What Do I Do Now, Mom?
by: E Walk
(© 2009 by the Author)
 

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Chapter 21 

I’m Petrified

When I pulled up at the farm, I didn’t see any vehicles and I began to get concerned. I was greeted by Bobby as he came running toward me, “Hi Dad, Daddy said you didn’t have a good day.  Why don’t you go change clothes and then go help Witt.  He’s cussing at the tractor, because it keeps stalling when he tries to do something.  Daddy and Billy are doing the milking.”

I walked into the trailer and something smelled really good, but I did as I was told and went to change clothes.  I stopped in the barn and hugged Randy and Billy and went to find Witt.

He was indeed cussing at the tractor.  “Good evening, Mr. President.  What seems to be the problem?”

“Hi Mr. Adler, this piece of shit won’t operate properly.  Every time I attach a load to it, it stalls out.  I can’t spread the manure if I can’t keep the tractor running.  I’ve cleaned the spark plugs, changed the oil and checked the transmission fluid.  I don’t know what else to do.”

Witt all of sudden whirled around, “Mr. Adler, what did you just call me?”

“I called you Mr. President.  Your father stopped by the office and told me that you were the Junior Class President, and he was going to kick my ass if you didn’t go to college.”

“Mr. Adler, please don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes.  My Father cares nothing about me.”

I hugged Witt, even though he was covered with grease and oil, “Son, you have no idea how wrong you are.  He really does love you, even though he may not show it.  He specifically asked that you stop by to see your brothers from time to time, because they are going to miss you, especially the three youngest brothers.”

“Mr. Adler, why couldn’t my Father ever have said, ‘Son, I love you?’

He was always too busy satisfying his libido.  You can not imagine how many times I watched him have sex with neighbor girls and women in the barn.  It was as if he had to have a conquest a day to keep the doctor away, especially when Mother was pregnant.  What’s he going to do when he finds out that I’m queer.  He’ll probably shoot me.”

I hugged Witt tighter, “Son, we’ll worry about that bridge when we come to it.  I wouldn’t classify you as queer.  We'd better go, before the others come looking for us.  I’m starved.  All I had for lunch was some soup.”

We met the other three guys as we were walking toward the trailer, Bobby complained, “I guess we can’t eat until we get cleaned up.  Dad and Witt look as if they were wrestling in oil.  I smell like horses and pigs, and Dad and Billy smell like they were playing all day.  Come on, Bill, we’ll take a shower first so the others can play games while we finish dinner.”

Randy was laughing, “Make sure you dress appropriately, because Grandmother and Granddad Adler are planning to pay us a visit tonight.”

We had just finished eating the meal that Witt and the guys had prepared, which was great.  The boys had had their first lesson in killing and plucking a chicken.  Bobby was complaining, “It was so bad that I couldn’t hardly watch.”

“None of the boys could watch what I was doing.  It’s sure easy to tell that they didn’t grow up on a farm.  Even Ritchie couldn’t watch.  Mr. Adler, your mother said she was going to report me to the animal rights group.  I reminded her that we weren’t having to pay all of the middle people to take care of the chickens so that they could make big bucks when she bought the chicken in the store.”

Witt surveyed the leftovers, “We can have hot chicken sandwiches at lunch tomorrow.  Come on, guys, let’s get the dishes done.”

Randy wanted me to look at something in the house.  When he asked me what I wanted to do, I shook my head no, “Randy, you’re the expert in this area.  Do what you think would be the best.  I’m sorry I can’t be here to help.  Have you and Ritchie discussed his wages yet?   I need to get some more cash, so I can pay him and Witt.  I guess I need to talk to Mrs. Hamilton and see the legal way to do it, since technically the guys are now our employees.”

Randy shrugged his shoulders, “You’re out of my league.  I guess you should talk to Uncle Mark and perhaps Mr. Rollins, as well.  You need to make it as easy as possible for all concerned.”

The guys were coming out of the trailer when Dad and Mom drove up.  Billy and Bobby ran to greet them.  I introduced Dad to Witt, since he had not met Witt, previously.  Mother started on Witt, “I suppose you’ll be killing a pig for dinner tomorrow night when I come.”

“Nah, I thought I’d wait until Saturday when Mr. Adler was here before I’d do that.  That’s something I can’t do by myself.”

Dad laughed, “I didn’t know I was going to be here, and besides I wouldn’t be much help, anyway.”

Randy asked, “Mom, I thought you were going to get your hair done this afternoon.  It doesn’t look any different than when we saw you earlier.”

Dad smirked, “She goes to get her hair done once a week whether it needs it or not.  She needs to keep current on all the gossip.”

Mother looked at me, “Henry, you need to explain to your Dad what …”

I ran my pointer finger of my right hand over my mouth and pointed to Billy and Bobby.  “Witt, go get your driver’s license.  Bobby and Billy, go get my wallet and car keys off the dresser in our bedroom.”

