Box

21

Cletus Renfro.

If you’re out in the middle of nowhere, thirty miles north, east, or west of Clayton, Kentucky, and happen upon an old, beat-up motor home, and the fumes coming out of it suggest someone inside might be conducting illegal, non-agrarian chemical experiments, you’ve likely stumbled on Darrell Lake’s mobile crystal meth lab. And if you’re dumb enough to get close enough to holler the name Cletus Renfro, it won’t be one person shooting at you, it’ll be two.

Because Larry and Tulie Renfro named both their twins Cletus.

Not that they looked the slightest bit alike, one being a girl and all.

The problem was the parents were told by the ultrasound lady at the hospital that Tulie was going to have a boy. Larry and Tulie fought like cats and dogs over the name. Larry was fond of Clem, Tulie wanted Brutus.

Their arguments went far beyond the type you’d find in civil homes. By the time Larry and Tulie compromised by taking three letters from each name, to arrive at Cletus, only three teeth remained attached to Tulie’s gums, and Larry had lost all feeling on his left side.

It was Larry by day with his fists, Tulie by night with her frying pan, and they surely would’ve killed each other had it not been for Social Services who threatened for the first time in Wilford County history to take someone’s children before they were even born!

Even so, theirs was an uneasy truce. So incendiary was this issue of names, when Tulie popped out the second child, Larry said, “Fuck it. Name that one Cletus, too.”

“But it’s a girl,” the doctor said.

“I don’t give a shit,” Tulie said. “They’ll both be Cletus, and they can work it out on their own.”

Growing up, it didn’t matter to the twins what they were called. But their first grade teacher insisted the girl have her own identity, so the female Cletus said, “Call me Renfro.”

And that was that.

Renfro Renfro?

Why not?

But the kids at school called her Cletus anyway, and that’s what stuck. Except that Cletus continues to call his sister Renfro, which pleases her. Of course, when she’s pissed at him, she pushes his buttons by calling him Renfro, which makes for classic, and interesting, arguments.

Cletus and Renfro toss the fake baby in the trunk and climb in the car to avail themselves of the air conditioning.

Only to find it’s broken again.

He starts the car up.

“What’re you doin’?” she asks.

“Darrell said Dr. Box is courtin’ a woman, Faith Hemphill. Figured we’d drive to her house and stake it out.”

“And you’re goin’ there now?”

“I thought I would. If we roll down the windows we’ll get some air circulatin’.”

“And you’re just gonna head on over there right now.”

“That’s right. You got a problem with that?”

“Can you see out the front window at all?”

He looks.

He can’t.

The hood’s still up.

She laughs.

“Shut up, Renfro!” he says.

“You shut up, Renfro!” she snaps back.