by Jay Wilburn
Wayne’s Father is a work that will only be released as an audiobook as the story can only truly be appreciated when read aloud in Wayne’s unique Southern accent. Also the legal team at the publisher is concerned that any written record left behind of these stories will only serve to disparage the good name of a family that has donated many pews to the church and even a table at the local watering hole, Jack Rabbit Tails Pub, Bowling, and Gentleman’s club of which Wayne’s father was a regular before the syphilis went too deep in his brain and he could no longer be trusted around the ladies. Wayne’s father broke those pews and table while drunk before replacing them by court order, but it still counted as donations on his taxes.
The chapter on how Wayne’s father contracted his VD is a touching story and an excellent cautionary tale for young men everywhere, but again, legal will not let us commit that bit to writing. Please, be on the lookout for the audio book at some point in the future.
Excerpt transcript from a portion of the audiobook only work, Wayne’s Father …
My father was a terrible man. I would like to tell you that he was a better person before the recreational ailment he picked up from the docks moved into his brain, but that would simply not be true. He was at best more focused in his ongoing shenanigans.
My father was a diehard Mississippi State football fan. As any such fans will tell you, this is a life of misery within the SEC. At Thanksgiving, whenever a receiver of color caught the football, my father would jump up from his indention in the recliner and begin to yell at that player to run. This seems common enough, but he would add the most wretched racial epitaphs at the same time. This whole time my father felt he was being encouraging. The shouts were so loud and vitriolic that even my uncles, who were only slightly less racist by a few degrees, would grow uncomfortable with the display. When you find yourself making committed Mississippi racists uncomfortable, I think it may go without saying that you might be a terrible man.
My father spoke of “The Blacks” as if they were a family that lived up the street and were always causing trouble. The Blacks are at it again, he’d say. The Blacks are looking for more hand outs. The Blacks are planning some kind of trouble, I just know it. For years, I was unaware that he was referring to the entire race as he spoke of these people corporately. At best, my father thought that calling someone “Boy” was a compliment of high regard. As in, “Boy, you’d best find yourself off my lawn.” My father was a terrible man even when he was trying to be nice – sometimes especially then.
My father was always ruining the ends of movies. He never watched them, but he would claim he had seen them with a friend he called Pete. There was no Pete. Then, he would say the best part was coming up and he would describe some fantastic action scene. We would turn the movie off in disgust which was all he wanted anyway. It was years later I discovered that he was doing this. For much of my life, I thought Gone With the Wind was an alternate history movie in which the South won and went on to conquer the rest of North America before building a giant wall around Mexico. I was led to believe this because my father thought the movie was too long and he “ruined it” to avoid watching the whole thing. When I confronted him about it after discovering the subterfuge, he said he simply could not watch Atlanta burn nor sit through Reconstruction again. It was too soon. He would also make up facts on road trips. “That lady over there told me they kill 600 turkeys to make every chicken sandwich served in this gas station.” He had never left the car while I was pumping gas. There was no lady, best friend Pete, nor a Martian alliance in Gone With the Wind. “That man I met in the bathroom told me there was a Justin Beiber and Elvis double bill down at the civic center. That’s why there is so much traffic.” Elvis had been dead for years and the bathroom was a single occupancy. When I confronted him, he shrugged and said, “That’s what they want you to think.” My father was a terrible man.
My father was always pumping up the jam. He did so at the most inappropriate times such as funerals, in the grocery store in line, or even in church. I should explain. Pumping up the jam is what he called his dance moves. These gyrations are nearly indescribably – almost Lovecraftian in their unfathomable horror. Imagine the Holy Spirit coming over a fellow, but he still dances like a white boy. Imagine a Mississippi racist trying to bust a move as it were. He danced like he was angry and trying to hurt people emotionally, physically, and sometimes spiritually. My father was a terrible man.
My father’s favorite superhero was Arm Fall Off Boy. I was not allowed to read Superman because he was an illegal alien. Batman reminded my father of a rich Northerner that came down to close the mill when he was a kid. Wonderwoman reminded him of a stripper he fell in love with during the war. I don’t think he fought in any war. I asked him to explain where he met this stripper, but he just said the heart wants what it wants and it was too soon. Aquaman alternated between my father thinking he was Communist or gay. Until Arm Fall Off Boy got his own comic like he deserved, I was not allowed to buy any other titles. My father was a terrible man.
My father used to create portraits of genre authors on Etch-A-Sketches. He would do detail work, but then would put them in shadow boxes all around our house. We were never allowed to shake them up or start new drawings. He spent a small fortune on beer, cigarettes, and Etch-A-Sketches in bulk. One day he called me to come pick him up from Jack Rabbits where he had a regular table. I was only seven at the time, so I had to use my bike. He cursed me all the way home because I kept wobbling and causing his beer to spill. As I carried him up the stairs, his knee hit one of the shadow boxes thus jostling and erasing his Asimov, Rod Sterling, and Bukowski portraits. Two of those were nudes. He never forgave me even though the next morning he could not remember what he was upset about.
