One of the strangest places we ever lived was in Gentry, Arkansas. Not because of the location was it strange, but because of the neighbors we lived near.
Ellis
We had a neighbor who lived next door to us who was really one of the strangest neighbors I have ever had. He was an alcoholic and was married to a woman named Leona. Now according to him, he met Leona while he was driving a truck. She was a lot lizard. For those of you who do not know what that is, I’ll explain it to you. She was a prostitute who frequented truck stops and rest areas predominantly servicing truck drivers. Wow what a catch right?
Ellis would always want to come over and talk to me whenever they had a fight, which was about twice or three times a week. When he would talk to you, he would start out looking up in the air with his nose crinkled up and stutter uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh for about twenty seconds until he got started. I was really kind of mean to the guy, but he just got on my nerves really bad. And for those who know me, you know that takes quite a bit.
Jenn and I used to pick up and sell walnuts in the late summer to sell for extra money. One day while he was on one of his drinking binges and was passed out for most of the day, I went over in to his yard and picked up all the walnuts. The tree he had produced some of the biggest walnuts I have ever seen, about the size of a baseball or bigger with the husk still on. They were so big that they left a dent in the ground where they fell out of the tree.
When he recovered the next day, he saw me outside by my truck and asked me if I saw anyone in his yard because someone had picked up all the walnuts there and he could see where all the dents were showing where all the walnuts had been. I told him, “No I didn’t see anyone else over there,” which technically wasn’t a lie since I really didn’t see anyone else there except me. “I bet it was those damn squirrels that I’m always seeing over there in your yard,” I said while standing in front of my truck, which just happened to be heaping full of walnuts. He said, “Oh yeah, I bet they got them piled up somewhere.” He left and started searching around his shed for them.
The Cat Caper
Like I said before, I was kind of mean to Ellis. He had three cats. They always got in our trash, which really pissed me off, and I vowed to my wife that I was going to fix that problem. The first was by accident, as in I accidentally ran over one of them because it was under my truck when I pulled out of the driveway. However I picked it up and threw it out in the street to make it look like someone else ran over it. I worked with a lady who asked me if I knew where she could get a couple of cats that were already litter box trained for her kids to have. I told her I would fix her right up. I think you know what’s coming.
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