Title: Bury the Hatchet

Note: I don’t know a damn thing about this time period in general, so I’m probably going to butcher this one a bit.

“What is a nice girl such as yourself doing in this dump? Don’t you have yourself a husband you should be looking after?” Parker leaned away, studying the woman across the bar.

She was pretty enough that she probably didn’t belong in his corner of Boston and well dressed enough that she definitely didn’t belong. Parker tried to hide his smile as he played a game of “What does her father own?” in his head. Probably some kind of manufacturing. It was always some kind of manufacturing.

“No. No husband. And what, may I ask, do you find so amusing?”

Parker shrugged, half-embarrassed he’d been caught. “Nothing amusin’. Just don’t see your type around here all that much.”

“And what type is that, exactly?”

“You know, rich. Or at least a rich daddy, if I were bettin’.”

The woman scoffed and set some coins on the bar. “If my daddy were really rich, we’d live on The Hill with all the people that matter. Not some middle class dump.” She tapped the coins. “Give me something strong.”

Parker wished he hadn’t started the conversation. Once she started speaking, it became clear the woman was either already drunk or off her damn rocker. He knew he should turn her away. Boisterous women were rarely good for business. People in his bar wanted to drink in their sorrows, and puke out their problems, didn’t need no entertainment along the way.

A handful of empty seats and the same sad lads nursing their second drinks of the night meant the girl’s coin was likely as much as Parker would see tonight. Against his better judgment, he swiped the change and grabbed a glass.

The woman smiled at Parker. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

“No, ma’am,” Parker said. He’d dealt with enough drunks, fiends, and crazies to know how to talk one down. Parker wasn’t there to judge, he was there to serve.

“Well that’s good because I’m not crazy. I’m pissed off!”

The woman’s raised voice carried loud enough across the bar to turn a few heads, but quiet drunks were kinds of avoiding the noisy ones. Soon everyone was back to their own business. Parker poured a glass half full and set it in front of the woman. She reached out as he made to put the bottle away and took it from his hand.

“You know what I always say,” she said, “I’d rather a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy, eh? Because that’s what I’ll need if people don’t quit pushing my buttons, you know? Always pushing my buttons and I, I just can’t take it.”

Parker gritted his teeth and cursed himself for serving her in the first place. He swore it would be the last time he let coin get between himself and a good decision. Kicking the high class Miss out without a drop would have been a good decision.

“I just don’t know why. Why is everything so terrible? Why are they so terrible?”

Okay, Parker played the all serving bartender and it didn’t work to keep the woman quiet. Maybe the all understanding doctor would work. Parker tossed a towel over his shoulder and leaned on the bar, putting on his most gentlemanly smile. “Who are they?”

“My father and step-mother,” the woman pouted.

“Ahhh, parents can play the arsehole from time to time,” Parker said, thinking back on many a fist fights with his own drunken pa.

“But mine are the absolute worst.”

“Oh yeah? What’s so bad about them?”

“My father has made us live like paupers our entire life, even though he had money. Now he has a new wife and it’s like he’s trying to give our estate away. I can’t even stand to look at them. I’ve been living in some rat infested boarding house going on a week now!” The woman pounded her fist on the bar, then pounded back a fistful of swill.

Parker saw his chance. As a rule, family business was left ambiguous. Parker didn’t aim to push in any direction, just make the occasional wise observation. Most people liked Doctor Parker better that way. No one wants to be told what to do, they just want to cry until they’ve figured out all on their own. In this case, though, Parker broke this rule for a cardinal rule: Get the deranged drunkard out by any means necessary.

“If you want my advice.” Parker business himself with fixing up a round of drinks that no one’s ordered. It’s just easier to sound off the cuff when it looks like you’re working. “If you’ve really got an ax to grind with your family, go tell them about it, yeah? Look, you can sit here in your cups all night long going on about injustices and lobotomies till you’re drunk off yer ass, but what’ll good’ll it do? I’m just a barkeep. Nope, my advice, if you want this settled just go home and let them have it.”

Parker swooped the tray of drinks onto his shoulder and walked down the bar. After making life-changing observations such as he had done, it was always best to give the newly enlightened patron time to digest. Parker made a few regulars’ night with some free drinks and circled back to his position at the center of the bar. A handful of coins sat next to the empty glass.

