"I'm Juck Pulver and I'm from Marion, Indiana

known colloquially as a "life ruiner".

Juck Pulver (Toots' Uncle) is a man among men. He knows how yank a wrench, and he knows how to roll a joint. As a sad matter of principle in today's economy, Juck spends more time rolling joints than he does with his wrenches.

Juck's life had recently taken a strange turn when he won tickets to The Country Music Awards down in Nashville from a radio contest WKKK here in Indianapolis was holding, and he was arrested, on the same day. Well, within hours of each other. Technically he was arrested at the exact same time - a quirk in the space time continuum caused by half of Indiana observing daylight savings time and half of it not.

At 1AM on Saturday Juck was at home, enjoying a joint, and listening to the radio. He thought that today's country just wasn't the same it was when his daddy was driving trucks, but sure as hell beat that crap his brother listened to like Deep Purple. He liked that song Tush, but he just didn't quite understand why it had to be so loud. And he was pretty sure none of them could tell the difference between a head gasket and a fuel intake valve. Like George Jones could. Or Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash worked the motor pool when he was in the Army. That's a man who could crank a wrench, write a song, drink a damn beer.

The DJ was doing okay tonight. He was playing old Hank Williams tunes. He announced a contest.

"The 3rd caller that can tell me where Hank Williams, Sr. was from gets two tickets to a very prestigious event. The type of event where you get to hob nob with the hoi poilloi. You may even need a suit. Or a tux. And if you're a silver tongued devil like me, you might get lucky. That's right sports fans, we've got us 2 genuine, bonafide tickets to The Country Music Awards in Nashville. You gotta get yourself to Nashville, but we'll get ya into The Opry."

Well, Juck may know more about rolling joints and yanking wrenches than he does about balancing checkbooks or making rent, but by God he knows. Hank Williams.

First dial was busy. Second dial he hears someone on the phone. The caller blurts out a loud "I know the answer and I'm goin ta Nashville! Hank Williams was from Alabama!"

"Where in Alabama?"

"Oh, oh, oh...oh...."

"Caller, I need a city"

"Birmingham!"

"I'm sorry you might be going to Nashville, but you're not going with WKKK's tickets."

And then it happened. Juck got through. He could hear the DJ tell him to turn his radio down. He had cotton mouth. He took a quick pull on his can of Hamm's and he heard the DJ ask for his answer.

He thought he was going blank. He couldn't think. He couldn't conjure a thought, but he heard himself saying, in his best diction and enunciation, "Hank Williams was born in Georgiana, Alabama, but most people would consider him being from Montgomery, Alabama."

Damnit, Juck. You couldn't have just said one or the other? You had to try to show up the audience? You had to try to show up the DJ?

Then like it was being broadcast underwater, he heard the DJ's voice say

"You sir have just won yourself two tickets to The Country Music Awards in Nashville! What's your name and where ya from?"

"I'm Juck Pulver and I'm from Marion, Indiana," he lilted. And with that he was off the air and on the phone with the producer making arrangements to pick up the tickets.

He was mad that he was up that late because he had a job interview the next day. Well, it was more of a show-up-at-the-oil-changin-place-and-meet-the-owner-again thing, but Juck felt like if he and the owner hit it off, if he could just not say anything stupid, and show him how fast he could get up and down those metal stairs in the bay docks, and not smoke cigarettes while handling the big oil pumps, then well, maybe he'd get the job. And his buddy Rand Garver knew the owner, and Rand made $15/hour his first coupla months and had even gotten a raise.

But Juck knew he needed to get those tickets as soon as possible. And Juck was impulsive, so he ran out and fired up momma's Buick LeSabre. The kind of shit car he swore he'd never drive when he older. Well, he swore that to himself when he was younger, but wheels are wheels, man. And mom was asleep. And he could put a little back in the tank, and maybe she wouldn't notice and maybe she'd let him take the car down to Nashville for the CMA's.

All that was going through his mind as he headed to the station. It wasn't far. It wasn't across town.It wasn't around the corner, either. But it wasn't far. He made sure the lights were on 3 times, reached into his jean jacket and lit up a little number he'd rolled for the road. Oh that sweet smoke. He loved it. It didn't stop him from doing anything he wanted to do, and boy did it clear his head.

He tried to tune to WKKK, but like Juck did sometimes, he couldn't recall if they were 92.9 or 103.3. It was like the difference between 98.6 being average temperature, but 99 being almost a fever. It confused him. He didn't like being confused, but might admit, after a few of the little numbers and a coupla cans of Hamm's that he was perpetually confused. Though Juck certainly wouldn't use a word like perpetually. That's the type of word his brother the college boy would use.

