Leaving Lemon: A White Trash Odyssey Part Two

I have dwelt ever in realms apart from the visible world; spending my youth and adolescence in ancient and little-known books, and in roaming the fields and groves of the region near my ancestral home. I do not think that what I read in these books or saw in these fields and groves was exactly what other boys read and saw there; but of this I must say little, since detailed speech would but confirm those cruel slanders upon my intellect which I sometimes overhear from the whispers of the stealthy attendants around me.

- H.P. Lovecraft, "The Tomb"

Two: If That Ain't Country, I'll Kiss Your Ass

Lemon is actually a nice little area, with green, gently rolling hills, farms, and nice homesteads. So, it is kind of a shock to the eyes to see the McMillan home in all of its ramshackle glory, sort of like a big pimple on a supermodel’s ass. To be fair, the half-mile area surrounding the family domicile is of a similar blighted nature; next door is an auto-junkyard, and just up the side road is the remains of what was once the Shep’s Cheese Plant, where apparently, they made cheese. Shep’s had been abandoned for quite a few years in my childhood before it was bought by a company called Siltex which extracted silver from x-rays. Then the bottom fell out of that particular industry, the owners took off, and the place burned to the ground, making it quite a cool place for young boys to risk life and limb performing inane (but fun!) shenanigans and various kinds of hoot'n'anny.

A half mile from the homestead is the intersection of Route 29 with Kaiserville Road, a strategic spot for both a little country store and the previously mentioned Teakettle Tavern bar, where my dear-old Mum used to both bar-tend and imbibe. The bar did indeed have its own country charm, and was a valuable part of the Lemon community, providing much needed alcoholic succor to the many varied red-neck inhabitants. The downside to the bar’s location was the tendency of drunks to ram their vehicles into the McMillan family cars parked in our driveway next to Route 29. That happened three or four times. I started sleeping through the crashes, which transpired right outside my bedroom window, after the second one. Funny, I also started sleeping through mortar attacks on my camp in Iraq after the first half-dozen. Not the best survival adaptation, is it? Anyway, they tore down the Teakettle a few years ago, which left me feeling a little sad for the local boozers-- where would they go to drink their cares away and soak up the smokey atmosphere before driving into our family car? I was happy to see that they put up a convenience store that sold six-packs, thus keeping the flow of sweet, sweet alcohol...er...flowing.

I grew up in an old house built during the Civil War. There were a few additions over the years, including electricity and indoor plumbing. Fast forward to modern times, and the house was owned by Uncle Henry’s son Guy (Who the hell names a kid ‘Guy’? Why not just go ahead and name him ‘Fella’, or ‘Dude’ or ‘You’?) who leased the house to Mom and Dad, as a rent-to-own deal. The family moved into the house in the early to mid ‘70s. I doubt there was ever central heat, just a wood stove in the living room, and what was once a gas stove in the kitchen which is now also a wood stove. Before I turned five we had running hot and cold water and a working toilet. After I turned five, we didn’t. Ever. We had running cold water - intermittently. Every few years the well pump would stop working and we’d have to get water elsewhere - from a pipe alongside a dirt road. Seriously. One of the containers was a bullet-type dispenser painted red inside and out. The paint would flake off into the water. That we drank. If the paint was indeed lead, it would also help explain my inability to do math in my head and my complete lack of a sense of direction. As for the toilet - oh, it gets worse. When the septic system broke, Dad made a token effort to fix it by digging up the pipes, but he never got around to finish fixing the problem. So, we had to empty the toilet by hand. You read that right. We would have to scoop up the nastiness into a bucket and empty it onto The Poop Pile in the back yard. Yes, The Poop Pile. In the backyard. But Mom did have a pretty flower garden, which I guess balanced out the fact that we had a pile of human waste out back and lived right next to an auto junkyard.

The linoleum in the kitchen was cracked, peeling, and buckling in some places. Where there were wood floors, the wood was splintery. The chimney pipes passed through two of the upstairs bedrooms, and often leaked smoke. Into bedrooms. Where we slept. But, we did have cable. The basement could have been a great set for any horror flick - dark, dank, musty, and oft times flooded. As a small child I used to think alligators lived down there. In retrospect, I doubt any living thing could survive long in that environment. Yet, amidst all of this squalor, Mom liked to collect knick knacks of various kinds, and even had a room to display them in, complete with a fancy-looking couch and expensive looking rug. We couldn’t flush our toilet, but Mom had a fancy sitting room. If one of us accidentally broke something, Mom would have the incredible gall to actually say, “I can never have nice things!” I shit you not. The human mind is an amazing thing, when you think about it.

