After Church with Lula May

Hi. My name is Bud. It is really Billy Bob, but everyone calls me Bud. It sounds like mud. I live way up at the end of Calders draw. Momma said we have been there forever. I think she thinks that is a good thing.

Our house is like most in the back country, it is a log house set up high above the crick with rock supports that keep it in place, most of the time.

The roof only leaks when it rains and then only in some places. We put a pan under the leaks and throw it out the door so it lands on the ground just like it would have if the roof hadn't leaked. I think that whole idea was Momma's idea. It works really good. Momma is really smart. She went to the 5th grade before she knew all she needed to know.

We can sit on the porch of an evening and listen to the coon hounds runnin' those big ring tails through the river bottoms. The birds sing most all day, but I like the mornin's most. If I listen real close I can tell where the quail are singin' and then I can go fetch me a mess of them for supper.

I don't know what Momma would do without me. My sister and brother have moved out and gone to town to work and live. Momma said that wasn't what I should do. She said I was gonna stay right here in the hills and make somethin' of myself.

I reckon I am about 18 years old now. I don't recall when I was born, but Momma says that is about right. She was there, so she should know as well as anyone.

For the last two years I have been cuttin' wood for the neighbors. Momma says my daddy was a wood cutter, so I guess I am kinda following the family tradition. Daddy isn't around anymore. He travels a lot.

Momma speaks kindly of him however. I remember one time she told me he wasn't the sharpest axe in the woods, but he did have the longest handle she had ever seen.

She had a far off, kinda wistful look about her when she talked about daddy.

I went out and found me a good hickory limb and made me a really long handle for my axe, and I went my daddy one better and kept my axe sharp too. I don't know if my handle was longer than Daddy's handle. When I showed Momma my long handle she wouldn't tell me.

I know my Momma loves me. Sometimes she does this certain think when she talks to me, and I know when she does it that it is Momma's way of showing me she loves me. And when I showed Momma my long axe handle she did it. She kinda gets all speechless and looks down at her feet and shakes her head back and forth slow like.

When I was about 12 I had made it to 3rd grade. Mrs. Marme, the teacher, took me by the hand and walked me all the way home. She was nice like that. When we got home she told Momma, "I just don't think I can teach him anymore."

Momma and Mrs. Marme both just looked down and slowly shook their heads side to side.

I was so proud of myself. Here I was only 12 years old and already I knew so much my teachers couldn't teach me anymore. Momma and I agreed I didn't need to spend anymore time in school after I already knew it all.

Of a Sunday, we would go to church. Momma made me wash up in the crick and I had to have both straps of my coveralls over my shoulders. I didn't mind much though. Sometimes I got to sneak off to the woods with some of the girls after the preacher swept out the devil and all his buddies. The men would head around the church and take a nip of shine. The women would sit and eat fried chicken and drink tea under the oaks. And the kids old enough to look cross wise at their boy or girl friend would wait until the women were gossipin' and slide away into the woods.

There was only one girl in the hills I was interested in, and that was Lula May Cratchet. She was just like Momma. Whenever I hugged Momma, I couldn't reach all the way around her. Now don't think I am just a little feller. I stand tall enough I need to duck to get through most doors. And my shoulders are wide enough I need to go in sideways on some doors.

But when it came to women, I wanted them just like Momma. She was big and soft and you couldn't throw her up in a tree like some of the little skinny things I had seen.

So anyway Lula May and I had found us a quiet little place under some Dogwood trees and were gettin' all heated up. We had only been out a few times, but I figured this was the time we were goin' to become acquainted. And she musta thought the same thing cause she was kissin' and huggin' up a storm. She let her hand slide down to my man thing and I was reaching for her woohoo. But about the time she got a good handle on my man thing she stiffened up and let out a holler like a hungry panther up in the hills. She musta heard her Momma callin' cause she lit out like that cat was after her. I watched her runnin' away admiring her big beautiful behind. She got tangled up in some vines and fell all spradled out. She musta cleared out a lotta underbrush cause it was flyin' up somethin' fierce.

She sure was cute.

So anyway there I was watchin' my dream girl runnin' away when I heard someone comin' up behind me.