But he futzed with the radio until he heard a good little twangy number about a Garden Party, and driving trucks, and decided WKKK or not, there's something to a song about driving trucks - like his dad used to - that was all right for a 2AM drive to pick up some CMA tickets.

Juck was trying to sort out what kind of party a lady brings her walrus to, or why a lady had a walrus for that matter, when he saw the blue lights behind him. Just what he didn't need. He licked his fingers and snuffed out the little number - he'd only had one or two pulls, and mom smoked More 100s, the thin long brown cigarettes, and the windows were down. No way the guy could tell he was a doper. Juck knew he wasn't a doper. Juck was a mechanic. Talk mechanic talk to him Juck.

He eased the LeSabre to the shoulder out on highway 61. He put the car in park. He turned down the radio. He looked over and he saw mom's pleather coin purse/cigarette holder and pulled out her last cigarette. He lit the cigarette, he took a long hard pull on it, rolled down the window, and saw the officer lifting his considerable girth out of the front of the car.

Now, Deputy Sheriff Herman Wojojowajicz had always been somewhat of a joke around Marion. It's not because he was fat, and it's not because he was ugly. He wasn't so ugly you would point at him and laugh, or turn away in disgust. It was more like...funny looking. Juck and him went to school from 2nd grade until they graduated. Juck seemed to recall Herm-O-Wich having a beard in 4th grade, and going bald in 6th. He was like that one story where the guy aged backwards, except he aged forward. Just a little faster than most of the kids. One of the only good things about Herm-O-Wich looking 38 in 9th grade was that he could buy beer. Juck always liked beer. Sure, he'd sniff glue, or carbona, or scotchguard, or freon, or really whatever household chemical was the one that "got you really fucked up" that week, but he liked beer. Like he liked weed. It was actually enjoyable, and without all that weird Twilight Zoning in your head.

And Herm-O-Wich wasn't a joke because he was fat. Don't misunderstand, Herm-O-Wich was FAT. Disgustingly so. Embarrassingly so. He swam with two t shirts on so you couldn't guage the cup of man-titties. He used to steal lunches from the littler kids, until the principal intervened and allowed Herm-O to get a "special" portion from the lunch line, even though, like most of the other kids, he was on reduced lunch. Reduced Lunch - Herm-O never ate a reduced anything.

No, Herm-O was was a joke because he was funny looking, fat, stupid, and mean. Mean in that dumb way where people think they're smarter than everyone else, and call everyone else stupid. Mean in the "try to say something facetiously but end up being creepy" type way. He never really had friends, but of course Juck and his buddies would get him to buy them beer or a bottle of rye, by giving him a couple bags of cookies or maybe some brownies. Or a sandwich. Or a bucket of chicken.

Juck was chuckling to himself as Herm-O got of the car remembering the time his buddy Burnsie jacked off in the biscuit of a KFC 3 piece, only to have Herm-O snatch it, eat the entire thing (did he eat the bones, too? Juck doesn't remember the bones making it back in the box) and then demand another 3 piece "with that fresh tasting biscuit before I but you little faggots some fuckin beer. And I want a 6 pack of tall boys, too! You gotta pay for it, little faggots!"

Ol Herm-O. No one liked him.

As Herm-O-Wich lumbered toward the car, Juck put flicked the cigarette out the passenger's side window, and got out his license, and the registration to his mom's car.

"Lasince n rergistertion" is how it sounded when Herm-O's fat tongue parted his fat lips, and got stuck against his fat jowls and he spat out the standard traffic cop spiel. "Deedja knew whah I pulltyover?"

Herm-O's fat lips, tongue, jowls, and mustache drooped to one side as he bent down to look into the window. He had one of those reedy, high pitched mountain twang-y voices, despite being from right there in Indianapolis. He talked like a TV preacher's stupid son. Which is basically what he was, his dad being a lay preacher in the Primitive Baptist New Church of Canaan over on the other side of town, past the radio station a ways.

Herm-O's eyes lit up when he saw Juck. Juck tensed a bit as Herm-O's mountain-fat-high-slur-in-excitement voice boomed.

"Will whutchu dwine ite this herrr, JUCK! I hain't sawed yoo sence that Fertha Jew-Lie perty coupla yeers'igo!"

Juck didn't quite know how to play it. He was pretty sure the cigarette funk from the car, the litter box for Tabby, momma's Siamese cat in the back seat, the just smoked cigarette and the cool night air, combined with Herm-O's stupidity would mask the smell of the skunk weed he had been smoking not 4 minutes ago. He wasn't so sure if he opened his mouth, though, if Herm-O wouldn't smell the 3 (4?) cans of Hamm's he'd had listening to that old twangy country on the radio before he had won those tickets. And he needed to make it to the station tonight to get those tickets!

"Well, uh, hey Herm-O-Wich! Yeah it's been uh, well, here's my license and momma's registration, see, this is my momma's car and all."

