Different Seasons - Stephen King [189]
'So he wins it and gives the finger to everybody!' Teddy said. 'Boss!'
'No, it's better than that,' Chris said. 'Just shut up and listen.'
'Lard Ass figures to himself, five bucks, what's that? If anybody remembers anything at all in two weeks, it'll just be that fuckin' pig Hogan out-ate everybody, well, it figures, let's go over his house and rank the shit out of him, only now we'll call him Pie Ass instead of Lard Ass.'
They nodded some more, agreeing that Davie Hogan was a thinking cat. I began to warm to my own story.
'But everybody expects him to enter the contest, you know. Even his mom and dad. Hey, they practically got that five bucks spent for him already.'
'Yeah, right,' Chris said.
'So he's thinkin' about it and hating the whole thing, because being fat isn't really his fault. See, he'd got these weird fuckin' glands, somethin', and -'
'My cousin's like that!' Vern said excitedly. 'Sincerely! She weighs close to three hundred pounds! Supposed to be her Hyboid Gland or something like that. I dunno about her Hyboid Gland, but what a fuckin' blimp, no shit, she looks like a fuckin' Thanksgiving turkey, and this one time -'
'Will you shut the fuck up, Vern?' Chris cried violently. 'For the last time! Honest to God!' He had finished his Coke and now he turned the hourglass-shaped green bottle upside down and brandished it over Vent's head.
'Yeah, right, I'm sorry. Go on, Gordie. It's a swell story.'
I smiled. I didn't really mind Vern's interruptions, but of course I couldn't tell Chris that; he was the self-appointed Guardian of Art. 'So he's turnin' it over in his mind, you know, the whole week before the contest At school kids keep comin' up to him and sayin' Hey Lard Ass, how many pies ya gonna eat? Ya gonna eat ten? Twenty? Fuckin' eighty! And Lard Ass, he says, How should I know. I don't even know what kind they are. And see, there's quite a bit of interest in the contest because the champ is this grownup whose name is, uh, Bill Traynor, I guess. And this guy Traynor, he ain't even fat In fact, he's a real stringbean. But he can eat pies like a whiz, and the year before he ate six pies in five minutes.'
'Whole pies?' Teddy asked, awe-struck.
'Right you are. And Lard Ass, he's the youngest guy to ever be in the contest'
'Go, Lard Ass!' Teddy cried excitedly. 'Scoff up those fuckin' pies!'
'Tell 'em about the other guys in it,' Chris said.
'Okay. Besides Lard Ass Hogan and Bill Traynor, there was Calvin Spier, the fattest guy in town-he ran the jewellery store -'
'Gretna Jewels,' Vern said, and snickered. Chris gave him a black look.
'And then there's this guy who's a disc jockey at a radio station up in Lewiston, he ain't exactly fat but he's sorta chubby, you know. And the last guy was Hubert Gretna the Third, who was the principal of Lard Ass Hogan's school.'
'He was eatin' against his own principal!' Teddy asked.
Chris clutched his knees and rocked back and forth joyfully. 'Ain't that great! Go on, Gordie!'
I had them now. They were all leaning forward. I felt an intoxicating sense of power. I tossed my empty Coke bottle into the woods and scrunched around a little bit to get comfortable. I remember hearing the chickadee again, off in the woods, farther away now, lifting its monotonous, endless call into the sky: dee-dee-dee dee 'So he gets this idea,' I said. The greatest revenge idea a kid ever had. The big night comes-the end of Pioneer Days. The pie-eating contest comes just before the fireworks. The Main Street of Gretna has been closed off so people can walk around in it, and there's this big platform set up right in the street. There's bunting hanging down and a big crowd in front. There's also a photographer from the paper, to get a picture of the winner with blueberries all over his face, because it turned out to be blueberry pies that year. Also, I almost forgot to tell you this, they had to eat the pies with their