JIMMY WHO?

Once a year The Brothers gather at Junie Bogart's place at Paradise Pond after a long day on the links. I don't golf and neither does Bird, so we join the party as the sun dips into the calm water. The Brothers are a loosely knit group that dates back to our high school days in the mid sixties. 40 years of stories are tossed around in between knife throws and beers. Milawyer is there, as is his West Virginia ex law partner Kazerino. We are all pretty good liars, but most of the stories don't even have to be embellished. There was the time the boat got stolen and 14 people packed in it for a 70 mph ride down the ski slope. Then there was the day Les More and Unki Harold trucked a pig to the slaughter house and the pig fell out of the truck. By the time they got the busted up porker to the butcher he wouldn't even cut it up. There wasn't one piece of unbruised bacon left on the poor beast. And who can forget the time Crowbar got bit by a black snake and fell into the white water gorge and lost all his clothes.......Wait a minute. I never heard this one before.
I look up from my drink and immediately know why this tale sounds unfamiliar. The raspy giggle of the narrator belongs to none other than Jimmy Who? JW and I worked our first job together as roofers and in the many years since he has never falled to put a smile on my face. Like I say, we are all pretty good liars but Jimmy Who? stands head and shoulders above all Brothers in spinning a yarn. But back to the snake.
"We were canoeing down the Neversink gorge and Crowbar was walking along one of those narrow ledges where the river's only six feet wide and solid white water. O'Reilly was behind him when all of a sudden a monster black snake that had been sunning on one of those rocks bit Crowbar in the neck. He fell in the rapids with the snake attached to his neck. O'Reilly just stood there dumbfounded. Les More and I were down stream. We had split the canoe on a rock earlier in the day and lost all our food and beer. Then we see Crowbar, buck naked flapping his arms and screaming with a fucking snake attached to his neck......" At this point Jimmy Who? starts to giggle and snort drawing everyone in the room into the tale. "By the time we got Crowbar out he was almost dead. But you know Crowbar, he was always so stoned it was hard to tell. Then we broke in a hunting camp down river. There was two refridgerators. One was filled with food and the other was packed with beer. We drank all but the last line of beer and moved it to the front of the fridge, so it looked like it wasn't touched. Crowbar found some clothes and we hiked out. Come on. Let's throw some knives." I can't wait 'til next year.