THE BOOZY BANSHEE OF BRANNOCK-A-BEND
Chapter 1: Mad Dash Irish Whiskey... More or Less
by
Peter "Lou" D'Alessio
Copyright © 2012
“I’m really gittin’ tired of this crap!” Beauregard Eustace Calhoun, number 68, was reaching down to grab O’Neil’s, number 24, facemask and the left chest extension of his shoulder pad to hoist him off the turf. He was sunk so deep into the Tennessee mud, he made a sucking noise as Beau popped him out. Calhoun dwarfed the halfback... actually, Beau dwarfed most folk and a lot of cattle, and was so wide most of his teammates referred to him as “Haystacks” after an old 1950s wrestler.
Anywho, Beau dwarfed the halfback and they were, to look at, opposites in most other things, too. But their philosophical outlooks united them—a love of legally hitting people on the football field. In truth, they were worlds apart. Beau was a redneck lineman from Mississippi, and O’Neil was a redneck halfback from Kentucky. But they had three things in common: They both believed that if you blocked someone, it had to hurt you just a little less than it hurt them, they were both southern rednecks at heart with all the faults and awards that go with it, and they were both putting in their time for a league pension.
In nearly a decade as teammates, the two had formed a solid friendship. They roomed together on road trips, got tossed from the same bars, slept with the same women (not at the same time... usually), hunted and fished together in the off season and, being down-home-corn-bread-fed semi-moderate hillbillies, when the coaches weren’t looking they set up a still in an old equipment locker under the stands and turned out jugs of down-home-corn-bread-fed semi-moderate moonshine—to the detriment of the coaches and owners and the amusement of the rookies. Calhoun supplied the ancient family recipe and O’Neil used his chemistry degree to improve its fitness for human consumption without killing what put the kick in the Kickapoo juice. After O’Neil had replaced the car radiator that Beau had used with a more sanitary and less toxic device, the business blossomed and the two began supplying rednecks all over the NFL with jugs of top quality down-home.
Mike O’Neil had been a Chemistry Major with a football scholarship at the University of Kentucky. He was a quiet guy that most saw as an old world Kentucky gentleman. If you didn’t know he played pro football (and with Tennessee’s record, most folk didn’t), you’d think he taught Math at the local community college. It belied the fact that O’Neil, at a moment’s notice, could turn as crazy as a shit-house rat in the finest rebel tradition.
Now, old Beau, he was born at a ton and a half, seemingly dumb as a Mississippi tree stump. But Old Beau, he did have two great God-given gifts: he was a candidate for All-American by the time he was six, and he was really great at hiding just how smart, if truth were told, he actually was! He realized at a young age that if he kept his trap shut and played football he’d always get along, thereby having more time for hunting and fishing in the off-seasons and finding new twists to the old family recipe—all the finer things in life.
They joined a “rebuilding” Tennessee football team together in the same year. Beauregard was the #3 draft pick. O’Neil was a walk-on, an okay runner with the unique ability to knock down linebackers twice his size. Both had picked Tennessee as “their team” as far as back as their teen years because it was one of the few true southern teams in the league. For a Southern team, however, there were damned few rebs playin’ for them. So O’Neil and Beau became the butt of constant redneck jokes and suffered for years at the hands of the Yankee ball players, coaches, and owners. But the two rednecks had the last laugh. After ten years, outside of them, there weren’t nobody left from their rookie year—no players, no coaches, no trainers, no doctors, no equipment handlers, even the ownership had changed! And Tennessee was still rebuilding.
The rain throughout the entire game had been torrential. In the south, you never had snow, but the rains did old Noah proud. The water crashing down on their helmets made hearing tough. “Yeah,” O’Neil nodded, “I’m gittin’ kinda fed up with this idiot kid, too!” The new hot dog quarterback seemed hell-bent on killing his line and blockers with some really strange play calling, and the coach (rumored to be on the way out) was letting him do it.
“Are we got our pensions yet?” Beau spit out with a mouthful of sod. They had decided long ago to be smarter than Jim Brown had been, and try to stay in pro football long enough to earn pensions without begging for them. “How mush longer we gots to wait?”
O’Neil lifted his face up into the rain, which was now at fire hose force. “Judgin’ by the sun, Beau, I’d say... right after the gun sounds at the end of this here game!”
“We wanna go another year, Boss?”
“Not a chance. Ten and out!”
“You two shut up and get in the huddle!” the quarterback snapped.
The southerners just looked at each other. This kid was a real butt-wipe.
“Go ’head, Beau, let that linebacka in on ’im. Dat fool deserves to get flattened.” O’Neil’s rebel came out when he was getting angry or annoyed.
“We’re only down by five... we can still win this!” the QB was barking out. “Hook left, lateral right, run right post. On one!” The two old pros looked at each other, winced, and turned, walking slowly towards the line of scrimmage.
“Hey boss, we really gonna try a flea flicka play in dis rain?” The guard just looked sorrowfully at his old friend. As soon as O’Neil flipped the ball back to the quarterback to pass downfield, he was going to get sliced, diced, and creamed. “My ass, Beau! Soon as the young twit hands me the ball, knock the hell out of who evah’s in front of you.”
