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Chapter 11

(I)

But before they’d even gotten out of town, it occurred to Helton and his kin that they didn’t have a clue as to how to drive to New York City. All Veronica had told them was this: “Take West Main Street to Count Pulaski Drive, then merge onto Interstate 81. It’s about 500 miles, an 8- or 9-hour drive,” and after that, still handcuffed to the table, her despair, shock-induced exhaustion, and sheer dumbfoundment as to her predicament had shrouded her in a deep, troubled sleep. “Shit, Paw,” Dumar said at the wheel. “Where the hail we goin’?” And Micky-Mack: “I ain’t even been out the county ‘cept fer couple times in my life.” Helton looked back to see Veronica asleep and curled into a ball. “Well, after all Veronnerka’s done fer us, it ain’t right we wake her up, so…” He spotted something through the windshield. “Pull in there, son. We ain’t dopes. We’ll just up’n buy ourselfs a map.”

“Great idea, Paw!”

It was a Hess station they pulled into, one complete with the ever-present convenience store. Micky-Mack was instructed to fill the tank and check the oil, while Helton and Dumar strode into the store. A bell rang, and upon the toll of that bell, a bosomy, remarkably-figured woman in her mid-‘20s looked up from the register and promptly frowned. “Well, hey there, missy,” Helton greeted. “We’se fillin’ up that big piece’a crap lookin’ truck out there, but what we also need is a map—”

“Are you blind? Map’s up front in rack,” the registress snapped. She had dark, shiny hair, penetrating eyes, and a Russian accent. The stunning body and face, however, took second seat to the glaring frown. A name-tag read KASHA, and she wore a tight t-shirt emblazoned with the face of Vladimir Putin, not that Helton would know who the fuck that was. Nipples like cucumber slices printed against the shirt as the immigrant clearly wore no bra.

“Nice nips,” Dumar whispered.

“Yeah, son, that may be, but I can tell at a glance she’s about as friendly as a mad dog.” Helton examined the Rand McNally map rack while Dumar deputed himself to procure several sodas.

After some minutes of squinting, it was discerned that no maps of New York City existed on the rack.

“Hon?” Helton inquired. “These here look like just county maps’n such. What we need is a map that’ll show us how ta git ta New York City.”

Kasha’s frown smoldered. “New York City! How stupid can you be?” the richly accented voice cracked. “Why would gas station in little shit Virginia town have New York City map?”

Helton stood, taken aback. “Well, I don’t rightly know but I thunk ya might have some, say, in the back.”

“You thunk wrong! Now why not you just pay for gas and leave? I don’t like you redneck types in store!”

Helton stilled himself. “Ain’t no call ta be nasty, missy. We’se just tryin’ ta get directions.”

The woman’s face turned pink with aggravation or even hatred. “This shit place and shit country! I should have stayed on potato farm near Magnitagorsk—”

“Well, then just you go back ta Mag-neeter-gorsh, missy, ’cos if’n ya don’t like America, then ya can pack yer blammed ‘taters up yer butt!” Helton could not refrain from objecting.

A hostile laugh and a jiggle of her outstanding breasts, and Kasha asserted, “You big dirty rednecks—oh yes!” and she pronounced “big dirty rednecks” as beeg darty redneeks. “This country full of nothing but shit people! That all I see all day! If it not you rednecks, it the welfare people or the farking old people or the drug add-eeks or the—” and she used the plural form of the N-Word.

Helton steeled himself against the desire to open up a can of whup-ass, but instantaneously, a better idea surfaced. “Well, gal, you certainly got’cher dander up ’bout somethin’ but I’se guess we all have our days like that. How ’bout we just pay up’n git?” He extracted a 1966 $100-bill just as Dumar approached and set several sodas down.

“Oh! Oh!” Kasha raged next. “Here come another redneck now! My God, I hate rednecks. You big fat redneck, and you-you little skinny scrawny redneck!”

“Well, hold on there, gal,” Dumar responded. “We ain’t said nothin’ ‘gainst you.”

“Oh, fark you! Fark both of you! In my country, Mother Russia, shit people like you get put in forced-labor camp! All you useless, shit people!” and it needs to be mentioned belatedly that she pronounced the word shit as “sheet.” She leaned forward—awesome mammarian-carriage swaying in the tight shirt—and exaggeratedly sniffed the air. “Oh! Oh! And you smell!” She mimicked coughing. “You smell like shit!”

Dumar began, “Paw? Are we gonna—” but Helton smiled and staid his son’s remark, then whispered very lightly, “Pull the truck ’round back.”

A knowing glint came into Dumar’s eyes, then he departed the store.

“Here ya go, hon,” Helton went along and gave her the hundred. “And since yer havin’ such a bad day, wine-cha keep the change?”

She grimaced at the bill. “Oh, fark! Even your dirty redneck money smell like shit!”

“But first ring me up fer one’a these here Cherry Ice Slush drinks,” Helton quickly added and lumbered to the machine at the rear of the store. He dawdled there, holding an empty cup, then cast a cruxed glance back. “Missy? Sorry, but—shee-it—I cain’t make out how ta work this fancy machine. Seein’ how’se I just left you some sizeable change, how’s ’bout you showin’ me?”

“Oh! Oh!” Her hands visibly shook. “How stupid can fat dirty redneck be to not know how even to pour ice-slush drink!” Her face was now past pink as she shot from around the counter and stalked to the machine.

As she did so—it needs to be mentioned—her breasts bobbed spectacularly up and down.

