Header 2

by Edward Lee

  They pulled the head out, then pushed it in, pulled it out, pushed it in…several times in a row.

  “Longer this time,” and—schhhhhluck!—the head was re-admitted as the most horrendous odors were pumped from the vagina.

  “Don’t know what she smells worse than, Paw,” Dumar laughed. “The gut-can at Hack Doobler’s butcher shop or the pit Charlie Fuchson’s uses to git rid’a his cows that die.”

  “This gal’s pussy, son, I’d say smells worse that both them things.”

  More muffled screams could be heard from the corpulent mass. Menduez began to enter death-throes.

  “Look’s like he’s kickin’, boss.”

  “Yeah, and I hope all them puppies he killed are waitin’ for him in hell.”

  But, again, Helton whispered something in Paulie’s ear.

  “Shit! Yeah!” the don exclaimed. “Argi, pull him out!”

  “Pull him out, boss?”

  “Pull him out! I want him alive!”

  schhhhhhhhhhhhluck-THUMP…

  Menduez’s head was extracted. The young man lay motionless now, eyes seared open by unmitigated, unutterable, and indefatigable organic horror.

  “Aw, shit, he ain’t dead, is he?” Paulie complained.

  Dr. Prouty’s finger touched the man’s jugular. “I’m afraid he’s no longer among the living, sir.”

  “Well, fuck that, Doc! Get down there and do that doctor shit you do!”

  Dr. Prouty made an aghast face. “Umm, pardon me, sir?”

  “Come on! That CRP shit or whatever, like they’d do on that old show with the bimbos in the red swimsuits? Shit, those girls were packing some camletoe—Baywatch, that’s it.” He snapped his fingers. “What’s the word I’m lookin’ for, Doc?”

  Prouty’s lower lip trembled. “You want me to…resuscitate him, sir?”

  Paulie beamed. “Yeah, yeah! That’s it!”

  The doctor paled, already wobbling at the spirit-upheaving odor and the mere sight of the Hispanic’s rotten-margarine-and-dead-vaginal-slime slathered head. “Really, sir, that would be a very trepidacious undertaking…”

  Paulie stared. “Doc. If you don’t bring that puppy-killin’ scumbag back to life, you know whose head’s goin’ in Melda’s pussy next.”

  Prouty was on his knees in half a second, first opening Menduez’s airway, aspirating air into the lungs, then administering expert cardiac compressions.

  Helton, Dumar, Paulie, and Argi all watched quite raptly.

  Thirty seconds. Forty. Fifty.

  A minute.

  “Oh, dear!” the doctor wailed. “It appears that—”

  —but at a minute ten seconds, Menduez lurched, hacked, threw up in a volcano-like plume, and screamed.

  “The Doc did it!” Paulie yelled.

  “Well ain’t that sumpthin’!” Dumar declared.

  “The doctor done reached down inta the valley’a death itself and pulled this evil fella right out!” Helton celebrated.

  “Good job, Doc,” Argi commended, but then winced when he gingerly touched his swollen testicle.

  Dr. Prouty—vomit-bespattered now—sighed, walked over to the portable bar, and poured himself a drink. Without thinking, he rubbed his crotch.

  Paulie gaped. “Doc!”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Did you just rub your crotch?”

  Confusion bloomed on Prouty’s face. “Why…I believe I did, Mr. Vinchetti”—suddenly he looked lost—“and…for no apparent reason…”

  “You’re finally gettin’ it, Doc!” and then Paulie and Argi laughed aloud.

  “The Doc saved your life, kid,” Paulie returned his attention to the captive. “Ain’t ya even gonna say thank you?”

  “Chit, mang!”Menduez wailed. “I’m beggin’ chew! Don’t put my head back in dare! Choot me instead! Knife me! Anyting! But not dat!”

  “No, no, kid, you really gotta leave this to us…”

  “So what now, boss?” Argi asked.

  “Helton got a terrific idea!” Paulie alighted. “Come on, guys!” and then the men piled out—save for Dr. Prouty—and with them they dragged the convulsant form of Menduez.

  They dragged him from the Winnebago, across the pavement, and into the back of Helton’s truck.

  When the door closed behind them, Helton’s enthused voice could be heard, “What we’se gonna do with this here puppy-killer is something’ that ain’t never been done is all’a history! We’se gonna have ourselfs…a quadruple-header!” and from within, it became difficult to discern as to what screamed louder, Menduez or the hole-saw…

  — | — | —

  Chapter 17

  (I)

  An hour later, the deed was done, and the four men stood outside the truck to catch their breath in the crisp December night. Their penises had been duly slaked via the head of Menduez, into whose skull had been cut not one, not two, not three, but…

  Four holes.