It was Cricket Trask. One of the skinniest, ugliest girls in these parts. She walked up beside me and just stood there watchin' Lula May untangle herself from the dust and brush and run over the hill toward her waiting momma.

"Now I know what it musta' been like when there were buffalo runnin' in these hills." She said. "What was she runnin' from?"

"I don't know. She musta heard her momma callin'." I said.

She looked side ways at me, kinda lookin' me up and down, and when she got to my man thing bump in my coveralls she just stopped and stared at it for a minute.

"She didn't hear her momma." She said. "She ran away because she was scared of that!" And she pointed at my man thing bump.

"Untangle that thing from your drawers and lets see that snake." She demanded. "I think you got a tree trunk in there. Cause no man is that big!"

I just looked at her for a minute and then began to undo my straps.

Now I didn't want to give her the wrong impression about why I was undoin' my drawers, so I told her a story. I couldn't remember it all word for word, but this is pretty much what Momma said, so I told her.

"A few years ago, when I was still a little boy, Momma told me that I would one day meet a girl that I would like. And that girls were different than boys, they were smarter than boys were about girl things. And I should always do what any girl told me to do so I wouldn't make them upset or anxious."

I didn't know if Cricket was listenin' or not. She kept lickin' her lips and lookin' at my man thing bump. So anyway I continued.

"Cricket!" I said. She jumped.

"Yes, momma said..." She mumbled.

"So, anyway I am only doing this cause Momma said I was suppose' to."

"Okay, whatever." She said, while never taking her eyes off my man thing as my drawers came down.

By the time I got my drawers down my man thing had shrunk up to normal size. Lula May had got it pretty much to the big coon in the tallest tree size, but now it was just walkin' around size.

Cricket just stared.

Cricked licked her lips, and from somewhere deep in her throat came a low moan as her breath was slowly released.

"Big Johnson!" she said.

I looked around, and I can see pretty good, but I didn't see anybody named Johnson, or anybody else either.

"I don't see anybody." I said.

Cricket reached out her little bony hand and touched the end of my man thing. It jumped a little and then settled down. But she just wouldn't leave it alone. Pretty soon she had one hand on it and then the other. I was beginning to feel like she didn't care about any of the rest of me. In spite of the fact that she was really skinny, and her top woman parts were pointy and sat up almost on her shoulders, and I could have put my arms around her twice, my man thing started to swell up.

"Oh, yes!" she said.

"Oh, my!" she said.

Well it wasn't long before she had her bony fingers wrapped around my man thing and she was tuggin' up and down on it, the whole time she was lickin' her lips. I did my best to think of something other than what she was tuggin' on. But it didn't matter cause about then it just let go and squirted all over the hillside. She aimed it at a little bush and gave it a good squirt, and then a tree trunk a few feet away and nailed it dead center. She was squealin' and laughin' and moaning all at the same time.

Cricket was a skinny, ugly, girl who made silly noises. I tried to think of Lula May.

"Bud, lay down on your back." She demanded.

I remembered what Momma said, and laid down on my back. She had her knickers off and was standing astride of me and then she just sat down on my man thing. She jumped up and down, and wiggled side to side, and worked my man thing about half way into her woman parts. There wasn't anything for me to do but look at her skinny face, and her bouncing top woman parts.

Cricket's mouth looked like an O, and her eyes didn't look like she could see anything, and she just moaned like the trees in a storm. And then I realized I had seen just the same thing at church the month before when we had a traveling preacher come around. We built a brush arbor and had a real come to the lord, cast out the demons meeting. And I remember that some of the folks had been callin' on the lord when things got really hot there. And then Cricket started callin' on the lord too!

"Oh, God!" she said. And then there were several "Oh, Gods!" in a row. And then there were some "Yes, Lord!" thrown in for good measure. And then she just up and hollered out in some kind of a language I didn't know.

Cricket might have been ugly, skinny, and loud, but she sure knew how to get the spirit.

After a while she laid down on my chest and caught her breath.

I was lookin' forward to the next go to meetin' day. Maybe Lula May and I could sneak off into the woods again.