Sloughing Off the Rot

by Lance Carbuncle

  Crazy Talk stepped inside the doors and moved his mouth near to the bell of the ear trumpet. “Grapta, Sa,” he shouted into the horn. “We gromb on the navels and slaughter baby seals in your honor.”

  A look of disgust came over Chelloveck’s face. He pulled the horn away and snapped at Crazy Talk, “I’m not deaf, you know. You don’t need to shout.” And he threw the ear horn to the ground and stomped away, mumbling and grumbling to himself.

  They all stood and watched Chelloveck as he shuffled into the bus-walled village. Realizing that the interlopers were not following him, Chelloveck stopped and returned to grab his ear horn. “Come on, then,” he said to the men, “don’t be put off by my behavior. I’m old and cantankerous. And, actually, I am nearly deaf. I don’t know why I did that.” He gestured to John and his men to follow him. “Come,” said Chelloveck, “Come in. You’ve arrived just in time to celebrate our festivities. We were blessed just this yesterday with a stampede of interesting meat and mighty fighters. Everybody come in. The ceremony is about to begin.”

  John, Santiago and Alf the Sacred Burro followed Chelloveck. But, Crazy Talk stayed outside of the front gate.

  “I viddy you in good now with Chelloveck,” said Crazy Talk. He held up his hand in a lazy farewell wave. “My work done for now. My gulliver is gloopy and ready for sleepy-weep. I go for now. Guarding fumes and making haste ain’t my cup of meat.” And with that, Crazy Talk disappeared from the doorway and left John and Santiago to follow the strange little-big-man into a labyrinth of buses.

  They left Alf the Sacred Burro tethered to a bloodwood tree just inside of the front gate. Alf left donkey vomit balls at his feet as an even-up trade for the windfallen bloodwood fruit that he ate from the ground. Chelloveck assured John that his men would tend to the donkey. And then the strange little-big-man escorted John and Santiago through a circular maze of buses that led on an almost imperceptible downward slant. Curtains pulled back from the bus windows and suspicious eyes probed at the newcomers as they passed.

  A circular pit, six cubits deep and fifty cubits in diameter, marked the center of the bus-labyrinth. The edge of the pit wore a crown of mud bricks one cubit high. Rows of seats – bus seats, benches, stumps, boulders – ringed the pit in terraced levels leading up to the circle of buses surrounding the amphitheatre. And in each seat sat a large midget of a toga-clad man who looked just like the men to his left and right. The men ranged in age from mid-teens to ancient, but all were younger versions of Chelloveck. Even the adolescents were already bald and graying and sporting the flowing chin curtains.

  Chelloveck led John and the others to an open space at the edge of the pit, in between the rows of men. Chelloveck turned and waved his hands toward the surrounding crowd. “These are my sons. I am Chelloveck. These are Chellovecks.” And he placed his ear trumpet to his ear to hear the roar of the crowd as the men cried out in response to their father’s acknowledgement.

  Santiago stood with them, puffing on a bezoar in the peace pipe he filched from Crazy Talk.

  “How many sons do you have?” asked John into the bell of the ear trumpet.

  “Three-hundred-and-one as of today. I lost five and twenty of them yesterday in an ambush outside of our village. Damn Po’kinhorns.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said John, not knowing what else to say.

  “What?” asked Chelloveck, sticking the ear horn in John’s face.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your loss.”

  “It’s okay,” said Chelloveck in a tone that indicated that it really was all right. “I can always make more. And besides, we fought off the attackers and even took some prisoners. Tonight, we celebrate our victory.” And the little-big-man placed his mouth to the earpiece of the ear horn and blew a frantic hardcore-avant-jazz screech that slammed the crowd in the face with a dissonant musical fist and screeched at the men to sit down and shut up.

  And the screech of Chelloveck’s ear horn reminded John of the blistering giggle-jazz that greeted him upon his entry into the new and strange world where he now found himself. John’s body tingled with some sort of emotion, though he found that he was quite inept at interpreting the new feelings starting to bubble up in him. Instead, the emotion manifested itself as a prickle on his skin, and as beads of sweat forming in his armpits and dripping down the sides of his ribcage. He felt tense, excited, angry, sad, confused, and the feelings grated at his raw emotional nerves. His mind reeled at the thought of having three-hundred-twenty-six sons. He wondered how Chelloveck could proliferate when there did not appear to be even one female in the village.

