On Tuesday, Billy Bangtooth married his second cousin, Elmira Applegate, from Twisp, Washington.

  About the only time the boys around here wash their pickups is when they marry their cousin. Billy’s vehicle of choice is a  ’39 International half ton.  He calls it the Chia Truck because of all the moss and clover growing in the rust holes in the fenders,  and it has a Western Red Leaf Alder tree that has taken root in the box, and which is now over nine feet tall and a favorite roost for Elmira’s father’s prize pullets. 

When he showed up for the wedding he had  hung some DC holiday light bulbs on that  tree.  The wiring to the battery is old, so every time he hit a rut, the roosting chickens clucked and the lights blinked just like a Christmas Tree.  You could think of it as a Peg’s Bottom multimedia presentation.  Bang, blink, cluck. Bang, blink, cluck.

The trouble started after the wedding, as with most marriages.  They were heading for the Logging Museum Motel  when they passed the weight scales on Highway 26.   There was a state policeman trying to figure out if a fellow with an eighteen wheeler should be allowed to deliver twenty tons of horse manure to City Hall.  It was his position that the place was already overful of horse manure.  Billy and  Elmira came by about that time in a pickup with  that blinking Alder tree full of clucking chickens in the back. 

Probably believing that you couldn’t get insurance on a rig like that, he took off after them.

Billy’s rear view mirror was completely lit up with red, white, green and blue lights anyway, so a couple more flashing back there didn’t get Billy’s attention.  And, the Chia Truck lacks what you would call effective mufflers, so he couldn’t hear the siren. 

 Anyway, when the cop, who thought Billy was trying to run, came up beside the pickup and stuck his shotgun out the passenger side, Billy thought it was Elmira’s father, who is also a cop and who was not informed about the wedding because he doesn’t like Billy. Just at that moment,  all the chickens in that alder tree spread their wings and, since they won’t let go of the limbs, with one big blinking cluck Billy’s 1939 International half-ton pickup was airborne.

The cop, who had never run across that escape tactic before, missed a corner while he was looking up and drove off the road and took out a complete Burma Shave sign series.  So that’s a good joke lost. But, he called in to the station and when Billy’s pullets decided to land, there were half a dozen  cops on their tail, so to speak.    

About two miles down the road,  the radiator overheated and a geyser of scalding hot steam shot up and swept back over the cab.   As a result, the police cars were suddenly enveloped in a cloud of blinking red, green, blue and white boiled chickens.  Realizing it wasn’t their day,  they just pulled over to the side and  waited for a spray painted VW microbus to come by so they could get even with some hippie who deserved it..

When Billy’s radiator was empty and the engine overheated and froze up  he was right in front of the Bide-A-Wee Bed and Breakfast, which is  right next to the Cojones Grandes bowling alley, so they went in and spent their honeymoon there and even bowled a two-hundred and twenty game even though Elmira spit out her gum on the lane and the balls kept getting stuck to it and snapping back at them. 

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