Dead Clown Barbecue

by Strand, Jeff

  "All right, all right. I apologize. Do you feel anything yet?"

  "Not yet. Just stone. Kind of rough and gritty. Oh, wait . . ."

  "What? What is it?"

  Dominick's eyes widened. "I think this is it! I think I've found the jewel!"

  The dragon's mouth slammed shut with a thud, its teeth perfectly interlocking. Dominick shrieked and pulled away, blood spraying from the wiggling stump where his arm used to be.

  "My arm!" he shouted. "My arm!"

  He shouted several more times, all of his shouted comments in direct reference to his arm. Rusty and Juan stepped back in horror, while Bernard tried to calm Dominick down and Terrance regurgitated.

  "My arm . . . hurts . . ." said Dominick, before falling to the ground.

  "Should we put him out of his misery?" asked Bernard.

  "Out of his misery? It's an arm. It's not like he lost a head."

  "Well, sure, I guess, but then we have to mess with the whole tourniquet thing, and he'll get blood on the gear, and you just know he's not going to suffer in silence. Would you want to live with only one arm?"

  Terrance nodded. "Hell yeah, I would!"

  "Okay, fair enough, but what if your life was unfulfilling to start with?"

  "I still wouldn't want to be put out of my misery!"

  "Really? Even if it was excruciating pain, and you knew you'd be a burden on everybody else?"

  "Listen, Bernard, if you want to kill him to make him stop screaming, that's fine, but at least admit it. Don't go trying to pretend that it's something he'd want."

  Bernard's jaw dropped. "Why, I've never heard such an offensive . . . okay, yes, I'd really like for him to shut up. Is that so wrong? He has been judged by the stone dragon and found to be lacking, so it's not like we'd be killing the next Gandhi."

  Terrance sighed. "We should ask him what he wants."

  "What do you want?" Bernard asked, as Dominick thrashed around on the ground.

  "I want my arm back!"

  "He's clearly delusional," Bernard told Terrance. "He could pose a danger to all of us."

  Terrance sighed. "You're right. Damn it, you're right. Go on . . . we'll all turn our backs while you put a mercy bullet in his head."

  "Shooting him would be cruel, noisy, and wasteful," said Bernard. "I was thinking more along the lines of just rolling him off the mountain."

  "Are you insane? What if he gets caught on a ledge? He could lie there for days, slowly bleeding to death!"

  "Oh, that's ridiculous. Look how fast his blood is coming out."

  "But the flow of blood will slow down. Surely you know that! He's not some foreign-born peasant we can slaughter for sport — he's an employee!"

  "All right, hear me out. What if we pushed him over the side of the mountain, but watched him fall all the way down. If he hits a ledge, I'll shoot him from here. Fair?"

  "Has your aim improved since last time?"

  "That was a completely different situation. My aim is fine."

  "I don't know . . ."

  "While you stand there, slack-jawed with indecision, a man is in severe agony. Do you not care? Are you cheered by the idea of his pain? Does it make you jolly? Are you only pretending to feel human emotions, while inside you are nothing but a burnt shell?"

  "Fine. Kick him over the side of the mountain. But I'm not going to do it! When he plummets and strikes the rocky bottom, it's going to be on your conscience, not mine!"

  "I wasn't going to kick him, you barbarian. Just a gentle foot roll."

  "I don't care. I'm not doing it."

  "Nobody is asking you to. Rusty, Juan, come over here and roll him off the mountain, will you?"

  Though Dominick still had plenty of appendages with which to struggle, he was no match for the other two men's legs, and with great efficiency they rolled him off the side of the mountain. He did not strike a ledge, and plummeted the entire two thousand, six hundred and thirty feet without delay.

  The screaming stopped.

  "This leaves us with an important question," said Bernard. "Will the dragon head bite off two arms in a row?"

  "I don't see why it wouldn't."

  "It might jam up the mechanism. Of course, that could also be why the mouth hasn't reopened. We may have to pry those fearsome jaws apart."

  As if on cue, the dragon's mouth slowly opened with a menacing creak. Bernard peered inside.

