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if-you-fan-a-fire · 3 years

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“Windsor Road Gang Gets Settled At North Bay,” Border Cities Star. 1931-10-08 - Page 01 & 10. --- Find Grub Is Very Good --- Plenty to Eat and Boys Make Furniture For Huts --- No Time Is Lost -- Contingent in Camp 20 Minutes After Train Arrives in Town --- By E. E. KELLEHER Staff Correspondent of The Border Cities Star (CAMP No. 4A4) NORTH BAY, Oct. 8 - Rain clouds were scudding across the northern sky, but lamps were shining brightly and barrel-stoves were singing last night in the eight huts in this camp. which will be the home of 50 men from the Border Cities during the next six months while they are playing their part in building Canada's long-wanted transcontinental highway.

PILE OFF TRUCK PILING off a large truck about ten o'clock yesterday morning Windsor's first contribution to the road army organized as an unemployment venture by the Ontario Government spent most of the day in getting settled in their eight-man tar paper cabins. Everyone was set for a good sleep last night, welcome after a boisterous day and night on trains, and toil was to start in earnest in the morning when clearing bush, ditching and grading will get under way.

The camp is only four miles east of North Bay, reached over a rough and winding, but picturesque, colonization road. It is the first camp east of the "Bay" on the 115-odd mile stretch of the new highway survey from the busy rail centre of Chalk River, which is about 25 miles west of Pembroke. Fifteen miles at the Chalk River end was built last year. A dozen or so of the boys got in a few hours work last evening between rain squalls. Three of them drove stakes for the surveyor on the right-of-way which skirts the rear of 4 A 4 Camp. The rest were taken into the bush by Foreman W. W. Paul and given a taste of axe-wielding.

Mr. Paul, a veteran of the hard timber regions, was not so enthusiastic about the technique of Windsor's jungaleers, but he says they may get into their stride in a couple of days time. They may have been a little nervous during the first day.

And just a stone's throw from the cook house is a small lake, where a squad of the new comers wooed the elusive pike during the afternoon. There were regulation fishing poles, real hooks and fat muskeg worms, but the pike proved ornery and not one decided to fraternize with the Windsor gang.

Carpenters were putting the finishing touches on the camp buildings when we hove in view yesterday morning and it certainly is a cozy layout considering that it was erected in less than two weeks.

At present, there are 15 sleeping cabins, each housing eight men, with two-decker bunk accommodation, a husky camp stove, and with plenty of space in the centre for crap games, poker, bridge, blind man's buff or boy scout meetings, springs, mattresses. pillows and blankets on each bunk, of course, and all equipment new.

"WINDSOR AVENUE" Trail blazers have already named some of the main thoroughfares. Windsor and Howard avenues being the busiest intersection at the present time. And the dormitories will be known henceforth as the "Better "Ole". "Windsor Castle," "The Royal York." and other names yet to be chosen.

About noon, Superintendent D. J. Kennedy, of the Northern Development Branch, called for carpenters among the first division from down East. Either the boys didn't hear him or they were bashful, but the fact remains that Mr. Kennedy found only one man who said he was good with raw and hammer. However, twilight saw most of the huts equipped with benches, tables and miniature writing desks, home-made and smart looking. No carpenters? Don't believe a word of it.

"If that Windsor crew can learn to do rock work and handle axes as well as they build their own furniture, this will be one of the best gangs in the whole outfit," A. Miller, the other foreman in this neck of the woods, told the writer afterwards.

BILL OF FARE The Windsor platoon expects to fight on its stomach the same as any other collection of bush whackers, and the way George Finick has managed the bill of fare on the first day indicates, that all of us will feel like Ghurkas in 48 hours time. The dinner tom tom sounded at twelve o'clock sharp and when we entered the two mess halls. It looked as if we had stumbled upon a harvest festival banquet, or at least Kiwanis luncheon. Vegetable soup which actually contained those things roast beef swimming in gravy, pork and beans for the more fastidious, boiled potatoes, beets, raisin pie (the kind you see in magazine ads) at least five kinds of cake and cookies, new bread, with no moratorium on butter. and gallons of steaming tea.

Those who delivered the sinister threat enroute that “I hear the outfit is tough on grub and if they are they can ship me home." came out of the mess hall feeling ashamed of themselves.

Congratulations were offered self-consciously to the cook during the afternoon, but George, in all his wisdom, only answered: “A good cook makes a good camp."

Crawley and McCracken, well-known northern contractors operate the boarding house and the commissary. The store was opened after supper and it was soon filled with a handful who wanted to buy, and the rest of the gang who were just sizing things up.

DRIPPING SKIES We weren't given any time to look around North Bay yesterday morning as a truck was waiting at the station when the train chugged to a stop under dripping skies. W. H. Cameron, of the Employment service of Canada, checked the men over quickly and inside 20 minutes we had reached camp 4 A 4 sounds like a ranch) which is set right down on the farm of T. A. Bebee.

