The Great Squirrel Hunt of 1977

I wanted to tell this story that took place in Oland Township, Oland County, Texas, when I was a kid.

The story is about Billy Bob Dupree. Saying that he was a mean kid doesn't seem enough; many people believed he was borderline evil. In the third grade, for instance, he shot a spitball at our teacher, Sister Margaret Olive, and hit her in the eye. He did it on purpose, too-- it wasn't even an accident. He wouldn't apologize, either, not even after getting a good whupping by Sister Margaret and one of the other nuns. (Of course, it was already known, then, that they weren't supposed to be whupping the students, but because it was Billy Bob, nobody really complained, not even his parents.) Anyway, what showed how mean he was wasn't that he hit Sister Margaret in the eye; it was that afterward, she had to start wearing glasses, and Billy started calling her Sister Four-Eyes, without a pinch of guilt that he was the one responsible for it in the first place. Thatwas how mean Billy Bob was.

Anyway, I was walking through Beauchamp Park one summer day, bored and looking for something to do, when I ran across Billy Bob. He was standing at the base of one of the old oak trees that graced the rolling green expanses of the park, and he was sneering up at the tree and apparently talking to himself.

Most kids would avoid Billy Bob at all costs, but I didn't care much. I'd had a run-in with him last year, and survived. I hadn't won, though; it was a short grabbling match that ended with me losing my balance and falling on my face and Billy Bob losing his balance and falling, with his considerable bulk, on my back. I had blacked out for a moment, and had-- or, anyway, I think I had-- what people call a near-death experience. It had been as though I was floating over the scene; I could see the two of us on the ground, and after Billy Bob struggled to his feet, he gave me a good kick in the ribs while I was unconscious.

After that, I never found Billy Bob that scary.

So I just stood there and watched as he spouted off at the tree. It was a curious sight, really; Billy Bob was a lot of things, but never talking-to-hisself crazy.

Finally my curiosity got the best of me, and I called over to him, “Hey, Billy Bob, what are you doing?”

He looked away from the tree long enough to snarl, “Mind your own business, Fireplug.”

He always called me Fireplug, and I could never figured why. I was tall and pretty skinny and it never made any sense to call me Fireplug. Bean-pole would certainly be more fitting.

I edged my way toward Billy Bob, until I could finally see the squirrel he had apparently run up the tree. It was just like him to torment tiny, defenseless creatures.

The squirrel was sitting on one of the lower branches. It was gazing down at Billy Bob as he cussed at it, and otherwise tried to intimidate it into coming out of the tree.

The squirrel wouldn't budge, though, but it began to chatter down at Billy Bob rather angrily.

The chattering sound a lot like laughing, and Billy Bob became irate. His chubby cheeks grew a dark shade of pink, and he started to sputter his words so that you couldn't understand them. Finally he was so enraged he lunged at the tree trunk, grabbed it with his fat hands, and tried to shake the entire tree. Now, Billy Bob was big, but nobody was big enough to shake that old oak tree. He just looked ridiculous in the attempt, and as though the squirrel recognized what a big dummy Billy Bob was, it chattered even louder.

Billy Bob, then, gave up on the tree, and started looking for rocks to hurl at the squirrel.

“Hey, why don't you just leave it alone?” I called out to him.

He just looked up to glare at me, and then resumed scanning the ground for good throwing stones.

When he had a good supply of ammo piled at his feet, he started to chuck the stones at the squirrel, who ran to and fro on the branch, evading the rocks, stopping now and then to chatter fiercely.

I called out to Billy Bob that he would never hit the squirrel, and he spun round and threw a stone that hit me right in the kneecap before he returned his attention to the squirrel.

In the end the squirrel seemed to become bored with Billy Bob, so it scampered down the opposite side of the tree trunk, and started to bolt across an open grassy area of the park.