Turleen looks down to find another mystery nugget and a fried frumunda cheese stick lounging in her lap. “You have a deal, you do,” she says and tosses the mystery nugget to Idjit. The nugget bounces off of Idjit’s forehead and falls at his feet. He snatches it up and immediately swallows the nugget whole. Turleen jams the frumunda cheese into her mouth and does the same.
“The reason we’re here,” explains Stubs, “is to give you this.” Idjit jumps onto the park bench and from his mouth drops a knife case onto Turleen’s lap. The case is moist with basset saliva.
“A blade,” says Turleen, as she grabs the black rubber handle and pulls the foot-long knife from its case. The weapon is perfectly balanced and honed to a razor sharp double-edged slicing surface. She puts a finger at the bottom of the handle and balances the knife there, and then flips it up, catches it, and wraps her hand tightly around the rubber grip. “I have to say that it feels good in my hand, it does. But, what am I gonna need a knife for?”
“It’s not just any knife,” explains Idjit. “Our friend Eshu wanted us to give it to you. He’s kind of special. He said you will know when to use it and your aim will be true. That’s what he said, and, that’s all we know. So take it and keep it with you.”
“Yeah,” says Stubs, “go ahead and try it on.”
“I don’t mind if I do try on this little shiv,” agrees Turleen. The case is made from black leather and has an elastic strap. Turleen hikes her dress up and straps the knife to her inner thigh. Realizing that she is not wearing underwear and that both dogs are staring intently up her skirt, she pulls her skirt down hastily and straightens it. “It feels good there, it does,” she tells the dogs. It actually feels more than good to her. Having the powerful weapon strapped between her legs makes her tingle. Shivers shoot from her inner thigh, up her leg and gather all about her vulva. Momentarily she shudders with pleasure and then manages to refocus her attention. She addresses Stubs, changing the subject. “You look different...nice... not so...”
“Old and gross,” smiles Stubs. “I know. I got pretty oogy there at the end. But now I appear as I did in my prime. Just call me Slim with the Tipton Brim. Not bad, huh?”
“Not bad at all. You even have all of your legs, you do. Why, if I were a lady poodle, I’d probably go into heat whenever you came around.” She smiles and blushes at the realization that she is flirting with Stubs. “Anyway, I’ve no beef with you, I don’t. And I’m sorry if I overreacted and kind of, you know, killed you.”
“I do not hold it against you, Turleen,” says Stubs. “As a matter of fact, I think I’m better off now. So in a way, I kind of owe you one. Maybe that’s why I had to meet you here. I guess that’s what the knife is all about. Anyway, Eshu says you must keep it with you at all times. Can you promise me that you’ll do that?”
“Well, this is a dream, isn’t it?” Turleen asks. Idjit nods his head in the affirmative. Turleen monkey-fuck lights another smoke with her old butt and considers the situation. “So, this is all a load of baloney anyway. So yeah, I’ll keep the knife on me at all times, I will. I’ll even make you another promise. If that knife ever actually comes in handy, I’ll meet you both in another one of my dreams and let you lick my feet for as long as you desire.”
“We’ll be seeing you in your dreams,” Idjit smiles.
“Can’t wait,” says Stubs, licking his chops.
• • •
Turleen awakens to the sounds of Grundish and Askew talking. Greasy spots from the nuggets mark the front of her oversized house dress. Beneath the dress, she feels a band tight on her leg. She reaches down and feels through her dress. She knows that it is a throwing knife without even looking.
10
Grundish straddles his bike; his eyes narrow with a look of grim determination. Grundish, the warrior readying himself for battle. He pounds on his chest, slaps himself in the face, claws at his own flesh, drawing bloody scrapes across his cheeks. The pockets of his cargo shorts are stuffed full with his weapon of choice: half-thawed, burgled hotdogs. Grundish chugs another beer and places a new one in the bottle holder on his bike. He looks at Askew and beams a mad grin. His migraine is all but forgotten. “If I don’t make it back, tell Turleen I’ve always loved her.”
“Get the fuck out of here and leave my aunt out of it,” Askew laughs. “Let’s see what you can do.” Askew stands back, hands in his pants pockets, not knowing what to expect but thinking it will be good.
Grundish pumps hard on the bike pedals, pushing the machine as fast as he can around the park, screaming gibberish at the top of his lungs the entire time. “YRARGHHH PIG SLOP MONKEY DOOTY DOLLY PARTON’S HOOTERS BLAAHHHHHHHH EEP OPP ORK MEANS MEET ME TONIGHT DING DING DING RUMPLE FUGLY BLOODY SHIT STAINS YEOWWWW...”
