Hey y'all - there's this line in the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat that keeps running through my head:
"This would be a happy ending/perfect place to stop the show..."
And that's kind of how I felt after having brought Jesse and Daisy home. Except... there was that first chapter. So the show had to go on. So on it went - and it'll go on for a ways yet.
Thanks to everyone who's been reading through thus far, and special thanks to those who sit for a spell and say a few words. I appreciate the feedback.
I own nothing but the plot and the occasional original character. I earn zip, zilch, nada for the obnoxious way that I treat them all.
Chapter 20 – Stop Seeing What Ain't There No More
With all four of them home now, some of the clean up process became easier. Jesse took Maudine out to the fields and plowed the cotton under. There was nothing to salvage there, but maybe, if they could scrape together enough pennies, they could get some winter wheat to put out there. Having the fields prepped now would be helpful if and when the time came to plant.
Daisy was grateful for the effort that her cousins had made to clean the house after so much water had invaded it. But they were boys, and hardly understood the meaning of the word soap, much less ammonia and other tools of the trade. The house had developed a good deal of mildew, and she spent her first days at home waging war against the stuff. The boys continued to take down trees that were already partially felled by the storm. They agreed that there were too many damaged oaks, elms and maples dotting the property to be able to get them all, but they'd take any that threatened the remaining structures on their homestead.
Bo was glad to see that Luke was mostly back to his old self. The two of them didn't talk much about the ordeal they'd been through, but it had left some new wrinkles on Luke's already deeply lined face.
And Luke found himself feeling a little better with each thing they managed to fix. As the Duke farm began to look and smell more like its familiar self, the oldest cousin felt less and less like he'd let the entire family down.
But there was still no money in the household, and it looked like there would be none coming in. Though the Boar's Nest had not been badly damaged in the hurricane, it hadn't been reopened yet, either. People were finally finding their way back to Hazzard, but not exactly in droves. And those that returned had no spare cash to spend on nights out, cavorting.
When they'd been home for a week, Jesse and Daisy took a trip into town to discuss the future of Hazzard with County Commissioner Hogg. Since the young woman's question was easier, she spoke first.
"When are you plannin' on reopening the Boar's Nest? If it ain't soon, I'm gonna have to go find me another job."
"Another job? Another job?" the balding man puffed around his cigar. "Why Daisy, there ain't no other jobs. Ain't nobody got nothin' open, 'cept the Busy Bee Café and Rhuebottom's, and ain't neither of them hirin'."
"Why, then I'll just have to…" Daisy started to threaten, but Jesse stilled her with a gentle grip on her upper arm.
"J.D., you're talkin' like a man that's happy that his county is fallin' apart at the seams."
"Fallin' apart… what are you talkin' about, Jesse Duke?"
"I'm talkin' about you sittin' there on your fat duff and sayin' there's no jobs instead of trying to create jobs."
"Create jobs? Why, I already employ more people than anyone else in the county," the commissioner growled, yanking his cigar out of his mouth and staring his once-friend, now-nemesis down.
"J.D., you know better than I do that an economy don't just happen. It has to be created! You gotta put money into it to get money back out. Like buying ingredients for 'shine. You pay for sugar, then you use it to make somethin' that someone's gonna wanna buy."
"Are you makin' 'shine?" Hogg asked, tilting his head to the side and puffing his jowls. "'Cause if you are…"
Jesse's voice went up a notch, even as his eyes popped. "No I ain't makin' 'shine, you old fool. I'm makin' sense is what I'm makin'. But you wouldn't know anything about that."
"Dat! Daisy, would you excuse us for a minute?"
"No, Boss! I want to know when you're gonna reopen the Boar's Nest!"
"Uh, Daisy darlin', why don't you go out there and talk to Enos for a little while. He seemed awfully glad to see you a minute ago," her uncle suggested, with a sly smirk.
With one more furious look at her employer, Daisy agreed. "All right Uncle Jesse. But only because you asked me to." With a flash of angry blue eyes and flying chestnut hair, the young woman was gone.
"All right, J.D. Out with it."
"Jesse, I ain't got the kind of money it would take to put Hazzard right."
"J.D., you…" each syllable was carefully pronounced, but the Duke patriarch didn't get far.
"Now Jesse, I know you think I do, but I don't. Just look at all the businesses that closed down and ain't reopened. The hairdresser, the bakery, why even the junkyard… I ain't got the money to get them all started again."
