The Scrimshaw Man
Written by Darrel Bird
Copyright March, 2013 by Darrel Bird
Through the trees and the graveyard slinks I know not what.
It has a name, I can’t remember cause I clean forgot.
Part one
Paul Jean Cramer was grown up before he grew up. By the age of eight, he had smoked his first cigarette, and by the age of eight, his Aunt had taught him about the Bird’s and the Bee’s. The only problem with that was that he was still too young to do what she wanted him to do, so she buttoned him up and went home as sexually frustrated as when she had arrived there, but it had done its scrimshaw work on his impressionable young mind.
He had met the Scrimshaw man, even before there was a Scrimshaw man, clacking along down an unknown road on the outskirts of an unknown town, extruded from the warped mind of the snockered writer who lived down the road from Mr. Phelps.
Mr. Phelps, the man who lived with his wife, and two little girls, just past the Cross Roads store; was an old sailor who gave Paul a knife with scrimshaw of a schooner neatly carved into the ornate Ivory handle. Mr. Phelps was always carving things in trees, on his front door and on his barn. He carved strange symbols, schooners and whales, and everywhere you looked; some oddity greeted you, ere you came into his yard.
Paul prized that knife, and he made a leather sheath for the eight-inch blade. Soon after that, Mr. Phelps had killed his whole family, and boiled them in a big vat in his front yard. Even after the law put him to death he kept appearing here or there. Several people swore they had seen him prowling around the graveyard where the town’s folk had buried what remained of his family. The snockered writer, holding forth at the general store, swore up and down that the ghost was the Scrimshaw man, said he had seen him peeking through his window, and sitting on his front porch carving scrimshaw in his family’s bones.
Mr. Miller, the general store owner, finally got his can full, and told the snockered writer, in no uncertain terms, he was to quit scaring his customers or else. The snockered writer threw up his hands with circling motion, an ‘I have warned you’ flair, and went home.
Scrimshaw man was real, because Paul’s scrimshaw man had a different face. Mostly, all his scrimshaw faces was in the shape of a boot, the same boot his drunken father had kicked him across the room with dozens of times. By the time he was thirteen he had drank his first liquor by the name of White Lightening, Moonshine, or White Mule, so named because one hundred and five proof whisky kicked like a mule. It made him see things, he shouldn’t see. A scrimshaw ship ballasted with the blood of his persecutors.
By the time he was fourteen he kicked the hell out of the school principal because he tried to take a paddle to him. He had gone home with his cousin, wild Billy Mason, and the school principal had watched him get in Billy’s car and head out from the school house five minutes before school let out.
“Bend over.” Says the principal, with his long paddle in his hand.
There was a window into the hallway from the principal's office, and being backward, and shy, he saw the girls looking in to watch the whole show. That humiliated him beyond reason.
The school principal who prided himself on his prowess with the paddle, never bothered to close the blinds, to the amusement of the other students, as he meted out justice to all those who would go astray, and fall into his dreaded hands.
He started to bend over with every intention of taking another beating from a man, who wasn’t even his dad, but something came loose; Scrimshaw Man came calling, and as he bent over, “Hey boy, what are you taking that crap for you froggin’ sissy?” Says scrimshaw man, with his merry eyes looking right into his soul, and with that, he doubled his hardened knuckles, driving his fist into the fat principals' gut. He drove him to the floor with a right hook behind the head when the principal doubled over holding his gut.
The problem with the merry eyes of the Scrimshaw man was they were cold as a winters wind blowing over graves of the lost.
Something in the back of the secretary’s mind said, “Just let this go, you know you want to live.” And she hid behind her desk.
That’s when he went home and announced to his snockered father, and the world that he was through with school. His drunken father raised his whisky bottle, and declared he was going to beat the hell out of him.
The scrimshaw man riding on Paul’s back, said, “Stick him before he kills you.” Paul drove the scrimshaw blade to the hilt, jerked the knife upward, and spilling the guts of his drunken father over the floor like skeins of sausages. He then took him and buried him in the root cellar.
Paul stood in the door looking at his handiwork, and the scrimshaw man applauded, “Man dude, you sure did him in right proper, now you better be going somewhere else I reckon.” The gleeful cackle of the scrimshaw man racketed down Paul’s brain like a sharp razor.
He went to Little Rock, and got a job in a car wash. The third week he set out hitch hiking with twenty-five dollars and a tote satchel with one pair of jeans, and a shirt that was fairly clean, he tucked the Ivory scrimshaw handled knife in the top of the tote bag on the somewhat clean jeans, just in case. In case of what he had no idea.
