Deputy Jeavons Gets The Grass Cut

By John Lambert
Copyright on this story text belongs at all times to the original author only, whether stated explicitly in the text or not.

A few clouds drifted aimlessly across an otherwise unbroken vista of blue, I ran a handkerchief over my sweat popped brow and took another swig from my soda.
I was taking a break from my duties, which involved cruising around the neighbour, delivering summons and keeping a vigilant eye. It was good to sit a while on the bench outside the grocery store, underneath the awning, in the relative cool.

Mrs. Hall, a middle-aged woman known vaguely to me, came out of the grocery and asked, in a timid voice, ‘Can I speak wit’ you Deputy Jeavons?’
‘Sure Ma’am.’ I smiled. She put her groceries down and I moved along to give her space.
‘It’s about my boy, Fitz.’ She began nervously. I was all ears then, since all sorts of alarming rumours already darkened the reputation of her ‘boy’. I pictured a lively and cheerful sixteen-year-old individual. He had the face of an angel, but some of his characteristics were devilish.

Mrs. Hall catalogued a long series of flaws possessed by Fitz, he was ‘sassy’, utterly lazy, – and even today, she lamented, he had refused to do any yard work.
‘A tiger could hide in the grass at the back of our house.’ she exclaimed.
She stopped short of saying that Fitz had done anything criminal, she had no knowledge of that, but she sounded far from convinced that he had not perpetrated any crimes. Fitz had been on my radar for a little while, hovering shadow-like on the fringes, mentioned here and there as a possible culprit. He was the kind of scoundrel elders and responsible people often thought ‘might be worth questioning about recent misdeeds.’
‘Of course,’ Mrs. Hall moaned, ‘it was different when his father was here.’ Mr. Hall had gone north to work in one of those ‘automobile factories’.
‘Frank, that’s my husband; he’d beat a heavy leather strap on Fitz’s butt like it was a tambourine.’ Mrs. Hall sighed in exasperation, remembering those better days.
The conversation sent a ticklish trickle of sweat down my spine.
‘Mrs. Hall,’ I announced in my best Law Officer’s voice, ‘a boy’s addiction to mischief is always stronger than his sense of prudence or fear. Take away the fear, and the control goes.’
Mrs. Hall nodded agreement and sighed again as she announced, ‘Ain’t that so.’
‘You still got the strap?’ I asked quietly, licking the last taste of soda from my lips.
‘I sure do.’ She smiled wickedly.
‘Let’s take a ride to see Fitz.’ I suggested, picking up her groceries.

Our arrival could not be kept secret from the local inhabitants, the black and white car was one of few parked in the road. I helped Mrs. Hall carry the groceries into a small, but neat and clean, house. The yard was not tidy, the grass had grown very long, and the space looked neglected. Loud music came from a room on the right.
‘He’s still in his room.’ Mrs. Hall announced tired, as she nodded back down the passageway towards the blaring sounds.
‘Is that the strap?’ I asked pointing at excellent looking instrument of punishment hanging from the back of the kitchen door.
‘It sure is,’ Mrs. Hall said and then added, ‘we got a swell woodshed out the back, large and empty for swinging that strap.’
I took the strap down. It was a fine broad, thick piece of leather perfect for slapping some sense into a bad boy’s butt.
‘Ma,’ a voice bellowed above the music, ‘you doing some coffee? I need some coffee.’ Mrs. Hall shook her head slowly. The indignant voice came again, ‘Did you remember the Oreos? I need some of them too!’ I gripped the strap tighter in order to calm the excited pulsing of my blood.

I burst into Fitz’s room. The curtains were drawn; the room a mess, I smelt jack-off juice and, worse still, the stale odour of reefers. Fitz, fumbled at his fly, he smiled a gentle smile of embarrassment. When he smiled, wonderful dimples appeared on his cheeks. I had forgotten the extent of his dashing good looks. He turned the music off, his hands a blur of movement.
‘I was just fiddling.’ He knitted his brows, suppressing his feeling of annoyance.
‘Well, put your violin back in your pants, we gotta talk.’ For a boy caught shelling his corncob, he made a fast recovery.
‘What you doin’ here?’ He spat out. I gazed at his fiery, angry face. He stared at me in a most unceremonious manner, silently assessing the threat that I posed. His face was a mixture of fear and defiance.
‘Smoking reefers,’ I made a pointed of breathing in deeply, ‘running round town up to all sorts of mischief, giving your Ma’ a bad time, all ‘no-no's’, but talking to a Deputy like that, uh-uh, that’s a really serious ‘no-no’.’ I wagged my finger in his face. The boy’s wide mouth opened and closed, but no words emerged from between his ripe, full lips. I had rocked him to his foundations. I lifted and smelt the suspicious brown substance on a small square of silver paper on his bedside table. He gulped, gasped, started to look profoundly guilty, and began shaking.

I drew back the curtains and opened the window, a small crowd had gathered in the alleyway that ran beside the garden. They were curious onlookers, interested in the fate of others. I knew that already rumours of Fitz’s imagined and actual misdemeanours would be circulating. The crimes becoming more heinous as the minutes passed.
I lifted the strap up, his face lightened a shade. ‘You and I are going to the woodshed, and I’m going whup your behind real hard.’ I stated calmly, an intensely serious expression filled my face, although the sound of blood in my ears almost deafened me.
‘Whup my behind?’ Fitz nearly choked with indignation, and he froze in astonishment. Such a thought appalled him. His voice rose to such a pitch of disbelief that it sounded almost like a girl's.
‘Whup it real hard.’ I emphasized.
‘Real hard.’ He repeated in a sensational whisper. He gave me an ‘unsettled’ look.
I could see he was thinking about the precarious nature of his situation. At this point, many errant individuals embark on callow, pathetic self-justifications. Fitz just looked a little queasy, began blinking rapidly, bowed his head bashfully, and took a deep, sobbing gulp of air.
‘Ok, a whuppin’.’ He nodded as his deep, brown eyes danced wildly.
‘A real hard whuppin’.’ I repeated unable to disguise my impatience with his ‘slow learning’.
With the anger and indignation gone from his face, he was a heart numbingly handsome youth.

