When drunk or stoned he often bragged about having become the most enormous insect of them all.
He has pictures of children he’s fathered tattooed on his arms. Some say there are six boys and five girls and others say six girls and five boys.
TICKS IN THE SPRING
“I can’t believe I was scheduled to get tattooed today,” Toon said.
“Hey,” Shakespeare answered. “Somebody’s right over there across from us. Right across there directly underneath that big ol’ white cloud that looks kind of like a set of tits, right near that snag.”
“Bullshit.”
“I shit you not. I saw the fucking reflection off their binoculars. Had to be binoculars.”
“You got binoculars to look back?”
“No.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“You got binoculars?”
“No.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Cause I figured you did.”
“Well I figured you did.”
“Well then we’re semi-fucked.”
“Maybe it’s Crazy Carlos’s dudes. Probably is. Or could even be Crazy Carlos himself.”
“Or the fucking FBI.”
“Or the CIA.”
“Or the Supreme Court.”
“Or the ATF.”
“What’s the ATF?”
“Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.”
“Well then, you got your trusty firearm handy?”
“Got my Kalashnikov. My alcohol and tobacco too.”
They had stopped above a granite outcropping at a small and comfortable clearing where lush green grass grew on almost level ground. Toon dropped both his fatigue shirt and T-shirt onto the grass between his weapon and his pack. He stretched his arms over his head and lowered them and then casually inspected the tattoo he could best observe. Squinting down at his own chest Elmer Fudd’s double-barreled shotgun appeared to be aiming right between his eyes. “I mean, I was scheduled to get my ass tattooed today,” he said.
“Don’t leave your shirts in the grass like that,” Shakespeare said. “There’s ticks all over the place around here. They’ll get inside your shirt and suck your blood, man. They’ll suck you dry. You’ll maybe even pick up lyme disease.”
“When there’s ticks all over the place is in the spring,” Toon said. “Mostly in March. April too but not as bad as March. Buy yourself a calendar. This right now is early fall.”
“Well there’s fucking ticks in fall too. Where do you figure they go to in the fall? Hawaii? Cabo San Lucas?”
“Bullshit. There’s no ticks in the fall. Hardly any anyway.”
“Bullshit.”
“You see any more reflections across over there, any binoculars?”
“Nope.”
“Well maybe what you saw was some ticks with their shades on heading for Waikiki. Maybe they already boarded their plane. Or I guess they’d fly over on a goose or a heron or a seagull. All I know for sure is, I wish I was getting Dagwood and Mr. Dithers tattooed on my ass right now instead of sitting around out here worrying about weed.”
“Well I got my serious issues too. My problems.”
“Supercock, right?”
“Hell yes Supercock. I been working hard on that novel. I been working my ass off for years!”
“So you want to get your great novel you been working your ass off for years on published.”
“Fuckin’ A I do. Why wouldn’t I? But I don’t want to be a commercial sellout. I never said it’s a completely great novel. But it’s good. Or it’ll be good when I get finished. Damn good.”
“Then turn that New York dude you talked to down.”
“Then maybe I won’t even get it published at all though. Those New York assholes think we’re a bunch of fucking hicks out here.”
“But even if you don’t get it published at least you won’t be a fucking sellout. At least you’ll have that.”
“I got all kinds of cool ideas about how Supercock can use his cock to be a hero. As a lasso. I did that scene already, I know I told you about it, the rodeo scene. As a fly line. I mean, hell, he could break every fly-casting record in the book. What the hell, he can paint his cock up all colorful like a giant snake down in the Florida Everglades, or like a rattlesnake in this country out here. I already got some good ideas about that. He can turn it into a totem pole in Indian country. He can use it like a barrier rope to hold back the crowds at the US Open. That matters, ’cause I can put a terrorist with a fucking bomb in the crowd. He can—”
“You mean the US golf open?”
“Shit yes. What other open would it be?”
“I thought maybe tennis.”
