Backdoor Sally

During my days as a plumber, I rode the many highways and byways across the US nation, frequently moving from town to town. The places I always loved most of all were the small developed areas and timeless storybook villages. These somewhat antiquated Southern towns always held a special unique appeal to me. Here to me, it always felt like romanticism lived on. I could sense it in the surrounding architecture, the motion found inside the unspoiled nature of the landscape, even in the ways and mannerisms of people themselves. A spiritual element in this environment felt to thrive all around me, standing slightly beneath the surface, if not on the cusp of one’s ability to merely reach out and grasp hold of its cloth edge, so to speak. 

      Don’t get me wrong here now. I’ve noticed this same quality throughout the midwest, parts of the west, and even inside more northern areas such as Vermont and Adirondack New York state; but something about Southern areas always held a certain unique appeal to my soul all of its own. Maybe in the end I’m a bit prejudiced in regard to the conviction since I hail from the South East.  More than often my travels carried me along these unique, off-the-beaten path,  narrow winding roads, especially in somewhat hilly areas, not to mention areas that were outright mountainous.

     Well, this type of travel has been my experience for several days now, with me and my working partner pausing here and there doing small jobs at service stations, really small hotels such as one known as The Pink Belle, and old-time general stores with attention-grabbing names such as  Ruffians Dry Goods. I found myself silently yearning to enter some of these places as we pulled up into those driveways, especially at Ruffian’s Dry Goods store. As we both stepped out the door of our work truck,  my partner would always gaze around, sighing deeply and saying the same thing regardless of what driveway we paused in.

    “ You know, I don’t see how these types of places stay in business personally.”

    “Well, they always have their door open, I suppose” I would smile and reply in slight sarcasm.

    “But I seldom see people here every time we drop by. It’s been a while, I’ll add here, but where are the people?,” he would spread both opened upturned palms out and say.

      “Maybe we haven’t investigated the full panorama of this place,” I would say to him.

     “What in Peat’s name do you mean?,” he would chuckle and ask.

     “All we see is our work area. We never walk into the rear room areas of these places, like where the wood stove sits and inside the billiard room in the back,” I politely reminded him.

     “Yeah, come to think of it, we are always in the bathrooms, if not even underneath the place,” he laughed,  as we neared the spring-loaded wooden screen door.

     I paused with him in front of the door at Ruffian’s Dry Goods before we pushed our way inside.

     “I tell ya what, Mikie, why don’t we both look around this place a bit before we go to work? We need a break anyway after all of this riding around like we’ve been doing so early in the morning today. I think they serve a fine homemade version of a short-stop special here, and some of the strongest, blackest coffee this side of the French Broad. What a ya say?”  I ask him.

     “Sounds cool by me. I remember this place,” he says to me as we push the screen door open, stepping across the threshold.

     A small bell rings from the upper left-hand corner of the door as it opens,  and the spring pulls this door back closed again when we pass on through. I glanced over toward the counter, and I swear with everything inside me, the same big bosomed lady with a very low-cut cleavage named Dora was sitting across the counter where the cash register was, as always. It seems like every time we’ve made this stop she was wearing a white blouse with flowery lace sleeves at the wrists, a collar of the same, and an ankle-length thick-cloth black skirt. I pull the work order, opening it up as I pause at the counter. She glances up, smiling broadly as we both approach her.

    “It's so nice to see both of ya ‘round here again. Yes, it's good ole Dora here on another day,  right now-a, down on the floor-a, a-doin’ more-a.” she paused, nearly laughing, smiling ever-so-slyly. “ What could fine folks like us ever do for the both of you?”

    “Well, our order here mentions something about a strange noise in the bathroom pipes,” I say to her.

     “Yeah, there is this eerie moan the commode makes every time we flush it in the back there. But this moan seems to roll into all the pipes throughout this entire establishment,” she glances up from an open log book and smiles as she informs me.

     “That’s interesting,” I replied to her. “Are we the first to examine this phenomenon?”

     “Not hardly. Miss Sally says she’s had seven other people to look at this matter and none of ‘em can repair this thing,” she curtly informs me.

     “Oh really? How many were plumbing professionals?” I chuckle as I ask her.

     “Four of these people were lifetime plumbing men, three of ‘em were local handymen who have a reputation ‘round here for fixin’ anything. None of these people could do it. One, John Barringtom, walked off in the middle of his work and didn’t even bother finishing it. Can you believe it? I was kind of shocked at that, personally,” she tells me.

