Little Curtis, getting up to shenanigans

The loose, rattling knock sounded through the entire three-story farmhouse. For Pete’s sake, thought Betty drying her hands on the dishtowel as she came out of the kitchen to answer it, they’re going to knock that poor screen door right off its hinges! It wouldn’t take much though, she mused: repairing that old rickety screen door had been on Joe’s honey-do list for as long as she could remember. They would likely repair it in time for Little Curtis’ wedding at this rate.

She looked down the hallway at the front door, and tried to make out the figure through the yellowing lace of the window covering. The figure outside was tall and lanky, and bore the slightly stooped silhouette of a life hard-worked, of money hard-earned. She realized with a start that it was her neighbor, Jasper Proctor! She almost didn’t recognize him without the beard he used to sport. Why, he hadn’t come around in…Betty counted the years on her fingers, and when she realized she would need a third hand to properly count the years since old Jasper had trundled over from his cattle farm next door, she gave up. It must have been right after the mill fire that he had last come over. His driveway had been a makeshift fire line for the blaze that had swept the plain, and it still bore the soot deeply: she could always tell which of their long driveways a car was coming down, from the color of the dust it raised.

Betty shuddered at the thought of the mill fire. Chaos, that was, proud of the word that just came to her. She was occasionally proud of the words that occurred to her: she had always struggled to read and write, but she knew a good two-dollar word or two. She covered for her struggle to properly read more easily than one might imagine, but there were always exceptions. Like that time in grade school: she sat in the back of class in Mrs. Dobrey’s English class, to be called on less. This had worked fairly well, until one day, Mavis Stabler, that pert little bitch, had sat in Betty’s seat on purpose. Betty had no choice but to take Mavis’ seat in the very front row of the class, right in front of Mrs. Dobrey’s desk. Betty had tried to make herself as small as possible, hunching over her lessons, squinting with the concentration it took to will herself invisible to Mrs. Dobrey’s sharp gaze. It didn’t matter, when the class took turns reading aloud about the United States National Parks, Betty was surely called upon.

Red-faced and stammering, Betty could ignore the snickers that came from the back of the classroom while she deliberately, almost gingerly, sounded out the words on the page. She even could ignore the averted gazes and silent judgement that came from the children seated next to her. But there was nothing that could have prepared her for the eruption of laughter that came, first from that troublemaker Mavis, then from the rest of the class, when she pronounced the name of the park: YO-suh-might. She had looked around, at first thinking she had made a clever joke without realizing, then it slowly dawned on her what the name of the park actually was, and that the class was laughing at her, not with her. She had laughed along gamely, pretending that it had been on purpose (much to Mrs. Dobrey’s chagrin). After that, she arrived 10 minutes early to every English class just so she could secure her seat in the back before Mavis took it.

But yes, Betty thought, “chaos” was a funny word, a word that didn’t sound like what the word looked like when spelled. And yes, “chaos” was a pretty good word to describe the mill fire, and the blaze that had swept the plain afterwards. Why, it occurred to Betty, now that I think about it, I think Mavis died in the mill fire. Spell “Mill Fire”, you pissy little bitch.

She stopped before the door, smoothing her apron, flicking the dish towel over her shoulder, and running a rough, still-damp hand through her faded-brown hair. It was bad enough to get an unexpected guest, but this surely took the cake, to have a visitor when she was so clearly not ready for company. She took a deep breath and opened the door.

Jasper Procter was standing there, his beanpole-thin frame seeming even thinner with the late afternoon sun behind him. His craggy, tired face beamed at her: Betty had always thought that Jasper fancied her a little bit, maybe even more than a little bit. But he was respectful of Joe, and Betty knew better than to lead an old man on. Anyhow, every day of the last decade seemed to leave its mark on Jasper, and Betty didn’t remember there being half as many canyons on his face. Or maybe his beard had just covered them up before. She shivered at the thought of her husband Joe shaving his beard off…he had considered it, for a time, even going to the drugstore in town and buying the clippers! But he had relented when Betty finally, patiently explained that she preferred a man with a beard, and his face halfway belonged to her anyway, on account of their wedding vows and such.

“Well, hello Betty!” Jasper said, a smidge too enthusiastically. “How have you been?” He smiled, and then his countenance quickly darkened, realizing that he greeted his neighbor as if he hadn’t seen her in a month or so, when in fact they hadn’t done anything more than wave to each other across the field for the past 11 years. He looked down uncomfortably, shuffling his boots on the gray wood of the porch. The recluse looked up sheepishly and tried again, this time quiet and slow: “It’s been quite a while, Betty. The years have been kind to you.”

