Chapter 2: How To Be A Success Without Really Trying

Four Months Later:

There have been a lot of people finding fault with me and Em and Homer, saying we got undeserved success as singers and writers and composers and musicians and all such shit. They also say ever since we became a success we have been real snobbish. First all those New York critics bitched about Em insuring her vocal chords for one million dollars. One sissy faced little round assed pucker butt said as how thirty-nine dollars ought to be considered overkill.

Some of the Oklahoma reporters asked me what I thought of that and I said I thought about it like I did everything else, as little as possible. I told them actually I thought more about the condition of my bowels than I did some sissified squirt like him, even though him and my bowels was both full of shit...

So then I got accused of gay bashing for calling the nasty little fuck a fruity pile of shit. And I said how I never had bashed nobody what was gay in my life. But then I had to admit I never asked anybody I bashed if he was a gay guy or not. Can't you just see how strange it would sound, to get ready to kick some dude in the nuts and you stop and ask, "You gay?" People would start wondering about where your real interests was if you go around asking questions like that. I mean, us real he-men just don't think about such things. We think about more important things, like do the Dallas Cowboys get to pork the Dallas Cowgirls? You know, them pretty little gals prancing around in front of the cameras on game days.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if they would all take off their panties and then do all them high kicks in front of the cameras? Well, I wonder about such things. I also wonder if they shave down there. How about you, don't you ever wonder about such things? Well, I don't know about you but my mind wanders and inquires all the time. I guess you might say there's the difference between us thinkers and you non-thinkers. We just have to think because we have thoughts just has to be thought about. And some of 'em is pretty deep sons of bitches indeed.

Anyways, this world of ours is nothing more than a country-western song just waiting for the words to be wrote and the music to be composed. You see this is where us three fit together just fine as frogs hair. I write the songs and my still best friend and now co-husband, Homer, writes and plays the music and then Em and me, well we just sing our results. Those critics who make fun of us and say we are dumb no talent hicks with a lot of luck and no brains are just jealous. So to them I say "Fuck You." I'll take luck over brains any old day.

You just stop and think about it. There is a lot of real brainy people locked up in prison. But I bet you can't tell me one real lucky guy who is locked up. Hell if the son if a bitch was real lucky he wouldn't have been caught in the first place. You see what I mean? We thinkers have thoughts we have to think. I guess all this makes me a lucky thinker, or something of the sort.

Besides, brainy people go nuts with all their intense thinking. But me and my delicate bride Emily and my best friend, and now co-husband of sorts, Homer will never go crazy. And to me, it's a relief. But what's so great about having too many brains? Too much of anything ain't all so great. And I can guarantee you one thing, we three do not have too much of a good thing where brains are concerned. We don't need 'em.

Where was I? Oh yeah, about those critics and our much-deserved success. Hell let me tell you about our latest well deserved successful hit we got everybody in America singing with great joy, "The Great Coach In The Sky" which is all about how life is a football game and God is the Great Coach and Jesus is the assistant coach who teaches us all the game plays we need to get along in this old world.

There is some real deep philosophy in such an uplifting song and you better believe it. Now, as for any of them New York and California sissy dudes, why, fuck 'em all. They just don't recognize great religious thought when it jumps up and grabs 'em by the crotch. Now I am working on the words for the sequel to "The Great Coach In The Sky." It's all about how life is like a football game and we are the footballs and God is going to throw our asses one last time. It will be titled, "The Last Pass In My Life." Now this is clever, even if I do say so myself and I do say so, myself.

Now, about my gold plated dream about having my own personal gold plated garbage truck. Okay, here is what all the fuss and fury is all about. I was driving a garbage truck for Humper County Sanitation and one day I realized I was writing my best songs while I drove along, half loaded on corn whisky or pills of some sort or another. So I pulled over to the side and gulped down a couple of black beauties, using corn whiskey to wash 'em down my throat.

Then I started writing. I run out of paper and I opened up the back of the truck and grabbed a handful of papers out of the back and wrote some more. I was buzzed so high I didn't realize I was writing without anything in my hand to write with. Here I was wasted out of my mind on those uppers and the half pint of pure hundred eighty proof corn whiskey I got free every day from one of my stops. I must of wrote for six or eight hours straight without no pen or pencil, just sitting there by the side of the road.

I do remember how I all at once looked up and saw a deputy sheriff standing there pointing a gun through the open window at my head. It was Gomer, my best friend and now co-husband Homer's dumb younger brother. Shit but that jarred me back to reality when I looked up and saw a gun pointed right at me. Let me tell you it was all just too much. I was still buzzed like a son of a bitch and so I just reached out and grabbed the hand holding the gun and jerked.

I think the idea was to take the gun away from the demented idiot before he shot me. But he didn't let go and it went off and I got a bullet in the shoulder. The retard's eyes got round and he said, "Holy sweet shit, I done shot you, Wilbur. Oh shit, I am so sorry. I didn't mean to."

He kept blabbering on and on about how sorry he was and I was bleeding to death. Finally, I said, "Call an ambulance, you stupid retarded cock sucker, I'm bleeding to death."

He reared back and said, "There is no reason for you to get abusive at me." Then things turned black and I woke up in the hospital. I thought what it meant was he called for the ambulance. But later I found out different. I tell you that boy is missing so many IQ points he actually thinks in negative numbers.

