Prologue
You don’t want to take Siobhan to the movies. She always figures out the plot and, unless sworn to silence, will reveal the ending prematurely and spoil the intrigue for everybody else. Same with television. Half the programs are cop shows where somebody gets murdered. She can figure out the killer every time.
The other day, a news story came on TV. A student, unwilling to give up his backpack, had been shot. The police said they knew who did it and were on their way to apprehend the culprit. I looked over at Siobhan for her analysis. How did the cops figure it out so quickly?
“….in the backpack,” she pronounced. “Midget with a cell phone.” How silly of me not to have known.
Gators Zap Vols (Again); Bill and Siobhan Get The Bird(s)
Well, we made it up to Chattanooga and back in one piece. Enjoyed our visit with Stuart and Mary, not to mention the annual pounding of the Tennessee football team. While in Chattanooga, we attended ‘Nightfall’, a Friday night downtown party featuring free music and people-watching. And motorcycles. Who knew Chattanooga had so many bikers? Hundreds of tricked-out motorcycles lined up along the streets, as cyclists merged with seniors, children, teenagers, homeless folks and what-have-you for a weekly gettogether.
And we got birds. Giant brass ones, about 8 feet tall. The birds fell out of favor with Stuart and Mary, so they’ve flown south into our back yard. China (our dog) casts a wary eye at these dubious invaders.
Racing News
Cosmic Song finished fourth last out, nudged out for third by a head, first time going a mile. So it’s back to the claiming ranks where she finished second in her first start. Next race should be October 8th. She’ll be the favorite in that one.
Crimson Strike, who has been a disappointment, runs October 1, dropping back to 6 ½ furlongs after running a mile last time and not looking like he wanted to.
Austin Farewell
We’ve been running a lot of Austin stories, it being the 40th anniversary of Janis Joplin’s death this year. This week will probably be the last of it, except for an occasional remembrance. We’ll never forget Austin, though. If there’s a better place in the country to live, we haven’t found it.
Janis Prepares a Feast
Lieuen Adkins made our little cottage his second home. He never made a real pest of himself, but whenever things in Lieuenland were slow he’d show up at the front door with a beer can in his hand and a cheery smile.
“Surf’s up, Killeen!”
“How do you know?”
“Surf’s always up. A good thing, too. Nobody cares much for down surf. As I was saying to my good friend, Moondoggie, I said….."
On and on, into the night.
Many of Lieuen’s visits suspiciously coincided with dinner time, so we finally decided to put him to work.
“C’mon, Mr. Adkins, we’re off to the grocery story.”
“Why am I going?”
“To help carry the food you’ll be eating.”
“Oh. That sounds reasonable. Gee, I don’t get to go to the grocery store much. What’s it like in there? Lotta, you know, groceries, I bet.”
This sort of thing went on until we arrived at the market, upon which Lieuen began to marvel at all the curious commodities on the shelves.
“Look! Look! Little tiny onions, hunnerts of ‘em, squeezed into a teeny little jar. Lookathis, swiss chard, whatever the hell that is. And over here, magnificent caviars of every description! I want one of everything, Killeen.”
“For God’s sake, Lieuen, will you shut up for five seconds?” Janis admonished. “I’ve gotta try to remember what I need here.”
“Okay, you got five seconds.”
She plunked a few cans in the cart, flipped in some spaghetti noodles and a chicken. When we neared the counter, Lieuen suddenly came awake.
“Hey! You guys don’t have any money. How are you gonna PAY for all this stuff?
I pulled out a trusty check.
“Killeen….”
“It’s either that or you pay….”
“By all means, give the man the nice check.”
I scribbled out the amount, signed it and gave the man my driver’s license. Everyone held his or her breath.
“Thank you, folks, and have a nice day."
Scurry scurry. Slam slam. Giggle giggle.
“Killeen, you’re incorrigible,” Lieuen scolded. “How many of those things have you written now? They’re going to throw you so far back in jail they’ll have to pump AIR to you!” Then he giggled and laughed at the wonder of it all the rest of the way home.
“The seed of crime bears bitter fruit, Killeen. The sparrow knows!”
He certainly was right about that. Later, when I had stores of my own, bad checks were an endless nemesis. What goes around comes around. In spades.
Meanwhile, Janis’ meal was not an unqualified success. The chicken had not been cooked long enough and she was the first to complain.
“God DAMN it!” she exclaimed, leaping from the table. “This chicken has BLOOD in it! I screwed up and didn’t cook it long enough.”
I felt bad for her. She’d been trying to achieve culinary adulthood and, prior to this little setback, had been coming along well.
