The Tick Incident Ch. 07

Tanglefoot, Texas, 1876

"Storm's a comin,' U, better fetch dem damn chairs off the porch,'" Skallywag Crothers said from behind the bar, as he poured the last rounds for the evening.

"U?!'" Skallywag repeated, noticing his call went unanswered, and he could see the saloon's proprietor was sound asleep in one of the booths.

U had gotten into a fight with whiskey that afternoon, and lost. It was his way of saying he was sleeping off a hangover.

"I'll get it, Skally. Keep your britches, on," he told his loyal employee.

Before Ulysses could make headway towards the front porch, however, Skallywag beckoned him to the bar.

"Hey, U, U! Those folks, they here to see ya," the old man said, gesturing to a group of four nestled into one of the dimly-lit corners of the Rusty Nail.

"Friends a yours?" Skallywag asked.

"Don't reckon. Maybe I better check this out," Ulysses responded.

Tanglefoot was a town of shacks and tents with a large number of saloons and tough characters found in the early West.

Fur trappers, cowboys, soldiers, lumberjacks, businessmen, lawmen, miners and gamblers all frequented the Rusty Nail.

But these four seemed simple enough. Two men, two women, in good spirits it seemed.

U walked a few more paces and formally introduced himself.

"Name's Ulysses Parker, folks, what can I do for ya?"

********************

Temple, Texas

Present Day (July, 1979)

"WHO ARE YOU THROWING TO?" Dick Parker yelled at the television, a big 1971 Zenith, which would later become a wood- enshrined monument to its time.

Dick was frustrated as his team - America's Team - was playing a lousy preseason game against the hated Raiders.

"How they doin,' Dick?" Carrie said with a big smile as she entered the room.

"Aaaahhh, horrible," the young man replied, bouncing up and down in a plush, red spindle chair. "I've never seen them play this bad. It's like they haven't gotten over the Super Bowl loss still..."

"Well, Dick, that was a tough one to get over," Carrie said with that wonderful laugh of hers. "For goodness sake, if that, oh, that fella in the end zone..."

"Jackie Smith," Dick said with lingering pain.

"Jackie Smith! If he had caught that ball from Staubach, who knows? We might of won two in a row. Has anyone ever won two in a row, Dick?" Carrie wondered.

"Yeah, the Packers in the '60's and the Dolphins...And the Steelers," he answered.

"Oh," Carrie laughed. "Well I better brush up on my football history. Temple history is something I have a much firmer grasp of. In fact, Dick - "

"AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!" he yelled at the thick, flickering 19-inch T.V. screen.

Carrie had to admire his passion. She sat down on the sofa, crossed those beautifully-tanned legs of hers, and tried to unburden her young friend of the pain he was going through.

"Dick, relax, hon. Half of these turkeys won't even be on the team come time for the regular season."

"I know, I know," he said, trying to sit back down yet again.

"Dick, I've been meaning to ask you. Why don't - "

Again he groaned at another incompletion, but Carrie persisted.

"Dick, why don't the Cowboys ever wear blue at home?"

If anyone else asked Dick that question, he would have deemed it...a stupid question. Everyone knew the Cowboys never wear blue at home. But because it was Carrie: sweet, adorable, nurturing Carrie, he gave her the full explanation, even listing all the playoff games in which the Cowboys wore blue and LOST.

Sitting there in her tiny, blue, satin shorts - nevertheless showing off her big, beautiful thighs while casually and gracefully tapping her right foot in the air - Carrie listened to her stepson's explanation. She respected his knowledge.

"So they were jinxed by the haberdasher?" she mused.

"Yeah," he muttered.

Dick took it a step further. He poked fun at himself.

"Carr, the Cowboys wearing blue at home would be like me wearing anything at all - it doesn't happen," he laughed.

Carrie's wonderful, rich laughter filled the room.

"Oh, Dick, you're funny," she said, continuing to chuckle. "Dick, that is true, that is very true. But your training has been good to you, has it not?"

"Oh it's been incredible. I don't even think about being naked anymore. It doesn't even phase me," he remarked, while he in fact sat there in that comfortable spindle chair completely nude. "In fact...I don't think I've ever watched a Cowboys game naked..."

"There's probably a ton of things you've never done naked until the last couple weeks," Carrie chuckled.

"Swimming...cooking...talking to Krendy about college courses...," Dick went on.

Carrie laughed and laughed, but with satisfaction, knowing her methods had paid off.

