Impact, and my hand goes instantly to my hip, but hands are on me and in seconds I’m being tickled. I can’t breathe. I can barely laugh and more arms, growling, and now I remember. Now I remember what a summer with Uncle Ball in Waynesville is gonna be like.
I fight and I beg him to stop tickling me as I hope he never does, and in moments I’m wrapped up in an Uncle Ball hug. Both arms. Both legs. I hear his unmistakable laugh, and I fight for just a little bit longer then I stop. I try to smell him, but Char took that away from me three years earlier. I just enjoy the arms around me and close my eyes as he rocks me back and forth, and I think of this life. A life with this father.
He holds me for a little longer but then it’s over and I am back to the real life I am living.
“Get up! Get dressed, we are going to Buckhorn!”
“What is a Buckhorn?”
“It’s a town.”
“Town called Buckhorn?”
“Yup.”
I stare for a while looking for a joke and he lifts his eyebrows. I burst out laughing. I laugh until I can’t breathe. “No way a town is called Buckhorn!”
He nods and I laugh again, this time until I fart.
He gets up and shoves me away. “You’re gross. Did you shit your pants? We gotta get, we need to run off to Buckhorn!” Smile that I love and eyebrows lifted.
Laughing still and now I laugh until I can’t breathe. I fart again and then I pee myself a little. After a few minutes of him staring at me with his arms crossed, I say, “Who names a town Buckhorn?”
“All these backhill country folk do, I guess. Get up, get dressed. Stop farting. We are on a mission. Tigress is already ready to go. You’re late.”
“Tigress is ready to go to Buckhorn?” I giggled.
“Didn’t tell her the name of the place. Thought you might want to.”
Dressed and in the living room. Tigress is waiting. “Where’s Lioness?”
“Still asleep. Doesn’t want to get up,” Tigress says. “Where are we going?”
I giggle, put my hands on my knees, and shake my head. “Buckhorn.”
She stares at me while I giggle. “What’s a Buckhorn?”
“That’s what he asked. Tell her what I told you,” Uncle Ball said.
“It’s a town, a town named Buckhorn. We are going to a town named Buckhorn.” More laughing. To a city boy like me, the idea is ludicrous.
“What are we going to do in Buckhorn, catch a deer?”
“Maybe,” Uncle Ball said with a laugh. “Come on. I gotta work soon. Let’s go.”
We jumped in his beater and we did, we drove to a town called Buckhorn. I even saw a sign, a great big green highway sign with the single word Buckhorn on it.
When we got there, we saw a winding road, a small shack at the top of a hill, a dip in the road going down, a big building with a massive parking lot, and a big barn-like building in the distance. He pulled into the parking lot of the shack and we got out.
Rocks everywhere. There were tiny rocks everywhere just like near the trailers. We thought it was weird then, but now with an entire parking lot filled with dirt and tiny rocks I asked, “What is this?” I bent down to pick up one of the rocks.
“Called gravel. It’s a gravel parking lot, just like the gravel roads all over this place,” Uncle Ball said. “Put that down. The Video Place owns that and I don’t want to get pulled into jail because you are stealing.”
“Stealing bravel?”
“Gravel, with a G, now let’s go. If we are going to get lunch, we have to book it. I’ll be late for work.”
We walked in and it was a video rental shop. “Anything you want. You two have to agree on one. I’m going to get a few, and then we might come back later. Now pick, we don’t have much time.”
Well it was not hard for me and Tigress to agree on a movie. We knew exactly what we were looking for and they had one copy. If you remember Teardrop you know. We walked out of that shop with Rocky 3. Uncle Ball didn’t show us what he got. I was afraid it was a sex movie that he was going to make me watch, but I shoved the idea away as soon as I could. We were in the car and he backed up and pointed us at the road.
“Want to see my favorite thing about gravel?” he asked.
We nodded and giggled.
He slammed on the gas and we heard gravel spitting everywhere. We looked back as he drove away and we saw a great cloud of dust. “Now, do too much of that and you will get a talking to from the cops. Let’s go, we gotta eat.”
