COUSIN BURL

JOHN
You boys kill anything today, Johnny? Pass me that platter of meat, it sure looks good.

JOHNNY
No Pa, we didn’t see any game to shoot at.

JOHN
Who went besides you and Burl?

JOHNNY
Nobody! Just me and him.

JOHN
You sure was gone a long time not to get anything.

JOHNNY
Yeah, I know Pa………what’s wrong with Burl anyway? Sometimes he acts like he ain’t got good sense.

JOHN
Don’t rightly know for sure. He don’t act right bright at times. Jim and Martha say he takes after his grandpa on his mother’s side. Old Clint just didn’t have good sense at all, they say. Chewed tobacco in both sides of his mouth ……….all at once. Of course, I didn’t know him too well but they say he took queer spells. Why did you ask? Burl been acting up again?

JOHNNY
Not much, just near ‘bout killed me, that’s all!

JOHN
Hells afire, aren’t you bigger than him? You should be able to whip him with one arm tied behind your back. Hand me some more of that branch lettuce. That lettuce sure is good. Where did you get that?

BECKY
Billy Joe and Ruthie got it over in the Tomahawk Hollow this morning.

JOHNNY
See any buggers over there, Ruthie?

RUTHIE
Ain’t no buggers in the daytime, you should know that, Johnny!

JOHNNY
That whole hollow is haunted. The other night Burl and I were coming back from the Presbyterian meeting house and seen a bugger. Its haunted all right; we were coming up the hollow just below where Uncle Jim had that sawmill……….

JOHN
You’ve told us about that a dozen times. Anyway, I think you boys were imagining things. I’ve been all over that place at night and I have never seen the first bugger. Burl is just bugger happy anyway. He’s not dry behind the ears; yet he has done seen more buggers than anyone around. That boy is off, that’s for sure. What did he do anyway? Today, I mean.

JOHNNY
We didn’t get into a fist fight if that’s what you think.

JOHN
Well, what happened?

JOHNNY
He seemed all right this morning. He is just like anyone else most of the time. Just at times he goes crazy as a loon. I guess it was around seven o’clock when I got over to Uncle Jim’s. We wanted to get an early start so as to be back on The Catface fairly early………thought we might see a groundhog. We took Old Rounder and Queenie and our twenty-twos instead of shotguns. We didn’t tarry none and got there somewhere around eight, I suppose. We turned the dogs loose and sat down waiting for them to jump something. We just sat around for a couple of hours, just shooting the breeze. Burl jumped up real quick and asked, "What would you do if the Germans came?" He had the wildest look in his eyes you have ever seen! I told him to sit back down; there were no Germans within three thousand miles………

JOHN
I know! I know! We were walking up the road the other day and right out of the blue he asked me, "What would you do if the world turned to gravy?"

BILLY JOE
I’d pray for a hail storm……… of big brown biscuits!

JOHNNY
I got up and walked down the hill a piece; just to stretch my legs. I was about fifty yards from Burl when he yells, "LETS PLAY WAR!" He cut down at me with that twenty-two and plowed the dirt right out from under my feet. He jumped behind a big hickory tree and started shooting toward me like a crazy man. I jumped behind a big old chestnut stump and yelled for him to stop. Every time I would stick my head out from behind that stump he would peal the bark off, right beside my ear. He kept this up for about thirty minutes and suddenly jumps out and yells, "I’M OUT OF AMMUNITION; LET’S QUIT!" He starts down the hill and I swear to God Pa, I could hardly keep from shooting that crazy fool!

RUTHIE
You know what the good book says about calling someone a fool. It says, "He who calleth his brother a fool is in danger……….

JOHN
Ruthie, please hold the scripture. Johnny goes out and near ‘bout gets himself killed and you interrupt his story and won’t let him finish. Becky, she is just like Aunt Hattie, always interrupting and quoting scripture. We have to talk with Jim and Martha. That boy has got to be locked up. That’s all there is to it. Kin folks or no kin folks; he can’t go around shooting at people and playing war. I’m here to tell you he’s got to be locked up before he flies off and hurts or kills someone!

