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Show Blue Run/46 name on his chest right at my eye level. "Ow." I said, like it hurt. "I'm Josephine." "It's O.W.," he said. "And this belongs ,to you." He held out a loaf of Wonder White Bread, a sandwich loaf that was soft and still a little warm and good smelling. His hands were big as split chickens He could crush Buddy Washer's skull And there was a sweetness about him. I took the bread and said something dumb like, "Manna from heaven. But I can't just walk out with this. I'll have to pay." "Nope," he said. "They know me here." By week's end, he'd dropped off a bag full of cinnamon buns, bear claws, doughnut holes and twists. Joey was best man in our wedding, and later, after the adoption, we changed his last name to O.W.'s, Harvell. No one messed with us~we were left alone. He'd have to meet Daddy, O.W. The duck club was ten-thousand acres of flooded timber between Wabbeseka and Humphrey. Stuttgart was Duck Capitol of the World. Every fall they held this worldwide duck call contest and Miss Mallard got driven down Main Street on the hood of a Corvette, her green sash fluttering in the breeze amongst the sky calls and sixteen gauge shotguns going off out over flooded rice fields. The bright sky would sometimes darken with ducks, their silver wings whistling. Unlike Jefferson and Monroe Counties, Arkansas County was wet-hard liquor was to be had. Men who expected to stand five hours in chest-deep ice water needed whiskey-I can understand that entirely. They call it still hunting Still hunts are like little deaths-see how long you can stay still, pretend not to be. My daddy and his second wife, Ruby, had driven down from Morrilton after Christmas dinner |