"Getting Even"
By Pauline Roberta "Bubbles" Jackson Bates
Pauline Roberta "Bubbles" Jackson Bates wrote this poem about rescuing her drunken brother John Richard Jackson from a truck he'd run into the creek in Creede, years before she married. John later published it himself in his 1997 collection, "Echoes from the Thundermug," under his own column heading, "For Love of a Brother," introducing it with an editor's note explaining that Bubbles had suggested he run her poem in place of his usual reminiscence, "turning the tables somewhat." The poem's real publishing history is a longer story than that note lets on — see below.
GETTING EVEN
Creede has had colorful people,
Many are now gone away,
But all of them were not lost to here
As several elected to stay.
They sowed wild oats with abandon,
Leading a dissolute life
'Til their misdeeds were curtailed somewhat
By the taking of a wife.
Such a one was my brother,
Worshiped devoutly by me.
It mattered not if he was a sot
Or behaved respectably.
I knew from past performance
That his current sobriety
Was tenuously held by him
And yearning to break free.
Thus I wasn't much surprised
To learn one fateful day
That all John's good intentions
Had burst and flown away.
He'd been ensconced in the hotel bar
From morning 'til afternoon,
And if I were to help him
I'd better get there soon.
To my dismay I was too late
For I arrived and found
He'd put a fist through the huge plate glass,
Spewing blood upon the ground.
Wounded, ill and all alone,
He'd crawled away somewhere.
His drunken buddies staggered 'round
And didn't even care.
My heart beat fast as I raced along,
Where could my brother be?
Up and down the streets I searched
With burning urgency.
I looked and looked, but all in vain,
My brother John was gone.
With sinking heart and weary steps
I sadly started home.
As I neared home I spied a truck
Parked nearly in the creek.
A sudden hunch turned me aside
And I ran to take a peek.
There in the cab was brother John
Sprawled face down on the seat.
To reach him I must crawl inside —
A superhuman feat!
I braved the blood, the stinking slime,
And pulled my brother out.
I hoisted him upon my back
And staggered all about.
I got us started toward the house,
Navigating well,
We came upon a large mud hole
And into it John fell.
I dragged him out and once again
We started on our way.
We made the house but the door was locked
So I told John to stay.
I started 'round to get the key
When with a mighty roar,
John lunged ahead and with his feet,
Kicked and broke the door.
He started weaving toward the bed
Upon which there reposed
A bedspread shining white and clean,
And neatly folded clothes.
I yanked the spread before he fell
And saved the wash that day.
Brother John was unconcerned
As on the bed he lay.
I knew his wife would kill him
When she saw what he had done,
And Daddy couldn't be too proud
Of his shining, fair-haired son.
But luck was with him to the end
For John nearly died,
And scared them so, they nursed him
And sat up by his side.
Dawn broke and they had saved him
I'm happy now to say.
And John lived on past that bright dawn
To drink another day.
The Story Behind the Poem
Per family knowledge, this poem has a longer history than John's own editor's note lets on. In his early writing years, John cultivated something of a saintly reputation for himself in print — his brother William Charles "Scoot" Jackson used to call him the "Do Gooder" for it. After one of John's own stories left people who actually knew him raising their eyebrows, Bubbles wrote "Getting Even" and sent it to the local newspaper.
The paper's owner at the time was a friend of John's. He refused to print it, and sent Bubbles a poison-pen letter accusing her of trying to destroy her brother's reputation. Everyone who read the poem thought that accusation was mild, considering what a real hell-raiser John had been. John himself was relieved the poem hadn't run, and chastised his sister for writing it in the first place. He considered the matter closed.
A few years later, the newspaper changed hands. Going through the files, the new owner found the whole paper trail — Bubbles' original letter, making clear the poem had been written in good fun; the previous owner's poison-pen reply; and the poem itself — and published it, without asking either John or Bubbles first. Bubbles and the rest of the family were delighted. John, by his own account in "New Year's Greetings", was not: the half-joking wish to "kill her a whole lot" is not entirely an exaggeration for effect. He got over it before long. And, as the family tells it, once "Getting Even" was out in public, John began working more of his own past mea culpas and misadventures into his column himself — and the column only grew more popular for it.