Ernest wanted to see where the deer was dropped before he drove his heavy truck across the immaculate Front Lawn, so he walked around the Big House to the Back Garden (Big Daddy loved capital letters; he thought they added a touch of Elegance and had engraved brass plaques placed all around the place which labeled everything in such florid letters that nobody could read them except Ja’Rasta who held an undergraduate degree in Linguistics).

                As he came around the corner of the house Hel and Ja stepped out through the sliding glass doors onto the Terrace (which is aristocracy code for “patio”).

                “Where’s he at?” asked Ernest, rolling up his sleeves and setting his UGA Dawgs cap on a rickety white wrought-iron table.

                “Ja’s boyfriend already came and got it,” said Hel, “I’m sorry to have bothered you. Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry…” she handed the cap to him.

                “Hey Ja’Rasta,” said Ernest, putting his cap back on, “How your mom and them?” He’d known Ja since elementary school. She gave him his first joint, years ago, pinched from her parents’ sacramental stash.

                “Fair to middlin’, Ernest, you know, just getting’ old,” laughed Ja.

                Ernest stood for a moment, brow wrinkled. Then he turned to leave. “Let me know if you need anything else, Hel.”

                “Okay.” Hel and Ja went back in through the sliding glass doors.

                Ernest drove away, deep in thought.

TO BE CONTINUED…

When the Camaro drove onto the circular flagstone driveway in front of the Big House Ernest’s Silverado was just coming through the brick Front Gates. Hel ran in through the front door, looking for the maid.

                Ja’Rasta was in the Dining Room shining the family silver, a task that all Southern maids turn to when nothing else needs to be done, a task which is never finished as the first piece polished immediately begins to tarnish even as the second piece receives its rubs.

                The dark-skinned African American with a Masters degree in Fine Arts from Columbia University had come back south to care for her elderly parents. There were no jobs requiring MFAs in the County so Ja’Rasta gathered material for her first novel while working as a maid at the Big House. The pay was decent, the food was excellent, and the opportunities to observe genuine white Southern dinosaurs in their natural habitat made the tedious work worthwhile.

                Ja’Rasta perked up her ears when Hel burst into the Dining Room.

                “Ja, ya gotta help me,” panted Hel, “here’s the deal: I told Buddy I’d shot a deer in the Back Garden because I thought he’d come help me move it but Ernest came instead and there’s no deer and they’ll know I lied unless you lie for me, Ja, please tell’im your boyfriend came and took the deer away, please Ja, help me!”

                Ja’Rasta gazed at the young white missus calmly, and not without affection. “What’s in it for me?” she asked.

                Hel didn’t bat an eye. She and Ja saw eye to eye on many subjects including money. “Five hundred dollars,” she offered. “Cold cash, small unmarked bills.”

                Ja’Rasta laughed.

                “If I had a boyfriend,” she smiled ironically as she rose to her full queenly height, “I’m sure he’d love venison.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Helena desperately played the helpless-feminine card once more.

                “I don’t want Daddy to find out, he thinks shooting a rifle is unladylike,” she simpered. “I need somebody to take the thing away. Somebody big and strong…”

                The effect of her fluttering Maybelline Black Dog In A Dark Room Mascara’d eyelashes was totally lost, as both men had closed their eyes.

                She glared at Perra, who returned her gaze serenely through natural lashes that looked to Hel, well, unfinished.

                “Buck or doe?” inquired Perra conversationally.

                Hel was caught off guard as her internal conversation was at that moment consumed by a debate over whether she wanted to strangle or stab Perra or both.

                “Um, buck,” she lied, “and it’s an eight-pointer!” She threw out her last bit of bait.

                Ernest opened his eyes. “Eight points, y’say?” He had in his Contacts List cell phone numbers of several luckless hunters who did not mind buying their trophies, this late in the season. 

                “It’s big, it’ll take both of you!” Hel insisted as Ernest rose to his feet. Buddy didn’t move.

                “Naw, I got a Tommy Gate lift on my tailgate.” Ernest shuffled toward his Silverado. “I kin do’er.”

                Hel really did feel helpless now. Buddy was zoned out, meditating and/or wasted and unresponsive to her wiles. Ernest waited in the driver’s seat of his Silverado with dollar signs in his eyes.

                She hated leaving Buddy with Perra there, but both of them now had their eyes closed as they chanted the holy word…

                “OMMmmm…”

                “Oh Hell!” Hel yelled, jumping in the Camaro and peeling out of the gravel lot.