The atmosphere is surely rural, a fact which makes a lot of the boys feel more at home. Cook's helpers throw their dish water out on corn stubble, and every now and then farm wagons trundle along the road.

Seventeen milch cows, belonging to Mr. Bebee, wander close to the camp. They still think it's their ranch, and many of them had to be chased out of the way so that the Windsor lads could drive stakes along the surveyor's tape line..

There are 24 camps on this stretch from North Bay to Chalk River.

ARRIVE DAILY It is estimated there are now more than 600 in the highway army. Additional recruits are coming in daily. The population of this camp will be increased by another fifty tomorrow.

A small granite hill through which the road will pass is less than a mile from the cabins, but rock blasting in not expected to start for two weeks. It will keep the boys busy in that time levelling bush, cutting ditches and grading.

The big idea in this section of the country is to shorten the road distance between North Bay and Pembroke, and at the same time give tourists something that looks like a good highway. It is some job, with muskegs and winter delays to contend with, but it will be done-if the jobless army doesn't join another rebellion somewhere.

In all there are 15 buildings in camp at present. Sturdy of construction, and well fortified on the outside with tar-paper. The washroom isn't ready yet, but should be opened to the public some time today. Neither have the sleeping huts been banked against wind and drifting snow. but that will be accomplished before the cold spell sets in.

Lumber trucks were swinging down the lane today bringing supplies for an addition to the kitchen and mess rooms, already well underway.

NO RADIO YET Not a radio around yet, as the men in charge have been so busy getting things ready for the Border "Originals" that they have had little time to think of musical entertainment. One of the Windsor soldiers has already arranged to have his music box shipped north. In the meantime, the two mouth organs and the piccolo must satisfy the musical appetites of the new arrivals.

Not much revelry in the club rooms last night. Weary from travel and excitement. the highway pushers tumbled quietly onto their new mattresses, and probably dreamed of the day when they will be driving their Hispano-Suizas over the road they helped to blaze through the rock and Iake and forest empire that is Northern Ontario.

#windsor #north bay #relief camp #relief work #unemployment relief #road work #road workers #highway construction #trans-canada highway #pembroke #tarpaper shack #unemployed #redemptive frontier #northern ontario #settler colonialism in canada #great depression in canada

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bxj3rmzw2rpxxs · 1 year

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Colby Chambers pumps Mickey Knox full of cum Tamil Astounding japanese darling Ririsu Ayaka begs for chopper HE CREAMPIED MY WIFE WITH HIS BIG BLACK COCK CUCKOLD HOMEMADE Showing my muscles Milk Enema Anal Squirting and Cumming On Ass Virtual Reality Jenna Foxx Fucks So Real Slutty brunette wife Ava Addams fucks her home contractor Amateur sexy teen lesbian get her pussy fingered and licked at the same time Deaf girl sex usa

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howgaytobequeer · 10 months

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I would like to introduce Tumblr to my new favourite local fungus (well, lichen).

(Source)

Cool-looking, right? This is Collema furfuraceum. Here is a picture of mine that I think is this species.

Its common name.

Is.

Effervescent tarpaper lichen.

#original posts #oregon #lichen #fungus #algae #my photos

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lichenaday · 9 months

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Callome multipartita

Protracted tarpaper lichen

This gelatinous-foliose cyanolichen has a delicate, deeply lobed and richly branched thallus growing in uneven rosettes up to 5cm in diameter. The upper surface is dark olive-brown to black, and the lower surface is usually paler with white, tufted hapters (attachment organs formed of thallus material). It produces lecanorine apothecia which have a rounded or lobate margin and a flat or slightly convex, brown-black disc. C. multipatita grows on sheltered, calcareous rocks in boreal and temperate habitats in Europe and North America.

images: source | source

info: source | source

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todaysdocument · 1 year

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“The Evacuee,” by Tokio Ueyama, painted at Santa Anita Assembly Center while the artist and his wife were incarcerated. Photograph of the painting on display at the Granada Center Arts and Crafts Exhibit, March 6, 1943.

Record Group 210: Records of the War Relocation Authority

Series: Central Photographic File of the War Relocation Authority

Image description: Painting of Suye Ueyama, the artist’s wife, seated in a low chair, crocheting. Outside the curtained door, we can see barracks made of tarpaper and bare lumber, flat dirt ground, and a lone tree in the distance. Inside the room we can see a pair of women’s sandals at the threshold, and a cup, jug, and basin on and under a low shelf.

#archivesgov #March 6 #1943 #1940s #World War II #WWII #Japanese American incarceration #Japanese American history #Asian American history #art #Tokio Ueyama #painting #crochet

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mercurygray · 5 months

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I'm a Brownie troop leader, and Girl Scout cookies are going up a dollar a box this year. The first thing I thought when I read the email? "War profiteering." Johnny Martin and the gang would not be pleased.

Thanks for putting that phrase into my lexicon.

You may be surprised to hear this is not the first time I've heard this! The first time was in reference to the cost of going to college, if memory serves.

My mom was a cookie mom for many years - you are doing hard, hard work.

