Fredlobster History

FRed Lobster

Gladewater, TX on the Sabine River

The History of Fredlobster. Below you will find the entire history of Fredlobster as told by our crack historian Pete Gerbine.

THE HISTORY OF FRED LOBSTER

Part 1

I’ve been asked a million times about the origin of Fred Lobster. So I’ve decided to share once and for all, all of my research.

Every thing that I will tell you about the history of Fred Lobster is the truth, or as close as your gonna get from me.

I’ve spent years compiling this information, and many trips to the northeast to verify my facts.

Frederick Lambhugger Halley was born in Bangher Maine, a suburb of Bangor, in the early 1800's. His father was a lobster fisherman, his mother worked at one of the houses in Bangher, not a bad looking woman, and charged a reasonable price for her services. Frederick had a brother named Red, remember that name it will be important later in the story.

Some of you might be familiar with the name Halley, Frederick is the great, great, great, great, great Grandfather of my pal Scott, plus or minus a great or two. Most of ya’ll should remember my pal Scott Halley, he used to live across the road, until he got run out of town, and the truth is that guy in the video didn’t even look like him. Then he moved to the city, and I hear he’s opened up a bar called The Blue Light Lounge, but that’s enough about my pal Scott.

I’m gonna lightly touch on Frederick’s middle name, he got it from his uncle, back in the days when a mans name reflected what he did, or was accused of, and again he really didn’t look like the guy in the video.

Now back to the story, as you can imagine lobster being plentiful in Maine, it was hard to make a living, because they were so cheap. Well Frederick and his brother Red come up with the idea to haul lobster to St louis, to get a better price, and here is where the adventure begins.

Dang I’m out of beer, got to get to the beer store, finish later.

THE HISTORY OF FRED LOBSTER

PART 2

Well Frederick and Red sold everything they owned, so they could buy 4 mules, and outfit themselves for the trip west, they loaded the mules with all the lobsters they could pack. Kissed there mama goodbye, and hit the trail.

The first night of there trip, they realized they hadn’t thought of getting a map, there was not a lot of wal-mart’s around back then, so they were in a pickle. As luck would have it, late in the evening as they were letting the lobsters graze, (a lot of dang work tending lobster) a Chinaman walked into there camp, and introduced himself as Johnny. The Chinaman hadn’t been in this country very long, but long enough to have run across a Taiwanese guy, that had brought over with him a sack full of plastic compasses, and he had sold the whole dang bag to Johnny.

Frederick, Red and Johnny sit around the campfire and stuck up a deal, deal was if Johnny give them each a compass, and helped tend the lobsters, he could go along with them as far as St. louis.

The next couple of months were pretty uneventful, and the boys had plenty of time to swap stories, and get to know each other, and become good pals. About the middle of the third month, Frederick noticed that the sun was coming up from the north more often than not, but he didn’t mention it to the others. He didn’t want then to worry about things, like the world coming to an end, or something like that. By the end of the month, Red mentioned to Frederick that he thought there might be a problem, cause he had noticed the sun had been setting in the north. Frederick and Red then compared compasses, then they checked all of the compasses, and no two pointed in the same direction. Then they went to work on kicking the stuffing out of the Chinaman’s ass.

They felt pretty bad about the beating they gave Johnny, so they bandaged him up and put him on light duty until he healed. After all it really wasn’t his fault it was that dang Taiwanese bastard that screwed Johnny it the first place.

Frederick suggested and Red agreed that they should set up camp where they were, until they could find out where in the hell they were, and give Johnny time to heal up some, because he wasn’t much help in the shape he was in.

Two weeks after the incident, that’s what they called Johnny’s ass whipping, a stranger come through there camp, and told them they were near Ft Smith Arkansas. So they decided to make winter camp there. That’s where Frederick met and fell in love with a large hairy humanoid creature. Later found out it was what the locals called Ellis’s or bigfoot in different parts of the south. Winters are cold and lonely in the woods in Arkansas, but in the spring Frederick sobered up and got a better look at his at his new mate, and he got Red and Johnny to help gather there gear and got the hell out of Dodge, so to speak.

One last note on the subject of Frederick’s love interest, and this is strictly rumor. Word was that in the fall she give birth to a half human, and when he was old enough she sent little Tommy in search of his Paw.

Dang I’ve got to go pee, finish later

The History of Fred Lobster

Part 3

Dang, typing makes me drunk.

Anyway the boys headed northeast, in search of St. Louis, or at least that was there plan.

After a few days on the trail, they run into another dang Chinaman, seems like there was a bunch of Chinamen back then. That night when they made camp, they got to talking with this new Chinaman, and found out his name was Hop Dung. He had been hired by a ranching family, Carharts I think was there name. A fella named Ben, had three sons big Joe and Horse, and I don’t remember the other one’s name, anyway they had sent him stage coach fare from St Louis to the ranch, but at the last stop, the other passengers complained to the stage coach driver about his smell, and so the driver give him his fare back, and kicked him off the stage. Seems the Chinamen people named there young after some endearing quality, and old Hoppy stunk.

Well he wondered around lost, until he run into this Taiwanese guy with a sack of plastic compasses, and he swapped his remaining coach fare for the whole dang sack. Now he was sure enough lost.

Frederick and the boys talked it over, and decided if Hoppy would clean up some, they would let him join them. The lobster herd was growing all the time, and they could use the help.

Hell after Hoppy got introduced to soap, he liked it, and in his spare time he’d just go round singing and cleaning everything in sight. His smell improved and one night Johnny figured they aught to give him a better name, so after the boys talked it over, since all Hoppy liked to do was clean and sing, and he was a singing little son of a bitch, they settled on his new name, Hop Clean, I don’t make this shit up.

Now armed with a new sack of compasses, they hit the trail for St. Louis, it was around Gilmer somewhere, that they found a dang wounded Injun, laying in the trail, said he’d been shot by a bandit.
Well they patched him up, best they could, and took turns keeping an eye out for bandits, while the Injun was healing. It was Hop Clean’s turn for guard duty, when a masked man on a big white horse rode into there camp, in the middle of the night, Hoppy was so dang nervous, that his gun went off shooting the masked man in the foot, and waking up the whole camp, come to find out the masked man was a friend of the Injun, called him Kemosabe, or something like that.

When the Injun healed he took the boys south to meet with his tribe, come to find out he was some big upped up in the Hackasaw tribe. The chief was so grateful for the boys saving the Injuns life, that he give, Frederick a piece of land on the Gerbine River, Right where Fred Lobster’s is today.

The History of Fred Lobster

Part 4

Now I may have to clear up some confusion, on the name of the river, some might not know that what is commonly called today the Sabine River, was originally the Gerbine River.

My Grandfather had a small general store in south Louisiana, and would on occasion go in to New Orleans for supplies, it was on such a trip that he run into a bunch of drunks, in a little hole in the wall honky tonk, on Bourbon St.. Well they got to talking, and come to find out, they were on a mission, seems there boss had hired them to map out and explore the land in that area. He was wanting to purchase Louisiana. Best I remember my Grandfather said the ring leader’s name was Lewis Ann Clark, funny middle name for a man I thought, but my Grandfather said he was probably named that to make him tougher.

Anyway they had spent most of there advanced money on beer and whores, and then pissed off what little they had left on supplies and a bag full of plastic compasses, that little Taiwanese guy got around. Well they were lost bigger than Dallas, and said they would pay my Grandfather to get them across Louisiana, so a deal was struck, and off they went.

When he got them to the Texas border, Lewis Ann admitted that they didn’t have the money to pay him, but would give him the river, if he helped them get across, so my Grandfather got them across the river, and figured he had made a pretty good deal, with fish tax and all he figured he’d never see another poor day.

A few months later my Grandfather sent my Daddy and me, up the river to kind of map it out.

