Jimmy Weinmiller

He was the richest man in town (not to mention the most hated) in fact he owned over half of it. His dad was a big shot from Arkansas, one of Bill Clinton’s main moneymen, owned a big horse ranch, lots of land, and a huge mansion on a hill among other things. His business was drugs. Lots of drugs. Jimmy used to work for his old man’s cartel up until he did some time for getting caught with a semi-truck full of reefer coming across the border in El Paso. He spent five years in one of them fancy country club prisons till cousin Bill gave him a full pardon on his way out of the white house.
Everybody in the small town of Monterey L.A. knew his name. Jimmy Weinmiller. Nobody liked him much either. He rubbed people the wrong way. He rubbed people out of their land and caused all kinds of ruckus just because he could.
HE built his house, a massive two story mansion, right down the road on the bank of Black River Lake, a prized piece of land called Billy goat point with access to the hottest bass fishing spot around. It was called Billy goat point on account of a farmer who kept his goats there once upon a time, until they were eaten by alligators.
The son of a preacher, I lived in the parsonage beside the Eva Church of God, a little white country church surrounded by Pecan trees with a cemetery lined with ornamental pear trees. In all four directions of the two and a half acre lot was farmland. The acreage to the West was Wienmiller’s prized property. In the back forty was a slough that would flood in the winter months and become a winter bungalow for thousands of Mallards as well as wood ducks and about a dozen other species of duck. Oftentimes around dusk I would sneak back there with my twelve gauge and jump a few of them.
His mansion on Billy Goat point also served as a hunting lodge for novice duck hunters such as the likes of Bobby Hebert, Bill Clinton, and other athletes and celebrities. It was sometimes more of a party house than a hunting lodge; the noise would sometimes keep me awake at night. I would get up cursing under my breath as I shut the window otherwise left open to hear the chirping of the crickets, the mocking bird’s song, and the yapping of coyotes hunting along the southeastern tree line.
Unpopular though he was, I didn’t have anything against the man. Often times while I was out cutting the grass he would come tearing down the turning row in his four-wheel drive truck. I would lift my hand for the customary wave because that’s what you do in the country, you wave, at everybody. My wave would never be returned. The first few times I gave him the benefit of the doubt. “He didn’t see me.” I’d say to myself, or “He thought I was swatting a fly or reaching for the gearshift, stretching my fingers or something.” Then, after a few more times I was offended. Where I come from a non-wave is a sign of disrespect. Who does he think he is anyways?
He had a lot of farming equipment he would park wherever he pleased; whether it was on the church property or not. I would often have to go around it to mow and leave a big patch of tall grass and weeds. One time in particular he was picking up a tractor he had parked right where I was mowing, He came walking across the yard paying me no mind whatsoever, talking over the grind of the mower to the hand that had dropped him off. He stood along with the other guy, right in the path of where I was mowing. I held my ground as I came toward them, and blew grass cuttings all over them. I kept my gaze on Weinmiller as he looked down at his boots that I had just sprayed grass clipping all over. I watched him as he turned his shocked dumbfounded gaze from his boots to my unrelenting gaze as if noticing my existence for the first time, his surprise faded into an amused grin.
Time went by and his dog started coming around the house, getting into the trash, eating all of my dog’s (Sandy and Buck’s) food, and stirring up trouble with them. I run him off several times, threw rocks, shot at his paws with a twenty-two rifle, I even took him down to Paul’s Grocery once but momma made me go back and get it. So I caught the little bastard and loaded him up in the Nova and went a knocking on that big cypress door. When he came out I handed him the little terrier and said, “You gotta do something with this dog.” I explained the problems I was having with it and he offered to let me have it the second or third time I had to bring it up there. I turned it loose somewhere in Jonesville.
Harvest time came and he came by the house, I was out in the yard, he introduced me to his brother and offered me a job. It paid seven dollars an hour and provided lunch. I had spam and peanut butter sandwiches every day for the next three months. We worked from sun-up to sundown every day, and sometimes even after sundown we would work with floodlights. I had done some work for him before through his right hand man, Travis, loading hay and painting the backup lodge.
HE tried to jip me out of a lot of money. He was slow at paying anyway. Then one night on their way to take me home he said, “How does one-hundred dollars sound to you?” I wasn’t overly smart when it came to figuring but I wasn’t stupid either. I had gone near bout three weeks without pay and a hundred dollars sounded like a load of horseshit to me and I told him so. I told him by my figures he owed me about $700 dollars. He made up some lame excuse about taxes or what not but I knew he was paying under the table, so I held my ground and told him that I had agreed to work for seven dollars an hour and seven dollars an hour is what I was going to get. He counted out the money in hundreds and twenty’s cash in hand.
When I got back to the house I looked at my time card and got out my calculator and realized that I had over charged him by over two hundred dollars. So back I went to knocking on that big cypress door. Giving that money back blew him and his brother away. They had never seen anything like that. I walked home that night feeling awful good; I had refused the chance to cheat the cheater, though I could have with ease.