And the residents of the park are drawn out of their double-wide dens of perversion to discover the source of the ruckus. Pot-bellied perverts roll their eyes and shrug their shoulders at each other. One man stands outside in only his yellowed boxer shorts. His matted body hair covers every square inch of his body up to his collar bone, the place where the man has decided to stop shaving his face and neck. His completely bald, shiny head tosses off rays of the Florida sun like a hideous flesh disco ball. Scrawny compulsive masturbators take time from their incessant monkey-spanking to witness the nonsense-spewing, raving lunatic speeding around their neighborhood on a bike. One buck-toothed miscreant stands with his hands in the opening for his pants pockets but the pockets have been cut out so that he can grope himself inconspicuously. He squeezes hard on his throbbing cock, aroused by all of the excitement but not sure why.
“SPLIT PANTS SKANKY DONKEY MOTHERS IF YOU’RE GONNA DIE DIE WITH YOUR BOOTS ON I HAVE A LOVELY BUNCH OF COCONUTS BLEEEEEEEEE!” Grundish continues to scream and rant and rave and pushes the bike around the small park until most of the residents are standing in their driveways witnessing the madness. When it seems that the whole park is watching, Grundish leaps off of his bike in front of a gathering of deviants and lets the bike crash into a white cargo van in front of one of the trailers. Before the crowd realizes what’s happening, Grundish begins throwing semi-frozen hotdogs at the men.
Grundish sees it all as clear as day. In the middle of the battle he is singularly focused on striking fear into the hearts of the slugs[15] that inhabit his community. The hate Grundish feels for the dirty, bad men steadies his hand and ensures that his aim is true. He reaches into his pocket, withdraws two hot dogs and flings them at the buck-toothed masturbator. The wieners fly directly at the poor excuse for a human. One bounces off of the side of his head, the other hits him in the neck. The man turns and flees for his trailer. Like a ninja with throwing stars, Grundish pulls frank after frank out of his pocket and pelts the congregation of rapscallions, deadbeats and degenerates about their heads and necks with partially frozen lips and assholes encased in intestines. His supply of wieners never seems to go down. After dispersing the crowd with a barrage of wieners, sending the gaggle of degenerates running for cover, Grundish mounts his bike and continues his jihad against the child molesters, peeping Toms, flashers and fondlers. He screams until his throat is raw and a bloody spray is exhaled with each yell, “MONOCHROMATIC HALL AND OATES BOOGER SNOTS UH OH I BROKE IT TRAGLE TRAGLE OOO OOO HIGH AGA GAGA OOO OOO HIGH!” With each logorrheic outburst Grundish flings another hotdog at the gawkers standing outside of their homes watching the carnage. At last his arsenal is almost spent. The final hotdog in his pocket is somehow still entirely frozen. Grundish launches it with all of his might at his next door neighbor. Mr. Shirley leans against his walker with his tattered bath robe partially open, exposing his tiny pecker and pendulous, hairy testicles. Grundish doesn’t know what offense Shirley actually committed. He just knows that Shirley’s name and picture are listed on the sexual offender poster tacked up on a rotting telephone pole near the front entrance of the park. Grundish doesn’t care about the specifics of Shirley’s proclivities. It matters not to Grundish that Shirley invites teenage boys
into his trailer and trades his prescription medicines for the opportunity to suck the boys off. Grundish only cares that the final wiener hits its mark. The frankfurter hurtles through the air on a crash course with Shirley’s face. The round frozen end of the dog strikes Shirley squarely on the eye, squishing the eyeball back into the skull. The wiener lodges in the eye socket and hangs there.
“Blahhhhhhh!” Shirley screams and runs for his front door. Blood streams down his cheek and onto his exposed chest. Only when he reaches the apparent safety of the inside of his trailer, with the door locked, does he pluck the hard frozen meat-stick from his eye socket. Blood trickles down the side of his nose, down his neck, and soaks into his dirty robe. Shirley drops into a shuddering mass of flesh on his couch, rolls up into fetal position, and weeps.
Outside of Shirley’s trailer, Grundish doubles over in a hysterical fit of laughter.
“I think maybe you went a little bit far with this one, Pal,” Askew says to Grundish. He laughs too, though. “I mean, aren’t you afraid that the cops’ll be out here and that Ms. Velda will violate your parole for this crazy fit you just threw?”
