Bogus McGee

A story of the mountains, a bit earthy in tone. Those easily offended may wish to pass this one by.

It was looking like Bogus McGee wouldn't be sticking his nose into anyone else's business around these parts any more.

I saw Maybell shoulder her way through the door of the Cock and Bull Tavern, letting the door slam shut behind her. In each hand she toted a five gallon bucket chock full of blackberries. Her broad bare feet made little slap, slap sounds on the wood floor as she crossed to the bar.

She hoisted both buckets in one swing to the top of the bar in front of me and said "I'll take the cash money." That's how I knew that Bogus wasn't around anymore.

If he had been anywhere in the county, he would have followed Maybell into the bar to make sure she got my blackberry wine in exchange for the berries. That was the deal I offered folks- they could have a gallon of my World Famous Blackberry Wine in trade for a 5 gallon bucket of berries. Or they could have cash. Bogus always insisted Maybell take the wine.

Maybell wasn't really the kind of woman to put up with the likes of Bogus McGee, but he had her by the short hairs. Claimed he was some kind of cousin to her papa who she hardly knew. In these mountains being kin means something.

So she had been putting up with his lazy-assed ways for a couple years, tolerating his mooching wine and her good home cooking. Even let him sleep in the shed out back of her cabin. He was supposed to be helping out around the place- splitting kindling, fixing fence- but like as not he was somewhere else when things needed doing. John the Muler was rooted to his favorite barstool that day, right next to where Maybell was standing. He made to reach out and grab a handful of those pretty berries, but Maybell grabbed his wrist in her strong browned hand. I could see John wince at her grip.

"Not yours," she said.

"Old fleabag" he muttered.

I saw the spark in Maybell's eyes and thought John a fool for crossing her. But then for all his evil ways, John the Muler was most definately a fool.

Maybell twisted the wrist she had ahold of and before he knew it, John was kneeling bent over on the floor, squealing like a stuck pig. Soon as she let go he scrambled up swinging his fist with the devil in his eye.

"Out." Maybell was staring him down. "You be in a bad way here." Maybell didn't even raise her voice, just looked at him hard and handed him his dirty hat. He left muttering curses all the way to the door. He let the door slam behind him for no good reason but spite.

It wasn't the first time that John the fool Muler had been invited to leave the Cock and Bull. Everyone knows I won't tolerate bad manners in my tavern.

It's the only place in these parts that folks can get together and pickup the gossip, drink a cold beer in the summer heat, maybe eat a big bowl of my World Famous Vegetable Soup by the fire in the winter. So being told they can't come back for four weeks or until they mend their manners is a hardship for folks.

Most of 'em follow the rules pretty good. I set those rules down fifteen years ago when I bought this place. That was when Granny had left me a bit of a nest egg. I was tired of cooking in someone elses kitchen down at the Crossroads Bed and Breakfast. And I sure wasn't of any mind to marry and clean up after some fool mountain man. Least this way I get paid cash money for any toting and cooking I do around here.

My place isn't really named the Cock and Bull Tavern but it's been called that for so long that folks don't know any different. Some smart boy started calling it that so he could punch his buddies in the ribs after some particularly ornery gossip and say "Sound like a Cock and Bull story to me!" and then laugh so hard he fell off his chair. Damn fool, like he was the first one to think of saying that.

Of course the name stuck after that so all the fools could make the joke, but if you go outside and look at the sign hanging over the door and squint through the faded paint, you'll see it says "Cock and Ball, an English-style Pub". Some fancy man's idea of a tavern name.

Truth be told, it was the name that decided me to buy this place. Sort of like my mama saying "there you go, Etta Lynn, there's your chance!" See that sign put me in mind of my mama, bless her soul- gone these 25 years.

Mama was a big woman with a mind of her own. And strong! She could split kindling with one hand while she tended babies with the other.

Well, the story is that a new preacher showed up in these parts and one day took himself up the mountain to pay a visit to my mama. He had heard, he said, that she wasn't adverse to keeping a still out back of the cabin and he was just sure she wanted to do the Lord's work and be an example to her children. He wanted her to know that still wasn't part of God's plan for her.

Well, when he got to the Praise the Lord God Our Father part, Mama just stood up and told him straight out that she didn't need to put no Cock and Balls on her God, thank you very much, and he better get himself on out the door and down the road.

That preacher turned white and then he turn red and then he made real quick for the door. Mama flapped her apron at him like he was a turnip brained chicken till he was off her porch. After she saw he could make his way on down the road, she sat down on the porch with me and we laughed and laughed.

"Etta Lynn," she said to me. "Some men sure can dribble foolishness 'tween their teeth! And most times they ain't got a clue how foolish they be." Then she laughed some more.

Everyone says I take after my mama. I don't mind hearing it.

Well, anyway about Maybell. She was standing there wanting her cash money so I motioned for her to follow me into the back room with the berries so I could pay here. I wanted to ask after Bogus and see where he had got himself off to. My curiousity was really itching me.

But there wasn't a hint of a smile on Maybell's big tanned face. Down right closed up, she was, so I kept my mouth shut and counted out the bills to her. She stuffed them deep into the pocket of her overalls and I stuffed my curiosity, for the time being. If there was a story to be told, it would make its way to the Cock and Bull sooner than later. Always did.