After the guys departed to do as they as they had been told. “Dad and Mother, the guys, especially Billy and Bobby don’t need to hear the gory details of everything that has been happening.  I’ll explain when they’ve gone.”

The three guys returned and handed me my wallet and my keys.  I detached the car keys from the school keys and pitched them to Witt.

“Witt, I want you to take Bobby and Billy with you to get new plugs for the tractor.  You might also get a new set of points while your at it.  That way you won’t have to be breaking your toe when you’re kicking the tractor.  Here, take this card and use it as a debit card.  The pin number is 2083.”

Witt started to get tears in his eyes, “Mr. Adler, I’ve never driven a car as new as yours.  I can’t believe you would even trust me to drive it.  Sir, I have no idea how to use a debit card.”

“Witt, the clerk at the Country Supply store will help you with the card.  Just make sure that you don’t let it out of your control.”

I opened my wallet, “Here, on the way home, I want the three of you to get a banana split or something special like that at the Tastee Freeze shop and I want to see the receipt and it had better not be for the cheapest thing on the menu.”

We watched as the three guys climbed into the car and Witt, tentatively started to drive toward the road.  After the guys were out of sight.  “I looked at my parents, “Dad and mother, this is as much as I know about the vandalism last night at the school.  Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Dailey, Mr. Baxter and Mr. Corn, whoever he is, are in jail.  They went through the school and painted filthy comments on all of the bathroom walls, except for one.  The last I heard, the police still had no idea who hung me in effigy on the front lawn of the school.”

Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the Sheriff’s cruiser.  Officer Godwin steeped out, “Hank, is everyone okay here?  Kent Overton has been trying to get in touch with you.  Why aren’t answering the phone?”

I threw up my hands, “We’ve been sitting out here talking to my parents.  I’ll go get the phone and see what Kent wants.”

“I can tell you why he’s trying to get in touch with you.  It seems that five of your former teachers were caught trying to get into the building tonight.”

“Say what?  I’ve been the principal for all of three days.  How can any of the teachers be called my teachers.  They all hate me.”

“Hank, call Sergeant Overton, he can give you the details.  We’ll have cruisers going by the entrance to the farm about every forty five minutes.  Make sure you call if there’s a problem.”

The three guys returned as Capt Godwin was getting in his cruiser,  Billy hopped out of the car, “Capt Godwin, you need to arrest Witt for going under the speed limit.  He was going so slow that even the caterpillars were passing us.”

Witt complained, “I was driving so slow because I didn’t want to hurt the caterpillars.  Besides, Mr. Adler will probably do a white glove inspection of the car to make sure that we didn’t put any more dents in it.  I'm afraid that he’ll see the marks of where you guys went to the bathroom out of the car windows.”

“Billy, give Mr. Adler his debit card so he doesn’t accuse us losing it, and Bobby, you give him the receipt for glasses of water and his change.  We need to go put these plugs and points in the beast to see if we can make it run.”

After the three young guys had departed, I called Sgt. Overton and put the phone on speaker so the parents and Randy could hear.  “This is Hank Adler, I had a message to call Sergeant Overton.”

“Just a moment, sir.  He’s talking on the other phone.”

“Hi, this is Kent Overton, thanks for calling, Hank  I’ve been trying to get in touch with you.  We have five of the Birchcrest staff members in custody for trying to enter the school, this evening.  They claim they were only trying to collect their belongings, since they would no longer be working there.”

I looked at my parents, “Why were they trying to sneak into the building when there was no one there.  It sounds to me as if they were after more than there personal belongings.  Could you tell me the names of the individuals involved?”

“Yes, Mrs. Heather Sumter, Mrs. Mary Squires, Mr. Tom Bloom, Mrs. Deidre Kipper and Mr. Lawrence Waxman.”

“I’m not surprised at Mrs. Sumter, Mrs. Squires or Mr. Bloom but I have no idea why Mrs. Kipper and Mr. Waxman would be involved.  What’s happening to the five people?”

“They’re being fingerprinted and will be charged with attempted breaking and entering.  They were seen throwing rocks at the windows, trying to get into the school.  Hank, we still have no idea who hung the dummy in the tree.  We’ll have patrols on duty until we get to the bottom of this.  Talk to you tomorrow.”

I had just hung up when Bobby appeared wearing only his briefs.  He was covered with grease.  “Dads, Witt wants to know if you have a set of Allen wrenches and a set socket wrenches.  He's still yelling at the machine.”

Randy answered, “Bobby, we have the socket wrenches in the house.  We were using them this afternoon.  I have no idea where the Allen wrenches might be.”
 

“Come with me, Mr. Bobby with oil all over.  Why are you wearing only your briefs?”

“Witt decided that it would be cheaper if we got only our briefs dirty since he doesn’t have many clothes.  Dad, he has even fewer than our Daddy has.  Daddy doesn’t need any more because he just wears yours.  There isn’t anyone else here the same size as Witt so he’s gotta be careful.”

