Chapter 1

Jimmy stands out by the oak tree next to the garage. He's turning in circles, all skittery-like. From my bedroom window I see the orange dot from his cigarette making streaks as he turns. I know if I don't hurry and get down there, he's gonna say piss on me, and leave. I walk real careful and put my ear against my door and it's cold. The door, not my ear. And I listen real good for Ma, but I don't hear nothing but for that loud whooshing you get in your ears when you're scared of getting caught climbing out your window.

I go back to the window—the one I opened while the house was still all noisy with Glenn Miller, 'cause simpleminded or not, I ain't exactly a fool—and I climb out real quiet-like. Them shingles feel like a cat's tongue against my hands as I scoot across the rooftop on my ass.

I get to the edge of the roof and drop down, my hands squeezing real tight, then I dangle there like a string of snot 'til Jimmy comes and gets ahold of my legs. He catches me, then drops me with a thud. "Crissakes, Earwig, you get any taller and you won't need me to catch you." Jimmy calls me "Earwig." He says it's 'cause I'm like one of those bugs that crawls in a guy's ear and goes right to his brain, making him go crazy. Jimmy reaches up and rubs his knuckles over my hair that is turd-brown and grows straight up like quack grass, then he grabs our fishing gear and off we go down the sidewalk.

Jimmy whistles as we go down them empty, dark streets to get to Louie's house. Jimmy's car is in the garage, the motor all ripped to shit, so Louie's gonna drive his car to the millpond, where we're gonna spear suckers and drink beers. Jimmy's real nice to let me come along. Ain't many brothers who'd take their sixteen-year-old, dumb-as-a-stump brother to fish and drink beers with 'em. But Jimmy's always letting me tag along. He knows I ain't got friends like he's got, 'cept for Eddie, and he don't count 'cause he's only six years old, fat as a Thanksgiving turkey, and maybe even dumber than me.

Louie's coming outta the garage with his creel when we get there, his orange, frazzly hair looking like fire with the porch light shining on it. John is leaned up against Louie's car, smoking a cigarette, and Floyd, he is standing there kicking up gravel with his shoe, his shoulders all drooped forward, like they always is.

"You took long enough, Gunderman," John says, and Jimmy says to him, "Ah, give it a rest, Pissfinger." I don't call John Pissfinger like the rest of the gang does, on accounta I know if I do, he's probably gonna stick his boot so far up my ass I'll gag on his shoelaces.

We all whoop and holler as we pull outta the driveway, spitting gravel.

"Serve 'em up, Earwig," Jimmy says. I reach under the seat to fetch the bottles of Schlitz that are clinking and clanking there. I pry a cap with the opener I got dangling from my belt, slip the cap into my pocket, and hand the first bottle to Louie. It's the rule: The number-one guy gets the first beer, and usually, whoever's got a car that's running is the number-one guy.

All the way to the millpond, them guys talk about titties, beers, and whose asses they're gonna kick. Jimmy's the only one of them guys that can really kick anybody's ass. Jimmy ain't real tall, but he's got muscles pert' near as big as Captain Midnight's, and like John says, Jimmy knows how to use his fists when he's gotta. I tell 'em I know a few asses I'd like to kick, and Jimmy tells me to shut up or he's gonna fart in my face. I know he will too, so I shut up.

Them trees along the road to the millpond look like butt-naked skinny girls against the sky that's bright from a fat moon. Jimmy told me once that them fat circle moons remind him of a big, white titty. Course, he thinks everything looks like a titty.

We turn off Mill Street and head down the dirt road that goes to the millpond. Louie drives so fast over the bumps that I bang my head on the roof.

Louie jams on the brakes and we stop real fast. Beer slops down the front of John's shirt and he pisses and moans about it like he's going to the town hall for a fancy-up dance instead of grubbing for suckers at the millpond.

We stand on the bank and rip our shoes and socks off. I know damn well it's gonna be cold as shit in that rushing water, the snow here in Wisconsin not being gone all that long when them suckers start wriggling upriver looking for a place to drop their eggs. We're all laughing and joking and having a good time. Ain't nothing more fun than spearing suckers with Jimmy and the guys.

"Hey, Earwig," John says, as he balls up a sock and throws it at me. "I hear you tried choppin' off Edna Pritchard's fat leg." Floyd and Louie start to laughing. I talk real loud so John can hear me above the laughing and the whooshing of the water. "I wasn't trying to chop her leg off. That's the God's honest truth."

"That's right," Jimmy says, talking all mumbled 'cause he's got a Camel sticking outta the corner of his mouth. "He wasn't trying to cut off her leg, he was trying to measure her fat ass." This makes them laugh all the harder.

"Tell us the story, Earwig," Floyd says, so I tell 'em. I tell 'em how Dad said, right there at the table while buttering a piece of nut bread Mrs. Pritchard brought, that that Edna Pritchard has the biggest ass he ever see'd on a woman. Dad said, "That ass has got to be at least three ax handles wide."

"Well, that didn't sound right to me," I tell the guys, and it didn't. "Mrs. Pritchard has a fat ass, sure as my name's Earl Hedwig Gunderman, but three ax handles wide, that just didn't sound right to me. So I wait 'til I hear her big mouth yapping in the store, then I go out to the woodpile real fast and I fetch myself the ax. Then I go back into the store, whistling so as no one thinks I'm up to something, and I start taggin' after Mrs. Pritchard. Ma and her was talking about that Dickens girl getting polio and what a pity it will be if her legs get all crippled, and how, worse yet, if that little girl dies, her mama's heart's gonna cripple up too and she'll die right along with her. Mrs. Pritchard is looking at cans of applesauce while she talks, 'cause she's gonna make some gingerbread and Mr. Pritchard won't eat gingerbread unless it's got applesauce poured over the top."

"Crissakes," Jimmy says as he roots around in our stuff for a spear, "get to the goddamn point of the story, Earwig," but he ain't mad when he says it, 'cause he's laughing.

"Well," I tell 'em, "I go'ed up behind Mrs. Pritchard, holding that ax like this," and I show 'em how I holded it, sideways like, right behind her fat ass. "And it sure is a fat ass," I say, and Floyd holds his skinny guts that are sunk in like a bowl and asks how would I like to hose that fat ass, and I say I wouldn't like that at all. Jimmy says, "The story, Earwig, get to the point of the goddamn story."

So I go on with the story. I tell 'em how I was holding that ax up crossways, following behind her, and how when she walks, her ass under that dress looks like two bulls fighting under a sheet of mill felt.

"Then Ma looks up and sees me behind Mrs. Pritchard, who ain't so far seeing nothing but that can of applesauce in her hand, and Ma yells, 'Earl Hedwig Gunderman, what on earth are you doing with that ax?' and Mrs. Pritchard starts to turn and she sees me holding that ax, and she starts to screaming. I get all scared 'cause her scream is as big as her ass, and that ax falls right outta my hands, just as her fat legs are turning her around." Floyd is slapping the ground with his hand, laughing real hard.

I turn to Louie, who is laughing too, but not so hard he can't hear me. "You ever see an ax fall, Louie? It don't fall flat and nice at all. That cutting part, it falls first, making it look like a ghost is fixing to split a chunk of wood. And that ax come right down on Mrs. Pritchard's fat ankle."

Copyright © 2005 by Sandra Kring