Bud-guile

"Lee...... I think I broke my hand."
Let’s back track roughly 14 hrs. earlier. The year ...1985...or 86... they tend to run together after awhile. The place ....a lil' ol' town in northwest Georgia called Dalton. My friends and I where planning a big throw-down at Holly Creek, we were gonna stay all weekend so we left out around 7 am Saturday mourning. Lee showed up over at my house in his old baby shit yellow Volkswagen ( at least a decade before self important pricks started buyin them as some kind middle class status symbol ) with him was my other two friends Robert & Brian. "Come on man" Lee said "We got to go get some beer" what he really meant was "We got to find somebody to buy it for us". ( all of us where well under the legal age in Georgia... except for Lee who birthday was a week before they raised the age to 20 then a year later 21so Lee was legal for about a week)
So we found a guy that Robert knew and he was cool enough to help out and around 8 am we were ready to go. All 4 of us in a old VW listening to Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show on a Radio Shack one speaker special powered by 4 D cell batteries (Ya’ll remember those don’cha) singin to the top of our lungs and idealistic thoughts of this weekend dancin in our heads on our way to that small slice of heaven at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains called Holly Creek.
We got there around 9am and decided that we were goin to go swimming..... just to let you know , at Holly Creek during the summer the water is cold, at this time it was mid-spring and the fuckin water was icy , & it only came up to our collective bellies. So we stood there freezin our asses off, threatening bodily harm on each other who ever dared splash the liquid free-on that we were in when all of a sudden a gentleman and 2 ladies jump out of a 280ZX and dived in to the water. One of the girls was wearing a white T-shirt and a pare of Daisy Duke shorts and much to our delightment and that’s was all. (Let’s just say that if she ever had twins they wouldn't go hungry) "Hey ya’ll "her nipples seamed to scream at us. All of a sudden we were not in such a hurry to get out of the water. (Whether it was the the girls or the fact we all were tryin to hide our excitement literally ... you decide).
I forgot who, but someone said let's go up to the lake up on top of the mountain. So we were on our way, thinking about diving of the plat-form into the slightly warmer water and a chance to finally start drinkin' some beer, all was well and we started talkin about what we were goin to do and how wasted we were gonna get, still listening to the Dr. (Why we only brought that one tape is still a mystery).
We got to the top of the mountain and saw a sign that change the mood of our outing for the duration. "Jack's River 9 miles "." Let's go to Jack's River!!" Brian said." Hell Yeah" the rest of us chorused in. In our excitement over going to the River , us being the city boys we were ( yeah Dalton's a city Just not a big one )we were use to 9 miles on a highway, we didn't realize that this was 9 miles on a curvy dirt road was a bit more treacherous with a heavy accent on the Trech. 5 maybe 6 miles down the road we had a flat," Scott" Lee said" We're gonna fix the tire you stop the next car and asked them how to get to Jack's ".
Now I know my limitations, I know what I was and wasn't good at, and some folks tell me I'm very talented. Getting directions is not one of them." Excuse me Sir" I asked ever so politely "Could you tell me how to get to Jack's". "Sure" he said" Go down the road a lil' way......take a left ....take a right.... pass the ol' blue tick hound ...... around the opossum "and about 12 other points of interest in about 5 seconds flat. Instead of saying "I'm sorry Sir could you repeat that please (Like my Mamma always told me), or "What the Fuck did you say?"(Like My Dad always said) I said "O.K.". Going back to my friends who were just finishing up. Lee with sweat and soot all over him panted "well..... How do we get there?’
With the fear of me lookin like a Dag-Gum Idiot I said " Uh....that way " pointing down the same way we were heading.
Down the road we go still listen to the Dr. ( even though he sounded more like Barry White on Valium ) we finally get to this small country house in the middle of no where. "I’m going down there and find out myself how in the hell we can get to Jack's" Lee said with more than a hint of venom in his voice " Ya'll stay here. So we waited.......and we waited...waited some more ,about an hour has gone by and the Dr. was sounding less like Barry and more like Linda Blair in the "Exorcists". "Were the fuck is he?" we all wondered. Remembering old stories About Mountain People, and there eating and mating habits, we started gettin a wee-bit concerned. "Hey Brian .... Go down there and see if he's O.K. "I said."Fuck you" Brian quipped back "You’re ridin shot gun you go down there". When I was goin to argue the point all are questions were answered. We saw 3 teenage girls frolicking with a volley ball in the front yard. A minute later Lee came back with a shit-eating grin on his face.
"Well... were is it "Robert fumed. " It's about a hundred feet down the road "Lee mused.
So off we go again. Finally are Visions....our Avalon....our Shan-gri-la.....our Jack's River.... was 1 foot deep....."Sigh "just enough to cool down our too damn hot beer.
Now myself I'm a fairly mild tempered person... not known for fits of rage... was getting more than a little pissed. My friends who were trying to make the best out of a bad situation & rightly so was saying things like "Well at least the beer will be cold in the water"
We must have pissed off the old Appalachian Gods that the native Americans used to pray to because the water was warmer than.....well it was pretty fuckin warm...
The Dr. gave up the ghost a long time ago and the sun was sitting gently were it usually sets, and we started getting hammered on 2 cases of warm-ass beer ( Budweiser no less ).