She snapped the cup out of Helton’s hand. “You just put farking cup under spigot and—”

No more words escaped the hostile woman’s mouth after Helton clacked a big redneck knuckle against her temple. She fell limp as a stuffed doll (mind you, a stuffed doll with great breasts) and Helton dragged her out the back of the store.

(II)

“Fuck,” Deputy Chief Malone said, and then, again, with emphasis. “And I’se mean fuck.”

The stoop-shouldered and large-adam’s-appled Sergeant Boover nodded. The ambulance had just pulled away, and among its contents was the dead body of resident Clifford Giller, an old VFW-type cantankerous prick nonetheless well-known in the community. When Mr. Giller had noticed his adorable, week’s-old puppy missing from his yard, he’d immediately spied the crowd forming at one of the more decrepit slum-houses down the street. He’d investigated, of course, only to discover, to his incontemplatable horror, the severed head of his beloved pet mounted barbarously on a stick in the front yard.

Whereupon, he suffered a massive thrombotic stroke and died on the spot.

It had taken a half-dozen more police to dispel the very-displeased crowd of local residents who’d gathered at the scene. Departing comments included, “What good’s a police force who don’t do nothin’ ’bout dog-killers?” “Whole world’s turnin’ ta shit, it seems, and the county cops’re letting our humble town turn ta shit with it,” “It’s our tax dollars payin’ their salaries! And while they’re eatin’ their fuckin’ donuts, our lovin’ pets’re gittin’ tortured by drug dealers!” and the like.

Fuck ’em, Malone had thought. He didn’t even eat donuts—a blood-sugar issue—but what irked him more than whining residents was the prospect of someone killing puppies, because, see, he liked puppies far more than he liked people…

The house had been found empty, its tenants—clearly illegal-immigrant heroin dealers—having fully comprehended the message so loudly planted in the abysmal front yard. Puppy parts, blood and fur, etc., were found in back, with much more evidence that the innocent animal had indeed been tortured and mutilated. Malone winced at the thought, acknowledging just how delighted he himself would be to turn the tables and torture the human who’d instigated this atrocity.

And it was all making Malone look quite inept.

“Smack, smack, and more smack,” he muttered, watching other officers close the scene. “Vinchetti just keeps gittin’ richer whilse we just keep lookin’ like horse’s asses.”

Chewing tobacco made a bolus of Boover’s left cheek, about the size of his adam’s apple. “So you really think it’s one of Vinchetti’s movers who’s the dog-killer?”

“Just a hunch, but…yeah. Every time some outsider comes into his territory, this happens. That’s some callin’ card.”

Malone walked droopily back with Boover to their cars. He glanced dazedly at the now-vacant tenement-house just as a gloved evidence technician removed the puppy’s head from the stick and placed it in a plastic bag.

“So what about this big plan of yours, Chief?” Boover said in a tone that possibly could’ve been sarcastic. “Your plan to catch the puppy-killer?”

“Shit takes time, Boover. You know that. I’se waitin’ on a delivery—”

“Delivery?”

“Yeah,” Malone said, choosing to keep his cards closer to the vest. He felt edgy; he snapped his fingers. “Gimme some’a yer Red Man, huh? I’se havin’ a nic fit like nobody’s business and I’m fresh out.”

Boover spat some juice, frowning. “Fuck, Chief. You make more money’n me. Obama just upped the price a buck a bag and ya know what for? To pay health care for kids whose folks’d rather spend their welfare cash-relief in bars than work! Just keeps uppin’ taxes for pork-barrel spendin’ and White House fuckin’ doll houses and plantin’ tomatoes on the South Lawn!” Naturally, Boover pronounced “tomatoes” as tum-ay-ters. “Don’t that grapehead know that every tax he ups is another dollar out’a the economy! Best way ta fix the economy is lower taxes which’ll create more jobs and more jobs means more surplus revenue!”

“Boover, I happen ta like President Obama”—Malone pronounced “Obama” as Obe-bamma. “So’s just quit’cher yammerin’ and give me some chew.”

“Buy your own fuckin’ chew, Chief!”

Malone stared in shock.

“Or better yet, get Obama ta buy it fer ya ’cos he’s been a fuckin’ millionaire for years! He made four million durin’ his last year in the Senate. How’s a junior senator make four million when his fuckin’ salary ain’t even two hundred grand? I ain’t got the money to give you free chew!” Boover stared Malone down, blinked, then exploded laughter. “Shit, Chief! Cain’t ya take a joke!” and then he passed his superior his six-fuckin’-dollar bag of Red Man.

“You got a odd sense’a humor,” Malone replied, then thumb-packed a quarter of the bag’s contents into his cheek. Immediately thereafter, the radio squawked in his cruiser. “Get that will ya?” the chief mumbled.

Boover stalked to the cruiser, but at the same moment, local resident and disputatious pain-in-the-ass Mitzy Crooker hustled by with her yapping dachshund on a leash. “Dood Malone!” she called out and actually shook her fist. “It’s us tax-payers payin’ fer yer damned chew!”

Go soak yer head, ya old fuck, Malone thought but pretended not to hear her. He spat a plume of chew-juice just as Boover addressed him. “Shit, Chief. That was the station. Dang if you ain’t got two deliveries waitin’ on ya.”

Malone’s eyes lit up. “Was one from—”

“Some place called B&T Digital in Tennessee.”

Yeah! “Was the other one from—”

“The Pulaski Animal Shelter. You got a brand-new puppy waitin’ for ya,” Boover said.

(III)

A slight detour took Helton and his kin back toward their neck of the woods. The open back roads were indeed a gratifying sight. Helton didn’t like the unnatural look of Pulaski, or any other city for that matter, but then he shuddered at a dread thought: I’se wonder what NEW YORK City’s like?