Unsure what this is about? Here's an exerpt.

The camp was so new that their barracks still smelled of fresh-cut pine, the wood and tarpaper just beginning to warp in the rising spring heat. Johnny Martin had a bad habit of stopping in doorframes and next to windows, tapping joists and joins, and making a face, before saying, “Disgusting. It’s war profiteering, is what is.” It got so predictable, in fact, that even at the mention of the word ‘disgusting’ - or even the same expression on Martin’s face - whoever was closest would add “War-profiteering!” in whatever voice they felt like before Johnny could get the words out. In fact, the phrase was now so common that it was becoming an ongoing joke to dub anything with which Easy did not agree as the now-hated phrase.

Revocation of passes? War profiteering.

Burned toast for breakfast? War profiteering.

Another one of Sobel’s trigger-happy command failures in a field exercise? Once more, with feeling: War profiteering.

-The Darkening Sky, Chapter 10.

#we can have some inside jokes #as a treat #the darkening sky

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3score11poet · 1 year

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Coffee Hour

COMMUNITY GARDEN WEEK, 04/03/2023

I am not fond of gardening, but I am fond of eating. While so much of what we eat is purchased at our local grocery stores, the produce comes from gardens. Maybe large commercial gardens, but gardens none-the-less. My grandmother was a gardener extraordinaire. What little land she had around the shack she called home (and it WAS a tarpaper covered shack), she used for growing food. Tomatoes, snap peas, zucchini, squashes, and who knows what else. I did not inherit her love of gardening, but I did inherit a love of gardens and those who work in them.

My Stunt Double du Jour pauses long enough to ask what you would like to see grow in his garden. Your wish is his command.

#coffee hour #gardening #community garden week

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bureau-of-mines · 7 months

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The real tumblr bonding experience is the decade plus user (me) showing the 3-4 year user (@goatsludge) how to navigate through the absolutely bullshit series of tarpaper catacombs that this website lovingly disguises as "settings"

I love how weirdly tumblr is structured as website, especially with how *autonomous* all of the reblogs are, even from their original posts. You just don't see that anywhere that's properly coded.

#fuck you staff fuck you wil wheaton fuck you john green kill yourselves and leave us in peace

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rustbeltjessie · 2 years

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Landscapes of Fire and Music, by G.L. Ford (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2004)

Olympia Motel

The bitter green calligraphy of weeds in the gravel lot and crows circling and bluebottles and the limping aria of sun on a dusty window

rotten boards smell like spoiled sunlight pressed through gauze curtains yellowed by sunlight and dust

grab a fistful of cobwebs from the bushes and etch sgraffito birds all over the boarded windows

the four-poster has ivy winding over its belly the wineglasses are caked with silence

at night the tarpaper roof swallows stars

---

(more: x / x)

#zines #chapbook #poetry #landscapes of fire and music #g.l. ford #ugly duckling presse #my zine collection

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if-you-fan-a-fire · 3 years

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Camps for Trans-Canada highway workers, all of whom were unemployed men on relief in Ontario forced to build roads for their meagre welfare. All from the Toronto Star, issues of September 26, September 12 and October 2, 1931.

Notably these photos have all been produced from negatives that were painted or retouched for publication.

Toronto Public Library, Toronto Star Photograph Archive.

1) One of the box-like buildings of frame and tarpaper. A canvas top or tent will be placed over this to complete it. TSPA_0018484F.

2) Trans-Canada highway camps to house workers on the North Bay-Pembroke section of the Ontario route are nearing completion. TSPA_0018482F

3) Forerunners of Highway camps; This board-walled tent camp is typical of those which probably will be built along the northern Ontario route of the trans-Canada highway to house the workers erecting buildings of a more substantial type for the road-workers. TSPA_0018481F.

4) Workmen busy on construction of shacks in one of the camps along North Bay-Mattawa section of trans-Canada highway; to where some of Toronto jobless have gone. TSPA_0018486F

#north bay #mattawa #pembroke #road camp #road work #road workers #relief camp #unemployment relief #relief work #trans-canada highway #unemployed #unemployment #relief recipient #workfare #road construction #great depression in canada

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librarychair · 1 year

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Went in the attic and found the shuttles in a clearly labeled storage tote. Thanks, past me. Also found one zillion cobwebs. Gwen came and kept me company, but wouldn't leave the attic so I could close the door until I cleared myself off a chair and sat down to wait for her. She then climbed in my lap and left old tarpaper shards on my shirt

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annieandro · 3 months

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Annieandro Pinkpaws Was Zooming Home From Summer School. As She Raced Around The Corner, She Noticed A Sign In The Dinosaur Shop. It Said: Out Of Business. Inside The Shop Were Two Ladies Measuring The Halls.

Annieandro Wondered About The Strange Women, But She Had No Time To Stop, Her Friend Little Miss Cassie Was Waiting For Her, They Need Problems To Solve Together, To Pass The Test.

