High Cotton: Selected Stories of Joe R. Lansdale

by Joe R. Lansdale

  Muncher grabbed Codger by the right ear. The grip was strong and Codger was shook like a used condom about to be tied and tossed. Muncher bit the champ’s ear completely off.

  Harry felt sick. He thought he was going to throw up. He saw that Big George was looking at him. “You think this is bad, motherfucker,” George said, “this ain’t nothing but a cakewalk. Wait till I get you in that pit.”

  “You sure run hot and cold, don’t you?” Harry said.

  “Nothing personal,” George said sharply and turned back to look at the fight in the pit.

  Nothing personal, Harry thought. God, what could be more personal? Just yesterday, as they trained, jogged along together, a pickup loaded with gun-bearing crazies driving alongside of them, he had felt close to George. They had shared many personal things these six months, and he knew that George liked him. But when it came to the pit, George was a different man. The concept of friendship became alien to him. When Harry had tried to talk to him about it yesterday, he had said much the same thing. “Ain’t nothing personal, Harry my man, but when we get in that pit don’t look to me for nothing besides pain, cause I got plenty of that to give you, a lifetime of it, and I’ll just keep it coming.”

  Down in the pit Codger screamed. It could be described no other way. Muncher had him on his back and was biting him on the belly. Codger was trying to double forward and get hold of Muncher’s head, but his tired jaws kept slipping off of the wet neck fur. Blood was starting to pump out of Codger’s belly.

  “Bite him, boy,” someone yelled from the bleachers, “tear his ass up, son.”

  Harry noted that every man, woman and child was leaning forward in their seat, straining for a view. Their faces full of lust, like lovers approaching vicious climax. For a few moments they were in that pit and they were the dogs. Vicarious thrills without the pain.

  Codger’s legs began to flap.

  “Kill him! Kill him!” the crowd began to chant.

  Codger had quit moving. Muncher was burrowing his muzzle deeper into the old dog’s guts. Preacher called for a pickup. Muncher’s owner pried the dog’s jaws loose of Codger’s guts. Muncher’s muzzle looked as if it had been dipped in red ink.

  “This sonofabitch is still alive,” Muncher’s owner said of Codger.

  Codger’s owner walked over to the dog and said, “You little fucker!” He pulled a Saturday Night Special from his coat pocket and shot Codger twice in the head. Codger didn’t even kick. He just evacuated his bowels right there.

  Muncher came over and sniffed Codger’s corpse, then, lifting his leg, he took a leak on the dead dog’s head. The stream of piss was bright red.

  · · ·

  The ramp was lowered. The dead dog was dragged out and tossed behind the bleachers. Muncher walked up the ramp beside his owner. The little dog strutted like he had just been crowned King of Creation. Codger’s owner walked out last. He was not a happy man. Preacher stayed in the pit. A big man known as Sheriff Jimmy went down the ramp to join him. Sheriff Jimmy had a big pistol on his hip and a toy badge on his chest. The badge looked like the sort of thing that had come in a plastic bag with a cap gun and whistle. But it was his sign of office and his word was iron.

  A man next to Harry prodded him with the barrel of a shotgun. Walking close behind George, Harry went down the ramp and into the pit. The man with the shotgun went back up. In the bleachers the betting had started again, the little fat man with the bowler was busy.

  Preacher’s rattlesnake was still lying serenely about his neck, and the little copperhead had been placed in Preacher’s coat pocket. It poked its head out from time to time and looked around.

  Harry glanced up. The heads and skulls on the poles—in spite of the fact they were all eyeless, and due to the strong light nothing but bulbous shapes on shafts—seemed to look down, taking as much amusement in the situation as the crowd on the bleachers.

  Preacher had his Bible out again. He was reading a verse “…when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee…”

  Harry had no idea what that or the snakes had to do with anything. Certainly he could not see the relationship with the pit. These people’s minds seemed to click and grind to a different set of internal gears than those on the outside.

  The reality of the situation settled on Harry like a heavy, woolen coat. He was about to kill or be killed, right here in this dog-smelling pit, and there was nothing he could do that would change that.