We went to the barn. It was not a barn at all, but a place called Whitmore Farms. When you walked in the door, there was a gift shop. Further in was a restaurant. We looked around and saw a bunch of sour old men gathered in groups talking about things that old men talk about. We grabbed a booth and I got a burger. I remember it was my first cheeseburger. Sounds weird now, but back then cheeseburgers were just warming up. Every time I went to McDonald’s, I got a hamburger. Never had a cheeseburger before. He told me to get it with breakfast on it. I argued, but he was adamant.
I giggled when I told them I wanted a cheese burger with bacon on it but the waitress just nodded and walked away. Me and Tigress thought that was weird as hell, but that waitress didn’t laugh or anything. Didn’t ask us if we had lost our mind. She just walked off, and in minutes I had a cheeseburger with bacon sitting in front of me. It was big, but I ate it all.
For the record, I can say with certainty that a cheeseburger with bacon is not that bad. Not bad at all actually. I recommend you try one.
He dropped us off, and me and Tigress watched Rocky 3. Lioness didn’t want to watch it. She just walked away. I was starting to understand that she was getting older and things like watching two sweaty men beating on each other had really never been her thing in the first place. There it was though. When the fight between Rocky and Clubber started, I looked at Tigress and said, “Don’t punch me this time. Don’t knock me down and kick me.”
“Or what?” Tigress said.
“Or I’ll kick your ass,” I said.
“Watch your mouth!” was shouted from the other room by Grandma.
“You’re gonna kick my ass?” Tigress whispered. “That will be the day.”
I can tell you that at the age of ten, and even now at the age of 47, Rocky 3 had and never will lose its magic.
We watched and it was great. Bologna sandwiches and a great day in Waynesville. We told Stone all about Buckhorn, but he didn’t get it. We told Grandma, but she just looked at us. We told Lioness and she asked a few questions. We told her all about gravel but that didn’t seem to get her attention either.
I was wondering for the first time if me and Tigress weren’t just a little lame, goofy and loud. I’m not sure to this day, but you can always ask Lioness. She will know.
That night, way after the house was sleeping, I felt a tap on my shoulder. My hand went for my knife but it wasn’t there. A hand shook me and I looked up, seeing the shadow of a man standing over me. I didn’t recognize the room, but my guess was it was Char.
“Shhh,” the shadow said.
It had to be Char.
“Get up. I have a surprise for you,” the shadow said. The door opened and the hallway light hit Uncle Ball walking quietly out of the room.
I almost wept in relief, and I got up and snuck out of the room. Passed the kitchen light over the sink as we stole into the living room.
“Now you guys have to keep your mouth quiet or I’ll get in so much trouble. Soo much. But I got us some movies to watch, and you have never seen anything like it, I am sure.”
The beginning was horrifying. I almost screamed when the gauzy curtain was pulled aside and the malformed face of the witch was standing over the king and queen. The witch poured blue goo over the king and queen’s necks and suddenly they were paralyzed but awake. Very awake. Then words were spoken by the terrifying witch, and the baby was sucked right out of the queen’s belly.
In the woods at the edge of a pond, the baby’s hand is branded with a simple symbol, and then a wicked knife is held up as the baby cries.
She doesn’t get to kill the baby, and the movie stops being so horrible as I find out that I am watching a film called The Beastmaster. I didn’t even know they made films like this. Dungeons and Dragons movies, are you kidding? By the gloom of a TV screen? ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?
Tanya Roberts. This movie had Tanya Roberts and I saw her for the first time. I don’t know if you know who Tanya Roberts is. If you don’t, I mourn for you. Gorgeous face in the way that no face has ever been made before. She was a redheaded savage, and when her shirt ripped, I saw her breast. I immediately looked away, thinking of Easy. Uncle Ball looked over at me and whispered, “Pretty nice, hey?” and I grunted. Once she had fixed her shirt, she was gorgeous again. The movie went on. After Beastmaster, Conan, and I am hooked on two things.
First, fantasy was already cool, but now I know that I want to make it my life. And two, the only time to be alive is at night.
The next day back in the gravel lot of Buckhorn, but there is nothing to laugh at now. Two more movies and we grab Rambo. Rambo is for me and Tigress during the day, but at night we find ourselves being woken up again by the coolest guy in the world, and I am dropped in front of Conan the Destroyer and a movie called The Sword and the Sorcerer.
Fantasy at night is all I want now. It is the only way to live.
Uncle Ball had given me One Great Show.
Jesse Teller 
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