  John said into the ear horn, “Please don’t think I’m rude for asking, but how can you have so many sons when there are no women to mother them?”

  “What?” asked Chelloveck, holding the bell of his ear trumpet toward John.

  “You have so many sons. Where are their mothers?”

  “Blumpkins,” said Chelloveck. “That’s why we were ambushed. For our blumpkins.”

  At the mention of blumpkins, Santiago snapped to attention. He craned his neck back, sniffed at the air, and began to scan the compound with a fierce curiosity. And before John had the opportunity to inquire further, Chelloveck once again blew a wet, warbling trumpet blast.

  “Now it is time that we feast,” shouted Chelloveck, the force of his voice a surprising contrast to the faint murmur with which he originally addressed Crazy Talk. “Thatwise, Chellovecks, let’s enjoy yesterday’s bread, today’s meat, and last year’s cider.” A roar issued from the crowd in response. Chellovecks carted in roasted earth pig, baby scruff goat cooked in its mother’s milk, and other curious meats.

  “Yesterday,” said Chelloveck to John, “we were overrun with strange new creatures and scruff goats and earth pigs. If you look toward the tops of our buses you will still see some of the creatures running about. And we have found that these strange creatures are most delectable, their meat being sweet and tender and salty. Thatwise, tonight we feast on the bounty of meats that blessed our camp.”

  John scanned the tops of the surrounding buses and he did see strange creatures that looked most familiar to him. Some of the creatures had three legs and two heads. Some had the heads of a bird and the body of a cat. And others – unrecognizable amorphous blobs of fur and feathers – rolled about and chattered at one another. John recognized all of them as the myriad forms of his jizz-critters.

  Chelloveck clapped his hands and several younger Chellovecks placed a table and chairs in the clearing at the edge of the pit. “Sit,” said Chelloveck, motioning to the chairs. “Sit and feast and enjoy the festivities with me.” He again clapped his hands and several more Chellovecks placed food and clay pitchers of hard cider before the three men at the table.

  John helped himself to the baby scruff goat and ribs from the earth pig and found them to be a delicious change from the dry, tough dirt-rats. He avoided dining on his own jizz-critters, as it just didn’t seem right to him. Santiago chugged his cider and motioned to a server-Chelloveck to fill his goblet again and again. On Santiago’s plate sat a mound of many meats – scruff goat, earth pig, jizz-critters. His appetite overwhelmed him and Santiago tore into the mound of many meats with zealous abandon. Chelloveck gnawed at a large leg bone of jizz-critter. When he had stripped the leg bare of meat, Chelloveck snapped the thick leg bone and sucked the marrow from it.

  “Bring more cider for our guests,” ordered Chelloveck to a server-Chelloveck. The ancient man gnawed at another piece of meat, getting just slightly more of the food in his mouth than on his beard.

  Server-Chellovecks handed out meat and unleavened flat bread and cider to all of the spectator-Chellovecks. And a great gluttonous feast ensued. Chellovecks attacked their food as if they had not eaten in weeks. They tore at the fresh meat and tossed the cleaned bones toward the center of the amphitheatre pit. Server-Chellovecks tossed grilled jizz-critters to the spectator-Chellovecks and filled all empty goblets with strong cider.

 
As they dined, a thick, sturdy door along the pit’s wall opened and three Chellovecks marched to the center of the arena. The three men held horns that somewhat resembled their father’s ear trumpet. The horns twisted and turned in tight convolutions and ended in flared bells. Before the assembly stood the trumpet-Chellovecks, old and wrinkled, their dry skin looking as if it were coated in a thin covering of dust and cobwebs. They wore red turbans and over their togas they sported ephods of white, blue, scarlet and purple, and interwoven with gold thread.

