The 1950’s were idyllic, yet challenging times. In this insightful and often humorous semi-autobiographical novel, Osburn portrays life as a teenager in rural eastern Arkansas as anything but boring. However, would his conservative upbringing, revivals, and the Scout Oath see him through?While things were looking up after the war, time-honored ways were up for grabs. Federal intervention in desegregation shook old foundations. Rock and roll was attracting a generation of accepting musicians across racial barriers. Emerging counter-culturalism was beginning to challenge traditional values. In the face of modernism, old time religion was entrenching. Unavoidable questions demanded rethinking everything held sacred by the Southern mind-set --the status quo, prosperity, segregation, the political system, religion, social classes. Where might "the thin edge of the wedge" lead?In this engaging anecdotal account, a boy is caught in the cultural lag that kept diehard Southern culture from dealing with the harsh realities of a changing world. His coming to terms with critical issues of the time is an interesting search for values and, half a century later, is loaded with contemporary relevance.
THE EDGE OF THE WEDGE
Recollections of a Reluctant ProdigalBy CARROLL OSBURNAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 Carroll Osburn
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4520-3474-4 Chapter One
It was not a good afternoon for Delbert. We agreed to meet after he finished his paper route at four-thirty, so I jumped on my bike and dashed off toward the drug store where everybody flocked after school for milkshakes. It wasn't so much that I wanted to see Delbert as I hoped that Gwendolyn might be there. She was the hottest chick in the whole ninth grade, but my big crush on her-along with about two-dozen other guys-stood as slim a chance as with Marilyn Monroe. On the way, goofy ole' Earl D. flagged me down, flapping his arms like a preening goose. He was throwing Delbert's papers because Delbert was still at the paper office, "looking kindly stove up."
Just inside the door of the Sentinel, there the scudder was, stretched out face down over a huge roll of printing paper. When I asked, "What's wrong? Chevy stop making trucks?" his eyes rolled slowly over in my direction. With his perpetual smile vanished, the boy looked like death warmed over. After school, one of the kids brought a plug of tobacco that he had filched from his father. Bull of the Woods it was, and it was still lying there on the floor with the wrapper over most of it, but a big bite out of one end. They'd dared him to do it and Delbert didn't need much egging on to do anything. While he was chewing it, Earl D. slapped him on the back to congratulate him and Delbert swallowed most of it-chaw, juice, and all.
Mr. Deese, the editor, was as mad as an old wet hen. "God love him ... somebody's gotta!" he yelled. He hadn't given Delbert the boot that time when he rounded a corner at breakneck speed on his bike, let a paper fly, and hit Miz' Geiser smack dab on the rear end as she was stooped over in her flowerbed. He hadn't axed him when he rode his bike like a bolt of greased lightning up into Miz' Darden's yard trying to run over that cat. Delbert swore up and down that he only went up on the sidewalk. Even so, Mr. Deese was hot under the collar about it for weeks.
Delbert just came that way, it seems. Maybe he had been a good kid at one time. It's hard to tell. Some would debate it. Trouble just seemed to follow him around, like at summer camp when some big guys from another town roughed him up on his way from the canteen back to the campsite and stole his Hershey bar. The next day, Delbert bought another Hershey bar and replaced the chocolate with Exlax. Sure enough, they jumped out from some bushes and stole his candy again. That night at supper, the camp director had what amounted to a hissy fit with a tail on it. Several guys had pretty well tied up the pilot-to-bombardier toilet at the Chickasaw campsite. As he told it, some kid whom those guys swore they could identify had offered them candy with Exlax in it. According to the director, it would be sorted out the next morning when the whole camp assembled at the flagpole. It didn't happen. That night, Delbert was caught doing "the unmentionable" and before breakfast he was on a Greyhound bus headed home.