“There’s no ropes to hold back crowds in tennis. The people sit in bleachers. He could—”
“Use your fuckin’ head for a change. You know where the US tennis open is? New York. Where’s the editor dude you talked to from? New York! Okay, have it your way, forget the rope. Why couldn’t you turn his cock into the net on a tennis court? Then the net could snag the guy with the bomb. Maybe if you put in enough New York scenes they’ll forget you’re a hick from out west.”
“That might work. The tennis thing as a scene I mean. I give you credit. But I know totally for sure Supercock could tie a hangman’s noose on his cock and use it in an execution in someplace like Utah. An innocent guy gets convicted. And Supercock knows he’s innocent. So after the executioner springs open the trapdoor, that little door on the gallows, he’d let the guy, the condemned man, down nice and easy. Then he’d turn him loose. You can only execute a dude once, I read that someplace, so after he got let down he’d be free. He could—”
“They use firing squads in Utah. I know that for sure because I read it in some book once. They execute guys in Utah with rifles. Or maybe they don’t even execute people at all anymore in Utah. Shit yeah, I bet they don’t. The trend is totally against it. All we do now is shoot innocent people in wars. Drop bombs too. And fire missiles. But if you put in an execution scene at least make it a New York execution. See what I’m tryin’ to tell you?”
“What prison’s in New York?”
“Sing Sing I think.”
“Okay, Sing Sing it is then. But he could use his cock in so many cool ways! He could turn it into an anchor chain on a yacht. Even on an ocean liner. Or he could stretch it across the field and make it the fifty-yard line at the Super Bowl. Or better yet he could make it that yellow line across the field they mark first down yardage with. The ideas keep bouncing into my head but all the New York dude wants is stupid fuck scenes. Supercock’s a fucking hero! A new hero! Superman, Captain Marvel, Batman, who needs those boring motherfuckers? Hear what I’m sayin’? A new hero! That’s what we need!”
Shakespeare closed his eyes and clenched his fists and stretched both arms toward the blue sky. After he dropped his arms to his sides and opened his eyes the two of them began pacing around their clearing in opposite directions with Shakespeare going clockwise. “You think I’m whacked out?” he asked.
“No,” Toon answered. “Why would I, man? More people figure I’m whacked out than figure you are.”
“Yeah, well, you’re the only totally normal dude I know. We need fucking heroes though, we need a new hero, even if he’s only in a made-up story. I won’t even describe the parody thing I got going along with everything else in the story. It’s a book that works on different levels, know what I mean?”
“I guess so. Yeah. I get it.”
“I mean, you know the real reason why I write? I got to write. The reason I got to is, it’s the only way I can try to figure out the way this fucked up world should be.” Shakespeare glimpsed a moving flash of something small and bright within a willow thicket across the valley alongside a tributary creek. He didn’t comment on it. “If I kind of get it straightened out in my head and write it down I can keep myself straight at least. Maybe I can even help keep other people straight too. That’s all. That’s all I want. See what I’m sayin
g?”
“Yeah, well, my tattoos keep me straight. You understand what they mean?”
“That the world’s a slaughterhouse. You told me that about six hundred times. Six thousand.”
“What I’m saying is, we both see most stuff the exact same way. Neither one of us is whacked out. The fucking world’s whacked out way more than we are.”
“Take a look at all that weed down there in the sun. All that prime cannabis. You ever feel guilty about what we do?”
Toon stopped walking and laughed out loud. He stood shading his eyes with one hand looking down at the ripe product growing as profusely as the corn on any farm in Iowa. “Guilty?” he said. “Are you serious? The way I see it is we’re doing the world a huge favor. You think people’d be better off with meth? Booze? Crack? Smack? Coke? Moon gas? Angel dust? Fuck no! I’m totally good with what we do. My advice to you is, you better start dreaming up some fuck scenes for your Supercock hero. You get those scenes good enough, then you can talk the New York asshole into letting him be a hero too. A parody. And whatever else you got in mind. A hero or a parody that does some fucking, that’s all. Sounds totally natural to me. If he has a super cock why shouldn’t he use it like we all do?”
