Ol' Puddin'

Hanging out at the local dirt racing track, things sometimes take a turn for the better.

Me and Mitchell just got into line for some cold beers – Miller High Life bottles, of course – when Dick Dale’s “Misirlou” started blasting out of the shitty speakers surrounding the track. No one but us seemed to take much notice of it, instantly going into air guitar mode. A couple of ladies with Billy Ray mullets and old Iron Maiden and Warrant tour shirts started pointing and laughing.

“Wanna get laid tonight?” Mitchell asked.

“Yeah, but not like that. Too desperate and too easy.”

“So you say now.”

“Yes, I say now.”

We got our beers and ambled over to the parking lot. There was some kind of distraction going on near the bunch of El Caminos parked bumper to bumper at the area known as “El Rey” to the locals. We found this out later in the evening.

Some guy was talking about how lucky he was this afternoon.

“I was brushing my teeth in the kitchen when the water stopped working all of the sudden. You know, you turn it on and all you get is the sound of pipes shaking? Well, I had a mouth full of paste and I needed to get it out, pronto! (Giggles from the crowd). So I reached for the first bottle I had on my countertops. It, of course was a mason jar, as that’s where I keep all my booze. The legal stuff and the “homemade” stuff. If you catch my drift?

“Well, I open the lid and commence to sippin’ and garglin’ when I notice a funny taste. Now, all of you know my liquors can have a taste that takes some getting’ used ta, so this ain’t no surprise. Neither is a slight burn. But, this my friends won’t no slight burn. It was Devil’s Spit kinda burnin’.

“So I spit it out pronto. All over my kitchen, my shirt – which I just paid five dollar fur at the Roses – and just start cussing up a fit.”

“What was in that jar, Puddin’?” someone in the crowd asked.

“Let’s me tell ya what was in that jar, Smithson. It was freakin’ GAS-O-LINEY!”

The audience laughed up quite a cackle. Even Mitchell and I had a good gut laugh out of Puddin’s story. Hell, he knew how to keep an audience with him. Maybe politic-an would be a future endeavor for him, if he so choose that path.

We started to walk away when someone screamed.

In a flash, we turned around. Just in time to see ol’ Puddin’ running. And he was on fire.

And instead of the stop, drop and roll we all learned in sixth grade – probably a grade or two further than ol’ Puddin’ made it – he was running around “Like a damn chick with its damn head plum cut off!” as one of the amused audience members would later be quoted describing the scene on local television at 11 p.m. later in the evening.

No one was chasing poor Puddin’ with a blanket or anything. A couple of guys in mesh hats threw some beer on him as he passed them by. But ol’ Puddin’ seemed to have a destination in mind.

About 200 yards away was a duck pond. It was a duck pond simply because someone had placed some wildly painted duck decoys in it. So forever it was known as the duck pond by locals and race affciandos.

Anyway, Puddin’ made it to the pond and dove it. A loud sssssssssssssssssssssssssssss sound followed. Which we all figured was his skin singeing after hitting the water.

Puddin’ then let out a yell.

Soon after, an ambulance arrived. It was already on sight for the racers, but now it had a fan to take care of.

A lot of folks had their cell phones out and recorded Puddin’s run, as it became known on the Internet. “With gas so expensive these days, Ol’ Puddin’ decided he wouldn’t wash it out of his shirt until he’d gotten a little buzz off it.” Was just one of the t-shirts which ended up selling. Thankfully, no one auto-tuned Ol’ Puddin’s run. I think he didn’t scream enough for it to work?

As Mitch and I were leaving the race later that night, a local newspaper reporter came up to us and asked us some questions about Ol’ Puddin’. Neither of us knew him, we said, but we saw the whole thing happen. Well, except for ignition, as we turned away to drink our Miller High Lifes.

She asked some questions and we answered. Some serious, some not so serious. It was interesting to see what got into the paper when you got asked questions by a reporter. Being a former ink slinger, I knew a thing or two about the truth and how some choose to bend it.

Finally, the reporter, who looked all of 19 years old and very out of place in rural North Carolina, asked me: “One last question, Mr. Jones. What would be your one regret if you were to die like Ol’ Puddin’ did tonight?”

I scratched my beard and made it look as if this was the single most important question anyone had ever asked me. Finally, after a few moments of silence I said: “Not having sex in a car. Now, I had a girlfriend that promised me she’d do it. But she never did. We did just about anything else. We even re-enacted the train scene from “Risky Business.” I’ve done it in a Burger King bathroom, as Digital Underground instructed me to do in 1989. I did it in front of a hotel window on the top floor. Albeit in Rockville, Maryland over looking a parking lot, not in Las Vegas looking out at the strip like it is in my fantasy.

“But never once have a fucked in a car. It would be a damn shame to die that way. Especially, if it was to go like Ol’ Puddin’ went.”

She laughed, and said “Don’t think I can use that one.”

“Sure you can. Just take out the fucks and such.”

“Have a good night fellows.”

“It’s fellas. You ain’t from ‘round here are yeh?”

“No thankfully. No.”

“Same here darling. Moved from Northern Virginia, myself.”

“Really?”

“Yep, really. Manassas via Arlington.”

“I went to Chantilly High School!” she said, now a little bit more interested in us two – me in a Lucero shirt, him in a Zanadu one.

“Actually dated a girl who went there, way before you, but still…”

“Awesome,” here’s my card. “Give me a call sometime. Maybe you can show me what there is to do here?”

“Well, tonight, Ol’ Puddin’ put on the show. It wasn’t expected, but it was a good-un.”

She smiled and walked away at that.