  He thought perhaps his life should flash before his eyes or something, but it did not. Maybe he should try to think of something wonderful, a last fine thought of what used to be. First he summoned up the image of his wife. That did nothing for him. Though his wife had once been pretty and bright, he could not remember her that way. The image that came to mind was quite different. A dumpy, lazy woman with constant back pains and her hair pulled up into an eternal topknot of greasy, brown hair. There was never a smile on her face or a word of encouragement for him. He always felt that she expected him to entertain her and that he was not doing a very good job of it. There was not even a moment of sexual ecstasy that he could recall. After their daughter had been born she had given up screwing as a wasted exercise. Why waste energy on sex when she could spend it complaining.

  He flipped his mental card file to his daughter. What he saw was an ugly, potato-nosed girl of twelve. She had no personality. Her mother was Miss Congeniality compared to her. Potato Nose spent all of her time pining over thin, blond heartthrobs on television.It wasn’t bad enough that they glared at Harry via the tube, they were also pinned to her walls and hiding in magazines she had cast throughout the house.

  These were the last thoughts of a man about to face death?

  There was just nothing there.

  His job had sucked. His wife hadn’t.

  He clutched at straws. There had been Melva, a fine looking little cheerleader from high school. She had had the brain of a dried black-eyed pea, but God-All-Mighty, did she know how to hide a weenie. And there had always been that strange smell about her, like bananas. It was especially strong about her thatch, which was thick enough for a bald eagle to nest in.

  But thinking about her didn’t provide much pleasure either. She had gotten hit by a drunk in a Mack truck while parked off-side of a dark road with that Pulver boy.

  Damn that Pulver. At least he had died in ecstasy. Had never known what hit him. When that Mack went up his ass he probably thought for a split second he was having the greatest orgasm of his life.

  Damn that Melva. What had she seen in Pulver anyway?

  He was skinny and stupid and had a face like a peanut pattie. God, he was beat at every turn. Frustrated at every comer. No good thoughts or beautiful visions before the moment of truth. Only blackness, a life of dull, planned movements as consistent and boring as a bran-conscious geriatric’s bowel movement. For a moment he thought he might cry.

  Sheriff Jimmy took out his revolver. Unlike the badge it was not a toy. “Find your corner, boys.”

  George turned and strode to one side of the pit, took off his shirt and leaned against the wall. His body shined like wet licorice in the spotlights.

  After a moment, Harry made his legs work. He walked to a place opposite George and took off his shirt. He could feel the months of hard work rippling beneath his flesh. His mind was suddenly blank. There wasn’t even a god he believed in. No one to pray to. Nothing to do but the inevitable.

  Sheriff Jimmy walked to the middle of the pit. He yelled out for the crowd to shut up.

  Silence reigned.

  “In this comer,” he said, waving the revolver at Harry, “we have Harry Joe Stinton, family man and pretty good feller for an outsider. He’s six two and weighs two hundred and thirty-eight pounds, give or take a pound since my bathroom scales ain’t exactly on the money.”

  A cheer went up.

  “Over here,” Sheriff Jimmy said, waving the revolver at George, “standing six fo
ur tall and weighing two hundred and forty-two pounds, we got the nigger, present champion of this here sport.”

  No one cheered. Someone made a loud sound with his mouth that sounded like a fart, the greasy kind that goes on and on and on.

  George appeared unfazed. He looked like a statue. He knew who he was and what he was. The Champion Of The Pit.

  “First off,” Sheriff Jimmy said, “you boys come forward and show your hands.”

  Harry and George walked to the center of the pit, held out their hands, fingers spread wide apart, so that the crowd could see that they were empty.

  “Turn and walk to your corners and don’t turn around,” Sheriff Jimmy said.

  George and Harry did as they were told. Sheriff Jimmy followed Harry and put an arm around his shoulders. “I got four hogs riding on you,” he said. “And I’ll tell you what, you beat the nigger and I’ll do you a favor. Elvira, who works over at the café has already agreed. You win and you can have her. How’s that sound?”

