CRUDDY

by LYNDA BARRY

  She lit a cig and looked at the father’s car sitting in the middle of her gloss-top asphalt. She called, “Ray, I think I’m going to kill you. Gy-Rah is going to have to melt it back down for me and he’s not going to like that. Come get your coffee. Gy-Rah will be back after his show is over.”

  They drank coffee and Doris talked about her parking lot. She told the father it was her invention, it was a vision-maker. In heat waves created by the desert sun and the black shine of bitumen, entire worlds could be seen.

  “I’ll tell you this,” said Doris. “It beats television.”

  The father said, “I don’t see nothing.”

  “Shit on you, Ray,” said Auntie Doris. “You broke it is why. Has to be smooth. Yesterday I saw a man standing there that had six peckers.”

  “Haw,” said the father.

  “Haw-haw shit,” said Doris Horace. “Looked like the Powder Monkey.”

  Time ticktocked. Gy-Rah read more poems about his itching problem.

  I heard the father ask about the suitcase. Auntie Doris said she didn’t know where it was but it was around somewhere, she’d seen it, Gy-Rah had it, he didn’t give a shit about it. She didn’t think there was going to be any trouble except for Gy-Rah feeling so polluted by the father’s visit that it might be a while before he showed himself.

  Neither of them said anything about Pammy. I wondered where she was. I wondered how her midnight beauty treatment went.

  Doris said, “Goddamn you look like Old Dad, Ray.” Tears spilled from her eyes. “I miss him. I feel like shit whenever I think of what I did to that man.”

  “You made it up to him, Doris.”

  “I was dazzled by the Powder Monkey. You understand.”

  And they talked about the Powder Monkey. A high-wire man named Carl who left the circus in Baraboo to join so many other high-wire men that streamed into the Black Canyon looking for a job on the dam. During the first year of blasting the Powder Monkey was important. After the High Scalers drilled into the rock face the Powder Monkey scrambled across sheer clifs to set the fuses and the dynamite. Carl loved attention and did his work in his circus outfit. Glittering panties that flashed and caught the eye miles away. With the money he made he built the Lucky Chief on a site that he thought would bring him millions. The Lair of the Sequined Genius dwarfed Mammoth Cave. The splendor of its interior formations was unparalleled. He worked hard on the place, wiring the cavern with lights and speakers. Leveling walkways and putting in pipe handrails. Dreaming of the busloads of tourists who would come to see the cavern and stay at the Lucky Chief and lay such baskets of cash at his feet. And then Dreamland came along. The first horrible blasts sent bad smells rolling out of the cave. No tourist would put up with that. The Powder Monkey fell despondent and lost his will to live.

  Doris said, “He drank three bottles of government iodine and went into the cave and just never came out.”

  “Shit,” said the father.

  “It’s a shame,” said Auntie Doris. “Because the government has been very good to us. They pay me and Gy-Rah to stay.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “We’re useful to them.”

  “How?”

  “Classified, Ray.”

  “You are full of shit, Doris.”

  “Am I?”

  And the conversation was mellow like this and they went on drinking heavily and talking like this and the sun arched from one side of the landscape to the other. Cookie and I came out of hiding. We took a walk. We turned around and came back. And then it was dark. And I kept on thinking about Fernst. I had been feeling bad about Fernst. I meant to kill Pammy but instead I killed Fernst. And now I found myself feeling bad about Pammy. Found myself feeling curious about her condition and location and why she had been absent all day.

  The father and Auntie Doris had gotten very slurry in their words. I could not understand what they were saying and they could not understand each other but it did not stop them from talking. They kept on talking until a weak beam of light appeared in the darkness, bouncing and approaching. Auntie Doris said, “Thas Ghy-Rath naw.”

  Gy-Rah’s prissy voice crackled from a loudspeaker. “I am out of ointment. For this and this only I return. Mother, make ready. Arrival is in progress. ETA thirty seconds—” A painted-over bread truck with a bad muffler and high wiggling antennas rolled straight at the father with one headlight shining. From the four-horned speaker on top of the cab the distorted voice said, “Pollutant, be GONE!”