BECKY
Well, he’s not like that all the time. Like they say; he just takes these queer spells.

JOHN
One thing is for sure, he’s going to take one queer spell too many one of these days. I wouldn’t have blamed Johnny one dad blamed bit if he had blasted his head clean off his shoulders for pulling a stunt like that. I always said that boy was off his rocker!

Like the time he went with me and Jim back on the mountain to salt those cattle. He took that twenty-two that time too. He liked to have run himself to death looking for blacksnakes. He finally caught up to me and Jim on top of the Listening Rock. I tell you, that boy had four of the biggest blacksnakes you ever seen slung around his neck. Of course, they were dead, but ……..ooooohhh; I can’t hardly look at a dead snake, let alone drape them around your neck!

I thought at first that he just wanted to show them to Jim and I. No way! Nothing would do but to put them old dead snakes in the empty salt sack and carry them off that mountain. He wouldn’t say a word or indicate what he intended to do with them. On the way back he killed two more and sacked them up like they were pure gold.

I’ll bet them snake, all together, weighed a hundred pounds or more! When we got down to the deep holler below the Fairview Church House we sat down under some apple trees just above the road at that deep curve. Burl threw that sack down and dumped those snakes out in one big pile as big as a bushel basket. You just picture, in your mind, a bushel basket full of old dead blacksnakes!

We were pretty tired, so Jim and I sat back and rolled a smoke. Burl opened his pocketknife and laid them snakes out in a row, then started to whack away. He was laughing and snickering to himself. Jim finally had enough, I guess. He jumped up and told Burl to throw them snakes away; he was about to puke his guts out. I thought for a minute that Burl was going to take after his daddy with that knife. He looked at him real mean like and whacked off another snake head.

Jim calmed down and asked him what in tarnation he was doing. Burl jumped up with that knife dripping snake blood and yelled, "I’M MAKING THE BIGGEST AND LONGEST BLACKSNAKE YOU EVER LAID EYES ON……….YESSIRREE; THE BIGGEST AND LONGEST SNAKE IN THIS WHOLE DAMNED COUNTRY! I think Jim got a little scared of Burl, but he just sat down and rolled another smoke.

Burl just kept cutting and whacking. Finally he got all the pieces he needed and laid them out side by side. He started piecing them together with some short sticks he pushed up inside of each piece. When he got through he sure had himself one big long blacksnake! It looked as natural as any snake I have ever seen; except it was so damn long.

BECKY
Don’t use that kind of language in front of the children.

JOHN
Sorry about that……..where was I? Oh yeah, Burl kind of quieted down and said he was playing a joke. He said someone was bound to kill the biggest and longest dad burned blacksnake that ever was; said he wouldn’t miss meeting at the church that night for anything in this world. He dug a hole and buried the snake parts he didn’t use. After that he very carefully curled that homemade snake across the road and back again.

Then, you know what he done. Coming down through the orchard towards home, he politely reached up, grabbed an apple, took his old bloody pocketknife; peeled and ate the whole da…, darned thing. I near ‘bout puked, myself!

BECKY
John, for Gods sake, do you have to tell that at the supper table? You know Ruthies’ got a weak stomach!

JOHN
Well, just like Burl said, just before meeting, Old Jud Taylor killed the biggest and the longest blacksnake anyone in this country has ever seen. That was just before Old Jud died; he went to his grave bragging about killing that snake! Jim and I didn’t tell on Burl knowing how them Taylors are about a joke like that. I wish someone else had killed that snake. I really do! Burl sure pulled a good one that time. Good god, think about him eating that apple…….

BECKY
John, will you please hush about that before we all get sick as dogs!

BILLY JOE
Are they going to lock up cousin Burl?

BECKY
Now, look what you’ve gone and done. You know, Billy Joe thinks the sun rises and sits in Burl.