  Harry was too numb with the insanity of it all to answer. Sheriff Jimmy was offering him a piece of ass if he won, as if this would be greater incentive than coming out of the pit alive. With this bunch there was just no way to anticipate what might come next. Nothing was static.

  “She can do more tricks with a six-inch dick than a monkey can with a hundred foot of grapevine, boy. When the going gets rough in there, you remember that. Okay?”

  Harry didn’t answer. He just looked at the pit wall.

  “You ain’t gonna get nowhere in life being sullen like that,” Sheriff Jimmy said. “Now, you go get him and plow a rut in his black ass.”

  Sheriff Jimmy grabbed Harry by the shoulders and whirled him around, slapped him hard across the face in the same way the dogs had been slapped. George had been done the same way by the preacher. Now George and Harry were facing one another. Harry thought George looked like an ebony gargoyle fresh escaped from hell. His bald, bullet-like head gleamed in the harsh lights and his body looked as rough and ragged as stone.

  Harry and George raised their hands in classic boxer stance and began to circle one another.

  · · ·

  From above someone yelled, “Don’t hit the nigger in the head, it’ll break your hand. Go for the lips, they got soft lips.”

  The smell of sweat, dog blood and old Codger’s shit was thick in the air. The lust of the crowd seemed to have an aroma as well. Harry even thought he could smell Preacher’s snakes. Once, when a boy, he had been fishing down by the creek bed and had smelled an odor like that, and a water moccasin had wriggled out beneath his legs and splashed in the water. It was as if everything he feared in the world had been put in this pit. The idea of being put deep down in the ground. Irrational people for whom logic did not exist. Rotting skulls on poles about the pit. Living skulls attached to hunched-forward bodies that yelled for blood. Snakes. The stench of death-blood and shit. And every white man’s fear, racist or not—a big, black man with a lifetime of hatred in his eyes.

  The circle tightened. They could almost touch one another now. Suddenly George’s lip began to tremble. His eyes poked out of his head, seemed to be looking at something just behind and to the right of Harry.

  “Sss…snake!” George screamed.

  God, thought Harry, one of Preacher’s snakes has escaped.

  Harry jerked his head for a look.

  And George stepped in and knocked him on his ass and kicked him full in the chest. Harry began scuttling along the ground on his hands and knees, George following along kicking him in the ribs. Harry thought he felt something snap inside, a cracked rib maybe. He finally scuttled to his feet and bicycled around the pit. Goddamn, he thought, I fell for the oldest, silliest trick in the book. Here I am fighting for my life and I fell for it.

  “Way to go, stupid fuck!” A voice screamed from the bleachers. “Hey nigger, why don’t you try ‘hey, your shoe’s untied,’ he’ll go for it.”

  “Get off the goddamned bicycle,” someone else yelled. “Fight.”

  “You better run,” George said. “I catch you I’m gonna punch you so hard in the mouth, gonna knock your fucking teeth out your asshole…”

  Harry felt dizzy. His head was like a yo-yo doing the Around-the-World trick. Blood ran down his forehead, dribbled off the tip of his nose and gathered on his upper lip. George was closing the gap again.

  I’m going to die right here in this pit, thought Harry. I’m going to die just because my truck broke down outside of town and no one knows where I am. That’s why I’m going to die. It’s as simple as that.

  Popcorn rained down on Harry and a tossed cup of ice hit him in the back. “Wanted to see a fucking foot race,” a voice called, “I’d have gone to the fucking track.”

  “Ten on the nigger,” another voice said.

  “Five bucks the nigger kills him in five minutes.”

  When Harry backpedaled past Preacher, the snake man leaned forward and snapped, “You asshole, I got a sawbuck riding on you.”

  Preacher was holding the big rattler again. He had the snake gripped just below the head, and he was so upset over how the fight had gone so far, he was unconsciously squeezing the snake in a vice-like grip. The rattler was squirming and twisting and flapping about, but Preacher didn’t seem to notice. The snake’s forked tongue was outside its mouth and it was really working, slapping about like a thin strip of rubber come loose on a whirling tire. The copperhead in Preacher’s pocket was still looking out, as if along with Preacher he might have a bet on the outcome of the fight as well. As Harry danced away the rattler opened its mouth so wide its jaws came unhinged. It looked as if it were trying to yell for help.

