I Got This Deal!

Many years ago I worked in an office and often I would be working on files when an old fella would walk in with his son who was in High School.

Sev couldn't read or write, he was one of those old timers that grew up on a farm and probably left school to stay and work on the family farm. I was a captive audience when he came in as I was stuck behind a desk and had to stay there and answer the phone for the Chiropractor I worked for.

Sev rarely washed up either. He'd lost all of his teeth at some point in his life. He'd bring in his son Sy and they'd sit and wait for doc to have an opening. They usually smelled of oil, gas, and diesel with a faint under odor of sweat. The lines in the father's hands were always dark from grime or grease I think.
However, he was a rather pleasant fellow and had some of the most unbelievable stories ever.
These stories were not made up.

"I got me a good deal," he told me one day when he and Sy came in.
"Oh yeah? What's that?" I kept typing and would glance up at him as he leaned on the counter.
"Well the landlord was gonna sell our farm we was rentin'. We only rent the house yah see, he got the land. But the well it's bad and it don't pass. Says it has oil in it." Sev paused and smiled his toothless smile.
"So there ain't no workin' septic neither."

I stopped typing and listened, giving him my full attention.
"Oh?" I asked.

"Yep so the landlord he asks if me and The Boy want the place for our own! And I tell him sure! But I can't afford no mortgage and bank payments as...we are on ..." Sev waved a hand in the air ... "You know government help."

I wait.

"So the landlord he says he'll sell me the place with the acre on it if I pay him in payments I can afford."
Sev stood back and put his hands in his pockets. "So I am buyin' the place for a thousand dollars in payments. And that's a good deal!"

"What do you do for water then if the well is bad?" I asked.

"Oh we just use it to flush the toilet. I'm using the cistern when it gets water in it for things like dishes when it rains. The septic just leaks out on the corner down by the junk pile where we have cars for parts."  Sev smiled with his toothless grin. "Once in a while we git enough water in the cistern for Sy's half brother to come up with the kids and they get a bath!"

Sev's wife had passed away a few years ago. So it was just him and his son Sy. His wife's son from a previous marriage The Half Brother, had moved a trailer onto their land with extension cords to the bigger house that had electricity.

Sev was tickled pink that he was now going to become a home owner. I mulled the situation over a bit and didn't want to burst his bubble. He'd own a condemned well and septic. No doubt that the house should be condemned also.

He and his son were so happy to finally 'own' their own place.

I actually drove by the place that year. There it was a dilapidated house with a trailer parked down the hill from it. Dead vehicles of the same make and general model were in parts here and there. Neat piles of stacked wood were near the house. Some windows were covered with plastic, some with boards.
There were kids toys spread out around the yard and a broken 4 wheeler.

Last year I went down the same road. The house is gone as are the vehicles. Looks like a bulldozer came through and rearranged the land so it could become part of a crop field.

So I wonder what ever happened to Sev and his son Sy.
I don't think Sev ever thought he was really poor. He'd grown up dirt poor and his family had their farm taken by the Government in the 1960's. Sev said taken the Government says purchased. This was for the La Farge Dam Project that never happened.  Well, the project was stopped in 1975.

The area is now known as the Kickapoo Valley Reserve. I'm grateful to be able to use this land but never forget the history and heartache behind it.

As I will never forget Sev and his wild and crazy stories.