CHAPTER TWO
It wasn't long after the funeral before the wolf commenced to nipping at my heels like I was a piece of candy or something. Fact is, that old sonofabitch got to be like a phantom in ten pieces. He was in my dreams and nightmares so often that I got so I could almost see him when daylight came. My dad's house got to be a kind of prison for me, because the wolf was at the back door, the front door, and I didn't dare open the window. I guess that's when I realized the facts of life and declared open war on the beast with the horny eyes. Maybe I shouldn't have, but sometimes a young guy hasn't got the right slant on optimism like older folks have.
Besides, there were people in those days that claimed I was jinxed, and I got so I believed them. I wasn't scared, you understand; I just believed them. But right after I found out that the mayor wouldn't give me my relief food, because I wasn't of voting age, I took to hiding out in a bum camp. But sure as heck, I hadn't hardly got my belly full of mulligan stew more than two or three times, before the town cop busted up the place and made all the bums leave the best way they knew how. He said they were taking too much out of the town without leaving nothing in return.
One old fellow who did most of the cooking blamed it all on me because I stole a chicken from the mayor's henhouse. He gave me a sermon about stealing things and told me that no matter how bad things were, a person never had to stoop so low as to become a thief. He said there was plenty of doors to knock on if I was hungry enough.
Well, it was a lesson for me. I remember feeling pretty bad about busting up the gang like that, just for stealing a chicken to eat. I can sure tell you that I've never taken another thing in my lifetime either.
It didn't take me long to find out that that old professor in the bum camp was right about some things and wrong about others. I tried knocking on doors for a few weeks, but it was pretty slim picking most of the time. I found out that the best time to get something to eat was right when people were sitting down to their evening meal. A fellow could sit on a back step and get some half-warm grub that way. The only trouble was I never did like leftovers, especially used leftovers right off other people's plates.
I wasn't much for that kind of life and got saved from it when a band of gypsies came into town. I just kind of took up with them, and I probably would have stayed with them forever if they would have let me. They had a bunch of women that sure knew their place. They kept a kettle of something boiling most all the time. There was, sometimes, some strange things in the kettle, but they sure stuck to a fellow's belly with a passion.
The only thing I had trouble with was the evening ritual. Almost every day they'd gather around the campfire after the dinner was served. They'd get to singing and dancing and clapping those little dull bells that they carried, until the rhythm got in your blood and a fellow couldn't sit still for the fun of it. It wasn't any nights before I was up stomping around the campfire like the rest of them.
But I guess I got to stomping too good, and they thought I was one of them, because one night about a month later, I was kicking my heels up until I had outlasted all of them. There was just me and this old bag with the clickers in her hands left. I was helping her fan the embers around the charcoal pretty good, and she was giving me the clickers so fast that I could hardly stomp an answer.
The next thing I knew a whole damn bevy of those gypsy women came hoochy-cootchying out of the shadows and pinned me to the ground and punched a hole in my ear and reamed it out with a burning stick.
The men gypsies got a big bang out of it. They laughed like hell, as a matter of fact. But I was mad enough to fight all of them. I didn't like their pig-sticking ceremony.
Anyway, that was the night that got me kicked out of their camp for good. I slinked off to the tent they were letting me bonk in, right after those women had got done with their ear sticking. I was sure cussing under my breath too. But I laid it all down to experience and flopped onto my cot like it was the best place for me.
Then this little gypsy broad came sneaking into my tent. I never will forget her. She was just as pretty as a girl can be. First thing I knew, she was standing above my cot and humming one of those strange melodies that those kind of women like to sing.
She murmured in the American dialect, "You strong man! You make good love to me, No?"
I said no right back to her, and tried to tell her how my ear hurt so bad that I wanted to cry and would she please kiss it or something to make it better.
She misunderstood me, because all of a sudden leaned over and grabbed my cheeks in both hands and put her lips against mine and stuck her tongue right into my mouth.
I tell you right now, I would have pole-vaulted right out of that tent, if she hadn't held me down, pain in the ear or no pain in the ear.
She moaned and groaned about every second that she had her tongue darting back and forth in my choppers. Then she moved back a ways and, breathing real hard, she growled, "Hummm...You make perfect lover."
I didn't say anything to that, because I was trying to get my hands into my pockets. She was making me embarrassed about what was happening.
