“Well, since this orchard backed right up against Grandmom’s property, we couldn’t resist sneaking over there. We’d steal apples, climb on his tractors, play in the mountains of hay he stored in his barns. But Hamby was a real bastard about trespassers, so we’d have to go at night. We’d wait till Grandmom went to sleep, and we’d sneak out of that creaky farmhouse.

“All right, so this one particular October night, we slip outside about nine o’clock and hop the fence into the orchard. I remember the moon’s very full, and it’s not cold yet, but the crickets and tree frogs are gone, so the night is very still and very quiet. It’s near the peak of harvest. Some of the apples have soured, but most are perfect, and we stroll through the orchard, eating these ripened sun-warmed beauties, just having a helluva time.

“Now Hamby owned a couple hundred acres, and on the farthest corner of his land, there was this pumpkin patch we’d heard about but never had the balls to go there. Well, this night was one of those nights when we felt invincible. So we reach the end of the orchard and see these big orange pumpkins in the moonlight. Remember, Hamby had won some blue ribbons for his pumpkins at the state fair. He grew these monstrous hundred-pound freaks of nature.

“We can see his house a ways up the tractor path, and all the lights are off, so we race each other into the pumpkin patch, our eyes peeled for one of those hundred-pounders. Finally, we collapse in the middle of the patch, laughing, out of breath.”

Orson smiled. I did, too. We knew what was coming. “Suddenly, just a few yards away, we hear this loud groan: ‘I LOVE my orange pussy!’”

I guffawed, felt the whiskey burn my sinuses.

“Scared us shitless,” he said. “We turn and see Mr. Hamby draped over this huge pumpkin the size of one of those Galápagos Island sea turtles. He’s got his overalls down around his ankles, and boy he’s humping this thing in the moonlight. Just talking up a storm, smacking it like he’s smacking a bare ass, and stopping every now and then to take a swig from his jar of peach brandy.

“Of course we’re mortified, and don’t realize he’s obliviously drunk. We think he’ll see us and chase us if we try to run home, so we lay down in the dirt and wait for him to finish up and go home. Well, eventually he finishes …with that pumpkin, pulls up his overalls, and goes looking for another. The next one’s smaller, and after he’s bored a hole in it with his auger, he drops to his knees and starts riding this one. We watch him fuck five pumpkins before he passes out dead drunk. Then we run back through the orchard toward Grandmom’s, sick on apples and…”