  "His arm is gone. Almost as if it's been . . . swallowed."

  "Well, not really. You can still see the fingers sticking up."

  Bernard's expression was solemn. "That's not the direction the arm was facing when it was bitten off. We should see a stump, not fingers. A beguiling mystery indeed."

  Terrance shrugged. "I suppose. That's pretty low on my list of interests right now."

  "Anyway, let us analyze what we've learned thus far. The dragon mouth was not, in fact, any sort of ruse and does, in fact, bite. Therefore, we must focus on the life of goodness and inner strength." He looked over at Rusty and Juan. "Which one of you has lived more of a life of goodness?"

  "I'm not putting my hand in there," said Rusty.

  "That wasn't my question."

  "I'm just saying, if you're trying to narrow down your choices, narrow me right the hell out of the equation."

  "I would have suspected as much from you," said Bernard. "Your forehead reeks of the perspiration of cowardice. What about you, Juan? Do you also whimper like a frightened baboon at the thought of being judged by the dragon head?"

  "I want half," said Juan.

  "Half a share?"

  "Don't play 'dumb and drunk American hillbilly' with me, Professor. I want half of the jewel."

  "But —"

  "And don't pretend that you thought I meant we should take out a saw and cut it in half. You know perfectly well that what I'm saying is that after you sell it, I want half of the money."

  "That's preposterous! But I have no choice. I accept your offer."

  Juan smiled and then flexed his fingers. "I have done no wrong in my life, and do not fear the judgment of the dragon." His smile faded. "You agreed to that pretty quickly. You're not planning to dispose of me before you have to pay, are you?"

  "Certainly not."

  "Why is your gun out?"

  "I . . . I'm not sure, actually. I thought I heard a bear."

  "There are no bears on this mountain."

  "Incorrect. There's one behind you right now."

  As Juan turned to look, Bernard shot him in the back. Juan cried out and fell to the ground.

  "Why the hell did you do that?" Terrance demanded.

  "He was on to our plan!"

  "I'm not saying you shouldn't have shot him at some point, but why would you do it now? Why not force him at gunpoint to get the jewel? What good does he do us lying there dead?"

  Bernard considered that. "Well, I didn't see you do anything!"

  "That's because there was nothing to do! He was all set to put his arm in there! This was a moment where a lack of action was appropriate, not vice-versa!"

  Bernard nodded. "I am a man who can admit his own mistakes, and I will not attempt to deny that shooting Juan in the back was a poor decision, one made on the spur of the moment with no pre-planning or foresight or discussion, and if I had the ability to rewind time by a few moments to undo a crucial mistake, I would cheerfully do so and un-shoot him."

  "Please," Juan gasped. "I need medical attention."

  "Over the mountain with him?" Bernard asked.

  "No, no, no. His back has a large hole, but his arm is still fine. He can still serve our purpose. Rusty, come over here and help us."

  Rusty shook his head. "I will be a silent witness to your evil but not a participant."

  Bernard pointed his gun at Rusty, but Terrance gave him a "thumbs-down" sign and Bernard put the gun away. "Very well. We will accept your decision even if we do not accept it. After all, it takes only two men to force a man's arm into a crevice against his will."

&
nbsp; Juan struggled much more violently than Dominick had, and Bernard was not really doing his share of the physical labor. After a good five minutes, they were nowhere close to having Juan's arm inside the dragon mouth, and everybody involved was becoming quite frustrated.

  "He should really be unconscious," Bernard noted.

  "Can the dragon gaze into his soul if he isn't awake?"

  "That's like asking if somebody can ascend to heaven if they die in their sleep."

  "Can somebody ascend to heaven if they die in their sleep? My grandmother died in her sleep. Oh, dear God . . ."

  "Let's just bash his head against the side of the mountain. Pretend that he's a battering ram and the mountain is a door that we're trying to break open, but let's be mindful of the fact that his head is not an actual battering ram and will shatter if it strikes rock at the force typically associated with a battering ram, and lessen our velocity accordingly."

  Bernard and Terrance counted to three, and then smacked Juan's head against the rock.

