that is left and seeking 150, despite sparring with heavy and light heavyweights. I am proud, and feel like a pig, almost inspired—I think, doggedly determined—to get down to a fight weight once again. Paul declined frail help, assigned me to write, as I am reported to be a writer, and has gone off for the old-school insulation. I am scheduled to spar 2 hours with Ax on February 2. Paul offers the paleface his Injun redemption. Follow, and find life within again, is the hope.
This is the only house in sight. Two great oaks gate the front driveway—all roads clay and gravel. In April 2022 I wrote Ranger? Here, above this sunken road, below the ridge road tracing up out of Rocky Arkansas. It was the Priory of Hell’s door, in the path of the machete boy invasion. This house is under loose siege. Myriad swarms of mice and rats occupy the trenches and warrens of the surrounding soybean/corn fields. Without Mamma Cat and Dalliah Cat, the house would be overrun with rodents. There is also the two scrapyard cats, skinny, sketchy dysegenics of their kind. Without feline guards the house could not hold food. Coyotes, two, in big numbers, surround the property. They would wipe out the cats, if not for Kenny.
Kenny is a 13-year old Newfoundland Blond retriever with a double coat. He came to me this morning to massage his haunches and shoulders before going on patrol. Many generations of coyotes have been raised to hate Kenny. Small ones yip from the distance, baiting him. This is serious business. The coyotes and bobcats have been reduced to eating rats and mice. For Kenny has made the farm safe for rabbits! These natural prey of the coyotes abound and bound near the house. Dalliah dislikes them and kills one on occasion.
Paul, explaining the situation, and how much Kenny is like Tracy, his deceased owner, a homeless pro boxer, upsets Kenny, who whines and sulks. Paul apologizes, “I’m sorry Kenny. I know you don’t like us talking about Tracy, that it makes you sad. But I promise we were not disparaging him in any way.”
Paul had explained to me on the way home through the dark Kansas night, “There is this old Apache woman, she’s on the Council—don’t know what she’s doing in the Ozarks. I do not make enough money from her to justify the trip. But she is so charming and knowledgeable. I don’t imagine she will be on the Council for long—she is no fan of the casinos. She had to tow me in the snow, with her tractor, up to her barn. I say, ‘Why do I come shoe your horses—I don’t bill you half enough?’ She says, ‘Because I have this Anatolian Shepherd pups for you.’
“You see, her dog, the best, most serious working dog I ever met, was recently shot by someone. This dog is a sibling of that one. Kenny does not have long. He needs a puppy to train. That last dog I had, the stray, was a bad dog; was ambushing Kenny, not guarding the property. So I shot him and threw him in a ditch—the fate bad dogs deserve, that they earn in betrayal…”
Back to this morning, “Kenny needs an apprentice at this point. His teeth are worn down to nubs—eating all of that sweet barbecue and pizza when he lived with—you know who. He was the champion of these parts, beat every other dog in fights and sired many a litter on the bitches. Chloe here, is good for policing the two worthless cats. Fighting a coyote would be rough for her. They are the same size, and she’s a female besides. She has been fixed, but is anxious, neurotic. That woman [1] messed her up. That bitch overfed these dogs. Maple is clinically obese—should be 8 pounds and is 17. Chloe, not to bad. But crazy women, they put their problems into animals. They afflict animals with their insanity. So Chloe has got anxiety, like a middle-aged American woman, like the bitch that left with the curtains out of your room. I should beat her with a stick; not out of anger, but because she needs it. It’s the only thing a woman like that understands. We have a good housekeeper now that comes and cleans. I am still looking for a woman to help my wife. This woman was good for that, was strong, could do the therapy—but drugs called. And when drugs call in Southwest Missouri, few resist.”
“Speaking of bad character. That worthless rooster, he is not actually certain he is a rooster. He will go after your legs. Feel free to kick or otherwise strike him. There should be no problem as you are aware of your surroundings. But the women, they get in and out of their cars without a care, certain that the world is built to protect them—and he attacks, senses their weakness and stupidity. I would fight him but he is not tough enough. My apprentice, he is a half Mexican—darker than me. He says that this rooster is not tough enough to fight. I said that even so we might take him to the cock fights, since he is Mexican and can communicate with his fellows. He tells me that he does not speak Spanish! I said, “Then why do I employ you—your dark skin is now a liability. The Mexicans will think we are rude—they already think I am a Mexican too proud to speak Spanish. It’s a shame really. Mexican-American Spanish is a language of only a few hundred words—very repetative; a couple hundred words and you are good to go.”
“You see Daliah out there on the porch, surveying the land. She despises these inside cats—wants nothing to do with them, worthless as they are with no sense of duty. She is a good cat—will kill every day. I will see you in a half hour sir, then we will discuss training. Please, write, have as much coffee as you like, and try and enjoy that room that that miserable woman left in such poor condition. Kenny knows you are there, will not barge in, as the door does not latch properly. The cats though, will push their way in, so block the door.”
I sit here at the blue-painted desk of old, once the study of some diligent child, I think, and write. The truck rolls back down the road and up the drive.
Notes
1.) From last night’s drive, “A wretched little woman, really. I evicted her when she went back on the drugs and stopped working. She is a good whore, had two separate men move her things out. I should have beaten her as well. But such measures take time when applied to such willfully self-destructive persons, and business is good. She comes of the worse kind of people, Exeter white trash of the meanest sort. While she was going to church with my wife she did do good work and the place is better off for it.”