“Ain’t the coach gonna git mad wid us for bustin’ the play?”
“What d’fuk do we care? We is quittin anyway!”
“Oh yeahhh!” An evil grin spread across the lineman”s face.
As much as O’Neil liked blocking guys out, he wasn’t all that fond of being hit himself. He was cold, wet, beaten up, in a foul mood, and had no mind to be dragged down in the mud again by some randy tackler. As soon as he was handed the ball, he took off for parts unknown. He vaulted over old Beau, slammed into and dropped a defender who tried to shoulder-tackle him, then dashed forty-nine yards, weaving in and out of defenders like a deer with a load of buckshot in his butt. The Tennessee press would forever refer to it as “O’Neil’s Mad Dash.”
The downside of being a blocking back is that you don’t get to score that often. The sounds of the crowd exploded through the ear holes of his helmet as he crossed the goal line—then a second time, when Beau finally caught up with his friend, hoisting him several feet in the air. There was an even more boisterous explosion. The second roar was deafening.
“Hell, I knew they liked me, but...”
“It ain’t you, boss. Dallas beat New England and the Jets gots buried by Cleveland. Damn, boy, you done jes put us in the play-offs with an eight-and-eight record. Dey could be four more games ’fore we gets ta go fishin’! Or retirin’.”
O’Neil shook his head in disgust. Being an old pro he did it with a big smile for the crowd’s benefit. “Cleveland, huh? I knew I should have tripped and fell on the five yard line.”
The best the Tennessee Gray Generals football team had done in its twenty-nine seasons history was a nine and seven record in its second year. Sixteen coaches, three owners, innumerable “star” players, and one playoff game—in that second season—and they were done. After that second season, heretofore known as “The Good Ole Daze,” five victories had become a winning season for fans who were happy with much less and only measured against previous General records! Position in the league standings no longer mattered to O’Neil and Calhoun. They had already planned a deer hunting trip to Pennsy as a reward for a successful seven and nine losing season. An extended extended season moving them towards the Super Bowl could cost them not only the winter bow deer season, but leave them with nothing to do but catfish until trout season began in April. After nine years of actually wanting to make the playoffs, this was going to be downright inconvenient! They really wanted to get it over with, pack their bags, and escape the NFL. It was fun at twenty-four... but ten years later, it wasn’t what it was cracked up to be for them anymore.
But try as they might to play their usual game, they kept on winning. For the first time in his pro career, O’Neil had back-to-back 100-yard games. They were only eighteen seconds away from the Super Bowl when their hot shot young quarterback, instead of downing the ball to attempt a winning field goal, tried to toss his first touchdown in the playoffs. To the absolute horror of several million Tennessee fans, he tossed it right over O’Neil’s upturned hands into the loving arms of a New York Giants safety... who proceeded to run the length of the field, setting a record and destroying the dreams of old Dixie once and for all.
Tennessee cried out for Calhoun and O’Neil to stay and the quarterback to be tarred, feathered, and traded. But the die was cast and the deer blinds built!
It was nice to be offered big money. NFL top linemen are paid well, but not big like the backs, and second team backs are often made to feel like they’re in only the semi-moderate big time. The Generals tried to coax both Calhoun and O’Neil with fairly good money increases. But over the last two years, both had been made to feel like a pair of comfortable old shoes—good to own, but one step from the garbage heap. The press had referred to them as “hangers-on,” and it was enough to push them over the line of their redneck pride. It was like saying that the South not only weren’t gonna rise again, it hadn’t risen in the first place!
Well... it had. It had been fun in a perverse way, but it was time for these two rednecks to go.
“Ga’dammit, O’Neil, I caught me ’nudder fish!”
O’Neil flipped his coolrays down over his regular glasses. For the last few years he had hidden the fact that he now needed eyeglasses. It was a relief to be free. He hated contact lenses... there was no place to clip his coolrays to with contacts. He peered over Beau’s pole into the dark waters beyond. “I think you’re right, Homer. It’s a big ole catfish, an’ dat ole boy ain’t none too happy ’bout you hookin’ him.” Beau gave the pole a couple of quick jerks to set the hook, then he flipped the bale on the reel open and let the line out free. “What the hell are you doin’?” asked O’Neil.
Calhoun just looked at him. “What else I got to do today?” The giant shrugged and reached over the side of the bass boat where two six-packs hung being used as a sea anchor. There was a look of despondent boredom on his face. “Damn boat’s seen better days,” the lineman mused.
“Hell Beau, it’s been sittin’ in yer driveway for nine years! The good ship ‘redneck’ took one hell of a beatin’ with all dem cars runnin’ into it.”
They had flown back to Mississippi within minutes of the final gun. They’d showered, shaved, packed up the still, climbed off the plane right into Beau’s boat and fished for a month solid. They had caught, cleaned, cooked, barbequed and eaten enough bass (is dey outa season, officer?... I never knew dat!) and catfish from the small lake behind Calhoun’s ole homestead to grow gills, scales, fins, and whiskers. Now the thrill of complete freedom was evaporating and the reality was sinking in of being thirty-four and retired with only a few bucks in the bank and no viable options for the future.
