It’s good old summertime here in Pineville – everybody’s strollin’ hand in hand down the shady lane with their tootsie-wootsies - and it’s swelterin’ like all get-out today. It’s so hot my M&M’s are meltin’ in my hand instead of my mouth. It’s so hot the library’s full of people who’ve never read a book in their lives, they’re just millin’ around the vents tryin’ to soak up cold air and act literate. It’s so hot people are sittin’ all the way through the new Jennifer Anniston movie at the mall, if you can believe that.
Well, our story begins – my story begins, you ain’t doin’ the work - over at Applebottom’s Pay-More, where Glen’s stridin’ down the freezer aisle with one thing on his mind, which is the electric bill. Out of all his overhead, the one thing Glen hates more than anything is payin’ Reddy Kilowatt in the summertime. Winter’s bad, yes, but when it gets hot like it is today the demand zooms up, so the electric co-op says the supply goes down and they have to upcharge honest hard-workin’ tradesmen more for it.
Unarmed robbery, Glen says it is, perpetrated by a posse of powermongerin’ politicians who parade around in their Cadillacs, cruisin’ out to the country club and playin’ golf and sippin’ mimosas on the veranda. Livin’ the Life of Riley and what not, which he, Glen, havin’ a wife, five teenage daughters, the store, eight employees and a dog to support, ain’t got the luxury of doin’. Just ask him, he’ll tell you the whole deal if he ain’t busy slavin’ his fingers to the bone at the time.
Glen’s family’s grocered to hungry Pinevillians for years. His daddy had it and his daddy had it before that, and then his daddy and his daddy and so on, all the way back to Private Beauregard Applebottom, one of our foundin’ fathers. Beau built up a prosperous plum cider business about 1864 and passed it down to his son, Beauregard Jr., who bequeathed it to Beauregard III (Bobo), whose wife Pansy wouldn’t allow any of her children to be named Beauregard, so they passed it down to their son, Horatio (Hoho) Applebottom. Glen, not that it matters, was named for where his mama and daddy conceived him. Like Paris Hilton, you know.
But with five teenage daughters – the apples of his eye and not a sour pickle in the barrel, either - it looks like the next generation of Pay-More’ll have a bunch of women runnin’ it, which I’m guessin’ means that hair color and chocolate’ll get cheaper and beer, tobacco and Playboy’ll get steeper.
Anyway, Glen’s all steamed up in the first place because on days as hot as this one, people have a habit of comin’ in and takin’ twenty, thirty minutes just to pick up one dang thing that’d normally take ‘em a shake of a lamb’s tail. They stroll around like it’s Sunday in Central Park , soakin’ up cold air with their 98.6° carcasses and skyrocketin’ his electric-cost-per-customer ratio up off the clipboard.
Another thing that’s bitin’ his butt is people who open the freezer doors and stand there studiously read all the ingredients like they were conscientious consumers or somethin’ which Glen knows they’re nothing of the kind. They just want a blast of free frigid air in the face on a fervid day. It costs good dough to keep your freezers froze, and it mounts up every time some careless consumer lets the polar air escape like he didn’t have eighteen cartons of Blue Bell waverin’ at 33° in there. Today’s grocer, Glen will tell you, has got to watch every carton of Blue Bell or Walmart will drive him out of business quicker than you can say monopoly. Grocers Weekly talks about it all the time.
So he’s traipsin’ down the freezer aisle, fixin’ to move the banana cream pies in front of the lemon meringues - which his mid-mornin’ report says ain’t movin’ - when he eyeballs Aunt Mary and Reba Calhoun under the Blue Bell sign with the door opened wider than a hippopotamus’ mouth at the dentist. They’re suckin’ up icy air like they’re Carrier’s brother-in-law.
Glen pops one of his nitroglycerine pills and walks up and ahems, portentously, you know, like he’s Socrates about to orate some epistemology but he can’t get nobody’s attention. He looks at Aunt Mary and Reba, then over at the open door, then back at the girls, and so on, and it’s pretty clear by his ping-pongin’ head gesticulations that he’d be gratified if they’d close the door so the dang-blame Blue Bell won’t melt all over the floor.
Aunt Mary crooks her eyebrow up like she’s the doorman at a Hollywood hot spot and he’s nobody and Lindsay’s on her way over.
“Somethin’ on y’all’s mind, Glen boy?” she goes, with an certain what-is-it in her voice and she’s givin’ him that look she gives you when she’s pinpointed the error of your ways and she’s fixin’ to share her thoughts. Watch out for that look, you don’t want to get the old goat started.
“Can I help you ladies make your selections today?” Glen’s eyes are dartin’ back and forth between Aunt Mary and the mercury.
“Since when does anybody need help pickin’ out Blue Bell Banana Split that Walmart’s got thirty cents cheaper, Glen?”
“Well, Aunt Mary, you don’t get personal service at Walmart.”
“That’s true Glen, Sam Walton don’t stand there yakkin’ at you when you’re tryin’ to do your shoppin.”