Gaining control of himself, Grundish stands erect again and laughs some more. “Hell, no! These guys want as little to do with the law as me. Nobody is gonna go and call the pigs out here. Hell, if the law comes out this way, they’re gonna be looking to bust all of these guys for anything that they can. These old boys around us are sexual offenders, Son. They’re a bigger target for the cops than one little old ex-con burglar who has been staying out of trouble.”
“You may be right,” Askew agrees. “But then again, you never know what’s going to happen when you pull crazy shit like this. I guess the point is mute now. Next time though, please try to appraise me of your intentions to do crazy shit like this. I don’t need to be involved in these kind of incidences.”
In his peripheral vision Askew catches a blur of action. Before he has time to think about what is happening, Askew acts. And when the whole situation is done, and the blood is shed, and their lives are irreparably changed, it all plays back in his head like a bad movie.
• • •
Askew saw the man known as Bumpy D sprinting toward Grundish’s back. Bumpy D’s trousers were dropped to mid-thigh, the pervert’s flag flying at half-mast, and he still displayed the swiftness of a track star. Even more amazing was that fact that the entire time he charged Grundish, Bumpy D was jerking his dick in large violent strokes.
Grundish had looked out for Askew almost all of their lives. If Askew was going to get caught for something illegal, Grundish gladly took the fall and never mentioned it again. If someone challenged Askew to a fight, Grundish jumped in and threw down before Askew ever had a chance to defend himself. If Askew needed money, Grundish would give him whatever little amount he could scrounge up or steal. Grundish, the ultimate big brother figure to Askew, always took care of his best friend. It was only natural that Askew’s instincts would lead him to protect Grundish.
Bumpy D charged Grundish like a demented knight jousting with a crooked pork sword. Instinctively, Askew screamed “Noooooooooooo...” and dived in Bumpy D’s path, blocking Grundish from the masturbatory onslaught. At the same moment that Askew launched himself into the air, Bumpy D discharged a massive wad of spuz from his battered penis. The jism stretched into a pink-tinged pearlish strand, rounded on both ends and thin in the middle. The lustrous gob flew, end over end, seeking contact with Grundish. In mid air, Askew intersected the path of the projectile spunk. “...oooooooooooooo,” continued Askew’s scream until the warm load of Bumpy D’s love went SCHPLAAATTTT across Askew’s cheek and mouth.
The salty taste on his lips did something to Askew. Something awful. A switch was flipped in his brain. That switch turned off the self-control mechanism which had served to keep Askew out of trouble (in conjunction with intermittent interventions by Grundish) for so many years. The switch loosed a heap of crazy and sent violent pulses through Askew’s body. His fat hands balled into tight fists, arms flailing. The muted THUD, THUD, THUD of bone-on-bone, fists crunching cheek bones and jaw and nose, did not register in Askew’s head as he repeatedly pummeled away at what was once Bumpy D’s face, turning the visage into a lump of ground meat. Askew mounted the prone figure, exacting a vicious ground-and-pound on the back of Bumpy D’s head. Askew remembers being pulled off of the motionless heap that was once Mr. D. He remembers his arms still swinging, connecting with nothing but air and throwing off a crimson spray. He remembers his swollen hands flailing in front of him and Grundish lifting him off of Bumpy D, off of the ground. He remembers the deafening silence as the finality of his act dawned on him, and the complete loss of control faded. He remembers the shocking realization that his act forever changed his life. He remembers the awesome feeling of power and freedom. He remembers Grundish slapping his face and screaming: “We have to go! Now!”
11
We have to go! Now!” Grundish shouts into Askew’s crazed face. And Askew registers the urgent tone of his friend’s voice. And a flurry of hectic activity follows. Still holding Askew off of the ground, Grundish carries him into the trailer and sets him down. “Get what you need and let’s get out of here. Now!”
Without thinking, Askew grabs the keys to his El Camino and a carton of Blue Llamas from the freezer. Grundish tosses all of Turleen’s belongings into her oversized suitcase and grabs his knapsack full of filched goods. “Get Turleen. She’s coming with us,” Grundish commands as he kicks the front door back, launches himself out the doorway and tosses the bags in the bed of the ridiculous truck-like car. The bags land in a pile of moldy work shirts, beer cans, and broken 8-track tapes. Grundish grabs his bike off of the ground and sets it in the back of the El Camino.