“Another thing I wonder about is, how come we can’t get together and talk to these outsider assholes trying to move in on us? How come there’s not room for all of us to do business? There is room. Look at all this open country, man. There is enough money for everybody. There can be. There should be. This shit is turning crazy.”
“Enough’s not enough for most people, that’s why. You know that. This is the twenty-first century, man. This is America, the greatest fucking country on earth. Nobody wants enough anymore. They want more than enough, everything they can fucking get ! Forget that shit and figure ways for Supercock to fuck and be a hero and a parody too.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“Maybe?”
“Okay, dude, yeah, you are.”
* * *
“Care for some dried peaches, Robin?” asked the colonel.
“Yes please.”
“I’m something of a health nut. All dried fruit’s good. Peaches are best though.”
“Thanks.”
“Like to hear an informative anecdote to go along with the health food?”
“I would. Sure.”
“First, I want you to appreciate the fact that when you work for us you always need to be thorough at your job. What we ask might seem extreme at first, but it isn’t. So, when Crazy Carlos entered the equation I set out to learn everything I could about him. He actually has a Facebook page. And he definitely lives up to his name. I learned that he’s starting up a company in a small town someplace east of here. Apparently he plans to go into the ammunition business. Not just selling ammo but manufacturing it. His bullets are going to be laced with pork. He’ll market them wherever people hate Muslims because, get this, if you shoot and kill a Muslim with a pork-laced bullet he’ll miss out on his crowd of virgins and travel straight to hell. According to Crazy Carlos that is. I can’t wait to see his advertising campaign. Porky Pig should be his spokesman. The point, finally, is that this is exactly the kind of knowledge we might be able to use to do him in when the time comes. We never know beforehand exactly what we can use, but the more we know the better off we are. It’s never possible to know too much.”
“Why’d you get in this business, Colonel?”
“I’d rather make people happy than kill them. That’s about it. You’ll learn to appreciate what we do. The two things to remember, the most important things always, are to prepare adequately, more than adequately, and to do whatever you’re required to do aggressively. And remember that no detail is too small to be handled properly and carefully. One small example: last night, midnight it was, I arranged to use a man stuffing his fat face with buffalo burgers to my distinct advantage. To our advantage I should say.”
“How’d you do that, Colonel? Why’d you do it?”
“It was a single minor detail in a big, complicated picture. Here’s the bottom line though: We specialize in intimidation. Sometimes death becomes a necessary sideline. Death sends messages. More peaches?”
* * *
Canada geese traveling south passed over the valley in long skeins and perfectly formed Vs and at such high altitudes that few on the ground saw them and no one heard their honking.
More than an hour passed as the geese flew and dozens of men in pairs and larger groups remained concealed in the wooded hills overlooking acres of marijuana worth tens of millions of dollars. They sat and talked or stood and talked or paced and talked and waited for something to happen. They smoked tobacco and weed and ate sandwiches and drank beer and ale and tequila. They all knew that sooner or later something would happen but only the colonel knew exactly what and when it would be.
Shakespeare and Toon had found a fallen Douglas fir with a smooth gray weathered trunk that lay at just the right height for their backs as they sat with outstretched legs on the hard ground. Nearby on the low limb of a healthy fir two crows sat perched close together airing their wings and loosing loud caws that echoed faintly from across the valley.
“Those two dudes, those crows I mean, remind me of somebody,” Toon said.
“Heckle and Jeckle,” Shakespeare answered.
“How the hell’d you know that?”
“A wild guess. But I’m not as dumb as I look.”
“I hope you’re not, dude.”
“You’re the dumb one, man.”
“Says who?”
“Says me.”
“Why?”
“’Cause you almost went and got Dagwood Bumstead, a geek, and Mr. Dithers, an asshole businessman, tattooed on your ass.”