  Harry and George came together again in the center of the pit. Fists like black ball bearings slammed the sides of Harry’s head. The pit was like a whirlpool, the walls threatening to close in and suck Harry down into oblivion.

  Kneeing with all his might, Harry caught George solidly in the groin. George grunted, stumbled back, half-bent over.

  The crowd went wild.

  Harry brought cupped hands down on George’s neck, knocked him on his knees. Harry used the opportunity to knock out one of the big man’s teeth with the toe of his shoe.

  He was about to kick him again when George reached up and clutched the crotch of Harry’s khakis, taking a crushing grip on Harry’s testicles.

  “Got you by the balls,” George growled.

  Harry bellowed and began to hammer wildly on top of George’s head with both fists. He realized with horror that George was pulling him forward. By God, George was going to bite him on the balls.

  Jerking up his knee he caught George in the nose and broke his grip.He bounded free, skipped and whooped about the pit like an Indian dancing for rain.

  He skipped and whooped by Preacher. Preacher’s rattler had quit twisting. It hung loosely from Preacher’s tight fist. Its eyes were bulging out of its head like the humped backs of grub worms. Its mouth was closed and its forked tongue hung limply from the edge of it.

  The copperhead was still watching the show from the safety of Preacher’s pocket, its tongue zipping out from time to time to taste the air. The little snake didn’t seem to have a care in the world.

  George was on his feet again, and Harry could tell that already he was feeling better. Feeling good enough to make Harry feel real bad.

  Preacher abruptly realized that his rattler had gone limp. “No, God no!” he cried. He stretched the huge rattler between his hands. “Baby, baby,” he bawled, “breathe for me, Sapphire, breathe for me.” Preacher shook the snake viciously, trying to jar some life into it, but the snake did not move.

  The pain in Harry’s groin had subsided and he could think again. George was moving in on him, and there just didn’t seem any reason to run. George would catch him, and when he did, it would just be worse because he would be even more tired from all that running. It had to be done. The mating dance was over, now all that was left was the intercourse of violence.<
br />
  A black fist turned the flesh and cartilage of Harry’s nose into smouldering putty. Harry ducked his head and caught another blow to the chin. The stars he had not been able to see above him because of the lights, he could now see below him, spinning constellations on the floor of the pit.

  It came to him again, the fact that he was going to die right here without one good, last thought. But then maybe there was one. He envisioned his wife, dumpy and sullen and denying him sex. George became her and she became George and Harry did what he had wanted to do for so long, he hit her in the mouth. Not once, but twice and a third time. He battered her nose and he pounded her ribs. And by God, but she could hit back. He felt something crack in the center of his chest and his left cheekbone collapsed into his face. But Harry did not stop battering her. He looped and punched and pounded her dumpy face until it was George’s black face and George’s black face turned back to her face and he thought of her now on the bed, naked, on her back, battered, and he was naked and mounting her, and the blows of his fists were the sexual thrusts of his cock and he was pounding her until—

  George screamed. He had fallen to his knees. His right eye was hanging out on the tendons. One of Harry’s straight rights had struck George’s cheekbone with such power it had shattered it and pressured the eye out of its socket.

  Blood ran down Harry’s knuckles. Some of it was George’s. Much of it was his own. His knuckle bones showed through the rent flesh of his hands, but they did not hurt. They were past hurting.

  George wobbled to his feet. The two men stood facing one another, neither moving. The crowd was silent. The only sound in the pit was the harsh breathing of the two fighters, and Preacher who had stretched Sapphire out on the ground on her back and was trying to blow air into her mouth. Occasionally he’d lift his head and say in tearful supplication, “Breathe for me, Sapphire, breathe for me.”

  Each time Preacher blew a blast into the snake, its white underbelly would swell and then settle down, like a leaky balloon that just wouldn’t hold air.