He pushed the contemplation away, then looked aside and saw that they were passing a tract of land owned by good ole Nuce Wynchel. In fact, Helton spotted Nuce and his boy Tube out yonder diggin’ post holes for the fence he’d been wanting to put up. Helton waved, then Nuce and Tube waved back.

But it was the next tract of land that was Helton’s goal, and in a few minutes he was parking the bunglesome black truck in the middle of Fuchson’s pasture. “Here we is, boys. Micky-Mack, bring the girl,” and then the youngster dragged the barely-conscious Kasha out. The sun shined, the cool breeze blew, and Micky-Mack and Dumar rubbed their crotches with vigor. In close proximity were several cows chewing their cud. The animals couldn’t have been more disinterested in the presence of the truck or these ungainly people.

“Dang purdy body on the bitch, that’s fer shore,” Dumar said. “And I’se just love them nips stickin’ out.”

“Want me git the hole-saw, Unc? Huh? Huh?” Micky-Mack urged in anticipatory glee, but that glee was not long-lived when—

SMACK!

—Helton’s big open hand landed hard across the youngster’s face. He fell down, dangerously close to a sizable deposit of cow manure. “Gawd DANG, Unc! That plumb hurt worst’n the rest! What you do that fer?”

“To unclog yer fuckin’ ears, boy ’cos ya obviously ain’t been listenin’ to a word I been sayin’.” He wagged a finger back and forth. “Ya don’t throw a header on a gal just ’cos she bad-mouthed ya. That’s the kind’a thing Caudill used ta do.”

“Yeah, Micky-Mack,” Dumar joined in. “Like Paw been sayin’, headers is only done to revenge a horrible, horrible crime.”

“Right. So’s we ain’t havin’ a header, we ain’t killin’ her, and we ain’t even fuckin’ her,” Helton issued. “That’d make us lower down than her. You understand?”

Micky-Mack got up, rubbing his face. “Yeah, I reckon I do….”

“Now whine’choo boys wake our li’l friend Kasha here up?”

The situation’s tenor changed quickly as penises were extracted from flies and dual streams of backwoods urine began to crisscross over the girl’s face. When she started to rouse, her mouth opened in objection but, lo, was expeditiously filled with pee. Aghast and shiny-faced, she leaned up on her hands, coughing, and once her head had been drenched, the seemingly endless streams lowered with pinpoint precision to drench her tight Vladimir Putin t-shirt. The wet fabric sucked up against the ample orbs and elucidated every detail of her areolae and papillae. This was a wet t-shirt contest redneck style.

“My God!” she hacked. “You-you-you evil hillbillies!”

Helton’s bushy brow rose. “There ya go with yer down-talkin’ again. Hon, a good rule’a thumb is don’t talk down ta folks who ain’t talked down to you first.”

“You going to kill me, I know it!” her accent wailed.

“We ain’t gonna kill ya, and we ain’t even gonna fuck ya. Ya’d deserve a fuckin’, a’course, but, see, we’se savin’ up our peckersnot fer somethin’ far more important than you.”

Drenched, she looked incredulous at him.

“But we will be teachin’ ya a lesson, ’cos you got a right foul mouth on ya.”

“I-I-I…I’m sorry!”

“Too late fer that,” Helton assured her. “Apollergees is one thing, but they ain’t worth shit if they ain’t from the heart,” and then Helton’s big hand landed on top of her head. She squealed when he grabbed a handful of wet hair and lifted her to her feet.

Dumar looked aggravated. “Shit, Paw. I’se understand that we cain’t fuck her on account the punishment gotta fit the crime, but—holy sheeeeeeee-IT!—cain’t we’se at least see her nekit?”

Eyes fixed on the breasts beneath the wet t-shirt, Helton gave the query some consideration. “Don’t see no harm in that,” he said. Then, to the girl, “All right, missy. Get them clothes off.”

Dripping, Kasha could only look back at him.

At the same time, Dumar passed his father a rather large revolver—in specificity, a British-made and century-old Webley .455 whose uniqueness existed in the fact that it was a rare automatic revolver. The antique weapon had once belonged to a lowdown, wife-beating local creeker, Archerd Conner, who’d died wretched in the early ‘90s. Conner’s son, Tritt Conner, whose nickname was “Balls,” had then properly inherited the weapon but he’d died a while back amid some controversy in the woods near a closed hospice for priests with terminal illnesses. Dumar had lucked upon the relic for chump-change at a Crick City pawn shop.

But be all that as it may, Helton took the impressive gun and pointed it right at the girl. “Get ’em right off.”

Wobbly-kneed, and sobbing, Kasha took off her clothes.

The three men’s jaws dropped.

“Holy FUCK,” Micky-Mack said.

“That is some body, ain’t it?” Dumar posed.

Helton remained essentially speechless.

The nude woman gleamed in the sun; the previous urinary void left her hair hanging like oiled strings and the dark pubic tuft a nest of glistening jewels. Wet skin radiated keen as a flash of sunlight on a lake. Just then she could’ve been some Siren of the New Dark Age, the Gleaming Goddess of Piss and Shining Desire.

Her breasts stood out in utter, incontestable preeminence.

Micky-Mack and Dumar winced at the marveling sight. “Gawd dang, Paw. Her bod’s even finer than Veronnerka’s. This is tough!”

“I don’t think I ever seed a body that hot in my life,” Micky-Mack groaned and began to stroke his now fully erect member. Dumar did the same, and it should be mentioned now that after gustily emptying their bladders, neither man had zipped back up.

