Sloughing Off the Rot (6 page)

“Don’t listen to them, Johnny. They’ll turn you inside out with the trip they lay on you,” shouted Santiago from the midst of a congregation of dirt-rats. A writhing blanket of diseased rodents covered his lap and the ground around him. “They speak with forked tongues and will only bring you down. They will manipulate your emotions and fuck your brain.”

“Do not listen to him,” said Three Tooth. He watched Santiago snap the spine of a dirt-rat and toss it on a growing pile of carcasses. Speaking to John but raising his voice to be heard by Santiago, Three Tooth said, “He’s not competent. You cannot trust the counsel of someone who is incompetent.”

“I’m not competent?” shouted Santiago, frightening the dirt-rats and sending them skittering for the safety of their burrows. “You bet I’m not competent. If you’re competent, there’s a lot to do. People expect things of you. Give you responsibilities. You better believe that I’m not competent. And because of that, I don’t have to do nothing. All I do is what I want to do. I shit and piss and eat and drink. I fuck blumpkins ‘til I’m dehydrated and stark raving mad. And nobody tells me to do shit. I do what I want. I live where I want, fella. I live on the ground. I live on the earth. I’m aligned with the scorpion and the wolf. And that’s the way it is. I’m not competent. I don’t want to be competent. But I’ll tell you what, Johnny, you’re better off hanging with me than that sorry ass crew.” He turned his back to Three Tooth and commenced his efforts to attract more dirt-rats.

“Please, palaver with me and my men,” said Three Tooth, ignoring Santiago’s rant. “We want to help. We are the helping kind of scurves.”

The day blew its wad and ran out the door with some sorry excuse about an early meeting in the morning. And evening was on them quickly. The men pissed a large perimeter around themselves and the continuously burning thorn bush. Santiago skinned and gutted his kills and turned the dirt-rats over a small fire, deeply concentrating on his chore in an effort to ignore the presence of the others. But Crazy Talk did not want to be ignored. He stood in front of Santiago, demanding attention.

“Word is you not think good,” said Crazy Talk to Santiago. “Word is rats nibble your braincheese. Word is your heart was torn out and eaten by buzzards.”

Santiago laughed and stood up from his squat in front of the fire. “Word is you not think good,” he repeated, tittering, scratching at his beard and screwing his face up in a disdainful sneer. “Word is, you’re an old woman. Word is you have turkey in the sky. Word is, you fellas enjoy each other’s company a wee bit too much. How you like them apples, you crazy talking Injun?” Santiago’s face flicked through a random series of twitches and settled on a half-smile. And he laughed again at Crazy Talk. “Word is you not think good. Now hit the road, Tonto.”

But Crazy Talk did his best impression of a statue. He stood across the small fire from Santiago and occasionally uttered his gibberish when Santiago looked up. “Word is you’re a bad banana with a greasy black peel,” he said.

Santiago wrung his face into a grimace but remained still, squatting in front of the fire.

“Word is your brain is full of spiders and you have garlic in your soul,” said Crazy Talk.

Santiago rose to his feet.

“Word is your heart’s a tomato splotched with moldy purple spots,” said Crazy Talk. “Word is you’re a crooked dirty jockey and you drive a crooked hoss.”

“I’m gonna tell you something, brother,” said Santiago, his eyes wide open and bulging from the sockets like bloodshot tulip bulbs. You got this stuff in your head about me, your preconceived notions and judgments and whatnot. But, I’m the man in the mirror, guy. You like me, I’ll like you. You swing at me, I’ll swing on you. You try to cut me, and I’ll hack you to shreds. So let’s cut it with this trip you’re on. Walk away and leave me to my business and we’ll call it all great and groovy. Alright, chief?”

“Word is, your soul is an appalling dump heap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of rubbish imaginable and tangled up in knots.”

“Word is this. Word is that. Bladdah-don-dooo-doo-dat-didilly,” said Santiago, stomping around in a small circle and slapping himself in the face. “Well, I got a word for you: incoming.” Santiago bent over and dredged the bottom of his lungs for an infected brown and yellow glob of mucous. After a good deal of grunting and clearing his throat and slapping his hands on his chest, Santiago horked up sputum from his depths and spat the enormous gob high into the air, launching it in Crazy Talk’s direction.

And time crossed its arms and became stubborn and sluggish. The airborne loogie moved in a slow-motion arc, first rising high above them and then quickly picking up speed on its downward trajectory. Crazy Talk watched, unable to move as the projectile flipped about in the air and headed downward toward him. He had time to study it and notice the greens and yellows and browns of the globule. He saw a small mist of spittle trailing off of it like the tail of a comet. Before he could jump aside, the spit splattered on his shoulder and a stench fumed off of it. The stank sickened Crazy Talk, and he vomited just a little of his breakfast up in his mouth. The substance that rose from his stomach was a bilious madness, a fetid resentment that had been brewing in Crazy Talk well before he ever set eyes on Santiago. And it briefly rendered him mad and murderous.

On his side of the fire, Santiago set his feet and held balled up fists out in front of himself in the stance of an old-fashioned pugilist. Opposite Santiago, Crazy Talk spat the acid hatred from his mouth and tightened his muscles. He tensed up and readied to leap over the fire to attack Santiago. The hair on the men’s necks stood on end and they both broke out in adrenaline shakes. Santiago released a musty scent from his anus and a bitter taste visited his mouth. Crazy Talk’s vision tunneled and his pupils dilated. A split second before the men were to become engaged in a bloodbath, Three Tooth shouted something that stopped the imminent fisticuffs.

