By Bizarre Hands (24 page)

"That," he said, not hardly able to speak, "is without a doubt, the saddest story I've ever heard. And of course I knew all about it, son, but somehow, hearing it from you, the last survivor of the Fogg family, makes it all the more dreadful."

He kind of choked up there on the end of his words, and I figured I had him pretty good, so I throwed in how us Foggs had pride and all, and that I'd never let a due bill go unpaid, if he'd just give me the time to raise the money.

Well, he told me he was tore all to hell up about it, but business was business, sad story or not. And as he wiped some of the water out of his eyes with the back of his hand, he told me he would give me until tomorrow evening instead of noon, because he reckoned someone who'd been through what I had deserved a little more time.

"But that ain't enough," I said.

"I'm sorry, son, that's the best I can do, and that goes against the judgement of the bank. I'm sticking my neck out to do that."

"You are the bank, Purdue," I said. "Who you fooling? It ain't me. We all know you're the bank."

"I understand your grief, your torment," he said, just like one of the characters from some of them Dime Novels Papa bought from time to time, "but business is business."

"You said that."

"Yes I did." With that, Mr. Purdue turned and walked back to his buckboard. He called out to me as I stood there leaning defeated on my crutches. "I tell you, son, that is the saddest story I've ever heard, and I've heard
some.
Tragic. This will hang over my head from here on out, right over my head," he showed me exactly where it would be hanging with his hand, "until my dying day."

He stood there with one foot up on the buckboard step a moment, looking as downcast as a young rooster without any hens, then he climbed up and cracked the whip gently over the heads of his horses. There must have been some pretty heavy tears in his eyes as he left, 'cause when he turned the buckboard around, the left wheels rolled right over Papa's grave.

My farming days were over before they even got started. And I'll tell you, right then and there, I decided I wasn't going to pick up another dead chicken to make the place look nicer. In fact, I went over to the ditch, got the ones I throwed down there out and chunked them around sorta like they had been. Then I went back to my tent and wished I hadn't burned that old dead mule up.

The smartest thing to do would have been to go on over to Mr. and Mrs. Parks, even if it did take me all damned day on them crutches, but I just couldn't. Us Foggs have our pride. I decided to set out for town, get me a job there, make my own way. Surely there was something I could do till my leg healed up and I got me a solid job.

I figured if I started early, like tomorrow morning, I could maybe make town by nightfall, crutches or not. I'd probably fall down and bust it a few times, but that didn't matter none.

Well, as I said, us Foggs are proud, and maybe just a little bit stupid, so next morning I set out as planned, leaving the tent behind, carrying with me some hard bread, jerked meat, and dried fruit in a sack.

I must have fell down a half a dozen times before I got to the road, but then I could crutch along better, 'cause there was a lot less ice there.

By noon my underarms were so sore from the rubbing of them crutches that they were bleeding and making blisters that kept popping as I went.

Stopping about then, I sat down on a rock and my coattails, ate me some bread and jerky, and fretted things over. While I was fretting, I heard this sound and looked up.

It
was bells on a harness I had heard, and the harness was attached to eight big mules pulling a bright red wagon driven by a big black man wearing a long, dark coat and a top hat. When the sun hit his teeth they flashed like a pearl-handled revolver.

As the wagon made a little curve in the road, I got a glimpse at the side, and I could see there was a cage fixed there, balancing out the barrels of water and supplies on the other side.

At first I thought what was in the cage was a deformed colored feller, but when it got closer, I seen it was some kind of animal covered in hair. It was about the ugliest, scariest damned thing I'd ever seen.

Right then I was feeling a might less proud than I had been that morning, so I got them crutches under me and hobbled out into the road and waved one hand at the man on the wagon.

The wagon slowed and pulled alongside of me. The driver yelled, "Whoa, you old ugly mules," and the harness bells ceased to shake.

I could see the animal in the cage real good now, but I still couldn't figure on what it was. There was some yellow words painted above the cage that said THE MAGIC WAGON, and to the right of the cage was a little sign with some fancy writing on it that read:

Magic Tricks, Trick Shooting, Fortune Telling,

Wrestling Ape, Side Amusements,

Medicine For What Ails You,

And All At Reasonable Prices.