Just As Annieandro Was Waking Up Her Friend, Her Twins Came Into The Room. "What's The Problem For Today?" Asked Quisper. "We Have To Finish Building Our Petting Zoo." Said Annieandro. "We'll Need To Buy Lumber, and Nails, and Tarpaper To Keep The Gate From Rusting."

"We Have One Hundred Pounds!" Said Quaker. "Is That Enough?" "Let's Ask Little Miss Cassie!" Said Annieandro, and She Typed The Data On Little Miss Cassie's Keyboard. Whirry-Whirr, Went Little Miss Cassie. Then Thunky-Thunk, Little Miss Cassie Could Not Tell Them The Answer. She Did Not Know How Much Lumber, Nails and Tarpaper Cost. "We'd Better Take Little Miss Cassie To The Clubhouse and Get Prices." Said Annieandro.

At The Clubhouse, The Girls Found Out The Prices, and Annieandro Typed The Data On Little Miss Cassie.

Whirry-Whirr, Went Little Miss Cassie. Then Thunky-Thunk! "You Will Need Three Hundred and Twenty Pounds!" Said Little Miss Cassie. "Three Hundred and Twenty Pounds?" Moaned Annieandro. "You Are Two Hundred and Twenty Pound Short Annieandro!" Said Little Miss Cassie.

The Girls Feel Heartbroken As They Left The Clubhouse. "We Need Our Help!" Said Quisper and Quaker. "We Need Our Money!" Said Annieandro. "Maybe We Just Have To Forget About Finishing The Petting Zoo."

"We Have Got It!" Said Quisper and Quaker. "Let's Set Up A Stand And Sell The Mega Activity Plans." "I'm Not Sure." Said Annieandro. "We'd Have To Buy The Color Pencils, The Crayons and The Pencils. Could We Sell Enough Stuff, To Make The Money We Need?" "There's The Art and Crafts Yard Sale." Said Quisper. "Let's See How Much Everything Would Cost."

Quisper and Quaker Checked The Prices and Annieandro Checks The Paintbrushes Then They Fed The Data Into Little Miss Cassie. Whirry-Whirr, Thunky-Thunk, Little Miss Cassie Spoked Up. "At Two Hundred and Fifty Dollarbucks, Of The Paint Cans, Minus The Cost Of The Paint Cans, The Paintbrushes, The Sheets Of Paper and The Coloring Books, You Would Have To Sell Two Thousand Six Hundred and Seventy Cans Of Paint."

"We'd Never Sell So Many Cans Of Paint." Said Annieandro. "You Could Flow A Battership In All That Maple Syrup." "No You Couldn't, Annieandro." Said Little Miss Cassie. "A Battership Would Displace Three Thousand, To Three Billion Two Thousand and Four Hundred Gallons Of Maple Syrup Of Course." "Very Funny, Little Miss Cassie." Said Annieandro.

Now Annieandro and The Twins, Were Right Back Where They Had Started. "We Know." Said The Twins. "Who Could Gave Us A Job?" Said Annieandro. "How About Kentucky At The Campyard!" "Good Idea!" Said Annieandro. But When They Got To The Campyard.

They Were Almost Knocked Over The Ladies With The Big Rulers. "Hey! I Saw Them In The Dinosaur Shop Before!" Whisper Annieandro. Now The Campyard Is Almost Closed!" "Kentucky Looks So Sad." Said Quaker. "Do You Think The Campyard Is Closing Too, Or Not?" The Girls Hurried Inside The Camp With Little Miss Cassie To Find Out.

Kentucky Was Pacing Back and Forth In Her Office. "I Need Money." She Muttered. "But To Get Money, I Have To Spend Money!" "What's Wrong, Kentucky?" Asks The Girls. "The Dinosaur Shop Just Went Out Of Business." Said Kentucky. "So I Thought Of Knocking Down The Halls and Renting Both Shops. That Was I'd Have Space To Sell Lots More Things.

"That's A Neat Idea!" Said Annieandro. "You Think So!" Said Kentucky. Those Two Ladies Who Were Here Are Builders. They Said It Will Cost A Lot Of Money To Knock Down The Hall. They'll Do The Work Now, But They Went To Know How Soon I Can't Figure Out How Many Extra Rubber Chickens and Teddy Bears I'd Have To Sell To Earn The Money."

"Well," Said Annieandro. "This Is A Problem For Little Miss Cassie!" Annieandro and The Twins Move Little Miss Cassie To Kentucky's Desk.

Annieandro Typed In The Data and Little Miss Cassie Went To Work. Whirry-Whirr, Thunky-Thunk! "You Would Have To Sell Fourty Thousand More Rubber Chickens and Ten Thousand More Teddy Bears To Pay For Knocking Down The Hall." "Thanks Little Miss Cassie." Said Annieandro, and She Walked Over To The Shelves Of Rubber Chickens.

"But If You Knock Down The Hall." Said Annieandro. "You'd Have A Lot More Room For Rubber Chickens." "And Lots More For Teddy Bears." Said Quisper." And Maybe Some Marbles In A Bag." Said Kentucky. And Some Reading Books and Some Comic Books Too." "You Might Send To Have Somebody, To Help You." Said Annieandro Smiling At Quisper and Quaker. "That's Right!" Said Kentucky. "I'd Sell So Many Comic Books I Could Afford To Pay You Girls To Deliver Them."

