The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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In case you aren’t keeping up on the latest Barefoot Bandit sightings, the Kid has been back here on the South End for half a year. He served his time in a federal prison and was released last winter. We all – okay, most of us down here – wished the Kid well, hoping his stint behind bars would give him time to consider his options as an adult, maybe go back to college, find a trade in his beloved aviation field. The boy always dreamed of flying.

When one of his benefactors moved away, they gave Colton the power of attorney to sell their homestead south of Tyee Store. He booted out their mom and her husband, plus the disabled guy living in a trailer off in the woods. Kind of harsh, some said, but hey, he was in charge of putting the acreage and houses on the island’s hot real estate market. Furniture and debris got piled into a small mountain, ready for a match. He waited until the drought made fires, any fires, a threat to the neighbors, then he torched it.

Guitar Bob is the closest neighbor, his property adjoining the Kid’s. He tried explaining his concern, but was pretty much ignored and anyway, the fire was lit. In more ways than one. Colton had a sign at the entrance to the driveway. It explained how anyone trespassing past that sign would be shot. His mom had one just like it back in the heady days when Colton was on the run and she wearied of international reporters knocking on her trailer door. Guitar Bob figured the sign was mostly smoke. ‘The Kid’s a felon,’ he said, ‘illegal to even own a weapon.’ Much less use it on trespassers.

Bob is pretty much a live and let live kind of South Ender. He and his dog Maynard G. mostly just want to be left the hell alone and so he could sympathize with the Bandit’s ornery warning. Bob doesn’t put up warning signs, but like I said, he lives with his dog, which is warning enough. What the Kid does, he figures, is his own damn bizness.

You know, until he decides to run his table saw at 12:30 in the morning. Like a lot of us, Bob sleeps about then. Or tries to. But the saw is only a hundred feet from his bedroom and if you’ve ever tried to snooze with a lawnmower or a chainsaw or a table saw running high rev, you know sleep isn’t in the cards. So Bob got up, grumpy no doubt, put on his pants and a pair of shoes, then wandered through the hole in the fence behind his place and over to where the Kid was doing a little midnight woodworking. Bob is in his 70’s, not exactly in fighting shape, but I have no doubt he cast a menacing shadow in the doorway of that shop, forget the bullshit warning about getting shot for trespassing. Bob asked the Kid what the hell he thought he was doing.

What he thought he was doing was some woodworking late at night. Didn’t think anyone would mind. It is, after all, the South End, not exactly heavily populated. ‘Was I bothering you?’ Oh yeah, he was bothering Bob, Bob made that very clear. He might be an old timer, but he’s an ornery old timer and if you know Bob like I know Bob, you know once he’s pissed off, he’s not backing up. I suspect Colton met a few Bobs in the federal prison, recognized the type and apologized. He explained he liked to work late at night. Bob explained he liked to sleep late at night. And so in the wee hours, they came to an understanding.

The next day the Kid dropped by with a gift card to the local grocery in Stanwoodopolis. Bob considered it briefly, then handed it back. “Give it to someone who needs it,’ he said. ‘Just give me a little peace and quiet, we’ll get along fine.’ And so, once again the South End settled into a calm before the next storm, no lives lost, no harm done. Personally, and this is just me, I think the Kid should go back to school.

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