He couldn't help but screw stuff up. Take camping, for instance. We used to camp out a lot, but not lately. The final straw was one night when he peed in the fire embers and the rancid smoke drifted straight through my tent. He didn't have to stand close. See, a couple of years back, he caught the tip of his penis in the zipper of his jeans and it hadn't healed right. His tiny little stream would go a good eight feet or so. In fact, Delbert always won the peeing contests off the old river bridge. To be honest, my Army surplus pup tent didn't smell like roses from the git go. I don't think the Marines used it at Guadalcanal or Iwo Jima or anywhere famous; it was probably used at some lousy training base in a god-forsaken swamp. It only cost three bucks at the Army-Navy store in Memphis, but the nicer five dollar one would have been a much better buy, for sure. Delbert's stinky smoke that would gag a maggot, on top of that swampy smell, was more than a guy ought'a put up with and we hadn't camped together since. Even so, one doesn't bug out on a good friend just because a few things don't go according to Hoyle now and then.
All peekid around the gills, he was sprawled over that roll of printing paper like a limp dishrag. His big scar just jumped out at you. The week before school started, we all decided to get Mr. Yancey to give us flat top haircuts. Everybody's was okay, but Delbert had a humongous scar that ran catacornered across the top of his head. It came about back in fifth grade. His dad was drunker'n Cooter Brown one night and tried to fix something on his old '48 Nash. Delbert wandered out there eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. His dad told him to lick his fingers off and hold a certain wire to a spark plug while he tried to get it started. The story has it that Delbert banged his head against the down-turned edge of the hood and it took several stitches to close up the gash. They said he bled like a stuck hog. His flat top was decent enough, but that scar stood out like a pregnant nun on Easter Sunday.
While we're on the subject, Delbert had two other visible identifying scars, one being a vertical cut on his cheek. It started just under his left eye, about as wide as a #2 pencil lead, and continued straight down for about two inches. That one happened right after Christmas last year. Santa had brought him a brand spanking new lever action Daisy model 102 BB gun. Several of us were admiring it out by their garage, taking turns plinking at a tin can. In one way of looking at it, an older kid from near the cotton gin named Wally was mostly responsible because he was the one that put Delbert up to it. Wally moved away not long after, but that was unrelated to this incident. Wally's dad was sent to the pen for selling moonshine and word was that Wally's mom ran off with some guy that worked on a tugboat. The principal's secretary said that Wally had transferred up to Cairo, Illinois, so that all makes sense. Anyway, Wally asked if Delbert's dad had any shotgun shells and then asked to see one. A minute or two later, Delbert came out with a 20-gauge shell, eight-shot field load. "Double dog dare you to put it on the end of the barrel and pull the trigger," Wally smirked. Well, Delbert just smiled, cocked the thing, and balanced the shell on the business end of the barrel.
We all ducked for cover as he held his new BB gun up over his head at arm's length, pointed to the sky, and pulled the trigger. Aside from blowing out all the panes in the garage window, the blast put a couple of holes and several dents in the side of their Nash and one shot left a crease down his left cheek. The barrel of his new BB gun was peeled back about three inches in three sections like a banana. He's lucky it was eight-shot instead of buckshot! Talk about crazy as a loon! For the longest, Delbert's dad went around yapping about how his son didn't have the sense God gave a goose, that he was dumber than gourd guts, that any stump in the swamp had a higher IQ, that he was thinking about canceling his birth certificate, and so on. I always thought, "like father, like son" and "chip off the old block." There's an old joke that some of the guys thought might be true regarding Delbert that, the doc picked him up by his heels when he was born, took one look at him, and spanked his mother.
