Me and Buddy and Darleen were out of beer. It was only four o’clock in the afternoon, so it was way too early to stop drinking. Problem was, the truck was broke. It needed a water pump and Buddy needed to go to work to get the money to get the water pump. He needed the truck to get to work, so it was what you call a double negative. That’s what got us on the beer today. And that’s what got us to this point. The beer ran out and none of us was in any mood to ruin a good buzz. That’s what made Darleen suggest we walk clear into town and get us some more beer. Sometimes she is a pure genius. Problem was, Buddy couldn’t find his shoes. “You left them on the oyster boat, barnacle-brain!” Darleen said sweetly.
“You can wear my flip-flops. They too big for me anyway,” I put in.
So Buddy put on my flip-flops, I put on my hat, and Darleen put on some lip gloss. “In case we get a ride," she explained, which didn’t make any sense to me.
So we set out in good spirits, even though the beer store was a couple miles away. “When we get there, I’ll walk over to the boat and get my shoes.” Buddy said. He did look pretty sorry in my dirty purple flip-flops. About halfway there, we were about to keel over in the heat. Nobody stopped to give us a ride, so we had to keep on walking. After all, we’d come this far and that beer was tasting sweeter and sweeter in my mind. Plus, my buzz was starting to wear off. One of Buddy’s flip-flops had come apart, so he kept changing the good one from foot to foot to keep his feet from blistering and getting full of stickers. That slowed us down real good.
When we finally got to the store, we thought we were saved for sure. Until we saw who the cashier was. She was one mean woman and a half. Looked at us frowning and shaking her head. “I ain’t taking so sock full of nickels and pennies for no beer,” she warned. This was bad. Real bad since that’s all we had. And it meant we had to walk clear to the bank to get dollar bills to pay for our beer.
“I got one killer headache,” Darleen complained.
“Put on some more lip gloss. Maybe it’ll help get us a ride,” Buddy suggested.
“That won’t help. More deodorant would help,” I muttered under my breath. Darleen gave me a dangerous look, so I shut up.
By the time we’d gotten our money changed in and Buddy got his regular shoes off the boat, we were about to die for a good cold beer. The old witch gave us mean looks the whole time we were in there getting it and I sure wanted to tell her what she resembled with her mouth set like that, but I didn’t. “You better not open that thing in the store,” she said when Darleen grabbed one out of the box. Darleen turned back and twisted the top off right before she went out the door.
“Why’d you do that? She goan call the law on us now,” Buddy whined.
“If she does, we’ll just say I didn’t. It’ll be three against one.” Darleen smirked in that irritating way she does sometimes. All in all, the walk back was better, as we had plenty of beer to keep us going. Unfortunately it also kept us from getting a ride, as nobody wanted three drunks in their car at once. That’s life.
It started getting dark before we made it back, as we kept having to run off into the bushes to relieve ourselves. If the wind hadn’t been blowing so good, we would have been eat up by mosquitoes, so I considered us lucky there. The beer was getting hotter, but not heavier, as we kept lightening the boxes. We’d turned off the hard road and were coming up to where that little creek runs through a pipe under the road, when I saw movement in the pine trees.
“Look!” I whispered. The moon was almost full, so we had enough light to make out what it was. And what it was, wasn’t good.
“Bears,” Darleen said real soft, so they wouldn’t hear us. Sure enough, it was two bears rummaging around in the bushes. Except they weren’t exactly rummaging. They were circling each other.
“They fixing to fight,” Buddy stated like he knew what he was talking about. We watched those two bears go around and around for awhile, then, they stopped and appeared to touch noses.
“They kissing,” Darleen giggled. Then they started circling each other again.
“That’s just weird,” I said.
“Let’s get out of here,” whispered Darleen, who seemed to be the smartest one of us at the moment.
When I looked back, the bears were still moving around in a circle. Then, we were too far away to see good anymore. Needless to say, it was one early night for all of us. Buddy’s cousin called and said he’d pick him up for work tomorrow, so we could get the water pump fixed when he got paid. That was one worry gone.
So, we got us some supper and some more beers and propped up in front of the T.V. Then Darleen had to bring it up.”Did we really see two bears back there? And what were they doing going around and around like that?” she wondered out loud. We argued about it for two days after that, until Darleen finally shut up about it and started hanging around with a shrimper down the road. Guess she’s still trying to figure it out. But me and Buddy? We figured those bears were just dancing in the moonlight!
