FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) part 47

To my surprise, I learned that the boy in that blue truck had come out on the job looking – for me.

I wrinkled my brow when I heard it.

“For me!” I said, incredulously, which was Doocy’s cue to jump in and begin his style of color commentating that would give Morgan Freeman himself a run for his money.

“Aw, yes, Pup, the big ol’ country boy had walked in heah jus’ like he was Elijah or somethin’, and he come lookin’ for none other than the famous ol’ Pup his self, the same Pup standin’ right heah in the doorway lookin’ at the Cool Breeze. Yes sir, Pup, the boy come right through thet door there, right where you be standin’ with that ice drippin’ on the floor …”

As he mentioned the floor, he pointed down toward my feet with his right, white-stained webbed hand.

“When he come in heah,” Doocy continued, having stolen the podium from Willum, “he stood tall as Robert E. Lee his self, and says, ‘I’m lookin’ for Billy Ray.’  Aw, Pup, you should’ve been heah. When he says thet, we all knowed ‘xactly whut had come to town. We knowed who he must’ve been, didn’t take Ein-stain to figger thet out. Thet had to be Miss Corrina’s jealous old romance.

“When he says thet, the Cool Breeze heah looks over at Pee Wee, and Pee Wee looks at the Breeze. Then, without nary a word, Pee Wee stands up tall as Wilt his self, looks that big country boy square in the eyes, puts a little snarl across his lips, and says, ‘That’ll be me!,’ bigger than Dallas!”

Doocy threw a whole bucket of gasoline on the fire with that, and for the next two minutes everybody in that room got to trying to tell me the story again with each’s unique style, adding liberally any little-bitty detail that Doocy may have left out.

Naturally, Doocy protested to about every alteration, even the tiniest point, such as exactly what kind of look that boy had on his face when he saw that Miss Corrina “had done gone and gotten herself a real man, not just a high school boy,” although you and I both know she hadn’t exactly gone and found herself a man at all, just a boy barely even shaving.

“Cheyenne,” I said, “coming back, I wasn’t there to see it all, but the reaction of the big ol’ corn-fed country boy’s seeing Pee Wee standing in front of him looking seven-feet tall – Well, that’s just a scene for the ages.”

Then I went on: “I guess there’s an old blue truck covered in thick red dust sittin’ somewhere in Randolph County to prove the point. And to think, I stood right in that very spot that the boy had stood not three minutes before me; and when I looked down at my feet, still holdin’ that bag of meltin’ ice, I didn’t know whether the water on the floor at my feet was from the ice drippin’, sweat fallin’ from that poor boy’s face, or somethin’ else altogether.”

We both got a kick out of that one, but I was only halfway kidding. 

“Well, what happened next, Popman? You can’t stop right there.”

I grinned, because I knew I couldn’t tell the story the way the Cool Breeze did, not in a million years, but I gave it my best shot. 

“As much as I could gather from listening to three or four of the most rogue but enthusiastic storytellers you’ve ever heard,” I said, “as soon as Pee Wee stood up and announced that ‘That’ll be me,’ that country boy’s mouth gaped open wide as the whale that swallowed Jonah. It almost made you sorry for the young fella.”

Almost.

“But this boy did choose to walk into the lion’s den. I mean, who would walk into a room full of the roughest and toughest group of hombres you’ve ever seen, as Mr. L’Amour would say: There’s Pee Wee, all six-foot-two, two-hundred pounds, every ounce made of steel; Willum and Hook, two laborers that just came from the chain gang somewhere; and Red, who would bite your head off faster than a rattlesnake.

“Of course, then there’s Doocy, the meanest of them all. Why, if Doocy threw a blow leading with that right, webbed hand, the very sight of the hand would knock you out before the blow sliced up your lip; and when you came to some time the next day, you’d find your lip had been sliced up like one of Grandma’s homemade apple pies. Why would a boy in his right mind walk into such scene and announce that he was looking for Billy Ray?

“We all know that every one of those fellas had Pup for breakfast and lunch every day, but that was their doing. That’s what they do to make a boy a man, or kill him one. Either way, you weren’t walking off that job a boy, not a chance. But they sure weren’t going to stand by for some outsider to walk in and try to stir up a ruckus with their ‘Pup.’”

As Jim Croce sang on the radio all summer, you don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind, and you don’t mess around with “the Pup heah,” or something like that.

“Now, it was not entirely surprising that the crew thought they knew who the boy was. I had only heard in passing that Corrina had been talking a little with some boy from school there in Roanoke some time or the other. She had mentioned some fella’s name once in passing, and it made me raise my eyebrows. But I didn’t care to know who he was, if anybody at all. I did happen to bring it up to Doocy one day when we were out talking by the mixer getting ready to go home, and he responded with,

“Well, Pup, ever’ who that boy be, he’d best ne’er come face-ta-face with the Breeze, the Cool Breeze.”

Pee Wee walked up about the time the ‘Breeze’ said that, and he had a good laugh. We had no idea that Doocy was being prophetic. It ended up that in the big moment Doocy deferred to Pee Wee, with whom the fella would stand a better chance than Doocy, maybe, but either way, you’re looking at a first-round TKO three seconds into the match.

“Ah, Cheyenne,” I said, “that poor boy knew it, too, and when he saw Pee Wee standin’ there – a grown man, a man’s man, too – he started stammerin’ and stutterin’ and backin’ up, and he managed to say something like, “I didn’t know Corrina had found herself a man!”

It was sometime before quitting time, although not much – to Red’s displeasure – that Doocy finished up his Morgan-Freeman narrative, saying, “As soon as the boy said thet, he turned to get outta Dodge, but he tripped slap over a brick on the porch and went flyin’ head first into Miss Corrina’s front yard.”

Then he added, “But then, agin, maybe the boy’s big head ne’er hit the ground at all, ‘cause he was up fast as he was down and in that blue truck, haulin’ it out of town quicker than lightnin’!”

“With that, the whole crew jumped in again, and I just threw the ice in the cooler, found a bucket, and sat and ate a sandwich while listening to another hour of the best storytelling, laughing, and arguing you’ve ever seen, shaking my head at ‘em the whole time.”

Coach Steven Bowen, a long-time Red Oak teacher and coach, now enjoys his time as a writer and preacher of the gospel. And, after a ten-year hiatus, he’s also returned to work with students at Ferris High School as well.

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 p.m. Wednesdays. Email coachbowen1984@gmail.com or call or text (972) 824-5197.