Cruddy - Lynda Barry [77]
“Would you do it again?”
I said, “Yes.” I told him about the exhilaration. How to me, even horrifying exhilaration is incredible.
He said, “When Vicky comes back will you drop with me?”
I was wondering if he really was a user like Vicky said. I saw him looking over my face. I saw him notice my finger. I saw him staring at the raised letter “y” scarred into my arm, showing just below my sleeve.
The Stick looked at me and the flame from the candle moved in his eyes. Normal pupils. Brown eyes.
I said, “You know that guy I saw jump?”
He said, “Yeah?”
“His name was Fernst.”
Chapter 38
ERNST! FERNST! Goddamn it, ERNST!” Pammy was hollering from the kitchen in her chambers. She was calling for ingredients. “Fernst, bring me sliced onions. Fernst, slice me more potatoes. Fernst, I know you stole some pop out of the cooler again this morning how would you like it if I sent you back to Mom? Fernst, the goddamn pilot light is out. Fernst, that flame is too damn high, Fernst, watch that oil. Fernst—”
Bright flash. WHOOOMP! Pammy screaming. Screaming she was on fire.
The sheriff and the father were shouting back and forth and Fernst scrambled out the window with his long arms in flames, fire leaping from his clothes, he was hopping and flapping and then he jumped.
The sheriff and the father got ahold of Pammy and rolled her. They got her to the outside shower and sprayed her down. The father said, “Hell of a grease fire.” And then the sheriff saw the broken Fernst in a heap, twitching, smoldering, and he said, “Oh shit.”
He walked over to look at him. Foaming noises were coming from Fernst’s throat. The sheriff bent down, stuck the gun in Fernst’s mouth and then it was over.
In the bar they were all taking drinks. The sheriff kept his eyes on the father. “I bet you didn’t have a thing to do with that fire.”
The father said, “Damn it, Arden. No.”
Pammy was pig-eyed, pacing the bar and smoking. She said, “It’s the Swede.” Her skin was bright pink under thick layers of melting Vaseline. “The Swede, Arden. He set that fire.”
“Horse shit,” said the sheriff.
“It’s the Swede, I’m telling you. He’s goddamn walking.”
The father stood at the screen door and cupped his hands around his mouth. “CLY-YDE! THIS AIN’T FUNNY NO MORE!”
The sheriff said, “He ran, Milsboro.”
The father said, “Not Clyde.”
The sheriff said, “I’m not the type of man that puts up with shit like this.”
“He’ll come back,” said the father. “CLY-YDE! CLY-YDE!”
“Well,” said the sheriff, cracking a new bottle of Whitley’s. “If he don’t come back, we’re going to have to hunt him. Mom don’t wait for no one.”
Pammy said, “The Swede got him.”
The sheriff said, “The Swede has better things to do with his time.” He poured a round. They drank.
The father kept looking toward the screen door. Watching for me. Pammy was digging some pills out of a brown jar and downing them with a half tumbler of Whitley’s. Horse tranquilizers.
The sheriff said, “Those ain’t for people.”
She said, “I know it, and I don’t give a goddamn.”
The father said, “I don’t mean to intrude but what should we do about Fernst out there?”
The sheriff said, “You read my mind, Milsboro. Got a job offer for you.”
“Yeah?” said the father.
“Can you face a meat saw?”
“Which end?”
The father stuck a cig in his mouth and pulled out his USN lighter. The sheriff slammed his hand on the bar. “Wise-ass! Always have to be the wise-ass, don’t you, Earlis?”
“Earlis?” said the father.
The sheriff said, “That’s your name isn’t it?”
“Naw, naw, Arden, I ain’t Earl—”
The sheriff pulled out his gun. “Go ahead and lie to me. I ran your goddamn plates. I know all about you.”
Pammy said, “Ear-less? Who?”
The sheriff picked the father’s lighter up off the bar, lit a cig, and hurled the lighter against