Rednecks

If you’re really curious about the various native species of West Tennessee or West Kentucky, you can manage to find books documenting all the fascinating animals and plants that live here. In fact, I myself own a book entitled Wildflowers and Ferns of Kentucky; it states quite clearly which plants are found in the western part of the state, and gives all kinds of useful information like Latin names and venation patterns to anyone determined to know such things.

But that’s exactly the kind of information least useful to the dominant species of the area: the redneck. And, given that the redneck proliferates in West Tennessee and West Kentucky, it’s amazing that so little documentary information is available to those who would choose to study them.

Of course, non-rednecks who live here already know enough about rednecks to love them or hate them, and don’t seem to be interested in further research either way. And people who live in other places inhabited by rednecks simply assume, I suppose, that their rednecks pretty much exemplify rednecks everywhere, and leave it at that. Then there’re those folks who live where there are no rednecks, and they seem not to think about them much at all, except to laugh when the comedian on TV says you know you’re a redneck if your family tree doesn’t fork. Rednecks themselves tend not to read very much, generally preferring to rent the video at Piggly Wiggly.

Unfortunately, this is not likely to be the sort of book that Hollywood, or wherever they stash moviemakers these days, is likely to turn into a video available for rent at Piggly Wiggly. And with no apparent audience, this book may very well be an exercise in futility. Chalk it up to academic integrity, then, and say I feel a need to fill the gap in documentation of the area. Or simply say that I have been witness to too many wonderful stories not to set them down in print, and have decided to cheer up the one or two extraordinary souls who might be interested in hearing our tales.

In any case, settle in and enjoy. If you want to feel like a native, get a can of beer, a kitchen chair, and a flyswatter, and head outside. Of course, if you get too involved in the native feel, you’ll get distracted by the flyswatter and forget to read the book, so perhaps you should distance yourself. A cup of hot Earl Grey, white, ought to be alien enough to the redneck mindset to suffice.

REPRODUCTION

This is obviously an important topic to discuss in documenting any species of organism. It’s also a good choice for a first chapter, because it involves a subject everybody’s interested in.

You may not have known that there’s two types of rednecks, and that they have entirely different means of reproduction: there’s the faithful churchgoers, and the anything-but-faithful churchgoers. The distinction is a bit confusing at first, since a random redneck of either group will probably claim to be Baptist, and will even be able to name the specific congregation to which he belongs. Luckily, their reproductive methods distinguish them simply.

Baptists reproduce asexually. Someone gets a call to preach, and founds a church. Eventually his church grows until there’s entirely too many Baptists to get along together, and a big fight breaks out. The fight may very well be over some matter of theology, but it’s almost as likely to be over some secular matter, like why Billy Ferguson put a big black lightning bolt down the side of his truck when he knew that Jimmy Anderson was planning on using the exact same design on his truck, as soon as he got the money together for the paint... In any case, when Billy and Jimmy realize they simply cannot worship together anymore, the community takes sides, and the church splits. Usually whichever side won the existing preacher gets to keep the church building with him. (No, you politically-correct armchair editors, I do not mean “him or her”. Redneck Baptists do not have female preachers. Men preach. Women cook potluck suppers. So there.) Anyway, now the comunity has two Baptist churches, where before there was one. The church itself has reproduced by fission, which you can look up in any junior-high biology book, and which I will not explain further here.

“But how,” you’re asking, “do these people get children?” Ah, you’re close to what links the two halves of the redneck community together. See, the Faithful Baptists, with their new church, will instantly start to Evangelize, and recruit new members. First, they will sponsor “Slurp-n-Burps”, potluck lunches and suppers after church designed to draw in people who want free food and are willing to listen to a prayer or two if they don’t have to pay to eat. Once they’ve got a few of the Unfaithful Baptists in the door, they start talking about their other enticements: things like the church van that will come take all your children away for a few hours every Sunday morning, safely of course, and even let you feel good about yourself for contributing to the health of their immortal souls while you use the time to sleep in and perhaps work on creating new children for the church. Once they’ve started you dreaming about how to spend those few blessed hours a week, they hit you with the big one: Vacation Bible School. Smack in the middle of the summer, when the public school system refuses to babysit at all, the Baptists sweep in with smiling offers to care for your beloved little rugrats all day, every day, for a whole week! In fact, the various Baptist congregations even stagger their Bible Schools, so that you can ditch your kids for six or seven weeks running, all in the name of “fellowship.” What loving redneck parent could refuse? Then they hit you with the church softball team, the youth group, the choir...and hey! The Faithful Baptists have kids! Of course, a good number of Unfaithful Baptist parents are saved in the process, which explains why some Faithful Baptists have offspring of their own. Because once you’re a Faithful Baptist, you don’t have sex. Period. Or at least you don’t talk about it.

But this discussion has already introduced the second reproductive type of redneck, the Unfaithful Baptist. These are the people who’ve only been saved once or twice, probably as children, and apparently not for real, since once you’re saved for real, you’re saved. But the Unfaithful Baptists are putting off being saved for real, because they’ve discovered that sin is fun. And they don’t yet have the self discipline to give up the joys of sin, and try to convince themselves that singing in the church choir is fun. So, they still do hideous, dirty things like have sex and produce children. (Which is actually necessary for the Faithful Baptists to continue to exist, but of course they don’t see it that way.)