"Oh and Dick, Krendy and Maddy did get home fine - that was them that called earlier. Krendy says to me, "keep on that Bussett about going back to school," she said.

"I don't think it's gonna happen, Carr," Dick reasoned. "That guy's got a couple screws loose."

"A couple?!" Carrie fired back. "But he is creative. He really should give writing a try. Whether it's Dallas 2 or whatever he calls it, that story he was working on about a CFNM utopia is pretty groovy stuff. What is it that Jimmie Walker says, Dy-no-mite (laugh)!"

With Carrie mentioning CFNM, all the memories of that afternoon came dashing back to Richard, causing all thoughts of the Dallas game to vacate his mind.

"In fact, Dick," Carrie said with a wonderful smile, "why don't you go up to the - ahem - computer room, and wait for me. We have a couple things to go over."

"Yes, mam," he dutifully replied, and headed upstairs.

********************

The spare room in the Parker house was a room that constantly changed tenants. It had been a makeshift nursery for plants, a space for extra clothes, taking on a look of a laundromat, a room for Carrie's artwork, which she hadn't had much time to add to in recent years, and now a makeshift computer room.

The IBM 5110, which Richard's father was planning to purchase, was still on the way.

All the spare room had in it at this time was a filing cabinet as tall as the Republic Center Tower in Dallas, three swivel chairs varying in size and compatibility, and an empty table.

The computer room had everything in it but...

"- a computer," Carrie laughed. "But, Dick, your father will be bringing it home when he returns from Tampa. Should be really cool stuff."

"Great. Right when I'm leaving for Baylor, we're getting something really cool at the house," he muttered.

"Well, Dick, you'll be coming home for the Cowboys-Bengals game. I think it's gonna be you, me and Janet though," she said. "Your father has a conference in Shreveport."

"Where is that hellraiser anyway?" Dick asked. "Janet, not my old man that is."

"Cheerleading practice - more of a meeting," Carrie said as she sat down on one of the swivel chairs, opposite Richard. "Were you wondering why the house is so quiet?"

Another sound persisted though, the sound of the Abernathy family dog, Biscuit, yelping, barking and carrying on about something.

Carrie walked over to the window, seeing a Pontiac Firebird wiz by a bit too fast. Other than that, it seemed to be a nice, normal day in Temple.

"Dick, what on Earth are we gonna do with Danny White?" she asked with a wry grin.

"Ugh, don't remind me," he said.

"I'm not saying it's all his fault, but, for goodness sake. Get your head in the game!"

"He's no Roger the Dodger," Dick lamented, but his loyalty kicked in. "I still think he'll be good though when Staubach retires someday."

Little did Dick Parker know that that was right around the corner. Things have a way of sneaking up on you. Including the class, which was merely hours away, 12 in fact.

"Dick, this is Class Eve," Carrie teased. "It is the night before the class. You ready, hon?"

"Eh, I think so," he said, pulling up in his chair a bit, sitting on the edge of it in fact.

"Should be no sweat, hon. Dick, I'm gonna have you come in at the end - you're only in there for the last 45 minutes or so. You'll come in, undress, and then you'll be my TA for the rest of the seminar - class, seminar, what have you."

"Sounds swell," he smiled. "

"Now, also, what I wanted to touch on was...we are going to be talking about a lot of material before you come in, and most of it you don't need to hear but there are some things that may come up in conversation later that I want you to be familiar with. Catch my drift?"

"Sure, Carr, you're the boss," he couldn't help but say.

She smiled.

And then she happened to look down.

"Oh, hon, do you wanna...bigger chair?" she asked.

With Richard leaning forward, sitting on the outer perimeter of the swivel, what had happened was that his exceptionally long organ - even soft - was dangling off the edge of his seat. It was inevitable from time to time that Richard's massive organ created some kind of slapstick comedy in the Parker house.

"Um, oh..." he stammered as he noticed the problem, which had now become the source of Carrie's amusement.

"Hon, it reminds me of that Slinky commercial, where they put it on the top step and it goes cascading all the way down (hysterical laughter)...all the way down to the bottom of the steps..."

"It's not funny, Carr," he replied, with a smirk, but he was in fact able to poke fun at himself and his outsized organ.

"These are some of the trials and tribulations I go through," he stammered as he moved restlessly back and forth in his seat, trying to get a better positioning.

"Hon, it's not bothering me if it's not bothering you," she laughed. "I just wasn't sure if you wanted the bigger chair. It had looked like you ran out of real estate, that's all. And you were...you were left hanging..."

