Wortham: A flat tire is just the beginning to a 'g

By REAVIS WORTHAM
Special to the Eagle


"It's only flat on the bottom," Doc said, staring at the deflated tire on Wrong Willie's Suburban.

"Funny," Willie said. "That joke was old when you were born."

"No reason to get nasty, just because you're running us down the highway on defective tires," Doc answered.

"We need to get this changed before it starts raining again," I said, concerned with the heavy gray clouds building in the west.

"You could've stopped somewhere less muddy," Jerry Wayne accused, looking down at the sea of mud beside the highway.

"The tire blew out there," Wrong Willie pointed back down the road. "We flopped to a stop here, and as far as I can see, the muddy shoulder runs way off into the distance. What do you want me to do, drive until the road gets dry?"

"Why are you hating on us?" Delbert P. Axelrod asked.

"What'd he say?" the Cap'n asked.

Having teenagers, I offered a clarification. "He wants to know why you're so angry."

"I'm not angry," Willie defended. "I just have a flat tire, and everything is under all that stuff." He gave a disheartened wave toward the Suburban.

"All right," I said, sighing. "Let's get everything unloaded, so we can change the tire."

Willie opened the rear doors, and I passed duffel bags backwards until the last one just dangled in space. I looked over my shoulder. The guys stood around holding the duffel bags.

"What are y'all doing?"

Woodrow shrugged. "We don't want to put them on the muddy ground."

"I have an idea," Delbert said. "There are no cars coming. We can stack everything on the highway. Anyone traveling in our direction can see well enough to get over long before they get here."

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

"I don't care," I said. "Let's just get this thing done."

I passed a cardboard box to Willie, and the bottom fell out, spilling magazines all over the muddy shoulder.

"My reading material!" Jerry Wayne shouted. "Now my magazines are all muddy."

"Why did you bring a hundred magazines to the deer lease?" the Cap'n asked.

"We need something to read in the bathroom."

I kept digging, passing back hunting gear, feeder motors, a feeder barrel, groceries, coolers and tools. Finally, we were down to a layer of 50-pound bags of corn.

"Please tell me there's a spare under here," I said over my shoulder to Willie.

"Should be," he replied.

We unloaded the sacks. By then, the pile of gear in the traffic lane had grown to gigantic proportions. Somehow, it all looked bigger than it had tightly packed in the Suburban.

It began to sprinkle as we unloaded the spare.

"Where's the jack?" Woodrow asked.

"Right here," I said, passing it to Doc.

"Jack handle?"

It was nowhere to be found. "Where's the handle?" I asked Willie.

He shrugged and looked inside. "It should be in there."

"It isn't."

It began to sprinkle harder.

"Now what are we gonna do?" I asked.

"I have no idea," Willie said, cheerfully. "We'll think of something."

The sprinkle turned into a light rain.

"Still thinking?" Doc asked, annoyed.

A pickup rolled to a stop beside our mountain of gear. "You guys need a hand?" the passenger asked. "Hey! Good to see ya'll!" he said to Delbert.

They shook hands as another young man emerged from the driver's side. "We haven't seen you in forever," he said, slapping Delbert on the back.

Delbert grinned.

"That's what I was thinking. Boys," he said to us. "We're saved."

The two young men located a jack handle in their truck as the rain fell harder. Delbert and Willie changed the flat as the rain became a downpour.

One of the young men hurried around the Suburban. "Throw some of your gear in there and we'll put the rest in the back of the truck! We have to get eveything off the highway before someone runs into us in this rain!"

I pitched my duffel into the Suburban.

"Put the duffels in here and put the gear that rain won't hurt into the truck."

We worked quickly. Feeder motors, tools and gear flew through the air as we cleared everything off the road in seconds. Doc threw the jack handle into the pickup, and the Hunting Club members hurried into the Suburban.

"We'll follow you to the lease," one of the young men shouted as the other guy jumped behind the wheel.

By the time Willie pulled onto the highway, we were soaked. We laughed and hooted as Willie accelerated down the highway.

"Good thing those boys showed up," he said after we drove for a few minutes. "We'd have been in a mess."

"That's the truth," I agreed. "Who would believe your friends would come along when they did?"

Delbert looked panicked. "They aren't my friends," he said. "I thought you guys knew them."

"Uh, oh," Doc said, looking at the empty highway behind us. He sighed. "This is going to be an expensive deer season."