     “That wasn't nice of him,” I say to her. “I feel honored that you bothered calling us.”

     “Well, Miss Sally don't lie now. I can say that much for her. I can’t say a lot more, but at least I can say that much on her behalf.

     “Well, who is this Sally chick, Miss Dora?” I ask her.

      Dora gasps, “You mean you don’t know Sally Boner? I thought everybody knew her.”

     “We never heard of her. Tell me a bit, Miss Dora, ” I say with a cheer-filled smile.

     “She’s from over in Jonesborough just ahead there, over on the other side,” Miss Dora informs me.

“She owns this place.  What she says goes around here. I mean now, she really owns this place, this whole area, ya know?”

     “Wow,” I gasped back at her, “sounds like a lady who really knows where she’s headed. I tell ya what, Miss Dora, my partner and I would like your down-home version of the short-stop special like I always get. I think we’re gonna walk around this place a bit before we get to work for the day.”

      “Well help yourself there, fellow. I’ll get right on it. You two want a big cup of Jo Chump’s thick and black?,” she asked me with a kind of sly smirk on her face as she winked and spoke her slinky words.

     “You got it right, Miss Dora!” I say with a great big dandy smile. “ Make both our sandwiches with brown toast, mayonnaise on both pieces, double sausage patty, egg on top, cheese in between and on top, tomato and pickle, mustard, catsup, salt, pepper, and Texas Peat please..”.

     “Somehow I always love it when a good man orders cheese melt on his meat patties,” big Dora smiles sinfully and announces back to me, while noticeably shoving her bosom forward. “And we have some great big, thick meat patties round here, honey, let me tell ya all about ‘em now!”

     I paid Dora fourteen dollars for the meal on the company credit card without speaking another word, then I went walking around the wood-framed store. Mike walked into the billiard room where the wood stove was.

    I enjoyed milling around here, investigating the old calendars hanging up on the walls with dates on them such as eighteen eighty, and nineteen ten. The old calendars appeared to be so artsy and filled with beautifying hand-sketched flowing flowery creativity. These calendars also were positioned above shelves with military canteens from World War One, machetes from the period, knives, cartridge cigarette lighters, haversacks, folding shovels, and various military accessories from the era on down to the Vietnam era. On farther up were leg hold traps of virtually any utilitarian size and Havahart box traps of multiple sizes.

    I paused, examining this for a spell, then moved on over toward the shelves with the guns and bulk boxes of ammunition.  My favorites were actually the bolt action rifles and the pistols. I paused looking at this, the various military tents on display, the canoes, and the backpacks. I actually need to make a few purchases. My personal supplies of ammunition were running somewhat low right now. Maybe when I pass back through here on the way out I’ll pick them up, I told myself. I eventually strutted into the billiard room.

    On the inside of this room was a rectangular lounging table, then the billiard table, and a black pot-bellied wood stove in the center of the wood floor. The room wasn’t cramped at all, having plenty of space. Five men donning brand new Levi jeans, denim jackets, and wide-brimmed hats of various styles sat around the wood stove in wooden chairs, chewing tobacco, puffing on pipes if not cigars, and talking among themselves in low-pitched rumbles of various political, if not periodically risque subjects. Mike and I took our seats by the lounge table facing the wood stove. Man, the warm cozy feeling emanating from that woodstove sure felt good! One of the men sitting by the stove turns around, smiling pleasantly back in my direction. He spat inside an old coffee can, then began speaking.

   “So you two fellers have come in here to fix this plumbing problem eh?”

   “Yeah, that’s the size of it,” I reply back warmly.

    “Well, Sarah Winslow says it won't happen. It's the ghost of Grimsley’s branch causing it, she says.”

    “Oh yeah? We’ve never heard the tale of her,” I kindly replied back to him.

    The grizzled man suddenly spouts, “Whereabouts are you from, son?”

    “We’re staying over in Johnson City right now. I kind of like it there, to tell the truth. It's a nice place, the people are pretty nice, the food and the women-folk are good” I replied back to him in happy voice tones.

   “Well, Sarah Winslow watches everything inside a crystal ball. She knows it all and she ain’t bluffin’ not one iota, I tell ya... Grimsley’s ghost is one of a woman a few years back, not long before Miss Sally acquired this place. The woman was an employee who didn’t know her place around here and spouted off at the mouth when Miss Sally’s cousin told her what she expected of her. Well, this hussy wound up dead, right here on this very floor, they say,” the man informed me.

