Untitled by: Crystal Brooke Waters, Photograph, 2013.
Small Town Bastards
by: Jason Woods
Mr. Scratch is my name, and this is my story. I took a twenty year vow of silence to never discuss this matter. It’s been twenty-three years now since that oath, and I feel that the time is ripe for this tale to be told. The names of the actual players have been changed to protect both the innocent and the guilty. Believe me, there are plenty of both in this tale.
Picture this. A small town positioned in the flatlands of Northwest Ohio with a population of 1,200, all white folk and staunch, dependable Republicans. A town divided by Main Street. By that I mean, east of Main Street is Lutheran terrain, while the west side is the Methodist congregation. The only adult unaffiliated in the religious sense is Devo Dan. Devo had himself a pious experience with LSD back in the summer of 1978, and the love affair loiters to this day. We have one stop light we named Part Time. It has all three colors, red, yellow, and green, but they only work twelve hours a day between 7a.m. and 7p.m.. In the middle of town we have a gas station dubbed Carl’s Titty Shop. The gas is cheap and the centerfold display in his shop is of magnanimous proportions. The Lutherans are relieved his station is on the west side of Main Street and the Methodists sanctioned an injunction on Carl from passing out communion on Sunday mornings until his, “filthy filth” is removed from his walls. On the north end of town, Lutheran side, we have our grocery store titled Linda’s Dusty Pantry. Linda’s a good soul, just slow on restock. Rule of thumb: always look for the expiration date carefully. Sometimes she hides it with a price sticker. Across the street from Linda’s is our pizza-joint, famous for the “Shittiest Pizza South of Canada.” The fame came from, well, I guess it’s safe to admit now that I was the one who arranged that idiom on the marquee. Which, my friends, is the genesis of this story.
In this corn-fed town I run around with three other slightly bemused gentlemen and one sweet gal. I’ll make quick with the introductions. Funny Vowels, a speech impaired but crafty bloke. McStone the Irish Gnome, a rotund Scottish stoner hell-bent on the perfect high. Then, there is my best friend, Public Enema. Enema is a tall drink of water born without a social filter. Whatever jumps into Enema’s head, dashes straight for his mouth. If you didn’t know him you would think this man was the poster child for all the ass-holes across this great country. And last, but not least, is Enema’s sister, Two Spoons. She garnered that name from being a vicious competitor in the card game Spoons.
I was the mastermind who forged their names out of genius, or well-timed hefty tokes from McStone’s Frodo bong. I wish to hell I could take credit for my name, but Two Spoons jazzed up the room one night declaring Mr. Scratch was my moniker since I was dealing with a severe poison ivy rash at the time. Funny Vowels added an inquisitive backstory to the name about an unfortunate professional pool player with an enigmatic penchant for seedy prostitutes, a two-fold meaning built upon poor pool-smithing and chronic VD. Vowels is a crafty gent just this side of deranged.
One summer night in June, we were all hanging out at Enema’s house just outside the town’s limits with little to do but fashion up some recreational mischief. We peddled ideas of non-descript imagination when Vowels was blinded by a stroke of ingenuity. He stammered his way through a description of how to quarry the East side of town against the West. He continued with how this town is slopping over with self-righteousness and that both the Lutherans and Methodists needed to be taught some humility It would involve the letter squares I pilfered from an out of business burger joint two towns over, the very same letters I used on the Shittiest Pizza Joint. I was enamored with the idea at once, and with nominal coaxing, the others hastily fell in line with the notion.
Two Spoons grab a pen and some paper while McStone broke out his Amelia Bedelia stash, because according to McStone, it just made you as shit-house goofy as that chick. We were hustling ideas from Bedelia while Spoons jotted down every inkling we formulated, and added a few gems herself. The group was working in fine fashion when Spoons wondered if this was too big of a job for the five of us. She proposed the prospect of inviting someone else into our fold. I said I knew the perfect person to ask, Pokers Gent. Pokers held the monthly penny poker games in his basement. He’s the silent type and only shows his emotions after the hand is played. Everyone agreed that Pokers was our man.
McStone volunteered to approach Pokers the next day to see if he would join our cause. Pokers agreed, but on one condition. We had to let his partner, Hammy Moons, join as well. Hammy Moons is the son of a pig farmer with ill-fitting jeans. Aside from that, he was a trustworthy individual that would be a huge asset to the group. McStone took it upon himself to speak for the group, called it a deal, and shook Pokers’ hand. McStone came back and informed the group we now had seven. No one had any demurrals to our expansion. Now all we needed was a place to call headquarters.
Enema figured that Carl would let us use his station as headquarters after his ejection from the Communion Plate. The next day we went to Carl’s to ask him if he would love to join our cause. Turns out that Enema was right. Carl was honored that we would call his mammary museum home before quickly apologizing to Spoons for the monthly decorations. Spoonstook it in stride by saying that she ogled her own chest from time to time. She might as well have punched Carl in the forehead. His mouth glued shut and a single bead of sweat sprinted down his brow. Things had started to line up. We had a solid core group with seedy headquarters, The Impeccable Cocktail. Now all we needed to do was to finalize how we were going to instigate our homemade brew of humility. We left Carl’s having decided that McStone would inform Pokers and Hammy to meet us in two days at headquarters so we could finalize our plan.