“Who says that’s dumb?”
“I do.”
“Oh yeah? Well why?”
“You been in the army, right? The greatest army in the world, right? The greatest army in history. The fucking politicians say it all the time.”
“So?”
“So this. I been thinking it over. It’s so fucking obvious. There’s a cartoon about soldiers, right? A cartoon with two soldiers in it, two enlisted men, and these two would make a fucking lot better tattoo than a geek and an asshole businessman. I mean, there’s more than two soldiers in the cartoon, but two main ones.”
“What cartoon? What fucking enlisted men?”
“Think about it, okay? Use your brain for a change.”
“What cartoon?”
“You’re the goddamn cartoon scholar. If they taught cartoons in colleges you’d be a PhD, a professor. Hell, man, you’d be president of Cartoon College. Think about it.”
“No need to scream, man. Look at that, you went and spooked Heckle and Jeckle away.”
They heard the two crows caw loudly and watched them flap their way up over the trees and fly off side by side high across the valley.
“Beetle Fucking Bailey,” Shakespeare said.
“Holy shit!” Toon said, striking his forehead with the heel of his hand. “You’re right!”
“Fucking A I’m right. Beetle Bailey and Sergeant Snorkel. I mean, dude, Snorkel’s after Beetle every fucking week! Snorkel’s been beating the shit out of Beetle Bailey for a hundred years! Fifty at least. Today saved you, man. If you’d got the Dagwood-Dithers tatt it’d’ve been too late! Now you got a clean slate, a bare white ass ready for some good shit! Right?”
Toon’s thin lips formed a sheepish smile and he shook his head and then struck his forehead again. “Thanks, man,” he said. “I mean, I definitely owe you one! What it proves is, it’s true what they say. The shit right in front of your eyes, that’s the shit you don’t see!”
* * *
Shadow and Shrimp sat leaning against opposite sides of the round gray boulder underneath the sugar pine. They were watching and listening but since the distant rifle shots they hadn’t heard or seen anything unusual.
“Maybe it was a hunter,” Shadow s
aid.
“Maybe not,” Shrimp answered. He emptied his stout and tossed the empty bottle as far as he could and after a few seconds they heard it shatter against rock.
“I got to drain the dragon,” Shrimp said. He stood and looked out at the country and then stretched and unzipped his fly and walked ten paces and stepped around the trunk of the sugar pine.
“You’ll kill that damn tree pissing on it,” Shadow said.
“I’ll nourish it you mean.”
Shrimp zipped up and came back and sat in the shade a few feet from Shadow.
“What the hell, I better piss too,” Shadow said.
He got up and walked to the sugar pine and pissed and zipped up and walked back. “I got a fucking stone in my boot,” he said. “How’d that happen?”
Shadow sat and unlaced his right boot and pulled it off and emptied out the stone.
Shrimp saw that two bright white clouds had formed directly over the valley floor. The largest had the shape of a fish with its big mouth wide open and to Shrimp it appeared to be closing in on the smaller cloud that reminded him of a baitfish trying to escape a predator. He wondered why exactly the same things had to happen everywhere. Humans hunted down other humans to kill them and the clouds chased other clouds across the sky. “All I know for sure is it’s a crazy fucking world,” he said.
“Listen,” Shadow said.
“What?”
Shadow pointed north. “Just shut the fuck up and listen!”
“What’d you hear?”
Shadow pointed again and whispered: “Listen!”
Both Shrimp’s eardrums had been ruptured but now when he turned his head and cupped his left hand around his left ear and concentrated he thought he could hear distant footfalls moving through the forest.
Shadow was pulling his boot back on and now there were more footfalls and they were easier to hear because they were closer.
“Sit still!” a deep voice said. “Freeze, motherfuckers!”
Shrimp was running. He looked back over his shoulder once and saw Shadow running ten yards behind him and he heard the weapon open up and saw Shadow’s chest explode in gouts of blood.
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