"Well, it ain't all got to come out of your pocket!" Jesse snapped, treating his peer like the small child that he was imitating. "You know better'n that! You got to apply for Federal funds! Why, if there was ever a county in the state of emergency, it would be Hazzard!"
"I can't." The man in white's jowls sagged as he looked once again like the little boy who'd gotten caught all those years ago stealing the apple off the teacher's desk.
"Whaddya mean you can't? You just get the forms and fill 'em out. I know you can write J.D. We went to school together, you remember?" Jesse actually smiled at the memory. A young Jefferson Davis Hogg hadn't exactly been rich and powerful, but he'd always been crafty. And he'd never, ever been allowed to wear white. When he went home at the end of the school day, it was to a dirt floor shack, where there was more dust in the air than on the ground. White clothing would have gotten dirty before he could even put it on.
"Jesse, I…"
"Come on, J.D. They say confession is good for the soul, if you still got one."
"I done asked for emergency funds one too many times. You know that thunderstorm we had back in April, the one that came with hail?"
"Well, I suppose you could call it hail," Jesse chuckled. "Seems to me it was more like a few extra drops of hard rain. That the one you're talkin' about?"
"Yeah." The fat man looked like he had indigestion, though for a change Jesse hadn't seem him eat a single bite in the last five minutes. "I applied for Federal funds to clean up after that disaster. And they denied me. Said I'd made too many claims in the last five years and they wouldn't fund any more for at least another two."
"Two years? You're tellin' me we can't get federal money for two years?"
"That's what I'm sayin' Jesse."
"Well, J.D., you know as well as I do that we ain't had no emergencies here in Hazzard in the last five years. What do they mean, too many claims?"
"Well, you remember the locusts last year…"
"We didn't have no locusts last year."
"According to the paperwork I filed, we did. And then there was that blizzard in '77."
"Blizzard! Why J.D., you old sidewinder, we got maybe an inch of snow!"
"Uh huh, well, we still had to plow it. And I had to hire crews to put down rock salt."
"Put down rock salt! All that did was rust the cars!"
"Regardless, it was an emergency, and the government funded it." The commissioner's face arranged itself into a shape that could loosely be called remorse, but the Duke patriarch knew better. Hogg wasn't sorry for what he'd done, only for having gotten caught doing it.
"All right, all right, I get it. J.D., if this here county don't get back on its feet, there's no one that stands to lose more than you do. So… you got us into this mess, and you'd better figure a way out of it!" Jesse yelled, slamming a hand down on the commissioner's desk before turning to leave. Just as he reached the closed door, the Duke patriarch whirled around again. "And! You just open that Boar's Nest tomorrow night. Even if the locals can't afford to go there, there's still the long-haulers to serve."
With a sad little nod and drooping brown eyes, the county commissioner agreed.
"How'd the General look?" Bo asked around a mouthful of dinner, as Daisy and Jesse recounted their afternoon in town.
"Oh, Bo," Daisy answered. "He looks just the same as you told me he would. Cooter feels bad about that, but there just ain't anyplace to get the axle right now."
"Especially for free," Luke said. "We can't even afford the twenty bucks it would take to get one from the junkyard."
"Things'll get better now that Daisy's goin' back to the Boar's Nest," Bo said with confidence. "Won't they, Jesse?"
"Well, uh, sure they will, Bo, sure. But not all at once." He didn't want to scare the boy, but the patriarch had to be honest. Whatever Daisy could bring in would help, but the family was in a great deal of trouble.
"No, they ain't gonna get better real soon," Luke complained. "Not with the way Boss has been squandering Federal funds."
"Now, Luke, we Dukes has never really depended on government funds in the past, and we ain't gonna start now. We'll just have to come up with our own way of dealin' with things. Bo, pass them turnips, and quit frettin'."
"Uncle Jesse, I need to ask you somethin'," his oldest said quietly. Daisy and Bo were in the kitchen sharing dish duty and giggling, while Jesse sat in his recliner. He hadn't seen Luke sneak up on him.
"What's on your mind, boy?" Jesse asked, looking hard into his nephew's eyes for answers. Unlike Bo, Luke rarely sought his advice.
"I was thinkin'. You know, normally when we need money, me and Bo go and do some odd jobs here around Hazzard. But ain't nobody in Hazzard got money to pay us with."
"And even if they did, we wouldn't take it right now," Jesse cautioned him. "Not with everyone sufferin' after the hurricane."