  The middle-trumpet-Chelloveck raised the mouthpiece of his horn to his lips. He looked to the Chelloveck on his right and nodded and then did the same to the Chelloveck on his left. His foot tapped out a sick, slick rhythm, stirring up a small cloud of dust on the ground. And then his horn blew hot, spewing a torrent of unhinged notes that slammed into each other with reckless disregard, the result being a slurred and climbing trumpet scream that rent the air but still somehow held a compelling melody at its core. The Chellovecks on both sides stood and snapped their fingers to the beat of the bandleader’s foot. Right-side-trumpet-Chelloveck picked up on the gist of the screaming horn and started spitting scorching notes himself. And the two horns rose and fell and twisted their tunes around each other, with a blum-blum-doo-dat-doo honking out of one while a tremulous sustained screeeeeeeee soared above it. And left-side-trumpet-Chelloveck dug on the chaotic strain and he sprayed steaming arpeggios all over the groove with his bloo-doo-doo-doo-dat, bloo-doo-doo-doo-dat, bloo-doo-doo-doo-dee-dah-di-dah-di-blah-dah. And the Demon Zorn looked on, snapped his thin fingers, and smiled a pointy-toothed grin.

  As if drawn by the pied-piping Chellovecks, a stampede of all shapes and sizes of jizz-critters scrambled through the pit door and spilled into the arena in a massive wave of snarling, scratching, snipping and snapping beasts. The Chelloveck horn section continued to kick out the jams, stirring up a roiling tornado of intertwined musical lines. Physical manifestations of the notes, appearing as proper but mangled sheet music with the notes twisted in the tangled ledger lines, swirled in the cacophonous cyclone that spewed from the Chellovecks’ horns.

  And the music whipped the jizz-critters into a frenzy. The chimeric animals in the arena pounced on one another and tore at flesh, sucked at the blood from defeated beasts. Bovine creatures with unwieldy horns ran and tossed their thick heads about, goring all that stood in their way. Small simian creatures pounced on the backs of the heavy-footed bull beasts and scratched at the massive animals’ eyes. Other animals became tripping blocks for the members of the horned stampede and were crushed under hooves. As the bull beasts slammed into the ground, other jizz-critters pounced on them and tore open the bovine underbellies, unraveling the mess of intestines, feasting on the entrails. And the melee swirled in a bloody current all around the clearing at the center of the arena where the Chellovecks spat their mad shit from blow-horns.

  When the song ended, the trumpet-Chellovecks held their horns to their sides and gazed at the fracas around them. Without the horns blowing, the jizz-critters felt no need to steer clear of the center of the pit. The swirling current of animals scattered. The Chellovecks found themselves in no better of a position than the bull beasts as they fended off attacks from all manner of animals. One trumpet-Chelloveck swung his horn wildly at the crush of furry attackers, knocking five-legged dogs and fish-birds to the ground. But, the effort proved futile when the massive longhorn of a bull beast poked through his back and out of his chest. With a Chelloveck-kabob on his spike, the bull beast flicked his head to the side and tossed the little-big man aside, leaving him to bleed out and be trampled and fed on by the panicked jizz-critters. Before the remaining trumpeters could scramble for safety, the frenzied animals knocked them to the ground and tore them to scraps.

  “Ah, what is this vonny cal?” said Chelloveck to John. Chelloveck smacked an open hand to his forehead and grimaced. “Such a kick to the yarbles – three more of my sons tossed at the dung heap like nothing more than soiled holy undergarments. Three more sons that I have to replace.”

  In the pit of the arena the jizz-critters tore each other down until there was almost nothing but carnage. Several victorious creatures still lived but suffered mortal wounds. A new crew of Chellovecks entered the arena and whacked with sledges at the heads of still-alive but dying critters, dispatching them wholly and completely. And the crew tossed the carcasses onto a wagon and dragged them from the arena, leaving a muddy, bloody sludge on the ground. During the cleanup-intermission, Chelloveck called for more food and drink for his guests. And the crowd of Chellovecks roared in approval. John gladly accepted and gorged himself on scruff goat and hard cider. When he started to tell Santiago how nice it was to have a full feast, John saw that his crazy-eyed, shaggy friend was gone. The ebony pipe, still smoking, sat on the table as a marker, holding Santiago’s place. John picked up the pipe and drew heavily on the fuming bezoar.