MEANWHILE BACK AT THE RANCH

Frederick, Red, Johnny and Hop Clean, had discussed there options, and had decided to set up lobster ranching on there newly acquired land. Turns out that Frederick was a better lobster farmer than navigator. The herd was flourishing, and by now it took several acres to contain them.

While Frederick and Red built them a house, Johnny and Hop Clean would tend the herd, seems like Hoppy always got the night shift, cause he could sing the lobsters to sleep, that dang little Chinaman could sing.

MEANWHILE BACK ON THE RIVER

My daddy and me, were slowly making our way up the river, pretty much living off of the land as we traveled, we noticed the further up we come the bigger the crawfish got, by the time we went under the bridge at hwy 271,( wasn’t called that back then, but I was to young to read the sign), two crawfish would feed us both.

Dang, Susan Gaye is calling me

HISTORY OF FRED LOBSTER

PART 5

Well we made it up the river a few miles, when we run into this motley crew of Yankees and Chinamen, with the biggest crawfish we had ever seen. Come to find out they called’em lobster, and
they was lobster farmers. My daddy said, it was a good thing that they called themselfs lobster farmers and not house builders, cause there house sucked.

After visiting with,em for a while, they invited us to stay for supper, they weren’t any better at cooking lobster than they were at building houses, but we were polite and eat our bellies full, thanked them for the meal, and figured we owed them something for there effort. After supper they invited us to share there camp for the night, and we accepted.

The next morning my daddy went about showing Johnny how to boil the big crawfish, dang it must have been awhile since them boys had a good meal, cause they didn’t want us to leave, we decided to hang around long enough to teach them how to cook a few things, and then our debt would be settled.

I have to say it was good to be on solid ground, and the next couple of weeks, my daddy taught them how to make the best dang beans you ever eat, he also made up a batch of his home made brew, and brother when that beer was cooked off, we had friends for life.

During this time we had got to know the boys pretty well, Frederick the biggest of the bunch was about 6' 4" with sandy colored hair, Red was much shorter and had jet black hair, one night while when we was finishing up supper and drinking cold beer, my daddy asked Red how he come about the name Red, he didn’t want to say, but after a few more beers, Frederick told the story.

You will remember, Frederick’s middle name was Lambhugger, named after his uncle, well Frederick never spent much time with his uncle, but Red did. Uncle Lambhugger introduced Clarence, that was Red’s real name, to the pleasures of lambhugging, if you get my drift. Clarence took to it, and liked it, and stayed with the hobby of lambhugging, even after he caught something ajax couldn’t scrub off, and that is how Red got his nick name.

After a few weeks of my daddy cooking and brewing beer, travelers would stop by and eat and drink, and tell what news they had, then move on. Word got spread pretty dang fast about the good food and beer, over at Frederick the lobster farmers place, that Frederick and Red decided to make a business of it, but they knew that it would depend on getting my daddy to stay long enough to teach them how to cook and brew the beer.

They offered my daddy a piece of land in exchange for teaching them his bean and beer secrets. My daddy agreed he would, if they would furnish him with some help, well as luck would have it, 3 brothers come floating down the river the very next day, and they was a looking for work.
Them 3 boys was nice enough, and smart enough to learn, but dang they did like to fight amongst themselfs. Hell they couldn’t even agree how to spell there own dang name. One of’em, put a ( c ) between the ( s ) and the ( h ). The oldest of the bunch had a dog, don’t remember the boy’s name but the dogs name was Duke, anyway he took to learning how to cook the beans, and caught on pretty quick.

The middle brother, the one that spelled his name different,(just out of meanness I think) caught on to making my daddy’s special brew, and wanted to be called a brewmaster.

The youngest one was called George, and all he ever wanted to do was hang around my daddy and learn philosophy and politics, don’t know if that boy will ever amount to much, but he was a nice enough fella.

HISTORY OF FRED LOBSTER

PART 6

Frederick and Red knew that they would now need a place for there customers to get in out of the weather, while they enjoyed there meal, they also knew that they were not the ones to build it. So they put out word, that they were in need of a building contractor.

With in a week, a fella shows up in a station wagon,(not sure what a station wagon is but that’s what they showed in). He had his whole family with him, his wife was an amazing woman, she could do things with her tits, that I ain’t never seen before, he had a little blonde headed daughter that was maybe the ugliest child I ever seen, but dang that girl was smart, and the son was just the opposite. He was a pretty boy, but dumb as a box of rocks(two fingers short of a full glove) if you know what I mean. Well the fella said he’s help them out, but they would have to do him a little favor when he was done, the boys were desperate so they took the deal.

In no time at all, the fella had the pavilion built, and the boys were ready to open for business, except for one thing, like most small business men, they hadn’t thought about a sign until my daddy mentioned it, so they were in a rush to find a sign painter.

There was only one sign painter in these parts, and he was lazy and he dressed funny but he took the job. They wrote out what they wanted on the sign,( Frederick and Red’s lobster farming and restaurant and beer hall and whore house) they figured Johnny could run the whore house by hand until they got some women. Well the sign painter being the lazy bastard that he was, did it the way he wanted to, FRed Lobster. And that is how they got the name.
They were now ready to open for business, and Johnny spent all of his free time,(which wasn’t much, between lobster tending and working in the whore house), looking for women to replace him.

Well Johnny finally made a deal with the Hackasaw Chief, for a few squaws, and I think everyone was glad, especially Johnny.

Everyone that is except, Red and the sign painter. During Johnny stint in the whore house, Red had introduced him to role playing, and lambhugging(with Johnny playing the part of the lamb).

One night when Fred( that’s what they called him since the sign painters mistake) was making the rounds, to be sure everything was closed and locked up, he stumbled on Red and Johnny, that’s how Johnny got his new last name, Lambutt.

Fred thought on it for a while, and he figured there might be some liabilities involved with his partner screwing the help, so to speak. He figured he’d better get rid of them both, so he did.

I don’t know for sure, but I heard that Red is doing fine now, opened up a little restaurant based on the things he learnt from my daddy and Fred , and we all wish him well.

Johnny is doing ok now too, he started buying beer from my daddy, and opened up a little liquor store, he was going to call it Johnny’s Liquor, but my daddy talked him out of that, there was to many Blacks with the name Johnny in Gladewater, that had bad reputations. So he decided to call it by his last name, I don’t know if you can blame the sign painter for the mistake or not, get a Chinaman to say lambutt, it does sound like Lambert.

HISTORY OF FRED LOBSTER

PART 7

Life was good, and business was booming, between the restaurant, lobster farming, and the whore house, the boys stayed plenty busy. They worked late into the nights, and then would sleep out under the stars(weather permitting) and let the sun wake’em up, then do it again.

One morning Fred knew it was time to get up and get going, but it was still dark, he thought it must be a dang eclipse, and as he started to get up, something grabbed him and lifted him straight up, and before he could holler for help, the dang thing started kissing him and crying, and calling him paw.

All the commotion got the whole camp stirring, and the boys finally got Fred free from this creature, turns out it was Tommy. As they went about fixing breakfast, Tommy told his story about searching for years for his paw, Fred could see a slight resemblance, but he wouldn’t admit Tommy was his. He fed the boy, and said he’d let him stay on, if he could pull his own weight, so they put him to doing odd jobs around the place, for food and a place to sleep, but Fred made him quit calling him paw.(seems Fred wasn’t particularly fond of everyone knowing he’d slept with a bigfoot).

I won’t say to much about Tommy now, other than he caught on quick to his work, and was good natured enough, seems his feet had grown so fast, that it had took all the calcium from his head, and he had a soft spot. At least that’s the best I could understand, when Fred said the boy was a little soft in the head.