Glen‘s tryin’ to control himself and remember the first rule of groceryin’ – Don’t have a rhubarb with the customers no matter how big an idiot they are – but what he really wants to do is grab a Blue Bell Banana Split – or Nutty Pumpkin Crunch, it don’t matter – toss it in Aunt Mary’s basket, slam the damn – his word, not mine - door shut, and hustle her old energy-absorbin’ patootie up to the register.
“Well, maybe you could keep the door closed while you’re decidin’ which one you want,” he goes, tryin’ to sound like Dale Carnegie.
She looks at him like Queen Elizabeth addressin’ a wise-crackin’ butler.
“And maybe you could stop buyin’ your peaches from Honduras
That’s a smack in the face to any grocer.
“Well…”
“And the funniest thing. I believe I saw a new sticker over the expiration date on the pickled pig feet,” she goes, “and they looked a little peek-ed.” She arches the other eyebrow up and looks at him like she, the Queen, is savin’ the world from trichinellosis this morning and she wants answers.
Glen turns as red as a bowl of borscht.
“Ya’ll have a nice day, ladies, it’s been lovely visitin’ with you but I got to go now.”
He retreats to the back where he takes a deep breath and counts to ten and straps his blood pressure deal on and pumps it up. Then he quick dials the freezer thermostat down, which disappoints Barney, the Applebottom dog – he put his hang-dog look on - because Barney loves melted ice cream and he’s been gazin’ wistfully back and forth between the thermometer and the Tin Roof all mornin’.
Officially, Barney’s the store watchdog – so Glen can take his Alpo off his taxes - but when he was a puppy Glen realized he’d eat anything you put in front of him, so he made him aisle-clean-up-dog too. He gobbled up a sixteen-ounce jar of Del Monte Sweet Gherkins just the other morning and burped up pickle brine all day.
. But I don’t want to get sidetracked and lose my train of thought – the literary equivalent of slippin’ on a banana peel - so what Aunt Mary and Reba were jabberin’ about was CrawFest, and in particular who’s gonna be crowned Miss Crawdad this year.
One day way back in the thirties durin’ the depressing Depression Era a peck of peckish Presbyterians were out at Possum Corners Pond prayin’ the Lord’d drop some manna or somethin’ down on ‘em, when – bing – right up out of the pond miraculously marched a whole slew of decapod crustaceans – which, for the layperson not up on their marine critters - are crawdads.
You’ve never seen such mollified Presbyterians in your life, and it wasn’t an hour later they’re puttin’ their feet up, praisin’ the Lord and pickin’ crawdad parts out of their teeth. That’s how CrawFest got started and it just grew over the years. We’re lucky, too, because Possum Corners has always thriven with crawdads – it’s crawlin’ with ‘em - so we don’t have to import em’ from China
Some people, according to Our Friends the Crustaceans, call ‘em crayfish, but those are mostly Louisianians who are all inbred. Don’t misunderstand, I don’t mean any offense and I certainly don’t need anybody showin’ up on my doorstep with their cousins and shotguns. But the proper name is crawdad so you might as well get with the program while the sun shines if the shoe fits.
So every year on the third Saturday of June we have a gala festive party downtown – CrawFest - where we get Crawdad Fever for a day and indulge ourselves in all things crawdadish and drink beer. We close off the town square and set up some percolatin’ pots, toss a load of crawdads in, slap in some garlic and lemons and Tabasco sauce and potatoes and onions and whatever else you got. We fish ‘em out when they’re done – five-star poissoniers recommend a half-hour coolin’-down period - and scarf ‘em down with a frosty beer. It costs five dollars for an all-you-can-eat ticket, which ain’t too bad considerin’ you can eat till you puke, which some people – I ain’t mentionin’ names but Floyd comes to mind – have been known to do.
The high point
It’s a stupendous deal to be Miss Crawdad because you get glory and braggin’ rights for a lifetime. Back in 1940 Emma Hogg won and she still wears her tiara to Pay-More and snubs the runners-up in the constipation aisle. Karen Sue won five years ago, and to show you how powerful the title is, sometimes when she and Kenny Bob are havin’ a marital spat, she brings it up.
“Come on out right now, you been in there for a half hour and I got to go right now.” That’s Kenny Bob, standin’ outside the bathroom tappin’ his foot.
“Just another minute, honey.”
“Dang it, I said get the heck out of there right now!”
“Excuse me, y’all seem to be forgettin’ that you’re addressin’ a Miss Crawdad here, mister.”
Kenny Bob goes out back, knowin’ he can’t fight it when she plays her Miss Crawdad Card.
You – the lucky Miss Crawdad - get a silver crawdad necklace with two little diamonds for his eyes, a scholarship to Pine County Community College to audit their Marine Life Class, a $50 gift certificate at Pay-More – alcohol and tobacco excluded - and you get a victory ride around town in Cecil Estes’ classic 1969 yellow Dodge Barracuda convertible. Plus the aforesaid lifetime braggin’ rights and the cachet of bein’ the fabulous Miss Crawdad.
I know what you’re thinkin’, though, and Miss Crawdad ain’t just a beauty contest. Nope, the starry-eyed contestants compete in four categories: Crawdad Knowledge, Pineville History, Evening Gown and Swimsuit. It takes a combination of brains and bedazzlin’ bathin’ suit beauty both to capture the coveted Miss Crawdad crown. We used to have a Talent part too, but stopped it when everybody got tired of baton twirlin’ and Fur Elise.
