Coon Hill - Part One

Coon Hill

Part One

            “Being you the one that got her CHAIR?”

            “Being me?  Get back from the ladder.”

            “You taking her SIGN TOO?”

            “It’s a clean out.”

            “Cleaning out her SIGN... off her TREE?”

            “Cleaning it out.”

            “You go up a ladder to CLEAN OUT?”

            “Gotta stay ABOVE you.  How come you didn’t STEAL this sign?”

            Asa paused, still looking up from the base of the ladder at me with his little weasel face pinching and his eyes squinting.  Then he says without moving at all “Well... I forgot it was up THERE.”

            “You still stealing in the buildings or you done now?”

            “I didn’t STEAL anything... YOU’D WANT... that could be sold... sorta like:  WELL... what are you gonna do about it?”
            “About YOU.  Stealing.”

            “That ain’t YOURS anyway... way I figure YOU BOUGHT IT ALL and that leaves THE REST to being MINE.  I’M the one that’s been the doggie here.  Not you.  Just backing your truck up you told me but you had FIVE damn trucks the FIRST DAY.  How am I gonna STEAL past THAT.”

            “Get away from the ladder.”

            “I not gonna knock you off of it.”

            “Get away.  I’m bringing her SIGN down.”

            “You got that OFF already?”

            “It weren’t in HARD.  It’s only been up there a little while looks like.  I’d thought I’d have to CHOP it out.”

            “That ain’t been there that long.  SHE had... him... old goat... PICK IT UP and put it back up.”

            “Well he MOVED it down the road when he did it.”

            “Why you can’t see that...”

            “IT WAS back UP the road on the other side for forty years.  How come you didn’t STEAL that when it was DOWN?”

            “I don’t remember ...that.  Being down I remember.  Wouldn’t have touched it if SHE told me first.  NO!  It weren’t DOWN.  It was just HANGING off the BAR.  Goat FIXED THAT.  But... so... HE TOOK it DOWN and then... him too LAZY to go back up the road AND so could lean HIS LADDER right here EASY just like YOU have.”

            “So I could SEE YOU coming?”

            “I SEE YOU with the ladder FIRST.  That’s why you see me COMING.  I come up to see what you taken her SIGN FOR.  What are you... taken  IT for?”

            “I’m gonna SELL IT.  Move back.  I’m coming DOWN.”

            “What make you someone STEAL’EN her sign to SELL?”

            “I bought it WHY?”

            “SELL it; THAT.  For how much you SELL that.”

            “Twenty-two.”

            “Twenty-two.  You get that?”

            “Hundred.  Twenty-two hundred.”

            “Hundred?”

            “I give her that.  For her sign.”

            “Twenty-two hundred give her that?  SHE’S DEAD!  How you give her THAT?”

            “Get away from the ladder.  Back off.”

            “Why you... didn’t give her no twenty-two ANYTHING for THAT SIGN.  Your just trying to STEAL IT.  You LIE to me often enough NO NEED to do THIS with her old SIGN.  What you really gonna do with it?

            “Drop it on your head looks like.”

            “Now I’m BACK away JESUS.”

            “Yes son.  Been steal’en again son?”

            “YOU LOCKED the damn buildings.  Why you... almost as IF YOU KNOW someone will be coming by.  I just come by to LOOK.  And see what YOU do’en so... why that IS what you do is clean it all out and THEN LOCK IT TOO so I could just peek-a-boo in the DOOR by pulling it OUT on that lock.  Why it’s empty I said.  And he locked it.”

            “Broom clean.”

            “Broom?”

            “Ever used one?”

            “YOU FLY ONE.  If you ain’t a man you’d be a WITCH.”

            “Warlock.  I think”.

            “JUST LIKE YOUR GRAMMY:  Witch.  Flying WITCH.  She was.”

            “You was steal’en from HER too.”

            “Now she know in her grave she always give me a little more than what she said I could take.  That being sometimes a BOTTLE too.  But that was always the trouble THEN.  That ‘the bottle TOO’.  Left that BEHIND now I swear.”

            “You ain’t... just leave your FINGER PRINTS on a bottle BEHIND.  Be out behind in the woods empty with just your FINGER PRINTS.”
            “Now that...”

            “Be a CRIME scene.  You steal’en it.  Empty it.  PITCH BACK there empty.  Let’s walk down and LOOK.”

            “You ain’t coming in there for you steal’en ME.  I know better and I locked MY building TOO so you’ll have to pull on MY door to peek-a-boo too.  Yes sir:  You cannot SEE into SEE.  NO ONE is STEAL’EN from ME.”

            “Maybe the Sheriff wants to peek-a-boo.”

            “HE don’t care no...  What you call it?  Clean out.  He don’t care about my CLEAN OUT.”

            “I bet half of her Coon Hill is the clean out in those buildings of your.  Take you damn twenty-five years to carry that much off and home didn’t it.”

            “Why we go back a LONG WAYS to being... I say before that... maybe now FORTY-five years she’s I’m the doggie there.”

            “Good thing she had that many building for you to clean out.  Forty years of carrying off.  Oh that must be so painful on your BACK.  Carrying clean out DOWN the stairs of her OLD BARN and then DOWN through the FIELD at just the right angle so that BIG barn blocks her seeing you.  Then down into YOUR BARN and UP into SOME PLACE so it COOLS.  Figure it’s COLD now?”

            “You just now... be careful.”

            “Careful where I step?”

            “You got her old chair didn’t you.”