  "Obviously, that was much too hard," Bernard noted.

  "Yes," said Terrance.

  "So the question now becomes, can the dragon judge the goodness in somebody's heart if that heart is no longer beating?"

  "No, actually that's not the question at all," said Bernard. "The question is, what good does it do to shove a dead man's arm in there to retrieve a jewel when the goddamn arm can no longer grip things?"

  "You know, that seems like something I would have considered," said Terrance. "I guess both of us have displayed poor judgment this day."

  Bernard nodded. "Yes, neither of us is at our best. It's hard to believe that we've achieved such respect and recognition in our field. It's almost amusing, in fact." Bernard chuckled. "Don't you think it's amusing?"

  "Was that chuckle the onset of a descent into madness?"

  "No, just a chuckle."

  "Good. I, for one, do not enjoy having the physical evidence of our lapse of intelligence lying here right before our eyes. Off the mountain?"

  "Yes, all right."

  Bernard and Terrance hoisted Juan by the feet and shoulders and tossed him off the side of the mountain.

  "Damn," said Bernard. "He hit a ledge."

  "Don't worry about it. But now that Dominick and Juan are dead, what else can we do?"

  They turned to look at Rusty.

  "Fuck you both," said Rusty.

  Bernard pointed the gun at him. "It appears that there has been a third lapse in judgment," he said. "You really should have seen this coming."

  "Agreed," said Rusty.

  "So, you will slide your arm into the dragon's mouth, and you will think very intently about the goodness in your heart while you do it, and you will come out with the jewel. Do you understand?"

  "You'll shoot me either way."

  "I can see why you might come to that conclusion," Bernard admitted. "If I had just watched us murder two people of the same importance as you, I'd think the same thing. I have to admit, if I were in your position I'd probably fling myself off the mountain and hope for the best, or make a sudden attack and try to wrestle the gun away from me, but that's just me, and my recommendation for you is to try to get the jewel."

  "I want six shares," said Rusty.

  "Six!"

  "You can't offer six when I asked for six. That's not how negotiations work."

  "No, that wasn't a counter-offer, that was an expression of surprise at your nerve."

  Rusty folded his arms over his chest. "Six shares, or I jump off the mountain or possibly go for your gun."

  "Damn you! Very well. I accept these conditions. Now reach in there and grab the jewel!"

  "I need to clench my teeth and grunt for a few moments to work myself up," said Rusty. "Don't be alarmed."

  Rusty clenched his teeth and grunted for a few moments. Despite the warning, Bernard was a bit alarmed, since he was not used to being in an environment where men did much grunting. And then, without warning, Rusty thrust his arm deep into the dragon's mouth.

  "I've got it!" he shouted.

  The dragon's mouth bit his arm off.

  "The pain!" Rusty shrieked. "The pain is worse than I would have imagined it would be to have two arms bitten off!" He cradled his bleeding stump, which of course was woefully insufficient for holding the jewel.

  "Try your other arm!" said Bernard. "Quickly!"

  Bernard didn't think he'd really do it, and so he was pleasantly surprised when a clearly deranged Rusty reached into the mouth again. The goodness in his heart had apparently not changed in the past few seconds, though, because the dragon mouth bit off his other arm.

  Rusty screamed and shrieked and yelled and hollered and cried and may have even briefly spoken in tongues. Then he ran off, which was a good decision if he wished to run off the side of the mountain and a poor decision if he did not. He plummeted to the ground and landed with a faraway thud.

  "Okay," said Bernard to Terrance, "we both know where this next part is headed. Are you really going to make me point the gun at you, my long-time partner and friend, or are you going to spare us the awkward moment and just reach in there of your own free will?"

  Terrance sighed. "You know what? I'm not even going to feign outrage. I'd do the same thing if I had a gun . . . which I do!"

  "So, uh, where is it?"

  "Backpack."

  "Doesn't do much good there."

  "Yeah, I know. Just grasping for straws." Terrance reached into the dragon mouth. "Aw, shit, I can feel Rusty's arm! That's awful. Wait a minute, I think I've . . . I think . . . maybe . . . I've got it! I've got the jewel!"