He set out on the road walking; he was finally free of those would persecute him in mind, and body. His goal was California, where he had heard the sun shined the year around.
He walked all the way through the small town where his previous school lay situated on the side of a hill in the early-morning fog, and past the road that led to the farm where he was raised, out there where the scrimshaw men of this world slither through the trees, hang out at Whisky stills and overly sexed Aunt's houses.
He walked past the town; if you could call it that, and eventually found out he had a thumb and stuck it up. It wasn’t long before a farmer stopped and picked him up to haul him a few miles.
“Where you aiming for son?” Asked the farmer.
“I aim to hitch hike to California, and you can’t stop me!”
“Well…I didn’t intend to try son, just making conversation was all.”
That was enough to make the farmer just a shy bit nervous, and the farmer took the next road, letting him and Scrimshaw man both out.
It was about this time that Paul realized that he didn’t know how to cope with people that was much older than he was.
“What you doin’ boy, trying to be the world's biggest fool?” Mr. Scrimshaw says as he squats on his worn boot heels looking up with his merry eyes.
He was mulling this over when a Chevy sedan stopped, “Want a ride son? Get in if you do.” The man smiles.
The man and his wife seemed nice enough, and he sensed no danger from them at all as the Chevy ate up the miles.
“We are going to Sallisaw to see the doctor. “ Says the wife. “It's about my skin condition you know. We are hoping the doctor can do something about the redness on my face.” When she turned in the front seat to talk, he could see the redness, it looked pretty bad to him. It looked like she was half Indian on one side a half white woman on the other.
“I hope they can help you ma’am, I really do.”
They talked about farming, the best times to plant; the best hog feed, and it made him feel bad that he had no home with nice people like these.
When they pulled into Sallisaw Oklahoma, it was time to get out. They said their good-byes, and he missed them before the car was out of sight. It made the highway seem lonely, but he soon had another ride. He got rides in short hops until he got just outside of St. Cloud, Oklahoma, a little town out on the open plains.
He was standing by a road sign when a police car pulled up and stopped, “Where you goin’ with your thumb up son?” Says the cop.
“I’m hitc
hing to California.”
“Well get in and I’ll haul you a ways.”
He opened the door of the police cruiser, and sat down on the plastic seat next to the sawed off pump shotgun.
“I’ll turn up the heat so you can get warm, I’ll haul you to the other side of town, but boy; I don’t want you stoppin’ in this town; you hear me?”
“Yes sir, I hear you. I wasn’t wanting to stop here anyhow.”
“You ain’t getting’ smart with me are you boy?”
“No sir, I ain’t.” The fear of the shotgun, and the armed police officer crawled in and sat down beside him, and Scrimshaw sat on his chest and weighted him down.
The cop made him feel unwanted, I ain’t no piece of dirt. Mr. Scrimshaw smiled at him out of his merry eyes, “I don’t advice trying anything with that cop stupid; wait until you can win. You like winning don’t you?”
He sure didn’t like losing, so he carefully tamped the hate down, “That’s my boy!” Scrimshaw laughed “You’ll get your day old son!”
He was warm by the time the cop let him out on the far side of town. No more than he got out of the cruiser than another farmer stopped.
“How far you going son?”
“To California.” The road and the story were getting old; he was beginning to hate the word California. He had never been to California, but he knew it was still a far piece away. Wonder how many times I’ll have to repeat that word before I get there, about a cajillion?
“Well, I ain’t going that far, I’m going to just this side of Elk City for some chicken feed, but I reckon that will help, it’s near thirty miles.”
“Why didn’t you get your chicken feed back there in St. Cloud?”
“I would’ve, but they was out, and my chickens got to eat. I don’t reckon they care how far I got to go to get their food; chickens ain’t the smartest thing God invented by a long shot.”
“No, I don’t reckon they are.” And they both laughed. He liked the farmer, but then he started imagining how it must be at the farmer's house, there would be a sister who would love him, and a mother who would love him too. He dreaded when he would have to be alone on the road again, but all too soon he could see the outline of a town ahead.
“I have to stop up about a mile at the feed company.”
“That’s ok sir; I'll get a ride on.”
“I’m sure you will son.” The farmer said it kindly as if he could see way down the road of Paul’s life, and it was making him sad.
The farmer stopped and let him off before he turned left to go into the feed mill across the road. Paul could see men loading trucks with grain and hay; it made him a little homesick, but his mind was made up for California.
He held up his thumb as cars whizzed by, unseeing, uncaring that he needed to get out west where the sun shined.
With about thirty minutes of raising his arm up and down a beautiful Ford hard top convertible stopped. “Want a ride?”
