Joe Lansdale: Captains Outrageous

Since I had moved out of his place, we only saw each other at the job site these days. Weekends I enjoyed punching the heavy bag, skipping rope, and feeling sorry for myself. It had one side benefit. I had lost weight. I hadn’t been so trim since I had a stomach virus and a full week of vomiting and diarrhea. Only now I felt better and wasn’t gaining it back and I could live life without having to always be near a commode.

Leonard had a boyfriend he was seeing, and that kept him busy. I had met the guy and he seemed all right. He was a lead man at the aluminum chair factory. He wasn’t quite as macho as Leonard, but he wasn’t a skipper, as Leonard called the more effeminate gays. He was black as tar, flat-nosed and thick-lipped, balding, solid built and a little younger than Leonard. Or as Leonard liked to joke, he’s big and way black, likes slow walks in the park, and he’s got a eight-inch dick.

Leonard, as always, liked to cut to the chase.

This guy, John, he liked to just hang out mostly, and that’s what Leonard liked. That and the sex. They went down to the gym, lifted weights three times a week, went to movies and read books in bed. Probably talked about chickens and aluminum lawn furniture now and then. When it came to John, Leonard was pretty free with his vanilla cookies. I guess being a best friend and damn near brother you don’t get vanilla cookies so easy. With Leonard, you got to be like a date or something, a lead man at the aluminum chair factory, eight inches of dick and a willing disposition.

John was probably the best thing that had happened to brother Leonard, but it sure put a cramp in my life. No woman. No friend. Just a heavy bag to punch and lots of cheap food eaten with spoons out of cans.

I didn’t have a TV either and I had read all my books and didn’t have money for more. I was putting what money I had into paying for my new domicile and keeping up my half-ass pickup. I had traded in a banged-up Chevy Nova with hardened gum stuck beneath the dashboard and a rotting pack of rubbers in the glove box for it. Those rubbers and the gum had come with the car, and I had been more than glad to pass them on. The pickup was only better than the Nova in the pollution department. The Chevy Nova had damn near been a mosquito fogger.

All I had of my old life was an ancient stereo and a few playable records I’d rescued from the mess of my home after a tornado. I had one CD that had been given to me, but no CD player.

As Leonard drove me around to my car, we were heavy into a philosophical conversation. He was telling me about his love life. I said, “You like John ’cause he’s got eight inches?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s kind of shallow, ain’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re jerkin’ me again, aren’t you?”

“I’m tellin’ you it’s the same as when you buy a burrito. Big is better than small.”

“Size doesn’t mean a thing.”

“You say. What would you know? You ain’t a dick man.”

“No, but women say it doesn’t matter.”

“Women are liars. Hey, you like titties?”

“What?”

“Titties?”

“Yeah. And I see where this is going. I like any size tittie. Long as it’s a friendly tittie.”

“But you like big titties?”

“Yeah, but you’re not roping me into some bullshit here. I don’t think a woman’s got to have big hooters to be worth something.”

“Yeah, but if she’s worth something and has big hooters, you like that, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but that doesn’t prove anything.”

“It proves you like big titties.”

“It doesn’t prove that big titties are important.”

“I say this. I say you could maybe, at least for thirty minutes, like a woman you didn’t really like long as she had big titties and was willin’ to shuck drawers. Am I right?”

“Leonard…”

“Am I right?”

“I don’t think I’m that shallow.”

“Let’s say you’re in the mood, and she’s in the mood, and she hasn’t got visible scars or oozing sores, and she looks pretty good and she’s got them big titties. We’re not talkin’ marriage here, or takin’ advantage. We’re talkin’ she’s willin’ and she’s not too damn smart-”

“Whoa!”

“Just listen. Say, she’s got like an IQ of, oh, I don’t know. We won’t put her in like some kind of home for folks can’t figure left from right, but let’s say we’re talkin’ someone’s not gonna challenge Einstein in the smart department.”

“That’s most of us.”

“All right. You get that one. Say, she’s not any smarter than, say, a postal worker. You know, ones at the counter with their mouth open, always put up a sign says NEXT WINDOW when you walk up to their slot.”

“I can see that.”

“Say, she’s, you know, that kind of dumb. And she’s willin’. Let’s even say she ain’t the best-lookin’ thing. I don’t mean she’s got her nose on the back of her head. She doesn’t scare people. But she’s got this shape, and them big ol’ titties. She wants you to throw her the sausage. Now, you’re tellin’ me, even if she ain’t so pretty, and not so smart, she wanted you, you wouldn’t fuck her?”

“All right, I might.”

“Might, hell. You’d be on that stuff like a duck on a June bug.”

“But I might do it if she didn’t have big breasts. I mean, she’s pleasant-looking enough.”

“Then you’re sayin’ you’d bang anything?”

“I’m not sayin’ that.”

“All right, you’re not sayin’ that, then you’re sayin’ you like big titties.”

“I think this conversation is rigged.”

Leonard pulled up next to my car.

“Well,” he continued, “I like a big dick. