I am a Dallas girl.  I’m talkin’… raised in North Park Mall. City girl all the way. Neimans, Sanger Harris, Department Store, kinda gal. No small towns. No Wal-Marts. No woods. No sir-ree. Not me. Then I met a good ole’ boy from South Arkansas. It was love immediately after he took me to the Eagles’ Hotel California concert tour. He was a big ole’ boy. 250 pounds and 6’4’’. He was so totally different from those Texas boys. Laid back, (later I learned that this was to a fault) gentle, soft-spoken. And, lord have mercy, he could make me laugh. And it was usually one-line zingers. We shall call him Ratt, with 2 ts.

Ratt loved to hunt. So did my Daddy. Why every fall, Daddy would get the gun out of the closet, go to East Texas for a week and come back with white packages of venison. Shoot yeah. I knew about hunting. I’d eaten deer steak. I was Southern, for goodness sake.

What Ratt didn’t tell me was he LOVED to hunt. Everything. Whatever was in season.

We got married in October. Two weeks later it was deer season. This, my precious ones, is how Fab, the Texas girl, wound up in Arkansas. Fucking deer season. Within 3 weeks, I was living with my in-laws and he was in the woods. I even went deer hunting one weekend, but believe me, that is a story unto itself, for a later time. Yeah, right, like I’m gonna shoot Bambi!

Deer, ducks, turkeys, squirrels, fox, quall. Ratt loved it all. But the one that got me, was coon hunting. It didn’t then, nor does it now, make any sense to me, whatsoever. They are in the woods in the middle of the night with wheat lights on their head. (For those uneducated in the finer points of coon hunting. …. It’s like a miner’s light on a hard hat.) They have dogs that track the coons and tree ‘em. Yep, that’s what it’s called. “Hey Zeebo has treed a big’un over here in this old cypress tree.” Then they shoot the raccoon. Good lord, where is the sport in this?

As it was explained to me…

When the dogs first pick up the scent, they have a trailing bark. So you take off after them. That’s when your blood starts pumping. That’s when it gets excitin’. (Could it be running around with all that shit on, that might cause your heart to race?) Then when the dog trees the coon, he’ll have a loud, hard, rapid bark. That’s when ya shine up the light and get’um.

Well ok, then. Sounds like a real good time, boys. Y’all go ahead. I’ll stay home in my nice warm bed, thank you very much.

We had only been married a few months, when Ratt came home with Zeebo. Zeebo was a black and tan coonhound. I had a bit of a panic attack because I had heard the stories. Hunters were spending ridiculous amounts of money on these coon dogs. We’re talking in the thousands. We were trying to save money to get a little rent house. We were trying to move out of the in-laws for shit sake. And it had been a whole two weeks of sheer happiness because I had found out I was pregnant. So you can imagine my utter surprise when he had come home with a fucking coon dog. To chase in the woods. To wear waist high rubber boots, a wheat light, and canvas overalls …a fashion ‘must’ when you consider the briars that you can’t FUCKING see, when you are chasing a dog through the woods, at night, to tree a raccoon.

If you have read my “bitch’ post then you can understand. At this point I was a total bitch. Neither bad nor good. Severely hormonal and very, very pissed. I do believe I made comments, including but not limited to, the following: “Have you lost your fucking mind? What about the deposit on the house? I’m pregnant?” :: crying was probably in here somewhere…(I’m a crier when I get really mad):: “Where the hell are you going to keep him?" " I can’t believe you did this.” :: lots of tears :: “Ohmygawd!!!…. How much WAS HE??”   I probably also called him various obscene names along the lines of “fucking asshole”, "shitforbrains",  “son of a bitch” ...but I can’t be sure.  We were young and I was in love.

Here came the Ratt zinger…….“He was on sale. He only has one eye.”

I was speechless.

Then,  in his laid back, good ole boy, shit eating grin, way, he added, “Hell, Slick, he was a deal…. $100… and he only runs into trees towards his right, every now and then.”

(“Slick” was his term of endearment for me.  Another clue? Not sweetie, not honey, SLICK!)

We moved into a cute little red brick house in a quiet neighborhood. An old neighborhood where each house sits on about 1/3 of an acre. No sidewalks. Gravel driveways. I loved it. The city girl was living the small town life. And I was having a baby. All was right with the world.