“Lunkheads!” shouted Three Tooth.

All other goings-on ceased. Feet shuffled. The men armed themselves with clubs and knives and bows and arrows. To the south of the road a gang of lumbering lunkheads shuffled toward the camp. Their raspy breathing and groans filled the air. Three Tooth drew an arrow back on the taut string of his bow and let it zip. An audible
whizzzz
dragged through the air, followed by a
squish-thud
as the arrow struck and parted layers of skin, penetrating one of the lunkies dead center of his chest. The creature dropped to his knees and screamed at the sky. He plucked the arrow from his chest and a gout of blood spurted rhythmically from the wound. His screaming died down. Within seconds, the man dropped over on his side, gasping heavily for air, and then not gasping. Not moving. Not living.

Oblivious to their fallen comrade, the remaining twenty or so brain-dead and bloodthirsty lunkheads continued their dreadful and slow march on the camp. As they neared, John studied the dead pools of their eyes and their festering wounds. Three Tooth and most of his men (excluding Two-Dogs-Fucking, who conveniently left his bow behind at their last camp and was not motivated to retrieve it) felled the oncoming lunkies with spot-on kill shots to the hearts. And the lunkheads dropped and screamed and gave up the ghosts until there remained only one morbidly obese lunkie who persisted in his efforts to reach the men. The end of one of his legs was a shredded stump where his foot should have been. His uneven gait slowed him up even more as he limped along.

Arrows tensed themselves for launch on the men’s bows. In some unspoken agreement, Crazy Talk, Heap-o-Buffaloes, and Throws-Like-Girl all released their arrows at the same time. Three arrows struck the one remaining lunkhead simultaneously, one arrow in each shoulder and one in his thigh. And the monstrous lump of herky-jerky meat continued in their direction, oblivious to the shafts protruding from his flesh. Heap-o-Buffaloes drew back another arrow, bending the bow almost to the point of snapping, and set the missile free. It penetrated the lunkie in the lower right part of his abdomen. The tip of the stone arrowhead peaked out through the man’s back and the flight of the arrow just barely showed itself at the front of the fat man. Crazy Talk’s bow zinged as it released another shot that lodged itself in the man’s left bicep. And the men practiced their aim on the lumbering beast headed in their direction, emptying their quivers and sticking every shot exactly as intended.

The lunkhead still staggered in their direction, looking like a horrific bloody pincushion. And he stopped at the protective piss-barrier, wobbling on his foot and footless stump, groaning. Foamy blood bubbles gurgled from his cracked and sore-covered lips. He stood patiently, as if he were a deliveryman who had rung the doorbell and was waiting for someone to answer. Heap-o-Buffaloes left the other side of the circle and looped around to sneak right behind the persistent lunkie. Heap-o-Buffaloes lowered himself to his hands and knees just behind the brainless butterball. At the same time, Throws-Like-Girl flung himself at the lunkie and pushed on the one spot on the man’s chest that was not pierced with arrows, knocking the lunkie back, tripping him over Heap-o-Buffaloes. And the man fell to his back. Some of the arrows were pushed from his body when he hit the ground. Crazy Talk moved with the speed of a cat, and he was on the man, hammering at his head with a rock tied to the end of a thick stick. The weapon did what all of the arrows failed to, and finally released the man from the grip of the lunkworms.

Three Tooth’s men laughed heartily and heavily at the kill. Two-Dogs-Fucking found the situation especially funny and belted out his staccato laughter. And the men mocked him and the air was filled with the loud sounds of “Ba-ha-ha-ha-ha!” The laughter hurt Alf the Sacred Burro’s ears and he brayed in irritation at the men. Three Tooth did not find the situation humorous. The death of the lunkhead did not give him joy. It saddened him and a tear rolled down his cheek.

Three Tooth’s men thumped their chests and slapped each other’s backs in celebration. And they stacked their victims well away from the camp. While his men cleaned up the mess, Three Tooth again engaged John in conversation. The two men sat on a log and John spoke of his confusion and his desire to understand his situation. Three Tooth nodded, his eye leaked, and he agreed to try to help John get a grasp on his predicament.

A swarm of munkle flies descended on the mound of lunkie cadavers. The giant black flies droned out an undulating buzz as they burrowed into the eyes, noses, and other available orifices, laying their eggs. And the bombination of the flies fluctuated up and down in frequency, intertwining with the chirps and squeaks and tweets of other desert animals and insects. The organic rhythm of the buzz resonated with the gang of men huddled around the fire, the sound mesmerizing them. John sat on one side of the pit, Santiago on his right, both staring through the flames and smoke at Three Tooth and his men, Santiago only agreeing to sit with the group upon learning of the peace pipe.

Crazy Talk smiled a lopsided grin at the men and said, “Rang tang, ding dong, I am the Japanese sandman. I’m in the mood to move my body like a weasel, goddamn it.” He pulled one of Alf the Sacred Burro’s throat-lumps from the pocket of his fringed buckskin pants. His pale white skin (like porcelain) and whitish blond hair glowed in the flickering light of the fire, giving the impression of an extremely amused ghost. “Word is, bezoar like a bribe to the wise, blinding eyes and clearing skies.”

“Word is,” said Santiago, cocking half of his unibrow and flashing his own warped rictus back at Crazy Talk, “you got some shit to smoke. So let’s fire up the peace pipe, you crazy albina Injun, and commune with the great spirit.”