Feud

You have heard some people say “Love thy neighbor.” But I hate my neighbor — I’m talking about the family that lives in that place over yonder. I hate them all, from their baby to their granny. This town ain’t big enough for the both of us. 

Our feud has lasted two hundred and fifty years now. You’ve heard of neighbors borrowing a cup of sugar? Well we share nothin’ with the likes of them, nor they with us. Neither bread nor beer. The hatred is mutual. My family shoots shotguns at their family, and they cuss at us and toss a dead possum in our yard. They blew our mailbox to smithereens with a bomb and poisoned our crops, so now our grits taste funny. And they tipped over our cows and plucked all our chickens. So we lied to the Feds about them and then went over and stabbed their tires and gummed up their hair.

It all began when the neighbor boy came walking near our property with his dog. I got furious and went to talk to his pops. “Don’t tell me what I can’t do,” I shouted and spat. Now here comes grandpa stumblin’ down the road with Musty Joe, and they was scrappin’. “Dang, Joe,” I say; and he cocks his gun. So I pulled on my pants and ran, but he got me in the back. Then my brother Paul steps out with his shotgun and fires some lead into Musty Joe’s brain-case. “Good job, Paul, you got him right in the noggin!” I say, with blood spillin’ out of my mouth. Then Paul says “Where’s that neighbor boy and his hound?” So I point em out, and Paul shoots that vermin dead and maims his mutt.