“Yes sir.”
“Get right in.”
“Where are you from?” Asked the pudgy bald man.
“Arkansas sir.” At least he didn’t ask him where he was going.
The man didn’t seem in a great hurry as he never exceeded forty miles an hour, but soon the town of Elk City faded behind the Ford.
There were tall tree’s lining the highway and fields of fall corn planted along the road. The car began slowing, and then pulled gently into a side road that ran through the corn.
The man hadn’t said anything about any side trips, and fear sprang up, knotting his gut.
“Where are we going?”
“We’ll just rest here a minute then get back on the road.” Said the pudgy driver.
“I don’t want to rest mister; I got to get on to California.”
“We’ll get back on the road soon, and then I’ll take you all the way to where you want to go.”
“He’s lying.” Said the scrimshaw man who sat comfortably on the dash with his legs crossed. “You better ease that knife out nice and slow because he’s going to hurt you down there. Then he’s going to kill you, and leave you to rot in the corn.”
Paul’s hand slowly unzipped the top of the tote bag where the eight-inch scrimshaw knife rested, waiting on the call of duty as if it was a soldier pretending sleep in a war.
“We’ll just stop here a minute.”
The man pulled the car up in the corn a quarter of a mile from the road. By now, Paul’s guts were in big knots, his nerve endings screaming.
The man put his hand on Paul’s thigh next to his privates and squeezed. Fear shot through Paul like a rattle snake strike.
“Kill him, kill him.” Scrimshaw Man urged, “Kill him now!”
He grabbed the knife and struck, shoving the blade deep into the fat gut of the monster beside him. The monster looked down in awe at the eight-inch blade being twisted in his gut. His eyes bugged out, and he made an, “Uhurk! Uherk!” sound. Paul shoved, and twisted the wide eight-inch blade the other direction as Scrimshaw man looked on in delight.
The monster had gotten hold of the end of the knife with his tiny weak fingers as if he was all too willing to help with the shoving and twisting, then he went limp.
“Old son, you have pretty much put a big hole in that mans gut, now what are you gonna do?” Scrimshaw leered, “Yep, I think you have killed the monster, not that he didn’t deserve it mind you.”
The fear filled adrenalin rush gave way to weakness as he got out and slammed the door of the Ford.
He reached through the window and retrieved his tote bag, and laid the soldier back down on the top of his jeans without even realizing the knife was covered with blood.
He picked up some dirt and scrubbed the blood off his hands, then he ran blindly in the direction of the road, the fall corn scratching his face and hands.
Paul had run a hundred yards before he got hold of himself and began to calm down. He reckoned that it would be a while before anyone found the monsters car with a dead monster in it.
“Boy, I say, you really cleaned that monsters clock…admirable…most admirable.” The Scrimshaw Man said, as Paul stood by the road holding up his thumb.
“I don’t want to talk to you.” Returned Paul as a car began to slow.
“Well now that hurts me feelins’ considerable!” The Scrimshaw Mans voice felt as rough inside his head as the scratchy fall corn.
The next ride that picked him up took him to about a mile of the outskirts of Amarillo Texas, the farmer needing to go on to Dalhart.
He stood at the intersection of the California road and the road that led north to Dalhart and Denver.
He waited and waited, but no one would stop. He studied his map he had torn out of a road atlas and decided either California or Denver…which ever, and he stuck his thumb up for Dalhart or California; the Dalhart thumb was the one that got lucky.
A farmer and his wife were going to Dalhart, and told him to get in the truck bed. It was nearly dark by the time the farmer pulled off the road in the outskirts of Dalhart.
Paul walked into the town of Dalhart, the sharp fall wind cutting through his thin jacket. A motel stood on the side of the road called The Adventure Motel. The man charged him twenty dollars for a room, leaving him a dollar and twenty-five cents.
He bought a hand full of candy bars from a grocery store that sat next to the motel.
That night the monster and the Scrimshaw Man kept him awake, both hovering over him, the Scrimshaw Man with his smiling merry eyes, and the monster covered with blood. He fought them in his sleep until he was exhausted.
He awoke the next morning hungry and tired, and stood shivering in the sharp wind blowing out of the west. He stood three hours with no one stopping, he then decided that it might be best to go back to Amarillo and go to California that way.
He had to walk almost all the way back to the interstate. Houses began to dot the side of the road as he neared the intersection he had stood on the day before.
As he was walking past a house, a young woman ran out to the road, grabbing him and hugging him tight. He was so shocked by the incident he just stood still. The woman looked into his face and saw her mistake, “Oh my, I’m so sorry; you looked like someone else.”
