CHAPTER THE FIRST: THE SECRET SIX DOLLARS
--
In which we meet a dead girl and a dead boy;
In which four feet are mangled;
In which Bill's life of idleness comes to a close
--
"Much Madness is divinest Sense
To a discerning Eye..."
- Emily Dickinson--
"Big man, pig man,
Haha, charade you are."
- Pink Floyd--
Insanity is like a dark forest. Consider the question: how far can you fall into Madness? The answer is, of course, halfway. After that, you're falling out.
Visions, voices, specters, paranoia. All par for the course. A feast for the nutzoid. And it all began to take shape at Cabeza Slough.
So, here's Frank-man--the fattest, dirtiest bastard in all of Bingham Valley--and he's holding his guts, laughing.
"Oh, you miserable fucks. Oh, you miserable fucks." He's laughing at us. We were the miserable fucks, me and Jake, up to our assholes in loon shit. "You can't cross there. I told you not to cross there. Oh, you miserable, miserable fucks."
It seemed like a good spot. It was the shallowest part of the slough, not more than three feet deep and only ten steps across. Jake winged a grouse and it leapt into a death-dive and crashed into the service-berry thicket on the other bank.
"Let's go get it!" Jake said.
I figured there might be a flock of those tasty little fuckers up in the woods, so I went along. Frank-man said we were nuts. He said, "You're just gonna sink in the mud. The bottom is soft like sponge cake. You're gonna sink an' get stuck fast."
And he was right.
Me and Jake handed him our shotguns so we each had two hands to free ourselves with. Our boots were deep in the muck and every movement seemed to suck us in deeper.
"I told ya it was too soft," Frank hollered. "I told ya that's why I stay to the trails. That's why I don't go wanderin' off across the water. Even Jesus would think twice about chasing that bird. You fucks are sure in hot water now."
Cold water, actually. Colder than a witch's pussy. And it was touching my special parts, too. Jake was taller and more gangly, so his nuts were safe for the time being, though I suspect the tip of his pecker was taking a mighty frigid dip. His damned spindly legs must have made up two-thirds of his body ratio.
Frank-man sat down in the dirt and ate a ham sandwich that Suzy packed for him. I called him a bitch for filling his fat face instead of helping us out.
"If he doesn't eat every twenty minutes, he'll die," Jake said. "He's always been that way, remember?"
I remember when Frank lost his virginity in grade eleven, fucking a Mexican chick we all called Rusty, and he came out of the bedroom to scarf down a bag of microwave popcorn without even bothering to put his pants back on. Here was this sweaty, red-faced blob of grease standing in the kitchen, devouring popcorn like a horse eating a bucket of oats, and oblivious to the fact that his tiny pecker was bobbling up and down and around for the whole crowd to see. He didn't care that the boys would be calling him Clit-cock and Jelly-bean for the next five years, he just needed to get his gullet stuffed.
Man, he had a little dick. I guess that's what happens when you're so damned fat. Most of your dick stays inside of you. That's fuckin' crazy.
Jake's dick was fifty-six times bigger than Frank's. That's the way it went. He was tall and skinny; and those skinny guys always have the biggest peckers. Instead of fatty deposits, I think a skinny guy's metabolism turns junk food into cock mass. It's always the skinny guys with the monster wangs. Jake's was famous throughout the whole valley. There was talk that he sometimes used it to open beer bottles. Women were right terrified of it. And Jake was damned ugly, too, so he didn't get laid very often at all.
"You miserable fucks are gonna die there if you don't get your shit together," the fat man said between bites. "I'm not comin' in to get ya. I'm going home when I finish this sandwich."
Jake's boots were brand new and worth two hundred bucks. Mine were worth about ninety. The only way for us to get out of that shit was to reach under the water, untie our laces, and belly flop forward into the liquid ice. My nipples turned razor-sharp and my balls jumped into my bladder. Jake let out a loud girly scream.
It was shit. We lost our boots. They were two feet down in the ooze and they'd be there forever.
Jake was pissed. That was two hundred clams down the proverbial toilet. His only other footwear were a pair of Nike sneakers--six years old--full of holes and held together mostly with duct tape.
When we got to shore, soaked from head to foot and wearing blue-tinted skin, Jake made like he was going to back-hand Frank-man across the skull. Frank flinched but Jake didn't hit him. No, it wasn't Frank's fault that we lost our boots. He was the one who told us not to bother with that damned grouse in the first place.
"No one to blame but yourself, Jake," Frank said. "If you'd listen to me sometimes, maybe you wouldn't fuck up so much."
Uh-huh.
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