Last week, the preliminary contestants – you got to separate wheat from chaff when you‘re runnin’ a beauty contest - did their Histories and Knowledges for the judges, who after some selective in-depth interviewin’ in the De Drop afterwards eliminated everybody but two, and they’re a pair of genu-ine punkins.
But girls, there ain’t no shame in losin’ Miss Crawdad, don’t let anybody tell you there is. Everbody ain’t cut out for it. That’s just life. Like I’ve never won a beauty contest yet either, but I’m not bitter. You just got to learn to live with it and be happy with who you are.
The first finalist this year is Kim Applebottom, Glen and Aquanetta’s second daughter. Like I said, all of the Applebottom girls are peaches, and Kim in particular’s just about the juiciest lil’ tomato on the vine. She has a pedigree too, due to her older sister Glenda Lou winnin’ the crown after nailin’ the Talent competition - before they did away with it - over at Mayor Grifter’s bungalow in her Pumas cheerleadin’ outfit. I guess she did her baton-twirlin’ routine for him, I don’t know.
Sibling rivalry bein’ what it is – the Applebottom girls fight like deranged cats – Kim’s determined to win and show Glenda Lou she ain’t all that, so she’s been readin’ Pineville History at the library and shoppin’ for the most revealin’ swimsuit fashion she can badger Aquanetta into. And makin’ sure her tan is just right. Tans are important if you’re an aspirin’ beauty queen. Ask anybody. Ask Amy Tan if you want to.
Contestant Number Two is Dorita Lynn Rushmore, who I told you about walkin’ down my street one day. That lil’ blonde gal’s so good-lookin’ and full of sex appeal – no offense to my Baptist readers – that there was talk one time about the boys buyin’ group chiropractic insurance since so many of ‘em get their neck bones dislocated gawkin’ at her jigglin’ up and down the street.
But I got to move on now and I’m sorry to have to wrench the vision of Dorita Lynn prancin’ around in a teeny-tiny bikini out of your brain and replace it with crawdads. But an author’s life is not all fun and games and I got a dang sub-plot to roll out here and it’s already page five.
So what, you may ask, of the crawdads?
Well, out at Possum Corners, the crawdad community had begun to intuit over the last seventy years or so - astacological evolution is a slow process - that every June the two-legged giants come and leave lil’ cages around the pond with a piece of sardine head in ‘em. It’s a fact that crawdads are always on the lookout for a snack and sardine heads are like yum to ‘em, so they sidle on in, but when they chomp down on their seemingly serendipitous savory sardine a lil’ wire trips and the door clanks closed.
So they sit there plaintively gazin’ out through the bars like they’re stuck in Folsom Prison and time keeps draggin’ on. Next mornin’ the giants come and take ‘em away and put new cages down. The abducted loved ones never come back, much to the consternation of the crawdad elders, or as least as much as an elder crawdad can be consternated.
Our Friends the Crustaceans talks about what crawdads do, which is mostly procreate, poop, and eat anything that don’t eat them. Me, appetite-wise, I wouldn’t eat a sardine head even if I was a depressed Presbyterian in a Depression. But my point is, they’re not equipped, as far as we know, to think things out and weigh things over like you and me. They’re just crawdads, right? Our Friends the Crustaceans doesn’t say one single solitary word about their brains.
But - now stay with me because I’ll be takin’ you into some deep waters - crawdads have actual feelings too. Yep, havin’ their youngins – whose only crime was bein’ peckish - get toted off by the giant trappers was somethin’ they were takin’ real personal, even if it took ‘em seventy years to realize it. No culture, crustaceanity notwithstanding, can forever abide such brazen snatchings in such broad sunshine. But what could they do? Let’s face it, sardine heads are sardine heads, and resistance to pilchardian temptation calls for a backbone which they ain’t got and they know it. So every day, more cages, more abducted crawdads, more heartache. We thus thoughtfully leave the crawdads much as we found them.
So let’s eat!
It’s another beautiful day in Pineville. The leaves are rustlin’ in the trees, the bees are buzzin’ in the breeze, and good old Mr. Sunshine’s beamin’ down and sayin’ cheese. The square’s decorated with CrawFest banners and they got two big old black potboilers potboilin’ away in front of the courthouse. What you do is show ‘em the rubber fish stamp on your hand and they haul you out a hot crunchy crawdad. Aunt Mary and me- or Aunt Mary and I - are enjoyin’ the conviviality and comminglin’ with our country cousins, countin’ the minutes to the crownin’ of our comely cambaridaen queen.
We got the old folks band - Walter and The Cavalier Crawdaddies - plus crawdad mimes, crawdad-dogs, crawdad rides, crawdad-flavored cotton candy, crawdad t-shirts and chocolate-covered crawdads. You can take your picture with Mr. Crawdad if you want to. For my younger readers, crawdad-wise, we’re your like daddy, dude.
