Twenty Unusual Short Stories. Dr. Donald D. Hook
only packed lunch for us in the coolers. Nothing extra.”
“Yeah, well, okay, I suppose we could stop for half an hour at some ‘gulp and gallop’ around here,” responded Buford. “If we arrive at the river much past 7:30, the best fish will have stopped biting.”
“Oh, that’s nonsense,” broke in James Alfred. “The fish are hungry all of the time, and I agree with the girls: Let’s eat!”
In another mile or so, sure enough, there was a diner on the right, and Buford pulled into a double space right in front just off the road. He had to think ahead to allow for the boat trailer he was pulling. The fool thing took up a lot of space and, besides, he had to have room enough to back up easily in the lot or to turn around. You sure as hell wouldn’t back out into the highway with a trailer hanging on the back.
The restaurant was crowded, so the four of them had to squeeze into one of the smaller corner booths. Buford was a very large man, weighing close to 250 pounds. At 6 feet 4 inches he towered over most people, including his buddy, James Alfred, who at 5 feet 8 and a mere 150 pounds always maintained he needed an equalizer—and thus packed a .45. Buford pooh-poohed firearms for protection but rather relied on a huge claw hammer in a holster on his belt. He also carried a 7-inch switchblade strapped to his left leg “just in case.” James Alfred had seen him wield the hammer a number of times and was impressed—even a little horrified. Sometimes, without provocation, and after drinking heavily at The Down ‘n’ Out Bar outside town, Buford would swing round on his stool and survey the furniture and the patrons with a view to breaking some object or sending a few people to the emergency room. After four or five beers and three or four big scoops of bourbon, he kept a “mean” look on his wide, puckered face for hours on end. He never learned, or cared, that he and booze constituted a dangerous combination. Of course, he was sometimes arrested for disturbing the peace. Once he was charged with aggravated assault on a man who cussed at him for talking too loud. Buford explained to the cops why he did it: “He aggravated me,” he said. The only person who felt reasonably safe around Buford when he was in his cups was James Alfred.
Breakfast securely tucked away in their stomachs and marinating in several cups of coffee each, the party stepped out into the parking area and prepared to re-board Buford’s old truck. “What the hell is this?” bellowed Buford as he yanked out a traffic ticket from beneath a windshield wiper.
He read it slowly out loud: “Violation: Department of Motor Vehicles code #661128, Expired Trailer License Plate. Mandatory fine, $65.00, payable at the DVM within 10 days or fine doubles.” Buford’s name and address were at the top of the ticket. The summons was illegibly signed by some officer and dated that very day.
Buford was as a man gone crazy. He ranted, he raved, he cursed everybody and everything in sight. He ran both hands through his long but thinning hair. He became red in the face and even bloodshot of eye. His breathing was labored. A stranger would have thought he was about to have a stroke. He accused his passengers for having talked him into stopping at what he now called “little more than a ‘belch and vomit’.” He accused himself for not getting an earlier start. He then ripped the ticket into little pieces and, with utter disdain, scattered them about in the parking lot.
Squelched by the extent of Buford’s rage, everybody climbed back into the truck without a word and assumed their places. Buford started the engine, backed up slightly, and roared out of the restaurant lot and down Route 404 on the left on the way to Denton. Just then a pickup rose up in front of him. Without hesitation, and in defiance of a double solid line, Buford wheeled around the pickup and charged on. He noted that the truck carried a New York state tag and muttered, “Goddamn Yankees have no business down here in the first place!” As he swung his truck and the attached trailer quickly to the right to get back in line so as to avoid hitting another vehicle head-on, he cut off the New York driver, who hit his brakes and frantically, and belligerently, honked his horn. In his rearview mirror Buford could see the driver’s raised fist with the extended middle finger. “Screw you,” Buford yelled and stepped on it.
Anyone would think that by now the War Between the States would be just about over. After all, Delaware was a border state and had never left the Union. The few slaves there had not revolted. Being from Delaware should mean “tolerance” at least and “understanding” at best. Today Buford felt neither and repeatedly swore at the New York truck that was in “his” way. Buford was born and raised in Sussex County, the southernmost of Delaware’s three counties and the most conservative and South-oriented.
After about two miles it became obvious that the altercation was not over. The road had widened into four lanes, and the New York truck was gaining rapidly. It was, after all, a much newer pickup—another source of acute annoyance to Buford. All the while, the girls and James Alfred were imploring Buford to “let it go, let it be,” but Buford was so het up by now that he barely heard them. He kept rhetorically asking out loud who the hell that driver thought he was to menace him, Buford Showalter. Oh, how he wished he could get his hands on that fucker!
By now Buford’s truckload of people and stuff had reached 70 mph, and the trailer was swaying dangerously, yet that dratted New York truck was right on his ass. Suddenly, a traffic light came into view, and Buford saw his chance. He tore through at the end of the amber, forcing the truck behind him to stop for the red light with a penetrating screech. Buford laughed hysterically as he continued to haul butt up the road, recklessly passing everything in sight.
Then there was another traffic signal, and this time Buford had to halt. When he looked in his mirror, he could scarcely believe what he saw: The New Yorker had somehow caught up and was grinning wildly at him. When the light turned green and Buford began to move forward, the New Yorker came by him like he was tied to a stake and as he did so, he flipped a bird at Buford while his male passenger—God, a burrhead at that!—imitated a screwing motion with the middle finger of his right hand describing an in-and-out plunging through a circle made with the thumb and forefinger of his other hand. The latter action was clearly directed at the sexy Edna Mae. Buford was beside himself with rage and swore revenge, promising to get on the guy “like ugly on a ape,” though he had no idea how he might carry out his threat. The chorus arose again: “Let it be, Buford. Forget it.”
For a while it looked like it was all over, and about 10 miles beyond Denton, Buford nosed the truck down a back-country road leading to the river and, swinging it around so that the trailer was backed up to the water, set the brake and prepared to reel the boat off the trailer and down the short ramp. It was then that he noticed the New York truck less than 50 feet away.
The two occupants were just then exiting their truck, and Buford noted that they were industrial-strength men, one very white and one very black. It was not clear why they had stopped at the same place on the river that Buford and James Alfred had chosen. They were certainly not following Buford, for they arrived first. Initially, they seemed not to notice Buford and company and set about doing a little fishing themselves. Must have been a coincidence, thought James Alfred. The girls were paying no attention to the scene but unpacking their fishing gear from the truck bed. However, Buford, upon seeing his traffic nemeses again, and close up, succumbed immediately to his latent suspicions and said to James Alfred, “You know, those suckers knew we were coming here and beat us to our spot just to irritate me.”
“Oh, come on, Buford, they couldn’t have known where we were going. Just drop the whole matter. Let’s get on with our fishing. We can beach the boat again after a couple of hours and set up lunch on the tailgate.”
Grumbling but conciliatory, Buford agreed to load up the boat and cast off for a while. The girls helped them with the poles and the bait, and away they went. In minutes Buford became serious about catching some fish and even helped the women bait their hooks. The sun was by now fairly high in the sky; the day looked bright and promising. James Alfred was whistling a tune and ribbing the girls about something inconsequential.
About one-third of the way out into the river Buford turned the boat shoreward, where, he said, the fish were always most plentiful. They had tossed a few lines in on their way out and had no luck. Hugging the shore line, and sometimes pushing aside overhanging branches of bushes and small trees, the men cut the engine back to