In Red Evans wonderful new novel, On Ice, twelve-year-old Eldy along with his sidekicks, Felton Haliday and a farting dog appropriately named Whistler, embark on the ultimate road trip.
Eldy, with all the salesmanship of a 3:00 AM infomercial, talks Felton into using his 1959 Studebaker pick-up, pea green of course, into the simple task of transporting a corpse from Appalachia to Louisiana in a kiddy pool of ice. Naturally, Whistler tags along, and saves the day for the intrepid travelers more than once. Simple, right? Well, not exactly.
This engaging novel will touch your heart and tickle your funny bone, an unlikely combination in today’s cynical environment. Try it and see; you’ll be back for more.
George Pope, South Carolina poet and aspiring author
On Ice is available at all book stores and on line at Amazon books.com or Barnes and Noble Booksellers.
]]>Brubaker’s face twisted, mouth twitched with doubt, but he finally gripped the sides of the truck and looked over the rail. It seemed like it was a full minute before it sunk in that it was a dead man staring at him through painter’s plastic and a million ice cubes. Myself, I thought Tyrane looked nice in the kiddy pool with them green, red and yellow smiling fish, happy turtles and dancing crabs and all, like one of them castles in the aquarium in my dentist’s office.
Brubaker’s eyes popped wide, and his jaw dropped open. He looked like a person in the funny papers, you know, when his hat jumps straight up. A jowly fella to start with, his cheeks fluttered like his other cheeks when they expelled air.
“My God, there’s a dead man in this truck!” He stepped back from the Studebaker, but I guess he still couldn’t believe it, because he jerked himself against the truck to look again. He shouted incredulous, “He’s covered with ice! There’s fish and turtles. My God, it’s ... it’s a kiddy pool! There’s a dead man in a kiddy pool!”
Felton explained quickly, while trying to maintain a sad attitude, “Yeah, well it was the only way to keep him on ice for a long drive. The fish and turtles are a nice touch though, don’t you think? Eldridge’s friend, Peepee Ping Pong let us have the kiddy pool. It don’t leak or nothing.”
Brubaker began clawing at his pistol. He pulled at it twice before remembering to unhook the safety loop that kept it from falling out in the car.
I was bawling as loud as I could. A crowd had gathered, and as it grew larger, I cried that much more. Felton made a big show of patting my head and telling me not to cry, that it would be all right. “The nice officer,” he said, “would not think of interfering with the proper internment of a boy’s dear departed Daddy.” Felton added real loud for the crowd to hear, “…especially without a proper search warrant, after the boy had gone through so much to be with him at his final hour!”
Felton put his hands up in protest when Brubaker drew his gun, but I don’t think it scared him that much. He soothingly said, “Be easy, Sheriff. There ain’t no cause to get excited. There ain’t no reason for firearms just because you crucified this boy’s inalienable rights.”
Brubaker was excited, and I think he was scared, too. He must have thought he was facing two bloodthirsty serial killers or at least dangerous desperados. He might have broke the law himself, too. His voice got higher and crackled, “P-p-put y-your h-hands up! You’re under arrest.” He pointed the gun at Felton first and then at me, ‘cause I let out a wail like a dying elephant.
“You got a warrant for that, too?” Felton asked innocently. “You sure as shootin’ don’t want to stomp on another inalienable right, you know.”
A woman in the crowd started laughing real shrill. She was all painted up with thick red lipstick, and her boobs threatened to jump out of her low-cut blouse. She hollered, “Will that gun go off, Bru baby? The one you had out earlier didn’t have no bullets, and you couldn’t aim it.” The crowd laughed and hooted like crazy.
Someone else asked, “Did you put in that bullet they gave you to play with, Brubaker?”
Brubaker spun around, shocked to see the crowd that had gathered—truck drivers, traveling strangers who had stopped for a bite to eat, and a number of painted, hard-looking women that Felton told me later were prostitutions. When Felton started to speak again, the Sergeant spun toward him, then back and back again. Somebody yelled that he was gonna screw himself into the pavement.
The bikers were there, too, hanging back from the rest, just watching the whole thing. A few of them had helmets, but all wore something leather - jacket, pants or both, and snake skin boots so much alike, they might have been part of uniforms - and it looked like razors had never met their faces.
Felton started to say something, but Brubaker got down like a crab and stuck the gun out in front of him holding it in both hands. “G-get ‘em up, I said. D-don’t move. Don’t move.” He fumbled at his belt a few seconds, I guess for some handcuffs. His face was white as a sheet and sweat poured into his collar turning the blue material near black.
