Butch Black was a bad motherfucker.
Butch Black was the name my Aunt Cora gave the belt she used to whup ass with whenever she would babysit my cousins and I. Butch Black wasn’t just any old regular belt. Butch Black was one of those thick, extra wide belts that folks wore in the Seventies. The kind that had a big ass 4 pound buckle that you could quite possibly kill a man with. The kind that was so wide that it needed two holes to keep the thing buckled.
Anytime Aunt Cora got upset with us, she would yell out “Don’t make me get Butch Black!” That usually did the trick. I personally never felt the wrath of Butch Black, but I saw my cousin Andre get him some one day. Let’s just say that I damn near started crying watching him get whipped. That sound that belt made as it connected was thunderous. It’s as if my Aunt was wielding Thor’s mighty Hammer Of The Gods, and letting loose on a motherfucker’s ass cheeks. Thank God she didn’t make Andre take his pants off, because he would have needed an ass transfusion. Butch Black would literally have separated his ass from his body.
I don’t know what happened to Butch Black, but I suspect that sometime after I outgrew the need for a babysitter, Aunt Cora’s grandson took that belt, wrapped it around a brick, and threw it in the river or something to avoid further pain, humiliation and suffering.
And you know what? I don’t blame him.
Because Butch Black was a bad motherfucker.
Ahh, good times.
Moms had a giant beatdown belt like that. The buckle was huge, and it had metal nuts and bolts welded onto it (I have no idea what for). One side was all black and the other side was like unfinished rawhide or something. It made a very distinct sound when she swung it. I caught that belt once and only once. I think I’m still suffering from the trauma. She still has it, none of us had the cajones to do anything to that belt. The sight of it was sheer terror enough, let alone the ass whipping.
Maybe she’ll pass it down to me when I have kids.
GODDAMN THAT WAS FUNNY!!
I could relate though….my dad had some of those thick ass belts and they felt like someone was peeling your skin off in layers when you got hit with them….
Neat blog! My mom had something like that, but it wasn’t a belt. It was the “Board of Education.” She bought it at a craft show from a lady selling novelty gifts like paddles with witty sayings on them, but my mom actually used it to paddle my ass.
Ah yes, the “belt”. My mom had this short leather strap she called “la ñoña” which loosely translated means “the crybaby” as in:
“Oh you want to cry? I’ll give you something to cry about! Go get la ñoña!!”
And she still has that ish, too. Mami don’t play…