Over in the big glass tank, the wide-eyed shanghied crawdads are espyin’ the aquarium-to-kettle process, and it’s finally dawnin’ on ‘em what’s about to happen. They’re sayin’ goodbyes and rememberin’ the good times.
Kim and Dorita Lynn are runnin’ around in their skimpy underwear in the tent behind the stage, fussin’ with their gowns and hair and bouncin’ Crawdad Knowledge and Pineville History off one another. (And no, I ain’t peekin’ in the tent. It’s artistic license or whatever they call it).
“What’s the big name for a stupid crawdad?”
“Anthropoda Crustacea!”
“How many body parts does a crawdad have?”
“Nineteen!”
“Ewww!”
“I know!”
“Who was the first mayor of Pineville?”
“Some retarded lame-o.”
“Ha ha!”
“I know!”
Anyway, long about seven-thirty or so it started to get dusky out, so Aunt Mary and I - or me - took a seat up front and settled down.
Here come the judges. Mayor Grifter – the Mayor’s always a Miss Crawdad official, it’s in his contract - sits down at the table with old Shirley Stumpfer from the Pineville Dance Academy
“This on?” That’s the Mayor intonin’ into the microphone. “Ladies and Gentlemen, honored guests, welcome to the grand finale of the Miss Crawdad contest!”
“Yee-haw!” “Woo-hoo!”
“Now everbody sit down and be quiet, we’re gonna have our finalists come out and do their competition deals. Plus it’s already gettin’ late and Hawaii Five-O is on at ten and the old folks don’t want to miss it!”
“Woo-hoo!”
The Mayor bleats out some blah-blah-blah about how great Pineville is, how blah-blah wonderful the Miss Crawdad tradition is, and for everybody to clean up after themselves because he don’t want to pay the Street Department overtime, blah-blah-blah. I’ll elide over all that in the interest of literary economy.
“And now, presenting our two final contestants for the coveted title of Miss Crawdad, ladies and gentlemen, let’s give a big Pineville welcome to Miss Kim Applebottom and Miss Dorita Lynn Rushmore!”
“Woo-hoo!”
The Cavalier Crawdaddies strike up The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, which, not that it matters, is from a movie about an elephant.
The girls sashay out wearin’ the latest in sparkly, skin-tight, bosom-flashin’ designer evening creations. It was just like those pageant deals you see on TV where the international girls come struttin’ out in dazzlin’ dresses with sashes sayin’ “Miss Trinidad” and stuff on ‘em and they knock you right off the sofa with their exotic glamour and teeth and what all. Kim was wearin’ her new Lady Kenmore Eleganté Collection sea-green dress that had a gap deal on both sides that showed her tan legs goin’ all the way up, which they don’t have all that far to go, Kim’s not too tall.
And Dorita Lynn, well, let me just say, you’d have to be careful not to get your eye poked out if you were in a tight spot with her. She had on her new rose-red Lily St. Roebuck gown – it took her two hours to wear her mama down - that accentuated what nature had already gave her in a way that reminded me of, say, a vacation in the Grand Tetons.
Both of ‘em had spent all day at Janyce’s gettin’ their hair highlighted, frosted, snipped, curled and styled – the whole shebang - and they hired a professional to supervise their make-up – Elaine Ricketts, from the Macy’s Estee Lauder counter at the mall – and what I’m sayin’ is these are two girls that look real fine in the first place even without any fixin’ up. You can imagine what they looked like after bein’ mother-henned over by a bunch of beauticians all day.
“Woo-hoo!”
“Now girls listen up, we’re gonna start with Pineville History so put y’all’s thinkin’ caps on.. Kim, step forward please.”
“Woo-hoo!”
“Go Kim!”
Kim slinked her lil’ tan self up to the microphone and I was hearin’ imaginary drums goin’ “Boom. Ka-boom. Boom. Ka-boom.”
“Howdy, Pineville!
“Now Kim, one of the assets, er, attributes we look for in Miss Crawdad is her knowledge of the issues facing Pineville. Your question is: ‘What is Pineville’s most perplexing problem and how would you propose solving it?’”
“Thank you Mayor Jeff, you sure do look cute in that pretty blue suit! And hey Shirley, you’re the one who ought to be up here instead of little old me. I swear you’re the most beautiful young lady in Pine County
Which is a bald-faced lie, of course - Shirley looks like The Elephant Man’s sister - but you know how these pageants are. If you don’t suck up to the judges, boom, you’re back in Trinidad pickin’ bananas.
“Howdy-do, Doc! I believe I’ll be comin’ to see you for a physical right soon.” Doc, who was waverin’ on 8, marks down a 10 next to Personality.
“Yay-us!”
“Well, Pineville faces many problems people all over the planet do, such as over-population,” and she glances over at Ernesto and Yolanda Martinez-Hermosa and their youngins Felix, Gabriel, Graciela, Francisco, Javier, Inez, Carlos, Rosa, Jorge, Rueben, Maria, Juanita, Conchita, and lil’ Guadalupe. “But we’re part of the like, global human race today and the most important thing people can do is like, practice the golden rule with different-colored people just like the bible – my favorite book - says!”
“Woo-hoo!”
“Olé!”
“Dorita Lynn, please come forward for your question.”