“O-o-one of y’all g-go to m-my car over there and get my handcuffs. These are real dangerous men I’ve got here.” He released the gun with one hand and with a shaking finger pointed at the Studebaker. “Th-there’s a man’s body in a kiddy pool in th-that truck. It’s got fish and turtles, too!” he said to the watchers. Nobody moved. Instead, they grinned at each other and at Felton, who was trying not to grin. One man’s eyebrows arched and he mouthed the words, “kiddy pool?”
I heard somebody in the crowd say, “Dangerous men? C’mon Brubaker, hells bells, the boy couldn’t be no more than twelve years old. What’s the matter with you? Listen to what the man has to say.”
]]>I thought about this while working on a follow up story to ON ICE which if you like it, I'm dead letter certain that you'll enjoy On Ice. Click HERE to order.
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One of the things I miss from my youth in my home town of North Charleston, South Carolina is going to the movies on Saturday afternoon. It was something I looked forward to every week unless my mother was going take me to downtown Charleston which was even better, because I knew that before we got home, she would let me go the S.H. Kress five and dime store on King Street.
Now, Kress’ had a killer toy department where I would spend most of my time ... time, not money. I spent a dime of the fifty cents my mother gave me for these excursions but not in the toy department. Oh no, I headed for the candy counter to buy my second favorite candy, little chocolate discs sprinkled with tiny white sugar dots. I don’t remember what they were called.
Occasionally, if I had done some extra chore, I had a few cents more which I did spend in the toy department, usually for lead soldiers or a tin car.
My first favorite candy was what we, my brother, and I got at the Port Theater at the afternoon movie matinee: Milk Duds. By the time I left the adolescent phase of my life, I had consumed in the neighborhood of 80 million Milk Duds, Quite a neighborhood.
I thought Milk Duds were organic, grown somewhere around the theater, because they always had milk duds. They were out of some things at one time or another, but never out of milk duds. I thought there was a Milk Dud tree or bush hidden by the fence behind the theater’s Quonset style building.
I even snuck back there one time thinking that if I could find the milk dud tree, I could have all the milk duds I ever wanted. Since the theater was only five blocks from home, I could go by there after school and pick me some milk duds and wouldn’t have to wait for Saturday. I’d bring in my best buddy, Snicky, to go with me.
One afternoon, me and snicky slipped around back of the theater to look for the Milk Dud tree. We found an old milk crate and used it to help climb the fence. We sat astraddle the top and surveyed the trash-strewn area behind the theater service entrance.
Three trees, one oak, a gum tree and a chinaberry tree, the berries of which, for a minute, I thought were unripe milk duds. Snicky said he had seen a chinaberry tree before and that was what that tree was. There were a few buttonbushes too, but no Milk Dud tree. We finally concluded that Milk Duds were probably farmed on John’s Island, just South of Charleston and were delivered weekly to the Port Theater.
Soon, Snicky and I discovered girls and the origin of Milk Duds plummeted as a priority in our life. I don’t recall how long we believed they were a product of agriculture. I think trying to understand girls became of greater importance to me. However, I never solved that riddle either.
To read excerpts from Red Evans novel, On Ice, click HERE.
]]>Bright lights! Damn! Where did all those bright lights come from and why is everything white? Is this heaven? What is that plastic bottle doing there, glistening against the light? And - and what is that long clear tube doing? Oh my god, it’s attached to me!
That is when I understood I was in a hospital. The IV tube gave it away. What happened started coming back a little at a time. First, there were muffled voices, a concerned look on my wife’s face, men in white jackets doing things to me, suspension in a prone position like a magician’s assistant. Laughter, sudden, uncontrollable laughter...Yes, I remember now But, how is that I’m in the hospital?
“How’re you feeling?” A man’s voice inquired concernedly.
I looked to my left; an empty bed and plastic flowers on a metal stand; they needed water.
I looked right. There was a man in a metallic grey business suit standing beside my bed. His expression was stern but emanated apprehensive concern.
Spiffy, That’s what I thought, he was “spiffy”. The suit was supposed to look expensive, but I think it came from Mrs. Murphy’s Aluminum Siding and Haberdashery Boutique – designed by Alcoa. The knot in his cheap necktie was dark from sweaty fingers. He had a yellow legal pad in his hand and his other hand was poised over it with a Bic pen.
“How’re you feeling,” he repeated.