                Ernest’s Silverado was hard pressed to keep up with her. 

TO BE CONTINUED…

Perra took to meditation like a professional… that is, she worked too hard at it, goofed off when she could get away with it, and bitched constantly about the pay.

                “So when do I see the Light?” she demanded after keeping her eyes closed for an interminable thirty seconds.

                “You are the Light,” murmured Buddy beatifically.

                “Great!” She opened her eyes. “Got any papers?”

                Ernest did, and Perra rolled, and the three shotgunned each other into a naturally meditative state.

                Suddenly a hot pink Camaro swerved onto the peaceful scene, pulling a roostertail of dust from the dirt road. Helena slammed to a stop just short of the Fiesta’s back bumper and got out, making a second try with the pink camo outfit. She sighed with relief at the unbloodied Buddy, but Perra’s presence put her hackles up.

                “Why, Perra Cabrona, bless your heart!” She fired an opening salvo of Southern sweet talk.

                “I do declare,” responded Perra, “it’s the Soybean Queen of 2018.”

                Helena gritted her freshly-whitened teeth. Even as a callback the point went to Perra, but Hel was on to other game.

                “I need your help, Buddy,” she cooed in her helpless-feminine voice.

                “Wha’ for?” Buddy slowly opened his eyes, having no plans to stand up anytime in the near future.”

                Helena did her best to look distressed. “I saw a deer in the Back Garden down by the Gazebo, it was eating Momma’s peonies and you know she loves those peonies, I got Daddy’s 30-ought-6 and I shot it from my bedroom window!”

                “It’s dead?” Buddy asked, stonedly stupid.

                “Of course it’s dead!” Helena snapped in a distinctly non-distressed voice. She was proud of her Girl Scout Marksmanship badge.

                “Then it’s not a problem…” Buddy opined sagely, closing his eyes again.

                Helena sensed that the moment was slipping away from her.

TO BE CONTINUED…

When Perra Cabrona turned her red Ford Fiesta into Two Bucks she thought Buddy and Ernest were freaking out.

                The two were sitting cross-legged on the ground with their eyes closed. Ernest held his left hand in the mudra position; the other hand held the joint which had gone out. Perra took the joint, lit it with her Wonder Woman Bic, and sucked in a long hit. Nobody spoke.

                Perra sat on a stump and finished the joint, holding the roach between two Purple Passion-painted nails as she inhaled the final fumes. She waited. She was hoping for some major hallucinogenic rush, having assumed that Buddy and Ernest were tripping big time.

                She felt no rush, although she did get lightly stoned.

                “Hey,” she said after she realized that no trip was on her mental horizon, “wassup?”

                Ernest opened his eyes briefly. “Hey,” he said, which was dealertalk for “Hello, I have your weed, I was expecting you.”

                “Y’all tripping or what?” demanded Perra.

                “Meditating.” Buddy opened his eyes, and stretched. “The ultimate high.”

                “Yeah, right, where’s my pot?” asked Perra. Ernest pulled a baggie out of the waistband of his camo jogging pants, Perra produced a fistful of 20s, and the deal went down.

                “Y’all doin’ shrooms?” Perra still suspected that there was more than marijuana available.

                Buddy smiled beatifically. “You should try this meditation stuff, Perra. It’s pretty cool…” He chugged the rest of a can of lukewarm Natural Light, and closed his eyes again.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Everyone agreed that Hel’s party was the hottest event of the summer.

                Hel herself enjoyed the evening, except for her disappointment when Buddy failed to show up.

                She had made sure to invite several local boys that she had dated in the past, hoping to flaunt Buddy at them. That did not happen but she did take some satisfaction from the fistfight that broke out after one swain bragged to another that he had “gotten to first base” during his date with Hel. Nobody knew what that really meant but it inspired the other guy to paste First Base Man in the nose, then some other fellers joined in just for the fun of it and the whole brawl ended up in the pool.

                Hel woke up the next morning soaking wet but flushed with social success.

                She immediately began planning her next move on Buddy.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Meanwhile, Buddy Sattva was learning to meditate.

                “No, seriously, dude,” Ernest said earnestly in a strangled I’m-holding-my-toke voice, “it’s cool. It will chill you out. Even better than weed.” He handed his best friend the burning joint.

                “Better than weed? How ‘bout better than beer?” asked Buddy reverently before hitting the joint hard then chugging from a cold can as he held in the smoke.