Helton had no choice but to rub his crotch and perhaps mumble a frustrated curse under his breath. “I know it’s tough, boys, but that’s what separates good men from crackers. We ain’t crackers. Crackers got none’a what they call morality. We bust our nuts in this bad-tempered bitch’s box just fer talkin’ down ta us, then we ain’t no better’n Thibald Caudill hisself. So you boys just git them peters back in yer pants where they belong.” He winked. “You’ll be needin ’em later.”

With reluctance and more than a small amount of muttering, Micky-Mack and Dumar obeyed their elder.

“But now that leaves you, missy.” Helton tapped the gun barrel against his palm.

Kasha shivered where she stood, the cool air not only causing the shiver but also fascinatingly puckering the stupendous nipples as the urine began to dry. “What-what-what,” came the accented stutter, “you going to do?”

Another squeal as Helton roughly shoved her toward the cow.

“Hot damn!” Micky-Mack wailed. “Unc’s gonna up’n make her suck that cow’s dick!”

WHAP!

Helton’s big booted foot to Micky-Mack’s behind sent the boy straight to the ground.

“Gawd DANG, Unc Helton!”

“When you was peein’ on this splittail ya must’a peed yer brains out with it!” Helton roared. “You see a dick on that cow? For land’s sake, boy! A cow don’t have a dick! Only bulls have dicks!”

Dumar honked laughter.

“Aw, shit, Unc,” Micky-Mack complained through his embarrassment. He got up and rubbed his rear. “Cows, bulls, how the hail do I know?”

“Ya don’t know much, I’ll’se tell ya that. Now just you shut up’n watch me administer proper punishment to this here uppity bitch.” Helton’s fist in Kasha’s hair dropped her to her knees. He urged her face very, very close to the face of the subdued cow.

Most prominent were the ropes of repugnant mucus hanging off the animal’s lips…

“See all that snot’n slime’n such hangin’ there?” he asked of Kasha.

Kasha stared in mute horror, so Helton pinched her cheek hard.

“Do ya?”

“Yes, yes!” she sobbed.

“You’re gonna eat it. You’re gonna eat it all.” Helton paused for effect. “Then we’ll let’cha go.”

Kasha screamed.

“And if’n ya don’t eat it…” He put the gun to her head.

“Holy moly, Paw. That shore is some punishment!”

“Hot damn!” Micky-Mack approved.

Helton, of course, wouldn’t really kill her if she refused, but that possibility became moot when, hitching sobs, Kasha leaned shudderingly forward and—

“Aw, jiminee!”

—began to suck all those snot-ropes off the cow’s lips. Helton’s hand in her hair assisted in guidance. “Ya missed some, hon—and, ooo—right there, don’t ferget that ‘un hangin’ out the nostril,” and as the instructions drew on, Kasha completed the dismal task.

“Good, good,” Helton approved.

Dumar and Micky-Mack applauded.

Cross-eyed, Kasha straightened up on her knees. It was apparent, however, that during the brow-raising process, she’d merely kept the mucilaginous residue in her mouth, as her cheeks appeared stuffed.

“Shame on you! There ain’t no spittin’ out here. Ya do a job, ya do it right. Ya gots ta swallow…”

The girl’s eyes could’ve launched from her head at this conveyance of information. The end of the pistol barrel was re-introduced to Kasha’s head, then—

gulp

She swallowed.

More applause from Micky-Mack and Dumar.

Reeling, she looked up. “There! I do this dirty thing! So you let me go now, right? Like you promise?”

“Well, no, hon, that weren’t the deal,” and then Helton turned in a slow circle and he counted aloud, “Let’s see, one, two, three, four, five. You still got five more cows waitin’ on ya.”

Kasha shrieked as Helton’s big fist in her head dragged her a ways to the next cow. On her knees, she visibly convulsed as she sucked off the snot and slime, reeled with a hand to her belly, and swallowed. The third cow went similarly but during transport to the fourth—

urrrrrrrrrrrp!

—she vomited.

“Don’t worry ’bout that none, missy,” Helton assured. “We’ll git’cha filt right back up,” and then came the fourth cow.

The fifth.

And the sixth.

“Now that’s doin’ the job right. And I hope ya done learnt yer lesson.” Helton wagged his finger. “Treat others like you’d want ’em ta treat you.”

Kasha’s face had turned bleach-white. She continued to shudder in the aftermath of this most diverse late-morning snack. “Now I go, right? Right?”

“Why, shore, missy.”

But after she got up, she froze, looking off. And then?

She released a rejoicing, whistle-high squeal.

“Look! Look! You darty farks! You piece of shit redneck garbage creek people! Here come a man to save me! A man with a gun!”

Helton, Dumar, and Micky-Mack all took simultaneous and very concerned glances in the direction that the girl indicated.

Indeed, a man with a gun—with a long rifle—seemed to be jogging toward them, a dog following close behind.

“Over here! Help! Help!” the girl jumped and bellowed. “These men do horrible thing to me! Kill them!” and she pronounced “Kill” as keel.

Helton cracked a big smile. “Oh, that there’s Charlie Fuchson—”

“And his egg-suck dog, Droop!” Dumar finished.

“Well, hey there, Charlie!”

“Helton, boys, good ta se ya!” The flop-hatted and overalled 60ish man strode up with a big grin. He gestured the ancient dog at his heels. “I were just takin’ Droop here out fer a walk but when I saw’s ya were puttin’ a razz on a bitch, I run over ta catch some’a the fun.”

Kasha went cross-eyed again, screamed, and passed out cold.