Zeebo had a pen in the back yard. He and Ratt had many happy evenings in the woods.

Whatever.

It was spring. Windows open. Folks raising gardens. Money was tight. I was hormonally imbalanced.

Ratt got an offer to go back to Dallas and work for a few months at his old job. It was actually a godsend, from a monetary standpoint. We were having a baby. We needed the money. We could handle it. I stayed in our little house in South Arkansas. He came home most weekends. Sometimes I went to Dallas.

Wait a minute. Wait a damn minute. What’s wrong with this picture? I’m the damn Dallas girl. All of a sudden I was pissed. So to get back at Ratt, I came home from a bar (no I wasn’t drinking…just visiting) with a precious little miniature dachshund, in my purse. Imagine his surprise when I brought home, what he referred to as a “twerpy” dog… a dog with no purpose. I had my hormonal revenge. I was in the mommy mode, pregnant, new puppy and best of all….even. She was so adorable. I named her Precious.

Ratt was in Dallas. It was a Saturday morning, around 7:30, and my doorbell rang. Two police officers were there. My heart went into my throat. Precious immediately started barking and would not shut up.

Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!

“Precious, pleeeeease hush… Yes Officers?”

“Ma’mam, we’re here to serve you with a warrant to appear in court for violation of city ordinance 345-68C-3887-62R.”

Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!

WTF was only my thought, not my words. “Excuse me? I don’t know what that means?” 

Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!

“Barking’ Dog Ordinance, Ma’mam.”

Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!

“Precious, Please shut up!” I plead with my 10 inch little wiener, at the foot of the officers.

Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!

“Ma'mam, seems your neighbors have gotten up a petition against you for obnoxious dog barking in the evening hours.

Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!

He looks at his feet, and without even a smile, he adds, “Is this the dog in question?”

My pregnant self was about to teetee, trying to hold back the laughter, “No sir, it’s probably the coondog in the back.”

Seems Zeebo, the one-eyed coondog, couldn’t tell the difference between a squirrel and a coon. I can imitate Zeebo perfectly. Too bad, y all can’t hear me but he went something like BAAAAAAHHHHOOOOOOOOO. Lots of throat. LOUD. Echo at night. In the spring, when everyone has their windows open. An oak tree with big ole’ acorns hung over his dog pen. Lots of Squirrels.

The situation and the chain of events:

(rather boring but necessary to the story… I’ll make ‘em short.)

Seems this situation falls in my lap because Ratt’s in Dallas. I have never been to court, not even a traffic ticket. I was alone. I knew no one.  I was hormonally imbalanced.

I talk to Lawyer, old friend of Ratt’s. He talks to another friend that has a pen and agrees to take Zeebo. Lawyer friend talks to judge. Judge agrees to drop charges as long as dog is off the premises. I have to visit with judge just before court appearance.

The Judge called me into his quarters. He was as pleasant as he could be. My heart got out of my throat.

“Oh yes, sir, the dog is gone. I am so sorry. We just didn’t know” yadayada…sucking up the best I could. We talked briefly of Ratt. (Small town stuff…. everyone knows each other). He welcomed me to town. Sweet man. He explained that I would need to sit through the court proceedings because several of my neighbors would be present and he had to “go through the motions.”

I could do that.

The case was read. The judge looked at me and asked if the dog was off the premise.

“Yes, sir” I confidently replied.

Then he slammed the book at me. Banging his hand on the bench, at the top of his furious voice….”And if that dog is EVER seen on YOUR property again, I will levy this fine to the fullest extent allowed by law. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?

All my pregnant, hormonally imbalanced, scared to death, self, could squeak out was “yeeessss, sir.” 

His gavel hit the wooden stand. There was applause.

Two days later, I drove an hour to Texarkana to pick up Ratt. He had taken a crop duster kinda flight from Dallas. First thing he did? Warn me he had, what he described, the hangover from hell. Every 10 or 15 miles, we pulled over. In between the puke breaks, I was steadily reading him the right act. I told him every detail, with expletives. It had to have gone on for at least a half an hour.

Bitch bitch....puke......bitch, bitch.......puke.....bitch bitch.

He finally asked, “Who was the judge?”

I told him the name.

He took a deep breathe, got that damn shit eating grin and zinged me......

“Oh hell, Slick, I use to fuck his wife.”

 Welcome to small town Arkansas.