Cruddy - Lynda Barry [57]
The Turtle ran, tearing up the street, diving into the first bushes he came to.
The Monkey put his calm paper-hatted head around the side door. “Hey, Uncle Myronto. What’s going down?”
The cop car did a tight turn that brought it my way. I freaked and got the Turtle’s stash out of Vicky’s purse and dropped it into the Dumpster.
The cops hit the siren and the lights, and floored it back onto Dunbar. They were using Diggy’s parking lot as a turn-around.
Uncle Myronto went berserk. “IT’S NOT A RACETRACK! IT’S NOT A FRIGGING RACETRACK!” He ran inside and in a few seconds I could hear him screaming into the phone.
“WHAT?! HELL YES THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! YOU PEOPLE THINK MY PLACE IS A GODDAMN RACETRACK! WHAT?! NO! HELL NO! DON’T YOU PUT ME ON HOLD! DON’T YOU—GODDAMN IT!”
I heard the Monkey saying, “Whoa, Uncle Myronto, your blood pressure, man. Danger.”
I boosted myself up the side of the Dumpster to retrieve the stash. A rotted-meat smell drifted and the yellow jackets swarmed. I saw what I thought was the top of the can laying low in clotted grease. The Monkey came up behind me and I instantly jumped down. In a low voice he said, “Turtle in there?”
“No,” I said.
“Because he does sometimes hide in there.”
“He got away.”
The Monkey rubbed his face. “I’m so fried. Are you fried? You look fried.”
“I’m very fried.”
“The Turtle burned me. He thinks he can fuck with me. Do you know when he got out? He wouldn’t tell me. He won’t tell me anything.”
“Out?” I said.
“Of Barbara V. Hermann. You know, the home.”
“Oh yes,” I said. “The home.”
He looked at me from the side of his eye. He said, “You don’t know about him do you? I bet you just met him.”
“No.”
“Lie. He ask you to go to New Orleans? That’s his first question to everybody.”
“No.”
“Did he tell you he’s Canadian and he knows Neil Young?”
“No.”
“His parents are rich as fuck, man. They own Channel Three. He won’t tell you that though, because it’s true. They’re looking for him. I’m thinking of turning him in.”
He pulled out a pack of Salems. “Fag cigs, I know. Want?”
I took one and he lit mine and his off the same match. Uncle Myronto was still yelling into the phone. Someone on the other end seemed to be listening.
The Monkey said, “The Turtle does got the good drugs, though. That part’s for real. And he gets the girls, man. Ugly little dude, but he always has the women. He’s always telling me he’s going to get me laid. And I’m always stupid enough to believe him.”
I blew a smoke ring. He said, “Is that girl, that violent girl-whatever, is she real?”
I said, “Vicky?”
He said, “That her name? Because the Turtle never calls anybody by their actual names. Like I don’t even know your name. What is it? Because I know it’s not Hillbilly Woman.”
A yellow jacket did a tight circle by my face and I swatted at it.
The Monkey said, “Don’t, man. That just pisses them off. What’s your name? You know what is super weird about you, and I’m not saying this just because I’m high, OK? Your face, you know, it’s—”
I looked away.
He said, “No, man, listen, it’s good, it’s good, I mean your face is totally fucked up, right? But it is totally amazing, I’m serious. I should be thinking you are like, very ugly, you know, but I am just getting very blown away by you, and like, are you a virgin?”
Chapter 26
URTLE? TURTLE? Turtle?” I whispered to every bush in the vicinity but could not find him. I was thinking I should just try to get cosmic. I should just try to get cosmic like a hippie and expand to the natural flow but that didn’t work either. It was my ear-splitter whistle that did it. The Turtle appeared at the end of an alleyway. I followed him to a garage. He twisted the T-shaped handle. The garage door lifted about two feet and then stopped. I rolled under and the Turtle followed and the door fell shut.
There was one window, clouded with grime and an old car with flat tires. Everything was covered with layers of drifting dirt.
There were peat moss bags stacked against the back wall. We made ourselves comfortable on those.