The Calf B Café

Whenever I can I like to drop in at the Calf B for an overpriced cup of coffee. It’s not the coffee, which is passable, it’s the company. They got this big old round table in the side room where the locals will be gathered in the event that it’s “too wet to plow”, or “too dry to plow”, or “too cold to plow”, or “too…”, well you get the idea. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s very serious war planning. But it’s never dull.

From time to time a stranger manages to find a seat among us, usually as a guest of one of the locals. Some years back one of them commented on the broad array of experience and “country wisdom” he heard at that table, and he said we were sort of a modern version of the Knights of the Round Table. After a lot of scoffing, the debate came down to whether we were “Serfs of the Round Table,” or just the “Yokel Round Table.” Point is that none of us takes ourselves too seriously, because we all know who we are, and posturing is difficult among guys who will deflate your ego quicker than you can spit.

When I see Robert E.’s truck parked on the back side of the café, I make the time to stop and have a cuppa. You only have to meet Robert E. to appreciate him. Or hate him. He’s what we call “hard core”, and I ain’t talking about porn here. Robert E. jes’ calls it like he sees it, has no regard for political correctness, and acts like he don’t know what that is, but I have my suspicions. He’s twice as fun when we have a newbie at the table, and no one misses that if don’t have to. You can chuckle all day long over the shock effect that Robert E. can have on some city dude who has had the misfortune to be educated in a university, and then asked the wrong question.

Now we’ve got lots of wild pigs in our county (and I know you think I’m talking about your county, but I’m probly not), and it’s pretty much the local sport to shoot at them on every occasion, and to make an effort to see that there are plenty of occasions. One of the fun debates at the Calf B is whether it’s better to keep a rifle in the truck to shoot at pigs and other varmits, or just have a pistol at your side at all times, usually on the seat under a towel. The debate that follows that one is about calibers, and sometimes when the conversation seems dull, you can always liven it up with a question about the relative merits of .223 vs. .308, etc.

When I walked in last week, Robert E. was amusing us all with a story we had heard many times, but it didn’t bother us to hear it again. Seems it was sorta like an initiation rite. When we would get a newcomer at the table, it seemed we all had a favorite story or two that we liked to tell. Of course they seemed to grow over the years into legends, what with the retelling and the embellishments, until none of us could remember how much really happened and how much was the re-runs, and we could all tell each other’s stories, if they weren’t there. That was half the fun of it.

So Robert E. had already told about the damage the hogs were doing to his pasture and how “Me and Lee Roy” had been after this one old boar, and he was just up to where the dogs has circled around and were coming toward him. He was standing on a small rise with his wife’s new toy (Glock 16 in 9 mm, 16 rounds), waiting under a small tree to see what the dogs could flush out of the brush in the draw below. (He’s real good about that, always testing out the latest equipment for his wife and daughters.)

The dogs converged, and he could tell they had something, because the barking changed, then the movement halted, and more dogs were coming on the run. All of a sudden the brush exploded, about forty feet away, and this 600 pound boar came charging right at him. He was shooting as he backed up against the tree, hitting the hog nine times in the process. He slowed it, it stumbled, and he was up that tree just in time.

Robert E. stood there in that tree and watched that hog kill three of his dogs and rip up two more before it had bled enough to stand still, and that’s how Lee Roy found the situation as he came running up to finish it off with his AR-15.

Now this was a favorite story, and we all like to hear it again and again, even though we don’t understand why our grandkids like to have us read the same book over and over.

Stonewall was serving refills on the coffee himself, because he liked to participate in this “theater in the round”, and he timed it just right. Robert E. had stopped talking. Everyone appeared to be thinking, but in reality we were just waiting for the newcomer to ask questions. Stonewall drawled, “Well, Robert E., did you learn anything from all that?”

Robert E. doesn’t like to be rushed, he wants the newbie to ask the questions, so he returned the volley with, “What do y’all make of that? What do you think I should have learned?” We all knew better than to say a word, so that left the vacuum they always fall in to. I was thinking this feller must have had more than one degree, and he confirmed it when he said, “That you should never hunt alone?” Suppressed smiles all around. Robert E. said, “Guess again,” and sipped on his coffee. So our stranger said, “You needed more dogs?” We were grinning now. Robert E. just shook his head. “You needed more ammunition?”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” he encouraged the educated man. “Keep going.”

“You needed a larger caliber?”

“That would have made a difference. Keep going.”

Our guest was out of ammo himself. “I give up.”

“Okay, what was the biggest problem I had, and whose fault was it?”

“Well, if it had been a smaller pig you would have killed it quickly, so I guess it was just your bad luck that he was so big and tough.”

“Wrong,” said Robert E. “It was my fault, and only my fault. That boar did what they all do, under the circumstances. I underestimated my opponent. My dogs pushed him up in that draw, surrounded him, and attacked him where he lived. And I placed myself in a position where he had no escape. Charging me was his best option over facing that pack of dogs. I did have a shortage of ammunition, and the caliber was too small. But my real error was in not taking that boar seriously in the first place. I put him in a position that endangered me. Big mistake.”

Our new friend was digesting this, in its infallible logic, when someone picked up a city newspaper left by some tourists passing through. He read the headline, “Connecticut Gun Owners Defy New Law.”

“Well,” said the visitor, “if that law passes here, then you won’t be able to carry that high capacity gun any more, so I guess that means the end of your hunting of wild pigs.”

Robert E. was slow to respond, and his eyes grew hard, as he said, “What it means is that all of us are being rounded up and attacked on all sides by a swarm of bureaucrats and politicians are passing a pack of new laws that take away our freedoms, and we, the People, are now like that wild hog. What do you think our response is going to be?”

Our city friend clearly did not like the direction this was going, but Robert E. didn’t care. He said, “We understand that some dogs are gonna die in the process, but we also understand that someone sent those dogs. Someone passed those laws, thinking they could read about it later in the papers. When we’re done with the dogs, some politicians had better be a long way off when the time comes, because they are just about to push us to a point that we cain’t be pushed any further.”

Our guest was perturbed. “I see your implications, but you can’t be serious. I’ve got a brother-in-law who’s a state senator, and he’s a great Christian man, a family man, a very smart man. He votes for gun control laws because he cares about your children and mine, and their safety.”

“I’ll buy your coffee, Friend,” said Robert E. as he stood up and picked up the ticket, “if you’ll just tell your brother-in-law my story about that hog, and let’s hope he’s as smart as you think he is.”

“Well, you are an extremist, Sir, is all I can say. I’m glad to know that you are only one man.”

That’s when Lee Roy piped up, “Look around this table and take a poll, Neighbor, and recalculate your count.” The man looked slowly at each one of the faces, all grim now, and each one of them nodded a silent vote of endorsement of what Robert E. had just said.

Robert E. was counting out the change as he said, “We ain’t the only café on this highway, and we’re all saying the same thing. Tell your brother-in-law I’d like to meet him. If not soon, then maybe I’ll look him up some day.” And he walked out the door.

Sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it’s serious, but the Calf B Café’ is always worth dropping by and listening to the wisdom of the Round Table.