Rednecks Poem by David Lewis Paget

It was down in Jackson County
Back in 1959,
I was sitting in a parking lot
And necking Peggy Jean,
We'd been breathing hot and heavy,
'Til we misted up the windshield,
Then footsteps started walking round
My Daddy's Oldsmobile.

Peggy buttoned up her top, while I
Sat bolt upright, and listened,
Then the door, it sprang wide open
And a hand came reaching in,
Then it grabbed me by the collar,
Dragged me out, although I hollered,
And this guy began to kick me
Like he wants to do me in!

It was dark, but there was moonlight, and
I saw he wore a jersey with
Those hoops of red and white just like
The college football team,
He was big and mean and dopey,
And he tried to grab and choke me
Then he hit me and he bit me, said:
'You like my Peggy Jean? '

She screamed and ran right over
Slapped his face, and yelled: 'You Doofer!
I ain't never been your gal and you
Ain't never been my man! '
So he stopped and stared right at her
Looking mad, like some Mad Hatter,
Then he mumbled that his Peggy Jean:
'She must have cut and ran! '

I took my wounded shoulder to the
Hospital in Boulder, where
They cleaned it, disinfected it,
Then sent me straight back home.
But my head was fairly spinnin'
And my Peggy Jean was grinnin'
'Cos she thought it cute I'd fight for her -
I drove back home alone.

My shoulder wouldn't fix, it
Wept and burned, I scratched, it itched,
And for some days my joints were stiff
As if he'd given me some spore,
But my eyes were twice as bright, I saw
Right through the dark at night,
And I could run, right out of sight
Like I could never run before!

A month went slowly by, as I
Thought up some alibi for why
I hadn't seen my Peggy Jean,
Or phoned and left a note.
But I didn't want to see her, so
She joined the Cheerleaders, then
Went necking with this football guy
To try and get my goat.

But then one day I saw her, in a
Dress, right off the shoulder
And she had a big red love bite
On her neck - No argument!
So I said: 'Them dang mosquito's
Getting big as hot Darito's,
Why, I guess you're now a Redneck, '
And she knew just what I meant.

I lay low about a month, just
Messed around and played a hunch,
Got my Jerry Lee collection up
And Buddy Holly too,
Then I went off to the Prom to see
Just what was going on;
There were rednecks all around me
Like some great big Redneck zoo!

They were multiplying - Heck!
Great big bites on every neck,
And their eyes had gone all yeller
And their teeth were getting long,
And so over grits and chitlins
I asked Grandpaw, who was whittling,
'Have you ever made a silver bullet, Gramps? '
He said: 'You're wrong! '

(I had thought: 'He's getting old,
But he really should be told...')
But he didn't need no telling of
The Rednecks in the town,
He had seen it all before,
Long before the Second War,
And he looked at me, and says:
'Those pesky Vamps are going down! '

'What you need are wooden stakes,
Ash or aspen's what it takes,
Though I thought we'd killed 'em all in
Jackson County's last big wake,
When your father was a lad,
They were here, and things were bad,
But we staked them 'til they filled
The cemetery by the lake

So I told him what I'd seen,
All the Rednecks, where I'd been,
And we took to walking through the woods
To spy on where they're at,
But the moon above was bright,
In its beam I caught a sight
Of my Gramps, as he turned hairy
Right there, underneath his hat.

He dropped down on all his fours
While I felt my face and jaws,
And I suddenly had paws,
Right beneath the haloed moon,
I was soon, to my surprise
Just a wolf, in some disguise,
So we loped downtown together,
Started howlin' out of tune.

'I knew when you were bit
This would be the way of it,
I knew you'd end up one thing or
Another, so it's cool!
But these vampires, they need culling
Cause they're always multiplying, and they
Never learn -
In Jackson County...
Werewolves Rule! '

17 September 2008