FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) part 73

Red drove up about a minute after we did. When we pulled onto the job site, Doocy jumped right out, still not having said a word to anybody except for his “nuttin’,” and he didn’t bother to holler at me to “grab thet wheelbarrer there and brang it o’er here” or anything else.

He acted as if I didn’t exist, making me nervous he acted so strange. He got out of the truck, walked straight over to the mortar mixer, and stood and looked at it for a solid minute. He was still standing there when Red drove up, his red truck and the contents looking and acting more like a fire truck than an old beat-up work truck.

Red jumped out hollering, “Doocy, get that mud o’er there, what cha doin’? Why you lookin’ at the mixer, it ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

That was where Red was wrong.

When Doocy never budged – something unusual for him – Red stomped over there and wanted to know what in the Sam Hill was wrong with him, just I don’t think he used “Sam Hill” as his expletive.

Finally, Doocy had to speak.

“Red,” he said, “I thank we needs t’move thet mixer o’er a li’l closer t’house.”

“What’s wrong with where it’s at,” Red barked, “it been there for o’er a month.”

“Jus’ thank we needs t’move it o’er by t’house.”

“Okay, Doocy,” Red barked, now louder, “so I jus’ had ten yards of sand dumped right by the mixer last Friday, along with near a hundred sacks of lime and cement, all settin’ right by the mixer. Ya plan on movin’ all of it, or you plan on walkin’ every shovel of sand thirty feet?”

Red made a logical argument – but he had never fully learned that he might as well argue with a blue jay as to argue with Doocy.

So, he shook his head, mumbled some words that I couldn’t hear and didn’t want to, and told Doocy to get the mud made, he didn’t care if he made it out in the pond, just get it made.

With that, Doocy grabbed the tongue of the mixer, yelled at me to grab the blocks that it rested on and set them over about 30 feet closer to the house. For the next 15 minutes, we moved the mixer, hauled sand in a wheelbarrow over to the new location, and threw ten or more sacks of Portland and lime over our shoulders and transported them. I wanted to sass back at Doocy more than anything, but I figured I might as well save that breath for when I’m dying – no need to waste it there.

Doocy was jumpy all morning and nervous acting. About an hour before lunch he was standing by the sand pile figuring on something, and I walked behind him and tapped him on the shoulder to ask a question. I’ve never seen a man move so fast.

Truth is, Doocy was only part man in those kinds of moments. He hollered, “Oooooooooooooo,” swung his arm around fast as lightning, and  would’ve knocked me all the way to the Georgia line had I not had those well-advertised basketball instincts and ducked quickly. My second instinct was to jump back, which I did, and I didn’t have time to calibrate that two banded stacks of brick were setting behind me.

When the crew heard the yell and turned to look, they saw me fall back over the brick, breaking most of them out of the band and sending me on top of the sharp brick and heard me holler, too.

I can close the curtain on the rest of that scene because you can see it and hear it without any words from me. It was pitiful just like all the other times, if that helps you.

I stayed clear of Doocy for the rest of the morning and even pulled my bucket over to the other side of the living room at lunchtime. 

That was the first time things were quiet all morning, until Pee Wee broke the silence.

“So, Doocy, the Pup there hasn’t been tapping you on the shoulder anymore, has he?” Pee Wee said, instigating it. But Doocy ignored him, never even looked his way as he had done on the drive in.

Pee Wee had to pry a little further, “Now, tell us Doocy, what’s got you so jumpy this morning?”

Doocy tried to avoid any conversation, but Pee Wee – with a little help from Willum and Hook – kept prying until Doocy couldn’t take any more.

“Firse of all, yuh ne’er know whut can be out thar in ‘em woods behind where thet mixer is.”

“What’d’ya mean something out out in them woods?”

“The Breeze mean ‘xactly whut he done said, anythan’ can be out there – has yuh been out there, Pee Wee?”

“Well, no, but what do you think is going to come out of the woods?”

“Anythan’, anythan’ at all. You ne’er know, maybe a Grizzer or somethin’.”

“Grizzer,” Pee Wee laughed, “you mean ‘Grizzly.’”

“Thet’s whut t’Breeze says, Pee Wee, and yuh wouldn’t be thankin’ it so funny if ‘none wuz to come runnin’ out at cha.”

Pee Wee finally went with the “no further questions your honor” approach, which made it worse. You could see Doocy fuming over it as he fumbled through his lunch sack trying to find something.

After a minute, the whole truth came out. It was a Perry Mason moment if I ever saw one.

According to the story Doocy told – and I can’t vouch for the source – the night before, Doocy and his mama watched a Grizzly movie on TV.

Of course, half a dozen times a Grizzly came out and tore somebody to shreds in the movie – which is what they actually do up in Yellowstone and those places, as you know – and Doocy was on the floor while his Mama was on the couch. Doocy fell asleep before the movie was over, still lying there in the living room floor, and his mama finally got up off of the couch to go to bathroom.

“She done forgot I wuz layin’ in the flo’,” Doocy said, “and she tripped on me and falls on t’top of me, and t’Breeze knowed good-‘n-well thet she wuz a Grizzly, right outa thet show. It scared Mama ‘cause she thought t’same thang. There wuz ‘nough hollerin’ and screamin’ goin’ on thet it woke the neighbors up ‘n ‘fore you know it, the p’lice were heah with more lights flashin’ than  Chris’mas!”

That was all too much for the crew.

I think there was more commotion on that concrete floor of the McClain house than what went on in Doocy’s and his mama’s old shack out off the Hamilton Road. Willum got to carrying on so that he got a chicken bone hung in his throat, and Red spilled his pork-n-beans because even he got to laughing so hard that he couldn’t even cuss except for a word or two.

“I sure hope your mama made it to the bathroom, Doocy,” Pee Wee said, in a high-pitched voice as he held his side laughing.

“Naw she didn’t, Pee Wee, af’er all thet, she didn’t e’en need to go no mo’.”

That was the last straw.

Everybody was so busy rolling on the floor that they didn’t hear an old blue truck drive up in front of the house.

Coach Steven Ray Bowen served as a teacher and basketball coach at Red Oak High from 1998-2012 and recently spent two years teaching and coaching at Ferris. He and his wife Marilyn (the “amazin’ blonde”) served many years with the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl/Ovilla Roads, but now spend time evangelizing in several states in addition to Coach’s work as a writer and author, including the writing of the ongoing novel/memoir here in the Press. Call or text (972) 824-5197, or email coachbowen1984@gmail.com, or see frontporchgospel.com.