O’Neil had the kind of smile that little boys have when their moms catch them with their hands in the cookie jar—the kind of smile that, instead of a slap on the rump, gets them a pat on the head and more cookies. After ten years, Beau knew that smile... and it scared the sweet southern b’Jesus out of him—and he wasn’t afraid to say so! “I don’t like that smile, O’Neil. Ev’y time you smiles like dat, we gets suspended for two games!”
O’Neil flipped his coolrays up and leaned back, grabbing the beer Beau had popped opened for himself. “Now, Homer, do you really think I’d cut us loose without a thought to our future?” The halfback reached into the inside pocket of his canvas fishing vest. He withdrew two pieces of paper, which seemed to be letters. “Y’all ’member me tellin’ ya ’bout my ole aunt? Idy? The ole lady back in Ireland?”
“Your granny’s sister?”
“Yep... her. Well, the ole girl finally bought a ticket for the Milk & Honey express. She lef’ me some property in some place with a strange name that’s so small I can’t find it on a map, but it’s got a stream thatdumps into a pond, a small stone house, and a bunch of... I dunno what’cha calls ’im, caves with streams runnin’ through ’em. Lawyer sez she be buried somewhere in all dat. I figger we place a flower or two on the old lady’s grave and den we see what kind a fish they got in Ireland...”
Beau had a dazed look on his face, and it was deepening logger-rhythmically. “The ‘Milk & Honey express’?” Damn, boy, that’s kinda cold, ain’t it?”
O’Neil looked up from the beer can he was studying. What passed for the beer conceded to Americans always excited his love of chemistry. “I really never knew ’er. Don’t really think me n’ the ole girl had nothin’ in common. I ’member granny O’Neil sayin’ a bunch a’ times how she’d written her sister in the ole country about how alike Idy and me was, but I couldn’t see it. I can’t see a tea totalin’ ol’ lady playin’ in the European Football League. But it was nice of her to leave us an Irish fishin’ lodge. I figger we starts us off with a month or two fishin’ the family plot, then BANG! Off to Scotland for some high-class worm drownin’ for salmon. Then!”
“Uh-huh... Then?”
O’Neil slowly unfolded the second letter. “Dis here’s from Ennis Smothers.”
The name surprised old Beau, who clamped his jaw hard. For ten years in the pros and three years in college, he and Smothers had pounded on each other. The only reason they hadn’t broken out into nasty street fights was the mutual respect they had for each other—Smothers was a fellow redneck from Arkansas. “Wad d’hell do dat redneck bastid want wid us?”
“Y’all ’member back in the pre-season when we played him? I gave him and... what was that black kid’s name, the rookie from Georgia Tech?”
“Foxx?”
“Yeah, das him, Foxx. I give ’im both a jug a’ shine.” A big grin crossed Calhoun’s face. That last batch of moonshine was particularly potent. “Well... I filtered it through peated moss, or at least the chemical equivalent thereof—like they do Connemara...”
“Wad d’hell is dat?”
“It’s the county where my property is, an’ a kind of Irish Whiskey ma daddy used to drink. That peated malt makes it taste different from other Irish whiskey. I really didn’t know what the chemicals would actually do to the shine, an’ figgered, damn, it’s Smothers! What could it do to him? Make him go blind? Now get a load a’ dis!” O’Neil carefully unfolded the second piece of paper and, assertively pushing it forward, began to read. “ ‘Dear butt wipes’... that ugly bastid always had a way with words... ‘Dear butt wipes. What the hell was in that joy juice you gave us! We been sucking on them two bottles all season and, damn boy, even the offense likes it. It kicked like some really nasty-assed moonshine but was smooth as a really fine whiskey. Not the eight-dollah-a-quart crap they give you at the league banquets, but like the 150-dollah-a-pint stuff you buy when you’re trying to get in your wife’s sister’s chinos. This stuff is definitely panty remover. If you and Haystacks get tired of being men of leisure, give us a call. The entire Minnesota team wants to pay you two to bring this hooch to the world! With a printed label instead of the magic marker label, this shit will sell! As ever, Ennis, etcetera, etcetera.’ ” O’Neil looked over the outspread letter. “I figger we can call it ‘Mad Dash Irish Whiskey,’ ya know. Get a little free publicity while people still remember dat game. If we could sell a couple thousands bottles at twenny dollahs a pop...”
Beau just stared at his friend with a slightly panicky expression. “Where d’hell we gonna find a rady-ater big ’nuff to make dat much shine?”
“No, fool. We build a still worthy of the project from the ground up! No more ’quipment rooms! We gets us a whole garage!!!”
Beau’s mind went into overdrive as he searched through his brain for the proper Volvo or Peterbilt five-ton hauler front end for what he needed for his still. “Mad Dash Irish Whiskey,” he muttered reverently.
