Cruddy - Lynda Barry [99]
The Stick said, “Hamlet’s not a real person.”
The Turtle said, “Bent Nail knows no boundaries.”
The Great Wesley again. “Please, Hillbilly Woman. Continue.”
“Wait,” said the Turtle. “Before you go on, there is something I must say.”
We waited.
“What?” asked Vicky. “God! Just say it!”
“Yes. Absolutely.” The Turtle cleared his throat. “I would like to say I also still piss the bed.”
“The best people do,” said the Great Wesley.
Chapter 52
AVERNS ARE wonderful things. Sometimes the walls are made of alabaster and sometimes gypsum. Sometimes other things. The cavern that was Gy-Rah’s lair was enormous. The Powder Monkey’s work had made it an easy stroll down stepped walkways to a mysterious world that had once been an underground river. There were domed places, oval indentations where loose stones swirled in the ancient eddies, cutting the stone above and below in the most elegant way, shapes very Roman. Shapes you see on Gladiator Theater, Channel 11, Saturdays at two.
While the father explained my job to me, handed me the gun called the Luger, told me how to hold it and fire it, my mind was drifting to the movie called The Time Machine where monsters with glowing red eyes and bloody teeth freaked around in worlds underground. The main girl in the movie was named Weena and she didn’t know the god she worshipped was created by the monsters. A god that opened its loving mouth and then sucked you into the meat-saw room. There were very obvious clues that made you shout at the TV, saying “No, Weena! No!” and as I half listened to the father explain the Navy way of flushing an enemy out of hiding, I wondered if someone somewhere was yelling warnings at me. Someone watching the movie of my life and shouting, “No! No! Turn back before they eat your legs!”
“What you have to do, Clyde, is simple. You got to go in there and flush him out. I don’t care how you do it, but don’t goddamn kill him. You can wing him but do not kill him, all right? Flush him into the clear and I’ll take it from there. Go. No. Do it. Here.” And so I had the gun. A loaded gun handed to me with trust and confidence.
But I didn’t turn back. I entered the Lair of the Sequined Genius with a gun in my hand. Weak lights flickered in the descending blackness. I was surprised by the coolness of the air, surprised by the little sounds of dripping. A bit of water still passed through parts of the cave. Condensation made the pipe handrail slick to the touch.
As I walked, I wondered if I really could shoot the man in the short-shorts. There were so many other people I’d rather shoot at. And I was distracted by this thought when the lights went off.
Blackness.
“Psssst!”
An amplified whisper bounced and echoed around me.
“Pssst! You. Troglodyte. Abomination. I see you.”
The sound came from everywhere at once. Whispers though a microphone can be so horrifying. Little whispered words and little evil insults.
“Pollution. Poison. Carrion.”
A flame flickered behind a hoard of stalagmites.
The hissing voice of Gy-Rah said, “I see the gun. I see the gun clearly. Were you really planning on shooting me, you revolting pygmy?” The fire flicker went out. Gy-Rah laughed. From the blackness he whispered, “Take aim now.”
It was quite a lucky shot. I didn’t hit him but the blast made him holler, “Ooh, my balls! Ooh, my balls!” The lights came on and I saw him clutching his sequined privates. He’d clipped himself on a stalagmite.
“My ointment! You have activated my dark itching! I must have my ointment!” In the pale light I saw he was badly afflicted with a weepy scaly rash that thickened his eyelids and circled his elbows and from the way he was wriggling I could tell there were some other bothersome areas as well.
“You must run at once to Mother and get my ointment or I will go mad. The luminous green balls of genius which roll in my brain inform me I must surrender. Oh this itches! Tell me what you want! Speak!”
“The dog,” I said.
“Dog?”
“The white dog.”
“Peanut?”
“Give her to me.”
“She is yours! My