"It's A Good Thing You Three Came In Here With Little Miss Cassie." Said Kentucky. "You Were A Big Help!"

"It's Going To Be A Good Thing For All Of Us." Said Annieandro. If We Work As Delivery Girls, We'll Make Enough Money To Finish Building Our Petting Zoo." "Another Problem Solved!" Said Quaker Happily. "Thanks To Little Miss Cassie." Said Annieandro. Whirry-Whirr, and Thunky-Thunk!

"It Was Nothing, Annieandro. Solving Problems Is What I Do Best, But I Couldn't Have Done It Without You Guys!"

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scoutandvioletfan · 3 months

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Annieandro Wondered About The Strange Women, But She Had No Time To Stop, Her Friend Little Miss Cassie Was Waiting For Her, They Need Problems To Solve Together, To Pass The Test.

At The Clubhouse, The Girls Found Out The Prices, and Annieandro Typed The Data On Little Miss Cassie.

"Well," Said Annieandro. "This Is A Problem For Little Miss Cassie!" Annieandro and The Twins Move Little Miss Cassie To Kentucky's Desk.

"It's A Good Thing You Three Came In Here With Little Miss Cassie." Said Kentucky. "You Were A Big Help!"

"It Was Nothing, Annieandro. Solving Problems Is What I Do Best, But I Couldn't Have Done It Without You Guys!"

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annieandropinkpawsfan · 3 months

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Annieandro Wondered About The Strange Women, But She Had No Time To Stop, Her Friend Little Miss Cassie Was Waiting For Her, They Need Problems To Solve Together, To Pass The Test.

"We Have One Hundred Pounds!" Said Quaker. "Is That Enough?" "Let's Ask Little Miss Cassie!" Said Annieandro, and She Typed The Data On Little Miss Cassie's Keyboard.

Whirry-Whirr, Went Little Miss Cassie. Then Thunky-Thunk, Little Miss Cassie Could Not Tell Them The Answer. She Did Not Know How Much Lumber, Nails and Tarpaper Cost. "We'd Better Take Little Miss Cassie To The Clubhouse and Get Prices." Said Annieandro.

At The Clubhouse, The Girls Found Out The Prices, and Annieandro Typed The Data On Little Miss Cassie.

"Well," Said Annieandro. "This Is A Problem For Little Miss Cassie!" Annieandro and The Twins Move Little Miss Cassie To Kentucky's Desk.

"It's A Good Thing You Three Came In Here With Little Miss Cassie." Said Kentucky. "You Were A Big Help!"

"It Was Nothing, Annieandro. Solving Problems Is What I Do Best, But I Couldn't Have Done It Without You Guys!"

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readjthompson · 6 months

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Happy Halloween, people. Here’s an all-new short story (© me, now), free to read.

Bayou Ma’am

by Jeremy Thompson

“Those bitches!” Claude exclaims. “Those lyin’, stinkin’, blue ballin’ whores! Makin’ us the butts of their jokes! Gettin’ us laughed at by everyone! We oughta find ’em and stomp their fuckin’ skulls in!”

“And how would we even do that?” I respond, focusin’ on my composure, compactin’ the shame and heartbreak I now feel into a teeny, tiny ball that I’ll soon entomb in my mind’s deeper recesses. “They said they’re flyin’ back to New York City tonight, to that precious little SoHo loft they wouldn’t stop braggin’ about. They wouldn’t have done what they did if they thought we might see ’em again.”

Andre says nothin’, unable to take his eyes from the iPhone he manipulates, alternatin’ between the Instagram profiles of two hipster sisters, to better appraise our debasement.

#bayoumen is the hashtag they affixed to photos they’d taken with us just a coupla hours prior, at the one bar this town possesses, which we fellas have yet to leave. They’d flirted and led us on, allowin’ me to buy ’em drink after drink and believe that maybe, just maybe, one or more of us would be blessed with a bit of rich girl pussy for a few minutes…or twenty. They’ve got relatives in the area, they claimed, and had just attended one’s funeral. Some black sheep aunt of theirs. A real nobody.

Finally, Andre breaks his silence. “Look at this, right here. They used some kinda special effect to give me yellow snaggleteeth. I go to the dentist religiously. Look at these veneers.”

Barin’ his teeth, he reveals a mouthful of perfect, blindin’-white dental porcelain.

“Yeah, and they made Claude’s eyes way closer together than they really are and gave ’im a unibrow,” I say. “And they gave me a neckbeard and a fiddle. Look pretty real, don’t they?”