All were present and accounted for at Carl’s at the projected meeting time. I called our meeting to order and stated our first order of business was that our small band of misfits needed a designation. Something with wit and a pinch of charm. Vowels stuttered that our name should be The Small Town Bastards. I seconded that motion. Hell, it even pulled Carl’s attention away from his busty magazine. Not too many things are able to break Carl’s boob stupor, except a witty remark by a stuttering savant and the prospect of more boobs. The Small Town Bastards was unanimously voted into effect. The next thing we needed to deliberate was that this affair had to be initiated in secrecy. This was a volatile undertaking that required all of us to never declare it to anyone. The risk of getting into grave trouble, or probable litigation in the realm of defamation, ran high. I gave everyone a chance to back out right then, and all of us would understand and think nothing less of that person. Not a soul flinched. Everyone was devoted to the cause. With those matters settled, I tendered the floor to Enema to get to the heart of our meeting.
“Lady, gentlemen, and Carl,” started Enema, “we have our first assignment. In three nights we will focus our sights on the Methodists. Thanks to Carl’s intelligence we know that the choir director is a closet bigot. If they ain’t white they ain’t right. Mr. Newlove has a catalogue of Aryan literature that he keeps squirreled away. It’s time people knew about this man and his ideology. To inform this town we will use Scratch’s letter pieces to state Mr. Newlove’s double life on the Lutheran marquee. To pull this off we have a couple of things we need to consider. First off is the lay of the town. There are only two main roads that will have any traffic: Main Street and Main Cross. There will be a sentry posted at the north and south of Main Street as well as East and West Main Cross. Everyone will be issued a walkie-talkie set to channel fifteen. Pokers, you and Hammy will be on foot patrol on the north and south. McStone and Vowels, you have the east and west perimeters. Spoons, you will be with Scratch and I at the Lutheran marquee placing the letters. The next thing, and I can’t stress this enough, is that we have to handle the letter tiles with gloves. McStone has taken the liberty of wiping them clean of finger prints in case someone gets the idea to lift prints to find the culprits. Thank you McStone. We will start at precisely 2am. This should take, at most, thirty minutes to accomplish. We all have to be on full alert. If anyone sees an oncoming car, tell everyone. Give plenty of advanced notification so we can retreat to cover. Vowels, you whistle into the radio. Your marble-mouthed warnings will eat up precious time. With that being said, Religious Muddle is in full effect. I now turn the floor back to Scratch.”
I asked everyone to come back to Carl’s in three nights, at 1am, in appropriate dark attire and gloves so we could cover the plan again and pass out the obligatory equipment. I stressed the significance of secrecy again and adjourned the assembly. Carl wanted to know his role in this and I said that he was our inside man on the Methodists, our silent partner. He liked that idea and was satisfied. I added that if he got caught he would lose his business and be run out of town. He took note of my statement and said he would be the best inside man since Oskar Schindler.
The night of the first mission, everyone arrived on schedule, garbed in all black and wearing gloves, ready to achieve our first objective. We rehashed the strategy and passed out the walkie-talkies. We each checked to make sure we were all on channel fifteen and that everyone had a signal. With the equipment working and hearts racing, we hit our predestined markers. At forty minutes past two, we all reconvened at Carl’s with the message in place. Not a single car had passed through town during our excursion. McStone entreated that we go to Enema’s house for a celebratory smoke-off for a successful mission. Everyone approved and strolled in a victorious silence.
The next morning Enema and I went walking through the town to see our handiwork. As we approached the Lutheran marquee, we could see a small crowd gathered around. There, in its full glory, was Vowels’ message. “Mr. Newlove has two robes; one robe that bears a cross and a second robe for burning crosses. Look under the floorboards of his barn.” It looked better in the morning than it did at night; it was the crowd that really made the letters come to life. Questions buzzed the air like provoked hornets. Just then, Painter Joe happened to walk by. Painter Joe is our local lunatic, a full blown schizophrenic. He believes in God. It’s just that his God has no religious leanings toward any denomination. The only people Joe’s a menace to are those that only he perceives. Painter is always rambling around town telling his imperceptible entourage to spread the fuck out and shut the fuck up. I wish you could’ve had the chance to watch Painter and his concealed disciples have a knockdown, drag out fight on the school grounds. It was a pantomime of wonder. Too bad Painter lost the fight, but I’m sure he left some black eyes as well.
The crowd parted when Joe arrived. He looked at the marquee and stated, “That fucko Newlove isn’t just a racist, he’s an adulterer as well. Right Andy? Speak up Andy!” Enema asked me who Andy was. I said he’s an eyewitness to Newlove’s affair, but only Joe can see or hear Andy, and apparently Andy had been digging in the garden of rumors and pulled some weeds himself. Enema doubted Andy would hold weight in the court of public opinion. I agreed but wondered what else Painter Joe knew about this town. He might be useful to us. I shelved the idea for a while and motioned to Enema that it’s time for us to leave. We decided that talking to Carl would have to wait until tomorrow. Let him gather the town’s reaction while gassing up their vehicles. By noon our message had been removed and replaced with Ephesians 1:7, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.” Not a bad follow up for damage control, but the damage had been done.
That week was a flurry of commotion. Mr. Newlove publicly acknowledged to his congregation that he had an affair, but he was adamant that he was not xenophobic. The genius said his proof was that his mistress was a Hispanic, lady that he and his wife employed to clean their house. Mrs. Newlove then stood at the pulpit and said that her husband’s affair should not warrant his removal from the church, but when you add his racist beliefs on top of the fact that his mistress was Hispanic then this dual fraud should never work in a church anywhere again. The congregation voted and the results were unanimous: Mr. Newlove was to step down as the Choir Director effective immediately. Two days after his announcement he was handed his divorce papers by Mrs. Newlove’s lawyer and high-tailed it out of town. No one knew what became of Mr. Newlove, and no one really cared either. I still wondered how Painter Joe knew about the affair. It seemed our roving lunatic was more vigilant than he was credited for.