by Steve Killam

James hated working evenings. Night shift was brutal. Didn’t matter that his job at the mill was a good one or that he had union benefits. It was going to work from four in the afternoon until midnight that bugged him. Not only did it ruin his social life for the week but there was this undeniable fact that if anything could go wrong at the mill, it would happen during the swing shift. That’s why he liked days and graveyard shift. They ran more smoothly.

Tonight was the perfect example. Ten minutes into the shift, the conveyor belt that took the pulpwood into the grinders broke down. So for almost eight hours, James and the rest of the crew had to drag four-foot bolts of pulpwood from where the wood yard cranes dropped them to the grinders. August in East Texas was not the time to be using wood picks in this manner. As usual, the millwrights fixed the belts just before the midnight. That meant all the people on graveyards had to do was occasionally drag a log that had fallen off the conveyor back on.

As James approached his home, exhausted and bitter, he saw a flicker of light in the chicken pen. “Could this night get any worse?” he groaned inwardly.

Yes, it could. James’ mother liked fresh eggs and fresh fryers, so they always had chickens. She did not like the smell, so they had placed the chicken pen several hundred feet from the house. James stopped his car and looked, and soon saw the flicker again. He turned down the Lynard Skynard tape and rolled down his window. The hot August air and the smell of chicken poop greeted him, and so did the screams of a scared hen mixed with human cursing.

James grabbed the Louisville Slugger he keep in the back seat and found the new flashlight he’s recently put in his glove box. As he entered the pen, the shrieks and screams became louder. He shined his light towards the back of the pen and — shocked at what he saw — almost dropped the light. There, silhouetted in the narrow flashlight beam was the pale, pasty-white figure.

“Mom! What are you doing?”

” Killing this goddamned possum!” was the reply. “And it hadn’t been easy.”

By then James had moved the flashlight beam down toward the ground. “But Mom, you’re naked.”

“No I’m not,” shouted his Mother, “I’ve got my house shoes on. You don’t think I would be walking barefoot in chicken shit, do you?” It was then that James became truly thankful for his good paying job. He did not know how much money it would cost for the therapy it was going to take to erase this from his memory.

“Good, you brought a club. I heard the chickens squawking so I told your father to come see what was going on. That son of a bitch would not get up, so I put on my shoes and grabbed a flash light and my gun.”

James was more than a little uneasy, and as she finished her explanation he tried to look away, far away.

” This piece of crap we call a flashlight kept shorting out, but I saw this possum trying to make off with that hen. As I raised the gun to shoot, the barrel just fell off. I guess the screw holding it on the stock must have come out. Any rate, I was forced to try and club this varmint to death as my light keep going on and off.”

James’ mother was still beating her prey with the little stock of her single shot 22 rifle. “I’m glad your home. Come here with that bat and light and finish killing the possum while I see if the hen can survive.” James walked to the back of the pen, covering his eyes until he got to the destination. There, shining in the wide beam of the flashlight, was the possum. His mom had obviously killed the creature, because it lay bloody and lifeless. He bent down and picked it up by its hairless tail. Before he could get it all the way up it sprang to life. It let out a loud hiss as it bared it’s teeth. Surprised and frightened, James let the swinging marsupial loose.

“Kill it!! Kill it!! Don’t let that son of a bitch get away!” cried James’ mom. James recovered, and as the possum was trying to dig out under the chicken wire fence, James started to swing at it. Then he felt a body next to his as his mother grabbed the bat from his hands. ” Hold the light on him and I’ll kill him!” His mother had the bat in both hands now and was swinging directly over her head, her drooping breast bouncing with every swing. Each blow hit it target, and soon the possum’s head was busted into several pieces. “Now that’s how you kill a varmint with a club,” she muttered.

Suddenly, his mothers whole demeanor changed. “James honey, can you gut and skin that possum for your Mama tonight? Your father has to get up early tomorrow and I have to cook him breakfast.” Her voice was the sweet voice of the mother he knew. “Let’s get out of here,” she added, “I don’t want the neighbors to come over to help. I’m not really dressed for company.”

James could not look away from his mother’s sagging buttocks as she walked away. It was like passing a bad wreck on the highway — you know you shouldn’t look, but you just can’t resist. Dragging logs on a hot summer night; getting scared shitless by a near-dead possum; and seeing your mother naked. That is why James really hated the swing shift.