  The father suddenly tore toward the truck. The speakers blared, “INvader! INtruder! MOTHER!” In an attempted tight turn the engine died. The father yanked open the driver’s door and Gy-Rah flew out of the passenger side. He was a tall person with a pear-shaped body and skinny arms and a face that looked like a horse and a rat and a nearsighted hog all crossed together. He wore short-shorts and his legs were bony. He was visible only for a moment before he shot into the office door and slammed it behind him.

  Auntie Doris puffed calmly on her Salem. She said, “He doesn’t like you, Ray.”

  The father threw open the back doors of the truck and began yanking out contents, all electrical, all bouncing onto the asphalt. The father shouted, “GodDAMN it. Where IS it?”

  Doris rose. “I’ll talk to him. Calm down. We’re going to work this out. Quit throwing his equipment around. He’ll get a rash.”

  The father jumped out of the truck. “I’ll talk to him. I’ll—” Auntie Doris went into the office and slammed the door.

  The father stood there. He tapped some polite taps. “Doris, you going to let me in?” He stood a moment longer and then walked across the gloss asphalt to the car, popped the trunk, pulled out a crowbar, and carried it back to the office door. He tapped again.

  “Avon calling,” said the father.

  He tried the door. Locked.

  I laid low in the shadows. I knew what mood he was in.

  He called to me. “Where you at, Clyde. I could use some help here.”

  And then he saw Cookie. I watched him squat down and call to her sweetly. Talk to her convincingly. There is a saying about dogs. That they can sense a person’s intentions. That they have a special power of knowing if a person is good or bad. It isn’t true. If the camouflage is good enough, the dog will believe.

  “Come here, darling, come here, baby girl. Sweet girl, pretty girl, that’s right, that’s right.”

  My throat closed up when I saw Cookie wag her tail a little and step toward him. And then the yipe. “Got your damn dog! Clyde!” He jerked her by the leg and she yelped again. I came running.

  Chapter 51

  HERE ARE we going?” asked the Stick. He wanted to ride in the front seat and I wanted him to ride in the front seat but Vicky had the front seat and wouldn’t give it up. She said, “I’m not riding with the psychos. They’re psychos, Roberta. Real ones. Supposedly they are geniuses but they are the fucked-in-the-head kind.”

  I turned a tight curve and floored it onto the highway that passed through a tunnel and opened onto a bridge. “What direction is this?” asked the Great Wesley.

  “East,” I said.

  And there were some tangled protests. Beneath us the tires sung on the grated bridge. My stomach was churning. It is true that I am a person with black pockets of evil and hatred in my heart. There are underground places inside of me. Many underground Dreamlands that rove. A cold flavor was in my mouth and it made saliva flow over my lips. The second rush of Creeper was beginning. Vicky whapped the side of my head and shouted, “Roberta, you’re not LISTENING!”

  My jaws were very clenchy and my forehead was ice-cold and itching terribly. We were almost to the other end of the bridge and I was concentrating hard on the road, trying to see only the road and block out all other things so I missed what it was that the Stick said to make Vicky go so insane and caused a fight to break out, legs and arms flying. I got kicked in the head really hard. I saw the swimming lights. We swerved all over the road. When the vio
lent tangle ended the Stick’s face was badly gouged and his nose was dripping ferociously.

  “I hope you die,” said Vicky, “I hope you fucking bleed to death. Hey, everybody, you want to know something about my brother? He still pisses the bed.”

  There was a second violent outbreak and in a weird way it helped me concentrate on my driving. It took the place of the hollow roaring in my head, like a jet flying low.

  And then the fight was over and all was quiet for a while. All was peaceful and glidey-smooth in the sleek car.

  “Seriously,” said the Stick. “Where are we going?”

  “Scene of the crime,” I said.

  “What crime?”

  And during those first hours of our journey, as we climbed through the mountains on the familiar curving road, I told them. I told them everything I have told you. And Vicky slept through most of it. But the Turtle and the Great Wesley and the Stick hung on my every word.

