Toadsuck Tales: You Either Laugh Or Slit Your Throat

By Peter E. Gordy

Toadsuck Tales is a hysterical collection of stories about growing up in the South in the 1950's. A young doctor, his beautiful, outlandish wife and their four children shock the little backwater town where they run wild and free. Marijo, leading with a Pall Mall in one hand and an Old Crow and Coke in the other, herds the four youngsters from one adventure to another, leaving Luke, the oldest, the exclaim, "Jake LaMotta!"
For anyone who grew up in the boomer years, these are stories of universal truth. Most will strike a familiar chord and bring a laugh. Some will out the worst of the era and will bring a tear or two. But mostly, it's utter chaos and fun in a simpler time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter E. Gordy
• Release date: Apr 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310356858

Peter E. Gordy

Peter Gordy is a writer living in Atlanta, Georgia.

Book preview

Table of Contents

September 1948

Davis Street

Hilger’s

The Starlet Episode

To Touch A Gardenia

1957

Colt Ridge

Polio

Animal Kingdom

Spring Cleaning

Summer Saturdays 1956

September 1956

The Boys Room

Toadsuck Ferry Road

No Lifeguard On Duty

Animal Kingdom II

Getting Around

Good-Bye Howdy Doody

Toadsuck

Tales

You either laugh or slit your throat

Peter E. Gordy

Copyright © 2015 Peter E. Gordy

All rights reserved.

Second edition, January 2016

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my brother and sisters, who beyond all logic, remain in my heart. I always wanted to be an only child, but then if I had been, none of this book would have happened. To Luke and Jill and Ellen all my love.

And to my wife, Scottie, who saved me.

Acknowledgments

I want to thank my parents for making me possible.

September 1948

Mama was waiting for me. Fair to say she’s never been so anxious to see me since that day. She was waiting for me while she sat in a folding chair behind one of her card tables on the sidewalk in front of Greeson’s Rexall Drug Store downtown.

She was waiting with her friend Rosemary Sneed, a tall majestic looking woman. Rosemary was waiting for Sam Sneed. Together they waited as they sold baked goods for the hospital auxiliary. On the tablecloth in front of them there were few remaining items. They had done land office business and cupcakes and cakes were moving fast. Each item had a plate with the last name of the baker taped under it. Those plates always found their way home again.

Mama and Rosemary had made quite a haul, having arm-twisted all their friends into baking, and then literally throwing themselves, if necessary, in front of mothers with children, enticing the little one with cupcakes and humiliating the Mamas. There was no stopping these two.

They’d picked the perfect day for it. The opening day of the Faulkner Country Fair. Everyone was in town for the parade. The streets were jammed. Well, the street was jammed. It was a very small town. Front Street, with its wide sidewalk and wide awnings, was bustling as it rarely did. Cars all parked at an angle, and every now and then there was a big slab of marble, three feet long and two feet high, breaking up the row of parking meters. Engraved with strange triangles the Masonic people had placed on the hitching posts years ago, when there was more hitching than parking. Today was possibly the one day of the year they were actually used. Horses, all shiny and huge, with glittering silver and leather saddles were lined up at each marble slab. Their manes had been braided, as had their tails. They were magnificent creatures. More magnificent because they stood there, lazily, as many children giggled and ran under their legs and tugged on them.

The parade had just ended. The floats, the police and the firemen, the Four H and Future Homemakers, the high school band and the cheerleaders. The football team, in uniform, on a float. And so many horses. So much finery. And everyone waited when it was over. The anticipation was building. The tradition was that the parade would stop at the far end of Front Street, the big wigs of the town would then have to officially proclaim the fair open, then everyone in town follow the parade to the country fair grounds, and the miraculous midway.

There was some sort of delay. The crowd mingled.

Across Front Street, in front of the small train station, a wooden platform had been built, where bunting had been hung. Chairs were set up on the little stage where Mr. Slocum, the high school janitor, was having trouble with the public address system.

Down at the other end of Front Street, two blocks away, at the Bachelor Hotel, my Grandfather and some other men in hats were ambling down the street toward the stage, smoking cigars. They’d just left their usual meeting and had missed the parade as it passed. As they got closer to the stage, they also didn’t notice that Grandma’s enormous black Dodge had just pulled to a stop in front of the Bachelor Hotel. Grandma had been late leaving her house and just before the parade started the railroad crossings were closed, cutting off traffic. So Grandma, and her driver Delroy had watched what they could from behind the railroad crossing.

The crowd started moving across the street toward the stage. Mama and Rosemary had sold out and were folding up the table. Mama stuffed the tablecloth into her purse and they leaned the table and chairs against the drugstore.

As they leaned over for their purses, Mama laughed, I don’t normally dip like this.

Thank God it will be over soon, Rosemary said.