Betty flushed, despite herself. “Well, that’s kind, Jasper, you as well.” They both heard the lie the minute it came out and there was another moment of silence. Jasper finally broke it, his voice serious now.

“I won’t lie, Betty, I wish I was coming over for a social visit, I’d like to catch up with Joe as well. But your boy…” he trailed off and shook his head, as if the memory was too much.

Betty’s heat sank. “Oh no. What has Little Curtis got into now?” She dreaded the answer. Even since they shipped Aunt Dot back off to the sanitarium, Little Curtis had been acting up something fierce. Well, it even started before that, she supposed, but Aunt Dot had probably been covering up for him.

Aunt Dot had shown up one day unannounced, and when Betty and Little Curtis didn’t answer the door, why that crazy Dot had climbed the back porch to the second floor, and let herself in through an upstairs window! Betty and Little Curtis had hidden underneath the kitchen sink when Dot had turned up at the door, and sure enough, that was where the nonplussed Dot found them. She had a nose like a bloodhound.

So her sister and her son had bonded fiercely after that, which pleased Betty. What did not please Betty was how cagey Dot would get when Betty asked her how she was discharged from the sanitarium. Dot would just wave her hands, mutter something incoherent, and then offer to make oatmeal cookies, or flapjacks with extra maple syrup (Dot had a strong sweet-tooth). Betty persisted for awhile, but then dropped the subject when it became clear that Dot was now calmer, and her presence seemed to be good for Little Curtis, who sometimes lacked for friends during the summer.

But the charade could only last so long. One day, she and Joe came back from a shopping trip into town. They parked the truck, started waddling toward the door, each with armfuls of grocery bags. Betty heard it first: a low buzzing sound, like the sound the TV made when it showed only snow. She paused at the front door, looked at Joe, who only shrugged. She opened the door, and the vision that greeted her exemplified the word “chaos”, if she would have been blessed to be calm enough to think of such a word.

Little Curtis and his Aunt Dot sat on the sofa, a plate of bread in front of them. Honey dripped from the bread, and in fact completely covered the table, thin, sticky rivulets descending to the rug. And in front of the coffee table, a basketball-sized beehive, broken open, bees angrily flying sorties around their stolen home.

Dot and Curtis both shared the same startled expression when the door opened, hands halfway to their mouths with hunks of bread absolutely slathered in honey. Their faces and arms were both dotted with large welts from the bee stings. Later, Betty would wonder how they could ignore such stings, but she supposed that their booty from the raid made it seem worth it.

Betty didn’t remember her reaction, probably because she lost composure -and she hated to lose composure-, but she remembered Joe’s well. He was chillingly calm, ordered Little Curtis upstairs, saying he would take care of him later that afternoon, and told Dot that she was going back to the sanitarium. He made good on both promises.

And now, a few months later, here she was, getting ready to apologize for Curtis again. “What is it, Jasper? I’m sure it’s something I can take care of quickly.” She hoped.

Jasper slowly brought his right hand around and showed Betty. It took her a moment to process what she was looking at. His hands were shaking, she thought with age at first but then realized Jasper was furious. Why, those look exactly like the electric clippers that Joe has, she thought.

She pursed her lips as she realized she hadn’t seen Little Curtis for the whole afternoon now. She had thought he was upstairs playing, but now knew better. On instinct, she looked up sharply at her visitors’ head of hair. Catching her glance, he shook his head. “No, not me, Betty.” He gestured with the clippers, turned, and trundled off the porch. Betty followed. As they turned the corner of the house, she caught a glimpse of Little Curtis, darting around the back of the barn. Lord, that boy could run! And he appeared to still have his full head of hair too, thank the Lord.

Jasper stopped at the property line that separated his property from Betty’s. He breathed in deeply, then exhaled, a weary, defeated sound. It was then that Betty noticed the power cord snaking out of one of the windows of the house. Puzzled, she followed its path with her eyes, where it traveled onto Jasper’s property line and into his cattle pasture…

Betty’s hand flew up to her mouth and she felt her eyes grow as wide as saucers. There, on her neighbor’s property, stood a couple dozen cattle, all bald as a human baby on the day of its birth, shaved clean of most of the hair on their bodies. Or at least up to the point Little Curtis could reach with the electric clippers. She let out a surprised squawk as she looked over at Jasper, who just hung his head and looked sadly at his shorn cows. For their part, the poor dumb beasts wandered blithely unaware, lowing from time to time.

On instinct, Betty turned quickly, and caught a small head disappearing behind the corner of the barn. She threw the dish towel off her shoulder and flung in the apron off over her head in one easy, angry move.

She would see how fast Little Curtis could run.

Read Little Curtis Part 1 here, and Little Curtis Part 2 here.