“Everything hurts.” I said and started to touch my forehead but the IV tube restricted my movement. My other hand told me that I had a bandage around my head. I suddenly realized that the apparition below me was my left leg suspended in traction. Then, I realized something else hurt too ... real bad. I reached under the sheet, groped, groped some more, a bandage? I didn’t ask about that, instead I said, “Is my leg broken?”
“Simple fracture, the doctor told me.” He replied. “You’ll be out of here in a few days, I’m sure.”
“Who are you? What do you want? You’re not a doctor. They wear better suits and have one of those thingies around their necks. You know a spthoscop...uh, spetho...”
“Stethoscope. I’m from the insurance company. I have a few questions.”
“Like what?”
“Whose cat was it?”
“My wife’s and when I get home I’m going to drown it in the toilet. What happened after the little shit ...”
“It was an accident, okay. Purely accidental, I can assure you it was unavoidable.”
“alright already, I hear you.” I demanded, “Just tell me what happened. All I remember is that I was taking a shower when my wife yelled that the kitchen sink was clogged up. I put a towel around me and went in the kitchen. Damn woman was almost in hysterics. I got down and stuck my head under the sink and my towel came loose.” It was coming back to me now. That damn cat loves to play with dangling things.
Sudden, awful pain, like a red hot poker to my privates. No, it was worse. It was as awful as when - when Dale Earnhardt missed the NASCAR Nextel cup chase.
After what happened crystallized in my mind, I went on, “The little furry bastard decided he would claw any dadgum swinging thing he sees and went for the nearest with them sharp claws and I hit my head on the under side of the sink.”
The aluminum suit said nothing, waited for me to continue. He acted apprehensive, like he was in deep doodoo when, in fact, it was me that was in the doodoo. “I don’t know what happened after that, do you know?”
His face colored and he hemmed and hawed, finally blurting out that he represented the private ambulance service.
He said with all the sincerity he could muster, “We accept full responsibility, sir. I assure you it was an accident. I’m ready to offer you a most liberal settlement, sir. Your wife explained what happened as they were taking you down the steps and the attendants got so overcome with laughter that they dropped you and broke your leg. The doctors say you’ll be good as new, walking just fine. They didn’t have anything to with what happened to your balls, I mean your testicles.” He hid a snicker behind his fist. “You can, well, you know, you can, uh function normally in, you know ...uh when you’re aroused. As soon as they take out the stitches, I mean.”
“Are you an animal lover?” I asked him.
“Well, my wife and I do have a pet. Why do you ask?”
“Your settlement will have to be pretty damn high to save that damn cat’s life!”
You can read more writings of mine at myspace.com/redevansauthor. You can click on KUNATI to see other novels published by, a cutting edge publisher of fiction.
]]>The airlines say in their commercials that they offer comfort, convenience and prompt service. If you are vertically challenged and you can actually move your legs in the seat without requiring knee replacement, you might be comfortable. Of course, you may have the misfortune to have a seatmate whose deodorant has crashed and whose armpits are closer to your nose than his/her own, in which case, comfort is of less importance than clean air.
I remember a flight in which the woman who sat next to me must have bathed in a vat of honeysuckle oil. By the time I got off the plane, I needed a respirator.
Security has been ratcheted to a level no one could have anticipated, but all of us reluctantly accepted. Travelers made concessions to the new stringent measures but no one else has, certainly not the airlines or other institutions. Since 9/11, flight delays, late arrivals and other inconveniences have multiplied, straining the patience of any traveler, even Jobe would have lost his patience if chariot travel was as bad.
My wife and I recently went to the Charleston, South Carolina Airport to retrieve my visiting brother arriving from Milwaukee on a flight scheduled to arrive at 12:16 pm. Time constraints for me, with my new novel On Ice (to order click HERE) on book shelves, are tighter than a gnat's butt. To allow time for my brother to collect his luggage, we were deliberately late by more than ten minutes. In the pick-up lane, there were two rent-a-cops in little white high-tech helmets sitting on bicycles looking like Rottweilers with pork knuckles. “Pull up right here,” I told my wife, and then glanced at my watch, “I’ll run in and check to be sure the plane is down.” With some concern, I noted that if the plane was down, there would be some activity on the sidewalk, but it looked as deserted as a scene in a sci-fi movie – nobody around but the biker Gestapo.
I naturally assumed that a thirty to forty second dash into the terminal for a glance at one of those screens located all over the terminal while my wife waited at the curb would not lead to gunfire. I was wrong, well, maybe it didn’t lead to gunfire, but one cop stroked his weapon while licking his lips.
