A tall tale

The following story has been adapted from one my uncle Rayburn used to tell. I have changed most of the details, largely because I can't remember them, but the story line is all his.

PS -- This is not one of the monastery cat stories! It belongs to another set of stories about a fictional place called Penultimate, Wisconsin.
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Doyle McIlaheny and the Old Dog

Doyle McIlhaney runs the McIlhaney Septic Savers just outside Penultimate, a lucrative business out where there aren’t any public water treatment facilities and folks rely on their own septic systems to take care of the waste. Periodically  Doyle or his son Bill-Doyle shows up to pump out what hasn’t been rendered sufficiently fluid to return to the earth from whence it had come.

Maybe it’s the sheer rawness of the material that makes up Doyle’s labors, perhaps it is a reaction to the socially repugnant nature of what he does for a living, but over the years he developed an entertaining knack for storytelling and prank-pulling that made Doyle welcome in most any gathering of men in Penultimate, though not so much in mixed company or in the presence of the more sensitive among the clergy. When challenged on the veracity of one of his tales, Doyle always grinned and denied telling lies.

“I just tell more truth that there is,” he said.

One of Doyle’s most famous tales, which he always swore he could prove by calling witnesses though he never did so, had to do with a turkey hunt and an old dog. The version he tells goes like this. Believe it or don’t, as the papers say.

[Doyle speaking:]

Back in 1994 when Thanksgiving was coming around, Becky got on me about getting a turkey. Well, the dookey-hauling business had not been that great lately, so I decided to grab a couple of Becky’s no ‘count brothers and go out hunting a wild turkey. So one fine November morning, Chet and Buck and me loaded up and headed out to find ourselves some turkeys to bring home to the women folk.

I knew me a farmer a few miles out of town, out on the old Phelps road, back beyond where the old Mitchum place was before those fool kids burned it down before the war. Old Man Galinkas didn’t farm much anymore, but I used to clean out his septic tank and I had seen turkeys on what had once been a cornfield on the edge of the woods. I figured he’d let us hunt back in there if we asked him polite. 

Chet and Buck were not of the same mind, having made themselves personas non gratas or some such thing years back when they had been in love with the Galinkas twins and, in the immortal way of boys, expressed their affections by hurling rotten eggs at the Galinkas house one Halloween. Unfortunately for them, Old Man Galinkas had seen the culprits at their work and came running out with his shotgun. Now the way he told it, that shotgun was loaded with rock salt to chase away raccoons, but Chet and Buck did not hang around to find out. They took off across the cornfield, ran up against a bobbed wire fence, left considerable pieces of their jeans hanging on that fence and escaped into the very woods where I wanted to hunt turkeys. As a result of this encounter, they were subjected to humiliating snickers and stares from the Galinkas twins, and that was the end of their romance.

At any rate, the Galinkas place was the most promising turkey hunting location as far as I knew, and neither of Becky’s brothers having any other ideas, we got in the truck and started out the old Phelps road.

When we pulled up in the yard in front of the barn, driving around an ancient dog who was surrounded by a dozen barn cats, there was no one in sight. I got out to go knock on the door, being a gentleman and properly raised, but Chet and Buck hunkered down in the truck trying to be invisible. I looked back and saw their eyes peering over the dashboard under their red Farmall caps.

I knocked on the door, real polite, like I say, and after a moment Old Man Galinkas opened the screen door. 

“Good morning, Mr.Galinkas, sir” I said and explained the nature of my request.

He looked at me for a moment, and asked, “You alone, are you, Doyle?”

Figuring part of the truth would be sufficient, I said brightly, “Well, sir, you know my wife Becky? A couple her relatives are in town and I offered to take them hunting, if that would be okay to you, sir. I’ll keep a close eye on ‘em and we won’t be anywhere near the house. I promise that, sir.” 

I never been in the service, but my brothers what had been in Vietnam had told me you can never put too many “sirs” in a sentence.

Old Man Galinkas glanced over at the truck and lowered his eyebrows.

“Why they scrunched down in there so much? Are they dwarfs or something?”