  “He put her in the trunk,” I said, and a chill shot up my back when I remembered him slamming Cookie in. The father nudged a pack of cigs at me. I shook my head. Cookie cried a little at first and then stopped. The father explained how everything depended on me now. This was the final test. Was I Navy? If I was Navy I would go into the office and flush Gy-Rah out. I would get him to tell me where the last suitcase was. If I was Navy everything would be fine, but if I wasn’t, my story was going to have a sad ending.

  While he was talking, Gy-Rah shot out of the office door and disappeared into his lair. And the father hit me for that. Hard. Like it was me who gave Gy-Rah the signal.

  “That’s my half brother, Clyde. Supposed to have an IQ of a million and a half.” And the father gave me some gnarly family tree explanations, about how Old Dad lost Doris to Carl Horace. Called Haywire Horace. Scared of nothing. Hung off ropes a thousand feet in the air. Just swung down and snatched Doris away from Old Dad. She was Navy. She was slaughterhouse. She was Old Dad’s dream. Haywire was Air Force. He was circus. It never should have happened, but it did.

  “You know why they called him Haywire, Clyde? It ain’t what you guess. You ever hear of Bent Nail Syndrome? When you get a hard-on your dick kinks. He was famous in Baraboo.”

  “Hillbilly Woman,” interrupted the Turtle. “Bent Nail Syndrome. I too am afflicted. Yes. It is a poignant condition. It is said that Bent Nail caused Hamlet’s madness.”

  The Stick said, “Hamlet’s not a real person.”

  The Turtle said, “Bent Nail knows no boundaries.”

  The Great Wesley again. “Please, Hillbilly Woman. Continue.”

  “Wait,” said the Turtle. “Before you go on, there is something I must say.”

  We waited.

  “What?” asked Vicky. “God! Just say it!”

  “Yes. Absolutely.” The Turtle cleared his throat. “I would like to say I also still piss the bed.”

  “The best people do,” said the Great Wesley.

  Chapter 52

  AVERNS ARE wonderful things. Sometimes the walls are made of alabaster and sometimes gypsum. Sometimes other things. The cavern that was Gy-Rah’s lair was enormous. The Powder Monkey’s work had made it an easy stroll down stepped walkways to a mysterious world that had once been an underground river. There were domed places, oval indentations where loose stones swirled in the ancient eddies, cutting the stone above and below in the most elegant way, shapes very Roman. Shapes you see on Gladiator Theater, Channel 11, Saturdays at two.

  While the father explained my job to me, handed me the gun called the Luger, told me how to hold it and fire it, my mind was drifting to the movie called The Time Machine where monsters with glowing red eyes and bloody teeth freaked around in worlds underground. The main girl in the movie was named Weena and she didn’t know the god she worshipped was created by the monsters. A god that opened its loving mouth and then sucked you into the meat-saw room. There were very obvious clues that made you shout at the TV, saying “No, Weena! No!” and as I half listened to the father explain the Navy way of flushing an enemy out of hiding, I wondered if someone somewhere was yelling warnings at me. Someone watching the movie of my life and shouting, “No! No! Turn back before they eat your legs!”

  “What you have to do, Clyde, is simple. You got to go in there and flush him out. I don’t care how you do it, but don’t goddamn kill him. You can wing him but do not kill him, all right? Flush him into the clear and I’ll take it from there. Go. No. Do it. Here.” And so I had the gun. A loaded gun handed to me with trust and confidence.

  But I didn’t turn back. I entered the Lair of the Sequined Genius with a gun in my hand. Weak lights flickered in the descending blackness. I was surprised by the coolness of the air, surprised by the little sounds of dripping. A bit of water still passed through parts of the cave. Condensation made the pipe handrail slick to the touch.

  As I walked, I wondered if I really could shoot the man in the short-shorts. There were so many other people I’d rather shoot at. And I was distracted by this thought when the lights went off.

  Blackness.

  “Psssst!”

  An amplified whisper bounced and echoed around me.

  “Pssst! You. Troglodyte. Abomination. I see you.”

  The sound came from everywhere at once. Whispers though a microphone can be so horrifying. Little whispered words and little evil insults.

  “Pollution. Poison. Carrion.”

  A flame flickered behind a hoard of stalagmites.

