My friend Mark, owner of Fratesi’s Grocery, a famous Mississippi Delta country store, is a superb perpetrator of practical jokes, a skill shared by my boyhood best friend and mentor Jaybird. Mark sells a variety of baits, including crickets for bream fishermen. Before spending a day on the lake fishing for Chinquapins, the biggest, scrappiest, best-eating bream of all, Jaybird and I always bought crickets at the store.
Grady, a grouchy, mean-spirited, surly character, also bought bait there, and never failed to insult Mark, especially when he ordered homemade sandwiches, the Delta’s tastiest. Sneering, the old reprobate always asked, “You make these sandwiches three days ago, or four?” Although Mark prepared them daily, he ignored Grady’s insults, knowing that someday he would even the score with the cantankerous curmudgeonly coot. The opportunity came one morning when Grady sauntered up while Jaybird and Mark were dressing a mess of Chinquapins. Gawking at the huge catch, he snorted, “I’ll swunnee! Where’d y’all catch all them monsters? Whud they hit?”
