Rudy Carries On

Jody’s rooster acted just like him, except maybe for the drinking.  He was in a chronic bad mood, always looking for a fight. We could hear him coming. “ Aruuh, aruuuh, aruuuh.”  He sounded like the screeching of metal rubbing against itself.  He entertained himself by stalking around and finding someone or something to attack.  We all despised Rudy, and ran when we heard, “Aruuh, aruuh, aruuh.”   I was visiting the neighbor kids, Lainy and her mean big sister Nita, when Rudy hopped the Austin’s fence into their yard.  If Nita ever played with us, we could usually count on a mean trick, like stomping our mudpies or kicking down the walls of our playhouses.  As we sat in the grass making clover chain necklaces, Nita jumped up and ran in the house.  She latched the screen door behind her, not saying a word.  Lainy and I just kept on making our necklaces when we heard, “Aruuh, aruuh, aruuh,” right behind us.

Rudy had sneaked up on us.  We tried to escape, but he jumped high on Lainy’s back, hanging onto her hair, clawing and scratching her with his big spurs.  I made it to the front porch, but Rudy hung on to Lainy, flogging and clawing.  Every time she tried to make it to the porch, Rudy clawed her again, and off she went, his beating fueling her terror.  Poor little Lainy ran round and round the house, that sneaky Nita running from window to window, door to door, laughing and enjoying the whole thing.  When Lainy’s mother realized what was going on, she raced to Lainy’s rescue. Rudy kept spurring Lainy somewhere out in the yard . Finally, Lainy’s mother caught up to her and pulled Rudy off her.  Furious as a mama bear, she whirled Rudy around smartly to snap his evil neck, slung him a few times around her head to do be sure she’d done the job right, then turned him loose to do his final chase around the yard.  Even though his head hung to one side and flopped madly as he ran in circles, it wasn’t comforting to see the depraved monster coming at us again.

Jody Austin had started over to save his property when he realized Rudy had gotten in over his head, but reconsidered when he saw Rudy’s sad fate at that enraged mama’s hands.  Nita didn’t fare too well when her Mama made time to deal with her, either.