The two imminently pregnant women waddled into Greeson’s Drug Store to find their children. The Drug store was packed. In the back booth Mama found Ethel watching over Luke, my three-year old brother, and Sharon, Rosemary’s five-year old daughter. All three of them were eating banana splits.

Granted, pregnant women were given a certain amount of social respect and wide berth, but their girth was blocking the aisle to the bathrooms.

Rosemary, in a yellow polka-dotted muumuu that lit up the room, leaned down to Ethel and said smiling, When are you going to come work for me, Ethel? I told you I’d pay you more.

Ethel snickered and bowed her head. Misriz Sneed, was all she said before Mama leaned in.

Don’t you listen to one word this woman says, Ethel. She’s evil.

Oh! Ethel blushed and beamed up at them. "You two hush!

Mama grabbed some napkins from a dispenser on the table and wiped Luke and Sharon’s faces with one sweep,

Come on, we’ve got to get out of here. She hustled the kids out of the booth, turned to the crowd and announced, Pregnant women!

Ethel scooted out of the booth and followed, with Rosemary on her heels, whispering, If she happens to be found dead one day would you reconsider? Ethel gave her a swish of her hand as the crowd scrambled to get out of their way.

The crowd outside moved across the street and gathered around the stage, where the old men had taken their seats and Mr. Slocum had finished his sound check with several squeals from the PA system that got everyone’s attention.

Above Greeson’s Drug Store, in the same two story commercial building that wrapped the corner of Front and Oak Streets, Daddy and John Sneed were watching the proceedings down below from the tall windows in Daddy’s office. They shared a medical practice. Daddy was a doctor and John was an eye doctor. They were both smoking and trying to decide when they had to go down and join the festivities.

Louise, Daddy’s fireplug of a nurse, knocked and immediately came in. We’re done, she said affixing a small hat to her head. You’d better get on down there. Then she was gone.

Come on, Daddy said to John, You only get to hear this speech once a year.

His father, my Grandfather, was just launching into his annual town founding speech and the crowd was already getting restless, when there was a sharp snap of electric static that made Grandpa jump and everyone laughed. He was not amused, but you couldn’t see much under that wide brimmed hat and he resumed.

Daddy joined Mama with his arm around her as much as he could. She smiled at him then rolled her eyes at Grandpa onstage.

She and Rosemary had been easy to find in the crowd. You couldn’t miss the yardage of yellow polka dots and Mama looked like a blue tent with a head.

Suddenly Mama yelped. It made Grandpa pause and look at her. Daddy turned to her. Grandpa picked up where he left off.

Mama looked down. Oh! It was a startle that could be heard in several counties. Daddy jumped back. Grandpa glared and the crowd froze.

Oh My God, my water just broke. Mama was standing in a growing puddle.

The crowd recognition was almost immediate and people began backing up in droves.

My car’s just around the corner, John said and he started flapping at the crowd to get out of the way as Daddy and Rosemary ushered Mama down the street toward the Bachelor Hotel. A wide path was made as everyone stared in amazement, a path pointing directly to Grandma’s Dodge.

In the front seat Delroy, jolted upright, startling Grandma in the back. It’s Miss Marijo, he said.

Well go, she drawled, and he hit the gas.

Mama and Daddy were just coming out of the crowd as the giant automobile swung to a stop in front of them. The back door opened and they heard Grandma’s buttery Georgia Belle voice beckon from the dark of the back seat, Come on child.

Even with a car that size it took a minute for Mama to maneuver her way in, followed quickly by Daddy. The door closed and they sped off, bumping over the railroad tracks toward the hospital as the women in the crowd gasped.

It was as if everyone had been holding their breath because there was a collective sigh, then a rousing applause. Whatever had just happened seemed to put everyone in a better mood. The speeches were cancelled and they struck up the bands once more as people fell into place and followed the parade to the fairgrounds.

Grandpa huffed off the stage and back to the Bachelor Hotel.

And so I was born to Toadsuck.

The story goes that in the days when shanties lined the riverbank, Faulkner County, our county, was what they call a dry County, meaning no liquor for us righteous church-going Christians. On the other side of the river, in Perry County, it was wet, floating in liquor, obviously full of devil-worshipping sinners. A rickety old ferry was our only connection.

On Saturday nights there were always parties going on in those shanties down by the river, on both sides. Somewhere, somehow, someone is supposed to have said, in response to the noise from our side, that it sounded like somebody’s suckin’ toads. You’ve got to wonder about the kind of person who would say such a thing, and wonder about the general mental state of a whole community who would let the name stick. Nobody I have ever spoken to has heard the sound of sucking toads, but there it is.

The 2800 or so people who live in and around Toadsuck do it in a geographic bowl, surrounded by small hills in the dead center of the state of Arkansas, a fact that everyone in town was very proud of but no one could say exactly why.

