By Randy Reynolds
I had no idea that company was coming and I didn’t see him arrive because I was already asleep in my rabbit pajamas with the big ears and footies when he got there. In the middle of the night when a crack of thunder woke me up, I scrambled out of bed and down the hall as fast as I could move in the thick pj’s. I slipped into my parents’ bed and snuggled up against Daddy’s back, where I felt safer than anywhere else. I went to sleep to the sounds of Daddy’s soft snores and rain pelting the tin roof.
What I didn’t know was that Mother and Daddy had given the evangelist their room and I was snuggled up to the back of Brother Raleigh. He was a very surprised young preacher when he woke up soaking wet the next morning with an equally wet bunny rabbit snuggled against him. He sat up in bed, which woke me up. I took one look at him and screamed and Mother came running.
She made excuses for me. “He comes to our bedroom when he gets scared at night. The thunderstorm must have woke him up and he thought you were Gene and, and…”
At the breakfast table, Brother Raleigh described how it felt to get peed on by a large rabbit and my daddy roared with laughter. Preachers are, first and foremost, performers and Brother Raleigh, gratified by the response, told the story over and over. I hung my head in shame, anxious for breakfast to be over so I could go touch the BB gun again—the one that I was going to get for Christmas that I had discovered hidden in my parents’ chifarobe.
I wanted that Daisy BB gun more than I would ever want anything in my life, with the possible exception of horses (which were out of the question) and the Jenkins girl (whom I would later marry.) Many years later, when I first saw The Christmas Story, in which Ralphie begged for a Red Ryder BB gun, it was like someone had written a chapter of my life. I had gone through the same ordeal as Ralphie, begging my parents for a BB gun. My mother, like Ralphie’s, had argued against it, saying I might put my eye out. I was bitterly disappointed that I wasn’t going to get it. But then, while plundering their chifarobe, I found it—a no-frills, lever-action Daisy BB gun. My heart nearly leaped out of my chest the first time I saw it and touched it, and since that day I had frequently snuck into the chifarobe to hold it and pet it. I kissed it, too. It was soon to be mine, all mine. My very own BB gun. Proof that I had become a man.
An evangelist living in the house all week can’t be ignored by his hosts, so Brother Raleigh went where Dad went: on hospital rounds, visiting church members, paying bills—he shared Daddy’s schedule for the week. Which meant he heard a lot of talk, because my daddy was a nonstop talker. They say 40,000 words is a novel? Well, my daddy spoke about a novel a day or more. From one subject to the next, he just talked and talked and talked and talked. And people liked it, because he was a good talker, with lots of great stories and a first-rate mind and could talk about things that other people hadn't learned yet. The problem was, once he started talking, he didn’t hold anything back. He even told Brother Raleigh about the BB gun in the chifarobe and about Mother being against it because I might shoot my eye out.
And so it came to pass that the day after the revival was over, I gave my little brother and sister the slip and snuck into the chifarobe to hold my BB gun. But it wasn’t there. I went into the living room and examined all the presents under the Christmas tree, but none of them was shaped like a BB gun.
I looked under the beds, behind the couch, between the stove and refrigerator.
“What are you looking for?” asked Mother.
“I know y’all bought me a BB gun,” I said.
“Oh, sweetie…” she began.
“But it’s not in the chifarobe anymore. I think Ricky took it.”
“Now, Randy, you know I didn’t want you to have a BB gun this year. You’ll put your eye out.”
“But you already got it. It was in the chifarobe and now it’s gone!”
“I know, sugar, but your Daddy and I, well, we just thought you ought to wait a year or two.”
“Nooooooo!” I wailed.
“Your Daddy mentioned it to Brother Raleigh and he has a little nephew that wants a BB gun, so he bought it from us and we’re going to get you something better.”
I ran away from her, threw myself onto my bed and cried till I ran out of tears.
Many years later, when I was co-owner and General Manager of a radio station in
I forget now why I didn’t hire him. I hope he doesn’t read this and think it was because of the BB gun.