“Lizzie? Lizzie Borden, what are you doing here?”

Parker looked up as two well dressed young men gawked at the crazy lady on her way out the door. She flashed the boys a look that made them recoil far enough for her to walk out the door without having to squeeze past.

The young men sat down in front of Parker “Geez,” one of them said, “what was her problem?”

“Some family matters are finally coming to a head, I suppose,” Parker said, feeling proud for both giving the woman some direction and getting her crazy ass out of his bar.

The liquor is burning determination into my mind and the lining of my throat away.

*Pliink*

I unlock my phone, intense green eyes stare back at me from the little circle in the top right of the screen. Daniel’s wife is snuggled up to his broad chest in the profile picture, smile beaming at me like a gator patiently waiting on its next meal.

Hey bby I’ve missed you, beautiful. Wyd?

Oh fuck my life.

I tap on his profile from the open chat, my treacherous phone pulls his photo uploads. I scroll through the bucolic pictures of his wife and new baby. The family he promised to have with me, once he left her for good. Who knew someone so capable of destroying my entire self control could make such an adorable child. The cherub face doesn’t even have horns sprouting from her head. No tail snaking up behind her either.

I sit my phone back on the coffee table, turn the volume up on Gordon Ramsay ranting about idiot sandwiches. My face flushes as my hands start to sweat. I rub them down my leggings and tell myself to ignore it. Block him.

Ramsay kicks a trash can before stomping off yelling, “Unbelievable.” I feel you, man.

How can I still be tempted to answer him? He left me broken, all of my dreams

shattered and out of my mind with need for him. The ache is still in my heart from missing him.

I need a drink.

Fifteen minutes later and I’m sitting in front of Steve at O’Mys Bar and Grill.

“You still want that girly shit?” Steve’s voice is all gravel and too many cigarettes, but his gaze is understanding obtained from seeing too many fools do the same foolish things for more years than he can probably remember.

“Yeah, that sounds wonderful.” He pours me a highball full of grapefruit juice and bottom shelf vodka. A kid wearing suspenders over his university shirt and an entitled scowl down the bar yells for another PBR. His friends roll with laughter as if it’s the funniest thing they have ever heard. Hell, it probably is.

Steve mumbles something about being glad he never had kids and walks down to deal with the kid. I down half my drink.

I open my phone, tap open Daniel’s chat. The cursor blinks at me, silently and methodically judging me on my next decision.

I sit my phone down, her and Daniel’s face still looking up at me. I lean over the bar, grab the Stoli that Steve left sitting there.

I fill my glass to the top with the Russian rocket fuel and place the bottle down next to my phone. Three gulps later and the liquor is burning determination into my mind and the lining of my throat away.

The blinking cursor turns to three little dots bouncing up and down.

I click ‘block contact’ before his message ever comes through. I can’t afford another ten sessions with my work-insurance approved shrink. I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

"You reckon Brent Clinton is due a lobotamy, or done had one?"

"A lobo what?" Earl asked.

"A lobotamy. A white coated doctor drills a hole in yer head then scrambles yer brains like granny does her eggs?"

"What xactly is that s'posed ta 'complish?"

"Wahl, when folks ain't thinkin' right, the head shrinks figure scramblin' things up might help make 'em reckon a bit better. Least ways, that's how I understand it."

"Seems lahk, it would just make things worse ta me."

"Ah reckon they only do it when their thinkin' can't get no worse."

"Hard ta say then, cuz he shure ain't thinkin' right."

"Ah once 'eard Sheriff Robert L Shirley say that frontal lobotamies were required afore officers were promoted to Major."

"That don't sound right. Ah thought officers were s'posed to be smart."

"Me too, but you know how it is with the Sheriff. Ya never know if'n he's tellin' ah tall tale or truth. Either way, ah don't think he cared much fer Majors."

"How are he an' the mayor gettin' on?"

" 'ard ta tell with the Sheriff. Ah ain' never 'eard 'im say a cross word about the mayor, but he shure ain' been singin' his praise neither."

"True, but he ain' one to suffer fools."

"Ever now an' 'gain, ah see 'im shakin' 'is head, ever so slight as the mayor speaks, but 'is poker face ain' far behind."

