Poot Has a Plan

After Poot slipped up and let it out that it was us who broke into Bankston School and wrecked the place when we was in the sixth grade, he tried to say he was just kidding. But it was too late. Tooter and Peanut literally ran to their Hondas, kick started, and was off in a flash. We knew as soon as they got home the phone lines would be burning up. Everybody was going to know.

And they did.

I went home and started squirting in the commode. Again. When Mom tried to get me to eat supper, I lied and told her me n Poot had found a dead squirrel on the river bank and cooked it. “I don’t feel so good,” I moaned, holding my stomach.

So it was more Pepto Bismo, more hands to the forehead, more complaining, “Roger, he’s always cooking stuff down on the river and coming home sick,” and more making me take worm medicine.

I went to bed early and thought about where I could run off to and live. I figured the police would come during the night, maybe any minute now, so when Mom and Dad went to bed, I filled my pack up with clothes and food. Then I snuck out and moved my moped around to the back so when the police come I could run out the back door and take off. I figured to go to the river where me n Poot had fished all summer. There was still a quart of beer and some fishing stuff down there and with the food in my pack, I could be comfortable for a few days. Then I could head out for Africa and where I would hunt lions and become famous and write books and maybe be a hero.

When Mom woke me for school the next morning, I was asleep with my pack on and clothes on which made her ask questions which made me tell lies. Whenever Mom asked questions now, I always had to come up with one. “Must have been sleep walking. I swear I don’t remember a thing.” It seems I was always telling lies, and I knew God was keeping a record. I didn’t want to go to prison and I didn’t want to go to hell, but no matter how hard I tried, it was like being stuck in quicksand. The more I struggled, the deeper in I got.

And school, it was crazy that day. Me n Poot was practically mugged by everybody asking us about tearing the school up and before first period was over I was sitting in Bailey’s office. Again. The amazing thing was for the first time ever, I wasn’t skeered and needing to squirt in the commode. I think it was because I was too tired to feel right from being up most of the night peeking out the window to see if the police were there yet.

Bailey threatened me with a lie detector test, but this time I knowed he was telling one hisself cause two years ago, after we first done it, he had made the same threat. I told him to be sure to test Tooter who was the one who started this rumor and the one who made Al Taylor shoot his thumb with a sling shot.

Then I pulled a name out of the air, a lawyer I had heard Dad mention once and I blurted, “Dad said if you messed with me anymore for you or me one to call Ewin Henson, cause Dad has already paid him a bunch of money for him to do something about y’all always beating my butt and accusing me of stuff and keeping me in here and ruining my education.”

Holy cow, it worked! Bailey got quiet then he give me the evil eye for a couple of minutes, but he didn’t say nothing else, except to tell Mrs. Turnbull-- who I could smell standing behind me-- to send me back to class. That’s when I knowed we wasn’t going to prison for breaking in and tearing up the school.

But there was still the matter of burning down a house. I even felt a little better about that. It sure didn’t seem to bother Poot none. Nothing never bothered Poot as far as I could tell.

After school I was in the den again, trying to study and show God how I was going to be good since he got me out of prison, and you can guess it, right? Poot come by, just like yesterday. And just like yesterday Mom made me go with him even though I protested and said I still didn’t feel real good. Only this time she said, “Robert, don’t let Zane cook any dead animals because he always comes home sick when y’all eat on the river.”

“I won’t, Mizz Hodge. I tried to stop him yesterday, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”

“Zane, you do what Robert says and you’ll stay out of trouble, you hear?”

“Yes’m,” I forced myself to mumble.

It always chapped my butt how Poot could do no wrong. When we burned off the grass in the front yard one winter day, that was my fault. When we burned the storage room down, my parents were furious that I had got Poot into trouble. When Poot blew a whistle in church one Sunday morning and I laughed-- not out loud even-- I got my ear twisted and fussed at when we got home. “The only reason Robert does things like that is you laugh at him,” Mom had scolded me.

One reason we called him Poot was because he could let one go whenever he wanted to. When the preacher would come to “And the LORD said . . .” Poot always passed gas out loud, and the pew I sat on would be shaking. Heck, the way I figured it, I deserved a cookie for not laughing out loud, but instead, I got my ear twisted and fussed at when we go home even though Poot done it not me.

Besides all that, he was a little runt which was another reason we called him Poot, because he didn’t weigh as much as a poot. And he always said, “Yes Ma’am” and “No Ma’am” so my mom thought he was perfect, just a little angel. He might look like a sissy, but if anybody ever come by your house and wanted to sneak out or shoot something or tear something up or drink beer, or burn a house down, it was Poot.

So off we went at my mother’s orders to obey Poot. Just like yesterday, up Harding Street, up the Boulevard, over the bridge onto Wade Road, but this time we didn’t stop at the swing even though there were three Hondas, a moped, and some bicycles down there. We kept going until we was in front of four old shotgun houses, and Poot stopped and got off his moped. I stopped, shut mine down, and got off.

“Well?”

“Well what?” I asked.

“This is what I wanted to show ya.”

“I seen ’em before, Poot. What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is which one do you want?”

“Huh?”

“Which one do you want to burn down first, you dumb dickhead?”

“Oh crap!” I shouted and grabbed my butt with both hands. I squeezed tight and tried not to squirt in my pants. “You have got to be kidding. There is no way we can do that and not get caught,” I yelled at him, highly agitated.

“Oh, yeah we can. I got a plan.”

And at that point, I had to step behind a tree, drop my pants, and squirt on the ground because when Poot had “a plan” it was always something that could get us sent to Parchment Penitentiary for a long time.