String Bean was hard of hearing so the tiny blue transistor radio was turned up loud when Jon Hager, a long-haired singer and wannabe Country music superstar, stepped up onto the porch. The last ringing chords of a lively banjo tune faded away and Honest-as-the-Day-is-Long Samples, the hardly-workingist used car salesman in Cornfield County, was live on the air making his daily promise of once-in-a-lifetime deals.
“Fuck that guy with a fork,” Hager said knocking the radio to the ground where it broke into little blue pieces and the batteries fell out. The handsome/stylish young picker sat down on a straw bale next to String and waited in silence for a minute or two. As he sat there, the black, fertile earth sucked up the batteries and the broken radio pieces, and everywhere they’d landed and were pulled under, fresh green stalks of corn shot up from the ground.
‘I’m sittin’ right here,” String finally said, and he shrugged a little.
“You lied to me String Bean,” Hager mumbled at the deaf old man who responded by cocking his head to the side, pointing to his better ear and puckering his face into the awfulest thing you’ve ever seen.
Hager got up in disgust and stomped off the porch. “I said you lied to me String Bean,” he shouted, kicking at the ground like he wanted to do to the scrawny old man’s face. He was a cocky upstart who hated to repeat himself and he was mad for doing it.
Another stalk of corn shot up from the fertile earth. And another.
“Lie’s kind of a hard word, don’t you think Jon?” String asked calmly. “Any good fisherman knows you never tell a man any more than you think he’s gonna believe.” The grizzled hayseed comic turned music industry fixer grinned then he tensed up quick like something with a lot of legs crawled up his back. A crow in the field called all his crow mates to supper. String rocked nervously in his chair. Beauregard the Wonder Dog whined and curled up at his old master’s feet. Gunilla Hutton, formerly of Petticoat Junction, wore a tight-fitting halter top and sang “Hot Chowchilla Dust” over by a broken down hay-wagon but nobody paid a lick of attention and nobody missed her when she was gone.
“The thing about you is, you’ve got a twin brother,” String said to Hager, who was biting down hard on his lower lip and half bowed up like he was about to fight somebody and lose. “And the thing about that situation is,” String calmly continued, “your twin brother has a twin brother too. Can you understand what I’m saying here?“
Hager dropped his fists. Multi-instrumentalist and light comedy actor Roy Clark stepped out from behind a stand of cornstalks and opened his mouth like he was going to add something crucial to the conversation. Unable to remember what crucial thing he was about to add, Clark rolled his eyes and bumbled into a fresh stand of young corn, startling all-purpose imbecile George “Goober” Lindsey and the lovely Misty Rowe, both of whom scampered off half dressed.
“Now that’s funny, I don’t care who you are,” said honky tonk saint Buck Owens descending in shimmering glory as if from the Sun, then ascending just as suddenly into majestic clouds that opened like a silver vagina to receive him. A booming voice on high called, “HOWDEEEE!”
“A husband’s a fella who always gets the next to the last word,” Rowe was heard to say as she slipped off into the corn in search of Goober. Hager watched Rowe walking away and lost his place. “She’s amazing,” he thought.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the county, KORN Radio’s award-winning newshound Charlie Farquharson tugged on his old cloth cap and sat down at his desk to edit the afternoon farm report. Both Hager and String would normally listen to that report with educated ears. Both men knew Farquharson was more than he seemed. And they both knew exactly how to act after he delivered the news headlines and the five day forecast. They’d both miss out on today’s betting action, it seemed like.
“That’s not my twin brother,” Hager said eventually. “I don’t have a twin brother or even recognize that person you’re calling my twin brother. And I don’t know what you’ve done with special guests Johnny Cash or Jean Shepard either.” String pulled a wad of hay from inside his shirt and looked at it in disgust. Grandpa Jones, an old man who’d seen a thing or two in his day, pulled back the curtain and stuck his head out of the closed window. Everybody sure was happy to see him.
“Hey, Grandpa, what’s for supper?” Hager asked eagerly.