"Ah reckon he'd rather bed down with a rattler than talk with that copperhead."

"Ah'd say he'd rather have supper with shiners than politicians. Least ways, makin' whiskey is an honest livin'."

"Well, ah can tell ya right now, ain' no one gettin no drill no wheres near mah brain housin'."

"I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."

"Wahl, that's uh no brainer! Whiskey cures all ails, even that there Mexican beer ailment!"

Join the story of J C in Shotgun County (or read along at): https://www.facebook.com/backwoodsbanter/posts/188507939249976

Title: Granddad Jokes

Comments: Sure! Thanks for reading.

“Butter my butt and call me a biscuit.”

“Granddad!” Trey nearly fell off his chair laughing.

Charles reveled in this moment. To five-year-old Trey he was the funniest guy on the planet, but it wouldn’t be too long before Trey grew old enough to realize the truth.

“Speaking of biscuits… you’d better bis-get done eating your dinner before Grandma comes back.”

Trey obediently forked a bit of pot roast and munched on it with his mouth wide open. Watching him eat was sometimes like watching the cutest industrial trash compactor at work.

“Granddad, are you a million years old?”

“Not quite, but some days I feel like it.”

“Why?”

“Because my bones hurt -- and no bones about it.”

Trey laughed again, though Charles was pretty sure the phrase was over his head.

“Why?”

“Why do my bones hurt?” Trey nodded as he shoved a bit more food into his mouth. “Because your grandma beats me at night.”

Trey fell into another fit of laughing, launching pot roast and potatoes over the table like mini-projectiles.

“Hey! Say it, don’t spray it.” Charles grabbed a nearby napkin and wiped the table down. “Try to keep more food in your mouth than on the table.”

His admonitions were only met with giggles, but that was fine. He corked up a sigh and headed to his secret stash.

The sigh was less from directing the aimless eating efforts of a giggle machine and more from a melancholy that had been brewing for days. It wasn’t often that he got to see the grandkids and something about this time together made him feel regret from his own parenting days.

Was he the funniest guy on earth to his own children? Or was he just a taskmaster trying to get through the nightly dinner ritual? The whole nature of being a granddad meant that he could take a different role with Trey, but it still gave him pause. What did his son remember from this age? Would Trey even remember this in ten years?

“Are you still eating?” Charles called over his shoulder as he headed into the pantry.

“Mostly.”

“There is mostly not going to be any dessert unless you finish your food, Trey. Better hop to it.”

After casting a quick glance around, Charles pulled a treasured bottle out from behind an expert couponer’s stash of canned green beans. He lightning-fast poured himself two fingers of whisky. He had fingers the size of sausages so the glass was pretty full.

Charles carried his glass to the table and sat down with the normal level of creaks and pops.

“What’s that?”

“A drink. You’ve got your drink right there.”

“Mine’s milk.”

“Yep. Here’s to you, kid.” Charles lifted his glass in a tiny toast to his grandson.

“CHARLES.”

He performed an enormous overreaction complete with flailing arms and bulging eyes, but didn’t spill a drop. “Yes, my trumpet -- I mean, my tulip.”

Trey was now turning blue in the face from laughing, but grandma did not find any of this amusing.

Charles took his free hand and clapped Trey on the back. “OK, you got to breathe now. Keep it together, buddy.”

“Not in front of the grandchildren.” Her words came through gritted teeth and her laser sharp glance to his whisky could have melted the glass.

She turned on her heels and almost left a breeze in her hurry to leave the dining room. He uncorked the sigh he’d bottled up earlier and feelings chased his breath as it left his lungs. Somedays sadness nipped at him like one of those insufferable yappy dogs -- not enough to bring you down, but enough to piss you off as it got under your heels. He raised the glass to drink.

“CHARLES.”

Grandma peeked her head in again and caught him just before the whisky actually made it to his lips. He paused comically with his lips out, reaching as if he could inhale the whisky into his mouth from inches away.

“I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.” He said flatly and made a grand toast to his wife before taking his first sip. She rolled her eyes and left again.

“What’s a frobotomy?”

“It’s what will happen to me if your grandma catches me drinking again.”

“What if she catches me drinking my milk? Will I get a frobotomy?”

“No. You’ll probably get dessert and some more TV time. Don’t ever grow old kid.”