Until my early teen years, the family had animals of the barnyard variety: chickens, rabbits, and a goat. Yes, a goat. I never knew why exactly we had chickens, but the rabbits were pets, as was the goat. Spring Rose was her name, but the detail which raises this from simply having an unusual pet into the hallowed halls of White Trashdom, aside from her love of chewing tobacco, was the fact that at one time, the goat was tied to a white mustang, on blocks, in the back yard. Beat that David Allen Coe!1

Speaking of animals, McMillan pets were always, believe it or not (and by now, I'm sure you do) strange, strange critters, and I mean every one we ever had. What are the odds they would all be insane? Was the house built on an ancient Indian burial site? Does my family give off so much weirdness it infects nature? The three pets we had the longest were with us simultaneously. Leona (Leo) was a Siamese cat rescued from getting her head chopped off by Uncle Butch. In fact, I think Mom took the cat literally off the chopping block after Leo scratched Uncle Butch and he wigged, big time. Leo was independent and opinionated (hard to imagine in an animal, but she managed), yet also affectionate and loving, especially to kittens: both hers (she had many litters in her time - she was kind of a slut) and not hers. Leo also didn’t back down for anything, which almost got her killed at least twice. The first obviously was when she showed Uncle Butch her opinion of him in no uncertain terms, and the second was when Ezekiel and Aisha lived with us. They had a big, dumb dog of uncertain breeding by the name of Bogart. Bogart got in Leo’s face one time too many, and she didn’t let the fact that he was four times her size deter her from throwing down on him. Unfortunately, the fight didn’t go well for her. Bogart hurt Leo badly, and it was touch and go whether she’d pull through. Another aftermath was Mom flipped out on Zeke and Aisha and, for the first time I’d ever heard in my life, dropped the F-bomb - four or five times, actually. Mom had no problem using every other swear word in the English language, but I’d never heard that word out of her mouth before then. Leo eventually recovered, but she was never quite the same. She lived to the ripe old cat age of 17, dying of natural causes.

Lady was a dachshund who the family had owned since Abraham was young. She was a kind, loving dog, and protective of Jacob until he left to join the Army, then Abe, and upon his departure for the Service, me. (She never liked Zachariah, and if he and Abe were having one of their knock down, drag-out fights they used to get into when they were teenagers, Lady would bark and try to bite Zach.) For as long as I can remember Lady didn’t have her front teeth (so really she could only gum Zach) but she managed to get along fine. She lived to be 18, a very long time for a dog. Unfortunately during her last months she grew too sick to move, and she fell into a comatose state until she died. I realize now that we should have had her put to sleep when she got that sick. Unfortunately that would have involved shooting her in the face with a large-caliber pistol, which I wasn’t down with.

The last of the long-lived McMillan pets was Lex, and he was a vicious little sumabitch. A black toy poodle with a Napoleon Complex a mile wide, that lil’ bastard bit me more times in my life than Darrell Strawberry’s been busted for blow. It wasn’t his viciousness that set him apart from normal family pets, it was why he would act like a pint size personal injury lawyer that gives him a place in the hallowed annals of Strange Pets. If that lil’ shit got a hold of a piece of bread (and only bread) he would take it under the couch (Mom’s couch) and guard it like it was the Royal Crown Jewels, growling, barking angrily, then biting. Every damn time. The only human being immune to his anger was – wait for it - Mom. Only Mom could tame the savage beast. Lex adored her, and was her little evil-tempered lap dog. He never so much as bared his teeth at her. Maybe he just acquiesced to her superior malevolence. Lex was hit by cars on at least two separate occasions, so maybe these injuries altered his brainwave patterns and that’s why he was a tiny psychopath. I dunno, but he remained one until he died after 17 years of disgruntled, vicious, angry "life."

We had other pets through the years (including the previously mentioned goat), though none as long lived as Leo, Lady and Lex. There were some who were otherwise exceptional, however. One of the places Jacob and Myrna lived had a wild mother cat and her litter. One of the kittens was exceptionally cute and fluffy, so I captured him for Mom when I was in sixth grade. I tamed the little guy and earned his trust. Because he was so cute and tiny, we named him Baby. So, of course, he grew up to be friggin’ huge - maybe the biggest house cat I’ve ever seen, before or since. He was a gentle kitty with us. With the wildlife out in the yard, however, he was a killing machine. I came home from school one day, when Mom and Dad were both working, walked through the front door into the kitchen which, unbeknownst to me, had become a charnel house. I first realized things were amiss when I stepped on something squishy. Looking down in disgust, I saw I had stepped on a murdered mole. Aghast, I looked around the kitchen and spied at least five or six similarly slaughtered rodents of various shapes and sizes, the largest of which was about as big as a hefty guinea pig, but whose species was unidentifiable. All were artfully arranged as a sign of our kitty serial killer’s love and devotion. It was rodent genocide. Fortunately, Baby never repeated his loving offering of mass murder. Unfortunately, after a few years Baby was hit by a car and killed.

Aside from cats, dogs, rabbits, and a goat, I also had and a baby skunk. No idea how I got the baby skunk, but I had him. His name, of course, was Flower. I didn’t have him long, however, because Jedidiah left his cage open one night after feeding him and Flower either ran to freedom or was eaten by something.

A chubby female lop-ear named Fred was perhaps the cutest of the many rabbits I had over the years. She was the cutest - and the angriest. The angriest bunny ever. Ever hear a bunny make angry noises? I have. If you would attempt to pet her, or even put your hand near her, she would bare her teeth, grunt (almost a snarl, really) and try to bite you. Similar in temperament (seeing a pattern here?) was Mom’s cockatoo, the aptly named Rebel. He was taught to whistle “pretty bird,” “pretty boy,” and “pretty Rebel.” In addition to being surly, he was also vain. Like the bunny, he would try to bite, literally, the hand that fed him. I cannot fathom why either animal was so angry. I guess they were just McMillan.

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