Each year during football season a group of men from The Lakehouse would go to a game at Florida State and stay in Leonard’s cabin at Monticello. It wasn’t so much a cabin as it was a nice three/four bedroom house out in the middle of the tree farm. Tree farming was the business Leonard was in. He had worked as a salesman for the company for a number of years and then when the owner wanted to retire, Leonard and another employee bought him out. Leonard and his partner had a good arrangement. Leonard was Mr. Outside, wholesaleing the trees to big outfits like Wal-Mart and Home Depot, while his partner stayed in Monticello and grew them. Growing them was a fulltime, round the calendar job. Leonard sometimes made two trips a year to the home offices of his largest clients and could pre-sell an entire crop. His main concern was not getting so dependent on one or two large companies that they could begain to dictate price and market to him. Anyway over time Leonard had become quite prosperous and at first,had built the cabin to have a place to stay when he was in Montecello. In time he enlarged it and it became a place for he and his friends to go when they wanted to “slip away” and of course for partying.

A part of the ridual of the “boys weekend away” as the football trip came to be called, was Friday’s trip to Thomasville. For those able to come on Thursday night or Friday morning early, there was a golf game at the country club in Thomasville, followed by a trip to the poolroom for lunch. Lunch was always the same. Chilidogs and beer. The Billiard Acadeny in Thomasville, georgia, makes a unique chilidog. The weiners are boiled and they just fit the small buns. The bun gets a small amount of mustard, followed by chopped onions, the weiner, and just enough chili to cover the dog. The chili is not sloppy and running alover your hands. It is made of nothing except ground beef and some chili powder. you can take the whole thing and eat it without getting a drop on your hands. Nobody can eat just one. Matt once ate eight of them. The poolroom sells up to four hundred a day, many served out the walkup window in front, where those citizens that would not want to be seen coming into the poolroom, but still want their daily fix of chilidog, can order them by the sackfull. On this day Burch had five or six along with the beer to wash them down.

Another part of the ridual is to go by the farmer’s market and pick up some boiled peanuts. Boiled peanuts are a delicacy found mostly in south Georgia, and northern Florida. The peanuts are green when prepared, so the fall is the best time to get them. They are boiled in the shell, in water with the proper amount of salt and eaten immediately. No you don’t eat the shell, just the peanuts. The first time to try them takes the same amount of courage it must have taken to eat the first raw oyster. But they are addictive. Sometimes the “boys” would buy the peanuts already boiled and sometimes, as on this trip they bought a bushel and took them back to the cabin to boil their own. The boiled peanuts are best washed down by more beer. And by night fall most of the bushel was gone. Burch ate more than his share.

For the evening meal sometimes the “boys” stayed in and cooked steaks on the grill overlooking the pond behind the cabin. To do this someone had to remain sobere enough to cook. Generally that was Hop Sing, a nickname from the Chinese cook on the old Bonanza show, given to a retired Navy Lt.Cdr., or Ben, a retired USAF sargeant and metalsmith. On other occassions, like tonight they would go back into Thomasville to have a few “pops”, eat in a good restaurant, and run a few traps in the lounge.

Leonard had finished his meal and was sitting at the bar having his vodka and cranberry. He had struck a conversation with the lady one stool away and was just turning on his best lines, preparing to move a stool closer, and thinking tonight may be the night, when Burch came in and sat on the stool between Leonard and the lady. Burch immediately turned his back on Leonard and started talking to the lady. Burch is a guy who all his life has made his living by selling things to people that hey didn’t want or need. This lady was without a prayer.

Leonard sat there looking at the back of Burch’s neck, sputtering to himself. “What the fuck?”

Turning to his other side Leonard said to Hop Sing, “Get her back for me, Hop! Get her back!”

Hop got off his stool and walked around Leonard and down to wher Burch was romancing the lady. He listened for a minute, then turned and came back to his stool. “I think she’s gone, Leonard.” And Hop sat back down to his drink.

