Look at all the thoughts we hide
If anybody likes you it’s gotta mean you lied
Our tongues are tied
—“American Jail” (Thornton/Andrew)
WE MOVED INTO A TOWN CALLED HATFIELD WHEN I WAS IN THE first grade. I’ll never forget that place. It had about twenty thousand people in it. One of the churches, Presbyterian I think, had lost their preacher, and so they let my dad—who was a basketball coach and a history teacher—and our family live in the parsonage. That parsonage was probably the best house we ever lived in.
A lot of shit happened there in Hatfield, a lot of crazy shit—at least to me it was crazy shit. It’s like every time I hear somebody reminiscing, “My grandmother, I’ll never forget, made the best biscuits,” I’m like, “Who fucking cares? So did mine. Everybody’s did.” But when you’re a kid, everything looks bigger than it really is.
My grandfather, I don’t remember why, came and stayed with us for several weeks one time. He was this old crusty guy, as I said, like Daniel Boone. He didn’t say much, but when he said something, it usually meant a lot.
When I was a kid, I always wanted everybody to like me so much that I would just do any fucking thing I was told. Like if somebody were to say, “Hey, let’s go steal that truck and drive to Little Rock,” I would say, “Oh, okay, but do you like me?” and if he said, “Yeah, I like you, sure, let’s go,” I’d be in the fucking truck with him. That’s a hypothetical situation, but when I was in the first grade, I had a buddy in the second grade who would talk me into shit all the time.
One time he said, “Tell your grandpa to give us fifty cents for some cigarettes,” because he wanted to smoke. This would be my first cigarette, but I guess he had smoked before because he already had this shit figured out. The way it was back then, you could buy a pack of candy cigarettes that looked just like the real thing. They looked like a pack of Pall Malls or Chesterfields or whatever it was, but they’d use a slightly different spelling, like “Chesterfeel.” And they had two different kinds. One was this long chalky candy, and that you would just eat. The other actually had paper around it with a filter and the candy was in the middle. If you blew, the powdery shit that was on the candy became a little puff of smoke. That’s the kind my buddy said we should get.
So we went to my grandfather and said, “Hey, can I have fifty cents?” My grandfather asked us what we needed fifty cents for, and here’s how stupid I was: I didn’t think to just say we wanted to go buy some candy. I said we wanted to go buy some candy cigarettes.
Now, my grandfather was a smart old son-of-a-bitch. Not only had he been through World War I, but he was a good hunter, and good hunters are real smart usually. He gave us the fifty cents and said, “Don’t go getting into any damn trouble,” but what he meant was, “I’m going to let them learn a lesson.” I guess he was figuring we would go get cigarettes and just get sick and puke.
Back then, in a little town, especially in the South, you didn’t have to be eighteen or twenty-one to buy cigarettes. You could send an infant in there if you wanted to get a pack of cigarettes—because your parents always sent you somewhere to get shit. I used to go get Kotex for my mother when I was thirteen, you know?
So we went down to the store, and I said, “My dad wants a pack of cigarettes.” The guy said, “What kind do you want?” I said, “Winstons.”
A shed full of wood and straw and paper goods is probably not the best place to smoke your first cigarette. Long story short, we burned down the shed and the volunteer fire department showed up. My buddy and I went out on the porch and watched it burn with the whole family. My grandfather whispered to me, “Did you go buy your candy cigarettes?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you burn that shed down?”
I didn’t respond.
He just kept looking at me. After a while, I realized what he was saying to me without actually saying it was, “I’m not going to tell anybody, but it’s real hard to get away with shit. So don’t fuck around.”
Now, when I look at my own daughter Bella, who’s seven, I can’t imagine her doing anything except looking at her dinosaur books and playing around the house. But I burned down a shed in the first grade.