“Aw, I don’t have time for that now,” Jones shot back exasperated. “Lulu’s really gone and done it this time, I tell you. She’s been smelling chemicals with that no account Honest-As-the Day-is-Long Samples and now she thinks she’s a refrigerator. And worse, he thinks she’s a refrigerator too. Now I’ve gotta stop cooking up those collard greens that smell so sweet, with buttered cornbread that can’t be beat. I’ve got to quit all that and go down to Gordie’s store to fetch that woman some black hair dye.”
“What in the world do you need black hair dye for Grandpa?,” String asked, reaching into his shirt and pulling out another handful of straw which he quickly discarded. To the right of the porch a mule was laughing its ass off. To the left of the porch six new stalks of corn shot up full grown. From behind that new stand of corn walked a chubby Oklahoma actor named Gaylord Sartain and a genius songwriter named Kris Kristofferson who was incredibly handsome like if Jesus was an angel and not even pretending he didn’t know it, or that he hadn’t just been face down in a plate of cocaine and Barbi Benton. The odd couple looked at each other for a second like each one expected the other one to speak first. Kristofferson, beauty that he was, burst into a giggle-fit and both newcomers trundled off arm-in-arm, the god-man and the mega-troll.
“Well you see Lulu wanted her hair frosted and Honest wanted to smell a bunch of chemicals with Lulu,” Jones went on. “So naturally Honest said he’d help. So first they smelled the chemicals and then Honest, he starts frosting the tips of Lulu’s hair. “I’m gonna frost your tips now,” he said, kinda like that, and then she said, “Okay Honest, but don’t you get carried away.” Of course, wouldn’t you just know, he gets carried away and gets to frosting and frosting and next thing you know Honest’s telling Lulu he wants a cold beer and then he starts kicking her when she says she can’t just open up like that.”
“You don’t say,” String said.
“I do say,” Jones answered. “And the worst part of it, poor Lulu’s just bawling her eyes out because she feels like she’s letting us all down somehow.” Grandpa pulled his head inside and disappeared behind the curtain.
“Fuck that Honest guy with a fork,” String said and Hager nodded an affirmative. For a split-instant the two men were on the same page. “So you saw Archie, I suppose?”
“You lied to me, String Bean.” Hager shot back, resuming his complaint.
“And Archie introduced you to Project: Rendercella?”
“You said you were going to help. You were going to make me the biggest name in Country music. Then you introduce me to this nightmare? Who was that? Who was it you showed me, String? What was he?”
“Why, Project: Rendercella’s your twin brother,” String insisted, pulling out even more straw and trying not to look alarmed. Corn sprouted beneath Hager’s feet forcing him to glower at the old man through a verdant and tender partition. A crow in the field called to his fellows for dessert.
“Why don’t you come on over here Project: Rendercella,” String said at length, and a tall lean figure emerged from the corn and stepped up onto the porch. With its high forehead, and shoulder length brown hair, as straight as half the football team, the mysterious figure was almost-but-not-quite a perfect mirror of Hager. In the distance a quartet could be heard singing that great old gospel song, “Gone Home.”
‘Now one of these two things is true,” String said confidently. “See, I made this here boy out in Jimmy Riddle’s old chemical lab, Jon. I made him out of your old fingernails and hair clipping. He’s you, mostly. The difference is he’s a better singer…”
“But can he play?”
“Project: Rendercella plays more instruments and he plays them better, Jon. So tonight old Charlie Farquharson is gonna read one of two news items. Either you’re your twin brother’s twin brother and I make you two a regular freak-show on a big hit TV show as part of the Hager Twins …”.
“Or I can be you but better,” Rendercella said, butting in. “String Bean said I could be you. But I could be better.”
“I’ll murder you for this, someday String Bean,” Hager said, glowering furiously at the nightmare twin. Across town Charlie Farquharson stretched, yawned and sniffed his armpits. He picked up his script, pulled a chair up to the mic and cleared his throat to go live in 3…2…1…
Chris Davis a honky tonk singer who lives with Charlotte, his wife, and Roo, his cat, in a gothic cottage in Memphis, Tennessee. He’s a former columnist for The Memphis Flyer, an ex-stringer for Details, and his essays about Blues hats, pretending you’ve actually read Faulkner when you haven’t, and how to break in a new pair of cowboy boots were collected in The Southerner’s Handbook: A Guide to Living the Good Life, published by Garden & Gun Magazine.