Cruddy - Lynda Barry [49]
There are times when a situation is not funny at all. Times when it would be very rude to laugh, but I could not help it. I didn’t want to be laughing, but my puppet head would not stop. It was the sound of the father’s screaming. Have you ever heard a man scream before? Sounding exactly like a girl?
“You BITCH!” He had me by the head and he was screaming, “YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY? YOU FUCKING STUPID BITCH!” He punched me very hard then and my teeth hit the dash knobs and broke a short upside-down “V” into my front teeth. I tried to get out of the car but he had my arm and he yanktwisted me back. In a very even voice he said, “I’m going to kill you, Clyde.” But when we made it to the bottom of the bridge I was still alive.
Dentsville is a maze, a tangle of curving streets and hills and sudden dead ends. When it’s raining and you are pulling a trailer and you are feeling excitable it is a hard place to get out of. Very hard. The father kept trying to go south but he kept getting turned around. Finally he said, “East, then. East. Fuck it.”
And soon we were at the edge of the city, rain pouring hard and wipers on high, blood dripping from my nose onto my arms, me not doing anything about it. The road was straight and empty and our tires swished loud, running alongside a junkyard that went on forever behind a fence made of spot-welded tire rims, some of them painted to spell out ANDERSONS ANDERSONS YOU NEED IT WE HAVE IT ANDERSONS ANDERSONS ANDERSONS.
The father twisted the radio dial. The car was a pale green Valiant with black upholstered seats shot through with silver. Bench seats with a divided center so you could lift a lever on your side and lean back to relax if you needed to, if it was possible to relax while the father listed all the thousand reasons why he should kill you and throw you to the crows. You never laugh at a superior officer. Ever. Ever.
We drove out of Dentsville and the world looked empty and green with mountains before us, the road curving gently upwards. Little songs came on the radio the father liked. Sad songs named after towns. Abilene. Detroit City. Saginaw, Michigan. And the father sang.
He could imitate anyone’s voice. His Adam’s apple went up and down the same as the professionals. So many chances in life just passed him by but all of that was over. There was one more suitcase to go and this one he was going to get without a fight. It was actually waiting for him along with a highball and a loving woman who owned her own motel. Spring was just around the corner.
And so we drove up into the misty mountains disappearing into the conifer forests that are always dim and darkly shadowed, even on the brightest of days. The father had his high beams on and he was driving slow. He was having trouble keeping his eyes open. Too much exhilaration will do that to you. Brings on an aftermath of konking out. I felt it too. He drove up a dog-legged logging road into the lasting darkness of the dripping pines and that is where we slept.
Chapter 23
ULIE SAT on the couch looking at me with the flickering light from the television shining on her eyes. It was still night but all the shows were over and on the screen was the hissing no-picture of a billion insane bees. I’d been watching it, staring at it for a while before I realized my awakeness and my situation. I was in the mother’s chair. A blanket from our bed was on me and it was wet with blood and drool. Julie stared at me. “Hey,” I said.
She didn’t answer.
“What’s wrong?” I said. I started to rub my face but the stickiness and crusts stopped me. I kept my eyes off of the TV. There were faces moving in the hissing picture. I’d seen the smile of rotting Earlis there. Of bleeding Lemuel. Of the furious father. The movie called The Life of Clyde was still on but I could