Page 38 - Hector Carmichael and Alexander Kerr

ISSUE : Issue 24

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1979/12/1

Hector Carmichael and Alexander Kerr In some cases, names have been changed in the stories told here so that we can maintain the intimacy of good friends getting together and still honour privacy. Hector Carmichael; I had a visit from an- Alex; Oh, they're all growling and com- other fellow recently. plaining. (Did you tell him stories?) Hector; No, no. He wouldn't pay me. But tonight you took a fellow with you with lots of money. Alexander Kerr; I hope he'll find it. You know, I'll be 16 the first of June. Hector; If you had horns on, I'd believe you were 16. Alex; No, but I'll be 53- Hector; Now, boy, the first thing you know, you'll be as old as me. Alex: That fellow with the chains will be looking for me long before that. Hector; I hope you won't be like that fel? low, they wouldn't take him in heaven for sure, and then they wouldn't take him in hell • there were too many like him there. And how are you? (Good. A little greyer.) Hector; Are you? If you'll be coming here too often, boy, you'll be grey. And if you'll be travelling with Alex, you'll get grey soon enough. Alex: You'll be liable to be baldheaded if you'll be travelling with me. Hector; And how's everyone up with you? Hector; How's the old man? Alex; He'll be 79 in February, and he chews about 3 pounds of club tobacco a day. He's got it sprayed right from his eyebrows to the toes of his shoes. Hector; Last time you were here, you were with a minister. Alex: That's why I was travelling" with him. So I'd stay religious. Hector; An awful change it made in Alex, you know. Alex; Not half as much as I made in him. Listen, Hector, tell us the story the time you got up and tried to blow the house off the face of the earth. Hector; Here about 25 or 30 years ago • no, more than that • 40 years ago. Fellows used to go around selling bootleg coal from o- ver south there. It was much cheaper than the other coal. So I got a load of coal, and a few mornings after that I got up and put the fire on and I went to the pantry there to wash myself • holy smokes! Away goes the stove. The lights were all over the floor. And I couldn't see anything but smoke and the side of the stove was blown out to smithereens,' all in pieces. A dyna? mite cap, I guess, was in the coal. You, Alex, that's the winter you fellows were cutting lumber. CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

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