  Paulie shook his head in bewildered awe. “Damn. There’s somethin’ about fuckin’ heads that’s-that’s…shit, I don’t know.”

  Argi lit a cigarette, shaking his head too. “Boss, that was hands down the best nut of my life.”

  Paulie nodded and rubbed his crotch.

  “Yessir,” Helton appended—and he rubbed his crotch too, “No matter how tight the pussy or how fine the blowjob or cornhole, a head is always better ta fuck. Don’t know why, just ‘tis. Maybe there’s some special juices in the brain that yer dick soak up ta give ya such a humdinger of a nut…”

  Dumar rubbed his crotch. “And it were even dandier on account it were a puppy-killer we done it to.”

  Helton nodded with authority.

  All four men exchanged grievous glances in the warehouse parking lot, all shuffling their feet.

  “Shit,” Paulie said.

  “Shit is right,” Helton remarked. “We all just had ourselfs a great cum but now?”

  Dumar stepped right up next to his father. “The fun’n games are over, and the feud’s back on.”

  More silence, more glances.

  “It’s fucked up,” Argi said, preposterously large testicle throbbing.

  “Yeah, I could be spendin’ Christmas with my wife in Vegas,” Paulie griped, “but, no, you guys had to fuck it all up.”

  The outrage of the statement seemed to cause Helton’s neck to cock his head forward. “Oh, we fucked it all up, huh? Well just you tell me, Paulie, how ya arrive at that!”

  Paulie pointed and blared, “Your family started all this shit way back when! All I was doin’ was pulling some legitimate vendetta for my wife! Only reason any of this is happening is because your nephew, Travis Tuckton, fucked my wife’s father in the head!”

  Dumar howled while Helton’s face reddened, and then the elder blared back, “Well, I hate ta tell ya this, Paulie, but the only reason my nephew, Travis Tuckton, fucked your wife’s father in the head is ’cos your wife’s father, Thibald Caudill, fucked Travis’ mother in the head!”

  The heaviest silence of all dropped over the scene.

  Paulie’s mouth fell open. He looked to Argi, then he looked back at Helton. “What?”

  “You heard me!” Helton thundered. “Thibald Caudill, your wife’s fuckin’ father, was a cad, a creeker, and a thief, and he stolt valuable land from my brother Tuff, he did! So when he hears that Tuff’s fixin’ ta sue, Caudill killed Tuff and then ta add insult ta injury, he fucked Tuff’s wife, Joycie Tuckton, in the head! Joycie Tuckton was Travis’s maw!”

  Paulie and Argie stared, slack-jawed.

  Helton continued to roar, “So it was your side that started this feud, not mine!”

  More seconds of silence ticked by.

  “Argi,” Paulie croaked, “I don’t think he’s lyin’.”

  Argi shook his head. “Ain’t seen none of the seventeen signs, boss.”

  “Helton, are you on the level about this?”

  “Yer dang straight I am! We’re decent backwoods folks who mind our own busine
ss! We don’t do nothin’ ta no one less’n they deserve it!”

  Paulie seemed flabbergasted. “Well how do you like that shit? Marshie never told me it was her father who started it all. She told me he was an innocent victim…”

  “Ain’t anothin’ inner-cint ’bout Thibald Caudill! Lower than snake-shit, he was! The evilest man ta ever come out’a these parts, and he got what he deserved!”

  Paulie began opening and closing his fists, clearly in a high mode of agitation. “Why that lyin’ bitch. She only told me half the story, and here we are tearin’ the shit out of each other just so she can have a laugh. Man, that pisses me off!”

  “It’s fucked up, boss,” Argi said. “And it looks like all this—”

  “—is our fault!” Paulie cracked. “If she’d told me the fuckin’ truth in the first place, then there’s no way I’d have pulled a vendetta on you guys! It’d be a violation of the code!” Paulie stormed tight circles in the lot. “Fuck! I hate it when chicks fuck with me like that!” He looked at Helton. “Shit, man. I don’t know what to say.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

  Helton’s bushy brow cocked up. “You’se…apollergizin’?”

