The Brilliantly Rainbowed Adventure

- Chapter 31 -
2 Dumb 2 Know Better

        "It was a cold day in May when old Doc Beaumont told mama that a child was born," he began. "The Doc was a-talkin' about the neighbor's kid, William Bennington, who later became the famous corporate trader and the big business brain behind the Bennington Group. I was born a month later.
        "The first thing that old Doc Gutchins did after my birth was to run outside and catch his breath. The midwife tossed me into the air when the gust hit her, and if mama hadn't been a former star in the Women's Basketball League, I reckon I'd'a cashed in my chips right then and there." He hung his head and sighed heavily.
        "I know that I sorely tried the limits of my mama's love," he croaked, "but I reckon she'd have loved me no matter what I'd'a said, done, or smelled like, and she sure had plenty of chances to prove it. She had to open all of the windows herself after I was born. The Doc had run off with the midwife."
        Stinky walled his eyes. "My folks found the family canary in the bottom of its cage," he whispered. "It was deader'n a doornail." We didn't know what to say at this point besides begging him to shut up. Unfortunately, however, Stinky steamed ahead. "The fumes... you know... were just too much," Stinker moaned softly, shaking his head as Sneb scrambled to light another newspaper-deodorizer in the fire.
        "It was all downhill from there," Stinky continued. As I watched him hanging his head I must admit that my heart went out to the old Stink-Machine. He had really suffered the burden of a strange and difficult childhood, as had his next of kin. "By and by, my family moved a-way out of town, and I had to be tutored at home by my mama.
        I just mostly sort of stayed by myself. I even played sports by myself. I'd hit the baseball out there in the pasture and run around the bases, pretending that all of my good pals were there with me, and that we were a real, honest-to-goodness team. I made up names like Butch and Spike and Whitey for my teammates. They weren't real, though," he added, his voice quavering oddly.
        "The kids on TV had friends, but I had to make up mine, and it still wasn't any good. Even my imaginary friends didn't like me."
        The dim firelight flickered fitfully off of Stink's shiny face as he spoke. His curly black hair and long wiry beard rustled in the breeze, the conscienceless breeze, which carried over to us another jaw-rattling jolt. The fumes caused the foilage to fall off of the big tree that towered over him.
        The soft patter of falling leaves melded with the fire's hiss and snap as he pause in his narration. Old Stinky was in fine form.
        "I was so lonely that I began playing my guitar night and day. I started when I was about thirteen years old. When I grew up, I guess that all of that practice paid off. I was offered the lead guitarist's job in Hootenanny's band. The rest, as they say, is mystery." He looked around at us. "Well," he emitted, "I reckon that now you've heard the whole story."
        The rest of this affair was a mystery to all of us, I reckoned. We didn't quite understand how we had made it so famous. As for myself, I hadn't even known that Stink existed until that fateful afternoon when I had received his demo tape in the mail, sent in response to our classified ad in the Gutchinville Gazette. The tape featured some scorching guitar tracks that had obviously been cut by an intensely creative and technically adept guitar-playing genius.
        My sinuses were locked up tighter than Granny Gutchins whalebone corset on the day that I visited his house and offered him the job. If not for that miserable virus, The Incredible Hootenannies would have lacked the world-famous signature licks of this century's most gifted guitarist. Oh well, you can't win 'em all.
        I might add that I had noticed a veritable plethora of dead insects scattered hither and yon around the yard at his house, and the birds didn't sing, but my mind didn't put it all together in time to save me. I've since learned that Stink's volatile vapors kill any insects in the area, which makes him real handy to have along on a campout, but which sort of wreaks havoc on our social life. After all, what woman in her right mind would willingly waste her senses and endanger her health by loitering around the indelicate, indelible aroma of Stinkpot Mugtussle? Of course, we Hootenannies are made of sterner and less sensible stuff.
        Stink had been as excited as a kid with a new bike when I told him that he had the job as our guitar player. There was no way that I was going to fire him just for his hideous aroma. Besides, he can tickle the fretboards like no other Hick in the field of country-western music. His intonation, style, impeccable delivery, perfect pitch, and his innovative incorporation of various musical languages into the contextual miasma of trans-countral post-hayseed flip-flop has set new standards within the industry.
        Well, sir, we settled back after our little tete a tete, and pretty soon we were all sound asleep, sawing logs like goodfellows, whether we were or not. Stinky had left us for his hammock in the next clearing, and we slept soundly in the absence of his indelicate aura. Frogstick, in the meanwhile, was forgotten but not gone. He was now languishing at his own regal feast, keeping company with a certain important personage, one that we had heard about that day. If we feared for his fate, there weren't any signs of our concern as we twitched and snored in the night. We had no idea, hawever, that his life would soon be hanging by the thinnest of threads as he battled for his very existance against an implacable and relentlous adversary, an adversary that had killed many stronger Hicks than he.
        Alas, poor Frogstick, we knew thee well! Your redneck skull was as numb as they come, but it was our Redneck skull, and we were ready to fight to have it preserved.
        We needn't have worried, however. We would soon have our chance to fight, and fight we would, tooth and nail, arm and hammer, Curly and Moe. Our battle cry would echo down through the halls of history: "Remember the Frogstick!"
        Woe unto the dimbulb who laughs at this cry!