FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) – part 5

As soon as the truck stopped, the gentleman in the middle jumped out cheerfully, wearing an Atlanta Braves hat backwards, and singing a tune at such a volume that it all but stamped out the same tune playing on the radio. The song had been revved up loudly, so I could make it out as soon as the truck got within a hundred feet of me. But by the time the old red truck screeched to a halt, the gentleman in the Braves hat began chiming in with the song in such spirited enthusiasm that he threatened to revoke the lease on all the air in his lungs,

“Corinna, Corinna – Corinna, Corinna – Corinna, Corinna, I looooove you, sooooo …”

About the time he had faded out on that last note, one of the fellas who had jumped out of the back of the truck started howling like a dog and laughing in a hoarse laugh.

“Doocy,” he said, “what-in-the-world did ya do with all that money your mama give you for sangin’ lessons?”

And the one called Doocy snapped back without so much as a glance the fella’s way.

“Aw, Willum, about the same thang you did with thet money yore mama gave you to get yore face fixed, that’s whut I done with it,” but he didn’t laugh when he said it, just kind of mumbled and started grabbing a wheelbarrow off of the back of the truck and slinging it out on the ground.

By that time, Billy Ray had walked over to me and greeted me with a laugh as he motioned toward the one they called Doocy. I returned the smile, and when William snapped right back to Doocy that his face was the one that looked like a mud fence after a ten-inch rain, I laughed out loud right along with Billy Ray.

Looking back at all of the events of that summer, I can say with some degree of certainty that that laugh was the first mistake I made. It kind of got me off on the wrong foot, something I wouldn’t advise for anyone for the first twelve seconds of being on a job. No sooner had I laughed as I looked straight at Doocy, who was by that time no more than fifteen feet from me, that he turned to me and threw a scowl at me that had swords in it. It shocked me, took me off guard, and I wiped the smile off of my face even before he hollered at me.

“Wipe that smile off of yore face sonny before I wipe it off for ya.”

I didn’t know what to do, because I had already wiped the smile off the second he laid the whites of his eyes on me. I looked over at Billy Ray for help, but all he did was raise his eyebrows and chuckle.

“Look at me, sonny, when a man be talkin’ at cha. Don’t look at Pee Wee. He can’t help you none. Look over heah at Doocy Dew, and jus’ tell me what your baby-blues see?”

I could not have told Doocy what I saw if somebody had offered me a million dollars per word, because I am pretty sure you have to be breathing to talk, and I wasn’t breathing, not a lick. My eyes could have told him what I saw, but my tongue couldn’t.

What I saw was a man about six feet tall but half that size again in width. He clearly did not have an ounce of fat on his whole body, and he had a face meaner than the meanest grizzly out in the remotest part of Yellowstone’s wilderness, a place I would not visit for many, many years. I wouldn’t have to, I had run across a grizzly right here in the early morning on top of an Alabama hill.

Doocy’s clothes were ragged, as if he had worn those same clothes for a month in a row – and he probably had – and his clothes were even more dusty than they were ragged.

The whole time my mind was registering all of these details and many more, Doocy never took the whites of his eyes off of me. And then, without turning his head even a degree, he hollered out “RED” at the top of his lungs, speaking of course of the man who would be my other boss, Red Williams – I mean, the boss who would actually pay me, provided, of course, that I made it through the first hour of work alive.

Red was milling around in the tool box seemingly oblivious to the ongoing drama, but he stopped long enough to entertain Doocy.

“Red,” Doocy said again, “jus’ tell me what it is ‘xactly that you done brung out heah on this job. Can you jus’ tell me thet? I’m lookin’, but I still ain’t sure ‘xactly what it is – Is it a man? Naw, it ain’t no man, maybe a boy – I ain’t sure ‘bout that – No, Red, you done gone and hired yore-self a puppy, a little-bitty, pee-in-the-floor puppy, that’s all you did.”

Doocy paused, I figured either for dramatic effect or to give me a chance to breathe, which wasn’t going to happen. After a sufficient pause, he spoke again, still looking at me but talking to Red.

“Red, this one heah that you done hired, I bet he don’t even shake a lick yet, not a lick!”

And with that, he took his right hand, the one he had been waving around as if he had a gun in it, and he turned it and ran the back of that hand – if I can call it that – down the side of my tender, baby-faced, unshaven cheek. I do not know how you stop breathing when you have not breathed for a minute, but I stopped breathing again, and not just because of ran his hand down the side of my face. I held my breath because of the hand itself.

Many years have passed since that day, and I say that I still – fifty years later or more – have never seen anything like it. It was more of a paw than a hand, that’s how big it was, and even the back of it was as rough as the roughest grade of sandpaper you ever saw. And it wasn’t black, not even close. It was stained as white as if he had plucked it down into a bucket of white paint, and it looked as if he had leprosy on in that hand.

And that isn’t even the worse part, no, not by a long shot.

Stay tuned for Part 6 next week.

Coach Steven Bowen, a long-time Red Oak teacher and coach, now enjoys his time as a full-time writer and preacher of the gospel. In addition to his evangelistic travels, he works and writes for the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl Road and Ovilla. Their worship times are 10 a.m. Sundays and 7:30 pm. Wednesdays. Email coachbowen1984@gmail.com or call or text (972) 824-5197.