Five thousand one-hundred words, twenty
Willadean minute read.
This is two pages of background, followed by an adult story. Enjoy, review, and suggest a sequel direction, please.
*
I had lived on a dairy farm in the county since I was four. The farm was seven miles from town. The best job I ever had was that of a newspaper delivery boy.
I had numerous jobs as a kid from a financially insecure family. I was dependable, hard-working, and hung bigger than my friends. My eighteen-year-old, sinewy and lean, handsome in an immature way, smart, eager for a buck, and naive about women and sex body was 'hot' although in those days that wasn't the word; 'cool' was the description.
I had light blond hair, cut in a butch flat-top, and was hairy in the same color around my genitals and beard. At eighteen years old, I'd been delivering newspapers for three years, always working diligently to win the monthly prize for the paper boy of the month prize money.
When I earned the thirteenth trophy in a row, I received a notice that I would receive the twenty-five dollar prize money every month but would be ineligible for more trophies or to be recognized as the monthly winner. The paper created two new plaques for the office wall of the Linotype machine operators. They were the 'carrier of the year,' with my name as the first winner. The paper also hung a plaque with only my thirteen monthly wins shown.
I then competed with the motor routes, including newspaper drops at grocery stores and newsstands in three counties. The monthly prize for these routes was one hundred dollars. I won the first three months until the other carriers understood the prize was paid monthly.
The advantage I had, and figured out that first Christmas, was two-fold. I knew all of my customers' first and last names and their dates of birth. I usually included a Birthday card with the paper I threw the day before their Birthdays. Then I attempted to hand deliver the paper on their Birthday. The reception I received after a Birthday card delivery was absolutely unpredictable.
I seldom had delivery complaints, and usually, when something went awry, I received a note in their paper box the next day. I collected in person each month and had good tips for the efforts I went to for my customers. I had begun the paper routes with a route of one hundred papers in the poorer part of town. Quickly as my dependability was recognized by the circulation manager, my route increased a little at a time until I was throwing three hundred to three hundred twenty-five papers every evening.
I had an old rebuilt Columbia bike, one-speed, with a reverse pedal Bendix brake. I could carry the entire route on the bike. Still, steering was very difficult, so I separated the route into two sections. I could do the route delivery in an hour and a half, and it took me an hour to roll and pack the carrier bags.
Miss Trodick was kind enough to let me place two bags of papers in her entry while I threw the first half of the routes. I gave her the paper for free in exchange. It kept the papers dry and safe for me.
The motor routes got the first papers off the press, and I was next, and then the other carriers were given theirs. I would be all rolled and packed as the last of the carriers received their papers, which meant they were just standing around waiting and goofing off with each other. Many days they would help me roll and pack, and I could be out to deliver in as few as 15 minutes.
One route in an upper-class neighborhood had a girl paper boy. Today she would be known as a paper girl, I am sure. Trust me, she was a girl. A cute girl, a fellow tennis team player with who I was relatively equally skilled at tennis, so we practiced and became friends.
Elaine was from a poor family and wanted to go to college. One day after tennis, she asked if I could get her a route to make money for her college fund. I was able, and she was given a cushy route where the tips were big, and the widow's row was built during WW1. She didn't hang out with the other paper boys, as we were mostly too vulgar most afternoons.
Since I had been throwing papers for the longest, I was the kid that everyone wanted to substitute throw their route when they had something else to do that would keep them from throwing for a day or more. I worked cheap enough, charging them a dollar and fifteen cents. When I threw Elaine's route, I generally did it and forgot to collect because I wanted her to add that as extra for her college fund.
'The Daily News' was only printed during the week, so I didn't have to throw papers on Saturday or Sunday. I usually milked early on Saturday, set up the feedlot for the evening, had the milk coolers ready, the barn cleaned, and the machines assembled. This took about 45 minutes off of the evening chores. That meant that after I finished in the barn at 10 o'clock on Saturday morning, I could either come back at 2:30, milk the string, clean up, and be out of the barn by 4 pm, which gave me a rare free evening. Or, I could wait and milk late, around 7 pm, to be out of the barn around 8:30 pm and have had a long day to do what I wanted.
I usually milked late in the winter, and I usually milked early in the summer. I would hunt migrating geese and ducks in the winter before milking and feeding, and I would go to the drive-in movies in the summer.
This is where the story of my 18-year-old first time.
It was winter, and I was out in a rice field sluicing ducks when I was chased by the two game wardens for hunting after dark. If I hunted after dark, I could kill more ducks quicker than picking them off in flight, which saved a lot of money, and usually, the bodies were free of pellets when ground sluiced. So, I watched where they were feeding at sundown during the week, and then on the weekend, I would go out and have a sluicing hunt. I usually would kill 20 to 50 ducks in a hunt and then clean ducks all night to go in the freezer.
As I picked up the ducks I had sluiced, I saw a flashlight flicker at the edge of the next field over from me. I dropped the burlap bag full of ducks in a copse of weeds and, crouching very low, snuck away from the light coming out into the field where I had sluiced the flock.
Then I saw another flashlight sweeping the field in my escape route, so I veered to the North, which took me into a cottonwood grove overgrown with bunch grass, tulles, and water grass. I found a break in the edge, stomped heavily back into the grove, slunk out carefully, and snuck back into the field. I laid down with the rice stubble covering me.
I was stone still and silent as I could hear the wardens talking and see an occasional flashlight beam rake the field where I was lying beside a check bank for more camouflage. As time passed, I realized they were heading back to their vehicle and going to be right on the other side of the bank from me, but it was too late to move. I hid my face and was as still as I could be, as now I was cold, sweaty, and wet from crawling in the mud and water and shivering in the rain and cold temperature.
Fortunately, they didn't see me, forgot the bag of ducks, and walked past me without seeing me. It seemed impossible for them not to see me; however, after all these 58 years, I realized they had already decided I had gotten away, so they were more visiting than looking for me. As soon as they were in the next field and headed back to their vehicles, I got up, located the bag of ducks, and headed home.
As I walked up the lane behind the barn, I noticed the yard, driveway, barn, and shop lights were on. The doors to all of the buildings were open. I became wary, as we seldom, if ever, had turned all of the lights on quite so completely. I dropped the bag of ducks beside the manure spreader, stowed my gun under a stack of feed potatoes, shucked off the muddy clothes, and put on a pair of milking coveralls.
As I entered the light, my mom said, "Dale, I turned on all the lights so you could see to fix that fence and get home. You were down there so long I had begun to worry. Do you know Mr. Meek? He was just now going through the barns looking for you because he thought you had been sluicing ducks in Benamati's rice field. They found some shells they think you used out there and want to see your shotgun shells."
"Okay, sure thing Mom," I replied.
"Can you bring them here for him to see, please?"
I stepped inside, grabbed a box of shells, and handed them to the warden, Mr. Meeks.
He said, "Which fence were you fixing?"
"Do you want to see my fox?" I replied, "It was the single electric wire that divides the pasture's separate grazing areas. The cows had raced through it after a fox entered the field earlier in the evening. I hit it at about 100 yards, killed it with one shot, and tried to take out its eye, but I shook just a little and took off his nose instead."
The warden did want to see it, so I showed it to him, hanging it on the outside back wall of the shop. While looking it over, he was standing about 4 feet from my bag of ducks. I actually had an erection; it was so exciting to fool him and do it so easily. He said rabies should be tested and that he would like the skull. I put the whole thing in a burlap bag identical to the one the ducks were in, and he threw it in the back of his pickup.