“Look at all the likes they’re gettin’. Thousands already. Everyone’s crackin’ jokes on us, callin’ us inbreds and Victor Crowleys, whatever that means. Look, that bitch Marissa just replied to someone’s comment. ‘Those bayou gumps were so cringe, we’re lucky we didn’t end up in their gumbo,’ she wrote. Fuck this. I’mma give ’er a piece of my mind.” A few minutes later, after much furious typin’, Andre adds, “Well, now she’s blocked me. Probably never woulda told us their real names if they knew that we’re on social media.”

Indeed, outlanders often make offensive assumptions when learnin’ of our bayou lifestyles. Hearin’ of our tarpaper shacks, they assume that we do naught but wallow in our own filth every day and smoke pounds of meth. Earnin’ a livin’ catchin’ shrimps, crabs, and crawfishes doesn’t appeal to ’em. They’d rather work indoors, if they even work at all. Solitude brings ’em no peace whatsoever. They care nothin’ for lullabies sung by frogs and crickets. Ya know, maybe they’re soulless.

I wave the bartender over and pay our tab. Nearly three days’ earnings down the drain. “Let’s get outta here, fellas,” I say. “It’s time for somethin’ stronger. There’s blueberry moonshine I’ve been savin’ at my place. It’ll drown our sorrows in no time.”

“Your place, huh,” says Claude. “We ain’t partied there in a minute.”

* * *

The roar of my airboat’s engine—as I navigate brackish water, ever grippin’ the control lever, passin’ between Spanish moss-bedecked cypresses that loom impassively, fog-rooted—makes conversation a chore. Still, seated before me, Andre and Claude shout back and forth.

“Bayou men aren’t fuckin’ rapists!” hollers Claude. “We’re not cannibals neither! I can whip up a crawfish boil better than anything those stuck-up cunts’ve ever tasted!”

“Damn straight!” responds Andre. “Bayou men are hard-workin’, God-fearin’, free folk! If they should be scared of anyone around these parts, it’s Bayou Ma’am!”

“Bayou Ma’am?!” I shout, as if that moniker is new to my ears. “Who the hell’s that…some kinda hooker?!”

“Hooker, nah!” attests Claude. “She’s a…whaddaya call it…hybrid! Half human, half alligator, mean as Satan his own self!”

“I heard that a gator was attackin’ a woman one night!” adds Andre. “Then a flyin’ saucer swooped down from the sky and grabbed ’em both wit’ its tractor beam! Somehow, the beam melded the gator and his meal together all grotesque-like! The aliens saw what they’d done and wanted none of it, so they abandoned Bayou Ma’am and flew elsewhere!”

“I heard toxic chemicals got spilt somewhere around here and some poor teenager swam right through ’em!” Claude contests. “She was pregnant at the time! A few months later, Bayou Ma’am chewed her way right on outta her!”

“Damn, that’s fucked up!” I shout, well aware of the grim reality lurkin’ behind their tall tales.

* * *

Bayou Ma’am is my cousin, you see. As a matter of fact, she was born just seven months after I was, in a shack half a mile down the river from mine. Her mom, my Aunt Emma, died in childbirth—couldn’t stop bleedin’, I heard. Maybe if they’d visited an obstetrician, things would’ve gone otherwise.

My aunt and uncle were reclusive sorts, and no one but them and my parents had known of her pregnancy. There aren’t many residences this far from town, and none are close together. It’s easy to disappear from the world, to eschew supermarkets and restaurants and consume local wildlife exclusively. Uncle Enoch buried Aunt Emma in a private ceremony and kept their daughter’s existence a secret from everyone but my mom and dad. Even I didn’t meet her until we were both four.

One day, a pair of strangers shuffled into my shack—which, of course, belonged to my parents in those days, up ’til they moved to Juneau, Alaska when I was sixteen, for no good reason I could see.

“This is your Uncle Enoch,” my dad told me, indicatin’ a goateed, scrawny scowler. “And that’s his daughter, your cousin Lea.”

Though itchy and bedraggled, though dressed in one of Uncle Enoch’s old t-shirts that had been refashioned into a crude dress, Lea sure was a cutie. Her eyes were the best shade of sky blue I’ve ever seen and her hair was all golden ringlets. Shyly, she waved to me with the hand she wasn’t usin’ to scratch her neck.

The two of ’em soon became our regular visitors. I never took to my perpetually pinch-faced Uncle Enoch, with his persecution complex and conspiracy theories shapin’ his every voiced syllable. Lea, on the other hand, I couldn’t help but be charmed by. She had such a sunny disposition, such full-hearted character, that I was always carried away by the games her inquisitive, inventive mind conjured. Leavin’ our parents to their serious, sunless discussions, we hurled ourselves into the vibrant outdoors and surrendered to our impish natures.

“I’m a hawk, you’re a squirrel!” declared Lea. Outstretchin’ her arms, she voiced ear-shreddin’ screeches, and chased me around ’til we both collapsed, gigglin’. “Whoever collects the most spider lilies wins!” she next decided. “The loser becomes a spider! A great, big, gooey one! Yuck!”

We skipped stones and spied on animals, learned to dance, cartwheel and swim. We played hide-and-seek often, with whichever one of us was “it” allowed to forfeit the game by whistlin’ a special tune we’d improvised. It was durin’ one such game that Lea made a friend.