“Aw, shit, Charlie, but we’se just finished.” Helton looked around. “Too bad ya ain’t got no more cows,” and then they all laughed and shook hands. Charlie glanced down at the unconscious woman, then tilted her face toward him with the end of his rifle. “Oh, this here’s that bitch works up the Hess station, huh?”

“Um-hmm.”

“Always frownin’,” Charlie related. “Grimacin’ at folks, real hateful-like.”

“Bet she were frownin’ the minute she come out her mama’s pussy, and I bet her mama was frownin’ too. Like mama like daughter.”

“Yeah,” Dumar said, “but considerin’ what her belly’s full of, I’d say she’s really got somethin’ ta frown about now.”

“You got that right, son.”

“Ya know,” Charlie said, “I went in that Hess station once ta buy me some jerky and this prickly cuss starts yellin’ at me and bad-mouthin’ America, and then she said”—and Charlie mimicked Kasha’s accent as best he could—“‘You redneeks all darty sheet people! You take your redneek jarky and get out my store ’cos I hate all you smelly darty redneeks,’ she shore as shit did.”

“Oh yeah,” Helton agreed. “Talked all that to us’n worse. Got a body on her, though.”

“That she does but it don’t matter a hoot how purdy a gal is on the outside if’n she’s ugly on the inside.”

Helton wagged a finger at Micky-Mack. “You listen ta Charlie here, son, ’cos what he says is right.”

“And my mama always teached that the best way ta cure a foul mouth is ta fill it with somethin’ fouler.”

“Amen ta that.”

Charlie’s eyes bloomed upon Micky-Mack. “Well, shit, Micky-Mack. I say that’s just about the mother of all boners you’re sportin’ there, huh?”

Micky-Mack leaned backwards to display his pelvis. The obvious ten-inch erection angled across his thigh to the left; it could’ve been a piece of pipe stuck in his jeans. “Hail, Mr. Fuchson, what kin I say?” Micky-Mack, ever the one for pomposity, flexed the erection beneath the denim. “Sumpin’ ’bout watchin’ a buck nekit gal eat cow snot’s got my dick ready to bust.”

Dumar chuckled. “Paw, I say that boy just ain’t quite right in the head.”

Helton smiled to Charlie. “Kids these days, huh, Charlie?”

“Yessir,” Charlie replied. “Ever generation’s got it’s own thing, I reckon. A’course, when we was kids we’d fuck boxes’a bullfrogs.”

“That we did, that we did…”

Momentarily, the men looked at Droop, the mange-clumped and nearly 20-year-old basset hound. It snuffled about Kasha’s inert form, sniffed an armpit, then gave the woman’s crotch a lick.

“Bet her hair-pie tastes like borsh,” Charlie said.

Helton raised a brow. “Borsh?”

“Some cold soup they eat in Russia. Made from mushed up beets.”

“Yuck!” Micky-Mack said.

Charlie appraised the unconscious woman, rifle lying across his forearm. “But I say, Helton. What ya done here today is…ya done her a favor.”

“Let’s just hope she’s a good learner, and hope still that that belly full’a cow snot’ll have her thinkin’ twice ‘fore she starts talkin’ down ta folks she don’t even know.”

“The cuss throw it up?”Charlie asked.

“Yeah, after the third cow, she couldn’t keep it down, but then the rest’a the cows turned out ta be a perfectly fine second-helpin’.”

“And ya know,” Charlie postulated further, “I’ll bet silver dollars ta grasshoppers that this big-tit bitch don’t never bad-mouth no one ever again.”

“I bet she don’t, Charlie, I bet she don’t.”

“Look, Mr. Fuchson!” Micky-Mack exclaimed, pointing. “Ole Droop’s helpin’ hisself to a piece’a ass!”

The men looked on in bemusement. See, Kasha’s collapse had caused her to land quite compromisingly spread-eagled, and now the archaic egg-suck dog had mounted her and was listlessly copulating.

“You want me ta break it up, Charlie?” Helton offered. “I’se mean, a low-down bitch like that’s liable ta have a pussy chock full’a European diseases’n such.”

“Oh, naw. Ole Droop, he ain’t hadda piece’a ass in a hoot owl’s age, and I don’t reckon a human bitch’s cunt-germs’d be compatter-bull. Best ta let the critter have a good time. Lord knows he won’t likely be with me much longer.”

“Ain’t like her pussy’s busy right now anyway,” Helton said, and, yes, they all laughed.

“Go, Droop! Go!” Micky-Mack rooted.

“Been a spell since I seen a dog fuck a gal,” Dumar observed. “Kind’a…interestin’.”

“All gals like ta fuck a dog on occasion, son,” Charlie said in assurance, “and any gal who say she don’t…is a liar.”

Helton nodded. “I hear that.”

The dog humped exertedly, gave evidence of climax, then snuffled away.

“There ya go, Droop! Good dog!” Micky-Mack said.

“Get’cha a good nut, ole boy?” Dumar asked.

“Belly full’a cow snot, pussy full’a dog-cum,” Helton remarked. “That’s what I call takin’ a gal ta school.”

“And ya know,” Charlie tendered more wisdom, “my mama always taught me a little dog-nut up a ornery gal’s snatch never fails ta make ’em humble.”

“‘Tis true, ‘tis true.”

“Best that folks just be nice to one another,” Dumar observed. “Don’t make no sense not ta be. If’n someone start somethin’, a man got no choice but ta finish it.” He glanced errantly at the unconscious girl. “But if folks didn’t start nothin’ in the first place, then ever-one’d git along, like, all the world over.”

