[1] - A delusional, shell-shocked WWII veteran whom Junior Ray wanted to shoot, as described in his previous “memoir.”

Chapter 1

      God invented Cusswords — Bible Books — First & Second Befukatheez — The List of Saint Pisstofus — Majorettes and Mallards — A Cussin CD — Mad Owens — Litter-ture — The Hot-Tamale Nigga — Pelicans — Okra Winfrey

      Sumbich, you won’t believe this, but somebody’ll walk clear across the street just to come up to me and say, “Junior Ray, you ass’ole, why do you have to use so gotdam much profanity in that book you wrote about us?”

      I look at that coksukka hard with my right eye, and I tell ’im: Listen, goat-dik, I didn’t write the sumbich, I talked it, but the fukkin fact is God invented cusswords. He invented them sumbiches just like He invented everything else—I mean, if you believe in God—and I don’t—but I’m just saying, if you’re one of those cobuptheass pekkaheds that always wants to let folks know you got to go to church on Sunday and sing all them draggy-ass songs in praise of a fukkin figment of your or somebody else’s gotdam imagination, then you don’t have no choice but to agree with what I just said: namely, that Godalmighty, Hissef, invented cussin’.

      Plus, you have to agree, too, that if what you’re singing all them hymns to needs all that dumbass praise, your ass is in more fukkin trouble that just the possibility of goin’ to Hell—which I have no doubt is probably somewhere over across the river in Arkansas.

      I tell ’ose sumbiches to look at it thissa way: If God is God and He’s perfect, then He can’t make no mistakes. Plus, if he’s tee-totally-ass good to the bone, then He can’t do nothin’ bad—or I guess I ought to say wouldn do nothin’ bad, because otherwise you’d be strappin’ Him down, puttin’ limits on His power, so to speak, and of course, bein’ God, He’s about as un-fukkin-limited as you can get. Otherwise I can’t see no sense in Him wantn the job.

      So, whenever a sumbich comes up to me and starts in about my gotdam profanity, I just use philosophy on his ass and tell him he can go fuk a truck tire.

      I coulda been a preacher. And, even though it ain’t no longer Bible days, if I had my way, I’d put special cussin’ books in the Holy Bible. I’d add those sumbiches, and right off the bat I’d have The Book of First Befukatheez. Then, naturally, I’d have to th’ow in a follow-up and call it The Book of Second Befukatheez. And both of them would come right after The Hoodoo Hex of Saint Damyoass and The List of Saint Pisstofus. I’d slap ’ose muthafukkas right up at the front of the whole deal.

      Some smart-mouthed sumbich said there weren’t no saints as such in that part of the Bible. Fukkim. There will be in mine. I ain’t waitn around for Jesus and nem to come up with the gotdam saints. Besides, can’t nobody understand half the shit in the damn thing nohow. First Befukatheez, though, would be clear. It’d open right up with, “Holy Shit! Behold!” Then it would go on and get better from there.

      Just like you, I expect, I have heard plenty of Bible talk and know how they said things back yonder, stuff like: “Lo, what cometh up the roadeth, muthafukka?” and other such old-timey googah. It wouldn be hard to make any of it sound bible-y, just like the names of the new books themse’ves: Befukatheez I & II. You can’t hardly tell the difference in the way that sounds and what’s in the original Bible. Specially in the one them fukkin Cath’lics uses. Oh Hell-o Bill, I seen it! Miss Helena Ferry’s sister Peekie showed it to me. She’d done been a lot of things, but by then she had decided to be a Cath’lic and thought I might want to consider joinin’ up myse’f. I told her, “No, ma’am, thank you,” and I said I hated church worse’n I hated niggas and bankers—but I didn’t mention planters cause she was one of em—and I guess, because she was, she give me a sharp look and said, Now, Junior Ray, you mussn speak like that about our darkies,” even though she knew sure as shootn-sherry I didn’t have none.

      But now they was one wild-ass book in the front part of that Cath’lic Bible she showed me that stuck out in my mind. It was called the Wisdom of Sirach, Son of Jesus. Kiss my ass. If there wuddn no saints in that part of the Bible, there sure as shit wuddn no Jesus neither. So how’d that sumbich get in there? That’s why I say if them Cath’lic muthafukkas can do it, I guess I could too. Plus, I do like the way the names of my new books sound, and for all I know that’s how the whole thing was wrote up in the first place. I can just hear all them old scribes and Pharisees and fukkin apostles settin’ around sayin’, “Hey, muthafukka, what about us callin’ thissun Abbadisticus?”

      “Fuk yeah, Mozayuh,” anothern’d say, “And let’s line that coksukka up between the Song of Shazamoab and the gotdam Letter of St. Boogaloo to the Baptists!”

      “Suiteth the shiteth outta me-ith, sumbich,” the first one might answer, and that’s how it all coulda went—all the way up to and be-fukkin-YOND the Chevrolation of Saint Cleatus the Frogburp.

      I expect I might have to put some thought on what else to include. I can hear a preacher right now, drummin’ up the spirit and getn into it, sayin’, “Now, brothers and sisters, please open your floppy-ass Bibles to First Befukatheez, chapter 4, verse 6:

      “And the Lord did have pity on the po’ sumbich who had tore up his life beyond recog-fukkin-NITION, and the Lord sent-eth forth His angels to flap down and give the miserable muthafukka a gotdam bath and a bottle of Mad-dog 20-20, so he—the aforesaid muthafukka—could get through another day of his knee-walkin’, dirt-likkin’ life up and down Highway 61 as well as on the nasty-ass streets of Meffis, especially after he’d done gambled away all his money at the casinos, and had drank up and pissed away every last no-count gumbo acre of buckshot bean-land his granddaddy left him until he, the dikhed in question, flat fukkin didn’t have nothin’ to say for his sorry sef but half a lung, a lump of charcoal for a liver, a pulse, and a twenty-year-old piece-a-junk-ass Cutlass Supreme.”

      But, like I say, anytime some of these sumbiches around here get all righteous and green-p’simmon-lipped—I’m talkin’ about whenever these muthafukkas jump all over my ass about “the language” in my fukkin books AND about me bringing up the sheep screwin’ and all—I just look at em and say, “You little diklikkers, yawl woulda done it with rats if they’da been tall enough.” Or, I’d add, if they’da been majorettes. Bygod, you can hear em howl all the way to Itta Bena.

      Anyway, I expect even old God Hissef couldn’t do nothin’ to suit sumneez sumbiches.

But, hot-da-um! Majorettes. I didn’t never love football, but I sure as Shubuta[1] wanted me one nem majorettes.

      Back when I was in Mhoon County High School, for a while, the dumbass little football team was called the Mallards; though, later when all the greenheads was just about shot out, some of the men in the town—the Boosters—wanted to switch and call the team the Gadwalls, but them lesser ducks didn’t pass the taste-test one bit, so it wuddn long before the team said to fuk that noise and went back to callin’ theyse’ves, once again, the Mhoon County Mallards.

      However, when all them planters begun to use chemicals to keep the Johnson grass from growing