“I’m comin’ to get you!” I shouted, after closin’ my eyes and countin’ to fifty. Our environs bein’ so rich in hiding spots, expectin’ a lengthy hunt, I was most disappointed to find my cousin within just a few minutes. There she was, at the river’s edge. Behind her, towerin’ cypress trees seemed to sprout from their inverted, ripplin’ doppelgangers. So, too, did Lea seem unnaturally bound to her watery reflection, until I stepped a bit closer and exclaimed, “Get away from there, quickly! That’s a gator you’re pettin’!”

Indeed, we’d both been warned, many times, to avoid the bayou’s more dangerous critters. Black bears and bobcats were said to roam about these parts, though we’d seen neither hide nor hair of ’em. Snakes flitted about the periphery, never lingerin’ long in our sights. We’d seen plenty of gators swimmin’ and lazin’ about, though. As long as we kept our distance and avoided feedin’ ’em, they’d leave us alone, we’d been told.

“Oh, it’s just a little one!” Lea argued, scoopin’ the creature into her arms and plantin’ a smooch on his head. “A cutie-patootie, friendly boy. I’m gonna call ’im Mr. Kissy Kiss.”

I studied the fella. Nearly a foot in length, he was armored in scales, dark with yellow stripes. Fascinated by his eyes, with their vertical pupils and autumn-shaded irises, I stepped a bit closer. Mr. Kissy Kiss’ mouth opened and closed, displayin’ dozens of pointy teeth, as Lea stroked him.

“Well, I guess he does seem kinda nice,” I admitted. “I wonder where his parents are.”

“Maybe his mommy and daddy went to heaven, and are singin’ with the angels,” said Lea.

“Maybe, maybe, maybe,” I mockingly singsonged.

Suddenly, a strident shout met our ears: my mother callin’ us in for lunch. Carefully, Lea deposited Mr. Kissy Kiss onto the shoreline. He then crawled into the water—never to return, I assumed.

Boy, was I wrong. A few days later, I found Lea again riverside, feedin’ the little gator a dozen snails she’d collected—crunch, crunch, crunch. A week after that, he strutted up to my cousin with a bouquet of purple petunias in his clenched teeth.

“Ooh, are these for me?” Lea cooed, retrievin’ the flowers and tuckin’ one behind her ear. “I love you so much, little dearie,” she added, strokin’ her beloved until his tail began waggin’.

Their visits continued for a coupla months, until mean ol’ Uncle Enoch caught us at the riverside as we attempted to teach Mr. Kissy Kiss to fetch. Oh, how the man pitched a fit then.

“No daughter of mine’ll be gator meat!” he shouted. “Sure, he’s nice enough now, but these bastards grow a foot every year! By the time he’s eleven feet long and weighs half a ton, you’re be nothin’ but a big mound of shit he left behind.” Seizing Lea by the arm, my uncle then dragged her away.

When next we did meet, a few days later, my cousin wasted no time in leadin’ me back to the riverside. “Where are you, Mr. Kissy Kiss?” she wailed, until the little gator swam from the shadows to greet her. Sweepin’ him into her arms, she said. “Let’s run away together, right this minute, so that we’ll never be apart.”

“Oh, that’s not such a great idea,” a buzzin’ voice contested. “Little girls go missin’ all the time and their fates are far from enviable.”

“Who said that?” I demanded, draggin’ my gaze all ’cross the bayou.

“’Tis I, Lord Mosquito,” was the answer that accompanied the alightin’ of the largest bloodsucker I’ve ever seen. Its legs were longer than my arms were back then. Iridescent were its cerulean scales, glimmerin’ in the sun.

“Mosquitos don’t talk,” I protested.

“They do when they were the Muck Witch’s familiar. Now she’s dead and I’m free to fly where I might.”

“I ain’t never hearda no Muck Witch.”

“And she never heard of you. That’s the way of southern recluses. Still, such is the great woman’s power that she grants wishes even now, from the other side of death. The Muck Witch’ll ensure that you never part with your precious pet, little Lea, just so long as you follow me to her grave and ask her with proper courtesy.”

Well, I’d been warned about witches and the deceitfulness of their favors, so I attempted to drag Lea back to my shack, away from the bizarre insect. But the girl fought me most ferociously, clawin’ flesh from my face, so I ran for my parents and uncle instead.

By the time the four of us returned to the riverside, neither girl nor gator nor mosquito could be sighted. We searched the bayou for hours, shriekin’ Lea’s name, to no avail.

A few weeks later, after we hadn’t seen the fella for a while, my parents dragged me to my uncle’s shack, so that we might suss out his state of mind and offer him a bit of comfort.

“I found her,” Uncle Enoch attested, usherin’ us into his livin’ room, which was now occupied by a large, transparent tank.

Atop its screen lid, facin’ downward, were dome lamps that emanated heat and UVB lightin’ from their specialized bulbs. Silica sand and rocks spanned its bottom, beneath a bathtub’s wortha water. At one end of the tank, boulders protruded from the agua. Upon ’em rested a terrible figure. If not for the recognizable t-shirt she wore, I’d never have surmised her identity.