“Well dag blam, Dumar!” Fuchson cracked. “All’s we need ta do is git you in the United Nations, and I say there wouldn’t be no problems anywhere!”

“Hail, yeah, Mr. Fuchson!”

More hillbilly laughter, then after a bit more banter, adieus were bid and Charlie and his faithful—and now rather content—dog were on their way. But as Helton and his kin made their way back to the truck, Micky-Mack picked up Kasha’s clothes.

“Ya reckon we should give her her duds back, Unc?”

Helton took them. “Well, a’course, we will, Micky-Mack. Only a bunch’a rat bastards’d let her walk all the back ta her gasoline station buck nekit,” and then Helton dropped the girl’s clothes right smack-dab atop a particularly large deposit of cow manure. He put his foot down in the middle, broke the excrement’s crust, and traversed his bootsole, and though it was purely by accident, it will be mentioned that the first garment to fall onto the pile was the Vladimir Putin t-shirt, front side down.

Helton dropped the befouled garments onto the unconscious woman’s abdomen and led his son and nephew back to the truck.

“So what’cha think, boys? We ready ta go ta New York City?”

“Like a mare in heat’s ready for a big ole horse dick, Paw!” Dumar assured.

Micky-Mack hauled back and did a magnificent Rebel Yell.

(IV)

Mike nearly shot out of his shoes at the sudden jolt of music from the hi-fi department. The entire store seemed to shake; speakers boomed a cacophonous rap song: “Aye-unky, a bunky cunky!—aye, bee, cee—dunky, Ee-unky, funky!—dee, eee, eff—gunky, a hunky eye-unky!—gee, ayche, eye—”

Hair nearly on end, Mike snapped off the Phillips/Bose surround-sound. Yeah, every now and then some street person would slip into the store, bust open a CD, and play it on one of their demo systems, and this seemed to be the case now.

“Jesus!” he yelled at the suspicious “customer.” “You can’t just come back here and play a CD!”

A woman in an overcoat riddled with Hip Hop buttons looked querulously at the objection. Straggly, off-blond hair with snow-white roots; street-worn flip-flops; and chipped, clover-green fingernails were her most visible signatures. Dark smudges like half-bruises ringed her eyes, and a face as street-worn as the flip-flops beseeched him. “Oh, sorry. I just wanted to hear it first”—she held up the CD case: an African-American with a Lincoln-style top-hat grinned below the letters: UN-lissen-ABULL - JACK DOWN ALFA-BIT!

Great. More of that Hip Hop. But the stuff did sell. Mike was into the Beatles himself. “Octopuses Garden in the Shade,” now there was a song. But Mike’s anger twisted him into a knot. “Come on, lady! You broke open the CD! You’re gonna have to buy it now or I gotta call the cops!”

“Oh, I wanna buy it,” she said in a husky and more than likely meth-roughed voice. “I want to buy it for my man.”

“Terrific. Let’s go to the check-out and you can buy it, and then you can leave.”

“Well…,” the woman hesitated. “Like I said, I wanna buy it but I don’t have the money.”

Mike ground his teeth. This chick looked about two steps short of the homeless shelter; she was probably a street-crazy to boot. He seethed: “If you don’t have money…how are you going to BUY IT?”

The woman smiled brokenly, rose on her tiptoes, and opened her overcoat.

The physical image hit Mike’s face like a fist.

“Come on…”

Ten minutes later, he led her out of the back office to the front door.

“Toodles,” she said and waved the CD. “Thanks.”

“Have a Merry Christmas,” Mike said, catching his breath. Jesus, that there is what you call Snappin’ Pussy. He apprized her coltish legs as she left, and he could’ve sworn he caught a glimmer of semen trickling over her ankle.

Just as the overcoated woman left, the vibrant and probably hyperactive Greeter walked in. (Mike still didn’t know her name.) She cast a leery glance over her shoulder. “Who was that?”

The manager’s heart-rate was still coming down. “Huh? Oh, that… Uh, that was the Logictech rep. I…had to order more trackballs and wireless mouses—er, I guess…mice.”

The Greeter watched the woman stride across the parking lot. “She looks more like a street whore.” Her firm, peach-sized breasts turned to him. “Anyway, I’m back from lunch.”

“Pizza tonight?”

A licentious grin, then after looking to and fro, she brazenly rubbed Mike’s crotch. “Only if I can have sausage on mine.”

“No problem, babe.”

She flinched and whined. “But…Mikey? I still have Christmas shopping to do but I’m on the clock till close. Can I leave early but, you know, stay on the clock anyway, if you know what I mean?”

“Sure, babe. It’s good to be the boss.”

She squealed and kissed him. “Thanks, dreamboat! See ya tonight.” She sailed through the automatic doors and had a reefer in her hand like a magic trick.

Just after the Greeter left, Archie strolled in. He had several Subway bags dangling. “Why’s the Greeter leaving?”

“I cut her loose. Talks too much. But she won’t be talking tonight with my dick stuck in her mouth.”

“Nice guy. Here’s your meatball sub. Foot-longs are still only five dollars. Oh, and please tell me you’ve heard from Veronica.”

“I haven’t heard from Veronica.”

“Well, shit, man. Her car’s still out back. Don’t you think you should call the police?”

“Why? She’s a big girl. Hey, you won’t believe this, but some whore with a killer bod just came in here and did me for a Hip Hop album.”

Archie frowned as he bit into his double-meat Philly Cheese Steak. “You’re right, I don’t believe it. Now, if you’re not going to call the cops, at least call her. Aren’t you even the least bit concerned?”