By now the builder was done with his work, and the place was looking pretty good, so Fred ask the fella what he owed him? The guy says he’ll call it even if Fred would keep his son on for the summer as kind of a handy man. Fred agreed and that was the last we ever seen or heard from him.

The boy was a pretty good hand and he didn’t eat as much as Tommy, and it give Tommy someone to play with. Them boys was always building something, so for Christmas one year Fred give’em a black and decker tool kit, had a circular saw and a drill motor in it. It was a dang nice kit for the time.

Before New Years eve, they became blood brothers, not intentionally, seems they had one of them industrial accidents, Stubby(that’s what we now called him) was cutting through a 2x4 and didn’t stop, until he made it through his glove and Tommy boot. Fred took the power tools away.

Well like I said earlier, life was good and business was booming, especially after they put the railroad through. The train would stop and Fred would send me up to meet it with the mules, and I’d pick up any mail, and bring the crew and passengers back to Fred Lobsters for food and spirits, and then I’d haul there drunk ass’s back to the train.

One day Fred gets a letter from his mother, seems one of the women that had worked in the same house as she had, many years ago, had a son that was the spitting image of Fred. Well that boy had a son, and so on and so on, and now Fred’s great great great great great grand son, plus a minus a great or two, was headed this way to meet him, come to find out he was coming in on the next mornings train.

Fred knew his mother wouldn’t lie to him, so he got everyone busy getting the place ready for his great great great great great grand son, plus or minus a great or two. Fred sends me to meet the train the next morning to pick the boy up. Says I should easily recognize him, so I’m there first thing the next morning, waiting for the train, when it shows up, off steps the funnies looking fella I ever saw, he had on a multi-colored plaid suit, button-up shoes, and a derby had, he was a lot older than me and bigger, so I didn’t laugh at him, but I knew he’d catch hell if I brought back to Fred Lobsters looking like that.

Well I introduced myself and he said his name was Scott Halley, and I explained to him that them clothes might work in the east, but he ought to get some new ones before we went back to Fred lobsters, he agreed to leave it up to me to pick him out some new duds, said a few folks had already commented on his clothes When the train had laid over in Ft.Worth.

Teaching him how to pick out clothes wasn’t near as hard as teaching him to ride a dang mule, but I never gave up, and he now does a pretty good job with both.

Fred now added a new job to my already busy schedule, I now had to keep an eye on Scott Halley, as well as Stubby, and Tommy, I was the youngest and smallest of the bunch, hell I wasn’t but a kid back then. Freds biggest concern was that they would hang out at the whore house, and run up his tab.

THE HISTORY OF FRED LOBSTER

PART 8

One night while I was out riding, the graveyard shift, daylight till dawn(dang anyone feel free to use that in a song) that’s when I seen what I saw. There on his belly, on top of a little knoll lay Scott Halley, he was looking down at the pond. I said hey Scott Halley, what are you doing? When he saw me, he give me the universal sign of silence, you know the one, where you hold your finger straight up and put it to your lips, then you say shut the phuck up, then he motioned me over, and pointed down at the pond, when I had reached him, and lay down beside him, he whispered “see that beautiful Injun squaw down there taking a bath”well I knew right off, he’d been drinking, cause I could smell it on him, and that creature taking a bath wasn’t no beautiful squaw. Seeing as how he was a lot bigger than me I didn’t argue with him, I just nodded my head that I sure saw something down there.

Well he eased on down to the pond and stuck up a conversation, shared his bottle with the creature and they headed on into the woods, I got back on my mule, and finished my rounds(checking on the lobster herd). When I finished my work, I slipped on over to where they were having there little love fest, I knew two things right off, first thing was Scotty Halley needed glasses, and second thing I recognized his beautiful squaw was none other than the notorious Johnny Black.

I figured the best thing for me to do was get on back to camp, and keep my mouth shut, so that’s what I done, but I did mention to Fred the next morning, that we might ought to do something about Scott Halley’s eyes. Fred didn’t seem to be to interested in spending any money that he didn’t have to, so he just ignored my suggestion at the time.

When Mr. Black showed up a few months later, with Johnny in tow, and being in a family way(Johnny being the one that was swelling), Fred reconsidered my idea about glasses for Scott Halley. Fred and Mr. Black had a sit down, and they agreed that Johnny should go on and have the baby, but after the delivered, it would be up to Fred to make things right.

The morning after the baby come, Fred sent Hop Clean down to the river to wash the poor ugly little bastard up some, after a few hours, they agreed that he wasn’t gonna be able to wash the ugly off .
Fred realized there was only one thing to do, he’d have to put the boy up for adoption(the old fashion way). He had Hoppy wrap the little bastard in a good soft hide, stuck him in a leaky canoe, and give it a push down river. Scott Halley and Johnny was just a hugging and a crying, that is until the canoe went around the first bend in the river, and was out of site.

Then everyone had a beer or two, and agreed it was the right thing to do. Don’t feel to bad for Bubba, that’s what Fred called him. As it turns out, a family in Swamp City found him, and raised him, We heard that the boy turned out fine, even became the mayor of Swamp City.

After everything settled, Fred had to pay for Johnny’s operation, Seems Mr. Black figured Johnny’s reputation was soiled, so they turned her into a man. Did I mention she was already bald and had a moustache, before the surgery.

HISTORY OF FRED LOBSTER

PART 9

Well not to much happened for the next few months, until the circus came to town, Captain Jack, (they used to call the guy in charge of the train Captain) brought the circus in on his train, and it was something to see. They had all kinds of strange animals, freaks, a bearded lady, and some dang midgets. We had never seen no midgets before, and one of them midget women was just my size, and Scotty Halley said he thought she liked me, Tommy and Stubby agreed with Scott Halley, so they set us up for a little date.(little date, midget woman and a kid, get it)dang that shit is funny.

I was dang near 10 by then, or would be on my next birthday, and I had just come into puberty. Although I didn’t have any real first hand experience in the ways of the world, I’d been around the whore house enough to know how to make a baby, and I’d seen ole Sarge in action enough to know how to make a puppy, I went for the puppy.

Well everybody enjoyed the circus and most everybody got drunk, including Capt’n Jack. He was so dang drunk, he drove the train off the track. Fred sent me and the gang down to see if we could get it back on the track, while Scotty Halley, Stubby, and me was sitting down figuring how to get it back on, Tommy picked up the front tires, and put them on the track, he needed a little help to lift the rear, but between us we got-her-done. Capt’n Jack was still drunk, and I figure that’s why he hired Tommy on the spot.

He was gonna teach Tommy to drive the train, so he could sleep it off. Just as he’d get the train rolling Tommy would oversteer the dang thing, and it would jump off again, so I figured if I just tied the steering wheel up, marked the throttle one color, and the brake another, Tommy could handle it. Sure enough it worked, and I hear that they don’t even put steering wheels on them anymore.

Everything settle back down to normal, we all did miss Tommy some, but I was to busy waiting to hear from my girlfriend, to miss him to much. It had been over 2 months, and still no puppies.
Dang I think it was almost a year later, before I heard from her, she sent a bundle and a little note by Capt,n Jack and Tommy. The note said her name is Kelly, well you can imagine my surprise, and disappointment, I’m expecting a puppy. Lucky for me Stubby wasn’t to dang smart, I swopped him for a three bladed pocket knife, one of the blades was broke, I sometimes feel bad about doing that to him.

HISTORY OF FRED LOBSTER

PART 10

Now that Tommy worked for the railroad, we could ride the train free, so Fred sent us to Ft. Worth to get Scott Halley some glasses. Fred give me four dollars, and said to get Scott some good ones. Stubby tied Kelly up to the front porch, put out fresh food and water, and the three of us caught the train.

We got into Ft. Worth just about dark, and Capt’n Jack said the eye glass store was closed, and we would have to wait til morning. We hung around the train station until Tommy got the train unloaded, and we all headed downtown, hell I had a pocket full of money, and we was gonna spend some of it.

