Simple Days

Otis Wheat was a simple man. He didn’t have much to say and when he did say something it was worth listening to. He was generally shy to a fault but when the time was right he could let you know how the bread was buttered. I learned a lot about life from him and also to keep my mouth shut unless I had something to say. And now I reckon I got something to say. I have been waiting fifty-five years to start talking and it feels like I’ve been drowning inside. Now you might think that a man can’t live that long without saying something meaningful but I can tell you straight up that ain’t true. I have been bull****ting folks from the day I came out of the womb and into this world. It started with an ass whooping from the doctor that delivered me, “scream like you got a set son”, to standing in the White House and shaking a Presidents hand, “Yes Mr. President I did have sex with that woman”. You see what comes out of my mouth has never necessarily been the truth. So your probably thinking why should I believe you now? Well I will let you be the judge of that for I have been to the mountain and I have returned with a sense of fear that would put any living being to shame…for I am afraid of heights and I can’t stand looking down on anything or anyone, and because of that fear I shall not tell a lie. So the story begins one dark cold morning in Bedfordshire, England. My mother was in labor for two days before I peaked my scrawny little head out into the world and uttered my first words. Of course these were coaxed out of me by a swift slap on the ass but it didn’t take but once for me to figure out that I didn’t want another, thank you very much. The nurse swaddled me in a nice warm blanket put a beany on my head and cooed over me. I smiled back and pretended to love her and uttered a couple of monosyllabic words to bring the point home. I was a natural. Now my older brother was not very fond of me and from day one I had to figure out a way to bamboozle him into a chaotic state that would keep him from injuring my body and soul. This may sound like quite a feat for an infant but I was a precocious child and made due with what was at hand. There are only a couple of things an infant can do and one of them is scream like a spotted-ass ape. The other is poop. Screaming did not always have the desired effect so I learned early on how to throw a turd better than Joe Namath on his best day. I have figuratively been hurling them ever since.