“Come on!” Grundish shouts into the trailer. The park residents slowly start peeking their heads out of their trailers once again. Slowly and awkwardly they lumber from their doorways, growing cautiously curious once again about what is happening outside. One neighbor, a lanky man with a head no bigger than a grapefruit, ventures from his retreat and approaches Bumpy D’s fresh corpse, nudging it with his foot. Bumpy’s form gives no more than a sack of potatoes. “We have to go, now,” barks Grundish.
Inside the trailer, Askew hooks his hands under Turleen’s arms and drags her backwards. In her efforts to get outside to see all of the commotion, Turleen twisted her ankle and fell in the bathroom. Unable to ambulate, Turleen allows herself to be dragged out of the trailer and set down in the middle position of the El Camino’s bench seat. To Askew she says: “I need you to bring me my wine, I do, if we’re gonna be cruising around.”
Grundish, in the trailer, stuffs goods in a duffle bag. “Bring Turleen’s wine,” comes the shout from Askew, still outside. Grundish grabs a large bottle of Chianti from the refrigerator and throws it in the bag. The bottle, rounded at the bottom and tapering up toward the mouth, has a screw-on cap and is already half empty.
Outside, the crowd gathers around the pervert formerly known as Bumpy D. The lifeless exsanguinated corpse, he says nothing. The meaty unrecognizable knot-of-a-head gurgles a puddle of stinking blood, a slow-growing amorphous pool of Bumpy D’s former life. The perverts stand and stare, confused doltish cows witnessing the end result of a slaughter, backing up little by little as the puddle of blood grows and advances on them. The man with the grapefruit head finally tears his eyes away from the gory display and points at the El Camino. Askew quickly cranks up his window and leans across Turleen to lock her door. An uneasy feeling about the crowd tugs at the base of Askew’s scrotum. His testicles retract and his penis pulls back like a turtle under attack.
BLURRP...BLURRP...BLURRP. Askew, now too scared to leave the security of his locked car, honks the horn to get Grundish out of the trailer and to the car. BLURRP... BLURRP...BLURRP.
The gathering congregation of pimps, pederasts, pud-pullers, prostitutes and pickle-puffers collectively takes offense at the interlopers in their presence. The mu
rderous, straight-laced, judgmental interlopers. Grapefruit-Head continues to point at the El Camino and belts out a piercing, multi-toned screech, incongruous high whines and deep bass notes clanging painfully off of each other. Moving in the manner of a provoked pack of attack dogs, the perverts charge, converging on the El Camino, banging on the hood, kicking the doors, pulling at the door handles, ripping off the windshield wipers and antenna. One man, a crooked-necked, squinty-eyed molester named Fester, pulls down the front of his sweat pants and smashes his smallish but semi-aroused genitals on the passenger side window. His bushy pubic mess envelopes the shriveled weenis, making his goods look like a tiny slab of fetid meat sinking into Easter basket hay. Pulling back, he leaves a greasy thumb-shaped smear on the window.
From the front door of the trailer, Grundish takes in the melee and formulates a plan. Not a great plan, but an effective one. He dashes back into the trailer and grabs more meat from the freezer – mostly boosted hotdogs – and dumps it into a pillow case. He sprints into the middle of the mob swinging the frozen meat in wide arcs with all of his might.
FWAAAPPPP! The pillow case connects with Grapefruit-Head’s face, crushing his nose and knocking out his front teeth. Dropping to his knees, his hands held to his flattened and bloody face, Grapefruit-Head emits another discordant screech that throws the crowd into a frenzy. Grundish swings the frozen meat and connects with another head, immediately dropping the man to the ground. A circle forms around Grundish, just out of reach of the brutal weapon. One at a time, the perverts charge him and are felled by the mighty meat bag.
Crooked-necked, squinty-eyed Fester darts in and out of Grundish’s striking zone, trying to get quick jabs in at Grundish. Pecking here and there, Fester delivers ineffectual strikes. With each successful poke or kick at Grundish, Fester grows more confident. He strikes out with a kick. His foot is caught in mid-air by Grundish’s left hand. Swinging the meat bag at full force in a circle at his side with his free arm, Grundish brings the bag up, a power-packed meat product upper-cut, and slams the pillow case into Fester’s chin, lifting the man’s other foot off of the ground and throwing him back against the El Camino. Grundish swings the pillow case around his head and charges directly into the growing crowd, bellowing his own unintelligible screech, dropping all challengers with a face-full of frozen pain. A path to the El Camino clears and Grundish charges through, diving into the bed of the car. He slaps the top of the car with both hands and screams, “GO!”
Grundish and Askew Page 6