Finally, Richard - both out of frustration and for comedic purposes - picked up his penis and sort of tossed it out over his thigh, producing a dull but audible squelch.

Carrie cracked up.

"How big is it soft, hon? I know we've had this conversation before," she laughed.

"Yeah, I know. It's...soft measurements are weird because it, it fluctuates," he explained.

"Oh, absolutely," she said, eager to move on.

"So, Dick, what I'm gonna ask you is have you ever heard the name, Florence St. Claire?"

Dick thought for a second, the name jogging his memory.

"I have," he answered. "Isn't it that woman who took all the pictures that are in Temple history books?"

"Good for you, Dick," Carrie answered. "That's absolutely right. Florence was...the town's photographer. For a good 40 years or so in fact.

"She broke out her 'Le Phoebus,' as it was called, a camera typical for that time. It was built of mahogany wood - very nice - with a brass mounted lens.

"Oh, she shot weddings, town fairs, musicals, wildlife, just about anything. And she also..."

Richard perked up a bit.

"Well, Dick, when Phyllis Dorshten and I went to gather things from Ulysses' old house before it was condemned, oh I wanna say this was in '75 or '76, we were cleaning out the basement and tried to preserve anything that was valuable or worth keeping.

"We took paintings, diaries, old books, photos..."

Dick was getting more and more interested. He knew Carrie had something cooking.

"Dick, we must have taken a stack of old photographs, as thick as the Dallas metropolitan phonebook," she laughed.

"And we started going through them..."

It was then that Carrie reached down and picked up a small sample size of what her and Phyllis had retrieved from the basement of Ulysses Parker - one of the heroes of the Alamo, as Temple folk liked to regale.

Carrie put the manila folder in her lap for the moment and went on with her lecture.

"Dick, like I had said before Florence did in fact shoot wildlife. And these, were, eh, I guess you could say wildlife shots," Carrie said, having fun with herself. "Let's just say these photos were of the good ole North American trouser snake..."

Before Richard could even respond...

"Penises, hon," Carrie smiled. "Little did Phyllis and I know, we had stumbled upon one of the doggone, biggest collections of penis photos ever assembled."

"Wicked," was all Richard could say, loving Florence St. Claire more and more by the minute.

"Well, penises and the men attached to them I should say," Carrie laughed. "But make no mistake about it - candid nudes. The men of Temple, baring all, for little, sweet Florence St. Claire and her naughty Le Phoebus."

"That's crazy," Richard went on.

"Obviously, Florence had a hobby, outside of her more documented work. She...she loved to shoot naked men, as it would seem. And Phyllis and I quickly came to understand that. Boy, did we understand that. Sweetie, there is every size,

shape...length and girth under the son..."

"Florence St. Claire. A 19th Century Rock Star," Richard laughed. "Move over, Kiss."

"Sweetie, what was most startling to us - besides the oodles and oodles of penises - was that she did have women wander in to some of the photos.

"But the women aren't nude," Carrie added, with jarring effect.

Gulp.

"Dick, here are these naked men, in a variety of poses (laugh), posing alongside fully-clothed women - regally dressed women, may I add. Their dresses had bustles, which were all the craze in the 1870's. And the photos, they're just so tasteful and elegant...Dick, Phyllis and I could not get over it..."

Carrie's fingers now dangled along the edges of that manila folder. Richard was dying for a looksey. Given his interest in CFNM, the thought of beautiful women enjoying the company of nude men, these historical artifacts seemed plenty valuable.

"Phyllis and I took it upon ourselves to go through ALL the photos, for consistency's sake. And, hon, not one shred of female nudity. But the male full frontal, everywhere. Like folk dancing at a hoedown."

Richard very nearly fell off his chair completely.

"Given your inclination to Playgirl, hon, I thought these would be right up your alley," Carrie said with a warm and inviting tone.

"Hell, yeah," he managed to get out.

"And sweetie, Florence's choice in that matter - the stark double standard as far as the nudity goes - I think, hon, well, obviously, she liked looking at naked men.

"And think about the times? Clothes symbolized power. They always have. The women wearing the clothes, they're taking the power over the men. But in a very organic and beautifully-crafted way. In fact the men are gladly and affectionately surrendering that power to the women, the way it appears in these photos."

The manila folder - a makeshift treasure trove - was opened, and the two began passing the photos back and forth. Like Carrie had said, they were tasteful, natural. Smiles in just about every photo, as if the men and women were having so much fun in these shoots.

"I can see why you wanted me to see these before tomorrow," Dick reasoned.

