I remember it was somewhere in West Virginia in the hill country where I saw a Mudder pushin around her brood in a wheelbarrow. It took me for a turn at first, but I got used to it, hell they push most of the young’ins around in strollers, most of the old ones around in those wheelchairs, suppose that the wheelbarrow is just another thing to push around. I’d see her at the store, going down the aisles, occasionally putting some candy or cheese cube in the mouth of her whining little chicks, and it was a spectacle, but only for awhile. Eventually, I got over the wheelbarrow and started to notice that these kids was wide at the beam and close to the ground. I never really knew them or their maw, but every time I walked by them in that small town, I heard them squeelin’ about food, or fightin over a package of Twinkies that was already getting grubbed at inside the wheelbarrow. There must have been half a dozen of them damn lardasses in the wheelbarrow, and whenever I asked I asked where they lived and where’n they come from, folks would just “I think they live in a farm just up the road.”
I remember once the mom had stopped into the post-office, and probably figuring this post office was too small to bring in her kids, she left her wheelbarrow outside as a vunerable as a nest full of baby birds fallen to the ground. I walked by that nest, but it was clear they didn’t know it. I peeked closer and closer until it became clear they sensed me. “Are youuuuu the Mcdonald’s man?” they asked. “I guess that’s just my essence,” I said. They didn’t seem to take no notice of my words, another one, I think a girl asked “do ya get any extra fries from the end of the day?” I was a little surprised by all of this, and I saw the mother walking out the door, so I scooted on out.
I figured that was as about as up close and personal as I’d want to get. Some time went by and I was still sparechangin’ and shitkickin’ around that cracker town. In truth, those was special, difficult times. I had occasion where I had to eat what was left over in exchange for doin’ dishes at some nice old lady’s restaurant. I remember whenever them kids came in thinkin to count my lucky stars because after they absolutely cleaned to a shine their own plates, sometimes the momma would grab the plates out of the bus-tub and feed what remained to those kids, scraps, skins, half-chewed and all. I told that lady who ran the diner and all she said in her twangy way, “It’s best just to stay out of other folks business in my experience.” Which is some true, Mark twain shit of wisdom, but I couldn’t help but know too much. Very late one night, maybe I’d had too much bumwine and I was roamin’ about, looking for love, for soup, whatever, I was drunk. I seen that the restaurant’s alley door was open a bit, propped out a bit with a crate and I heard at least some activity in there. I think maybe you have an idea where I’m going now, but jeslisten. I hear some talkin, some squeelin, but I don’t see no one in the kitchen, no one is in the stock room either. The bathroom smelled like someone was in it, but no one was. Mother of God, I thinks to myself, robbers tied her up and left her in the freezer! I raced into the freezer and what I seen next……. What I seen next. Them kids was hanging from harnesses and the glare from their shiny, white rump meat was blinding! The old lady and the maw seemed to have some kind of stent stabbed into their back creating a wedge of white meat that the old lady seemed to be stripping with a long knife. “Maw, the old hag got enough from me already,” one of the children said, “It’s Jespa’s turn to get stripped!” It was like that Warlock, trying to take a pound of that virgin’s flesh! The maw didn’t want to hear them young ones whinin’ “She ain’t even got to the sweetmeat yet, ya lil brat, no shaddup or you ain’t getting none of that fried chicken she’s keeping in the warmer,” she said.
By this time, one of them kids, hanging like a bat says, “I smell Mcdonald’s, is the Mcdonald’s man here?” They all turned around and glared at me. She weren’t going to try to lie,“Well, what do you expect?” the mother said looking at me like I interrupted going to the bathroom, “you think I can afford to feed these little hogs and sows without makin’ them carry some of their own weight?” The old hag was a little more apologetic, “It really don’t hurt’em all that much, once every few months I get one of these nice sharp blades and trim a little fat off the bone is all”, then she smiled and spoked towards the kids, “and I always send’em home with my famous fried chicken.” One of them, a boy I think, grunts “We been good tonight, ain’t we? We’s getting the fried chicken ain’t we?” “Well, will see, won’t we?” says the restaurant owning hag gentle like she’s telling them fairy tales. I reckon at this point I have enough of telling you this story, sometimes even my stories is worse for me in the telling. I guess she weren’t slaughterin’ the kids and there’s something to said for that, but I ain’t gonna say it for now.