    “Wow,” I replied to him, “people better do as they’re told, I guess.”

    Pretty soon a rather young, very attractive, smiling, native-appearing woman stepped into the room carrying our sandwiches and the coffee on a tray in her right hand. I glanced back into the store noticing several more and a very fair-complected blond-haired woman milling around,  organizing the shelves, moving cans, rice bags, coffee, garden seeds, and things around. 

   “Seems like there are some more people in here,” I say to the man.

    “Oh yeah,” the man smiles, “ Miss Sally keeps ‘em ripe and ready in here, let me tell ya,” the man replies.

   “This Sally seems like an amazing woman to me,” I say to the man, casting a cheerful crisp in the air as I speak.

   “Oh sir, that she is, by a long shot,” the man says back to me. “You can get anything you want inside this little general store, and I do mean anything. Just dare to name it and ask, buddy. She really loves bestowing favors on those she likes, and doesn’t like saying or being told no, to speak the truth. They say she doesn't know the definition of the word no.”

   “That’s interesting,” I say again.

   “And Miss Sally notices everything in these parts, and I do mean everything, man,  and she pays very well. When she says thankyou to somebody she always does it in a very big way.”

   “What’s her name?,” I dare to ask.

   “Her name is Miss Sally Boner. In polite company, however, she’s known as Backdoor Sally. There has never been another one around in these parts quite like her, let me tell ya, fellow. I somehow figure there never will be another one like her ‘round here.”

   The man continued telling me more about Sally, but I hardly noticed being honest about it, feasting my eyes and mind instead on that blond thing working inside the store directly across from where I was sitting. She most certainly had a perfect full-figured body and a down-home doll baby’s genuine face, no doubt. A true man couldn’t help but notice.

    Earlier on I had glimpsed Mike eyeing the waitress in various high-born places, and she most certainly was an attractive one, to say the least. I would never admit to it, aye, but the big pallid-faced Dora’s rippling massive bosom with the deeply cut cleavage was substantially more attractive than not, I must admit here in silence on this paper. Ole Mike was eying mighty hard too,  I noticed, but neither one of us said a word to the other in regard to this precious matter. I took a deep breath, sighing after I finished my sandwich and coffee.

   “Well boys, I suppose it's getting time to initiate this work project we have around here together.”

    I arose from my seat, tipping my cup for the final morning swallow.

   “Mike, I’ll be in the bathroom over there in the corner by the poster wall.. I’m going to have a look-see on the water lines. If I’m not around when you finish and make it over, I’ll be outside underneath or fetchin’ in more tools for us to use.”

   “All right bongo man,” he says to me. “I’ll be there in a jiff. My poor watering eyes and yearning heart need to finish their breakfast since my gut just did.”

“Bravo,” I tell him, “ don’t look at anything or even dare to think anything I wouldn’t, now.”

I put my cup down solidly on the table, then walked on. I make my way over toward the toilet room. I flush the toilet a few times, hearing nothing right at first. After ten or twelve flushes I soon hear this dragging trumpet-like sound in the toilet lines, then it gravitates throughout the lines underneath the toilet, even back into the sink lines and the wall.

“Ya hear that?” yells Dora from the desk. “That is what we’ve been complaining about for a while now. If you kin fix it, jolly mon, Miss Sally has already called and specified for you to receive a special treat on top of your pay.

“Well Miss Dora,” I reply to her, “I’m all in on it. You know me!”

She laughs loudly.

“I’ll bet you’ll just get all over ‘em, eh there jolly mon?” she spoke as she again shoved her massive, but rather attractive bosom forward in my direction while she sat up somewhat proudly behind the counter. .

Finally, Mike finishes his breakfast and walks over to where I am disconnecting the pipe from inside the floor and cutting into the wall so we can get through to more pipe in there. We tried purging the lines. We ran a snake through ‘em, we've done it all, and finally to no avail. I reckon we’d been there two hours already by now.

“I think I’ve figured it out, bongo man. I think it's a clear-cut case of air pressure caught up inside these water lines.”

“I’ll tell you what Mike. We’ll take that air vacuum hose and go inside the main line from the outside plug. I think that will do it and you certainly seem to be right in your analogy. If this works I’ll owe you a big one, man.”

