Holy
crap in a Bundt pan...
Due to the
recent well-publicized shortage of
amateur websites produced by assholes who consider themselves to be
clever, I
have been called into action. My name is Jeff Kay, and I’m an
Ugly American living
on the cusp of a mid-life crisis, near Scranton, PA. And I’m here to
serve, baby.
The
State of My Fat Ass A journal of
sorts, updated every once in a while.
--
When I was but a young hillbilly child with unfortunate hair, we had a
full lineup of distant relatives who lived "way out in the
country." Outhouses, chickens in the living room, water from a pump
in the yard.... They lived the way the rest of the world thinks all
West Virginians live (despite the fact that I grew up with the Buzzcocks
on my turntable, and an auto-renew subscription to the Village Voice).
My great-grandmother lived on a farm that was so removed from
civilization you couldn't drive there. Literally, the roads didn't go
that far. My Dad would drive until he couldn't anymore, then we'd
abandon the car and start walking. The rest of the journey required us
to climb fences and avoid roaming bulls in grassy pastures. My Dad
always teased me and my brother and told us that bulls hate
whatever color shirt we happened to be wearing that day. (I always
believed him.) And we'd all laugh at the sight of our aunts tumbling
over wooden fences. Good times.
The great-grandmother herself wasn't very nice. There was no warmth
there, none whatsoever. She used snuff like a man, and scared me a
little. Her husband was nice enough, but full-on crazy. We'd all be
sitting on the porch talking, and the guy would suddenly cock his leg
like a dog, get up and run as hard as he could, way out into the middle
of cornfield, where he'd drop to his knees and start talking to Jesus.
What in the pan-fried hell?? And when he walked downhill he turned
circles for some unknown reason.
You think I'm joking? Oh, you would be mistaken.
There's a story about this man, who's long dead by now, that's recently
been circulating amongst family members. I'm highly skeptical because it
seemed to pop up years after the fact. But supposedly he was so dumb he
didn't know how to get into a car. The story, as told by some of those
very same fence-tumbling aunts, is that they were taking him somewhere
in a car once, and he didn't know enough to bend his body when getting
in. So, he walked straight into the side of the vehicle, standing bolt
upright, bouncing off again and again. Could this possibly be true? I
think there's a little creative embellishment at play here....
My grandmother's sister, on my mother's
side, lived way out a holler where, it was said, "they had to pipe
in the sunshine." She had a house that was little more than a shack
with a big ol' Drucker's Store potbelly stove in the living room. There
was no indoor plumbing and she had to go out in the yard and pump a big
red handle that was sticking out of the ground, to get water to cook
with and to drink. There was an outhouse in the yard that my Mom
wouldn't allow us to go into alone, for fear we'd plunge down one of the
holes to our turdly graves. There was also a "fruit cellar"
near the house that was basically a door in the side of a mountain.
Here's
a picture of my parents, with me and my brother, beside the
"crick" on one of our visits there. I'm the one standing up
(and probably scared shitless that a copperhead snake was about to
spring from the bushes and attach itself to my face). And check out my
Dad! Rockabilly.
I never really liked going out there. Oh, I enjoyed the fact that the
road to the house sometimes was the creek itself (cool!), but once we
arrived... far too snakey for my tastes. I remember us all hoofing it to
an ancient cemetery once (where the headstones featured dates from,
like, George Washington's time), and we heard rattlesnakes a-rattling. I
just about shit straight through the Earth's crust.
And the local younglings, which we were always encouraged to play with,
were like creatures from a different planet. I could barely understand a
word they said, and when I did I was even more baffled.
The best part was the homemade ice cream they always made after dinner,
in some kind of wooden-barrel contraption with a rusty crank on top.
Mmmmm... Beyond that though, no.
Speaking of snakes, and as an aside, I went with my friend Mike to his
grandparent's house a few times, way out some horrible Cape Fear river
somewhere. And there were black snakes everywhere. It was PhobiaWorld! I
remember being in a boat and the things were swimming all around us in
the water. And, worst of all, there was a section of the river where
snakes were literally hanging from the trees like Spanish moss. Man,
talk about your nightmare-generators...
The grandparents had a birdhouse in their yard, at the top of a tall
pole. We were having lunch outside one day, and heard what sounded like
frantic bird-chirping. Everybody jumped up to investigate, and saw one
of those nasty-ass snakes climbing the pole, winding round and round and
inching its way up. Holy shit! Without a word, the grandfather went into
the house and returned with a gun. He took aim, and blasted the snake
before it could reach the baby birds at the top. The lifeless carcass
then corkscrewed its way back to the ground, and I just couldn't believe
what was happening before me.
Then the grandfather said, in an excited voice, "You boys want to
go look for the head?" Look for the head!? Sweet Maria, it was the
devil's egg-hunt! But, of course, we found it, down by the entrance of
yet another country cemetery. He'd gotten good distance on that head.
Another of my grandmother's sisters lived way out a holler as well, but
in a real house. In fact, they owned quite a bit of land and there were
three houses and three families (all related) living together. It was
like the Kennedy compound, with Bondo-colored Dodge Chargers in the
yard.
There were a lot of wild-ass kids that lived nearby, and we generally
had fun with them. We'd rampage through the woods and throw rocks at
beer cans and try to catch crawdads in the creek.... For some reason I
didn't worry about snakes there, and allowed myself to have a good time.
The only thing I didn't like was an angry asshole husband who lived in
one of the houses and was married to one my mother's cousins. He'd
routinely kick his dogs, for no reason whatsoever, and it makes me sick
to my stomach just thinking about it. I hope that old prick died a
painful death.
Yeah, we had a good time with those wild-animal children. But one was a
little different from all the rest.... He was roughly my age, but rarely
wanted to play with us. He seemed to prefer staying indoors with the
women, eating lemon squares and talking about the latest diet fads. We
were in his bedroom a few times, and it was always neat as a pin;
nothing like any boy's room I'd ever seen. Against one wall was an
electric organ, and we'd begin hammering the keys upon sight, causing
the kid to fly into some sort of over-exercised hissy-fit and almost
completely break down in tears.
He clearly didn't like us, and was snotty at all times. But once we were
invited to a "performance" in his room, and something
instinctual kicked-in and told me to be on high alert. But it was
nothing to be worried about, he just wanted to play the organ for
us(!?). We sat down and the kid took his place behind the keyboard, and
proceeded to roll his fingers and smile and camp it up like some sort of
freaky Appalachian Liberace.
Ho-ly shit! I didn't yet know what gay meant, but I knew something
was askew. And what's that kid doing today? That's right, he's a hair
stylist. No joke. He was born and raised in Mudsuck Holler, or whatever,
and is gay as the day is long. Go figure.
And I think that'll do it for today, kiddies. I know I've already
covered some of this territory before, but I started thinking about ol'
Elton John of the Hills this morning, for reasons unknown, and one
thing led to another.
Do you have any country cousins, or backwoods relatives? Why not tell us
about them in the comments?
--
When I was but a young hillbilly child with unfortunate hair, we had a
full lineup of distant relatives who lived "way out in the
country." Outhouses, chickens in the living room, water from a pump
in the yard.... They lived the way the rest of the world thinks all
West Virginians live (despite the fact that I grew up with the Buzzcocks
on my turntable, and an auto-renew subscription to the Village Voice).