                “Better than beer, man. It’s the ultimate high.” Ernest had learned to meditate from a local guru who traded him a glimpse of Enlightenment in exchange for a quarter ounce of California-grown Sour Diesel marijuana.

                Buddy considered the matter as he settled into a pleasant buzz. He contemplated his surroundings contentedly. The doublewide that was all his now that his parents had died… he suffered no grief, did not miss his mom’s sharp tongue nor his dad’s hard fists. The boxcar that housed Two Bucks… he mentally inventoried the meat in the cooler, the meat in the smoker, and the beer on ice. The pool table that had appeared apparently on its own… Ernest had come up with a set of billiard balls and Buddy picked up some cheap cue sticks from the Goodwill in town.

                Wow, he thought in stoned bliss, I’ve already got that Attitude of Gratitude Oprah talks about and I am certainly Living in the Moment. Guess it’s time to take it to the next level.

                As though he’d done it all his life Buddy sank cross-legged to the dirt, closed his eyes, and joined Ernest in chanting OM so loudly that they waked up an old bird dog napping under the pool table. The dog’s howls blended harmoniously with the chant and Buddy began to see the Light behind his closed eyes.

TO BE CONTINUED…

The day after the Cafe’ Weene’ incident, Big Daddy bought his Baby Girl a hot pink custom Camaro, cash on the barrelhead, with the stipulation that she drop her pursuit of Buddy. She cheerfully agreed, then jumped into her brand-new pink camo outfit and zoomed in the Camaro out to Two Bucks for an ill-fated drop-in visit.

Her “vision in pink” concept could not hold up against Buddy’s “bloodiest sight you’ve ever seen” presentation. She was disappointed.

Daddy was pissed.

So he offered Helena a blowout catered party for her friends, including liquor AND security guards at the plantation gate to fend off any sheriff’s deputies who might suspect underage drinking, while he took Momma over to Mobile for a couple of nights on the casino cruise ship… as long as she forgot about Buddy.

“Okay!” she cried, rushing off to make out the invitations, one of which she sent to Two Bucks, which Buddy assumed came by mistake. He used the stiff, ivory colored card to scoop some poop left by a hunter’s dog.

Helena thoroughly enjoyed her party… at least, her friends said she did. But even in the midst of the booze and buzz, she was disappointed by Buddy’s absence.

She didn’t tell Daddy about the spurned invitation because, as she said, “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt me.”

Her next idea was the one that ended in disaster.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Big Daddy thought he’d done pretty well adjusting to the rebelliousness of his teenaged daughter. The pot smoking didn’t bother him – hell, he’da smoked it too, if he’da known about it as a boy. Prob’ly tasted better than that rotgut moonshine old Big Buddy, Buddy Sattva’s dad, used to run off down by the creek. But it’s one thing to buy ‘shine from trailer trash; it’s quite another to have your daughter slumming with one. Socially embarrassing, don’cha know. And besides that, he’d seen how Betts watched Buddy’s butt as he left her house that day…

Big Daddy believed that money is the answer to any problem. “Always has been,” he puffed through the pricey smoke of a black market Cuban cigar, “always will be.”

He’d made his money the old-fashioned way, by inheriting vast tracts of family land, land which had long since been leased to farmers who actually worked the fields, and which required no effort from the owner beyond depositing the lease checks.

So of course his first impulse was to throw money – at Helena, at Buddy, at Betts, even at his crony who had delivered the news with so much relish.

“I’ll make a sizeable donation in his name to the First Baptist,” he decided. “He’ll understand why, and he’ll also understand that I still consider him a sanctimonious sumbitch.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

As much as Helena loved her Daddy, like all teenagers she also enjoyed pissing him off.

                She was pretty sure that falling in love with Buddy Sattva would fill that bill.

                She was right.

                The grapevine grabbed the news before Buddy fled the Café Weene’ coffee shop. One of Daddy’s cronies happened to cruise by during the forced march from the Pik N Pay to Café Weene’ and gleefully made a beeline for the Big House to regretfully inform Daddy that his Baby Girl was seen on the street arm in arm with trailer trash.

“It’s my Christian duty to let you know, suh,” he told Daddy with a straight face.

“You sanctimonious sumbitch!” Daddy yelled his thanks, then slammed the door in the man’s face to further demonstrate his gratitude for the man’s Christian concern.

TO BE CONTINUED…