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Authors: Kinky Friedman
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him like a biblical shepherd. Two severe strokes and the gout had slowed him considerably but they hadn’t stopped him. He took me into his house, where the furniture and the pictures on the wall seemed to keep the past alive and the television appeared to run “Wheel of Fortune” on an endless loop.
Earl studied the obituary notices for a long time, slowly shaking his head.
“You don’t know any of them?” I asked.
“Don’t know them,” he said, “but I do know widow women. And there’s three things you should never try to do. Never try to climb a barbed wire fence leanin’ toward you. Never try to kiss a girl leanin’ away from you. And never try to get a widow woman to tell you the truth about her age.”
I sat back in the rocker, the one that had belonged to Earl’s grandfather who’d been captured by the Indians—but that was another story, and one that I didn’t wish for Earl to launch into at this time. I thought about the widow women. Of course, they’d all been widows. A small detail maybe, but it might be important.
“How would I get their correct ages?” I asked.
“You could try thinking about a marriage license.”
“Earl,” I said. “This is so sudden.”
Earl laughed. I rocked and thought it over. If I got my ass out of the rocking chair there was still time to get to the courthouse before the Comanches got me. But there was something seductive about Earl’s place. Before I knew it, he was telling me about his adventures in Tahiti, which he pronounced in about eleven different ways, pausing only to spit Red Man chewing tobacco into a coffee can on the floor. I rocked comfortably in the chair, smoked my cigar, and listened to the tale I’d heard many times before, almost as if it were a modern mantra. Listening to old people and young people was a hell of a lot better than just listening to middle-aged nerds, I thought. It was certainly better than listening to yourself.
Eventually, Earl wound down and he painfully walked me out to the gate. I thanked him for his help, though I had my doubts about how much light it might shed on the investigation. I was climbing into Dusty when another thought struck me.
“Earl, have you ever heard of a cotillion?”
“Hell,” he said, “everybody knows what that is. It’s a long-necked lizard from West Texas.”
A little over an hour later I was standing under a shade tree outside the Kerr County courthouse with five copies of marriage license applications in my hands. Earl Buckelew had been right. The obituaries had been wrong. Almost all of the widow women had lied about their ages.
I took out a pen and small notepad and began doing some quick calibrations, subtracting the year each woman was born from the year she’d died, which was for all of them the current year. I put my pen and pad away after the first two. It wasn’t necessary. The pattern was not only abundantly evident, it was crazier than you’d be likely to find on a quilt. It made me almost shiver under the shade tree.
Each of the five, at the time of her death, had been exactly seventy-six years old.
Happy Birthday.
CHAPTER 16
June shed its cocoon; July opened one eye. The summer was rolling obliviously along like a wayward beachball thrown onto the field of a nationally televised sporting event by some California sicko. Over a week had passed since I’d stood on the lawn of the Kerr County courthouse and uncovered a dark secret under the summer sun. I’d kept it to myself. One reason was the horrific nature of some of its possible interpretations. Another reason was that most of the people I talked to these days were about three feet tall. They weren’t ready for it yet. I wasn’t sure that I was, either.
It was Sunday and I was joining the Bronco Busters’ table in the dining hall for lunch. Everyone at the table was seven or eight years old except Ben and Eric, the two counselors, who sat on either side of the little group like enormous bookends. Sunday
Earl studied the obituary notices for a long time, slowly shaking his head.
“You don’t know any of them?” I asked.
“Don’t know them,” he said, “but I do know widow women. And there’s three things you should never try to do. Never try to climb a barbed wire fence leanin’ toward you. Never try to kiss a girl leanin’ away from you. And never try to get a widow woman to tell you the truth about her age.”
I sat back in the rocker, the one that had belonged to Earl’s grandfather who’d been captured by the Indians—but that was another story, and one that I didn’t wish for Earl to launch into at this time. I thought about the widow women. Of course, they’d all been widows. A small detail maybe, but it might be important.
“How would I get their correct ages?” I asked.
“You could try thinking about a marriage license.”
“Earl,” I said. “This is so sudden.”
Earl laughed. I rocked and thought it over. If I got my ass out of the rocking chair there was still time to get to the courthouse before the Comanches got me. But there was something seductive about Earl’s place. Before I knew it, he was telling me about his adventures in Tahiti, which he pronounced in about eleven different ways, pausing only to spit Red Man chewing tobacco into a coffee can on the floor. I rocked comfortably in the chair, smoked my cigar, and listened to the tale I’d heard many times before, almost as if it were a modern mantra. Listening to old people and young people was a hell of a lot better than just listening to middle-aged nerds, I thought. It was certainly better than listening to yourself.
Eventually, Earl wound down and he painfully walked me out to the gate. I thanked him for his help, though I had my doubts about how much light it might shed on the investigation. I was climbing into Dusty when another thought struck me.
“Earl, have you ever heard of a cotillion?”
“Hell,” he said, “everybody knows what that is. It’s a long-necked lizard from West Texas.”
A little over an hour later I was standing under a shade tree outside the Kerr County courthouse with five copies of marriage license applications in my hands. Earl Buckelew had been right. The obituaries had been wrong. Almost all of the widow women had lied about their ages.
I took out a pen and small notepad and began doing some quick calibrations, subtracting the year each woman was born from the year she’d died, which was for all of them the current year. I put my pen and pad away after the first two. It wasn’t necessary. The pattern was not only abundantly evident, it was crazier than you’d be likely to find on a quilt. It made me almost shiver under the shade tree.
Each of the five, at the time of her death, had been exactly seventy-six years old.
Happy Birthday.
CHAPTER 16
June shed its cocoon; July opened one eye. The summer was rolling obliviously along like a wayward beachball thrown onto the field of a nationally televised sporting event by some California sicko. Over a week had passed since I’d stood on the lawn of the Kerr County courthouse and uncovered a dark secret under the summer sun. I’d kept it to myself. One reason was the horrific nature of some of its possible interpretations. Another reason was that most of the people I talked to these days were about three feet tall. They weren’t ready for it yet. I wasn’t sure that I was, either.
It was Sunday and I was joining the Bronco Busters’ table in the dining hall for lunch. Everyone at the table was seven or eight years old except Ben and Eric, the two counselors, who sat on either side of the little group like enormous bookends. Sunday
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