Try again with part 3.....

by RayLee, Monday, March 30, 2026, 19:48 (1 hours, 35 minutes ago) @ JimT

The Rebuttal.....

Not long ago I shared a tale that I had written about how my old friends pill and razor became best of chums.....

Now this story is essentially true.....at least its the way I remember it but there are always differing reminisces of the same event. Pill took adamant exception to my version and here offers his own, copied here without the encumbrances of quotation marks.....

Pill speaking :

I don't remember any of that folderol you wrote about the mixing/stirring down to the lagoon. I philosophically object and vehemently reject that term "bromance" because it sounds too faggoty.

Me and Razor got to be buds after I sold him a repaired/used clothes washer/dryer set at a substantial discount. It was then, when delivering them to his house that I was invited into the lounge (shot-house) for the first time. We got-on well after that and did indeed go on frequent weekend fishing trips close to home and occasionally down south for a bit of sport (gambling).

As for when and how the friendship moderated somewhat......Razor insists that, on his side of the issue, he just couldn't abide my crude white-cracker table manners. Now you've been in both the smoking lounge and tonk parlour in his house. It don't take much of a sense of smell to detect, beneath the disinfectants and air fresheners the ashtray/wino/vomit/urine underlying malodour.

I had been invited for supper and the tentative menu was to include fish cakes fried-up from the pressure cooked and ground flesh of the buffalo, carp and red horse suckers that I had caught and given them. There we were at the table, the atmosphere thick with odours that I was not inured to when I felt a nigh-on irrepressible gagging sensation coming and had to remove my falsies to keep from hurling.

You know how I have trouble with my ill-fitting teeth. I get bone shards that work their way up through my gums from way back when that fortenberry essobee knocked me down and kicked my teeth in and broke my jaw. Well, apparently, in the negro social world, a visiting honky removing his dentures at the table is unforgivable. That is Razor's excuse as to why I'm never invited over anymore.

From my perspective, the reason that my affection for Razor waned somewhat is this.....
I won 5 out of six numbers from the convenience over at the state-line on hwy. 411 and finally bought the bass boat of my dreams. It had the latest freshwater nautical electronics package installed into the steering console and eighty horses of the finest japanese propulsion that could be. I had in that boat and trailer more coin than any single vehicle that I had ever owned but like I said, no blood, sweat and tears just $2 for the lottery ticket. I feel I had earned it in the sense of suffering all of those insensitive jibes from fellow fisherman towards my humble boating rigs of yore.

So the first folk to ride was the missus and dipstick (euell, jr.) and flutterbudget (daughter melanie). After that trip, Razor got the next ride. We ran way up the chattooga from the bluff and galesville seeing as how the water was high enough to float us. I had doubts at to the crappie bite due to the mud but it was well nigh-on time for the yellow & white stripers to begin running and the swifter, brown water never seemed to bother them.

But you know Razor, he wanted to catch an eating sized turtle. I had brought some frozen skipjack and threadfin chunks for yellow cats that was thawing so I rigged us both with suitable tackle that would suffice for either catfish or turtle. After a few missed bites and rebaiting I finally hooked into a nice turtle that put up enough fight to get Razor's attention and excite his rather childlike attention. I was standing forward of the console to have use of the trolling motor and Razor was aft of the console by the outboard.

The turtle was a softshell as big as a hubcap. I had fresh 20 lb. mono on that reel, ostensibly for cats so I felt confident of flipping the beast over into the boat without the aid of a dipnet but I did not allow for the 7 1/2' rod length nor the amount of line paid out. So instead of the angry beast landing on my side of the console, It landed aft on Razor's side, practically in his lap so to speak.

Now everyone fears and respects the various snapping turtles. They are sharply clawed and mean and ill tempered and prone to bite and tend to not readily let-go once they have latched-on. But a softshell is a completely different matter. They're quick. Their claws are more flipper shaped so where as a snapper crawls, a softshell literally swims speedily on land or boat just as it is in water. And while a softshell's bite is not as commented on like the other, it bites and bites and bites at every thing within its reach and reach it has. That swift and agile neck comes out of its shell way farther than it should be able.

So the beast took umbrage at being unceremoniously hooked and boated and took its frustrations out on the boat and appurtences by biting every thing it could in just as many seconds as it took for you to read this. Its next target in sight was Razor or so he thought. Before I could intervene or assist in anyway, up goes Razor onto the top of the outboard and the turtle instinctively takes to the driver's seat trying to escape from his ancestral enemy, the negro. Out of one of Razor's pockets suddenly appears a boche-made 9-shot .22 revolver and he emptied it at the turtle on the driver's seat. The backstop to the turtle was the steering console with $6,500 worth of premium electronics. Not to mention the thin-air and short distance between the fiberglass console and me.

Like the war stories where a platoon or squad-mate takes a bullet for you so certainly did the console and most probably an unseen guardian angel betwixt me and there. The turtle made his escape with a #2 hook and a hank of monofilament. And that is actually how that confounded "bromance" as you termed it ended !