This weeks junk RED WASP AND BURR-HEADS © by Rusty W. Mitchum Back when I was a kid, there was an old man that lived north of me named Mr. Colston. Mr. Colston was confined to a wheelchair. I didn’t know what had happened to him. I never asked, and he never volunteered. He didn’t work anywhere, so I figured he was retired. He had a little peach orchard between his house and Little Rusty’s. Little Rusty was a kid with the same first name as me, so we added the prefix “Little” to distinguish us when people called for us. Now, Mr. Colston was always out in his orchard with his .22 rifle shooting blue jays that liked to pick holes in his peaches. I never saw that man miss a shot. One day as Little Rusty, my cousin Coy, and I were walkin’ past Mr. Colston’s house, he yelled out to us. “Hey boys, come over here!” “Yes, Sir!” we yelled back and ran over to where he was. “How would you boys like to earn some money?” he asked. “Yes, Sir!” we all said. I just knew he wanted us to help him shoot those blue jays. “Well,” he said, “the job I need you to do, I’d do myself, but I can’t run anymore.” “Well,” I said, “me and Coy are pretty fast and Little Rusty can outrun both of us, so we’d be glad to do whatever it is.” Coy and Little Rusty both nodded in agreement. “Come on over here and look at this,” Mr. Colston said as he rolled out into his orchard. “Look up in that tree there.” We looked to where he was pointin’. Up in that tree was the biggest red wasp nest that I’d ever seen. It was the size of a hubcap and it had about a million wasps on it. “I’ll give y’all each a dime to knock that nest out of my tree.” “MA’AM?!” Coy yelled out. I looked at Coy. “What?” I asked. “I think I heard my mom callin’ me,” Coy said. “Bull,” I said. “I didn’t hear nothin’.” “We’ll do it, Mr. Colston,” I said. “We?” said Little Rusty. “Have you got worms? How are we supposed to get that thing down?” “I don’t know, but I’ll think of something. Trust me.” “Yeah right,” said Coy sarcastically. “One more thing,” said Mr. Colston. “I get to watch,” he smiled. “Sure thing,” I said. “Come on,” I said to Coy and Little Rusty. We need to go to my house for something,” and we lit out. We ran back to my house to see my dad. “Hey Daddy!” I yelled as I walked into the house. “He’s in the shop,” my momma said. My dad’s shop was an old railroad line shack that he had bought and had moved behind our house for his tools and stuff. We ran down to the shop and there was my daddy workin’ on a lawn mower. “Are you busy?” I asked. “We need some help.” “Never too busy for you boys. What’s up?” he asked. “We need help knockin’ down a great big red wasp nest,” said Coy. Daddy’s smile faded. “Boys, I’d love to help you, but I’m kind of busy.” “I thought you said you were never too busy for us boys?” Little Rusty said. “Boy, don’t talk back to me,” said Daddy. “You didn’t happen to hear my mom callin’ me, did you?” asked Coy. “Knock it off Coy, “I said. “I just need to borrow a fishin’ pole,” I said. “Sure, grab one. Better make it a long one,” he said. I selected a good long one and off we went. When we got back to the peach orchard we stopped about twenty feet from the tree to plan our assault. “This is stupid,” said Coy. “Why don’t Mr. Colston just shoot it down?” “Shhhh,” I said. “He might hear you and we’d be out thirty cents.” I looked over where Mr. Colston was sittin’ and he just smiled and waved. “Let’s sneak up real close and I’ll jab it with this pole.” “What do you want me and Little Rusty to do?” asked Coy. “I don’t know, but y’all don’t leave me out there by myself.” Little Rusty started laughin’. He always laughed when he got nervous. “Quit that gigglin’,” I said as we inched nearer to the tree. “Hee, hee, hee,” he giggled. “I can’t help it,” he said. I looked at Coy. He sure didn’t find anything amusin’ about the situation and neither did I. When we got about ten feet from the tree, we stopped. “When I jab it, let’s all run in different directions to confuse the wasps,” I said. “That’s your plan?” asked Coy. “This ain’t gonna turn out good, I just know it.” “Shut up,” I said. “Okay, on three. One, two, THREE!” and I jabbed it. All of a sudden a cloud of wasp left the nest and headed straight for us. “RUN!” I screamed. I turned and ran into the back of Coy who had just run into the back of Little Rusty and we piled up on the ground. I jumped up and started to run and one of the wasps hit me right between the eyes and knocked me flat of my back. A couple more got me on top of my burr-head as I got back up. The last thing I remembered seein’, before I ran face first into a peach tree, was Coy runnin’. His were arms flappin’ like he was tryin’ to fly away. He had a wasp on his bottom lip and another one on the top of his ear. When I finally came to, only one of my eyes would open and my head felt like it was on fire. As my vision came into focus, I was lookin’ into the face of a monster. “AHHHHHHH!” I screamed. “Slugatugahug,” said the monster. “AHHHHHHH!” I screamed again. Then the monster grabbed me. For a second I thought I was a goner, but then something started to look familiar about the monster. “Coy? Is that you?” “Slugatugahug,” he said. His lower lip was the size of a hot link and was hangin’ down past this chin and his left ear had folded over and looked like a fat pancake. Little Rusty was sittin’ on the ground and had a half dozen knots on the top of his head. Mr. Colston was doubled over in his chair holdin’ his stomach and had tears streamin’ down his face. As he tried to catch his breath, he laughed. “Boys that was the best show I’ve seen in years. I’m going to throw in an extra nickel a piece.” “We’re rich!” I exclaimed. “Slugatugahug,” said Coy. “Me too,” said Little Rusty. “Me too.
Posted on: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 13:37:05 +0000
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