Anyway, I found some goose liver in the fridgerator and tea left over from supper last night.  I got that and some kinda bread Mama bought from a woman at church and made me a sandwich.  I added two garlic dill pickles Mama Pope put up and went in to watch some TV.  The Newlywed Game was the only thing decent on, so I sat down, ate my dinner and watched it.
    I guess I was more tired than I thought, because as soon as I finished eating, I fell asleep right there on the couch.  Then I started dreaming.  I usually don’t take a nap, and my dreams are too strange to figure out, but this one was different.

    I dreamed me and Ilene were on the Newlywed Game and Bob Eubanks was making eyes at her.  I was getting real mad, but every time I started to stand up to go over and pop him, Ilene would hit me with one of those cards.  Woody and Lord Cromwell were sitting in the next booth and the audience laughed whenever Woody said anything.  They were asking us guys the questions and the girls had the answers written down, except for Woody and Lord Cromwell had the cards.  Ilene’s cards had gibberish written on them, but she could read it.  I have no idea who wrote down Lord Cromwell’s answers for him, but they ended up winning.  Then I saw Aunt Ida and Uncle Lonnie standing behind the big rotating stage thing looking at the washer and dryer Lord Cromwell and Woody had won.  But they were mad because they wanted an entertainment center instead.  For some reason I was trying to help Woody climb over the front of the booth when I saw Ilene leaving with Bob Eubanks.  She was all over him and, like Woody, I couldn’t get over the front of the booth.  I woke up when my dinner plate hit the floor.

    I was fit to be tied.  I was so mad at Bob Eubanks and Ilene I could have spit.  I picked up the dishes and took them back to the kitchen.  I stood there gazing out the window over the sink, finishing my tea and thinking about Ilene on the beach in Florida.  While I was pretty sure Bob Eubanks wasn’t there with her, I had to really work at putting it out of my mind.
    Just as I was about to walk out the back door, I heard somebody knocking at the front.  I went in and peeped out the living room window to see who it was.  It was a dadgum sheriff’s car.  I’d seen enough cop shows on TV to know that if I didn’t open the door, they’d kick it down, so I went over and slowly opened it a crack.

    “Yessir?  Can I help you?”

    “Yes.  Is Ruby Povine here?” the cop had on a cowboy hat and mirrored sunshades just like on TV.

    “No sir, she’s not.  Can I help you?” I was getting real nervous now.

    “Do you know when she’ll be in?”

    “Uh, by supper I’m sure,” I was sure he could see my knee shaking by now.

    “When’s that?”

    “Oh, uh, tonight!” I began to wonder why this guy was acting so strange.  Everybody has supper at night.

    “Well, son, I figured it would be tonight, I was wondering what time tonight?”  He took off his sunshades and put them in his shirt pocket.  I noticed he had a folded piece of paper in his hand.

    “Six thirty or seven, depends on when she gets back.” I’m thinking that I’m giving up a lot of information here.

    “Would you give her this card and tell her that I will be back around seven?”  Reaching in his shirt pocket he pulled out a business card and shoved it through the crack in the door.

    “Yessir.  Can I tell her what it’s about?”  I took another stab at getting some info from him.

    “Thanks, son.  I’ll be back tonight.” He said as he turned and walked down the steps back to his car.

    I eased the door shut and looked at the card he had given me.

    “Sonny McElroy, Deputy Sheriff, Fullerton County Sheriff’s Office.”

    I didn’t know this guy from Adam’s house cat.

    “Sonny McElroy, Sonny McElroy…” I had never heard of any McElroys around these parts, so I figured he must be from Okaluka or Snipe.  He might have wanted to ask Mama questions about what me and Woody have been up to and how we fit into the moonshinin’ ring.  As I thought about it, it seemed unlikely he’d just come by to ask questions about the moonshine stuff.  They’d just arrest Mama and Mama Pope and go on about their business.  Maybe he heard that me and Woody had been talking about the lawsuit and stuff.  I bet that’s it.  He was gonna tell her that we had been running our mouths about our lawsuit against the Sheriff’s office.  But it didn’t go to court until September and they usually like to wait until you’re sitting in the witness chair to do stuff like that.  They always make ‘em look bad that way on TV.
    I stuck the business card in my pants pocket and went out the back door.  Piddling around the garage, looking for something to work on or maybe a project to build, I found an old paper bag wadded up on the back of a shelf.  No telling how long it had been there, but I had never noticed it before that I could remember.  Opening it up, I found a yellow and blue Swan Chemical box.  A lump of terror fell to the pit of my stomach.  I knew exactly what it was but I had no idea it even existed anymore.  My first impulse was to close the bag and put it back on the shelf.  I wondered if anybody else knew it was there.  This was evidence, pure and simple, and I needed to get rid of it before anybody found it.

    I closed the bag up and ran back in the house to find some matches.  Digging through the junk drawer in the kitchen, I found everything except matches.  Jar lids, stove bolts, rubber bands, pink pencil erasers, a fork with one tine, a Sucrets box full of straight pins…I moved to the next drawer.  Bingo, a book of matches.  As I turned to run back outside, I realized I was soaking wet with sweat.  I thought out loud, “Calm down a little and take a few deep breaths.”

    I collected myself as best I could and slowly walked out the door.  There was a rusty, old fifty-five gallon drum at the very back of the yard that we sometimes burned trash in.  Most of the bottom was gone and there was a wad of half burnt catalogs still in it.  That wet ash smell was heavy as I peered over the top of the drum.  Standing there with the sack in my hand and then smelling that odor flooded me with memories I had tried so hard to forget.

    I tucked the bag under my arm and ripped a match from the book.  My hands were trembling like an old man.  Sliding the match head across the strip on the back of the book everything seemed to be in slow motion.  I felt like I couldn’t move fast enough, like I was suspended in molasses or something.  I held the lit match between my fingers and reached for the bag with the other hand.  Holding the bag over the drum, I moved the match to the edge of the bag.  It ignited quickly.  Still holding the bag, I rolled it over to make sure the box inside caught fire as well.  The box had a few traces of white powder on it, but they disappeared with the flames.  It was fully engulfed as I dropped it to the bottom of the barrel.  The flame grew intense for a brief second then slowly faded.  Most of the ashes dropped away as the box continued to burn.  Then, when half of it was gone, the flame died and embers danced around the edges.  I reached in as far as I could to retrieve the box and re-light it, but I couldn't quite touch it.  A black smudge from the rim of the drum made a semi-circle across the front of my shirt.  I quickly lit another match and pitched it into the drum.  It started to die, and then the box caught fire again and continued to burn.  This time it completely burned leaving only an ash standing in a curved resemblance of a box.  You could faintly make out the line between what had been blue and what had been yellow.

    I looked around and found a stick long enough to stir the ashes.  I leaned over the drum and mixed the ashes as best I could.  I threw the stick across the fence and gazed at the bottom of the drum for several seconds.  Hopefully that would be the end of that nightmare but I had that feeling like somebody was watching me.  As I walked back toward the house, I looked around the yard just to make sure nobody else was there.  I felt so guilty.  I tried to convince myself that everything was fine and nobody had any idea what I had done.  I thought about calling Woody and telling him about finding it, but I didn’t want to say it out loud.  I have no idea how Woody would have reacted.  Stopping on the back steps, I looked toward the garbage barrel once more.  That feeling of being watched rushed over me again.  “Just guilt” I told myself, “just guilt.”