None of us had ever been to a picture show(movie theater), so that is what we settled on. We were in luck too, the marque said NOW PLAYING, Zorro Rides Again. We didn’t know who Zorro was, but we were all happy that he could ride again. Back then, there was no sound, other than a piano player, and you had to read what they were a saying. Seeing how I was the only one that could read, I had to read the whole dang movie out loud for the rest of the gang.

As it turns out this Zorro fella, was a gentleman rancher by day, and a crime fighter at night. He’d change into his Zorro costume, and with a whip and a sword, he’d kick the bad guys butt. We all enjoyed the movie, but Scott Halley thought it was one of them Devine messages, and he went to thinking. After the show, we all went back to the train yard, to find an empty boxcar, so we could get some sleep.

Just before daylight, Scott Halley woke me up, to tell me his plan. Seems he wanted to be a gentleman lobster rancher by day, and rid the world of evil at night. He wanted me to use the rest of his eye glass money to buy a whip and a sword, I said we’d have to get the glasses first, cause I didn’t want to piss Fred off.

At daylight we were hunting the eye glass store, and when they opened the store we were the first customers. The lady that was selling the glasses, was a real tall blonde headed gal, she was very helpful, and talkative. She told us that she rode an Indian, Scott Halley said, “hell lady I been riding Injuns for years”. (Scott had slipped off to the whore house a couple of times) Well when she heard that, she got all excited, and said since we rode Indians, we was all brothers and we could get a discount. We were happy for the discount, but we had no idea of what the hell she was talking about.
Did I mention she was blonde?

Between the cost of the picture show, and the glasses, we still had about a dollar left. So we went off in search of a whip and a sword. Boy was we surprised to find out the cost of a whip and a sword. Only thing in our price range, was a box of darts. Scott Halley was sure disappointed at first, but I explained to him, that he didn’t want to copy Zorro exactly, and he finally agreed, so we got the darts.

HISTORY OF FRED LOBSTER

PART 11

With his new glasses, he had a pretty good eye for throwing darts, now all he needed was a costume, and a name. Scott Halley had kept his multi-colored plaid suit, so he went to work on modifying it, he made a cape out of the suit coat. When he showed it to me, I said dang Scott Halley, if you’re gonna wear that, you had better wear a mask, cause people are gonna laugh at you, so he took one of the jacket sleeves and cut a couple holes in it, and a super hero was born.

Now what I’m fixing to tell you, is a sure enough secret, so before you read any further, you’ll have to swear to secrecy. (Go ahead and swear now) because there are evil doers all over the place that would love to know the true identity of Dartanyun.

Armed with his new costume, and box of darts, Dartanyun would saddle up my mule every night and go off looking for evil doers. The first couple of months were uneventful, not a lot of evil doers in our neighborhood. Then I found out he was never going further than the shadows of out camp, Dartanyun was afraid of the dark. I wasn’t an evil doer fighter, but I became his side kick, so we could go a little further.

One night while we was out riding, graveyard shift, daylight til dawn, the moon was bright as a reading light, (dang someone needs to use that in a song), anyway we come upon a camp of strangers. I said dang Scott Halley, look at that, there’s a camp of strangers, he turned around in the saddle and knocked me off the mule, (did I mention that we had to ride double, he didn’t have a horse at that time), he said don’t ever call him by his real name, when he was in his Dartanyun suit.

He helped me get up, and we eased over closer to there camp. They was strangers alright, and they was strange. We had never seen anyone that looked like them before, they was dressed funny, and they talked funny, there must have been a couple hundred of’em. WE hightailed it back to Fred Lobster, and told Fred what we saw.

The next morning, Fred took over some lobsters, and introduced himself, when he come back home he told us, that they was a tribe of Huns, and that there leader Attila, had invited him to a big shindig that they were having that night. So about dark, Fred got cleaned up and went on over to the party in his canoe . Me and Scott Halley, waited a couple of hours, then he put on his costume, and we slipped on over in the shadows, so we could watch what was going on, Dartanyun didn’t trust them folks.

Well there party itinerary consisted of, drinking, eating, drinking, then a virgin sacrifice. They explained to Fred, that they had to sacrifice a virgin ever year, so they could continue to prosper, with there pillaging, raping, and killing. Attila wasn’t to happy about to nights sacrifice, cause they was down to there last virgin, Tila the Hon. She was Attila’s two year old daughter, a beautiful little blonde headed little girl.

Well me and Dartanyun, knew we had to do something. While them Huns was drinking and partying, we snuck over to where the baby was playing, and while Dartanyun stood guard, darts at the ready, I snatched the girl up, and we headed to the river, that’s as far as our plan went, when we made it to the river, we had to plan some more. We wrapped the baby in a soft hide, and put her in Fred’s canoe, give her a little push. We then went back to keep an eye on the party, hell them Huns got so drunk, they didn’t realize that they hadn’t made the sacrifice.

Not to worry about the beautiful baby Tila, we heard some nice family in Swamp City, took her in. She wound up marring a nice catholic boy, we figured he was catholic, because he worked for mass theology, or something like that, last we heard he moved his family to Hawaii, grew his hair out long, dressed funny, and chased bad guys on telivision

HISTORY OF FRED LOBSTER

PART 12

It was long late in the evening when he rode into our camp, on a little brown pony he called Chaw. With brogan boots, and overalls a tougher looking sight, we had never in our lives before had saw. He said his pa had married twice, and his new ma beat him every day or two, so he saddled up ole Chaw one night, and lit a shuck this way, thought it time now to paddle his own canoe. He said if we would give him work, he’s do the best he could, but he didn’t know straight up about a lobster.(dang it’s gonna be hard to make something gel with lobster) So the boss picked him out a bunk, and kindly laid him down, cause he sorta liked our little stay some how.(dang I couldn’t do it).

ANYONE KNOWING WHERE I GOT THAT FROM WINS A FREE WEEKEND FOR TWO AT FRED LOBSTER!!!!!!!

The next morning, Fred had Hoppy clean up the kid, while we was deciding what to do with him, well you can imagine our surprise, when we was watching Hoppy clean him up down at the river, to see that it wasn’t no boy at all, it was a dang gal, and a handsome one at that. Seems Hoppy had better luck scrubbing off the ugly on Nez than he had on Bubba. I don’t think I mentioned that the kids name was Nez yet.

Now we was sure enough in a dilemma, the only gals we had working for us was the whores, and although she had the hips for whoreing, she was a little slight in the other department. If you get my meaning. Scott Halley come up with the idea to poke sweat socks in her brassiere (pronounced braz-zeere) and that seemed to work, she looked fine. No matter that she looked good, none of the customers wanted anything to do with her, they all said she had a smell of stinky feet. So Fred give up on whoreing her out, and put her to work running the bar. And she caught on quick, and did a hell of a job, and the customers liked her better after she took Scott Halley’s sweat socks out of her braz-zeere. Seems Scott Halley and give her a used pair of socks.

Well we all agreed Nez was a natural born leader, she had that bar a humming, and life was good. Until a dang peddler who called himself Hogeye showed up, said he was selling telephones, so Fred says what the hell is a telephone. Hogeye tried to explain to the gang, that you could talk to anyone in the country, that had a telephone, and one day every body would have one. Scott Halley said “bullshit”.

Just as all salesmen are, ole Hogeye was a smooth talker, and when he took to sniffing around Nez, we knew we was in trouble. Fred had done had to ban him from the whore house, cause he carried a pet anaconda in his britches, and he had pretty much done wrecked all the whores, for normal men.