  "Pull it out! Pull it out!"

  Terrance removed his arm from the dragon's mouth and gasped in astonishment. He held the glistening bloody jewel above his head and let out a primal cry of victory.

  "How the hell are you more good-hearted than the other three guys?" asked Bernard.

  "Well, there was that one thing they did while we were burning the church. The thing of which we promised never to speak."

  "Oh, yeah. That was pretty nasty." Terrance wiped some blood off the jewel. "We're rich, Bernard! Richer than we could have ever dreamed! Richer than —"

  "That's one crappy jewel," said Bernard.

  "What?"

  "Look at it. It sucks. That can't be the thing we've been seeking all this time. It looks like plastic."

  Terrance looked at the jewel more closely. It was indeed plastic. "Son of a bitch!"

  "Now what?"

  Terrance wasted no time in answering the question. Though the jewel was nothing more than cheap plastic, it still had sufficient weight and density to use to beat somebody to death.

  After Bernard lay dead at his feet, Terrance wondered if the real jewel was still hidden within the stone dragon. But he wasn't going to risk his arm to find out. Instead, he left his deceased comrade and headed back down the mountain trail.

  Before he reached the bottom, he starved to death.

  Buzzards ate him.

  The Ancient Stone Dragon of Ankiorth laughed and laughed. Nobody even knew it could laugh, because it only did it when everybody in the general vicinity was dead, but oh, how it laughed!

  The lesson to be found in this tale is, essentially, "Don't be a murderous treasure hunting dick." If you keep that in mind, there are no promises that you'll acquire wealth, fame, and happiness, but you probably won't get your arm bitten off by a stone dragon mouth.

  Though you might, so be ever wary.

  THE SEVERED NOSE

  When you kill people for a living, you get used to finding the occasional body part lying around your home. I do not kill people for a living, and so I freaked.

  I have to confess, it wasn't a severed head or even an arm. It was a nose. Still, a severed nose can be extremely upsetting when you aren't used to seeing them, and I let out a loud gasp and dropped my can of root beer onto the floor.

  After I got over the initial shock, I decided that the first obvious step
was to inspect the nose, which rested on an otherwise empty plate on my dining room table. Though it was an alarming situation either way, my level of concern would be dramatically reduced if it were a rubber nose instead of a real one.

  I walked around the table, staring at the nose from different angles. It certainly looked real. If it were fake, the perpetrators deserved credit for attention to detail. It had a few nose hairs and even a small pimple. It was lying on its . . . back? Side? However you'd describe it if it looked like the plate had a nose.

  So, visually it was entirely convincing. That still didn't mean it was real. After all, if you buy it from the right magic shop, phony vomit can present a flawless facsimile of somebody having thrown up on your couch, an illusion that isn't dispelled until you try to wipe it up with a wet rag and everybody has a good laugh at your gullibility.

  I needed to touch it. But I didn't want to touch it. Because then I'd have touched a severed body part, something I'd avoided for all forty-seven years of my life. What if it was the most horrific, disturbing experience imaginable? What if I woke up screaming from ghastly dreams of being inhaled? Or what if it unlocked a fetish for severed body parts, and I became some kind of severed-body-part-fondling maniac?

  I really didn't want to touch it.

  And I couldn't call the police. Sure, I was a law-abiding citizen, but the local police department was doing a charity drive last year, and they called me during Extreme Makeover: Home Edition — right at a highly emotional moment — and I said, no, I wasn't interested in donating, and the cop said "Don't you care about the abused children in our community?" and without even thinking about it I hung up on him. And then I couldn't even enjoy the rest of the episode, because I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to hang up on a cop.

  Don't get me wrong, I'd call the cops if there were some sort of emergency, but for a severed nose, I'd handle it myself. Especially if it was a fake nose. I would look like quite the idiot if I called the police over a piece of plastic. They'd probably beat me unconscious with their billy clubs.

  So, I quickly touched the nose, then touched my own nose by way of comparison. They both felt real.