JOHN
Yeah, he does have a way with young’uns, but he is still crazy as a loon. Just last week while you and the kids were over at Aunt Hatties he pulled another one of his crazy stunts. I was helping Bob Davis at his mill, paying him back for plowing, when I looked down the road and here comes Jim and Burl with their turns. Burl was behind Jim. His rear just about to drag his tracks out. I’ll bet you that boy had three bushels of corn on his back. He was muttering and snickering to himself and I figured right off that he was in one of his spells.

I put their corn in the mill hopper and we were standing around shooting the breeze and no one was paying much attention to Burl. All of a sudden he let out a yell you could have heard way over to Aunt Hatties if you had been listening. We turned around and there was Burl with his finger in this little hole in the side of the mill. He was yelling his lungs out! While that mill was still running, that nut had stuck his finger in the hole and he couldn’t get it out.

Bob shut the mill down as quick as he could and Burl just kept on yelling. Try as best we could we could not get that boy loose. The hole was in the seam where the top half bolts to the bottom of the mill. All we could do was to take the whole mill apart to get him loose. I guess we spent four hours taking it apart and putting it back together. It was past noon before we could start the mill again.

BILLY JOE
Did you get him loose, Pa? Did you get him loose?

JOHN
Yes son, we got him loose. How do you think he went hunting with Johnny today?

Well, just a little while later, someone asked Burl how in the thunder did he get his finger caught in there in the first place. You know what he done? He politely walked over to the hole and says, "Just like this" and I’ll be damned if he didn’t stick his finger right back in that hole and got caught again. Now you talk about cursing; that Bob threw a fit. He invented some new four-letter words. It was past dark by the time we got that boy loose again and got the mill back together.

JOHNNY
He’s a corker all right. Remember last fall when he and I went to help the Millers kill hogs? Bob Davis, Burl, Mr. Miller and I were busy scrapping one of the hogs. It was cold as a witches tit …..

BECKY
Watch your mouth, young man!

JOHNNY
Sorry mama………..any way it was real cold and we were working like crazy to keep warm. Nobody was saying anything when all at once Burl turned around real serious like and said, "Mr. Davis are you going to the trial this afternoon?" Mr. Davis never looked up, just asked, "What trial?" Burl replied, "Mr. Miller here is going to try to get his rear end in one of these scalding barrels!"

You know how fat the old man is………I thought that he was going to slit Burl’s throat with that scraping knife. Those Millers can dish it out but they don’t cotton to a joke on themselves very well. Mr. Miller hasn’t spoken to Burl since.

JOHN
Becky, you think there is anything to that talk about his marrying up to that Jenkins girl; what’s her name anyway………….Gengavitis? Now there’s a pair for you. She is just about as nutty as he is.

BECKY
The name is Jennifer……..and I don’t rightly know for sure but Martha says they have no objections.

JOHN
Can you imagine what kind of young’uns that pair would produce? Now, that would be a show if there ever was one. Poor little fellers wouldn’t have a prayer….getting a double dose…..

BECKY
John, for goodness sakes; you know just as well as I do that they could have just as bright a bunch of kids as anybody. Old Doc Purdy says that heredity…….

JOHN
I don’t care what Doc says. I’m telling you here and now them kids would be nuttier than a fruit cake!

BILLY JOE
What’s heredity Ma?

BECKY
Well Billy Joe, it is like when someone takes after their kin. Like your brother there looking and acting so much like his father.

BILLY JOE
Have I got any of this heredity in me Ma?

BECKY
You sure do son, but you take after my side of the family.

BILLY JOE
Why didn’t I take after Pa too; like Johnny?

BECKY
Well, I don’t rightly know for sure, but I would guess it is because the good Lord didn’t want everybody looking and acting like everyone else………..especially like your Pa there………..probably got a belly full of him by now!

JOHN
Along with that sister of yours, Hattie!