"Oh, yes. Hon I didn't want you wondering 'who the hell is Florence St. Claire?' if her name happens to come up in the second half of the class."

Carrie and Dick continued to thumb through all the photos, gazing upon these artifacts, once hidden away in an old, 19th-century basement.

Florence, as Carrie said, was "an astronaut stuck in prehistoric times," as far as her photographic talent and penchant for risqué art work.

"Jesus," Richard couldn't help but say after gazing at one of the photos in particular.

Carrie leaned back in her chair with a smile, taking a sip of her Tab soft drink.

"Oh, that would be one Roscoe, ahem, 'Longhorn' Livingstone," Carrie said with a wink. "Roscoe is interesting on many levels. She was Florence's first model, as she mentions in her diary - also recovered from the basement - and in addition her most frequently-used model.

"Roscoe would get nude whenever, wherever. Florence had him pose at Miller Spring Park, Belton Lake...The two of them really pushed the envelope. It was all carefully planned out, mind you, but jeez Louise, in the middle of the afternoon, at Belton Lake? That's really gutsy."

That said, Florence's tendency to shoot her models in the most public of places had a profound effect, that nudity should be embraced, and treasured.

"Guy was no slouch either," Richard had to remark, in regards to penis size.

"Coming from you, hon, that is lofty praise," Carrie replied, filling the room with her wonderful laughter.

Dozens of photos were examined and celebrated as the night wore on, several involving busty women, laughing and cajoling with nude men. One of the women in the photos, Carrie pointed out, was Agnes Adams-Booth, famous for her clothing line.

And one of the men that kept appearing, as Carrie warned, was Roscoe. Carrie and Richard laughed as many of the photos focused upon his rather ample unit.

"He did have an incredibly long penis," Carrie said flatly, simply stating the obvious as Roscoe and his hefty appendage kept making appearances throughout Florence's collection.

"But, hon, I am sad to report, the force was not with Roscoe Livingstone," Carrie laughed. "Apparently nude photography didn't satisfy his exhibitionist desires. Roscoe was arrested four times for what could be described as 'indecent exposure.'"

"For Christ's sake," Richard chuckled.

"He basically had his own room at the jail, which used to reside where the shiny, new municipal building now sits today, complete with its vending machines and sodas," Carrie laughed.

"But no, Roscoe..."

Carrie then broke into unbridled laughter, recalling some of Florence's anecdotes about this wiley coyote.

"It wasn't so much, hon, that he would go streaking or something like that. It was more...oh what do I want to say, he would find a creative way...to expose it..."

"His...?"

"Schlong," Carrie said point black, which made Richard chuckle. "And make no mistake about it, it's a schlong," she laughed, using the word she reserved for penises of considerable size. "The fact that we're still talking about it close to a hundred years later...One of the stories, oh God, I can't remember which saloon it was but...

"Roscoe had apparently, sweetie, I don't even know how he did this, but he had apparently created some kind of holster for his schlong, that he hung from his gun belt - "

"No..."

"Sweetie, you can't make this stuff up," Carrie laughed. "And he had taken out his, his schlong, expertly put it through this holster, went strutting around the bar..."

"I can't even...imagine that...," Richard said, his mind wandering.

"Some of the bar's patrons thought it was funny, some did not, and that is how Roscoe would find himself in jail for a night."

"Other times he went strutting down the main thoroughfare with it just hanging out of his pants," Carrie said, not condoning Roscoe's behavior but nevertheless finding his brazen exhibitionism sort of whimsical.

"That's craaaazy," Richard chimed in.

"And I think, hon," Carrie said, leaning back in her chair, "it would be naive to think it was only Roscoe that was responsible for his wild behavior. Guys - and girls I should add - sort of egged on poor Roscoe to, shall I say, whip it out, set the record straight.

"And of course Roscoe embraced his role in all this. Was it René Descartes that said 'I think, therefore I am?' In Roscoe's case, 'I think I'm an exhibitionist, therefore I am an exhibitionist."

Carrie went digging through Florence's diary to find one particular recounting of Roscoe's antics. She read aloud.

Carrie: "Every time I tried to get through to Roscoe," Florence writes, "there is no reasoning with him. He pulls these stupid stunts. The exchange always goes something like this. Me: Roscoe, you can't be taking that thing out in public. Roscoe: I have a 10 and a half inch dick and I love to show it off. Me: Roscoe, there are rules you have to abide by. Roscoe: Rules don't apply to me, or my big dick. I'm a free spirit, baby.