Cruddy - Lynda Barry [92]
“Earlis, what kind of stone is this?” Pammy held her hand up and touched the ring. “Daddy-baby, what’s this type of jewel called?”
The father lit another cig and threw the match onto the asphalt.
Auntie Doris said, “Goddamn you.”
The father said, “Dolly-baby, that right there is the genuine Eye of the Idol. Worth a pile.”
Auntie Doris snorted the word “Earlis” into her highball glass.
Pammy hung on.
Chapter 47
ICKY CAME up the stairs dripping wet and her mascara had run black streaks down her face and her missing eyebrow area was looking very waxy and prominent. “Roberta. Come here! Come here!” Her whisper was urgent.
She pulled me over to her and put her face against my ear. Some of her dripping soaked into me. She whispered, “We did it. We did it. Oh god. I am SO in love.”
The Turtle and the Great Wesley stared at her.
Vicky said, “What?! Mind your own! Fuck.”
No one knew what to say.
Vicky pinched her eyes down into suspicious lines. “How come everybody stopped talking? What’s going on? You guys were talking about me, weren’t you?”
The Turtle said, “My dear Wesley. Let us return to the piano. You will play a dirge. I shall sing.”
And so the Great Wesley played and the Turtle sang, “Daaane...is such...a fuh...ker...He...is...such...a fuh...ker...”
Vicky’s smile shined when she saw Dane come up the stairs with his wet hair combed back. I saw him avoiding her eyes.
“Alas,” said the Turtle. “Alas and oh fuck. The Sultan of Ass-heads lives.”
“Fuck you, fuckhead. I need to get high, man.” He picked up the carved apple. “What a wicked fucking pipe, man. Matches. Matches.” Vicky scrambled to get him some. He took them without looking at her. He was acting like she was not in the room. Every time she sat closer, he moved away.
The Turtle said, “Observe. The Sultan knew her and now he knows her not. The Violent One has become a banished and broken filament in the world’s saddest lightbulb. Play, Wesley. Play the mournful tune.”
The Turtle sang to Vicky and threads of drool hung from his lips. He was looking very pale, and even when he sank to his knees he kept singing and in between vomits of watery pinkness into the shag carpet he kept singing and crawling toward her and she scrambled backwards, shouting, “Fuck! Fuck! Get away!”
The Sultan thought it was hilarious. He coughed out his apple cloud and said, “You two are fucking perfect for each other!” Vicky slapped the apple pipe out of his hands. The Sultan flipped her the finger.
The Great Wesley closed the piano cover, stood up and readjusted his bathrobe and said, “Brother, it is time I inform you that I am leaving and I will be taking the car.”
“The FUCK you ARE!”
The Turtle crawled to the apple pipe and was trying to get a hit off of it when the Sultan kicked. The apple pipe flew and hit the wall and the Turtle rolled onto the floor holding his jaw and the Sultan was about to kick him again but was stopped by a sudden cut on his arm, a slice, very clean and very deep and instantly gushing. Little Debbie gleamed in my hand.
“FUCK!” shouted the Sultan. “What the fuck ARE you people? I’m FUCKING calling the COPS!” And he ran to the telephone and we ran for the garage. All of us piled into a very sleek car and after a few false starts and some violent jerks we were rolling, rolling though the deep shadows of the dark boulevard, listening to Vicky crying and saying, “He used me. He used me. He used me.”
Chapter 48
LYDIE? CLYDIE, honey?” This was Pammy talking, looking yellow in the bug light. A little spot of light in an ocean of darkness. We were at the concrete picnic table. She kept trying to make conversations happen with me. Talking out her little comments and observations. Asking me for mine. Freaking me with her friendliness. It was so sincere and horrible.