Names have been changed to protect fellow escapees...

...and I haven't written an ending because I forgot I started this story. Not gonna stop me from posting though....


Uncle Mervis was married to my mama's step-sister Janine, one of a large clan that my mama referred to as the "red-headed step-children". He was red-faced and gaunt, his strawberry blond hair in a permanent cowlick. I'm sure that Uncle Mervis had been gainfully employed at some point in time, maybe when he was a young man living in Lake Whitney, revving the engine of his Camaro to impress Aunt Janine when he picked her up for the drive-in movie. I really couldn't say. All I know for sure is that by the time I got to know him, his only major occupation was drinking beer.



I spent most of my summers at Aunt Janine and Uncle Mervis's trailer because their oldest girl Darla was my best friend, and Aunt Janine shared her pot with us, and taught us how to make a pipe from aluminum foil in case of emergency. She worked as a waitress to support their large family, and made ends meet with the help of food stamps.



Uncle Mervis woke every morning at 5 am to sit and watch Aunt Janine get ready for work. When she left, he would slick his unruly hair down with a comb, and make a pot of coffee. When Darla and I stumbled into the living room, he would be sitting in one of the aluminum dining chairs, cradling his enormous mug of coffee, blinking owlishly, confused by his sobriety. We would help him make breakfast, and afterwards, he led us through the daily chores and chainsmoked Doral full-flavors.



When chores were completed, Darla and I were put in charge of the three little ones, Charlotte, Lindsay, and the middle girl that was called “Whopper” for reasons that are lost to the mists of time. Uncle Mervis used his free time to pursue his passion. Armed with a 12-pack of whatever the cheapest beer had been the night before (usually Meisterbrau or Pearl) , he commenced to drinkin', and he really put his back into it. On nice days, he sat in a lawn chair on the rotting front porch, draining the cans and crushing them in his fists. He pissed off the side of the porch and watched us play, occasionally offered us advice.



“Now, gawdamnit, that ain’t the way you spray paint a bus girls. You gotta shake and spray if you wanna get good coverage.”



“Whopper, don’t be pokin’ that goat with a stick. He’s fixin’ to rear back and bite the piss out of you.”



Occasionally, he would feel adventurous, like the day he found out I had never eaten frog legs.



“What? You ain’t never ate a frog leg? We gonna put a stop to that bullshit. You watch the girls, me and Bubba’s gonna gig us some gawdamned FROGS!”



He returned two hours later, significantly drunker, holding a pointed stick above his head. There were six fat, lumpy frogs impaled on it.



“Girls, we is about to feast!”



We followed him into the kitchen, where he gave us a detailed demonstration of the proper way to clean and cook frogs, punctuated with his hearty belches. When he got to the part about cutting the tendon behind the knee to prevent them from “hopping” out of the pan, he danced the legs across the kitchen table. He battered and deep-fried the frogs and served them on grease-spotted paper plates with a side of home fries and puddle of ketchup. The texture reminded me of fish, but tasted like chicken. I haven’t eaten them since.