Cruddy - Lynda Barry [69]
They were both very kind to me. They were very understanding. They said, “Come on, Vicky, we’ll give you a ride home.”
Vicky Talluso’s porch light was green, and even though her house was in a decent area it was in very skagged-out condition. There were things in the yard. Like chunks of old carpet and some tires and an armchair on its side barfing out its stuffing. I was still crying. I was actually feeling normal but my face kept on crying. The officer stood beside me on the wooden porch. He rang the doorbell and a man’s voice inside said, “Shit and goddamn! It is door!” And then he started his horrible hack-coughing. The door swung open and when Vicky saw me and the cop, her mouth hung open. She was eating a piece of white bread spread with bright mustard. Behind her a television light flickered. She didn’t say anything while the cop explained the situation, beginning with “Your sister” and ending with some encouraging words about my future.
The door closed behind me and Vicky whispered, “Shit, Roberta!” and then there was the sound of feet pounding down the stairs, a guy who looked about seventeen, very very fine, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Brown hair falling to the back of his neck. He said, “What did the cops want?”
Vicky said, “It’s not really your business is it?”
“Shut up and tell me.”
The hacking man said, “Shit and goddamn, I welcome to you this house!” He was old and laying on a plaid recliner and he was wearing a woman’s pink chenille robe. That was Susy Homemaker.
Vicky yanked me away by the arm. She said, “Don’t look. Don’t talk to him.”
Chapter 32
T AIN’T nothing, Clyde. Just a little blood poisoning, Clyde. I’ve been through it a hundred and fifty times. You take a shot of Old Skull Popper, you chew three aspirin, and in an hour your troubles will be over.” This is what the father said when he opened the trailer door and set the aspirin and the Old Skull Popper on the tiny kitchen counter. “You lock this door behind me, you don’t let the sheriff in here, Clyde, no matter what he says to you. He can’t get off the subject of you. He wants me to sign you in to that spooker home. Says you look trainable. Trainable, my ass. I’d say he’s tantalized. There’s some weird shit going on around here, Clyde, but it could work out good for us. Hey, what do you think of these slacks? Fit me good, don’t they? They’re Italian.” The father shut the door and left.
I was so sick. I was shaking and sweating on the plastic-covered mattress in the clean, clean murder trailer. I was freezing, then I went burning hot. I felt my insides turn to foam. My finger was killing, killing, killing. It was so swollen you could hardly see the nail. My teeth were vibrating and then my jaws would catch and clench.
I pulled myself up, locked the door, and brought the aspirin and the Old Skull Popper back to bed. Every once in a while a Fanta child’s head would rise and stare into one of the windows, wobbling for a moment and then falling away when the person boosting them lost their hold. One of them was watching when I threw up so hard the aspirins I swallowed tinked out whole onto the floor.
The father said blood poisoning was nothing to worry about until I dried out. If it was tetanus, well, that was another story. Either way, when I couldn’t pee anymore, I was in trouble.
I fell asleep and dreamed about the father in the Dead Swede’s Italian pants. The Dead Swede’s Hush Puppies. The Dead Swede’s delicate blue socks. The Dead Swede’s Arrow shirt and his precious bolo tie. Pure silver. A little dancing man holding a rattle and a weed. And the Dead Swede’s cologne, plentiful imported fumes that singed the inside of my nostrils. I dreamed of the father saying, “You know, I don’t think I ever