Cruddy - Lynda Barry [63]
Hanging on a wall behind the liquor bottle display was a calendar. In big letters it said DON’T MONKEY AROUND. ASK FOR WHITLEY’S! Underneath was a picture of a chimpanzee dressed in a nurse’s uniform and holding a huge hypodermic needle. She was sticking her lips out. The caption said, WHO ORDERED A SHOT?
The sheriff stepped up and spoke to Pammy through the screen. “You think we could get Grandma-ma to clean out this trailer?” Pammy started to open the door and the sheriff said, “You don’t want to look. It’ll make you puke, I guarantee it.”
Pammy said, “I’ve never puked in my life.”
The sheriff said, “Well, this could be your lucky day.”
And they talked about it some more and a dusty Fanta child was sent with a message to Grandma-ma that there was fresh deer meat waiting if she wanted to earn it. The sheriff called, “And you tell her Pammy’ll throw in a couple pounds of tripe if she’s fast about it.”
Pammy said, “The hell I will.”
The sheriff said, “What do you think of Clyde?”
Pammy said, “Who?”
The sheriff nodded his head at me. “His name’s Clyde. I think a red pop and a bag of chips would put him right. That sound good to you, Clyde? He don’t talk.”
Pammy said, “What brand of shit are you trying to stir up here, Arden?”
The sheriff said, “Well, that depends on you.”
The father and the men came in and rounds were poured. I never got the red pop and chips. I didn’t care. What I wanted was a cigarette. I noticed the father pinching at his thigh. Trying to keep some blood-stopping pressure where Little Debbie got him. I went over and did a Helen Keller tug at his arm. I made my fingers into a scissoring “V” and met his eyes with sincerity.
“Naw,” said one of the men. “He don’t smoke!”
“Oh yes,” said the father, tapping out a cig for me. “Keep an eye on your smokes and your lighters. He can be quick.”
He lit it for me and I gave him the same clear-eyed look of cooperation. The man said, “Now all he needs is a shot to go with it, haw-haw.”
The father said, “He’ll drink you under the table, I ain’t shitting.” He handed his shot of Whitley’s to me and I downed it, stuck my lips out and knocked the glass against the bar for more. Everybody laughed. I was honeying-up. I wanted the father to believe that.
The sheriff tilted his head at me. “He’s so damn ugly he’s cute. You know who he reminds me of? That little humped over Ee-gore from that movie, what the hell was it, that horror one? Come on over here, Ee-gore.”
The father said, “He bites.”
“Haw,” said the sheriff.
“I’m telling you,” the father said. “He bit our minister in the gonad one time. Talk about embarrassment.”
HAW HAW HAW
The sheriff swept his hand over his privates. “Mine are so big he’d never get a grip.”
HAW HAW HAW
Pammy kept her eyes on the father. She refilled his shot glass without him making a move toward it. The father lifted it and nodded a thanks to her and held her eye while he drank it down.
Behind the Knocking Hammer was the campground and it was divided into two parts. One had hookups and one was primitive. The hookup section was where they unhitched the trailer and propped it steady with cement blocks. The primitive section was farther back past the scrub hedge and it was all migrants. Pammy said she didn’t give a damn where they camped as long as they paid their five dollars a week and stayed out of her line of vision.
The father said we might as well clean up and the sheriff showed us to the shower stalls and stood around and lingered, acting like he wanted to stay, but the father told him I was hellishly shy and finally he left.
The stalls had warped plywood doors and no hot water. The wooden floor turned slippery slick when the water hit it. The father soaped up on his side and then threw the soap over the top to me. Some of the dusty kids were circling. They closed in and an eyeball came peeping on the father’s side and he popped out naked and dangling. “I’ll kill you little fuckers! Get away from here!”
He pulled my door open and pointed a finger at me and