Well he took to putting on the charm, and poor Nez was defenseless. It wasn’t long before we watched him saddle up ole Chaw , and took Nez off to the city(Swamp City). I remember Fred and the boys watching them go down the trail ,into the sunset, and Fred says, with all the whores here for that son of a bitch to choose from, why Nez?

HISTORY OF FRED LOBSTER

PART 13

Fred was despondent for a few days after we lost Nez, but then he pulled himself back together, and got back to business. Hell we all missed her, did I mention her hips? Fred’s first order to me was to get the rest of the crew pulling there own weight. Finding Stubby something to build wasn’t that hard, but I knew finding Scott Halley a job wasn’t gonna be easy.

While I was a thinking about it, the train stopped, and Tommy blew the whistle. That was the signal for me to take the mules up to the train, and pick up the crew, and passengers. So me and Scott Halley saddled’em up and went to get’em. Well there was a fella carrying a guitar------------------------he was just a lad, nearly 22 neither good nor bad, just a kid like you. (Here is another chance to win a weekend for two at Fred lobster, First son of a bitch that knows the kids stage name wins)

Well the boy introduced himself, said his name was Hiram, he left his home in Alabama, was headed for Nashville to seek his fame and fortune, but he was, (here comes clue number two) like a rolling stone, all alone and lost, for his life of sin, he paid the cost, when he walked by, all the people would say, just another guy, on the lost highway. As it turned out he had left Alabama walking, with his suit case , guitar, and $8.00, but when he got to Montgomery, he run into this Taiwanese guy. Yeah the same dang compass peddler, that every one else had run into. Then he wound up walking to Ft. Worth, before he realized he was heading in the wrong direction. So he throws his new compasses away, and hops on a train heading in the right direction.

His train ticket had busted him, and he was hungry, so Fred give him a few dollars and a couple of lobsters, for his guitar. After the kid had eat, and drank a couple of beers, he sang us a few songs, one about some food he had eat in Louisiana, one about a bird that couldn’t fly, and a few more that I don’t remember. He was pretty good, but when he was leaving Scott Halley said, boy you sang good enough, but if your gonna make it in Nashville, you’re gonna have to change that name.

Dang if you ain’t got it by now, you just ain’t gonna get it, so lets move on.

Anyway we now had a guitar, so I figured that if I could teach Scott Halley how to play it, he could then carry his own weight, Dang what a job that was, but I finally got him to making a few cords, and after weeks of practice, he was ready to lead the Fred Lobster house band. While he was a playing one night, Hop-Clean joined in singing with him, dang that little Chinaman could sing. In fact he sang so good, that Scott Halley suggested we change his name to Hop-Sing.

My job was now getting easier, with Stubby building a new out house, and Scott Halley playing in the band, I had my days pretty much freed up. I still had my side kicking job, but that didn’t start til after dark, when Scotty Halley was done entertaining the dinner crowd.

HISTORY OF FRED LOBSTER

PART 14

By now my daddy had made enough money to start building a house up on the hill, he bought the material, and put Stubby to work on it. Then he got the sign painter lined out to go up the river, and paint a sign at every road crossing the Gerbine river. It should have been easy enough, all he wanted was my Grand fathers initials and the family name, Samuel Adams Gerbine , the sign should have read, S. A. Gerbine River. He paid the sign painter up front, and helped him load his canoe, with paint, sign blanks, and they strapped a ladder down, and the painter was off to get the job done.

My daddy was a pretty even natured fella, but a couple of months after the sign painter had left, folks started showing up at Fred Lobster, calling the river the Sabine river, they said there was signs everywhere that read S.A..Bine river, dang my daddy was pissed. When he got through stomping another hole in that sign painters ass, the painter give him what money he had left, and deed to his little sign shop, then he took his lazy, funny dressing ass off to south Texas somewhere, we hadn’t seen him sense

My daddy had intended to get the signs fixed, but then he got word, that he needed to come home. He left me in charge of the house building, and the sign shop. With Stubby building the house, I didn’t have much to worry about there, cause he liked working by himself, so I hired a kid to run the sign shop, and life was good.

Scott Halley had been trying to court this Injun Princess, but she didn’t want much to do with a son of a bitch that rode double on a mule, Scott Halley was still afraid of the dark, so I’d have to ride over to her tee pee with him to pick her up, and then the three of us would try to get on my poor mule, she didn’t much go for that.

I’ve got to say, that during daylight hours, Scott Halley was just your average everyday, run of the mill, type son of a bitch, but after dark, and about three beer, he could show signs of pure genius. It was on such an occasion that he developed our new plan, making fighting evil doers profitable. The plan was simple enough, the way he explained to me was, money was the root of all evil, I agreed with that. So he says, lets get the evil doers money, before they have a chance to do evil. That made since to me, so I says how are we gonna know if they’re evil doers, before they do evil. He says, not a problem, he could tell a liar, right off. So all we had to do was ask’em.

Dang, that plan was working pretty good, after dark we’d go hide out on the trail, my job was to hold the mule, and when somebody came by, Dartanyun would jump out, and ask’em straight up if they was up to no good, if they said yeah, we took there money, if they said no, Dartanyun would bitch slap’em, for lying, and then we’d take there money. It was a win, win deal for us.

Now that we had money, you would have thought that Scotty Halley would have been happy, but he wasn’t have much luck with his Injun Princess, we was sitting around talking about it one day, when we heard the train whistle, so Scott Halley helped me saddle up the mule, and we went down to pick up any passengers or crew, that wanted to come to Fred Lobster for food, drink, or whores.

We had made it almost to the tracks when we hear this hell of a noise, folks are piled around watching this guy on a bicycle, with a loud ass motor go around in circles, seems it was a demonstration for these 3 yankee fellas from Milwaukee, that was down here selling what they called a motorcycle. They had been to Shreveport, and was on there way to Ft. Worth to open up a motorcycle store. Me and Scott Halley knew right off, we had to have us one of them, so we asked the guy, how much it cost, the fella named Bill said we couldn’t afford it, he was kind of an asshole, but the other two were brothers Art and Walt, they were a little nicer, and they told us what it would cost.

Them boys didn’t know that we had a pocket full of money, fighting evil doers was real profitable, sense Scott Halley had come up with our plan. With the cash we had, and the tab them boys run up at the whore house, the next morning we had a dang nice motorcycle, with a sidecar.

Well our lives changed after we got that motorcycle, it had a headlight, so Scott Halley could go off in the dark without me, and that Injun Princess, that didn’t want much to do with him before, now thought he was the coolest son of a bitch around. She’d get drunk and ride that motorcycle, hooping and a hollering up and down the dang road. It was something to see, cause if she got drunk enough, she’d go to tearing off her dang clothes.

HISTORY OF FRED LOBSTER

PART 15

If I was titling these chapters, this one would be either THE REDHEADED STRANGER, or THE BITCH THAT RUINED MY LIFE, but don’t let me get ahead of myself.

Scott Halley knew that he couldn’t ride that motorcycle in the daylight, and use it at night as Dartanyun, or someone would figure out his true identity, so he settled on using it only at night.
He wanted to paint it so no one would recognize it, I had to talk him out of painting it light blue, and naming it My Little Pony. He finally agreed to paint it black , but we couldn’t agree on a name for it, I wanted to name it Black Beauty, but he liked Snowball better, so that was it’s new name.

One morning we didn’t have anything better to do, so we walked up to where Stubby was building the house, we hadn’t checked on it in quiet a while. Dang we were sure surprised to see the progress he had made, he was already doing the finishing work inside. As we come up from the pasture, we could see him at the kitchen table eating something. So we hollered in at him, and before we knew it, a dang red headed son of a bitch, come out on the veranda, and she hollered down at us, told us to be quiet. Well we let her know real quick, who in the hell we were, and that she couldn’t tell us what to do. Dang if she didn’t start throwing stuff at us, I was just fix’en to tell her that Scott Halley, was fix’en to come up there and kick her butt, then she started climbing down the veranda, and Scott Halley said come on let’s go, but more than saying it, it was kinda like a whimper.