RUTHIE
Some folks say that Burl is a witch or whatever you call a male witch……..a warthog or a warlock or something like that. Remember the time over there in the Tomahawk Hollow at Uncle Jim’s sawmill? It was dry as fizzle dust and some sparks from the boiler blew over into the bushes and set them on fire. The Miller boys and Will Davis said everyone was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. They were looking for water or something to put the fire out. They claimed that Burl, just as calm as a cucumber, started walking around and around the fire with a stick in his hand, pointing to the sky and then poking the ground muttering and sniggering. He would twirl that stick in the air just dancing and prancing. They swear by all that is holy that the fire died right down and went out. It was dry as a bone too. They swear the boy is possessed!

BECKY
I’ll have to admit that he ain’t like other folks, that’s for sure. John, you remember when he took Bob Davis up on his offer to pay fifty dollars to anyone that would get rid of the rats on his place?

Your Pa could probably tell it better, but anyway, Burl was just a little bitty fellow, about ten or eleven I guess. It wasn’t too long after Bob and Jenny got married. The rats just about took the place over. Jenny woke up one night and one of the rats was in the bed with them. Jenny said it was one of them old big granddaddy rats. It had near ‘bout chewed her little toe off! The toe got all festered up and she almost lost her foot. That was before your Aunt Lou died and if it hadn’t been for her doctoring she would have lost it. That’s when Jenny told Bob it was the rats or her; one or the other had to go!

They bought or borrowed every trap in the country; used poison and done everything in the world and as far as they knew didn’t kill the first rat. That’s when Bob offered the fifty dollars. Burl was the only one that took him up on his offer and Bob couldn’t see his was clear to back down.

JOHNNY
Man, oh man, fifty dollars; that’s a lot of money!

BECKY
The very next day, Burl went over to the Davis place and cleaned everything out of that old musty cellar. He worked in that cellar for several days. He sealed up everything and plugged all the rat holes except three or four. Above these holes he hung some bricks and rigged them with some cords and pulleys so they would act as trapdoors and all fall at the same time.

The next day, real early, he spread a bag of meal in the middle of the cellar floor then closed the cellar door and left. He didn't come back until way after dark. Bob said he sat outside the cellar door with Burl until well after midnight. Finally, Burl figured that most of the rats were in the cellar eating meal and he pulled the cord trapping the rats inside. Bob said he just calmly walked away and went home.

RUTHIE
What then?

BECKY
The next morning, Burl came back with his crack shot twenty-two and a flashlight. He opened two peep holes he had cut in the cellar door. He put his flashlight in the upper hole and his twenty-two in the lower hole. He sat there on a stool and shot rats all day long. When they opened the cellar door there were over two hundred dead rats laying on the floor. Burl caught two live ones and another live one got away. Jenny swears by it. She said she helped wheel the rats off in a wheelbarrow and bury them.

JOHNNY
Good gosh, that’s worse that a bushel of blacksnakes!

BECKY
Well now, that Burl wasn’t through just yet. He took the two live rats he had caught; got a piece of newspaper; set it afire and singed the hair off the rats and turned them loose. Bob and Jenny will tell you right now that they have not seen the first rat on that place since then.

JOHNNY
Did Burl get his fifty dollars?

JOHN
He sure did. Bob couldn’t do anything else. After it was over I was curious as to why he put the meal on the cellar floor so early in the day. Burl told me that rats have tasters; and it was their job to taste food and stuff before the rest of the rats would eat it. If the taster got sick they wouldn’t eat. Said he had to allow for enough time for the rats to realize it was safe to eat the meal. When the tasters didn’t get sick the rest of them came to feast on the meal that night. Burl said he could outsmart a rat for fifty dollars any day in the week!

After the rat killing, Burl went around rattling change in his front pocket and singing, "Did you ever get your snapper in a rat trap, in a rat trap, in a rat trap!"

JOHNNY
Will you look at that? Pa has sat right there and ate ever damn last bite of the branch lettuce!

BECKY
Young man, you march right in there and wash you mouth out with soap. That is no way for a young’un to talk at the supper table!