Anyway, I woke up in the hospital and the first thing I see is one stupid fucking Gomer Carville pacing up and down like he was pregnant and expecting a baby and couldn't figure which end it was supposed to come out of. Then I saw my sweet innocent looking Emily and my best friend Homer Carville standing next to each other. She had been crying and he was consoling her by rubbing her shapely ass. Oh but she does like to be consoled in such a way.

"Oh shit." I moaned. "What the hell happened?" Then I looked and saw that low IQ retarded Gomer, who happens to be Homer's younger brother and remembered what happened.

"You brain dead son of a bitch, Gomer Carville, why in the hell did you point a gun at me when I was sitting by the side of the road resting my eyes?"

"Well, for one thing, your truck was reported stolen when you didn't check it back in yesterday. So when I seen your garbage truck just sitting by the side of the road with you in it, I was just not taking no chances. I knew it was your truck all right, but just because it looked like you, didn't really mean it was you and if you wasn't you, you might of been someone else. And if you was someone else, then you must of stole the garbage truck." He looked at me all serious like and added, "You do understand?"

"No, you brain dead moron, I do not understand. If it looked like me and it was in my truck, who the hell else could it have been if it wasn't me?" He shot me in the shoulder, but my head was starting to hurt. Gomer has the same effect on just about everybody.

"Aliens," he said reverently. "They could have grabbed you up and replaced you with a robot what looked just like you." All this reminded me as how Gomer was a flying saucer nut who bought every book and magazine he could find and read them cover to cover and believed it all, even the stuff which so obviously contradicted itself.

"Gomer, how in hell did anyone get to be so crazy as to give you a badge and a gun?"

"Oh, don't you remember, my mamma got tired of me staying home all the time so she asked your mamma to ask your daddy to ask his cousin the sheriff to hire me. Well, he did, but then after I loaned the keys to the jail to the nice feller who was locked up on murder charges, it was decided I was probably better suited to drive around in a patrol car. But they just give me the badge. I had to buy the gun my own self." This boy even gave bad cops a good name.

"Homer," I said to my best friend, "Would you please get your finger out of our wife's butt and run your retarded and demented little brother out of here before I set him on fire?"

Homer looked at me sort of hound dog reproachful like and said, "Wilbur, you really hadn't ought to talk to and about my little brother the way you been doing. After all, he did save your life."

"Yeah, I know, after he shot me he called for an ambulance."

"Well no, not exactly, it was actually a passing motorist called 911 after Gomer flagged him down to ask him what he should do. But he did flag down some motorist when it might have saved him some embarrassment to just let you bleed to death."

"Homer, right now you are making as much sense as your idiot brother standing there by your side. Please just get that raving blank minded drooling idiot out of here. Oh, and find out if my garbage truck is okay."

Gomer got all pouty, "You know, Wilbur Smith, you think more about your old garbage truck of yours than you do a sensitive human being like me. I bet you would get the dam' thing gold plated if you could, you think so much of it." Then he stuck his nose up in the air and left without any further urging from yours truly.

For some reason, the idea of a gold plated garbage truck to collect trash in just sort of sounded great. I closed my eyes and thought about it. I kept my eyes closed for a little while more and I could just see me driving along in all my gold plated glory, wearing a brand new white felt narrow brim J B Stetson hat and clean Levi's and a new checkered plaid shirt. I wanted a red silk kerchief around my neck. The idea was very pleasing to think on.

Of course back then I didn't have the money to do more than dream a little bit about it. But, by God, when I shut my eyes and thought about it, it was almost like I was there, driving along in all my gold plated glory. I just loved the idea of me having my own gold plated garbage truck.

You see, even us little people have great dreams, and some of them is very great. Most folks if they had a dream to gold plate a garbage truck would sort of hide it and not tell nobody. But not me. I just got to share my great ideas with the world. It is so seldom you find a special mind like mine. We are a very rare breed indeed.

Well, my own sweet and innocent Em got to worrying about Gomer's possible hurt feelings. And while she was at it, she just had to go and check out the rest of Gomer and see if he was built like his brother. She was pleased to report he was and I started to get distressed to no end. I was starting to feel like a pigmy on The All Star Basket Ball Team. Well, how else could I feel? Here my sweet and loyal Emily was comparison-shopping with two guys who both have well over twelve inches apiece. And me, I just have to struggle along with eight inches or so. Em says I shouldn't let it bother me as it don't bother her none. She's just so thoughtful in some ways.

She is almost seven months pregnant now and I worry as how she ought to take it easy so the baby don't get concussion from all the pounding inside her or something. You know, I been remembering the dude I shot in the ass and got to thinking about something. Wouldn't it be a hoot if our baby comes out and don't look like either one of me or Homer, but him? (Or even somebody else I never heard about yet.) I got to stop thinking those kind of thoughts. It seems kind of disloyal to my sweet and innocent minded Emily, the mother of my (partly) child to be.

So, anyway, I was let out of the hospital some two days later. It seems like I didn't have a very big policy covering hospitalization so I got well faster. It's strange how things seem happen. It took my boss Mort, the owner of the Humper County Sanitation Company almost a month for his sprained ankle to get better enough so he could go home. I called Homer to come get me and he sent his ex-wife, Connie, because he was taking Em to a roadhouse for auditioning purposes. They were going to sing and play for the people.