The Werley Boys

By John Pesta

The Collinsville town board is unhappy with two old men who refuse to hook up their house to the municipal sewer system. And the old men are upset because the "communists" in the town hall want them to stop using the privy they have used all their lives. Fireworks erupt when the board takes action.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Pesta
• Release date: Apr 23, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458185761

John Pesta

I was born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, but I have lived in southern Indiana most of my life. For many years I was editor and publisher of The Brownstown Banner, a semiweekly paper in the south-central part of the state. During that time I wrote all sorts of things for the paper, from obituaries to editorials, from town-meeting stories to high-school sports, from features about housewives’ favorite recipes to captions for photos of dead rattlesnakes and giant pumpkins. I received degrees in English from the University of Notre Dame and the University of Virginia, and I spent a year at the University of London on a Fulbright fellowship. My short stories have appeared in various literary magazines, among them Sou’wester, The Florida Review, Four Quarters, and Prairie Schooner. My mystery novel, "Safely Buried," won the 2012 Best Books of Indiana Contest sponsored by the Indiana State Library in Indianapolis. The cover of the book features a pastel painting by my wife, Maureen. Our children, Jesse and Abigail, live in New York.

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The Werley Boys

A Short Story

by John Pesta

Smashwords Edition Copyright © 2011 by John Pesta

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The Werley Boys

I hate to bring this up again, Phyllis Perry, the clerk-treasurer, told the town board, but the Werleys still haven’t hooked onto the sewer.

Lloyd McCutcheon, a heavyset man in his early forties and the most outspoken member of the board, smacked his hands on the table and shook his head. What do we have to do? He twisted halfway around in his chair to face the town marshal, Clifford Lee, who was sitting directly behind him in the hallway, just outside the small meeting room. You went down there and talked to them again, didn’t you, Clifford?

Yes, sir, I sure did, the marshal answered.

What’d they say?

Same as last time, Clifford said in his slow southern-Indiana drawl, which was followed by a brief pause. Said they been livin’ there goin’ on eighty years without a sewer and can’t see why they need one now. He sounded as if he had half a mind to agree with the Werleys. Past retirement age himself, his thin craggy face was topped by a long, sloping forehead and a few strands of whitish-gray hair combed across it.

Did you tell them about the new ordinance? Lloyd demanded. "Do they understand they can be fined for every