Part 2.....

by RayLee, Sunday, March 29, 2026, 23:38 (16 hours, 49 minutes ago) @ JimT

The Tift.....

There never has been and probably never will be again a bromance like unto Pill and Razor's. I was there when it blossomed and I was there when it cooled in an instant. This unlikely friendship, purely platonic, between two absolutely straight fellows defied customs and conventions and amazed and perplexed their peers in particular and the citizenry of our fair city in general.

Razor was of near purebred nubian stock, "bluegum" was the now obsolete description and of pantherish, radical marxist ideological leanings.

Pill was as caucasian as could be without being either an albino or a vampire. Not to mention that his 19th century antecedents were wont to mob together in the greater ballplay swamp and coosa river bottoms, costumed in the guise of restless confederate haints, performing secret luciferian pyromaniacal rites to intimidate the reconstruction era freedmen.

How Pill and Razor got to be best buds I think I covered sufficiently in the last installment.

The next day after the sewerage lagoon incident, me and Pill and Razor in truck #9 drove to Ida's cafe for tiffin. The whole way, Razor, flatteringly going on and on in his gratitude to Pill and didn't stop at that particular feeding trough. If I remember correctly, Pill didn't have to pay for his own breaktime or luncheon refreshments for many months thereafter..... Razor's treat ! And that is how the bromance began.

For quite a while, several years, in fact, Pill and Razor seemed inseparable. Evenings at Razor's pub, Pill, abstemous due to gastric ulcers, never had to pay for another ginger ale. Then there were the weekend excursions to greene county for the dog races and to the poarch-creek reservation for the slots and blackjack. Not to mention quite a few fishing trips on the rivers coosa and tennessee.

But, alas, all good things seem to eventually come to an end. Like I mentioned before, I was there also when the paisanos had their falling-out. Here is how it came about.....

One day James Dudley and Pill were crewing truck number nine where Dudley was regaling Pill with humorous anecdotes from his halcyon days as a patona city policeman. Unknown to both, the transmit paddle on the truck's radio mic. was keyed and everyone with a receiver tuned to that frequency within a hundred miles could hear.

Dudley was telling of one incident when he and doorknob frady had had to arrest and detain Razor for drunk and disorderly. Razor took obvious philosophical objection to being incarcerated and began to vigorously resist said incarceration. In the fracas Dudley was severely bitten and wisely resorted to the local emergency room for treatment.

The wounds were cleaned and disinfected and bandaged and a tetanus booster was injected but it was suggested that Dudley be admitted overnight for observation. The lovely miss olene pence, r.n., explained that intravenous antibiotics might be necessary in case of blood poisoning setting-in caused by the biter being a "bluegum".

As awfully racially insensitive as this sounds today, that was the then prevalent medical opinion of the day. Of course Pill just casually and absent mindedly laughed at this point of the story not knowing that all was being transmitted.

Well you can guess who overheard ? Razor, due to a turned ankle was on light-duty at the city barn monitoring radio traffic. When truck number nine rolled-in he limped out and accosted Pill and Dudley, glaring at them with that furious browed apeish expression of ire. Pill's defense was that he himself had had no part of the uttering of any vile racial slur or expletive.

Razor just sadly replied, " But you laughed, Pill. You laughed."

And that is how, from Razor's perspective, the bromance died.....