Paul Herron & the House Boy

By Bob Dymond

This tale takes place sometime during the fall/winter of 1966, to the best of my recollection. We were in the new barracks and loving every minute. No more top & bottom bunks - Oh no, we had 8-man bays, with four bunks along each wall and a 4 foot high divider between each set of two bunks. The word was that House Beautiful wanted to do a 16-page layout for the special spring issue.

And not only did we love it, but the house boys loved it too. The building was new, easy to keep clean and lots more room. They kinda lorded it over the houseboys that had to work in the old style buildings. Everybody was happy.

But some things didn't change. We were still a rowdy bunch of miscreants, and the house boys were still twitchy. And the number one twitch getter was the sound of escaping intestinal gas. In their culture, that sound is the signal of an evil spirit evacuating its' host. We, being sophisticated Americans, laughed at this type of thinking. "How ridiculous," we thought "that a fart is an evil spirit. Why, there ain't no such thing as an evil spirit". But I gotta tell you; I've been around some farts that were really nasty - evil, in fact. So maybe our houseboys were way ahead of us on the sophistication scale. Think about it.

But here is the important thing about Evil Spirits: Evil Spirits must have a host to survive, so if they are expelled from one host, they must immediately latch onto another host or cease to exist. So when an Evil Spirit is obviously in the area; it would behoove one to quit that area.

And it didn't take long for the Normans to notice that the first skill to be learned at Kagnew was how to "blow a fart". For if such a sound were made in the presence of almost any given house boy, said house boy would immediately jump up, move out of the area, during which time he would be reciting the appropriate anti-Evil Spirit prayer accompanied by the appropriate hand gestures.

Us A-Trick ditty snatchers had just come off of mids, and man, we were ready for break. Just about everybody had hit the showers, and was getting dressed to go someplace. (Everybody except Lenwood Schuck - He was fast asleep in his rack. And you could tell he was asleep, because his eyes were open.)

Paul Herron (Commander of the Budding Rose) had the rack opposite mine, against the far wall opposite the door. Now Paul didn't look like the kind of guy who did weird and strange things - if you ever saw the guy you would have thought "Hey look, here is a guy that has his degree in accounting, but just can't get past his CPA exams". But as 'tis often said, you can't tell a book by its cover.

Paul did do weird stuff, but he was the type of guy who put a lot of thought into his activities. Paul could blow a fart with the best of them. But for Paul, blowing farts was a one-step gag: Blow Fart --> House Boy Twitch. Not a lot of thought involved here. No, Paul liked to use his brain - set up a situation, and watch it unfold.

And today we were to see one of his finest creations. As we came out of the showers, Paul said: "Bob, when we get into the room, I'm gonna call Berhane (our house boy) into the room. When he comes over to me, you get his attention for a second or two."

"OK Paul," sez I. "But what are you going to do?"

"I'm not gonna tell you, but I've been giving this one a lot of thought, so if it comes off, just play along."

"OK"

So Paul went over to his bunk, and put on his boxer shorts. And then he yelled out for Berhane. Berhane came running in the room and over to Paul. At that point, I said "Berhane, did you see Abraham yet today?" As Berhane turned towards me, and started to answer, Paul blew a really terrific fart.

Now Berhane had been around us for a while, and he knew the difference between a blow fart, and the real thing. This was obviously a blown fart. He just turned in Paul's direction, and gave out the smallest anti-Evil Spirit prayer, just in case. I said "Paul, good lord man, what did you do?"This response was out of character for a blow fart. And Berhane knew it. Paul said, "Well, I do believe I just farted myself."

"Sounds to me like it was a wet one with lumps in it Paul. Maybe you better check it out."

Now Brahane was getting worried. All of this repartee was WAY out of the norm. Paul reached into the back of his shorts with his left hand, rooted around in the appropriate area, and muttered "Hey Bob, you might be right about that". Berhane started to back up, his eyes getting larger.

"Well Paul, what did you do, man?"

And Paul mutely pulled his hand out of his shorts and offered for all to see about three fingers worth of a light brown sticky substance. And Berhane stood stock-still.

"Hey Bob, you were right about it being wet & lumpy."

I crossed over to him, got a finger's worth of the mass, sniffed it, ate it, and said: "Yeah, but it don't taste bad though." Berhane turned and ran out of the room. And we didn't see him for three days. He had quit; we twitched him so bad. We had to apologize to his Uncle Ashe (House Boy OIC), and then to him.

You'll remember I told you that Paul was a bit strange. Had this thing about Jiff Creamy Peanut Butter. Always kept a jar in his locker.