  The hissing voice of Gy-Rah said, “I see the gun. I see the gun clearly. Were you really planning on shooting me, you revolting pygmy?” The fire flicker went out. Gy-Rah laughed. From the blackness he whispered, “Take aim now.”

  It was quite a lucky shot. I didn’t hit him but the blast made him holler, “Ooh, my balls! Ooh, my balls!” The lights came on and I saw him clutching his sequined privates. He’d clipped himself on a stalagmite.

  “My ointment! You have activated my dark itching! I must have my ointment!” In the pale light I saw he was badly afflicted with a weepy scaly rash that thickened his eyelids and circled his elbows and from the way he was wriggling I could tell there were some other bothersome areas as well.

  “You must run at once to Mother and get my ointment or I will go mad. The luminous green balls of genius which roll in my brain inform me I must surrender. Oh this itches! Tell me what you want! Speak!”

  “The dog,” I said.

  “Dog?”

  “The white dog.”

  “Peanut?”

  “Give her to me.”

  “She is yours! My ointment! Go!”

  “And I need the suitcase.”

  “The—”

  “The blue suitcase full of money.”

  “Yes.”

  “I need it.”

  “My itching! I implore you.”

  “The suitcase.”

  “There is a complication.”

  I shot the gun again. I was really enjoying shooting off the gun. There was a ricochet sound. Some chunks fell off the cavern walls.

  “I’ll take you to it,” said Gy-Rah. He put his hands up and waddled his behind as he walked ahead of me. This is how he came out of the cavern. The way I’d seen prisoners do it a milllion times.

  The father popped up from behind the car and smiled very hugely at me. With his glowing cig clamped between his teeth he was clapping his hands. Clap, clap, clap, for a job well done. “Shit, Clyde! Damn, Clyde! Goddamn great, Clyde! Balls-out son of a bitching Navy all the way, Clyde!”

  And then I shot him.

  Gy-Rah ran. The father rolled on the asphalt clutching his leg. “Shit, sniper! Clyde! I been shot!”

  He was twisting his head like an upside-down rooster to see where the shot had come from even though he was looking straight at me when I fired at him. His eyes saw me but his mind refused the knowledge.

  I ran to him and said, “Car keys! Car keys!” He heard the urgency in my voice and tossed them to me without hesitation. Maybe he thought
I was going to roll the car between him and his assassin. Maybe he thought I was wanting to shield him from harm. What I did was start the car and back over his foot.

  Gy-Rah pounded on the office door. It flew open, he was yanked in, and Pammy was shoved out. The door slammed and locked.

  Pammy looked sick. She wobble-walked toward the father. Her hair was deteriorated to the very scalp, looking like a couple of wispy feathers on a just-hatched bird. She closed one eye to get focus and her legs gave out.

  I drove fast and talked loudly to Cookie, saying I would pull over in a minute, I’d pull over and get her out. I jumped out of the car, popped open the trunk, and of course it was empty.

  For a while I lay on the hood of the car, staring up into the darkness. Staring up at the stars. The thousands and thousands and thousands of stars. Some fall and leave trails. Some go out without anyone even noticing.

  Chapter 53

  STOPPED THE car and Vicky woke up. She said, “Where the fuck are we? I’m fucking starving.”

  “The Top o’ the Pass,” said the Great Wesley. “It is real.”

  I stepped out into the cool night air. Vicky said, “There a bathroom?”

  “Around back,” I said. “That way.”

  All of the windows were broken out and the door hung half torn from its hinges, but the carefully placed stones in the wall were still there. And I walked to them and put my hands upon them and they were cold and they refreshed me. It was just an hour or two before sunrise. Vicky came back. “I can’t pee back there. Too weird.” She tramped into the bushes.

  The Turtle got out and the Stick got out but the Great Wesley said he did not feel capable. The Turtle leaned into the car and gently urged him and the Great Wesley gently refused and I felt a sad tightness in my throat from their tenderness toward each other. Their soft voices twining.

  The Stick walked over to me and put his hands near mine on the wall. He said, “This has been the weirdest night.”

  Vicky came back. “I’m so fucking hungry!” She poked her head inside the doorway of the dead gas station store. “Smells pukey. Let’s go.”