  “Well, yeah,” the don admitted. “I fucked up ’cos I believed my fuckin’ wife.” He ground his teeth. “Argi, what’s wrong with me? I do it every time, don’t I? Marshie’s my third fuckin’ wife and she’s pullin’ the same shit the first two did. Paulie the Puppet. They lie like fuckin’ rugs but I believe ’em every time. Just show me a great set of legs and a great set of tits and a pretty face, and they get me wrapped right around their fuckin’ fingers. Paulie see, Paulie do.”

  Helton chuckled. “Well all men git hoodwinked by purdy gals on occasion. See, it’s a gal’s nature lie to their fellas’n make ’em look like a horse’s bee-hind.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it.” Paulie’s gaze drifted back to Helton. “Well, Helton. It’s your call. If you want to keep this fight up and try to get your revenge, I gotta admit, you got the right to.”

  Helton reflected. “Aw, yeah, we could do that, and I don’t mind tellin’ ya you’d more’n likely git’cher asses wored out, but…seein’ how you’se just apollergized…I’m perfectly fine in considerin’ this whole awful thing as nothin’ but a great big misunderstandin’.”

  “Well shit, Paw,” Dumar barked. “This man deserves to die bad on account’a what he done ta my fine li’l son Crory!”

  “I understand what’cher sayin’, Dumar,” Helton replied, “but you’n me both know that Crory weren’t really a fine li’l son. The kid was born with glue on his fingers. Bet a day didn’t go by when he didn’t steal somethin’. A kid with a touch’a the thief runnin’ that deep in his blood? His death might easily have been a case of somethin’ goin’ around and then comin’ around…”

  Dumar chewed his lip. “Well, I never thunk of it that way so’s…maybe you’re right,” but then hatred flared back in his eyes. “But what about my poor wife! These boys dug up her corpse, fucked it, then pumped her belly up with shit! My lovin’, faithful Mary Beth!”

  Helton winced a bit, “Son, that may be true that they fucked her dead body’n filled her with shit, but…”

  “But what, Paw!”

  Helton sighed. “I never told ya ’cos I didn’t think it needed tellin’, but shit, boy, there weren’t nothin’ lovin’ and faithful ’bout Mary Beth. Since the day you was married, I started hearin’ stories ’bout her fuckin’ and suckin’ fellas fer hooch or cash”—he pointed his omnipotent finger—“and you cain’t tell me you didn’t hear some’a them stories your own self.”

  Dumar stalled, then admitted, “Well, yeah, Paw, I did. But I were so up’n in love with her, I didn’t believe ’em.”

  “Hey, I hear ya, kid,” Paulie said and then he and Argi laughed. “Fuckin’ wives, huh? They’re all a pack of liars.”

  “Guys need to think more with the heads on their shoulders than the heads in their pants,” Argi offered.

  Helton continued, “And there was one time, son, when Mary Beth wanted to suck my dick if’n I give her extra ‘shine—”

  Dumar glared. “Did you let her?”

  WHAP!

  Helton’s huge hand smacked Dumar across the head so hard he almost flipped in the air.

  “Oooow! Gawd dang, Paw!”

  “A’course I didn’t let her, ya blammed a-hole! What kind’a hill trash ya think I am? Ya think I’d take a blowjob from my own son’s wife?”

  Dumar dragged himself up. “Shit, Paw, I’se sorry. I’se just kind’a all twisted up now. I’se confused.”

  “It’s a confusin’ world we’se all livin’ in, son. It’s what they’se call the conver-loo-shuns of human nature. We’se got ta be careful how we reckon it. And gittin’ back ta Mary Beth…shit, I hate ta speak ill’a the dead, but yer wife was a alky tramp and lazier than Charlie Fuchson’s egg-suck dog. She weren’t a good wife. Wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if it turned out that that li’l thief Crory come from some other fella’s load.”

  Dumar looked sheepish. “Gotta admit, Paw, that thought crossed my mind many’a time. Shit, Crory didn’t look a bit like me.”

  Paulie stepped up. “Hey, don’t feel bad, kid. When you guys dug my baby up the other night, sure, I was pissed, but deep down I always had to wonder. Yeah, Marshie said it was mine but I had my doubts. A liar is a liar, you know? Plus, the kid was a girl, and I’m Italian. I need a male heir. And as for ‘Becca? Fuck. You guys did me a favor by snuffin’ her. A greedy, whiny, ungrateful bitch, just like her mother.” Paulie’s eyes suddenly lit up. “But now I don’t have to pay for her fuckin’ college!”

  He and Argi high-fived.

