By Grant McGee
I miss
my ol’ pal Ken*, Bard of the Pecos.
You
probably know someone like Ken…more blood kin to you than your own brother or
sister.
Ken
caught “The Cansuh” and died. I remember
the last thing I said to him because I had a hunch it was the last time I’d
talk to him: “You’re a great man,
Ken. You get well!”
Well,
he didn’t get well…I knew he wouldn’t.
He died
in the spring a couple of years ago.
One
other thing I wanted to say to him but didn’t because I knew it didn’t matter,
he wouldn’t do it: “WRITE YOUR DAMN
STORIES, DUDE!”
Ken
told the best stories…stories about his life.
I never understood why he never wrote a book full of his tales. His stories, his sayings, his philosophical
thoughts…that’s why I called him “Bard of the Pecos.”
Ken was
a colorful fellow, he grew up on the windswept grassy plains of eastern New
Mexico in the Pecos River Valley.
I met
Ken when I worked at a country radio station in Roswell, New Mexico. I was the morning guy and he was the newsman.
We
became fast friends.
Ken was
in the Navy during the Vietnam years.
Ken wrapped up his gig with Uncle Sam and came back to eastern New
Mexico to get his G.I. Bill degree from the local university. He worked for the local paper, he worked in
radio news.
And boy
could Ken tell some stories: The story
of his first, ahem, “experience” in one of the “cat-houses” south of the tracks in the
eastern New Mexico town of Clovis, or talk of his pet coyote that he ended up
having to get rid of because it killed his momma’s best banty rooster and so
many more.
I
suppose that may have been the glue that made Ken and I good friends: We were both bullshitters and storytellers.
So it
came as a surprise to me one morning to learn of one of his stories, what I
thought was a pretty good one, that he hadn’t told me.
It was
a typical disc jockey’s country morning show, I was playing the tunes and
sitting behind the control board and Ken sat across from me, reading the local
news at the top and bottom of the hour.
I
really liked working at that station.
50,000 watts on the AM band, we were blasting over a full quarter of the
whole state of New Mexico, even reaching down into the Big Bend country of west
Texas.
The
boss even had an “800” number where people from all over the region could call
in with their requests or just to shoot the shit. Calls came from folks like the Border Patrol
agent in the Rio Grande town of
Presidio, Texas. There was the crusty
sounding ol’ rancher Floyd from Van Horn, Texas. The office worker in Albuquerque who called
in amazed that I had played a country-rock tune “Chestnut Mare” by The Byrds.
And
then came the call from the county seat of Lincoln County about 75 miles or so
away from Roswell.
“Hi,”
said the woman, “I’m calling from Carrizozo.”
“Yes ma’am?”
I said.
“I
wanted to know if your newsman Ken is the Ken from Portales High School class
of 1962 who shot himself in the scrotum.”
I was
dumbstruck.
I gathered
my thoughts.
“Just
one moment, ma’am,” I said.
I put
my hand over the phone and looked over at Ken.
He was busy perusing the morning paper, looking over the top of his
glasses.
“Did
you shoot yourself in the nuts once upon a time?”
“Yes I
did,” he said, putting down his paper and holding out his hand, “Give me that
phone.”
It was
someone Ken had known long ago and far away, an old classmate. While I kept playing the tunes they went on
and talked for about 5 minutes, had a good conversation and then it was over.
And I
just stared at Ken.
“So?” I
said.
“So
what?” said Ken.
“You
gonna tell me about shooting yourself in the scrotum?”
Ken
laughed.
“Just
me being a dumbass kid,” he said. “School
was out and me and three buddies went on a camp out up at Sumner Lake Dam.
“So we
go swimming, just having a good time, one guy brought a six-pack of beer, stuff
like that. We come on back to the
campsite, build a campfire and I start horsing around with this little .22
peashooter revolver I have, you know, twirling it around on my finger like they
did on all the westerns.
“Well,
while I’m twirling it around my thumb catches the hammer just enough to pull it
back just enough so that when my thumb’s not on it anymore it snaps back and
BANG. Bullet went through my scrotum and
there was this bullet hole in my leg too, through-and-through.
“So my
buddies carry me back to the pickup and they drive me all the way back to the
hospital in Portales. That’s where the
doctor told me I was a damn lucky sumbitch.
‘Boy,’ he says, ‘If that damn bullet was over just another quarter inch
it would’ve hit your femoral artery and you would’a bled out before your
friends would’a got you to the truck.’
“So
there I am laid up in the Portales hospital for a few days. And my scrotum would fill up with fluid, thing
swoll up to about the size of a small cantaloupe. So every afternoon around 3 this nurse would
come in with a big ol’ syringe with a big-assed long needle and THUNK stick it
in my scrotum and drain off the fluid.
“LAWD
HAVE MERCY!” I yelled out laughing.
“And
that’s about the whole story,” said Ken.
“And I never had any problems from it later, I had a lot of fun later
and two kids.”
I
laughed some more.
“Are
you happy now, you sumbitch?” said Ken as he whacked me across the top of the
head with the newspaper and left the studio smiling.
Did I
mention that I miss my ol’ pal Ken?
-30-
*Name has been changed…My old buddy Dax (not his real name
either) made me paranoid about using people’s real names. But that Dax, he always was a buzzkill.
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