"I know, I know. I wasn't suggestin' we would. I was just thinkin'…"
"Spit it out, boy."
"Jesse, you know what Marines is like. We take care of each other. We ain't just Marines for two years or four, we're members of the corps for life."
"You ain't thinkin' about reenlisting," Jesse said, his face a hard, cold no.
"Naw, nothin' like that. I was thinkin' about Jerry, my old bunkmate, who lives down in Valdosta. The storm barely grazed Valdosta, Jesse. I bet Jerry could help me find some work down there. Just for a spell. Just to get us through the winter."
"Now Luke, have you really thought this through?" Jesse wasn't ready to give an answer yet, not until he knew what Luke had in mind. But he wasn't going refuse outright, like he would have under normal circumstances.
"Not all the way, not yet. I mean, I have to call Jerry first and see if he can help, and if he can put me up, cause it ain't gonna be worthwhile if I gotta pay rent somewheres. But I didn't want to do none of that without talkin' to you, first."
"That's real mature of you, Luke. You call your friend."
Within a week, much to Bo's dismay, it was settled. Jesse was sending Luke to Valdosta with his blessings. The conditions of Luke's probation limited him from leaving Georgia, which he wasn't planning to do, but he needed permission to miss the monthly meetings with his probation officer, namely Boss Hogg. What seemed like a problem turned out to be easily resolved when the commissioner waived that little requirement for six months, saying that one less Duke in Hazzard would be a blessing. And if the man in white secretly felt that letting Luke go was actually the best thing he could do for the Dukes, he sure wouldn't admit it. Luke was packing.
"Jesse," Bo implored. "Are you sure this is a good idea? Luke, he ain't really been right since the storm…"
Jesse sat his youngest boy down. "Bo, your cousin is a responsible boy."
"I know that, Uncle Jesse. I just think he's still blamin' himself for the things the hurricane did, things he couldn'ta stopped no matter what."
"I know, son. That's why I think he needs to do this. First of all, he needs to get away for awhile, stop seeing what ain't there no more: the porch, the barn, the trees. But second, he needs to do something to help. And earnin' will definitely be helpin'."
"But Jesse, don't you think he needs to be near his family?" Bo's sad, blue eyes tugged at his uncle's heart, but the old man stood pat.
"Normally, I'd say yes. But Bo, Luke's been away before. An' with him, absence definitely makes the heart grow fonder. He'll miss you every bit as much as you miss him," Jesse said, revealing his sympathy for the youngest of the clan. "And when he comes back, he'll be happier, because he's been able to help his family."
"I guess," Bo said, not really agreeing, but definitely realizing that Jesse's mind was made up.
"Besides, we ain't got no harvest, an' it don't look like we're gonna do no winter planting, neither. So it ain't like there's a lot of work for him to do around here. And that boy needs to be busy right now," Jesse explained, then quickly followed this statement with, "Oh, we got enough work to keep one of you boys busy, so don't even think about asking me if you can go with him. The answer to that is no."
Bo sighed and nodded. He had considered asking, but had already known the answer anyway.
Later that afternoon, Luke was packing his things into Sweet Tilly. The General was still at Cooter's, and would be for the foreseeable future, but Luke wouldn't have taken him anyway. Bo's natural instinct for that car made the stock car belong more to the younger Duke cousin than the older, at least in Luke's eyes. Bo helped him load the Tilly up.
"Are you real sure about this, Luke?"
"No, I'm not. I'm just going to see what I can find down there. Jerry knows a mechanic that might need some help, and said he'd introduce me to the guy. But I don't know if it's gonna work," the brunette admitted.
"Then why go? Stay here. We'll figure something out."
Luke stopped his packing and put both hands on his cousin's shoulders. "Bo, I know what you're thinkin'. But this ain't like the last time I left, okay? I ain't joining the armed services, and I ain't going overseas. I'm just gonna be six hours away. And I'll only be gone through the winter at most. I'll be back for spring plantin'." Brilliant blue eyes stared into darker ones, begging them to understand. "I gotta try, Bo."
Remembering his conversation with Jesse, Bo nodded. "Just, be careful, Luke. And if you need me, you tell me, and I'll be there in six hours, okay?"
"You got it." The older boy pulled him into a hug.
"I love you Lukas," Bo's muffled voice came from the vicinity of Luke's shoulder.
"Ditto, Bo."