  And the feasting continued. Chellovecks chugged cider and gnawed on meat until their bellies grew taut and their thoughts muddied. Although the hunger for food was sated, a desire to witness more carnage possessed the Chelloveck spectators. In their drunken revelry, the Chellovecks screamed for more entertainment. Down in the arena, Chelloveck guards forced prisoners to engage in mortal battle with one another merely for the amusement of the Chellovecks. Men, tied back to back, fended off jizz-critter attacks with their bare hands. Weapons were set in the middle of the arena and the men scrambled to claim their implements of destruction, smashing each other’s bones with maces and clubs and bricks, slashing at each other with knives and swords, poking with pitchforks, striking out with sticks. The bloodier the ground became, the more the Chellovecks whipped themselves into a frothy mania.

  Just when it seemed that the slaughter had reached a climax, three more Chellovecks in colorful ephods strode to the center of the pit, stepping over bodies and body parts on the way, and started blowing more steaming licks from convoluted blow horns. In answer to the creaching, chaotic horn racket, a platoon of unarmed Chellovecks marched into the arena in two columns. And the soldier-Chellovecks, twelve in all, wore tunics and heavy monstrous boots soaked in bullock’s blood. The toes of the boots, having been baked near a fire, were hard and black like flints. And the soldier-Chellovecks stood straight and still, waiting for the buglers to wind down.

  But the horn section kept on rocking, going round and round. While the scorching giggle-jazz filled the air, a hunched-over man, dressed in a leather kilt plated with bronze, stepped through the door to the pit. The man did not slump because he was weak, old, or infirm. He doubled over because his enormity did not allow him to merely walk through the large door like a normal-sized man. When his leather sandals stomped into the pit and he cleared the door, the man stood straight. And a collective gasp escaped the Chelloveck spectators. At his full height of six cubits and a span, the man towered above the little-big Chellovecks. His chest was thick like a rain barrel. His neck like that of a bull. His biceps firm and as big around as a grown man’s thigh. A mess of kinky black hair helmeted his head and thick sideboards padded his jawline down to the edge of his determined chin. A thickened and widened nose sat in the shade of the man’s bulging, bony brow. His piercing eyes peered out from under the rocky outcropping of forehead, the gaze going straight through the soldiers in front of him and weakening the Chellovecks’ resolve, making them question the wisdom of coming to battle the afro-capped giant.

  Chelloveck accepted the peace pipe from John and pulled on it as if he were drawing his last breath. He exhaled several breaths of thick smoke before his lungs cleared. “That,” said Chelloveck, “is Joad of the Po’kinhorns of Gath. He is a great warrior and he led the attempt to waylay my sons yesterday. Most of my boys that were lost in the ambush were felled in the effort to capture that bolshy bastard.”

  The lumbering giant lowered his hips and stomped deliberately around the edges of the arena, each step sounding like a board smacking the ground. He scanned for an ar
ea of the wall to scale. Joad was more than tall enough to grab the top of the tall wall and pull himself over. But, the Chelloveck guards, armed with spontoons and stationed around the top of the arena wall, stood ready to poke at Joad with their razor sharp tridents should he try to escape. As Joad ambled around the pit, the trumpet-Chellovecks halted their playing and dashed for the open arena door, closing and barring it behind themselves.

  Chelloveck handed John the pipe and rose from the table at the edge of the pit. He momentarily felt dizzy from the cider and bezoar smoke. He wobbled briefly and then steadied himself. His raised hand signaled to the Chellovecks for silence, and the crowd hushed. Chelloveck spoke, loudly enough for all to hear, saying: “The man before you in the arena is Joad of the vonny Po’kinhorns of Gath. That brute killed my sons, your brothers, yesterday. Thatwise, I will grant a fortnight in the blumpkin chambers to the man who can lay Joad level with the ground and return him to the filthy muck from whence he came.” Chelloveck raised his glass to the soldier-Chellovecks and then downed its contents. The soldier-Chellovecks snapped their heels and banged their right fists on their chests in salute to their father.