For such a small place you would never believe there were three colleges in town, the State Teacher’s College, a well-respected small liberal arts college, Hendrix, and the Baptist College. But to live in Toadsuck you would never know any colleges were around. There were never any placards or signs in any merchant windows announcing school functions or plays or anything. College students were rarely seen in town. It was just one of the eccentricities of Toadsuck.

The two primary economic engines of the town were the cotton gin at the far end of Front Street, and the cattle auction barn next to it. Both of which gave off unusual odors.

The cotton gin, standing in a block of bare dirt, had caught fire so many times and rebuilt that it looked like a huge jumble of black lumber covered in a fine spider web of cotton.

At the harvest a lot of the car traffic downtown was brought to a crawl when the cotton wagons, with high wood slat sides that bulged out brimming with cotton, would amble down the street being led by two or four very bored horses.

The town boasted two movie theaters, and each of them had a balcony for the Coloreds and a separate entrance. I was always curious what was up there.

Daddy’s office, as I said, was on the second floor of the Halter building, which for most other professions might have been fine. But the Halter building had the steepest, most dangerous set of wide stairs you can imagine, each one with sharp metal edge, and narrow. At every age I was exhausted by the time I got to Daddy’s office, down a very dimly lit hallway. I can only wonder how many people dropped dead on those stairs trying to get to Daddy.

Train tracks ran through the middle of town. If it hadn’t been for cotton, Toadsuck never would have had a train and the residents would probably still be living in mud huts. As it was, the town was laid out in a simple grid pattern. On the East side of town was where most of the Coloreds lived, and the Catholics. We were much more frightened of the Catholics.

There were four main boulevards on the West side, and Grandpa and Grandma had a fine house on Robinson, one of the four. Our little house on Davis Street was five blocks away on a much less important street that dead-ended into Bruce Street, another of the four nicer streets.

It is fair to say that growing up in that small place where everyone knew everyone’s business left its mark on all of us.

It is also fair to say, knowing the life we led in Toadsuck, that we left our mark on it.

Davis Street

There were sidewalks on both sides of the street. Between the sidewalk and the street there was just enough room for elm trees that grew strong and thick and formed a canopy over the street. It was a quiet street, except for the occasional screaming coming from our house.

By the time Ellen was born, Daddy had already declared that our three-bedroom one bathroom house was too small. There’s too much going on around here for a house so small, he said. But what did he expect with four children? Mama’s answer was much simpler, we were told to go outside and play and not come in until she called for us, as though she was doing something mighty important inside. So we were left with Davis Street.

On either side of our house lived bullies. On the corner in a dark house surrounded by tall weeds and junk, lived Bobby and Billy Bullock, the meanest kids in town. Bobby, the older one was said to be a member of the Black Shirt Gang. We had no idea what that meant but we kept our distance. His younger brother, Billy, a year older than Luke, loved to climb the fence and come into our yard and hit us each on the arm, or worse, give a nuggie.

He came over one afternoon just as Luke and I had tied Jill to a tree in the front yard and we’d gone around back to get another Coke. Mama always kept a case of hot Cokes on the back porch, which usually lasted only a couple of days around our house (and was the cause, years later, for massive dental bills). We heard Jill yelling, but that was nothing new. It was only when we went back to the front yard that we saw Billy pinching Jill.

We ran over to where they were. Leave her alone! Luke yelled. Billy looked over his shoulder at Luke and smirked.

You tied her up, what did you expect?

WE can tie her up, she’s our sister, but you leave her alone.

Who’s going to make me?

Luke took a deep breath. I will.

You and what army? and Billy pinched Jill again. She yelled and tried to bite his hand.

Luke and I both looked around for something heavy or hard, but there was nothing handy. Then Luke stepped up to Billy, who had his back to Luke, and tapped him on the shoulder. Billy pulled himself up to his full height, and sneering, he turned around. Luke reared back and hit him in the head with the Coke bottle, and in the process, poured hot Coke over us all. Billy hollered bloody murder and ran off, dripping Coke as he went.

Jill stomped her feet. It was the only part of her she could move under the coils of rope Luke! I’m covered in Coke!

Me too! I said, wiping hot Coke from my face.

Luke was shaking. I did it, he said, then started smiling.

I did it! Jake LaMotta! I need another Coke.

While other kids would say Gee Whiz! Luke always said Jake LaMotta! Nobody knew why and it was years before I found out there really was a Jake LaMotta, a prize fighter. But where Luke came up with it remains a mystery.

On the other side of us lived Donald and Andy Bruce. Donald was Bobby’s age and also a member of the notorious Black Shirt Gang. As official teenagers and aspiring juvenile delinquents they didn’t want anything to do with us, we were just kids. They both wore black t-shirts and rolled up blue jeans everywhere just to announce that they were trouble. Only farmers or juvenile delinquents wore blue jeans.

Andy Bruce, like Billy Bullock, was a year older than Luke, but he wasn’t as bad as Billy. In fact, Andy and Luke were friends. I never liked Andy because he and Luke enjoyed