As we were walking back down to the river, I asked Scott Halley if he was scared of her, and he said hell no, so then I says, how come we’re leaving, and he said, cause Fred had told him to feed the mules, and we had better get back and feed’em, so I says, ok, but what are we gonna do about the redheaded son of bitch, that run us off, and it being our own dang house, he says, don’t worry about it, Dartanyun would take care of it tonight.

I had never heard a whimper in Scott Halley’s voice before, not even when we went into the Devil worshipers cave, down on the river(I can’t tell ya’ll exactly where it was, because after the shootout, with the head Devil guy, we sealed it up, and made a pack, not to ever tell anyone) , so I figured this was gonna get ugly. That afternoon, Stubby come down to the Fred Lobster’s to get some more material, and we asked him where in the hell had that redheaded son of a bitch come from? H e said, he didn’t know, she just showed up one day, and started cleaning up the place some, and the next thing he knew, she moved her stuff in, and kinda took over.

When it got good and dark, me and Dartanyun jumped on Snowball, and made our way up to the new house, we parked in the pine thicket, behind the house ,and Dartanyun told me to stay with Snowball, and he would go and get this straighten out. He kinda creeps up to the side door, darts at the ready, and then all hell breaks loose, I couldn’t see what was a happening, but I could dang sure hear it. There was blood curdling sounds, coming mostly from Dartanyun, then I see him kinda walking funny back over to me and Snowball, so I says Dartanyun you ok? He says shut up , and help me get these darts out of my ass.

On the ride back to Fred lobster, he says, that woman is pure evil, and we’re gonna have to get a priest to exorcize her, I said, dang Dartanyun, she don’t look like she needs no exercising, seems she’s in better shape than you are right now. He didn’t say anything else, he just knocked me out of the sidecar, and kept on going.

The next morning, we rode the mules up to the catholic church, and talked to the priest. He agreed to meet us at the house that afternoon, and exorcize her. On about 4 o’clock he showed up with his satchel of crosses and holy water, and marched right on up to the house, that redheaded son of a bitch invited him in, and then the fight began, Me and Scott Halley, was still outside, so we couldn’t see what was going on, but the screaming was ear shattering.

On about dark, the priest comes out without his satchel, and ask us if we could give him a ride over to the Methodist church, seems he wanted a job with them folks, because they didn’t have no exorcizing in there church. He told us he had never seen anything like it, and the only thing he knew for us to do, was to find someone more evil than that redheaded son of a bitch, to run her off.

Dang it felt good to have a plan, so we set out to find the evilest, son of a bitch we could find. After weeks of hunting, and putting the word out, Tommy showed up, he said, his boss Capt’n Jack, had told him about a woman in New Orleans, Marie LaVoe, Capt’n Jack said if she couldn’t help, no one could.

Tommy got Capt’n Jack to let him use the train for the weekend, and we were off to New Orleans.

HISTORY OF FRED LOBSTER

PART 16

PLEASE EXCUSE ME IF MY PARTICIPLES DANGLE, I’M DRUNK AS A PIG.

Dang this next part is gonna be exciting, if I can get it from my head to my fingers.

Looks like I left my caps lock on.

Ok where was we? Oh yeah, we had got the train from Capt’n Jack, loaded up our grip, and Snowball, and headed for New Orleans. Fred give us $8.00 for gas, and we was off.

We had packed us a couple of lobsters each, bid farewell to the rest of the gang, when Tommy tells us the battery is dead, so me and Scott Halley had to push start the dang train to get it going. We later found out that Tommy had left the radio on and drained the battery down.

After getting underway, I says to Tommy, is there anything we can do to help you, he says no he’s got it all under control, and me and Scott Halley can go back to the club car, and make ourselves comfortable, he says we should be in New Orleans mid day tomorrow. Well we climb over the coal car, and make our way to the club car, fix up a lobster each, and after we eat ,we figure to catch a nap before we get to Shreveport.

I woke up when Tommy pulled up and stopped at the pump, and I watched him go in to pay for the gas. Sure seemed like it was taking him a long time, so I gets out and head over to where he is talking with this little foreign looking fella, when Tommy sees me he ends his conversation and comes on back to the train. I really didn’t give it any thought, and crawled back up to the club car, and in a minute we’re back underway.

Me and Scott Halley was pretty worn out from having to push the dang train, so we sleeps in a little, I had noticed that we stopped and started a lot during the night, but really didn’t give it much thought, then when I got good and awake, I notice there is passengers in dang near every seat, now I know that Capt’n Jack had put us on a route, that we wasn’t suppose to haul any passengers or freight, Tommy only had his beginners permit.

I wake up Scott Halley, and I says what the hell is going on? Scott Halley says he don’t know, but for me to shut up and let him sleep, so I did. About mid morning, Scott Halley wakes up, and comes over to where I’m serving all these passengers lunch in the dinning car, he says to me, what the hell is going on? I says I don’t know, but every time the train stops, some people get on, and some get off, but when they get on, they’re all asking me how much do they owe, I just pick a number, and they pay me. Scott Halley says, ok but we split the money, I says ok, but you’ll have to help me handle all these sons of bitches.

Scott Halley says he’ll open up the bar car, and for me to come help him when I’m done feeding these folks. By now we’ve got 3 passenger cars full of hungry, thirsty customers, and it’s all profit.

Earlier I had noticed a blind fella, he had on dark sun glasses, and was carrying a cane, he was a good tipper, so I checked on him often, on the other hand there was an old lady , wearing a straw hat with flowers all over it, and it had this little bee hooked on a piece of wire, so that every time she moved her head, the little bee would bounce and bobble around like it was going from flower to flower, and that old bitch didn’t tip for shit.

After a few hours of serving all these folks, I realized that I hadn’t seen Scott Halley in a while, so I went to looking for him, I could use a little help. Well I had no luck finding him, so I go to check on the passengers, and I notice that the blind man no longer has his glasses, and then I see that the old woman is now hatless. About the sixth row back in the second car, I see a fella with dark glasses, a bee bouncing around on his hat, he’s got a drink of whisky in each hand, so I says mister you doing ok, and he says I’m doing just fine, well as quick as he talked, I recognized his voice, I says Scott Halley! He says, I’m sorry sir you must have me confused with some one else, I’m DrunkMan.

Well I was just fix’en to tell him I knew who he was, and I needed some help, with all these folks, if we was gonna split the money, when the train come to a screeching halt. I poked my head out of the window, and I could see a dang tree laid across the track, before I could say dang, a group of outlaws jumped on the train, with guns a blazing. Them sons of bitches was going from passenger to passenger, taking there money and valuables.

When them outlaws got to where me and DrunkMan was, they tell me they didn’t want my money cause I was just a kid, but the head son of a bitch puts his gun in DrunkMans ear, and says give me your money, well DrunkMan gives the son of a bitch, $1.58, and then he stammers out, x x x x excuse me, but I have to go to the ba ba ba bath toilet, well all them outlaws just went to laughing, they think they done scared the shit out of this old boy, so the head outlaw, I heard one of the other outlaws call him Jesse, says to DrunkMan, go on.

I was watching DrunkMan, as he staggered up the isle, and I seen him pick up Scott Halley’s satchel, and slip off into the bathroom. Jesse calls out to another of the outlaws , he says Frank keep an eye on the drunk. So Frank goes over and stands by the bathroom door. As soon as Drunkman closed the door, he was like lighting, he had on his Dartanyun costume, and slipped out the window, run around and come in the front door, with darts a flying, them sons of bitches never knew what hit’em, next thing I know, there is outlaws stapled to walls everywhere.