Mike looked at him, deadpan.

“She could be lying dead in a ravine somewhere.”

“Well, if she is, what good will it do for me to call?” He glanced around. The store was empty. “Look, I’m not taking time out of my busy schedule to call a girl who not only gives the worst head in the world but won’t even fuck me.”

“For fuck’s sake! Would you call her? She could be in trouble. Even a soul-dead cold-hearted selfish prick like you must care a little bit about her.”

Frowning, Mike whipped out his cellphone. “Okay, you want me to call her, I’ll call her.” He dialed, waited, paused, then whispered “Voice mail,” to Archie.

Then: “Veronica, this is Mike. Honey, I’m really worried about you. Your car hasn’t moved, you didn’t show for work, you haven’t called. Please, baby, you’re worrying me to death. If I don’t hear from you soon, I’m gonna call the police. Please, honey. Call me. I’ll be waiting.”

He hung up.

“I don’t believe it,” Archie enthused. “You do care about her!”

Mike nodded. “Of course I do. What kind of a schmuck to you think I am?” but of course he’d made the call to his own busy-signal.

(V)

Quiet day, still. Chilly but calm. Drifts of holiday music piped this way and that. Christmas was in the air.

Case Piece and his “dawgs” bopped down the streets of the town’s seedier environs, their chunk of the shitty world firm in their hands. Case Piece wore a T-shirt depicting George W. Bush injecting heroin. Menduez wore a Scarface shirt that read: ALL DAH TYING WE GETTIN’ FUCKED BY DAT WASP WHORE. Sung wore a jacket whose back was emblazoned with a map of South Korea.

They were selling some smack. Yeah. Case Piece slurped his Cherry Slush, nodding as he appraised the town he was sufficiently corrupting like a small-time cartel honcho. “Fuck, what that ole song be?” and then he sang, “Shit. Goddamn. I want me eggs and spam.”

“That frat, Clase Preece!” Sung approved and bit into one of those Dolly Madison chocolate pies.

“Chit, mang,” Menduez suspected. “Dat ain’t dah fuckin’ song, mang.”

“Whatever.”

Sung attempted a Rap. “Here crum dwoctor dway wiff the Twangeray!”

Case Piece chuckled. “Listen ta Sung, man. Trine ta Rap like a player but he’s from Malaysia or some shit.”

Sung hacked out a bite of pie. “Ko-WEE-ah, man! Fruck Malaysia! They a bunch of wadical extremist frucks with co-wupt government! We in Korea are Buddhist! The weligion of peace!” and this Sung bellowed so hard, the 9mm pistol stuck in his belt behind him almost fell out.

“Chill, man, chill. I just kiddin’ ’cos I knows how it whiles ya.” Case Piece looked ahead. “Here come Highball all happy’n shit. Paulie’s right, she need a bag over her grill but her bod is phat to the groove.”

“Hi, guys!” came the busted hooker’s exuberant greeting.

Case Piece frowned. “Open up that bitch-wrap so’s I can peel-eye your tits, ‘ho.”

Objection wrinkled her already wrinkled face. “Aw, come on, man. It’s fuckin’ December—it’s cold!”

Case Piece stared. “Say what?”

A smirk, then Highball opened her overcoat, immediately shivering.

“Shit, yeah. Now that shit’s top as a crown.”

“Yeah, man!” Sung railed. “Twop as a kwown! And twick-time super prussy!”

The chill air shriveled the exemplary nipples and made her pubic hair stand on end. She closed the coat and gleefully handed Case Piece the CD. “Look! I got you a present!”

The gang leader’s eyes widened. “Shit, bitch! Looks like you finally do somethin’ right.” He eyed the cover of the CD. “It my man, UN-lissen-ABULL. Dig it,” and then he put the disk in his boom-box and let ‘er rip.

“Junky, a kunky lunky—jay, kay, ell—munky, you nunky oh-unky—emm, enn, oh—”

“Turn that shit off!” a sudden voice cracked.

The four street denizens looked over and saw that a county sheriff’s car had just pulled up, and scowling at them from the open window was the corpulent and oddly reddened face of Deputy Chief Dood Malone, one cheek crammed with chewing tobacco.

Case Piece turned off the music. “Sorry, officer. We was just jammin’ on some tunes, don’t’cha know?”

“Well, try some country and western—Jesus.” The man spat a plume of juice on the street. “You all got jobs?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” Case Piece said. “We work for…Manpower.”

The Chief looked suddenly reflective as if summoning nice memories. “I worked for Manpower when I was young. Great job. Provides opportunities for people, keeps ’em out’a trouble, keeps them off the drugs.”

“Chit, yeah, sir,” Menduez assured with a pocket full of drugs. “We don’t do none’a dat drug chit.”

Case Piece concealed a frown, while Malone’s own distraction continuously dragged his eyes to Highball’s curvatures. “Uh, oh—good. Make sure ya don’t. It’s evil stuff folks are pushin’ on these once-fine streets.”

Highball positioned herself so that a modest wedge of bare breast could be seen through a loop of coat fabric between the buttons, and from a sexist standpoint it’s worth mentioning that her bosom’s previous exposure to the cold air had pebbled her nipple-tips sufficiently enough to cause some formidable “printing.”

Malone cleared his throat, then spat more brown juice. He may even have errantly rubbed his crotch. “I’d like yawl ta do me a favor. You probably heard that we got some low-down crazy sick-in-the-head psycho goin’ ’round cuttin’ off puppies’ heads—”

“Oh, no!” Sung exclaimed. “Thwat twerrible!”

