First Look--Lyin' Like a Dog

A peak at my next novel in the series, Lyin' Like a Dog.

Chapter One
My Twelfth Birthday

September 23, 1945
Shoot, birthdays, they ain’t no big deal. Ya know why? Well, let me tell you just what I think about birthdays―they’s just for rich kids. Yeah, that’s right. Heck, around my house it’s like they never happen. Oh sure, Momma’ll smile, give me a hug, and say, “I hope you have a wonderful birthday, Richard,” but that’s about it; and outside of an extra trip to the picture show or something real little, I don’t get nothing.
You know, it seems like turning twelve oughta count for something, but no, not on your cotton-picking life. Yeah, I know it has to do with money—ha!—or no money might be a better way to put it. Anything around my house that costs money better be something to eat or wear because the Mason family ain’t gonna waste a nickel on stuff like a birthday.
Well, I guess you can tell I’m kinda all bent outta shape, and I’m sitting around feeling sorry for myself. You guessed it―not even a cheap card or a ticket to the picture show this year. Heck, this birthday just about hit the bottom of the barrel. But, hey, it’s durn sure a lot better than my birthday was last year. Shoot, this year we’ve done whipped them sorry Germans, and just a couple of weeks back the Japs surrendered after we hit ’em with them atom bombs. Heck, me and Daddy almost had our ears in the radio listening to that famous newscaster Walter Winchell tell about the surrender. Shoot, he talks so fast I can hardly understand him. Every broadcast he starts off with:
“Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North and South America and all the ships at sea. Let’s go to press…”
Well, ’course, that sounds real good and important like he’s talking to almost everybody in the whole entire world, so we really listen up. Gosh, when he said, “Japs sign unconditional surrender papers,” Daddy jumped outta that chair hollering for Momma to come in from the kitchen, and I was yelling like some wild Indian. Wow, that was something else. So I guess I really should just be sitting up here in the hayloft thinking about how glad I am that the War’s over. Maybe, but, well, oh, you know, I do care about the War being over ’cause them sorry Germans wounded my Uncle Spencer in the knee and nearly shot down my Uncle J. R when he was bombing ’em. But heck, it’s still my birthday, so why can’t I be glad about the War being over and still be all wrinkled up about not getting nothing for my birthday?
Well, at least I’ve got some good friends and a real good dog. My dog goes by the name of Sniffer, ’cause that old skinny, brown hound just sniffs and sniffs and howls to beat sixty all the time, but, shoot, he never trees nothing. He’s just a real good friend, and when you’ve got a dog you can talk to and he understands you, that counts for a lot. Huh, don’t think I can talk to Sniffer? Shoot, all I gotta say is “Swamp!” and that danged hound starts howling like crazy. He’s ready to go hunting. How about that?
’Course, I’ve got a whole lot of friends and one real good one. His name is John Clayton Reed, and he’s a bunch shorter than I am, but he’s weighs about fifteen pounds more’n me. Well, I’m kinda tall for twelve. Yeah, and I look a lot like my skinny momma. There ain’t an ounce of fat on either one of us, and, heck, there ain’t that much muscle. Momma keeps telling me I’m gonna fill out, but every year she marks my height on the kitchen wall and then weighs me. Shoot, I’m always taller, but heck, I’m usually not more’n a couple of pounds heavier. Well, I guess it’s that danged paper route that keeps me thin, ’cause every morning I run about five miles delivering them sorry papers―wait a minute―I’m lyin’ like a dog. I don’t run no five miles a day. Heck, I might trot for a while, but usually I just plod along, chunking papers at front porches.
I work for old Doc Rollinson down at the newsstand, who got his legs all banged up out in the oil fields, and now he hasta use a wheelchair to get around. Doc’s always yelling at me for being late, but, shoot, why be on time when you got a danged paper route that don’t pay hardly nothing? Old Doc is really something else when he wheels around in that wheelchair with a cigarette holder clamped between his teeth, yelling at me for being late. Doc thinks that cigarette holder makes him look kinda like President Roosevelt, but he’s the only one who thinks that. Heck, Doc may be grumpy, but he’s still one of my best friends.
But you know, there’s something ’bout birthdays that are kinda different even if you don’t get nothing. Today, after I got home from school, I went out to our barn and climbed up in the loft where I wouldn’t be bothered. Yeah, I just wanted to pout all by myself, but then I started thinking. Heck, the first thing I thought about was that I’ll never be eleven again. Well, that ain’t no big a deal is it? Naw, but as I leaned back on a pile of hay and thought about all the stuff that happened while I was eleven it kinda made me smile, and then I got a little sad.
Heck, there was some real funny stuff that went on around the little old town of Norphlet where I live. You know Norphlet don’t ya? Yeah, it’s just six hundred people still hanging on trying not to get sucked up by the big county-seat town, El Dorado. Well, it was a bunch bigger back in Arkansas’s oil boom in the 1920s, but the oil boom ended and folks just packed up and left. The little old town looks like a ghost town now, but it’s big enough for me and my friends.
’Course, not everything that happened to me last year was just things you’d laugh at. Heck, there was some upsetting things and some stuff that just scared the beejesus outta me. Well, most of the exciting stuff happened after last Christmas, and as the months passed things just got all wound up. Heck, there was times I thought me and John Clayton was goners for sure. Wow, some of them things were so wild you’d never believe them in a million, zillion years. Huh? You wanna hear about ’em―every little thing? Well, okay, now listen up, ’cause some stuff that happened might sound kinda made up, but it ain’t. Promise, cross my heart.