A Porchlight Tale for March Fifteenth

Piedmont, Alabama has never lacked for storytellers, but only one man ever held the unofficial civic title of Biggest Liar, awarded and renewed by popular vote every Sunday at the Huddle House. His name was Chester “Chess” Lowry, and he had a reputation for lies long enough to stretch from Terrapin Creek to the Cleburne County line.

Chess lied the way other folks breathed.
Smooth, steady, and absolutely necessary to his continued survival.

He once told a wide-eyed group of fourth graders that he had fought off a panther with nothing but a hymnbook. Another time, he swore he had found a lost Confederate payroll buried behind the Walmart, and he would have dug it up himself if not for his sciatica. He even claimed he had outrun a tornado on foot. On foot, mind you, at the age of sixty-three with both knees poppin’ like bacon in a hot skillet.

Now, most folks in Piedmont treated Chess’s stories with tolerant amusement. They would listen, shake their heads, and say things like, “Bless your heart, Chess,” which is Alabama for “You are full of horse hockey, but we love you anyway.”

But for all his lies, tall as pine trees and twice as crooked, Chess Lowry had never once told a tale that turned out to be true.

Until one unforgettable Tuesday in March.

It began at the Huddle House, as such things often do. Chess was perched on his usual vinyl throne, a cup of coffee in hand and an audience of three retired men and a bored waitress. He announced that he had seen a creature behind the old cotton mill the night before. A creature that did not belong in any Alabama wildlife guide.

“It walked on two legs,” Chess said, “and had fur like a bear but eyes like a possum. And I swear it was carryin’ a lunch bucket.”

The waitress snorted.
“Lord, Chess, you need to lay off the cold medicine.”

But Chess was undeterred. “You can mock me if you want,” he said, “but I know what I saw. Y’all remember, I once told you that cow on Henry Bagwell’s place had a birthmark shaped like Abraham Lincoln’s head, and lo and behold, I was right.”

“Chess,” one old man replied, “that cow’s birthmark looked like a potato.”

Chess sipped his coffee, wounded but determined.
“Well, this creature looked like a bear that had married into the possum family, and without a doubt, it was fixin’ to clock in at work. Lunchtime monster. Mark my words.”

By noon, the whole town had heard about it, mostly because Chess made sure they did. He marched up and down Main Street tellin’ folks the Lord had blessed him with a rare sightin’ of an undocumented species. He even offered to lead a guided tour for twenty dollars a head, though the only person who accepted was a ten-year-old boy who thought Chess looked funny when he sweated.

Now this is where the story should have ended.
A lie told, laughed at, ignored, and forgotten.
Same as any other day.

But the Lord, it seems, had a mind for entertainment that afternoon.

Right around dusk, while the sky was turnin’ peach colored and the streetlights hummed to life, a howl rose up from the direction of the old mill. Not a dog howl. Not a coyote howl. Not a “somebody stubbed their toe on the back porch” howl. This was something else.

Every dog in Piedmont went silent.
Every bird took off at once.
Every person turned toward that sound, eyes wide.

Even the wind paused to listen.

And out of the shadows, wanderin’ down the gravel road like a man late for a shift, came exactly what Chess had described.

Six feet tall.
Covered in shaggy brown fur.
Eyes bright as marbles.
And I swear before God and a hundred witnesses that it was carryin’ a battered metal lunch bucket.

People screamed. Cars swerved. Mrs. Hargrove fainted right into the azalea bushes. And Chess Lowry, biggest liar in Piedmont history, stood in the middle of the street, arms raised like Moses partin’ the Terrapin Creek and shouted:

“I TOLD Y’ALL!”

Indignant.
Triumphant.
Vindicated at last.

The creature blinked at the commotion, shrugged like a man who had seen worse, and wandered off into the kudzu where nobody ever found it again. Sheriff Garner said it was likely a confused black bear with mange. The biologist from Jacksonville State said it was either misidentified or misremembered. But Chess Lowry was having none of that.

For weeks afterward, he strutted around town like he had discovered a new moon.

“I been sayin’ it for years,” he would tell anyone who paused long enough to suffer him. “Y’all doubt me, but eventually the truth will step right outta the woods carryin’ a bucket. Same as it did this time.”

When asked how he felt about finally bein’ proven right, Chess simply quoted Mark Twain with a grin wide enough to hold all of Alabama.

“Well now,” he said, “there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. But every so often the Good Lord sees fit to let a liar win one.”

And Piedmont had to give him that one.
Lord knows he had earned it.

*****

New Yesterdays can be found at: Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon, as well as your favorite bookshops. The Audiobook is available from Libro.fm, as well as Amazon.