Dartanyun has me pick up their guns, and he says to them outlaws, if you sons of bitches give back all the money you took, go to church next Sunday, and promise to stay out of Louisiana, and Texas, I’m gonna let ya'll go. The one called Jesse, said not a problem, we’ll give back the money, and go to church, but mister we ain’t never been to Louisiana or Texas, this here is Missouri,.Dartanyun said, bullshit. But all the passengers backed up the outlaws on this . So Dartanyun let them sons of bitches go.

Me and Dartanyun make our way up to the train engine, and we see Tommy with all these colored plastic things spread out all over the dash board, so I says Tommy what the hell is that, when he sees us he tries to cover ’em up, and he says, what’s what? Well as it turns out, when Tommy was paying for the gas in Shreveport, he run into a little Taiwanese guy selling a bag full of plastic compasses, and that is how we wound up in Missouri.

HISTORY OF FRED LOBSTER

PART 17

We finally figured out exactly where we were, with the help of this kind old white haired gentleman, he said we weren’t to far from his hometown of Hannibal, and there was a place for us to turn the train around. So me and Scott Halley, introduced ourselves, and the old fella said his name was Sam Clemens, said he’d been driving a steamboat down on the Mississippi, and was now headed back home to Hannibal. He figured he’d try to write a few adventure stories, but he admitted he hadn’t had many adventures to write about. He was a nice enough old guy, so me and Scott Halley, told him, we had plenty adventures, and we would tell a couple, and if he wanted, he could use’em.

We told him about the time we built a raft, and helped our buddy escape from the slave hunters by taking him north, and about the big picnic and us hiding out in the cave, oh yeah, and about the time we tricked some boys into painting the fence. Well before we know it, Tommy’s tooting the horn, and we’re pulling into HanniBal. Ole Sam says you boys don’t mind if I write some of them stories do you, and we tell him that’ll be fine, but to change our names, because we didn’t want no big fuss made over us, so he agreed to do that, and we helped the old man get off the train. As Tommy was turning the train around, I had a minute to say goodbye to Sam, and that’s when I tell him to call Scott Halley’s character Dingleberry Finn, and he says ok, but how come? So I tell him That Dingleberry Finn, was Scott Halley’s best buddy.. The truth was that Robert Dingleberry Finn, most folks called him R.D. was a two-bit crook, that hung around Fred Lobster bumming free drinks, and never paying his tab at the whore house.

Sam said he’d send us a copy of his book when he got it published, and Tommy got the train turned around, and once again we where on our way to New Orleans.(about a year later we got a copy of a book about our adventures, but I guess old Sam told the story to another fella, and he wrote the book, cause this guy’s name was Mark something, and he screwed up Scott Halley’s name, called him Huckleberry)

We finally made it back to Shreveport, and Scott Halley made me go in with Tommy to pay for the gas, he didn’t want any more mishaps. It was a good thing I did too, cause there was a telegram from Fred, all it said was NEZ GETS NEW SOCKS, WANTS JOB BACK, ADVISE, FRED.
When we got back on the train, and headed south, I told Scott Halley about the telegram, and that Fred wanted our opinion, he said we’d have to wait until we got back so we could sniff her out first.

We pulled into New Orleans late Friday afternoon, and by the time Tommy found a place to park the train it was getting dark. Scott Halley and me unloaded Snowball, and went off in search of Marie Lavoe’s place. A sign on her door said she was closed for the weekend, and would be open on Monday morning. We were pissed, cause now we had to spend the dang weekend in New Orleans, with nothing to do but drink, eat, listen to good music, and chase whores.

Scott Halley picked out a little hole in the wall bar, found us a table in the back, and we set up camp. After 4 or 5 drinks, Scott Halley says he better go find Tommy and let him know where we are, and for me to stay and hold down the camp. So I have a few more drinks, and this fella comes over to my table, and he shows me a photograph of this guy, and ask me if had seen him. I says no, but how come you ask? He says that’s his job, he’s here looking for him. I asked him if he was a police, and he said kinda. Well after talking with this guy for a little while, I find out he use to live in Swamp City, so we drink to Swamp City, and we drink to Fred Lobster, and we drink to anything thing else we can think to drink to. Our Waitress was a cute little thing, and my new friend was tipping her plenty good, because of her excellent service. After a few hours, she tells us that she was getting off work now and thanked us for our business, my new pal asked her if she wanted to have a drink with us, and she says she has got to go to a party. We ask her where is the party? She looks us over for a minute, then she says, if your not racist, sexist, or homophobic I’ll draw y'all a map . What that deputy said then was no doubt the funniest thing I have ever heard in my entire life, and it’s a dang shame I was too drunk to remember it.

HISTORY OF FRED LOBSTER

PART 18

After a while Scott Halley shows back up, and says he found Tommy. He figures Tommy is safe enough, wandering the streets of New Orleans, cause he done got hooked up with a tambourine player from the Salvation Army, and they was gonna go get a cup of coffee when she was done playing Amazing Grace.

Scott Halley says, lets blow this joint, cause he done spotted a place he wanted to check out. We stumble out to where he had parked Snowball, and he pokes me in the sidecar and we’re off. What happens next, depends on who’s story you listen to. I say the reason that son of a bitch pulled us over is Scott Halley was driving to fast and he run a stop light. Scott Halley wants to blame it on me, he says the reason that son of a bitch pulled us over is because I was standing up backwards peeing out of the sidecar.

Lucky for us, he wasn’t no real cop, he had a gun and a badge, oh yeah, he had a dang whistle too. It seems that there had been a storm down there, and the government sent the army to help the real cops maintain law and order. Well when Scott Halley found out this guy was in the army, he tells him that our good friend Tommy was dating a gal in the army, that seemed to help, and the army cop, kinda eased up on us some, he said if we had a pal named Tommy, we couldn’t be all that bad, cause his name was Tommy too. He was gonna let us off with a warning, when I says, what kinda cop would not have a car or a horse or something, he says he was hoping to get a Hummer, Scott Halley says come on go with us, he knew a place where he could get a hummer for two dollars.
We was lucky enough, he just took the keys to Snowball and told us to stay out of trouble.

There is a place in New Orleans, they call the Rising Sun( dang someone should use that in a song). Anyway that was the place Scott Halley had spotted earlier, and it was just across the street from where we had been pulled over. So we push Snowball to the curb, and waltz in there like we owned the place. There was women everywhere, in all stages of undress, I says Scott Halley, I think we hit the jackpot. About that time the lights go dim, and everybody got real quiet, then the band started playing, and this gal comes on the stage, she was wearing a long dark cotton dress, with starched embroider cuffs and collar. Scott Halley says, tambourine player my ass, Tommy’s new girlfriend is a Hoochie Coochie dancer. We agreed it would be better not to tell him, so we never did, he still don’t know.

Well we hung out there the rest of the night, we met some nice guys from California, Peter, Dennis, and I think the other guys name was Jack, they was wanting to make a movie. They had seen us pull up across the street on Snowball, and now they wanted to make a movie about a couple of guys riding motorcycles and partying in New Orleans, them silly sons of bitches wanted to make a movie about me and Scott Halley, and they wanted us to be in it. We told them we didn’t have time for that, cause we was here on a mission, but they could go ahead and make the movie, so we spent the rest of the night telling about what we had done while there, and answering there questions. They asked if riding a motorcycle was hard, and we said no, if you was drunk enough it was easy riding. Don’t know if them boys ever made the movie or not, but they was nice enough guys.

HISTORY OF FRED LOBSTER

PART 19

On a Sunday morning sidewalk, wishing Lord that I was stoned, dang sorry I was rambling, hang over is such an ugly thing, lucky for me and Scott Halley, we learnt the cure, Dixie Beer.