After a couple of hours and the day’s turmoil we decided to go ahead and camp. Lee slept in his VW; Robert, Brian, and I shared a small tent, and we started bull shitting. And Robert said something that change my life (at least at that time it was).
What was actually said remains a mystery, but I could have sworn Robert said that he slept with my girl-friend. Getting a combination of anger and Closterphobia. I had to get out of the tent. Confused.....angry....and hurt I was at the bottom of Abyss. Then I saw it, it the physical manifestation of all my problems,of all that was not right in the world...of all the evil that encompasses the universe, in the form of a big Georgia pine tree.
Then it hit me....actually I hit it... I pulled back as far as I could and hit that evil pine as hard as my 16 year old fist would.
"POP"
"Uhhhh...Lee" I said.
"Huh" he said with the enthusiasm that one gets when they've been asleep in the front seat of a VW.
"I think I broke my hand "I said calmly.
"What?" he said groggily.
"I think I broke my Fuckin hand" calmly.
"Let me see... yeah it's broke" groggily.
"Shit.....what do we do now?"Calmly.
"I guess we go home "too fuckin calmly.
"Uh O.K. "I shot back. (I have such a way with words).
"Let me go tell the others...... Brian ....Robert... We got to go".
"Why" they said in unison no less.
"Scott broke his hand"
"WHAT" again in unison.
So we were on our way back home and I was feeling like T-Total- Shit and my 3 best friends in the world was looking at me like I was a big ass ant at a small ass picnic. And once again those old Appalachian gods had to work that hard-on that they had against us by magically hiding the turn off we were suppose to take. We hit a paved road long before we were supposed to.
"Were the fuck are we?" Lee was always the philosopher of our not so merry band.
Not to be out done I said "I dunno".Then we came to a small conveyance store called the "Rebel Yell ". Lee jump out and said "Scott.... you pump gas....I'm gonna find out were we are". By this time my hand was throbbing like a monk's organ at a bordello, but feeling bad about being the shit-heel who screwed up our weekend I meekly said O.K.
Lee went into the store and said "I need 5 dollars worth of gas and were the hell are we?"
The man behind the counter with the sage like wisdom shining through his eyes said
"Hell boy..... You’re in Blue Ridge." For those who don't know Blue Ridge is on the other side of the fuckin mountain.
While Lee's jaw was dropping in the store I was busy dropping things myself, mainly the pump handle. I bend down to pick it up and notice to my right that there were a gang of bikers laughing the asses off at me." I'm gonna die.....I'm gonna die and I'll never get home"
I bemoaned. Looking at Robert & Brian in the back seat, hoping to find compassion in there faces, to see that unspoken bound that best friends have for each other that say's "yeah man we got your back" well you can guess what I saw. Those Cocksuckers were laughing at me also." You're Gonna Die "Robert and Brian were tellin me without sayin a single word "You’re Gonna Die and We’re Gonna Laugh about It Because You Fucked up Our Weekend". I slither back into the VW (because that what snails do) and Lee came back.
"Well.....find out were we are?" we said.
"Uh-huh" said Lee," We're in Blue Ridge"
"Fuck" in unison.
We traveled down the road with a vague since of were we were going. Thinking about what kind of excuse I could come up with when I have to come face to face with my Mom.
Mom never wupped me ...no she had something that was far worse "The Look ".
The Devil himself would say "Damn I wish I could master The Look." All kinds of excuses were swimming around my head "Slipped on a rock....Attack by ninjas..... Aliens tried to probe me but I showed em Mom". While I was lost in my own lil' world we stop in a gravel parking lot in Ellijay. Still on the wrong side of the mountain but in bad need to stretch our legs we get out....well when I say we I mean Me, Brian, and Lee. Somehow Robert got his legs stuck in between the front seat and the back in such away as that it was having a nutcracker effect on well....his nuts." AAAAAGGHHHHHHH.....GET ME OUT.....GET ME OUT!!!!!!" he said a couple of octaves higher than his baritone voice is used to.
We started laughing our asses off( don't get me wrong , we did have concern and we did our dambdest to get him out but the combination of his girl like screaming and his bucking around like a bronco in the back seat of the VW .....We just could help ourselves).
We finally got the seat to let loose and Robert.....poor girly screaming Robert... poured out of the seat like beer thru a funnel. Gaining our composure back we started back home. Drifting in and out of thoughts and just trying to figure out what went wrong. How did this weekend turn out to be such a fuckin disaster? And about my Ex-girl friend.....gently stroking the hat she bought me as a birthday present and wondering about her guilt...I thru the driving cap out of the VW were it flew over the Ellijay Mountains into parts unknown.
"Why did ya do that" Lee asked.
"Don’t know.....Closure maybe...."
We finally get back to Dalton around 5 am and we let Brain out first. Robert was next and we settled what was said and what not was said ( fuckin teen age bullshit ), Robert was still walkin funny when we let him out....his Dad was outside doin something and saw us coming guess when he saw Robert walkin up the drive way he had a look on his face like" yeah son I know what your feelin".Then Lee and I went to his house and I crashed on his couch .Waking up face down ...not only face down ....but on my FUCKIN HAND.
Oh...by the way I went with the "slipped on the rock "story.

D Bastard