“No, they’s just a bit shy, Mr. Galinkas, sir. But they have their licenses and Becky swears they are both good shots. Just shy, sir, that’s all. Just shy.” 

I winked and circled one ear with my finger, and Old Man Galinkas hmmphed.

“Well, Doyle, I sure don’t mind you hunting and I’ll take your word for it about Becky’s relatives. I just hope they aren’t as useless as those brothers of hers used to be.”

Here I was subjected to his version of the shocking tale of that long-ago Halloween epic, but I managed to look fascinated and shocked at the appropriate times.

“Rotten eggs, sir? What a terrible mess that must have been. Stunk something awful, too, I bet.”

Old Man Galinkas appreciated my sympathy and waved me on.

I nodded my head, “Thank you, sir. And  a happy Thanksgiving to you and the twins.”

I was turning to go when the old man turned back and called to me.

“Doyle, can I ask you a favor? In return for the hunting, say.”

Dang! I knew I should have walked away faster, but now I was caught.

“Yessir, Mr. Galinkas, sir. What can I do you for? You need that tank pumped out early?”

“No, nothing like that. You see that old dog out there by the barn?”

I looked back. The dog was apparently sound asleep, unbothered by the cats and kittens crawling around him and batting at his tail.

“Yes sir.”

“Doyle, I have had that dog for close to twenty years. He used to be a great hunting dog, but now he is old and wore out. He’s blind, he can’t smell good enough to find food when I put it right in front of him, and to be honest, he doesn’t even get up to do his business,if you know what I mean.”

“Well, sir, I know it’s hard, but sounds to me like the thing to do is put him down.”

“Exactly, Doyle, exactly. But me and the girls just don’t have the heart to do it. So if you wouldn’t mind putting him down for me and maybe taking the body off and disposing of it out in the woods, I would be mighty grateful”

What could I do? The dog meant nothing to me, although I had always found it hard to get rid of a pet myself. But it was obvious that this one’s life was over and misery was his lot.

"Yes, sir. I will take care of that right away. Why don’t you just go back in the house and when you come out later, everything will be okay. And accept my condolences. A good dog is hard to find, I know that.”

So the old man took one last look at the dog, sighed heavily and went back in the house, letting the screen door slam behind him. Through the open window I could hear him explaining things to the twins and there was some soft sobbing.

I headed back to the truck to get my shotgun, and between the door to the house and the door to the truck, an idea popped fully formed in my head. I put a big old frown on my face and stomped up to the truck and jerked the door open.

Chet and Buck sat up, twisted their foreheads up worse’n’ they already was, and said, “Well, what happened?”

I reached for my twelve gauge and checked to see that it was loaded.

“I’ll tell you what happened! That cantankerous old fool won’t let us hunt, that’s what happened. He says last time I pumped his tank out, I  charged him too much and I scared that old dog of his making such a racket. Took him three days to get the old thing to stop howling. Well, I’ll stop the old thing from howling, that’s for sure.”

Those boys’ mouths dropped a foot, and I turned and marched over deliberately to where the old dog was lying. The cats scattered at my approach and ran to the barn. I took careful aim and shot. Between one labored breath and the next, the dog was out of its misery.

It was sad to kill an animal, though in this case it was the thing to do. But I couldn’t help snickering for a moment thinking of Chet and Buck and what they must be thinking. So I just stood there before turning around. I couldn’t wait to see the look on those boys’ faces. Then I heard a noise and when I did turn around, the truck was careening a million miles a minute out of the barn yard and down old Phelps road. Those cowards had abandoned me to my fate.

Well, it worked out all right with Mr. Galinkas.   I took care of the dog’s body, like I had promised, and then told him I needed to use his phone. The boys, I explained, had taken ill and had to rush off, but Becky would come get me.

It took some talking to convince Becky it was safe to come get me. Chet and Buck had been near hysterical when they got home and they swore they was never going near Old Man Galinkas or me again in their lives. 

I never did get a turkey that year, but I have always been thankful when I remember it. I haven’t had to set eyes on any of Becky’s family since.