Dorita Lynn puts on her Reese Witherspoon-June-Carter-Cash face - smiley-cute as all get-out, if you saw the movie - and bouncy-bounced up to the microphone.
”Howdy Pineville! Welcome all our friends and neighbors!” She winks and broadcasts million-dollar-smiles at all the boys, who, bein’ alert to not gettin’ caught by their women gawkin’ at a beauty queen reach down and act like they’re snaggin’ a potato off their plate.
“I just want to say what a great honor it is to be a finalist for Miss Crawdad, and win or lose I’m still gonna be the same sweet friendly church-goin’ patriotic freedom- loving American girl next door I’ve always been!”
“Yay-us!”
I’m thinkin’ if Dorita Lynn lived next door to me, I’d be as neighborly as Mr. Rogers.
“Now, Dorita Lynn, we’ll be celebrating Pineville’s Sesquicentennial next year, and if it were up to you, what era in time would you choose as the theme of the celebration?”
“Well Mayor, first let me say that your new cute haircut is so awesome! And Miss Stumpfer it’s like so good to see you! I remember dance class when you used to make me touch these like, ugly little boys, and it was through you I learned the value of being nice to all peoples of the world even if they have like, pimples or whatever, you know. And howdy there Doc, good to see you too! My mama needs to make my mammogram appointment real soon, don’t she?”
“Yee-hah!”
“Yay-us!”
Doc wiped his wrinkled old brow with a Wet-Nap.
“Now, Mayor Jeff, in answer to your question about the Sesqui-deal, I’m glad you asked that because it’s a subject real close to my heart.”
“Woo-hoo!”
“I’ve been readin’ up on my Pineville History – it’s my favorite subject besides Puma football…”
“Woo-hoo!”
“…and I think the Sesqui-deal would be a good time to have like, a Pioneer Days Festival, you know, where everybody dresses up in the wild wild west and stuff and like, saloon girls with garters and stuff you know, and shoot-outs and stuff and we could have a Miss Pioneer Pineville! And somebody could write a story about it,” she goes, shootin’ me a wink. “Wouldn’t that be a hoot, y’all?”
“Woo-hoo!”
“My theme would be love and freedom. Freedom to love and loving freedom in this great freedom-loving country of ours! And if I’m fortunate enough to be chosen Miss Crawdad,” she goes, makin’ eye contact with about two hundred boys in the crowd, “I’ll spread my love all over this wide wonderful freedom-loving American town. Thanks y’all, and everybody have a fine Pineville day! God Bless America
Everbody whoops and hollers and snags another crawdad and a sneaks a snort out of their flask.
“And now young ladies,” goes Shirley,’ “we’ll test your knowledge on the namesake of the festival, our friend, the crawdad. Now Dorita Lynn, where is the greatest concentration of crawdads in the United States
Dorita Lynn took a real deep breath, achieving the holistic feat of expandin’ her brain and her bosom simultaneously. “I’m so glad you asked that question, Shirley,” and she’s smilin’ two miles wide and exudin’ the brassy beauty-queen confidence that comes from bein’ up half the night with Crawdads for Dummies and a tube of teeth-whitening stuff.
“Okay. Consisting of three families with more than three hundred species in nine genera, the greatest diversity of crawdad is found in south-eastern “Correct!”
“Woo-hoo!”
“Dang good!”
“Now Kim, step forward (she boom-ka-boomed up) and please tell our voters what continent has seven species of crawdad and of what genus they are, and what country has the single endemic species of crawdad called Astacopsis?
They got a deal on Jeopardy where Art asks the last question and the suspenseful music starts goin’ “Da da da da, da da da. Da da da da DA-da-da-da-da-da,” and you’re squirmin’ on the edge of your seat bitin’ your nails.
Kim furrows her cute lil’ tan brow.
“Da da da da da…” I’m goin’ in my dang head.
“Europe is home to seven species of crawdad in the genera Astacus and Austropotamobius, and our lil’ crustacean cowboy the Astacopsis can be found chillin’ in the rivers of Northern Tasmania , y’all!
“Woo-hoo!”
“Correct!” cried Shirley, and the crowd erupted with a frenzy of appreciation for Kim’s Crawdad Knowledge and tanned poise under pressure.
“And now our lovely young lasses, er ladies, will model their evening gown creations for the voters. Is everybody havin’ a good time? Let’s hear it, Pineville!”
“Woo-hoo!”
Walter and the boys swing into A Pretty Girl is like a Melody – Irving Berlin always satisfies, pageant-wise - and Kim and Dorita Lynn start promenadin’ the stage like they’re Gypsy Rose Lee’s great-granddaughters. In order to bring the full facts to my readers and to make my most informed judgment for Miss Crawdad, I scooted my chair up a lil’ closer and put my glasses on.
Eyin’ the girls carefully as well were the rejected contestants – the bridesmaids, to be brutal - who got eliminated in the earlier rounds. They were yakkin’ about the finalist’s dresses, makeup, hair, shoes, bosoms, butts, crawdad knowledge, complexion, teeth, reputations and hygiene, and findin’ egregious flaws across the board. How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes, is what Shakespeare’d tell ‘em.
