Note: The following story was posted to Fictionaut.com on February 2, 2010. It is part of a series of stories set in the fictional town of Allendale, which does not actually exist anywhere in Georgia. This story only exists now on KevintheEditor.com. – KtE
Clyde was sitting in the town square one beautiful spring afternoon, enjoying the warming sun and the azaleas as people walked by. A few would sometimes drop change in his faded, fraying plaid fedora when he saw a man walking by with a bag from the pharmacy dangling in his hand.
“Doobie Brother! Is that you?”
“Hey Clyde! What the heck are you doin’ out here? Last time I saw you, you were workin’ in the Spinning room at Foster’s Mill!”
“It’s shameful my friend, shameful. My woman done left me and took my boy, the car broke down long ago on the side of the highway and don’t you know they closed down Foster’s 10 years back?”
“Heck Clyde, I ain’t been in the real world in a long time. Say, you got enough to eat today? I got my food stamps from the county a couple of days ago.”
“Doobie, don’ you know nothin’? I can’t take no charity from a man who needs it himself. Jesus wouldn’t like that one bit.”
“Well, alright Clyde. I’ll see you around brother?” the man leaned down and grabbed Clyde’s hand, giving him a brief hug before he turned to walk off. He got a few steps away when Clyde called back to him.
“Hey Doobie! Come on back here for a second.”
“What’s up man? You sure you don’t need somethin’?”
“It ain’t ’bout that, no. I just want to know how you got your name?”
Doobie Brother was a junkie a lot like Clyde, had gotten on the freight train for a ride a long time ago but kicked the habit some 20 years back. He told Clyde that one night, while he was stone drunk and walking to the liquor store to buy some Wild Turkey, he ran into a deputy he knew at the jail. “Used to call him Daddy Lonzo,” Doobie said.
“Now he was just wearin’ his regular clothes, and as I was walkin’ in the store I said ‘Hey Daddy Lonzo, how you doin’?’ We talked for ’bout a minute or two, then I asked him if he knew where I could get myself a fat, left-handed cigarette.”
“What? You asked a cop that question? You’re ’bout crazy Doobie.”
Doobie laughed. “I ain’t crazy, but I’m a burger and fries short of a happy meal, and if I ain’t that then I’m a few beers short of a six pack with the rest of them with holes spewin’ beer out the side.”
They laughed again for a minute, and Doobie gave Clyde a cigarette. Once lit, Clyde asked Doobie what happened next.
“Well, Daddy Lonzo done pulled out his wallet and showed me his badge. He said to me ‘Boy, get your drunk self home before I throw you in lockup for the night.’”
“So you went home?”
“Dang right I did, I turned ’round and ran home like I’d done stole somethin’.”
“That’s crazy Doobie. But that don’t explain the nickname.”
“Well, I saw Daddy Lonzo a few months later when he was over at the Western Sizzlin’, and he came up to me and said ‘Hey Doobie Brother! Know where I can get a fat one?’”
From then on, Doobie Brother stuck to him like a rat stuck in a trap.
“That’s great Doobie. So tell me, you got yourself a fat one?”
Leave a Reply