Then she went plumb wild. She started dancing and wiggling around and working herself into a frenzy. All the time she kept humming this melody to the music. Then she slipped out of her blouse like a horse pawing in the pasture, and stood near the opening of the tent like a quivering statue in the twilight. And I'll say right now that there is nothing prettier than a gypsy woman's titties shimmering in the shadows of a bright campfire while a couple of violinists are playing.
Then blooey! She swooped across the tent and shoved them dangling participles right into my face.
"Kiss, kiss, kiss," she moaned over and over, and I believed her.
Well, what the hell was a fellow supposed to do? I kissed both of them.
And as soon as I did, she got to trembling pretty bad and jerked away to the front of the tent and went back to her humming and dancing again.
Then, whoosh! Off came her skirt, and I got my first look at a woman's naked body. She was so hot by then that she was shaking and sweating. To tell you the truth, I was so excited that I was shaking too.
She came suddenly over to my cot and started unbuttoning my pants. "You make love now!" she ordered, as she fell down on me.
I had a pretty good idea what was going on by then, and I'll have to confess that I was ready.
But before anything happened, in stomps this big gypsy fellow by the name of Emanuel. He jerked that woman up by the hair of her head and slapped her ass all the way out of the tent. She stood outside and cussed him for a pig of a father, but left anyway.
Then this Emanuel fellow comes over and grabs me by the shirt collar and hauls me over to the chief's pagoda and tells the chief a bunch of stuff in gypsy talk. I screamed in English how none of it was true, but they must have had their minds on the foreign tongue.
It was just about then that I learned how dumb those gypsy people really were. A violinist started playing a real slow symphony, an old woman puffed her pipe and rattled a tambourine, and a beagle dog back off in the woods commenced to howl pretty bad.
The old chief stood up on the tongue of his wagon, folded his arms across his chest like a king making a public appearance, pointed a finger at me, and said, "The wolf cries loud. You have put a curse on us. Go now to your own people."
See how dumb he was. I tried to tell him that I had no people, but he wouldn't even listen. Then I tried to tell him the difference between a beagle dog hunting squirrel and a wolf with his nuts caught on a moon ray, and he got mad about that and uncurled his black snake leash. I got scared then and ran off before he even had a chance to flip his whip.
I guess I ran hungry for about two days before I remembered getting a firmness of heart and my optimism up to the boiling point. Besides that, my belly was mad enough to make me want to do something about it.
So I went back to the mayor and told him that I was a born American and was entitled to my share of the relief pickings, even if I couldn't vote. I told him as how Uncle Sam had never let my daddy down, and I was my daddy's blood, and I had a right to Uncle Sam's property like anybody else.
Right then I found out that the mayor wasn't such a bad guy after all. He commenced to dobbing his eyeballs and told me that I was really of the sod for volunteering like I was. He reckoned as how I was the first town son to step forward in a time of crisis, patted me on the shoulder like a real friend, and sat me down to a steak dinner cooked by his wife. Heck! He even tossed in some apple pie and ice cream, which I thought was right kindly of him.
He put me up in the jailhouse that night and then the next day he drove me up to the county seat and told me he was going to personally see that Uncle Sam knew all about my problems, and I wouldn't have to ever worry about a thing.
I felt so good when we got to the courthouse square that I kicked a big yellow cat off one of the benches. The cat raised its neck fur and hissed and spit at me about two times, and I thought it was so funny that I howled like a wolf, and the cat shot off a mouthful of "meows" and other stuff and took to a tree like it had turpentine on its ass.
The mayor didn't like that much. He said it wasn't right for a town son to be scaring cats when there was Japs that needed taking care of.
But I'll say one thing for the mayor. He kept his promise. Between him and the courthouse people and Uncle Sam, I soon found myself getting three squares a day and a warm place to bunk. Heck! I wasn't in the U.S. Army more than a day or two before I knew I was into a good thing. All I had to do was loaf around and sleep and eat. Some of those other guys said it was a miserable life, but I guess they never had to wade through snow to bust rabbits with a club or waddle in mud in the middle of November to hold a tough old boar while his old man cut out the goodies for supper.
Hell! The army was so good to me that when they found out I could cook beans, mulligan stew, and bake biscuit's, they elevated me to the rank of corporal and made a cook out of me. I really liked that. Why, I got to eating so good that I picked up more then eighty pounds in no time at all.
I guess I would have stayed in the army forever, if they would have let me. Those guys that you met in those days were a different breed of people than you meet now. I could sure use some pals now like I had then, but there's no sense relying on wishful thinking. A fellow just gets to feeling sorry for himself that way.
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