Sunday passed real slow, we didn’t see Tommy at all Sunday, but Monday morning we all met up to take care of business. We were all three sitting on Marie LaVoe’s door step when she opened up shop. Scott Halley was the better talker so we agreed to let him tell the story of why we needed her help, and settle on a reasonable wage, after a couple of hours haggling over price, she agreed to come back to Fred Lobster with us and rid us of the evil redheaded son of a bitch. Scott Halley wrote her out a check for $1000.00, I had never seen a check that big before, and I’d never seen Scott Halley spell his name Lou Sanus before either.

We hung around while she packed up her grip, Tommy said he’d meet us back at the train, me and Scott Halley, helped Marie LaVoe carry her satchels over to the rail yard. She packed one with clothes, and the other three were full of herbs, roots, and voo doo looking stuff.

When we met back at the train, I asked Tommy about his new girlfriend, he said he didn’t have no girlfriend, but he would introduce me to his new wife, I said dang. Tommy’s new bride rode in the passenger car with Marie LaVoe, and they had become good friends by the time we made it back to Fred Lobster. Me and Scott Halley, had a big time on the ride back. Scott Halley would poke me and say watch this shit, and he’d go to strumming a few chords on his guitar, and we would watch Paula’s foot go to tapping, we must have done that a hundred times on the ride back, and it worked every time, and we laughed every time.

We got back after dark, Monday night, and decided to wait till daylight to bring Marie LaVoe to face off with that evil red headed son of a bitch. Not that we were scared to go up there in the dark, we just wanted Marie LaVoe to get a better look at what she was up against.

We was all tired from our long journey, so we called it an early night, just as we was about to doze, someone started calling out "Mark", every now and then the son of a bitch would scream "Mark, Mark."
That went on for quite a spell, Scott Halley sat up in his bunk, and he hollered "I’m trying to sleep, quit calling me, and my name ain’t Mark." Well that didn’t stop the son of a bitch from calling for Mark. "Mark, Mark" the son of a bitch called again, Scott Halley says to me, go out there and shut that son of a bitch up. So I get my boots on and go out to see who’s calling for Mark, I can’t find no one, then I hear it again, "Mark,Mark." I stumble over to where the sound is coming from, and see it ain’t nobody at all, it’s a dang dog. I call for Scott Halley to come see my new talking circus dog, I says this son of a bitch is so smart, he’s calling for his old owner I bet, and I bet his old owners name is Mark. As you can imagine I was plenty proud to have found a talking dog. When Scott Halley comes out to look at my new found friend, he says that ain’t no smart talking circus dog, that’s one of them Hair lipped Chihuahuas, dang you can imagine my disappointment.( Some of you will say dang, that’s an old joke, and now you know where it came from)

Daylight come, an Me want to go home, dang sorry, my mind just works that way, anyway daylight comes, and we saddle up the mules with all of Marie Lavoe’s voo doo stuff, and head up to the big house. Scott Halley says it will be better if me and him wait in the pine thicket in back of the house, and let Marie Lavoe meet her rival head on alone. I don’t have a problem with that, so that’s what we done.
We had to carry all of her stuff up to the side porch, and as quick as set it down, we rang the door bell and hollered "come out here you red headed son of a bitch", then we run for the pine thicket, leaving Marie Lavoe to do her job.

HISTORY OF FRED LOBSTER

PART 20

Me and Scott Halley got to the pine thicket just as the red headed son of a bitch made it to the door. We got turned around and squatted down(not that we was hiding you understand, just staying out of the way so as Marie Lavoe could do her job) just in time to see her bust through the door. Then, all Hell broke loose, there was wailing and a flailing, we couldn’t understand anything they was a saying, we thought it might be some Devil talk, then Marie Lavoe dropped all her bags, and took to running straight out for that red headed son of a bitch, and brother, she come a humming. That red headed son of a bitch done the same. When they met in the middle, me and Scott Halley ducked down, cause we knew it was gonna be bad. They met with enough force to knock down any normal people, and then they took to wrestling, and screaming and it looked like they was a crying. The next thing we know, the red headed son of a bitch goes over to where Marie Lavoe had dropped her bags, and helps her carry in her stuff. They wasn’t wrestling at all, they was a hugging. That red headed son of a bitch was calling Marie Lavoe, Mama.

Me and Scott Halley was heart sick, dang we had done gone to New Orleans and brought back Marie Lavoe, our only hope of ridding ourselves of the evil red headed son of a bitch, and come to find out she was Marie Lavoe's dang daughter. Scott Halley said, she better not try and cash that dang check.

Scott Halley says lets go back to Fred Lobster and drink a beer or two, and figure this shit out, and I says ok. We jump up on the mules and headed back down, when we see buzzards circling over in the south west corner. So we ride over to have a look. When we got close enough, we see it’s just a buffalo carcass. All of the hide was gone, and most of the innards. We were just fixen to leave the buzzards to their work when I noticed something moving in the buffalo guts. As I got closer I could hear what sounded like crying coming from the pile of goo. I got out my knife and started cutting free what ever it was. After a few minutes, I pull out what appears to be a baby boy. I says dang, Scott Halley, this buffalo done eat a baby, and now the baby is trying to eat his way out. Scott Halley says, that buffalo didn’t eat no dang baby, he says what we got here is living proof, that the Injuns Phucked Buffalo.

Well I cleaned him up some and poked him in my saddle bags, and we went on back down to Fred lobster. All and all it had been a pretty good day, I didn’t get my house back, but I did have a talking dog, and a new baby. I was gonna name him Mark, so the dog could talk to him, but Scott Halley said that would probably confuse the kid, so I named him Mike.

Part 21

Back at the ranch it became apparent that Nez was gonna need a new braz-zeere for her new socks. The one the Swamp City seamstress made her wasn't do'in them no justice. Besides Nez said if they wasn't gett'in supported like they should they'ed start to sag. Of coarse no one wanted to see that happen, especially Hogeye. Word was his pet anaconda wasn't as active as it was back in the whore wreck'in days.

Fred later met with me and Scott Halley about venturing out to find someone to make a better braz-zerre for Nez. He wanted to make sure he kept Hogeye away from the whore house and if Nez's socks went to sagg'in that wasn't gonna happen.

The next afternoon we jumped on ole Snowball and headed to Swamp City. Scott Halley said he heard of a place where them danc'in girls were, and maybe one of them might know where we could find a braz-zerre for Nez. I think Scott Halley just wanted to see them danc'in girls, but I thought what the hell, you never know.

As soon as we got there Scott Halley went in one of them booths for a private dance. He was gone a long time but when he came out he was a grinn'in from ear to ear. Then he introduced me to his new friend. Said her name was Victoria. Seemed like a nice enough gal, but I thought she sure resembled one of our regulars at the bar...oddly enough, his name was Victor. Anyway, he...uhh, I mean she, said she could take care of Nez's sock support problem. You see, Victoria was here danc'in trying to save money to go to clothes design'in school. That next morning she had done made the fanciest look'in braz-zeere you'd ever seen. Scott Halley took one look at it and said "Dang, that's a wonderful looking braz-zerre. How'd you build such a thing?" Victoria said she wasn't tellin' no one...apparently she was scared someone might steal her design.

So we headed back to the ranch to give Nez her new braz-zerre. She went in the other room to put it on. When she came out you wouldn't believe the difference it made. Man that thang had some support. After that Fred sold more drinks at the bar than he ever had. Seemed as though Nez's new braz-zerre did the job.........Fred sold more drinks and Hogeye stayed out of the whore house.

I don't know what ever came of Victor...I mean Victoria, she seemed to be full of secrets, but word is she made a lot of money of off a braz-zerre she called the "Wonder Bra". I don't know where she came up with that name for her braz-zerre but I remember thinking it got my attention. Guess some people just got a knack for naming stuff.