Delbert was still stretched out when the editor came in really ticked off. In fact, the veins stood out in his neck, his face was red, and he groped for words. He came up to Delbert, huffed and puffed, backed off, turned toward the door, and came back to Delbert. Still huffing and puffing, he blurted out, "Delbert, what in tarnation are you doin'?" He went on blessing ole' Delbert out good about not being able to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Then, he threw up his hands, got his "tang tongueled up," and rambled on, "Delbert, in all my dorn bays, I've never ... never have I had a dad-blamed paper carrier like you. This job's gonna be the end of me yet. It's guys like you ... guys like you that'll drive me plumb nuts some day. You're a scourge, boy. Yes sir, a downright scourge! You know when you get gum on your shoe and you can't scrape it off or get rid of it? You're like that, Delbert. Yes sir, you're just like that. You better straighten up, boy, and fly right or somebody's gonna cream your corn. You better-" Delbert looked up at him like a sick dog and tossed his cookies, right then and there ... right on the floor of the Sentinel ... smack on Mr. Deese's new Florsheim shoes!
Outside, I gave Delbert the two documents that Mr. Deese handed to me: the two-page paper carrier contract with the word FIRED written in big red ink letters and a check made out to Delbert for five bucks and two bits. I told Delbert that it wasn't true, what people said, that if his brains was gasoline, there wouldn't be enough to drive a pissant's motorcycle half-way around a BB. Delbert just grinned and sort of agreed that he "might should of not done that." Even so, he ranted, "That stupit ole' buzzard's only got one oar in the water anyways and it ain't no skin off'n my nose if he's a wantin' to git shed'a me." I told him it wasn't worth poppin' a lug nut over. Still fairly weak, the check slipped out of his hand just as a gust of wind hit, ahead of an approaching shower. After I chased it down, he thanked me and moaned that he was still sick to his stomach, but he'd be better once he "got the stouts back."
A moment later, he dropped it again and this time it blew clear across the street and was headed all the way to kingdom come when I finally caught up to it. Mentioning the need to keep his papers together until he got home, I reached into my knapsack and handed a manila folder to him that might do the trick. "So what'll you trade for it?" The question stunned him. "Trade," he said softly under his breath, sort of quizzically. "You wanna trade ... for a manila folder?"
He looked like he might barf again. While I was considering whether to duck or dodge, he reached for the half-smoked pack of Raleighs that was folded into the left sleeve of his T-shirt. Delbert had smoked cigarettes since sixth grade. Admittedly, several of us had lit up a time or two, but decided not to start the "vile habit of the weed," as our preacher put it. It really wasn't as cool as it looked when some movie star did it. For one thing, stinky clothes and crummy breath didn't help and frankly, we needed all the help we could get. Some of the kids who did smoke favored menthol cigarettes, claiming they were the perfect thing for colds and sore throats. Yeah! Gonna put cough drops smack out of business. Delbert was a Raleighs man, though-always was, from the start.
He'd sung the quitting song umpteen times, more or less, each time for less than half an hour. It was sure as an egg's an egg what would happen. In no time at all, he'd have a nicotine fit and try to bum a cigarette off someone or scrounge around for a half-smoked butt. Gr on ted. Tell tale stains on his fingers were proof enough that the guy was hooked.
Nobody thought Delbert would make Second Class in Scouts because he never could finish the required five-mile hike. He'd always run out of gas, find a shade tree, and light up. That, plus the fact that he never could build a fire with fewer than two matches, kept him at Tenderfoot. There were also a few other matters, like not remembering all of the arterial pressure points for first aid and not being able to follow a route far enough to prove that he could read a map. He almost passed the cooking requirement a few times, but he always seemed to botch something up. If he didn't scorch the meat beyond all recognition, he'd knock the bread off into the dirt or spill the beans or have Jello that wouldn't set up right. He even tried to pass "identifying local plants that cause skin poison," but the assistant scoutmaster almost popped his gut laughing at Delbert whose arms were covered with Calamine lotion. Poor ole' Delbert kept trying, though-he deserves a lot of credit for that much. It's just that anything, anything at all, was an incentive for the boy to reach for a weed. You sure wouldn't want to bet the farm on him quittin'. Still, you couldn't give up hope that he'd jump on the wagon with both feet sometime.