Here is his Rosamilia which is still in the knick knack cabinet in our guest room. My father was a terrible man.
My father would never hire a repairman for anything. He insisted upon fixing everything himself. He thought duct tape could fix anything, but was too cheap to buy name brand, so he purchased off brand Scotch tape instead. The pipes and water pressure in our house were awful. He blamed everyone else for the condition of our house. He would actually follow certified repairmen around town a heckle them as they worked. He got to where he enjoyed heckling so much that he did it everywhere … even in church. When I took my first shower in college I thought I was drowning because I did not realize a shower was supposed to spray any harder than a trickle. My father was once arrested in his boxer shorts for heckling police at a gas station. They drove away from him once, but he followed them to the Hardee’s to heckle how they ordered, how they carried their food, and how they ate. After he got out of jail, he went to the cops’ houses to “finish the fight.” He went there straight from church … still in his boxers. My father was a terrible man.
My father enjoyed hunting. He said he found the sport relaxing and it helped him reconnect to nature. In the quiet of the woods on a hunting trip, he believed he could almost touch the face of God, but he was too cheap to buy firearms and he was too lazy to get out of the car. So, he would drive around the woods and try to chase down wild life with his Buick. He ran over trees, through creeks, and destroyed campsites. Of course, he was stone drunk and said it was okay because he wasn’t on the road, he wasn’t using a gun, and this was still America. I was eight at the time and my father had me hold the flashlight out the window from the passenger’s seat. This was before airbags in cars too. I asked him why I couldn’t stay home or go to school since it was the middle of a weekday in October. I said he could use his headlights, but he claimed he did not want the animals to see him coming. He hunted deer, raccoons, squirrels, rabbits, bears, and moose all from behind the wheel of his Buick. He once got lost and crashed through the fence of the zoo. We hunted exotic animals that day. Some of the bigger ones fought back, but they were no match for my father’s hunting and driving skills. He knew just when to downshift. He was very upset when the state troopers and zoo keepers stopped us from tying that rhino to the hood. He stripped down to his boxers and refused to come out of the car until the officer agreed to let me take a picture of him with his trophies. He threw out two peace signs and made a duck face. My father was a terrible man.
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Early praise for Wayne’s Father … the book, not the man …
“This Book really pumps up the jam, just like Wayne’s father.”
— Armand Rosamilia, author of Dying Days, Dirty Deeds, The Enemy Held Near, and Shocker
“It’s true, Wayne’s father was a terrible man.
But Jay Wilburn is a despicable person for telling us his story.”
— Frank J. Edler, author of SCARED SILLY
“The Biography of Wayne’s Father is an instant classic.
Gripping, heartfelt, thrilling and poignant.
Never have I ever read such perfection in literature.
3 out of 5 stars, even in church.”
–Frank J. Edler coconspirator of The Shocker Series
“I’ve read The Biography of Wayne’s Father and now it is my mother, even in church.”
— Mr. Frank, host of Bizzong! The Bizarre And Weird Fiction Podcast
“I never realized that I had never tasted real chicken
and biscuits until Delilah’s grandmother prepared me a course,
one lovingly buttermilk-soaked piece at a time.
Similarly, I never realized that I had never met a real son of a bitch
before Jay Wilburn. Four stars.
For the chicken, not the book.”
— Stephen Kozeniewski, author of The Ghoul Archipelago: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller
“His storytelling dazzles the mind and feeds the soul.
Jay Wilburn is a terrible man.”
— Chuck Buda, author of Pay Up And Die, Delinquent,
Curse of the Ancients, and Haunted Gunsliner
Look for more from Wayne’s Father as soon as we clear everything with legal.
Check out Book 2 of the Dead Song Legend by Jay Wilburn.
Jay Wilburn lives with his wife and two sons in Conway, South Carolina near the Atlantic coast of the southern United States. He has a Masters Degree in education and he taught public school for sixteen years before becoming a full time writer. He is the author of many short stories including work in Best Horror of the Year volume 5, Zombies More Recent Dead, Shadows Over Mainstreet, and Truth or Dare. He is the author of the Dead Song Legend Dodecology and the music of the five song soundtrack recorded as if by the characters within the world of the novel The Sound May Suffer. He also wrote the novels Loose Ends and Time Eaters. He is one of the four authors behind the Hellmouth trilogy. He cowrote The Enemy Held Near with Armand Rosamilia. Jay Wilburn is a regular columnist with Dark Moon Digest. Follow his many dark thoughts on Twitter, Instagram, and Periscope as @AmongTheZombies, his Facebook author page, and at JayWilburn.com
Or begin the series with Book 1.
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So funny, Jay. I hope Legal gets over their reservations and allows the reading public a chance at following this fascinating tale.