The Crawdaddies strike the final chord – G major, for my musician readers – and Kim and Dorita Lynn broadcast their pearly smiles one last time, blow a few kisses, and curvet off the stage like they’re a couple of them Budweiser horses.
“And now, we’ll have a ten-minute intermission so we can get some more crawdads and a beer and use the pot while Kim and Dorita Lynn segue into their stylish swimwear fashions and the votin’ to crown Miss Crawdad commences. And don’t be lollygaggin’ in the bar y’all it’s already eight o’clock . And while I’m on the subject, don’t forget to vote for me on November 20th.”
“Woo-hoo! Yay-us! Boo!”
Well, everybody goes and gets more crawdads and more beer, and The Cavalier Crawdaddies swing into How Deep is the Ocean. That’s another Irving Berlin, I guess I’m featurin’ him today.
In the tent, Kim and Dorita Lynn are prancin’ around stark naked, just like mother made ‘em, fixin’ to put their lil’ teensy-weensy bikinis on. You probably don’t want to hear a description about that including tan lines. But if you do, send me twenty dollars and I’ll tell you all about it.
Nothin’ else much happened during intermission except Billy Butts threw up, the greedy little toad. By the looks of things, he’d had a few too many chocolate-covered crawdads. Anyway, pretty soon everybody got settled back down, freshly-beered and empty-bladdered, poised to exercise our sacred civic duty. I’m thinkin’ it’s too bad there can’t be two winners – Co-Crawdad-Queens - because both of these young ladies represent Pineville at it’s finest and both deserve to reign triumphant. Or triumphantly reign. Take your pick.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, tonight, right here on our stage, please welcome back our finalists in the latest contemporary swimmin’ suit fashions, and anybody makin’ a vulgar remark or gropin’ a contestant will be disqualified from votin’. Y’all can look but you can’t touch, is what I’m sayin’. Here they are Pineville, Miss Kim Applebottom and Miss Dorita Lynn Rushmore!”
“Woo-hoo! Yippee! Geronimo!
Walter picks up the microphone, spits out his Juicy Fruit, nods at the band and goes “A-one, boys,” and his dulcet baritone rings out over downtown Pineville.
Here she comes, Our Miss Crawdad
Which one shall she be?
The idol of every lad and dad
Our Queen of Crustaceanity
She’s beautiful, our Miss Crawdad,
Like buttercups and rainbow drops in June
Oh, to have a chance with her
Or a starlit dance with her
’neath the Pineville mo-oo-oo-n
There she goes, Our Miss Crawdad,
Empress of astacology, it’s true
She’s so refined, she’s one of a kind
And there’s no denying
All Pineville’s pining
All Pineville’s pining for you-ooo
Miss Crawdad, how do you do!
Well, this story’s too long already – unless I can find me a no-nonsense editor - so I can’t spend a lot of time describin’ how the girls looked in their microscopic swimsuit fashions. I know you’re disappointed, but just imagine somebody wavin’ the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue back and forth under your nose. Then subtract the sand and the botox and sing A Whole Lot of Shakin’ Goin’ On and that’ll give you the flavor of it.
“Now get y’all’s ballots out and put your X next to either Kim or Dorita Lynn’s name, and hand ‘em to me, and when we got everybody’s votes we’ll count ‘em up and I’d like to pounce, er, announce Miss Crawdad!
“Woo-Hoo!”
Dorita Lynn and Kim bounce down off the stage and start posin’ their glistenin’ tan teen selves for photo ops with the voters, affordin’ everybody a chance to see ‘em up close – perhaps ask ‘em a crawdad question - so they can make a wiser decision. In my case, a responsibility to my readers to provide a conciser atmosphere drew me closer to the youthful contestants too.
I want you to shut your eyes for a minute now and imagine all of a sudden you’re hearin’ creepin’ ominous music comin’ from somewhere.
Don’t go on until you hear the creepin’ ominous music.
Actually, who we need to tell what happened next is Steven King, not me. He’s got a knack for scarin’ the pants off people – I started one of his books one time and had to hide under the bed for two hours. But no, I choose to write about plain old Pineville instead of eerie, unfathomably horrific stuff like him. But, there’s enough macabricity in real life around here that I don’t have to make stuff up like he does.
But it ain’t like I can call him up and ask him to finish this story for me. So if you find the next part not suitably petrifyin’ for you, I’m sorry and I’ll try to stay in my own genre in the future.
On the outskirts of downtown, there was a…there was a…a…
Dang it. Steve probl’y does this in his sleep.
Well, I’ll just spit it out. What happened was a covey or coterie of crawdads, hundreds of ‘em, thousands of ‘em, maybe hundreds of thousands of ‘em, were marchin’ in formation en masse écrevisse toward the Square. It was as though the bowels of a vengeful earth had opened up and spewn a weird, wicked wrathload of crawdads. Or like Steve King, Cecil B. DeMille and George Lucas met up in a bar one day and cooked up a humdinger of a crawdad movie.