Much to Witt’s chagrin, my parents followed Bobby and me to the shed with the Allen wrenches.  When he realized that there were visitors there he moaned, “I’ll be the laughing stock of the entire town when you tell everyone what you saw.  Would you older people please go away, so we can get this beast running properly?”

My Dad was sitting shaking his head, “That young man is a feisty one, isn’t he?”

Randy and I were sitting talking to my parents about everything that had happened and was happening, when we heard a loud roar and a jubilant scream.  The three guys came out of the shed on the tractor and it was running as if it was brand new.  The only problem was that Billy was driving the tractor while Bobby was sitting in Witt’s lap.  I realized that Billy wasn’t really driving the tractor.  He was just steering or thought he was steering.  The guys were still wearing only their briefs.

The guys parked the tractor and walked toward us with Witt holding the other two guys hands.  He grinned, “We figured the damage had already been done and we we’ll get our clothes in the morning.  We need to go get the grease and oil off of us so we’ll be beautiful.  I’ve heard that grease and oil do wonders for the complexion.  Goodnight, Mrs. and Mrs. Adler.  Dads, you need to come tuck us in after we get clean.”

Out the clear, my Dad stood in front of the three guys, “You three will report to our house at six o’clock tomorrow night, and there will be no excuses.  Is that understood?  You will be wearing clean underwear and clothes that will keep you from being attacked from all of the ladies in town.  Is that understood?”

“Don’t worry, Dad, I’ll make sure that the snail mobile is there on time.  I know how Mother detests having to wait.”

We watched as Witt, Billy and Bobby went into the trailer.  Dad and Mother went to get into their car and I asked, “I don’t suppose you’d care to share what’s going to happen.  You’ve already overwhelmed Billy and Bobby.  Witt may not be as easy to conquer as the two boys were.”

When Randy and I walked into the trailer Bobby and Billy were sitting on the sofa.  It was obvious they were clean.  Billy looked at us, “Dads, why did you sorta make it so we young people should disappear tonight?  When you do that, we think we did something wrong.  Witt was almost crying a little bit ago because he was afraid that you were going to kick him out.”

I took a deep breath, “Billy and Bobby, some things are happening at school that I didn’t think you needed to hear about.  That’s why I sent you on the errand to get the parts for the tractor.  Plus, Witt was able to overcome the evil machine.”

Billy frowned, “Devin already told us about what was painted in the two bathrooms.  He said he didn’t understand all the words he saw.”
 

“Guys, Devin only saw one bathroom.  The bad people had painted signs in all of the bathrooms except for one, and Billy’s old classroom was painted black with some not so nice words.  They also wrote nasty things all over the black top where older children will go for recess.”

Billy looked up at me, “Dad, I still don’t understand why you couldn’t talk about things like that in front of Bobby and me.”

I was saved from answering by the return of Witt, “Come on, guys, I’ll read to you while your Dads are getting ready for bed.”

When Randy and I had our showers, we went to say goodnight to the guys.  Billy and Bobby were lying on either side of Witt and he we was reading a story about a boy and his dog.  I leaned down and kissed Bobby, “Goodnight, son.”

I moved to Billy on the other side of the bed and did likewise.  I looked at Witt and thought, ‘What the hell, why not?’  and did the same to him.

I rather expected an explosion but nothing happened until Randy and I were in bed.  There was a knock on the door.  Witt was standing there.  “Mr. Adler and Mr. Taylor, please don’t do what you did to me again tonight unless you mean it.  I haven’t had anyone one kiss me goodnight for a very long time.  I know that you both love Billy and Bobby, but you don’t even really know me.  I’m confused as to why Mr. Adler’s parents practically ordered us to appear at their doorstep tomorrow night.”

“Witt, I’ve known my parents for over 30 years and I still haven’t been able to figure them out.  They’re like spirits floating in the night and take on different forms and shapes.  Just go and have a good time.  They won’t send you to the slammer for embarrassing them with your obscene equipment tonight.”

That was more than Witt could handle, “I’m going to bed.”

“Good night, son.  Just make sure you don’t make too much noise while you’re playing with your tool.  Me and Randy need our sleep.”

Witt turned, “Goodnight Dads, I’ll try to not drown you out of your room by morning.”

To be continued...

Editor's Notes:  We sure have had a lot of excitement lately, haven't we?

I think that Witt is learning that he is actually cared about, and that he is worth loving. 

I think that Hank and Randy need to realize that Billy and Bobby know more than the dads think they do.  With kids as bright as they are, parents need to be honest with them.  They will hear things and figure out what is going on, and feel hurt that their parents don't trust them enough to tell them the truth.

It is sad that parents often think of their kids as too young to know things, and therefore don't teach them the things that they really need to know.

I sure hope the police get to the bottom of the situation with the vandalism, and put a stop to it, once and for all.

Maybe we will find out more, next time.

Darryl AKA The Radio Rancher

Posted: 06/04/10