“Mine’s okay,” I lied, chomping away.
“Little blood never hurt anyone,” chipped in Lieuen.
Janis could not be assuaged.
“Gimme that!” she demanded, grabbing away what was left of my chicken. “You’re just tryna make me feel better! I f**cked up the dinner. I’m a domestic failure.” The dishes crashed into the sink, and Lieuen decided now was an opportune time to be on his way.
“Maybe I was wrong,” he admitted on exiting. “Maybe, on certain occasions, the surf IS down.”
Lieuen later consolidated this and other wonderful anecdotes into his classic folk song ‘Pretty Boy Bill’, patterned after the slightly more famous ‘Pretty Boy Floyd’. In the latter, a poor farmer provides a meal for a kindly outlaw and, after the lawbreaker has left, finds “underneath his napkin….a thousand dollar bill.” Lieuen revised it so that Pretty Boy Bill's benefactor found “a thousand dollar check.” The Waller Creek Boys put it to music and sprung it on me at the next Folksing, to the great and whooping delight of all.
I was so proud.
Bill Gets a Job
I have never been a great employee. Once, when I was 19, I worked a keypunch machine at an IRS service center for 6 months, but that worked out because 80% of the employees were young girls (who’s going to quit an atmosphere like that?) and my boss was an amiable dike I could go bowling with. Other jobs….not so good
It was no surprise then that my first foray into the fast foods business didn’t go so well. Job pickin’s in Austin were slim, but there was a help-wanted ad in the newspaper from Moore Burger, where you could buy a large (Moore) burger or a small (Less) burger, among other wonderful things. Happily, the place was located only a short distance from The Ghetto, where I then lived. I had little choice.
They must hire everybody who comes along at the Moore Burger, because they hired me. I was given an exciting outfit to wear, ice-cream man white shirt and pants, green clip-on bow tie and one of those little hats like the Veterans of Foreign Wars wear, but without the neat pins.
The manager, an extremely short person (not that there’s anything wrong with that), was a real tyrant. He ran around the place upbraiding everyone about everything, before returning to explain the operation to me. My job basically consisted of filling drink cups with the appropriate percentages of seltzer and soda, transferring hamburger orders from the customers to the grill, and taking the fries out of the fat at the right time. Nothing to it. And you even got to eat and drink stuff almost for free. Gee. After fortifying myself for the noon onslaught with a burger (Moore, not Less), I set about waiting on people. At first, this was simple as pie. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the lunch crowd increased, however, until, all of a sudden, it turned into a howling mob, hundreds of starving, frenzied mouths, each of which wanted his lunch NOW, goddammit! People who had to wait more than twenty seconds became stressed and grumpy and whined nasally about slow service.
“Killeen!” What’s the problem with this register? Your line is almost to the street!” the little manager fussed.
“The DOOR is only five feet in front of me,” I interjected, glad I had already eaten. He was off to scold someone else. A fat woman with her brood of five counter-climbing, hyperactive little trolls slowed progress, changing her order fifty or sixty times. Her favorite phrase was “No, waitaminute…” The angry manager returned and squabbled some more.
Soon, the whole place was out of control. Undermanned to begin with, we now had a monster lunch crowd and a tour bus pulling up. The game crew back in the grill tried hard to keep up, but it was hopeless. Smoke filled the air from unrescued burgers, more and less. Employees at the counter crashed into one another, spilling drinks. French fries were torched. Customers got too much or too little change, if they got any at all, and their orders were always wrong, wrong, WRONG!
Napolean the manager was beside himself, clearly on the verge of a stroke. This had to be SOMEBODY'S fault. Blame it on the rookie.
“Hey, I’d like to take credit, but even I….”
He was screaming now, and turning colors. I’m not good with people screaming at me under the best of circumstances, but I didn’t want to be the sort of fellow who bailed out on his besieged co-workers. It was either that or smack the guy, though, and I also didn’t want to be the sort of fellow who punched out tiny men.
So I left. Just up and left. I didn’t really want to leave because I was curious to see how it would all turn out, but discretion was the better part of valor. He screamed after me about returning the uniform, but I decided, what the hell, I should get to keep something for my morning’s work. More or Less.
Old College Magazine Joke (from 1965):
And then there was the disappointed second-class tourist, who reported to the desk of his fleabag hotel.
“It’s a disgrace!” he complained, loudly.
“Why, I saw two big rats going after each other on the floor of my room last night!”
The manager was unmoved.
“Well,” he remarked, snidely, “What did you expect for twenty dollars—bullfights?”
That’s all, folks.
