The Adventures of Junior, Part ll

“Good gawd damn, what the hell is that smell, boss?”

“Chitlins. Ain’t you never had no chitlins before?”

“Hell, naw, and if they smell like that, don’t want none!”

Greeted by the smell of hog guts cooking, Sheriff Clell Shepherd, this time with his deputy, Roy Smith, paid a visit to Junior one summer day in search of some answers. The smell that slapped ‘em upside the head was something to behold, one part shit and one part…well, no, there was no other part, it just smelled like shit. (If you want to gross your neighbors out, cook chitlins one afternoon. They’ll be asking if the sewers have backed up, but I digress.)

“Junior, where the hell are ya?” Clell yelled as he passed by Junior’s boil pot.

“Right here!” Junior shouted, showing up on the doorstep with tears in his eyes. “Been peelin’ couple uh onions to put in the pot. What y’all doin’ here?”

“You actually eat that shit?” asked Roy.

“Shoot, yeah! Don’t it just smell like heaven?”

“Smells like hell to me.”

Pitching in his two, the Sheriff went straight to the point.

“Junior, save me some of them once you get ‘em fried, but, right now, we need to talk.”

“A’ight, what we need to talk about?” asked Junior, as he tossed the onions in the pot, then sat down on the rickety porch steps.

“Where the hell…” Roy started in before being interrupted by Clell.

“Junior, you know anything about some rolls of tar paper going missin’ from that new house bein’ built over there by Moore’s hill?”

Now, he wasn’t educated, but Junior was smart enough to know when shit was going south, so he just sat there, looking at the two PO-lice officers.

After about fifteen seconds, Junior answered resolutely, looking Sheriff Shepherd square in the eye.

“Naw.”

The Sheriff, trying to not crack a smile, kinda kicked his foot through the dirt a couple times.

“Junior, I can see new tar paper on your roof. Where’d ya get it?

“Cannon’s”

“So, if I go ask Earl, he’s gon’ tell me you bought it from him?”

“Naw.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause I didn’t buy it from him.”

“You just said you bought it at Cannon’s.”

“Naw, I said I got it at Cannon’s.”

“Junior, you need to stop yankin’ me around. Did you get the tar paper at Cannon’s or not?”

“I tol’ you I got it at Cannon’s, but I didn’t get it from Earl. Couldn’t afford it, but this ole boy that was down there tol’ me he could get me some at a good price. Said to meet him back there, so I did.”

“Who was this fella that got you the tar paper?”

“Don’t know him. Said he’s from up ‘round Oso.”

Clearly not happy with that answer, Clell Shepherd walked over to the boil pot and stirred it with the oversized paddle Junior had cut out of a 1 X 6 board.

“Junior, what am I gonna do with you? How much did you pay this fella?”

“Twenty dollars.”

“Twenty damn dollars? Hell, you got a hunnert dollars worth on yer roof right now.”

“Twenty. I got twenty dollars uh paper on my roof. Twenty. You tellin’ me I stole it? My doggone roof was leakin’, so I got me some tar paper from that fella.”

“What’d he look like, Junior? What was he drivin’?”

“Short, kinda greasy lookin’, drivin’ a pickup. Blue, a blue pickup.”

“You get his name?”

“Naw.”

Clell Shepherd just stood there for a time, mulling Junior’s answers over in his mind. So far, Junior hadn’t flinched and had looked Clell in the eye the entire time. Sending his deputy around the house to look at the back, he asked Junior to draw a bucket from the well so he could get a drink of water, which Junior happily obliged. Drinking from the dipper, watching Junior as he went about stirring chitlins, he didn’t know whether to believe him or not. After all, Junior had always brought the things that he borrowed back. This time, though, it was theft, and worth a sizable amount of money.

Coming around from the other side of the house, Roy stopped upwind of the boil pot this time, offering his assessment.

“I see four rolls worth on the back, and it looks brand new, Sheriff.”

Again, Sheriff Shepherd just stood there, waiting for Junior to play his hand, to do something, say something, anything that would incriminate him. Junior, for his part, just sat there on the steps, occasionally reaching down to pet one of the three mutts that called his place home. Each man was waiting on the other to speak first.

Finally, Roy Smith piped up, “Boy, you better start tellin’ the truth. You know you stole that roofin’.”

“I been tellin’ the truth, deputy. Ain’t got nothin’ else to say!”

“So, there’s nothin’ else? That’s your story, huh, Junior?” asked Clell.

“That’s it. Ain’t nothin’ else to tell.”

With nowhere else to go with his questioning, the Sheriff and Roy got back in his car, Clell telling Junior to save him a plate of chitlins for later and drove away.

Feeling the sweat on the back of his overalls, Junior got up and stirred the boil pot again. He wasn’t one to lie, but if it saves you from going to jail, lie like a dog.

He cracked a little smile, then grabbed the pan to get the chitlins out of the pot. He had female company coming later, and she loves her some chitlins…