1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE/BEWARE OF STICKS

Susan, Jan and I often walked home from school with a group of kids that lived in town. Susan had two friends, Janice and Patricia, who were usually with us. Two boys named Larry and Robert, unrelated, but living near each other, also walked along. Sometimes there were as many as ten of us, and today that was true.

The girls wore dresses and penny loafers with bobby socks, the boys jeans and patterned cotton shirts. Jan, Larry, and I were the youngest. Most of the kids walking on this spring Tuesday afternoon were twelve years old. Larry was only eight, closer to my age of nine, but one year behind me in school. Jan was the youngest, only six.

Larry was an only child, and a little whiney for my taste, but still I liked to go to his house and play because they had chickens. It wasn't that I liked chickens so much, but I found it amusing that they got under the house with us when we crawled under there. The house sat on blocks and had no underpinning, so we were able to play in the dirt there by just ducking a little.

We could see all the way from the front to the back and side to side. Sitting under there, we dug dirt, played cars, and looked for worms and pillbugs. The chickens must have sensed what we were doing because they clucked and ducked their way under the house once we started playing, and then they moved ever closer, their tiny eyes focusing wickedly on the dirt piling up beside us.

I didn't like for them to get too close because I was a little scared of them, afraid they'd peck me or flog me with their wings, but they amused me with their weird noises, odd springy head movements, and malevolent eyes.

Larry's mother Edna called us for lunch around noon, and we ate catsup sandwiches. They almost rivaled the mustard and sugar ones that Boy and I ate at his house, but Edna didn't add any sugar to them which I thought might improve the taste.

A few times, I went to Larry's house on Sunday afternoon, and we ate at his paternal grandmother's house. She lived just down the road in town in a dark little house with heavy brocade drapes that never seemed to admit any sunlight. She cooked what she called a "log rolling" for Sunday lunch, which she called Sunday dinner. It sure beat the heck out of catsup sandwiches even if we had to stay in that cramped home with Larry's relatives.

Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, fried okra and squash,blackeyed peas, fresh tomatoes, iced tea, and carrot cake for dessert. After she and Larry's mother cleaned up all the dishes for about twenty family members, she got out a big round tablecloth, gathered all the pans and bowls of food onto the round oak table and with one of them on each side, lifted the tablecloth in the air over the table and let it float parachute-like down over all the containers.

"Why are they covering the food like that?" I asked Larry.

"Aw, we'll eat that food tonight for supper," Larry said.

I stared at him, uncomprehending. "Will it just sit there till you eat it?" I asked, with increasing confusion.

"Yeah," he said. "Just on Sundays, we do that. That way they don't hafta put it all in the frigerator."

"Oh," I said simply, glad I would have to go home before supper. I wanted to remember to ask my mother what she thought of that. She was fastidious about refrigerating food, though we might eat bits of what she'd cooked for a week if any of it was left over, which was not often.

"We have iron stomachs, I hope," my dad would laugh.

Larry had run ahead of the group today about twenty yards, but he suddenly diverted into the grassy ditch to retrieve something, then took off running again. We could see a big twisted stick that moved up and down with each pump of his arms.

"Hey!" Robert, the only other boy, yelled. "Stop running with that stick! You'll put your eye out."

When the shout reached him, it appeared that Larry immediately stopped, braking abruptly with both feet. His right hand flew up toward his face, the stick moving upward, hitting him somewhere up there with a sickening snap. Larry screamed like a girl and turned to face us. Blood streamed from his right eye. His hand flew up to his cheek, wiping away blood, and he screamed again, louder this time. He looked frightening!

All of us except Robert stopped walking, staring at the scene before us.
Robert took off like he was running a sprint, moving toward Larry. Meanwhile Larry turned,still screaming, and began running away from us, zigging and zagging across the street. We figured he was heading home, which was about three blocks away, but he sure wasn't going to get there very fast running in that manner.

"Wait!" Robert called to him. "Wait, let me look at it. Let us help you. We can go in the Williams' house."

But I guess the adrenalin kicked in and Larry left us in the dust like the roadrunner left Wiley Coyote in the cartoons.

"Stupid kid," Robert said disgustedly, "I told him not to run with that stick. He probably put his eye out."

I didn't want to think about it. His eye, the chickens' eyes, staring, looking evil, blood flowing like a red river down his cheek. I wondered if he would have to wear a patch like Captain Hook if his eye was really put out.

"Mother," Susan said as we stormed through the front door. "Larry ran with a stick, and we think he put his eye out."

Mother's face registered alarm, and she went immediately to call Edna.

"He's going to be all right," she assured us when she hung up the phone. "Edna doesn't blame any of the other kids. She knows how highstrung he is. He even told her that one of the boys tried to help him."

We all breathed a sigh of relief, but all evening I had to shake my head to clear images of staring chicken eyes with blood running down their white feathered heads, a black patch attached loosely over the damaged eye.
It also occurred to me that I didn't want to eat any more catsup sandwiches at Edna's house.
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