  “Feels good ta clear the air, huh, Paulie?” Helton posed.

  “It sure does, Helton.”

  “And since we’se on that road, I feel a right low down now ’bout, well, fuckin’ yer maw in the head.”

  Paulie guffawed. “You wanna know the truth, Helton? I hated my mother. She treated me like shit for my whole childhood, and milked my father for all he was worth, and then wound up fuckin’ nagging him till he croaked from a heart attack over a plate of linguini. I ought to pay you guys for punchin’ her ticket.”

  Helton stroked his massive beard. “Well now that ya mention it, you did my maw a favor as well. Horrible as it was the way she die, shit, Paulie, she was dang tired of livin’. That nursin’ home? She couldn’t stand it. Took all her dig-ner-tee away. Peein’ in bags, shittin’ in pans, gettin’ pushed ’round in a blammed wheelchair. Couldn’t abide the fact that they was keepin’ her alive just ta collect them damn medicaid payments. She felt it were a violation’a nature fer the state ta keep her livin’ like that against her will. But then you fellas come along and send her straight to the Pearly Gates, so’s you was actually doin’ her a service.”

  All four men looked at each other and laughed.

  “Well, shit,” Helton boomed, “I guess we’se all friends now, huh?”

  “Put ‘er there, Helton,” Paulie exclaimed, and then they all shook hearty hands.

  To Argi, Helton offered, “Sorry ’bout what happened to yer nut, fella.”

  Argi gently cradled said “nut” with his finger. “No big deal. Hurts like a motherfucker, but the doc said it’ll heal up.”

  Paulie leaned to peer at the exposed gonad. “Was big as a grapefruit a little while ago but now it’s back down to avocado-size. Sounds like a good sign to me, Argi.”

  Argi nodded, then shrugged and told Helton, “And now that we’re all friends—fuck, Helton—I feel bad about killin’ the blond kid. Your nephew or somethin’, huh?”

  Helton scoffed. “Don’t let it worry ya none. Him dying was just a case’a him payin’ fer his misdeeds. It’s ‘tween him’n God now, and I ‘spect he’ll do all right.”

  Dumar stepped up. “And, dang, since we’se all apollergizin’, I’se sorry fer killin’ that slim fella was drivin’ yer motor-home earlier.”

  “Think nothin’
of it, kid,” Paulie allayed. “Cristo was an adventurer; he knew the risks. He lived a button’s life and died a button’s death. Fuck, no one lives forever.”

  Helton seemed to recall somethin’. “Aw, shit, Paulie. Lemme give ya back all them diamonds’n gold necklaces I stolt from yer wife’s house—”

  Paulie flapped a hand. “Fuck that, Helton—keep it. I don’t want nothin’ that reminds me of that lyin ’ prissy bitch. This whole thing was her fault for not tellin’ the whole story.”

  “Well, I’se not one ta suggest how a fella run his domester-ik affairs,” Helton hinted, “but seein’ how Marshie throwed a serous monkey wrench inta yer life, ya might wanna make a hard introduction’a yer foot ta her ass.”

  Paulie smiled sharp as a knife. “I’m not gonna kick her ass, I’m gonna kill her ass. Had to whack the first two wives for makin’ a chump out of me, so Marshie’s gettin’ the same deal, hot body or not.”

  “Cain’t say’s I blame ya, Paulie. Marshie go back a long way, and most’a that way ain’t good.”

  Dumar looked at his watch, then interrupted. “Hey, ya all! We been so busy tearin’ the holy hail out’a each other, we up’n fergot ’bout what time it is! Dang if it ain’t after one in the mornin’!”

  All the men looked at each other, no one quite getting it.

  “It’s Christmas!” Dumar rejoiced.

  “Well how’s about that!” Helton exclaimed. “Merry Christmas, ever-one!”

  “Shit, yeah! Merry Christmas!” Paulie added, and it was then that the true holiday spirit seemed to infuse into all of them, and they all shook hands again and patted each other on the back.

  “And ya know, Helton,” Paulie continued. “We’re Italians—we pride ourselves on vendetta, but that shit you guys invented?—headers? That blows us out of the water, man. There’s a whole lotta people out there fuckin’ me over—cops, judges, bank guys, IRS, even some guys in my own family. Well, shit, I hope you don’t mind, but we’d like to start doin’ that header stuff too.”

  “Why, go right ahead, Paulie,” Helton approved. “When someone sticks ya in the back hard, ain’t no way ta git ’em back harder than a header.”