It wasn't a pretty sight, him standing there with tobacco juice and upchuck on the front of his T-shirt. Anyway, you had to wish the best and hope the best for the boy. Like Dad always says, "Fair weather friends are a dime a dozen." This might be the time that he'd swear off for good and make it stick. Who knows? Whatever he did certainly wouldn't stunt his growth any; he'd been stunted since day one-a ninth grader in a seventh grader's body. Those stains on the front of his T-shirt certainly didn't boost his image any.
Delbert's image did need some big time help. Guys laughed when he played eighth grade football. He'd gone around calling himself a scatback, but if he did break free, he couldn't have made it to the end zone. He'd have to stop and light one up about the twenty-yard line. Wind sprints led him to see the handwriting on the wall.
No one was surprised when Delbert quit the team. He always made U's in P.E. whenever anything strenuous came along, like rope climb, laps around the softball field, or basketball. He'd get maybe five feet or so up the rope and drop, claiming a pulled muscle. He'd make part of a lap around the field and limp in due to a charley horse. If he had to run up and down the court a few times, he'd hit the sideline with bad stomach cramps. Oh, he'd get S's in volleyball or softball, when he could loaf-you know, just stand around or volunteer as scorekeeper. Hiding behind bleachers or in the bushes beside the school or in a locker made his day, but if touch football or relay races ever came along, they swamped his boat. When that medicine ball bashed him in the chest, it was almost the livin' end of him -laid him out flatter'n a flitter. Coach laughed and said that Delbert was the closest thing to a physical wreck he'd ever seen. To tell the truth, he'd be good for the part of the ninety-pound weakling in those magazine ads, if he could ever get himself up to ninety pounds. You had to believe that Delbert would buck up someday and quit smoking for good.
So a manila folder went for half a pack of cigarettes. At the going rate of 25 cents a pack, my capital growth stood at 12 cents. Earl D. rode up about then, witnessed the transaction, and laughed sarcastically about my 12 percent profit. He was a whiz in Sunday school, but nowhere near the darling of the class in math. He took his right foot off the pedal and made several quick circular motions, like he was pedaling. Then, he squinted his eyes and let a big one rip, grinning like he'd done something rad. Earl D.'s dad called him "Whistlebritches." With my face screwed up, I waved the back of my hand and said, "Thou art foul! Get thee hence! Yea, verily!"
When it began to sprinkle, we gave one another the Chief Fugowi salute and split the scene. As I pedaled away and glanced over my shoulder, Delbert still stood there, like he was unsure. Then, he took off walking. He always walked slightly hunched over, bent forward at the waist. He walked a little disjointed, actually more like a chicken. Suddenly, the shower began to pick up some and Delbert started to run, but that wasn't really his forte. He always ran flat-footed, each step hitting the ground toe to heel at the same time. You could hear him running a mile away-whap! whap! whap! whap! As usual, he soon fizzled out and resumed walking just as I turned onto Broad Street and lost sight of him.
Yessir, ole' Delbert was a royal mess. You just had to overlook his laugh, which was more like a high-pitched horse whinny with a big snort at the end, and you could overlook his big Adam's apple and his moon pie-shaped ears, the right one with the big rip in it. He'd gotten that one as a little kid. When the "fit hit the shan" and his dad pulled off his belt, Delbert knew that his goose was cooked and lit out like blitzen through the house to escape certain doom. Hightailing it through the back door, he caught his ear on a screen door hook that was hanging out to the side. As there was no money for a hospital visit, they poured alcohol on it and let him tough it out. Delbert was one of a kind, one of Mother Nature's jokes. The Old Girl sure had a weird take on "trick or treat" that Halloween night when Delbert was conceived. Absolutely would not want to have been a fly on the wall when that happened and assafac!
The rain turned into a frog strangler, so I pedaled on home jiggedy-jog. My hand, cupped over my shirt pocket, carefully shielded these new assets from the downpour. It was an unpromising beginning, for sure, but at least one of my bequests was "in the mill."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from THE EDGE OF THE WEDGEby CARROLL OSBURN Copyright © 2010 by Carroll Osburn. Excerpted by permission.
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