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Things been kinda quiet here at the Hoot ‘n' Holler trailer park. Then Bubba and me bought us a new double-wide trailer with the money he got from fallin' down at his job at the Hoot 'n' Holler piggery and now everyone’s abuzz. The old trailer was plumb fallin' apart. Bubba patched it up with duct tape, but we knew it wouldn’t last no more’n 8 or 10 years after that. We’re thinkin' about settin' it on a homemade raft and usin' it for a houseboat. That way Bubba can catch crawdaddies with the young’uns while I sun myself and we can have us some real family time.
Lurlene Lavery—she lives three trailers over—she thought she was the bee’s knees when she done got herself a boob job. She had all the fellas gawkin' at her, but now everyone’s lookin’ at our new trailer. The stove in the new trailer even has two burners. We only had a hot plate in the old trailer and the cord was all frayed. We even got us one of those bug zapper lights to hang outside the screen door. Now me and Bubba have us a beer and a plate of beans while we set out on the stoop and watch those skeeters git fried to kingdom come. Sometimes the neighbors come over with their Billy Ray Cyrus records and we have us a real party. The only thing left to do now is to get a tank for the terlet waste. Virgil and Verna Jean—they live in the next trailer—are gittin’ all pissy ‘cause stuff just shoots out of our terlet pipe and hits their kitchen window after Bubba uses the can. And believe you me, you don’t want to be nowheres around when Bubba uses the can.
I saw Hattie Pines ride by on her bi-cycle. Musta been goin’ to work. Hattie owns the Hoot ‘n’ Holler beauty parlor, but I only see her there when I go to get my roots done, ‘bout once a year or so. She’s Lurlene Lavery’s momma. She’s a right nice lady but sometimes I feel bad ‘cause Lurlene don’t know who her babies’ daddies is and folks sometimes gossip in the beauty parlor. ‘Course it don’t help none that Lurlene keeps draggin' men on the Maury Povich show to get the free paternity tests. Poor Hattie. She sure does have her cross to bear.
Lurlene ain’t around the trailer park all that much now that the Board of Health let the Hoot ‘n' Holler Café reopen after they sprayed for roaches. Lurlene’s been workin’ there off and on. She’s been messin’ with Luke Thornton, the fry cook. Hell, that girl comes home with grease all over her, smellin’ like a damn French fry, and she thinks no one knows what she’s doin’. That girl ain’t got the brains of a billy goat.
I’d sure like to know whose mongrel mutt is runnin’ around here. That dang dog keeps peein' on the washin' machine I got out on the patch of grass in front of the new trailer. Hell, I was gonna plant flowers around it, but not if that mutt keeps peein' there. And there’s a family of possum been hangin’ around here. I’d sure like to catch me one of ‘em so I can make Bubba a nice stew. He’s gittin’ a little sick of squirrel. Sometimes I find me a possum dead on the side of the main road and I’ll scrape it up and bring it home, but it ain’t like a fresh kill.
Anyhoo, I best be gittin’ along now. It’s gonna be dark soon and Bubba promised he’d sneak over to Virgil’s and steal the hood off that old junk heap of a car Virgil keeps behind his trailer and make me a nice awning for over the front stoop. That Bubba, he’s so good to me.
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