Soon, after the lounge music started, Burch and his lady were dancing every dance. Leonard was remorse. Here the stories vary. Leonard says he told Burch we are getting ready to go, and if you’re going with us, you etter kiss my girlfriend good night and come on. Burch says he told Leonard he would be right there. One thisng is sure. When Burch came out of the lounge the cars and the “boys” were gone.

Burch went back to the lounge and told the lady, “those fuckers run off and left me.”

She said, “Don’t worry about it big boy, I’ll see that you get where you want to go.” Or words to that effect, and they ordered another drink and had another dance.

The ride from Thomasville to the cabin outside Monticello is about 25 miles. The route the lady took to drive Burch was more like 50. She thought she knew a shortcut down some backroads that were mostly unpaved. Burch said she was driving like a madperson with the car sliding all over the road. It is uncertain how much her driving was affected my Burch’s hand up her skirt. Some where along the way they decided to stop the car so both of them could get better use of their hands and maybe stretch their legs in the backseat. As they prepared to “assume the position” and as the cool air hit Burch’s naked ass, the sum of all the chilidogs, green boiled peanuts, and beer hit with an immediate need. Lying there hunched in the backseat, Burch was wrestling with an dilemma: Do I try to make love to this lady, or do I answer the call of nature.

“Say,” says Burch. “You wouldn’t happen to have any tissues in your purse, would you? I mean, I really need to make a short stop out behind the car.”

The lady got up, grabbed her purse, and in somewhat disgust, handed him some semi-used kleenix after tearing off a piece that had a phone number on it. When Burch returned the romantic moment had passed and he asked her to just drive him to the cabin.

The cabin is located in the middle of the tree farm. It is nearly a mile from the closest road and can only be reached by following the rut-like dirt road through the trees. There is a gate guarding the road from intruders that normally has a chain wrapped around it making it appear locked. Tonight it was locked with a padlock. There was no way for the lady to get Burch closer than the gate-a mile from the cabin. It had started to rain. It was 2 A.M.

“God damn that no account bunch of fuckers,” said Burch as he climbed the gate and dropped into the mud on the other side. “God damn that bunch of no account motherfuckers,” he repeated for every step of the mile he had to slog through the ruts with the wind and rain in his face and the night so dark he could not see his hand in front of his face. “God damn them everyone, but especially that fucking Leonard.”

When Burch got to the cabin he was happy to finally see the outside light burning. He reached for the door knob. It was locked. Why would you lock a door to a cabin where seven grown men are sleeping, when the fucking place is out in the middle of nowhere? Only to piss me off, thought Burch. He banged on the door.

“Who is it?” came a voice from inside. It was Patterson. Patterson never sleeps at night. He was sitting up in the lounge chair in front of the fireplace, eating roasted peanuts and drinking beer.

“Who the fuck were you expecting?” shouted Burch. “It’s me. Open this fucking door before I kick it down.”

“OK.” said Patterson as he opened the door. “What are you doing out there anyway?”

“God damn bunch of sorry fuckers” said Burch as he headed for the bathroom to cleanup and possibly finish up. “I ain’t ever having anything else to do with them.”

That’s why it is a year later and they are back for “the boys weekend out”. Burch called from his car phone about an hour ago and told us he’s on his way out and can he bring anything. He also wanted to know if they were going into Thomasville, cause if they were, he would just meet them there rather than make the 25 mile ride to the cabin. He was told they were not going to Thomasville and to come on out.

Now the whole group is hidden in some underbrush across the road from the gate to the cabin. The gate has a padlock on it. There is a note saying we changed our minds. We are in Thomasville. Beside the note, hanging on the gate is a fresh roll of toilet paper. They can hear the diesel motor of Burch’s 300D down the road. Somebody snickers. Leonard says, “God damn this is gonna be good. We’re gonna get that fucker again!”