“Luh…Lea?” I gasped. “What in the world has become of ya?”

Indeed, though Lea had wished to always be with her beloved gator, I doubt that she’d desired for the creature to be merged with her, to be incorporated into Lea’s very physicality. Patches of scales were distributed here and there across her exposed flesh. Her beautiful blue eyes remained, but her nose and mouth had stretched into an alligator’s wide snout, filled with many conical teeth. And let’s not forget her long, brawny tail.

After our initial shock abated and dozens of unanswerable questions were voiced, my parents took me home. Never again did they return to my uncle’s shack, but a dim sense of familial obligation had me comin’ back every coupla weeks, to feed Lea local muskrats and opossums I’d captured, and help my uncle change her tank’s shitty water.

The years went by, and Lea moved into a succession of larger tanks. Eventually, she grew big enough to wear her mother’s old dresses, seemin’ to favor those with floral patterns.

Finally, just a coupla months ago, I arrived at the shack to find Lea’s tank shattered. Torn clothin’ and scattered bloodstains were all that remained of Uncle Enoch, and my cousin was nowhere to be seen.

Not long after that, the Bayou Ma’am sightings began, which vitalized increasingly outlandish rumors and the occasional drunken search party. Luckily, no one has managed to photograph or film Lea yet, as far as I know.

* * *

At any rate, back in the present, I cut the airboat’s engine, leavin’ us driftin’ along our twilight current. It takes a moment for our arrested momentum to register with Claude and Andre, then both are bellowin’, askin’ me what the fuck’s goin’ on.

Rather than voice bullshit answers, I whistle the special tune my cousin and I improvised all those years ago, again and again, to ensure that I’m heard.

Moments later, Lea bursts up from the water, wearin’ a floral dress that had once been red-with-white-lilies, before the bayou muck spoiled it. In the fadin’ light, blurred by her own velocity, she could be mistaken for a primeval relic, a time-lost dinosaur of a species hitherto unknown. But, as her nickname had been so freshly upon their lips, both of my passengers, nearly synchronized, cry out, “Bayou Ma’am!”

Whatever the fellas might’ve said next is swallowed by their shrieks, as Lea tackles Andre out of his passenger seat while simultaneously swattin’ Claude across the face with her tail. The latter’s nose and mouth implode, spillin’ gore down his shirt.

Attemptin’ to gouge out Lea’s eyes as she and he roll across the deck, Andre instead loses both of his hands to her snappin’ teeth. Blood fountains from his new wrist stumps as he falls unconscious.

Claude tries to dive off the side of my airboat, but Lea’s powerful mouth has already seized him by the leg, its grip nigh unbreakable. She begins shakin’ her head—left to right, right to left—until Claude’s entire right calf muscle is torn away and swallowed.

“Ah, God, that hurts!” he shouts. His eyes meet mine and he begs, “Help me! Kill the bitch!”

“Sorry,” I respond, comfortably perched in the driver seat, an audience of one, watchin’ Lea’s teeth tear through the fella’s arm, as his free hand slaps her snout.

After Lea’s mouth closes around Claude’s skull, my friend’s struggles finally cease. Not much is left of him now. All of his thoughts and feelings have surely evanesced.

Groggily, Andre returns to consciousness, only to find himself helpless as Lea tears away his pants and consumes his right leg, then his left. She takes special delight in dinin’ on his genitals, as is evidenced by her waggin’ tail.

Blood loss carries Claude’s soul away, even as Lea moves onto his abdomen.

* * *

I’ll miss Claude and Andre. Friends aren’t easily attained in the bayou and they were the best ones I’ve ever had. All of the memories we made together will be carried only by me now. When I’m gone, it’ll be as if those events never happened.

Perhaps I should say a prayer as I push what little is left of their corpses into the dark river, but all I can think to say is, “Farewell, cousin,” as Lea swims away, glutted. Does she even care that I sacrificed chummy companionship to help keep her existence unknown?

It’s tough as hell to fight a rumor, but I’m sure gonna try. I’ll say that Claude and Andre hitchhiked to Tijuana, cravin’ a bit of prostituta. No need to further enflame the Bayou Ma’am seekers. If many more of ’em disappear, it’s sure to spell trouble for Lea.

Perhaps my cousin’ll be captured one day, for display or dissection. Or maybe I’ll discover the Muck Witch’s grave and attempt to wish Lea back to normal. Is Lord Mosquito still alive? If so, can it be persuaded to help?

Whatever the case, I wasn’t lyin’ about that blueberry moonshine earlier. Lickety-split, I’ll be drinkin’ my way into slumberland, and therein escape familial obligation for a while.

#horror fiction #indie author #am writing #indie #horror #horror stories #horror reads #short stories #short story #free short story #free story #october #october horror #halloween #halloween story #autumn #scary stories #happy halloween #Jeremy Thompson

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