"HO-I-KNEWED whooyar, Juck! But thee din't cull me Herm-I-Wotch new mer."

Juck tensed a bit more. Herm-O could get flustered quickly. And then Herm-O could get stupid. And flustered and stupid Herm-O was a mean Herm-O. And a mean Herm-O with a badge, well, Juck just wasn't quite sure what would happen here.

"Thee cullt me Depoo-tie Wojo, nye, Juck!"

Juck thought it was going downhill. He was sure of it. He knew that Herm-O knew he liked his beers and his joints. And he knew how people got when they got a little power. Juck wasn't smart per se, like his brother the college boy, but he wasn't dumb either. No, Juck was a man's man. He knew how to yank a wrench, he knew how to roll a joint, and he knew what happened when fat-stupid-mean-dumb-high talkers from towns like Marion, IN got to put on badges, and carry guns and hand cuffs.

Then something Juck didn't expect to happen happened. Herm-O, er, Depoo-Tie Wojo smiled. He smiled, and then he laughed. At first it would have been what you call a guffaw, but then he started wheezing, and bellowing, and it was the full on belly laugh of a man who can barely walk under his own power having an out of body experience at some kind of cosmic joke. "Jesus," Juck muttered to himself. "I'm fucking stoned."

But Depoo-Tie Wojo just kept right on belly laughing, and wheezed out something that Juck thought he understood to be "Can you believe they gave a dumb fuck like me a badge and a gun! I been arrestin little faggots for 5 years now!" but sounded more like "Kidyooblee they gaymee a dumbfuck bdigengunn? Ibeenrestinlifaggits fih yeeersno."

Juck didn't know if this was a good sign or a bad sign. But Herm-O didn't seem to be too concerned with the traffic stop aspect of this encounter, only laughing at the cosmic joke of a kid who no one liked, but could but beer in 9th grade because he looked like he was 38th being a "Depoo-Tie" Sheriff in Marion County, IN. And Juck knew he had to get to the station before 2. Before the production manager passed out in the broom closet with the copy of Hustler.

Just then Herm-O stopped laughing. Almost like it was rehearsed. He exhaled a torrent of words that even Juck didn't quite understand.

"NILISTENLILFAGGIT! ISIDWHACHOOBEENDWYNEUHHEEYEHAFISSHERR?"

Juck, with all the calm he could muster, said. "Well, Herm, err, Deputy Wojo, I was at home listening to the radio by myself, they were playing all these good old twangy country songs. And since I been out of work, I been in the mood for some of those old twngy country songs. And I was just layin there listenin when the DJ asked anyone knew where Hank Williams was born - "

Just then Herm-O interrupted, this time a little more clearly.

"YOO LAHK HANK, LILFAGGIT?"

"Well, yeah, don't you remember that time in the graveyard with those chicks back in, hell, musta been, what, 10th grade?"

Herm-O's eyes got a little big, then beady. Then sort of far away, like he was trying to conjure something, and he started licking his lips, and Juck wasn't sure, but it looked like he was, well, conjuring a picture in his mind. Probably the same one he had, of their friend Todd Johnson rutting on Mindy Timmons from the back, her holding onto the gravestone of the town's founder Horace Marion Stephenson. (The town was named after his mother's family. Horace was the one to consolidate the local banks, and make sure his daughter Bertha married the county's most prominent attorney's son. Thus unleashing a torrent of corruption that every small town in every backwater county, in every forgotten state in our country knows too well. That's another story for another day though.)

That was the night Herm-O got turned down trying to beer, on account that his cousin's girlfriend who was working the pack and sack counter knew how old he really was. That was the night Todd taught Juck the manly art of rolling a joint. And that was the night Mindy let Todd and Juck have their way, and then it was Herm-O's turn. Juck never forgot the look in her eye as "Move It On Over" came over the radio in Todd's truck and she looked at Herm-O and said "Come over here and screw me while this train whistle blows at midnight, Fat Boy!" Juck suspected Herm-O never forgot, either. He suspected that might be the first, and last time Herm-O ever had him a woman he didn't pay for.

Herm-O's eyes seemed to focus again, and he slurred out over his fat jowls and lips and tongue, "OH YIH! ICAN'T NEVER HEARD NO TRINE WHUSTLE WITHOUT GETTING MY BRITCHES DRIPPY, HAR, HOO, HEEEEEEE," and went right back to that weird belly laugh, every piece of fat on him trembling like a hog on one of those old conveye belt contraptions his mom used to hook herself up to in the afternoons.

Juck still didn't know why he'd been pulled over, and he no idea what was on Herm-O's mind, or how he would get this particular train rolling back toward the radio station again. Especially before the manager passed out in the broom closet with the copy of Hustler.

"impressive"