There were crawdads in the streets, on the sidewalks, on the rooftops; they’re crawlin’ out of the sewers up into your palace and your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and on your people, and into your ovens and kneading troughs. Crawdads in front of you and in back of you, smitin’ you left and right and swarmin’ on people and into their houses. Crawdads on the livestock in the field, crawdads on your horses and donkeys and camels and on your cattle and sheep and goats. Crawdads on your shoes, crawdads crawlin’ up your pants, and crawdads snaggin’ your pantyhose with their lil’ pincers. All the dust throughout the land of Pineville
You may have noticed I interpolated some apocalyptic bible plagiarism up there, but it’s in the public domain so I’m entitled. Besides, I’m just tryin’ to compensate for my lack of Steven Kingness and give you the proper eerily unfathomable thriller experience for your book-buyin’ buck.
Anyway, the surgin’ astalogical army was convergin’ on the square under the steel-glinted-eyed leadership of Captain Yabby – the Napoleon of crawdads - on a mission to repatriate their enaquariumed and emboilerpotted kinfolk. You could hear ‘em, too:
Let my pleopods go
Let my pleopods go
Let my pleopods go
Inch by inch, step by step, one lil’ claw after another, here they come, and although crawdads, as a species, don’t have too much of a range of facial expressions like you and me, what faces they did have were grim and bellicose. Yabby looked like Napoleon conquerin’ Austerlitz
As they crept up to the edge of the Square, stiffenin’ their sinews and disguisin’ their fair nature with hard favored rage, they split into three regiments – one toward the boilerpots, another toward the aquarium, and the rest of ‘em, behind Yabby, started marchin’ straight into the Miss Crawdad Pageant audience from behind. Floyd told me later he seen a unit playin’ La Marseillaise on a lil’ fife and drums, but he’d been drinkin’ all day and you know Floyd.
The first indication we had that anything was amiss – much less we had an invadin’ crawdad army crawlin’ up our butt – was some unease and mutterin’ comin’ from the back rows.
“What’s that?”
“Be quiet, Norman.”
“Somethin’s crawlin’ up my pants!”
“Well, stop lookin’ at her you old fool!”
“Ouch!”
“Dang! What was that?”
“Hey! Who done that?”
“Ow! Hey! Sumbitch!”
“Hey!” “Hey!” “What th…”
“Norman
“Eek!”
And as hard as it was to take your eyes of Kim and Dorita Lynn dancin’ around in bikinis with less fabric than a parakeet’s petticoat, Pineville, distracted by the alarums and excursions – Shakespeare, not me - turned around and gawked, slack-jawed, at the horrific spectacle, coming face-to-face with seventy years of pent-up crawdad animus. Like Napoleon glancin’ over his shoulder and seein’ the Waterloo Chamber of Commerce standin’ there.
“Holy Mackerel, Margaret, we’re bein’ smote by a pestilential plague of crawdads!” somebody – sounded like a fundamentalist Baptist to me – yelled and that just about summed it up.
Since people aren’t exactly known for our poise when the destruction of civilization’s knockin’ at the door, everybody screams and grabs the kiddies and tries not to spill their beer. They’re runnin every which way, knockin’ all the chairs and tables and booths over, side-steppin’ crawdads and hopin’ not to get eat alive. It was like that old movie where Godzilla’s rampagin’ around downtown Tokyo
Kim and Dorita Lynn were havin’ an awful hard time too.
First, of course, as a teen beauty queen, you ain’t hardly expectin’ a horde of like, crawdads – how totally lame is that - to usurp your rightful freaking spotlight like that. It ain’t fair, your inner Venus is wailin’ to herself. You feel like that poor Carrie girl. Then you have a screamin’ banshee tantrum that can be heard in western Eurasia .
Second, people were rushin’ by and whirlin’ ‘em first this way and then that way, so they’re twirlin’ back and forth like a schizophrenic merry-go-round. They were simultaneously dizzy, beautiful and indignant, thereby pretty much personifyin’ females as a species, Junior postulated to me later on. That’s his opinion, though, certainly not mine and I simply offer it as one man’s perspective.
The crowd wasn’t payin’ any attention to ‘em anymore – superstes primoris, pulchellus puella secundus you know - but I was, because I didn’t want to see the ghastly spectacle of the poor young tan ladies stampeded or crawdad-bit to death. Steve might, but not me.
“Eek! Eek! Yuck!” That’s Dorita Lynn.
“Ouch-chee- wa-wa! Why you little son of a …” That’s Kim.
“Ewwwwwwwwwwww! There’s one in my freaking top!”
Yes, it’s my duty – I can’t say it’s a particularly sad one though - to report that a crawdad, achieving in one daring moment what hundreds of Pineville boys had tried and failed to do, had invaded Dorita Lynn’s teeny bikini top. Where in the world he found room in there I don’t know.
Well naturally, she yanked the dang thing off in order to ferret William the Conqueror out, and when I saw her in distress like that, my chivalrous instincts took over, and unconcerned for my personal safety – intrepidly, some would say - I strode forward – picture Lancelot, the Camelot guy - to assist her.
