Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up on the South shore of Long Island near where Sony Corleone had such trouble in the days before EZ Pass. I then settled in Central Florida which was mostly a horizontal move culturally.
Watson and Crooks
The annual Schuldt family cookout may have been a law enforcement headache given the inevitable fistfights and shootings and such. But at least for the most part with all the Schuldts around one campfire there was no other major crime that day in Mekoe County.
Their venerable leader Aston Schuldt was not what he used to be. Who is, but in this case the regression appeared dire. Not yet 60, he looked like a subpar octogenarian. He was barely verbal these days. And his memory appeared as erratic as a jitterbug. He sat alone at a picnic table far from the general scrum.
His parents had seen and marveled to James Bond in Goldfinger while his mom was violently expecting. And that title song! Shirley Bassey at the height of her powers. But mostly his dad loved the sick wheels. When the bump eventually yielded not one but a matched pair of little Schuldts the next day, the old gangster’s overwhelmed father gave the twins the first names he could think of. Aston and Martin.
It’s a good thing his folks had not seen Dr. No that first date or the Romulus and Remus of back-country crime would have been named Sunbeam and Alpine after 007’s sweet ride in that flick. More fitting for Coachella than Butcher Holler.
Troopers still talk about Marty Schuldt’s demise, trying to outrun the law at 120 mph before bisecting a tree. The Martin Fireball survives in G-man circles as legend, something other conflagrations are compared to and found lacking.
That was a long time ago. If he was honest, Aston was growing weary of all of this. Bone tired lies the head that wears the crown. Hence his retreat to the outer confines of the shindig. And the wider world in general. Without his sibling there was no natural successor who seemed remotely up to the task.
Aston’s teen granddaughter Bev ambled over to the old don’s table. She carried two rusted tin cups and a battered old coffee can filled with the white lightning that once was the family’s main business before it had evolved to pills. She poured out the hooch and they both drank in silence.
They were joined by a 40-something bearded backwoodsman who appeared to be the love child of a union between a tweaker and a Russian orthodox bishop. So unkempt as to make the prophet John Brown’s tonsorial mayhem look high and tight. Aston’s only child.
The grizzled mountain man glared at Bev. “Hand over the watch, girl.”
His daughter didn’t flinch. “Sir you are talking to the wrong gal I think.”
“I know you took it off me,” said the furious biker, “it couldn’t be nobody else. Anybody here with the balls is too stupid and vice versa.”
“There might be a compliment in there somewhere, your first, but you are barking up the wrong chick.”
“Don’t make me search you, I will hold you upside down and shake you til your loose change, and maybe a few fillings, fall like summer rain.”
Bev stood and uncorked a Bowie knife that could turn a steer into sliders. “It will be the last thing you do old man.”
At that the patriarch stirred. He slammed his cup on the wooden table. Father and daughter froze as Aston grunted once and pointed his cup towards the can of moonshine. Bev dutifully holstered her scimitar, grabbed the booze and leaned over her grandpa for a pour.
“Here you go pap pap.”
The old geezer seemed satisfied, quietly slurping the almost-fit-to-blind-you nectar of the hills. He leaned back on his picnic bench and waved the two away. Father and daughter retreated stiffly but peacefully, cowed by the multigenerational authority of their common ancestor.
Aston removed the aged brass pocket watch from his lap. He hadn’t held it since he’d gifted it to his idiot son nearly 20 years ago at the boy’s first of many weddings. He would need to punish junior for allowing it to be lifted off him by his own child, a tenderfoot at that, her sex be damned. As for the kid, she had promise no doubt, but she would need a talking to as well. Who stashes a hot timepiece in a hoody pouch? Where a fossil like him could swipe it when she bent to serve his shine.
How to dole out these life lessons while continuing to feign muteness and senility? Well, he thought sipping the exquisite rotgut, that was tomorrow’s problem.