Sounded pretty good to me.

"You look like you could use a ride, white boy," the big colored man said.

"Yes sir, I could at that," I said.

"You don't say yes sir to a nigger." I turned to see who had said that, and there was this feller standing in faded, red long johns and moccasins with blond hair down to his shoulders and a skimpy little blond mustache over his lip. He had his arms crossed, holding his elbows against the
cold.
He'd obviously come out of the back of the wagon, but he'd walked out so quiet I hadn't even known he was there till he spoke.

When I didn't say nothing, he added, "This here's my wagon. He just works for me. I say who rides and who don't, and I say you don't."

"I got some jerky, canned taters and beans I can trade for a ride, and I'll sit up there on the seat."

"If you was riding, you sure would," the blond man said. "But you ain't riding." He turned back to the wagon and I noticed the flap on his long johns was down. I snickered just a little, and he turned around to stare at me. He had eyes like a couple of gun barrels, cold and ugly grey. "I don't need no beans or sweet taters," he said suddenly, then he started back to the wagon.

"He can ride up here with me if he's got a mind to," said the colored man.

The white feller spun around and came stomping back. "What did you say?"

"I said he could ride up here with me if he's got a mind to," the colored man said, moving his lips real slow like, as if he was talking to an idiot. "It's too cold for a boy to be out here, especially one on crutches."

"You're getting mighty uppity for a nigger," the white feller said. "Mighty uppity for a nigger who works for me."

"Maybe I is," the colored feller said. "And it worries me something awful, Mister Billy Bob. I get so worried abouts it I can't get me no good sleep at night. I wake up wondering if Mister Billy Bob is put out with me, and if I truly is getting uppity."

Mister Billy Bob pointed his finger at the colored feller and shook it. "Keep it up, nigger. Just keep it up and you're going to wake up with a crowd of buzzards around you. Hear?"

"I hear," the colored feller said. It was almost a yawn.

Billy Bob started back for the wagon again, gave me a glimpse of his exposed butt, turned and came back. He shook his finger at the colored feller again. "Albert," he said, "you and me, we going to have to have us a serious
Come
To Jesus meeting, get some things straight. Like who's the nigger and who ain't."

"I do need some pointers on that, Mister Billy Bob. I get a trifle confused sometime."

Billy Bob stood there for a moment like he was going to stare Albert down off the wagon seat, but he finally gave it up. "All right, you," he said to me. "You can ride, but it's going to cost you them beans and taters, hear?"

I nodded.

This time Billy Bob turned and went into the wagon, the moon of his butt my last sight of him, the slamming of the door my last sound.

I turned and looked up at Albert. He was leaning down with a big hand extended. Just before I took it, I got me another look at the critter in the cage, and when he looked at me he peeled back his lips to show his teeth, like maybe he was smiling.

When I was on the seat beside Albert, he said, "That Mister Billy Bob's going to need to get them buttons fixed on the seat of his drawers, ain't he?"

We laughed at that.

After we got moving good, Albert said, "You keep them beans and taters, boy. Taters upset my stomach, and beans they make Mister Billy Bob fart something awful. Just ain't no being around him."

"That's good of you to let me keep them," I said, "'cause I ain't got no beans or taters. All I got is some hard bread and some jerked meat."

Albert let out a roar, like that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. I could tell right then and there he didn't have no real respect for Billy Bob.

"That critter in the cage?" I asked, taking a long shot. "Is that some kind of bear what caught on fire or something?"

Albert laughed again. "Naw, it ain't no bear. That there is a jungle ape, comes from the same place as all us colored. They calls him a chimpanzee. Name's RotToe on account of he got him some kind of disease once and one of the toes on his right foot rotted off. Least that's what the feller who sold him to Billy Bob said."

I
remembered the sign I'd read on the side of the wagon. "Wrestling Ape," I said.

"There you got it," Albert said.

I found a place for the crutches and the food bag, then I leaned back with my hands in my lap.