I opened the car door, put one foot on the curb and was immediately confronted by a helmeted man no more than five feet four who met his vertical challenge by berating motorists who violated curb space for which he was responsible. Waving a billy club like a Chinese goon in Tiananmen Square, he snarled, “Move along there, no stopping!”
I said, “I’m just gonna check to see if a flight is on the ground. I won’t be but ...”
“You can’t park here,” he snapped, “move along, smartly now, smartly!”
“It won’t take but a few seconds.” I pleaded.
“I don’t care!” he said loudly, and for a second or so, I thought he was going to arrest me, “YOU CAN’T PARK HERE!”
Twenty yards back, I noticed the other Rottweiler also waving cars away from the curb. A third helmeted cop, probably the supervisor of the other two, rode by on his bicycle pedaling like Lance Armstrong in the Tour De France and zig-zagging in and out of the slow-moving traffic.
Hurriedly, I turned to my wife and said, “You’ll have to go around, Barney Fife here is feeling his oats.”
My wife said, “Maybe we should park in short term ...”
“What’d you call me?” the cop demanded.
“Go around,” I urged again, “go, go!”
I ignored the cop’s question and hurried inside as my wife pulled away from the curb. I figured he was too young to know who Barney Fife was anyway.
Inside I found the schedule screen and let my eye travel down until I saw my brother’s flight. There it is, I thought, arrival time 12:16. My eye followed the little green dotted line to “On Time”. I looked at my watch, which read 12:30. I slowly looked around the cavernous terminal which looked like the railroad station scene in “The Untouchables”. It was almost empty, and particularly so at the baggage claim area. If the flight was on time, where were the deplaned passengers?
The counter where I could inquire was at the opposite end of the terminal, which, since, at 74 years young, it might as well have been in California, I went back outside to await my wife’s return. Five minutes later, she eyed the cop as she went by him and then suddenly snapped the van to the curb. Three Rottweilers began furiously pedaling toward us, little sci-fi helmets bobbing rhythmically.
I wondered if one of the specifications for bike riding helmets was that they must look foolish to be effective.
I gestured at my wife to lower the electric window, but with the death squad bearing down on me, I didn’t wait and opened the door, “Keep going around!” I shouted, “I don’t think the plane is down yet.”
“Is it on time?” she shouted back.
“I don’t think so.”
I heard a whistle blow ominously.
“GO! GO!” I slammed the van door and ran inside. My wife pulled away. The bike squad panted to a stop but didn’t follow me inside.
It was now 12:40, almost thirty minutes after the arrival time and the screen still said “On Time”. I began to wonder that maybe the airlines consider on time as being the same day. Ten minutes later one of the baggage conveyors got underway, but it was for the arrival of another flight.
Almost an hour after we arrived at the airport, I noticed more activity at the gate area and spotted my brother threading his way toward me. After a hug, we went to the baggage conveyor to get his luggage. Luggage came up a conveyor belt one at a time separated by at least thirty feet of belt. I remarked to a woman standing next to us that the man handling the baggage must be too small to handle more than one bag at a time. She nodded knowingly and said, “It’s a woman. I saw her myself and she couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds soaking wet.” I noticed the schedule screen still had my brother’s flight listed as “On Time”.
We finally got his bags and started outside. I saw the screen changing from “On Time” to “Arrived” for my brother’s flight. Outside, we weathered the glares of the three stooges on bikes while we waited for my wife to come around again. I found out later that she cycled around five times, about ten miles at thirty miles an hour.
Here’s the rub: the air travel industry doesn’t give a hoot in hell about inconveniencing the traveling public and now has an excuse. Don’t look at us, it’s the terrorists fault.
Late arrivals and delayed flights have proliferated beyond all reason, creating a mess for passengers and those trying to collect them at terminals. It seems like a little thing that legend “On Time”, but if it had been changed to reflect the real situation, we would have used short-term parking.
Unreasonable attitudes by traffic police exacerbate the problem. Has it not entered those silly little helmets that some brief parking is necessary, and can’t they approach their responsibilities with at least some concern for people?
As we drove away from the airport, my brother said incredulously, “They took my toothpaste!”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“No, they took my dadgum toothpaste. Not only that, when they did, they ranted at me as if I was the control agent of a terrorist cell!”
Click on his LINK to read more about Red Evans new novel On Ice.
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