Highball bobbed up on her tiptoes, causing her breasts to ride very deliberately up and down. “How could somebody do something so awful?”

“Mang,” Menduez said. “Dat some bad chit, mang.”

“So if you see anyone out here lookin’ suspicious, lookin’ like they don’t belong or fixin’ to git inta mischief, just you call me directly, okay?”

“Oh, yes, sir, officer,” Case Piece promised. “We peel-eye anything poo-putt, we’ll be the first ta yaw-yaw at’cha, like splickty-lit.”

Malone made a face. “What?”

“Means we’ll call ya.”

“Good, good, thanks.” Malone dragged a final gaze off Highball’s “chest fruit.” “And now I want yawl to have a fine day and a merry Christmas!”

“Back at’cha, sir,” Case Piece bid.

The shiftless gang hacked laughter upon the officer’s departure.

“Fat white dick,” Case Piece sniggered.

“Yeah, dat fat cop fock don’t know chit,” Menduez assured. “He think he can catch me? He need a fockin’ army ta catch me!”

“Yeah, that proo-prutt crop, he a stroopid fruck!”

Highball shrugged. “I blew him once, to beat a loitering bust.”

Case Piece made a percolating facial gesture. “What’choo doin’ here anyway, ‘ho?”

Highball pouted. “I wanted to give you the CD. Now…I just wanna hang with you guys.”

“Hang? Shit!” Case Piece winked at Menduez, a signal, after which the young Venezuelan quickly bent Highball over in a headlock.

“Hey!”

Menduez pulled the girl’s overcoat hem up over her impressive rump just as Case Piece came around behind her and—

WHAP!

—kicked her right between the legs.

“OOOOOOOOOW”

“This banana cream pie dumbass gettin’ too big for her boots and, shit, she don’t even wear boots. You the gang ‘ho, ‘ho. You don’t hang with us. We’re players, you just a cum-stop. Now get your lily-white ass on the street, and you trick with that trot. Make some cash with that gash and then, you see, you bring it to me, cos I’se the best—the best—the best pimp there be.”

“Twop dwawer, Clase!”

“Damn straight.”

Highball stood balloon-faced and knock-kneed, a hand to her crotch.

“Weren’t for me, Paulie’d’ve killed your ass. Twice. Weren’t for me, you’d still be suckin’ five-dollar dick’n sellin’ buddah sacks and beanpies for some loser Joe Neckbone sugar pimp in Bitch City. Make some money, honey. And when you done, go back the motherfuckin’ warehouse and baggie more skaggie and wash the peter tracks out’a our shorts. Me and my dawgs, we be bustin’ moves ’cos we’re phat in the grooves. We’re the tippest of the toppest, and you’re…the gang ‘ho. Later on, if you’re lucky, we come back and plumb your beezy pussy like a fuckin’ gas station toilet.”

Highball shuddered, teary eyed. “You-you make me feel like a piece of meat!”

Case Piece winked his signal again; Menduez headlocked her and—

WHAP!

Case Piece kicked her right between the legs.

“OOOOOOOOOOW”

“You are a piece of meat, bitch. You are a piece of meat. Now shag ass out’a here and get dizzle with that pwizzle. Make some money with that cunny. Get some cum in that chute so’s you make some loot with that coot. Underdig?”

“Yeah, I underdig,” Highball sniffled and limped away.

“The bitch, she love us,” Case Piece attested. “Right, dawgs?”

“Fruck yeah!”

“Bitch needs a good kick in the cunt once in a while. Gotta be hard, too, like so hard her fuckin’ ovaries bang together like them steel-ball click-clack things business dudes got on their desks.” Case Piece nodded. “Best way to keep a chick lovin’ ya—kick ’em in the cunt. It build up their self-esteem.”

“Chit, yeah, mang. White puta like dat, she needs guys like us. It’s we who geeve her identity.”

“Right on.”

They crossed the grade school playground which was empty now due to Christmas break. Up ahead, a twitching figure tottered into view.

“Who this shit-shoe white-trash garbage-can-on-two-legs motherfucker? He one’a ours?”

“He rook framiliar!”

“Oh, yeah, mang. I sell to him all the tying.”

A broom-skinny white man in dumpster clothes staggered trance-like toward them. His hair looked like a well-used and seldom-rinsed mop.

“Hey, blood,” Case Piece announced. “You lookin’ ta cop, ’cos if you is, we your main skagtown drop.”

The coin-eyed addict barely heard him. “Naw, man,” he croaked. Abscesses had erupted on his waxen face. “I mugged a old lady at the ATM and just copped.”

“But chew always cop from us, mang,” Menduez objected.

“I was jonesing, man.” When the addict scratched his arms, flakes fell off. “Couldn’t find you guys, so I had to cop from the new guys.”

Case Piece spat out a mouthful of Cherry Slush. “New guys?”

“Choo don’t mean dem motherless focks on Byrdtown Road. Chit, mang, dey long gone.”

“No, man. New guys. They just opened up shop on Maple Street. Sellin’ Mexican black for five bucks less a bag, man. They’re a couple white guys, from Maryland, they said.”

When the junkie foundered away, the three gang-members exchanged ominous glances.

“Fuckin’ competition all over, dawgs. Every no-dick piece’a garbage on the street comin’ here’n trine ta horn in on our gig,” Case Piece complained. “Well, hmmm. I wonder what we do about that. What’cha think…Menduez?”

Sung laughed and—in an Asian accent, no less—mimicked the sound of a barking dog.

“Maple Street, huh, mang?” Menduez nodded with a smile, message understood.

— | — | —