It took a good long while for the story to make itself known, though. Every couple of weeks someone would raise his head and ask the room in general, "Anyone seen Bogus McGee lately?" Folks would shake their head and mutter "nope". Quite a few looked more than a little relieved.

Old Bogus had a habit of minding other folks business a bit too much, see, especially when he could see some advantage in it for himself.

Like spotting old Carl Hagen coming out the back door of Elsa May's house late at night when Carl had no reason to be visiting Elsa at that hour. No 'good' reason that Carl's 90 year old mama (who is a real pistol) would be willing to hear, anyway- not with that guilty old face Carl was sporting.

Carl never has had a poker face and can't bluff to save his soul. So the next day, Bogus corners Carl back there by the fire where they drink coffee of a morning and offers to "help" Carl make sure his mama don't get wind of his night time prowling, if you know what I mean. And then he says maybe Carl could "loan" him a twenty spot cause Bogus was a tiny bit strapped for cash at the moment. Bogus had a way of being real neighborly like that.

It was getting on toward Thanksgiving before any word of Bogus got to the Cock and Bull. Ol' Harry Lewis popped in here one afternoon, all excited 'cause his cousin's brother-in-law had seen Bogus McGee working at that quarry over there on the other side of the mountain, just like he'd been there all his life!

We all, the rest of us here that day, agreed that there was no way that Bogus McGee could last one week doing real work like at that rock quarry but Harry insisted that it was true, that his cousin's brother-in -law knew Bogus and it was him for sure!

That took some chewing on for a while and then a few days later someone says they just happened to see Bogus up at the Widow Fayne's cabin the day before and had anyone heard about that! There was even talk that the preacher was seen heading up that direction not long ago, too.

Well, that put a big stopper in the conversation for a bit until John the Muler mutters "Holy Cripes" which just about covered the situation.

That Widow Fayne is just about the most beautiful woman you'd ever hope to see in these mountains- she's got this black black hair that hangs loose down to her waist. The kind that gets those little blue sparkles in the sunlight. But she's so fair of face that you'd swear she'd never seen the sun. Beautiful woman. Soft voiced- sounds like music when she talks. She's the kind of woman that makes a man go all jelly-knees when he gets around her and starts thinking things he oughten to.

Her cabin is way up there on top of Index mountain. There's some fool folks that say she is a witch. And other fools call her the Black Widow. I don't hold any account with that kind of talk but I do remember my mama used to say that what some women could do in the dark of the moon would make a man's guts turn to pudding just for the fear of it, if he knew what was happening. So is the Widow Fayne one of them women? I have no way of knowing. I just know that she has had some kind of luck losing her husbands.

Fayne was her first husband's name, Jed Fayne, and he left her a widow when she was but 17 years old. She up and remarried soon after Jed died. Guess she figured that any man fool enough to get himself blown up by his own still was just too big a fool to mourn for long.

So she married some fellow from the other side of the mountain, never did know his name, which is why we always call her Widow Fayne. Hard to keep track. He lasted a bit over a year until he felled a tree on himself. Caught him right in the head. Weren't no chance for him,the Doc said, no matter how soon he had been found.

And then there was that city fellow who came up here to do his "back to the land" trek and it wasn't too long before he was hooked up with the Widow. About eight months later he ran his car off into a ravine one foggy morning. Coming down that mountain too fast, I suppose. City folks don't have the hang of driving around here so good.

Like I said, Widow Fayne has some kind of luck keeping husbands around. And here we get the news about Bogus being up there and the preacher hurrying up there to make it legal.

I was pretty much dumbfounded by the news, and anway I had to pay a visit to the Riley cabin up Maybell's way. Pete Riley sent word that he was feeling poorly and maybe some of my World Famous Blackberry Wine would soothe him some and would I please bring a gallon up when I had a chance. I dropped in at Maybell's while I was in the area.

"Maybell," I says. "You thinking on working down at the Cock and Bull this winter?" Sometimes when things are slow for Maybell in the winter, she will give me a hand with things. I don't mind the cooking and cleaning but those dishes do become a mite tedious sometimes.

"Might," she says and hands me a big mug of coffee.

We sat on the porch of her cabin for a while, watching the winter rains soak the earth.

"Be turning to snow, soon," Maybell says. We sip coffee for awhile.

"Heard that Bogus McGee is hanging around up at Widow McGee's. Might even be hitched by now," I says.

"Wonder how he likes working steady," says Maybell and a big grin splits her face. Then she commences to chuckle a bit, more and more, until she's full out belly laughing. Can't say when the last time was I heard Maybell laugh out loud like that.

I tell you, I was itching to hear more but I just looked over at Maybell every now and again, watching her enjoy a good laugh. Can't hurry that woman in the telling of her stories, if she is going to tell at all.

After awhile she turns her shining face toward me and says, "Cordelia be kin to me."

"Cordelia?"

"The Widow Fayne. Cordelia be her up-front name. Her mama was a MacCalaster. Same as my mama's mama. She be kin though most folks don't recollect that."

"Ah," was all I could think to say.

Maybell started chuckling some more. "Some kin need taking care of more than others, doncha know? And ol' Bogus, he needed taking care of something fierce."

We leaned back against the cabin wall, sipping coffee, watching the rain.

"Yep, Maybell," I said after awhile. "I know what you mean. I truly do know."