Moonshine, Whiskey, rats, and snakes

Moonshine whiskey snakes and Rats

Jake, Jake Bishop. That’s my name. I come from a little place in the rolling mountains of Kentucky called Muddy Fork. It’s just a speck of a place really but to me and my kin, it’s home. When I was growing up there, we didn’t have much of value other than our faith, family, and good intentions. Of course, sometimes our family can cause us such aggravation it’s a good thing we’ve got faith because even the best of intentions can go south in a hurry.

***

One sunny July day, when I was younger but old enough to know right from what was wrong, I was sitting on the porch of my Granny Bishop’s house just outside my hometown of Muddy Fork, Kentucky. Of course, lots of the homes out where I lived weren’t ‘houses’ the way most people think of house. They’re more along the lines of shacks, to be true. But it didn’t matter what we lived in cause it was always just home.

On this particular day it was hotter than hot and Granny was puffing on her clay tobacco pipe under the shade of her porch. And I sat there trying to keep myself as cool as possible. We were talking about something, what it was escapes my mind because Grandma stopped talking and squinted as she looked at someone coming down the dirt road. “Jake, is that your Uncle Calvin?” She took a big puff and put on a displeased frown.

I looked up and spotted my Uncle Calvin coming towards us on his old mule. Only he was bobbing on top of the thing the way float bobs up and down on a lake when you’ve snagged a good sized catfish. “Yes, ma’am. And he looks to be drunk, too.”

“Mercy. I’d rather see Satan coming for a visit as your love sick Uncle Calvin. Ever since his woman done run off with that traveling preacher, he been drunk and nothing but trouble, I tell you. Nothing but trouble.”

My grandma was surely disgusted and I could understand why, too. My uncle was so drunk, you’d of thought a half-way strong wind might knock him plumb to the ground the way he sat on his mule. He didn’t even look to leading his mule. No. Honest, it looked like Calvin’s mule was leading Calvin… straight to the hitching post my grandma has near the yard gate. Must have been on account of that mule’s been to Granny’s so often.

We watched and shook our heads as Calvin fell off his mule, hard, into the sand in the lane and hits the ground hard, face first.

I heard my grandma chuckle. “That man is so drunk he don’t even know he’s in the world. Come tomorrow though, his face is gonna know it.” She shook her head and pointed at Calvin with her tobacco pipe stem' “Go fetch that drunk rascal and drag his hide here to the porch. If he stays out in this July sun much longer it’s so hot it’ll bake him to a crisp in a matter of minutes.

“Yes, ma’am.” I wasn’t too happy about it though cause the reason I was under the porch in the first place was to avoid the sun. I broke a sweat just walking to get to him. And working to get Calvin to the porch was like pulling a bear. It probably wouldn’t of been so bad if he

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Lektorat: Avery Brown
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 14.02.2015
ISBN: 978-3-7368-7799-3

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Dedicated to Avery Brown the editor of this story