Now, any documentary would be incomplete without a discussion of the mating habits of its subjects. Besides, redneck mating habits are a unique and fascinating topic. Imagine the Piggly Wiggly nature-film documentary as it zooms in on the traditional meeting place of prospective redneck mates: the Wal-Mart parking lot. It’s dark, the store has just closed, and the parking lot teems with life. Some have just been evicted from the the aisles of imitation Tupperware, fashionable fall clothing, or automotive goods. Others have just pulled up to join the festivities in pick-up trucks, huge white-rust-and-primer land barges of grumbling cars, or teenie-bopper sports cars. The mood is set for passion with the thumping bass beats of eighteen different bands bellowing together from as many stereos competing for attention. Teen-agers and young adults line the lowered tailgates of freshly scrubbed (or muddied, according to taste and the day’s activities) red, black, white, and blue pick-ups, socializing and watching their comrades come and go as they “cruise the strip” and return for another beer. Every now and then a police officer cruises by, but as long as nobody’s breaking into anywhere and there hasn’t been an actual call to break up a fight, they just move on by in the dark. Unless, of course, they’re bored, or the microwave at the all-night gas station and convenience store is on the fritz and they can’t heat up a frozen burrito for the road, which makes them inclined to be grumpy--in that case, they may pull up and hastle a few people at random with such brilliant conversations as these:

“What’cha doin’, boy?”
“Nuthin.”
“You’re not drinkin’ any beer, are you?”
“No, sir.”
“No, dope?”
“No, sir.”
“You’re Sally Ferguson’s boy, aren’t you?”
“Yessir.”
“Your mama cooks my breakfast every morning at Rudy’s restaurant. Makes one hell of a sausage gravy...Wait a minute. Didn’t she say you were grounded ‘cause you cussed her when she told you to bring in the laundry?”
“She got tired of me bein’ underfoot, sir, so she beat me again and let me out. I’ll show you the marks if you want, sir.”
“Nah, that’s OK. I believe you. Just don’t cuss your mama no more. She’s a good lady. And don’t you start drinkin’ beer or smokin’ dope, neither, or I might just drag you home before I take you to jail, and let your mama have a go at you first.”
“Yessir.”

At which point, the police officer will return to his car, his mood improved, and Billy Ferguson will reach under the front seat of his truck with the brand-new black lightning streaking down the side, and cuss when he realizes he spilled his beer trying to stash it in a hurry when the cop pulled up.

Which brings us back to the mating thing, since Billy Ferguson is bound to be the center of attention as soon as the cop is out of sight. So Billy becomes a momentary hero, and when the cute brunette who works the cash register at Piggly Wiggly asks him how he managed to hide the spilled beer, Billy can grin and pull the joint out of the front of his pants --where he shoved it just before he spilled his beer when the cop pulled up. And when the brunette’s lips close around the end of the joint and she inhales so deeply her bra size increases by two whole sizes, Billy can reflect on how she’s holding in her mouth an item that was so recently in such close proximity to his dick. The brunette, for her part, can reflect on the same thing, and hope she managed to inhale just right to attract attention to her breasts. And, when Billy asks her if she’d like to cruise the strip and see who’s up at the Dairy Queen, the rest of the gathered crowd can smell the pheromones, take the hint, and let Billy and the brunette pull off alone.

After the obligatory ride past the Dairy Queen to see who’s at the other end of the strip, and maybe even a Blizzard if Billy has any money on him, he’s free to head out past the city limit and the street lights to the clearing just off Tobacco Road, where the cops don’t patrol and even Billy only goes to Fuck. And, later, Billy can relax with her long dark hair lying across his chest as he reclines in the back of his truck, happily rolling another joint from the Ziploc Baggie cleverly hidden in his tool box, while the brunette points out Orion and the Big Dipper above them. Billy, content, considers whether he ought to ask her out for real, to pick her up at her house to cruise the strip next weekend with him, maybe even to find a party and at least to buy her another Blizzard. After all, she just sucked his dick and even got on top for awhile, so she may just be the best lay he’s ever had.

Billy and the brunette may be typical of redneck teenagers, but teenagers aren’t the only rednecks who mate. Peggy, who lives in a rented white frame house on the highway near Kentucky Lake, has outgrown such childish rituals. She hasn’t been to Wal-Mart after hours since the birth of her second child; there’s no need to go risk being hassled by the cops when she has her own home. When her neighbors gather to party at her house, they don’t have to worry about such things. If a cop did knock on the door, her husband Mark would answer with his gun in his hand, and ask if they have a Search Warrant. And they wouldn’t, because they don’t do anything really illegal. Cops can only get search warrants for crack houses in the big city, or for big-time stolen property, or if somebody tips them off. And nobody’s going to tip the cops on Peggy’s house, because Mark would kill them. Besides, nobody there moves enough dope for Crimestoppers to pay anything, so why would anybody want to narc them out? And the cops don’t really care about dope...

But the point is, Mark and Peggy and their neighbors can party at home. Most evenings a group of friends gathers in the living room, and

Return to the Library.
Return to the Front Door.
E-mail me at Weavre_@hotmail.com.