Richard, the paperboy from The Red Scarf, Sept 1944, #6

September 24
Richard, the paperboy, from The Red Scarf, Sept 1944 #6
Now, I know danged well, for sure, that y'all ain't gonna believe a word of what I'm about to tell you, but I promise, it's the God's truth if I've ever told it. You see, some of them things that happened to me and some of them just off the wall characters just don't sound real. Take for example, Peg. Peg? Yep, he's been Peg forever, at least forever to me. Heck, what else to you call someone with a peg leg? Well, old Peg runs the pool hall down the street from Doc's Newstand and it's way and by far the most exciting place in our little town. Course, me and John Clayton can't go in there when he's open for business, but Peg is alway coming out on the sidewalk to talk to us and sometimes early in the morning we'll get to go in. Peg gave me my first job, which weren't no big deal, 'cause it was just sweeping out the pool hall early Sunday morning before church. But just Peg ain't nothing...you know for a name. Naw, this is where it get really goofey. Peg's brother is the city marshal and his name is Wing. Yep, Wing like a bird's wing. Course, Peg and Wing has got real names, but nobody but God knows what they is. Now get this, and if I'm lyin' I'm dyin', Wing ain't got but one arm. But look out and hold your horses, Peg don't need but one arm to keep the peace in Norphlet. He's a blackjack swinging marshal. Man, he can knock 'em plumb silly with that blackjack. But that ain't all the strange folks we got in Norphlet. Not hardly. You see I'm the official paperboy for the whole town of Norphlet. Yeah, I know it ain't but 650 people living there, but I'm it; the town paperboy. I work for Doc Rolinson, who shore ain't no doctor. Nobody know how he got that name, but that's what everybody calls him. Doc also kinda funny. Way back a long time ago, Doc got his legs crushed in an accident and now he wheels around the newsstand in a wheelchair....smoking a Lucky Strike in a long holder thinking he looks like President Rosevelt....but he don't, and they ain't nobody in Norphlet that thinks he does. I get along real good with old Doc, except when I'm late coming in to deliver papers. Uh, well, since I late most every day, me and Doc hafta talk about why I was late, and of course I had just stayed in bed too long....but I shore ain't gonna tell him that, so I end up lyin' like some sorry yard dog, coming up with excuses that I even have touble believing. Shoot, I'm done out of time again and I ain't told you about Tiny, my good friend, who looks like a walking tub of lard and then there's that sorry Homer Ray, the bully who looks like a goat that's been hit between the eyes with a fence post. Well, I'll get to them in a day or two and I'll tell you just how the sorry Homer Ray got his just deserts. More tomorrow....