“Awe, no problem. Everything comes clean  in the wash,” he replied with a pleasant smile.

We both walk outside, dig the end line up and remove the red plug cap, then shove the air vacuum line up the cap end of the pipe. I hurriedly step back inside, making my way back to the bathroom. I plug in the vacuum motor, allowing it to roar while it does its thing. After what feels like an hour we both remove the vacuum line, thread the red cap back into its place, bury the pipe end, and walk back inside the bathroom. We both take turns flushing the toilet. I suppose we flushed the lines ten or twelve more times.

“That sweet sound of water flushing without the ghost’s trumpet sound, is very nice,” yells Dora from the counter. “Congratulations jolly mon, it looks as if you and your boy have accomplished what no other one could around here!”

“Well that’s what we’re in business for, Miss Dora,” I say to her. “I’m going to wait maybe thirty minutes or so to make sure the sound is gone, then I’ll ride on.”

“Make yourselves happy,” replies Miss dark-eyed Dora with the coal-black hair.

She reaches beneath the counter, pulling out hard cash in bills. I count carefully as she shucks out one hundred fifty dollars right there on the counter before me.

“This is half of what we owe you, jolly mon there. Pick it up. I’ll pay you what remains after the thirty minutes pass.”

I make small talk with Dora there while the time passes. Mike enjoys company with three of the hispanic or native beauties working inside the store there. The thirty minutes fly by. Mike and I walk back into the bathroom, flush the toilet ten times or so, and all is well. Dora smiles broadly while she reaches beneath the counter, retrieving another cash wad. I walk up, counting it, finding myself with my own smile. A phone beside the cash register on the countertop rings. Miss Dora picks it up.

“Yes,” she says into the phone, “no problem at all mam. I know all about it. I can see everything loud and clear myself. No problem with the gals hereabouts. We’ve already been talking about things among ourselves. Everything requested will be mine and their pleasure. Cheer-i- O now. Until next time.”

Dora’s massive body arises from her rather cushy well-worn seat. Her bosom causes me to think she might tip over directly into the floor, onto her face. She lumbers around from behind the counter, smiling slyly over in my direction. The blond-headed woman I was admiring sleekly and slyly walks up with a smile on her face.

“Well, that was none other than Miss Sally herself. She has commanded that we all offer you boys a special treat, designed specifically to suit all of your heavily veiled fancies. Jolly mon you follow me and Miss Goldie Locks here into that rear room next to the bathroom you just repaired. I know what you both really crave most of all around here. The gals are under strict orders to keep your boy in good company.”

I glance up, noticing Mike following three native girls into a room in the rear of the store I didn’t even know existed. I follow Miss Dora and Goldie Locks into the room she instructed for me too.

“Alright, now Mr.Jolly mon. Miss Goldie Locks and I are gonna un-shuck a few really nice bread loaves and two truly spectacular meaty enchiladas that we already know you deeply admire. What I want you to do is play ring-around-the-roses with Miss Goldie Locks there first, whilst I ease rearward on that black leather swivel-back chair there, with a great big ham spread apart from t'other on either arm, and get my kicks with a boar’s tusk layin’ on that little dark walnut end table in the corner, while watching your’s and Miss Goldie Lock’s unbridled child’s play. Then at that single final decisive moment, I want you to just rise up, snap back around, ‘n soak this wonderful double enchilada meat serving I have to give, with nothing less than the very best of hot melted cheese! You got that now, boy? Or must I repeat myself in a much more specific kind of tone here?”

I stand totally silent, mesmerized, and petrified in my own flabbergasted astonishment.

“Awe, don’t you dare look so sad now, jolly mon,” she tells me with her bottom lip pooched out in a mucked-up display of what was obviously intended as dark sarcasm. “You’re in luck today big boy,  because absolutely nothing in this whole wide world that anybody could ever do makes me happier, understand?  Most importantly of all, don’t you ever forget that these are none other than direct orders from Miss Sally Boner Hotbop herself, and she’s not called Backdoor Sally ‘round in these parts for nothing! Don’t you dare take this matter lightly, ‘cause here inside Ruffian’s Dry Goods, gas, and general store,  you can get anything your dear heart ever desires, and I do mean anything.., seriously! All that anybody is required to do is simply dare to think, if not ask outright. Got that?”