I put my hand on his shoulder and guided him through the kitchen.
Mrs. Hall informed Fitz that indeed she had purchased Oreos and that, provided he ‘behaved well’ some would be made available ‘after’.
Outside loafers had gathered like crows at the sight of carrion. Some craned their necks to see over the fence. Others invaded the driveway to peer round the side of the house.
Everybody was eyeballing Fitz. On the walk to the woodshed, his last traces of bravado deserted him. I could feel trembling through his shoulder, and his breathing was heavy and laboured. The grass was long; perhaps a tiger cub could hide in it.
‘ ‘One size’ is gonna get a larruping.’ A young voice cried out gleefully. The misfortunes of others fodder for mirth.
I turned in the direction of the voice and shouted, ‘If I hear another word from you, you’ll get one too.’ A young boy, his face full of happy dazzling white teeth, pulled his head down into his shoulders. The boy’s good humour vanished faster than his smile.
One size – Fitz Hall, I thought, what a burden.

We entered the woodshed, it was ‘large and empty’ as Mrs. Hall has stated. I left the door ajar, for the spectators to better appreciate and enjoy proceedings, and absorbed the smells of sawdust and creosote. Fitz moved towards the workbench that dominated the space. He might have been dumb enough to earn himself a ‘really hard whuppin’, but he was not dumb enough to think his pants were going to get in the way of the strap. He fumbled at his fly buttons, successfully unbuttoned them, pushed down his pants, and followed them with his shorts.
He looked at me pleadingly, ‘Get your ass over that bench.’
He did, I moved his shirt away and examined Fitz’s slim, pert upturned buttocks with the attentive eyes of a connoisseur. I gazed adoringly at the pretty, dark rump he presented, but for only a few seconds. My head was spinning so fast I thought it might leave its moorings and my heart was racing as if I had run a long distance. I whacked a stroke across the superb spheres and felt calmer immediately. I experienced the rapture I always enjoy when delivering a first stroke, of many, to a bad boy’s bottom. The leather strap striking the firm ass produced a loud musical note. A hoot of appreciation came from the loiterers outside. Fitz, listless and resigned, heaved a sigh. I whacked him again and followed that with a fast third stroke. I was laying heat across the centre of his bottom, all the strokes landed on the same segment. Fitz, sounded as if he had run a long distance, panted, and gasped. His dark bottom lightened in colour, turned grey, and started to quiver between strokes. I whacked three more quick-fire strokes across the greyest section of the curves. He let out a soft cry, like gulping down air after holding his breath for a long period,
‘Ain’t that enough?’ He asked with more than a slight degree of acrimony in his voice.
‘Didn’t I say a ‘real hard whuppin,’ I planted my next stroke, ‘I said that didn’t I?’ The boy had gulped and convulsed after my last blow. ‘Didn’t I?’ I encouraged him with his next. Fitz’s right hand moved from the workbench and began to edge slowly towards his sore ass.
‘Yes, you did,’ the sorry sounding boy managed between gasps. I gave him another whack. After a pause he said, ‘surely that’s enough.’ Apart from sounding sorry, he also sounded a little riled at my persistence. I gave him another. His cute little ass jiggled and danced.
‘Fitz,’ I announced gravely, and whacked him again. ‘Anytime you decide you want to get your sore little tush back inside your pants, you can start by calling me ‘Sir’’. I whacked him once more. His bouncy ass cheeks clenched. Fitz digested the importance of what I had said to him rapidly.
‘Sir,’ he stated with the short, sharp desperation of the misunderstood, ‘I didn’t mean no disrespect, Sir.’ I whupped him again. ‘I’ll be good, Sir.’ He howled. I whupped him again. He issued first a dull groan mingled with a throaty wheezing followed by a lengthy sniffing and then a terrible wail. It was the sound of a boy in excruciating pain and of one who had learnt his lesson.
I looked long and hard at Fitz’s butt, nothing looks better than a fine, young ass with fresh ‘learning’ marks on it.
‘Up you get, Fitz.’ I ordered. Fitz did not need a second invitation. He shot upright and pulled his shorts over his hot behind. His pants followed rapidly and when in place he rubbed small, slow circles with the palm of his hands over his aching bottom.
‘Now Fitz,’ the youth stood before me. His hot face and flushed, and his eyes moist. He looked like a boy in ‘listening-hard’ mode, ‘take that lawnmower and start cutting the grass.’ Fitz was paying rapt attention, his brow knitted in immense concentration, clearly fearful that any further fault on his part might provoke a resumption of ‘whuppin’.
‘Yes, Sir.’ He stated instantly, and he even nodded his full comprehension and moved towards the implement.
‘I’m going to keep an eye on you, Fitz, you bad again, this strap gonna cling to your butt like tar to a feather, you understand?’
He understood. ‘Yes, Sir.’ He was already pushing the mower outside.

Mrs. Hall gave me coffee and I ate some of Fitz’s Oreos. Fitz was very busy cutting the grass. He worked hard, only occasionally taking time to confirm to the most fascinated and reluctant to leave, of the straggling watchers that, ‘it hurt like hell, still does.’
I took the mysterious brown substance from Fitz’s bedroom, and threw it in down a drain on way to the car. Fitz was still mowing the grass as I left.