"You look a might bushed, little peckerwood. You wants to lay your head against my shoulder to rest, you go right ahead."

"No thanks," I said. But we hadn't gone too far down the road when I just couldn't keep my eyes open no more and I realized just how tired I really was. I lolled my head on Albert's big shoulder. I could smell the clean wool of his coat. And wasn't no time until I was asleep.

N
IGHT
T
HEY
M
ISSED
THE
H
ORROR
S
HOW

For Lew Shiner, a story that doesn't flinch

If they'd gone to the drive-in like they'd planned, none of this would have happened. But Leonard didn't like drive-ins when he didn't have a date, and he'd heard about
Night Of The Living Dead,
and he knew a nigger starred in it. He didn't want to see no movie with a nigger star. Niggers chopped cotton, fixed flats, and pimped nigger girls, but he'd never heard of one that killed zombies. And he'd heard too that there was a white girl in the movie that let the nigger touch her, and that peeved him. Any white gal that would let a nigger touch her must be the lowest trash in the world. Probably from Hollywood, New York, or Waco, some god-forsaken place like that.

Now Steve McQueen would have been all right for zombie killing and girl handling. He would have been the ticket. But a nigger? No sir.

Boy, that Steve McQueen was one cool head. Way he said stuff in them pictures was so good you couldn't help but think someone had written it down for him. He could sure think fast on his feet to come up with the things he said, and he had that real cool, mean look.

Leonard wished he could be Steve McQueen, or Paul Newman even. Someone like that always knew what to say, and he figured they got plenty of bush too. Certainly they didn't get as bored as he did. He was so bored he felt as if he were going to die from it before the night was out. Bored, bored, bored. Just wasn't nothing exciting about being in the Dairy Queen parking lot leaning on the front of his '64 Impala looking out at the highway. He figured
maybe
old crazy Harry who janitored at the high school might be right about them flying saucers. Harry was always seeing something. Bigfoot, six-legged weasels, all manner of things. But maybe he was right about the saucers. He'd said he'd seen one a couple nights back hovering over Mud Creek and it was shooting down these rays that looked like wet peppermint sticks. Leonard figured if Harry really had seen the saucers and the rays, then those rays were boredom rays. It would be a way for space critters to get at earth folks, boring them to death. Getting melted down by heat rays would have been better. That was at least quick, but being bored to death was sort of like being nibbled to death by ducks.

Leonard continued looking at the highway, trying to imagine flying saucers and boredom rays, but he couldn't keep his mind on it. He finally focused on something in the highway. A dead dog.

Not just a dead dog. But a DEAD DOG. The mutt had been hit by a semi at least, maybe several. It looked as if it had rained dog. There were pieces of that pooch all over the concrete and one leg was lying on the curbing on the opposite side, stuck up in such a way that it seemed to be waving hello. Doctor Frankenstein with a grant from Johns Hopkins and assistance from NASA couldn't have put that sucker together again.

Leonard leaned over to his faithful, drunk companion, Billy—known among the gang as Farto, because he was fart lighting champion of Mud Creek—and said, "See that dog there?"

Farto looked where Leonard was pointing. He hadn't noticed the dog before, and he wasn't nearly as casual about it as Leonard. The puzzle-piece hound brought back memories. It reminded him of a dog he'd had when he was thirteen. A big, fine German Shepherd that loved him better than his Mama.

Sonofabitch dog tangled its chain through and over a barbed wire fence somehow and hung itself. When Farto found the dog its tongue looked like a stuffed, black sock and he could see where its claws had just been able to scrape the ground, but not quite enough to get a toe hold.
It
looked as if the dog had been scratching out some sort of a coded message in the dirt. When Farto told his old man about it later, crying as he did, his old man laughed and said, "Probably a goddamn suicide note."

Now, as he looked out at the highway, and his whiskey-laced Coke collected warmly in his gut, he felt a tear form in his eyes. Last time he'd felt that sappy was when he'd won the fart-lighting championship with a four-inch burner that singed the hairs of his ass and the gang awarded him with a pair of colored boxing shorts. Brown and yellow ones so he could wear them without having to change them too often.