him with: premature ejaculator. She said his fuse was too short. One day she said, “You go off too fast so I’m going off, period.” And she left him. Just like that. Fuck her.
As the rain kept beating down, Sog figured this would be a good time to check the place for leaks. Gabe Madewell and his daddy Braxton who’d built this place had been real craftsmen, and the same tight workmanship they’d put into all those barrels and buckets and piggins and churns had gone into the house. The roof was covered with cedar shingles that Brax Madewell had rived with even more care than he’d rived his white oak staves, and those shingles was still tight and solid, although the ones on the north side was all covered with moss. Except for a couple of window lights that Sog was going to have to replace (and he had lugged in a box full of glass pre-cut to the exact size of the window lights), the house was tight, a miracle in view of how long it had been abandoned. Why hadn’t anybody ever wanted to take it over after Gabe Madewell left? Probably because they couldn’t find it! No, honestly, the only reason anybody would want the place, assuming they knew it was there, would be because of one of two things: either they wanted to become a barrel-maker like Madewell or, like Sog, they wanted it as a hideaway, a hermitage.
There was, Sog discovered, one leak in the roof, which was coming down into the smaller bedroom which Sog was using entirely as a storage room, with boxes stacked to the ceiling, a ceiling which was steadily dripping water upon the boxes. Hastily Sog took a bucket and climbed his stepladder and positioned the bucket to catch the drip of the leak. He watched the bucket for a while to assure himself that it wouldn’t fill up and overflow for a good long time. Then he resumed his inspection of the house and took satisfaction in seeing that it was practically all ready for the arrival of his truelove. It was a good old house. They had everything they needed for years. And it was reasonably clean. When he’d first entered it, it had been inhabited by a pair of buzzards who’d laid their eggs right on the floor and hatched ’em and there was a bunch of godawful ugly baby birds a-screaming and also a-puking. One of them baby birds could hit you with puke from twenty feet away. Once he’d shot ’em or shooed ’em off, he had to clean up the terrible mess they’d left behind. Buzzards was the unsightliest, grossest bird on earth, and they’d probably flown in through one of those missing windows. Sog wasn’t superstitious, not compared with most of these here so-called Ozark hillbillies, and he didn’t believe the superstition that buzzards will puke upon any man who commits incest. It didn’t matter to Sog because he would never think of committing incest anyhow if he had a real daughter. But he did believe, or knew for a fact, that buzzards are a sure sign winter is over, that there will not be another freeze after buzzards are seen. It hardly ever froze in April anyhow, but Sog knew when he saw the buzzards that good times as well as good weather lay ahead. He also believed what was simply a matter of fact: buzzards will fly and soar and hover over anything dead.
Late in the afternoon the rain stopped. Sog went out to the workshop, where he thought he’d seen Bitch disappear. She wasn’t there. Sog even peered into the two big barrels that for some reason Madewell had left behind and not sold with his other barrels. Sog intended to use one of them as an old-fashioned rain barrel, to collect water, although there was a good deep well behind the house, still with its operating pulley, to which Sog had attached a new chain and a new galvanized tin bucket. He didn’t think they’d ever run out of water, but wanted the rain barrel for insurance, and maybe just as a kind of tribute to old Madewell, who had made all of this possible.
“Bitchie babe?” he called. But she wasn’t around. Maybe he’d just
As the rain kept beating down, Sog figured this would be a good time to check the place for leaks. Gabe Madewell and his daddy Braxton who’d built this place had been real craftsmen, and the same tight workmanship they’d put into all those barrels and buckets and piggins and churns had gone into the house. The roof was covered with cedar shingles that Brax Madewell had rived with even more care than he’d rived his white oak staves, and those shingles was still tight and solid, although the ones on the north side was all covered with moss. Except for a couple of window lights that Sog was going to have to replace (and he had lugged in a box full of glass pre-cut to the exact size of the window lights), the house was tight, a miracle in view of how long it had been abandoned. Why hadn’t anybody ever wanted to take it over after Gabe Madewell left? Probably because they couldn’t find it! No, honestly, the only reason anybody would want the place, assuming they knew it was there, would be because of one of two things: either they wanted to become a barrel-maker like Madewell or, like Sog, they wanted it as a hideaway, a hermitage.
There was, Sog discovered, one leak in the roof, which was coming down into the smaller bedroom which Sog was using entirely as a storage room, with boxes stacked to the ceiling, a ceiling which was steadily dripping water upon the boxes. Hastily Sog took a bucket and climbed his stepladder and positioned the bucket to catch the drip of the leak. He watched the bucket for a while to assure himself that it wouldn’t fill up and overflow for a good long time. Then he resumed his inspection of the house and took satisfaction in seeing that it was practically all ready for the arrival of his truelove. It was a good old house. They had everything they needed for years. And it was reasonably clean. When he’d first entered it, it had been inhabited by a pair of buzzards who’d laid their eggs right on the floor and hatched ’em and there was a bunch of godawful ugly baby birds a-screaming and also a-puking. One of them baby birds could hit you with puke from twenty feet away. Once he’d shot ’em or shooed ’em off, he had to clean up the terrible mess they’d left behind. Buzzards was the unsightliest, grossest bird on earth, and they’d probably flown in through one of those missing windows. Sog wasn’t superstitious, not compared with most of these here so-called Ozark hillbillies, and he didn’t believe the superstition that buzzards will puke upon any man who commits incest. It didn’t matter to Sog because he would never think of committing incest anyhow if he had a real daughter. But he did believe, or knew for a fact, that buzzards are a sure sign winter is over, that there will not be another freeze after buzzards are seen. It hardly ever froze in April anyhow, but Sog knew when he saw the buzzards that good times as well as good weather lay ahead. He also believed what was simply a matter of fact: buzzards will fly and soar and hover over anything dead.
Late in the afternoon the rain stopped. Sog went out to the workshop, where he thought he’d seen Bitch disappear. She wasn’t there. Sog even peered into the two big barrels that for some reason Madewell had left behind and not sold with his other barrels. Sog intended to use one of them as an old-fashioned rain barrel, to collect water, although there was a good deep well behind the house, still with its operating pulley, to which Sog had attached a new chain and a new galvanized tin bucket. He didn’t think they’d ever run out of water, but wanted the rain barrel for insurance, and maybe just as a kind of tribute to old Madewell, who had made all of this possible.
“Bitchie babe?” he called. But she wasn’t around. Maybe he’d just
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