Cruddy - Lynda Barry [78]
The father and Pammy were looking at each other. The sheriff said, “Our meat saw man gave out on us and we got a job waiting.”
He downed his glass and poured again but the Whitley’s was pouring funny, and then it wasn’t pouring at all. And the sheriff saw something like a ragged hot dog was hanging out of it. “What the shitting hell? A FINGER!” He glared at the father. “You stupid-son-of-a-bitch. You think you can scare me? You think I’m afraid of a GODDAMN FINGER?”
The sheriff yanked the fleshy end and held it up in a one-second display of courage before he got a good look at it and sent it flying. “It’s a COCK!”
The father said, “Now that is goddamn eerie. What the hell is going on? Why don’t you just tell me?”
Pammy’s hands shook as she fished two more horse calmers out of the bottle. “He’s coming back in pieces, Arden. The Swede wants his revenge.”
The sheriff leveled his gun at the father. “You put that cock in there.”
“That bottle was sealed,” said the father. “It was you that cracked it.”
The sheriff eyes narrowed. “And then you slipped it in.”
The father said, “Arden, where the hell would I get a man’s cock? Why the hell would I ruin a full bottle of Whitley’s? Put your gun down, Arden, you’re making me feel bad.”
The sheriff aimed at the father’s forehead. “Let’s go outside, Earlis.”
Pammy said, “Arden, IT’S THE SWEDE MAKING YOU DO THIS! He’s turning us against each other. Shit, Arden. Goddamn it, Arden, DON’T YOU SHOOT HIM, ARDEN!”
The sheriff walked the father out to where Fernst lay. There were deep shadows all around. It would have been nothing for me to get the sheriff. Little Debbie was wanting to. Little Debbie was straining in my hand like a dog seeing a rabbit. It would have been nothing to do a fast slice that would cause the sheriff a surprising intestine cascade.
But I wasn’t in the mood to do the father any favors. I was enjoying the terrified look on his face, I have to admit I was enjoying it very much.
If Pammy hadn’t spotted me, who knows how wonderful that night could have turned out to be?
Chapter 39
HERE ARE certain creatures in the ocean called sessile creatures, creatures permanently attached to one place, like the barnacle and the anemone and the feather-duster worm. And there are also drifter creatures, attached to nothing, carried places by the current, and at night some of them will glow when disturbed. At night they can leave a phosphorescent trail five miles long behind a ship, a trail clearly visible from the air. That could be hell on a Navy man. Dazzle camouflage is useless in the dark.
I was shut into the blackness of the meat saw room. Shut in there by the sheriff. He shoved me in, said, “Don’t turn on the light unless you want a surprise,” and bolted the door.
It was a cold room but there was a smell of spoilage. The refrigeration unit gave off the smell of a washcloth gone sour. There was the smell of disinfectant and fresh sawdust. And twisting around all of it was the high scent of blood, bitter and metallic. And a much heavier odor I recognized. The complicated smell of a sliced creature. Complicated because sliced hide smells different from sliced fat, and sliced fat smells different from sawn bone, and internal organs each have a particular smell, and then there is the raw odor of the divided meat itself. All of these smells were fresh.
My hand found the light switch. Did I want a surprise?
“YOU DO NOT KNOW WHO YOU ARE DEALING WITH, YOU STUPID SHIT!” That was the sheriff shouting at the father. I could hear his words but not the father’s or Pammy’s. The sheriff was shouting that he was big, very big. He had big connections in Chicago, with the BIG boys in Chicago. Did the father understand the legal implications of habeas corpus? No body equals no murder equals peace in the valley for all concerned. Was the father starting to get the picture? It was the sheriff who oversaw the final steps required to turn an important somebody into a scattered nobody of bone, blood meal, and cat