Willie & the Whiskey

After a brief stint as a bus boy on the mainland - by and large unsuccessful as he frightened the patrons with his crossed eyes and multi-colored, untamed hair - Willie came home again and reclaimed the ramshackle and neglected old house with it's caved in roof and broken windows.  He was so short and the grass was so tall that he could easily come and go without being seen, so no one noticed the discarded whiskey bottles and he slowly but surely drank himself into a near coma.  He slept during the day and at night danced naked by candle light or prowled around in the grass, singing snatches of dance hall tunes.  How he had gotten the whiskey remained a mystery but it was suspected that his sister Elizabeth, who was on friendly terms with several of the island bootleggers, kept him supplied.  No one dared ask in exchange for what, it was too frightful a prospect.  On the morning Old Hat discovered him asleep in her sheep pen, naked except for a pair of laceless old boots and a battered fedora, The Point woke to a shattering shotgun blast, then another and another, all before the factory whistle had blown.  Hattie chased him clear to The Old Road before she relented with one final and precisely aimed load of buckshot - by then Willie was howling and everyone from Uncle Shad's to Sparrow's was awake and watching.

My grandmother, caught in the act of removing a fresh batch of corn muffins from the ancient stove, was so startled she dropped the muffin tin.  What in heaven's name.....she began and then cursed colorfully as muffins scattered on the linoleum floor and the dogs arrived in tandem to snatch them up.  Was that a gun? she snapped, the muffins forgotten ( though there would be hell to pay later ) as she ran for the sunporch.
Jan, was that a gun?

My mother, still in her robe and slippers was casually smoking a cigarette.  Indeed it was, she said mildly, 
Hattie's after Willie again, Lord only knows why.

Well, don't just stand there!  Nana yelled, She's likely to kill him with that damn scattergun!

Not my affair, my mother said mildly, It'd just be one less village idiot.

My grandmother cursed again and ran out the porch door just in time to see Willie vault one handed over the guard rail and disappear down the treacherous incline.  Hattie stood defiantly, panting for breath with her smoking shotgun still sighted and I had an absurd image of ducks in a shooting gallery and began to laugh.

Hattie!  my grandmother yelled, What the hell are you doing?  Put that damn gun down!

Old Hat, all in black and as always reminding me of Mammy Yokum from Li'l Abner, slowly lowered the gun, spit    venomously and glared at my grandmother.

Missed the damn fool, she hollered back, Reckon my eyes ain't what they used to be...but the day's still young!

Hattie, you know you ain't supposed to be shootin' off that thing, Nana yelled impatiently, Somebody'll call the Mounties again!

By then I'd reached the guard rail and slipped over it but although I could see all the way to Gull Rock,there was no sign of Willie, dead or alive, naked or otherwise.  I did imagine that I could see a battered old fedora caught on a rock but it was a long way off and it might've been no more than a clump of dirt and twisted grass.
Old Hat and my grandmother were still in the midst of a somewhat spirited argument, but Nana seemed to be winning and after another minute or two, Hattie lowered her shotgun, shook off my grandmother's grip and headed back the way she had come, grumbling to herself with every step.

One of these days, Nana sighed, she really is goin' shoot him.  Right between those crossed eyes, I 'magine. You know, she's a much better shot than she lets on.  She gave me a stern look and a sterner still pat on the backside.  Fetch me a blanket from the cedar closet and we'll see iffen we can't find him 'fore he drowns and gets washed out with the tide.

With a little help from the Ryans, Willie was located, bruised and dirty and asleep in a dry docked rowboat, a half empty bottle of whiskey clutched in hand and naked as the proverbial jaybird.  The Ryans wrapped him in the sweet, cedar-y smelling blanket and volunteered to drive him home - Nana didn't even protest the loss of the blanket - although she did threaten to make short work of the dogs for the loss of the muffins and she banished them both for the rest of the day.

She didn't speak to my mother for two days.