He was embarrassed by the incident and he stood looking down at his worn shoes, “Tha…that’s ok ma’am.” He stuttered.
The woman turned to run back to her house, and he thought she was crying. The scent of her lingered for just a moment, and it doubled the loneliness he had begun to feel as he turned to face the empty asphalt road.
Scrimshaw Man appeared, dancing in front of him, “Pretty miserable out here ain’t cha squirt?” This time the eyes weren’t merry, in fact the eyes were holes like the charred holes in the covering of his dad’s old easy chair that he had burned into with cigarettes when he was drunk.
Paul reached the intersection of the Dalhart highway and route 66 and again turned west toward his goal; the winter wind began tearing at his jacket, playing with him, teasing him, letting him know that if he didn’t get a ride that wind had bad things in store for him.
He toyed with the blade of the knife. It was coming on dark, and he was scared, but what good would a knife do against the cold?
He looked across the road at a diner sitting inviting. A man and a woman got out of a Cadillac and went in.
The man in his white cowboy hat with a fancy coat, the woman with hair piled high walking in high heels. He could see the flash of the diamonds dancing on her fingers, and he wondered what it was like to have all the money in the world like that.
He felt in his pocket, and brought out his change. Ninety cents and he wondered if he might be able to buy a little something to eat with it.
His guts growled at the very thought; he had had a candy bar last night, and nothing since. He thought he might as well spend it if there was anything in the diner for ninety cents. Then it would be a subject of luck from then on.
“Boy, what you gonno do for something to eat?” Says the Scrimshaw man who perched on his shoulder. “Oh well, since I own you, I guess I got to feed you. Get along across the street young sprout...go on...get along.” The Scrimshaw man danced across the street in a whirlwind as Paul put his shoulder to the wind.
The smell of steaks cooking on the grill, and the warmth hit Paul like a ton of bricks; it enveloped him; it massaged him, and it kissed him on the lips, causing him to lick them.
The man and woman were seated to his right; they were holding hands and laughing.
He looked across the room at a row of booths, and took the second one from the opening that went into the kitchen.
He studied the prices on the menu carefully; a bowl of soup and a cup of coffee came to ninety cents. He counted once more…yes, ninety cents.
“Well, ain’t you going to order boy?” He looked up, and the waitress was standing before him with her pencil poised, smacking her gum.
“I was going to order!” He looked at her furiously.
“Ok kid, take your time, I’m in no hurry; you want I should come back?”
“That was me said that stupid.” The Scrimshaw man said, “Look! Here I am!” Snapping his fingers. Paul looked beside him but saw no one in the worn red naugahyde seat.
The waitress turned and walked back into the kitchen, and spoke to the burly cook, “Carl, would you go out front and wait on the kid out there? He gives me the heeby jeebees, I tell ya there is some wrong with that kid.”
”Sure, I’ll go and handle it for ya May, if ya want to give me a little payback tonight.”
“Up yours Carl, if you don’t I’ll tell Tom; he said for you to handle difficult customers!” She snarled at him.
”Ok, Ok, don’t get yer bloomers in a wad.” He walked through the swinging doors and stood looking at the blowing snow outside, and his three customers inside. Might was well close a little early tonight, ain’t going to be any more customers with a Texas blizzard blowing.
Carl wasn’t the smartest apple in the bushel, as he stood working it out. There was a kid sitting to his right in the second booth, and the two over dressed Texacans to his left. The kid was so skinny if you blew on him he might just disappear.
This is what May is afraid of? He laughed.
He walked back to the booth. “What is it you would like to eat son?” He sat down across from the kid, might as well take a break.
“Could I have a bowl of soup and some coffee for ninety cents?”
“Hey May! Get a bowl of soup and a cuppa coffee for Mr. Danger here!” He yelled back through the door.
“My name isn’t Mr. Danger, its Paul.”
“I know a kid...private joke, eat up.” He said as May came through the door with the soup and coffee.
Carl lit a cigarette and studied Paul through the smoke, “Say kid, I need help with the dishes, if you need a job, I can get you a place to stay in the motel out back. I can pay your motel room and five dollars a day if you wanna wash dishes.”
Paul studied the man carefully; the Scrimshaw man said from beside him, “There ya go sport, a room and a meal. Don’t say I didn’t ever do anything for you.”
Carl studied Paul with his evil eyes, thinking about the possibility of raping the kid that night, but he sensed a danger that did not exist before, and Mr. Carl Haggard saved his own life that night, not that he deserved it, but he had his own Scrimshaw man.