A Warm Cheek Day

No sir. It were’nt my fault sir. Explain myself? There ain’t much there to explain sir. I was only responderin’ in like manner that any other man in like situation woulda respondered sir. He came upon me from my backside and set to surprisin’ me. I ain’t much for surprises, much less surprises from a man, much lesser from a man about my backside. What do I suppose should be done about myself sir? I don’t suppose I’m askin’ for forgiveness. There is the Lord and He is the Lord and you are not He, if you’d forgive me sir for sayin’, but you are not the Lord and I don’t suppose I ought to be right in askin’ anyone in here for forgiveness unlessen you suppose the Lord is here in this room and that He is in all things but if it were so, that He were in all things then I suppose He shoulda been in that other room when I set about doin’ what I did after the old boy set about surprisin’ me about my backside. I understandin’ that I made an awful mess of the situation as it were, but it is as it should or ought to be. It just weren’t right what he done and retribution came hard and fast out of me before I was even ponderin’ about what it was I was doin’. By all that is good, my mind caught up slow and obvious to the situation at hand, like studying revelation in my old folk’s home great grandma and grandpa reading the Bible for the first and last time. I came ‘round to tellin’ myself to stop stop stop but my hands weren’t about listenin’. They were set all about their task and weren’t none about to stop no time soon until it were get done. Even when it were get through, they still wanted to keep on keepin’ on and I’m a guessin’ that’s why I stood there a tremblin’ like one of them cornered white jackrabbits I used to chase back in my young and warm cheek days. A warm cheek day? Well sir, a warm cheek day is when I wasn’t but higher than your boot top and I was idle like my momma warned me not to be and I got about runnin around and runnin around aimless as the devil my momma said was followin’ me since the day I was born. I could go about runnin’ aimless and shirtless, sometimes even butt ass naked, even in air cold as death and I’d keep on runnin’ until my cheeks got warm. And my cheeks weren’t rosy red and all cute like a cherub. My cheeks could get to like a crimson red, like an Injun, like I was kissed by the devil. And if anyone were to come across me there might be Hell to pay. Thankfully no one ever did come across me exceptin’ squirrels and jackrabbits like I mentioned a trembling like before. And I’m a guessin’ that my warm cheek days have done returned to me at least for a day because when that old boy got about approchin’ me from my backside he came in and kissed my cheek like the devil I just mentioned and I’m a guessin’ the devil finally caught up to me like he’s been followin’ me my whole life like I mentioned my momma used to say. I never figured he come to me in the form of that old boy. I always figured the devil to be a child. You know, like an angel, a cherub fallen from the sky, forgotten and unwanted.