But right then a crawdad bit me on the butt – I didn’t even know he was in my pants - and in my angst I clean forgot about helpin’ Dorita Lynn and started hoppin’ up and down like a spastic swami on hot coals. I finally shook the lil’ pincered imp out of my Dockers, and – if you’re a humanitarian or whatever they call it, you probl’y shouldn’t read this next part - I stomped on his fool head and ground his visceral remains into molecules.
But the Crusade of the Crawdads - a good name for the movie if any Hollywood movers or shakers are readin’ this - was not unpurposeful. The crawdads had come to rescue their friends and families, of course. And when the square was secure, an elite team of Special Forces crawdads wearin’ lil’ teeny-tiny green berets sidled up the barrels and aquariums, threw some miniature grapplin’ hooks on ‘em, rappelled back down and tugged. Everything toppled over, and the rescued crawdads came surfin’ out – whoosh - like the Beach Boys on a summer day. Yabby took out his lil’ pocket trumpet and played Assembly – if you don’t remember F-Troop, it goes like this: Da da da da da da da, da da da da da da da, da da DAH da da da, da da da… da da DAH. And the crawdads marched back to Possum Corners, high-clawin’ each other, carryin’ their wounded on lil’ stretchers and singin’ Blowin’ in the Wind.
(That foregoin’ part of the story was related to me by Floyd, and I didn’t actually see the rescue operation myself, bein’ busy like I said, but he says he did and swears it’s all true.)
By the time Sheriff Badger arrived – he’d been out at the Purple Pussycat all day investigatin’ lewd dancin’ allegations - the Square was deserted except for Aunt Mary’s cat Simon, who was pickin’ over crawdad carcasses like a vulture under the relentless African sun in a Tarzan book. The Sheriff picked up Dorita Lynn’s top – evidently an abandoned property case - and went into the De Drop to sift through the evidence.
Well, by about ten o’clock things had pretty much cooled off – down to about eighty – and most of Pineville had put it’s feet up to relax, watch a little TV, and ponder the phantasmagorical proceedings of the day.
Over at Pineville Baptist Brother Billy was conductin’ a special evening service, tellin’ everybody that the crawdad plague was a sign from the Archangel Michael and that Pineville had better stop sinnin’ and start tithin’ and he don’t mean maybe.
Kim and Dorita Lynn, in their respective bedrooms – they aren’t receivin’ visitors yet - were runnin’ out of Kleenex and gummy bears and gradually windin’ down. Kim had to comb a plop of crawdad poop out of her hair, which I can’t imagine a more horrific – Kim’s term was yuck-ass - thing for a teenage beauty queen to have to do, can you?
Dorita Lynn, writing in her diary, confided that the world is totally retarded and her life is like, a total freaking joke and not only that, if she ain’t mistaken, she’s got a stress pimple comin’ up on her butt. The world, she writes, thinks it’s a piece of cake being a piece of cheesecake, but beneath the bright lights and the glamour of beauty-queendom, there’s a seedy underbelly, and she’s seen it whole. Dorita Lynn’s been sneakin’ her dad’s Mickey Spillanes lately.
But the girls will feel better with a good night’s sleep, Aunt Mary says, and maybe tomorrow the bluebird will fly their way.
Shirley’s sittin’ out on her back porch with a bottle of Jack Daniels tellin’ her cats, Porgy and Bess, about what happened and treatin’ ‘em to some crawdad livers.
Doc Feely was in his office calibratin’ his mammogram machine to large.
Glen was at the store, installin’ a motion detector on the frozen food case that triggers the cooler to shut off when the door’s open, and Barney’s sittin’ there lookin’ as depressed as any peckish Presbyterian you ever espied.
Cecil was in his driveway, vacuumin’ crawdad cooties out of the Barracuda.
Walter and the Crawdaddies and the rest of the old folks were in the TV room back at the home, watchin’ McGarrett and Danno chase a group of international hashish smugglers who were holed up at the Kalahuakaini Hotel.
Mr. Crawdad was never seen again.
Back at Possum Corners, a reunion was takin’ place and there may be a more celebrative crustacean community in the world somewhere, but I doubt it.
Aunt Mary and me – she and I - decided to go on over to the De-Drop where we could talk things over – crawdad invasions call for cocktails, she said - and when we got there, Mayor Grifter was over in the booth under the moose head, countin’ the ballots he’d been able to salvage.
“Seventy-six for Kim, and seventy-six for Dorita Lynn,” he announces, fishin’ out his cell phone and callin’ Kim to see if she could suggest a good tiebreaker. Her line was busy, so he called Dorita Lynn, but her daddy answered so he hung up.
“Maybe you could just make ‘em Co-Crawdad Queens, Mayor. That’ll make ‘em both feel better and give us twice the beauty queen bang for the buck.” That was me, a beacon of reason in trying times.
Aunt Mary sighed, ordered a Grasshopper, lit a Pall Mall , and set back in a philosophizin’ mood – she’s an existentialist, you know – and she ahems like Socrates fixin’ to tell his followers about the latest in epistemological epigrammery.
“You know,” and I can tell she’s fixin’ to go into deep waters on me, “some things are just meant to be,” she goes, “and we’re not meant to understand ‘em. For instance, back in…”
I rubbed the crawdad bite on my butt and pondered on it.
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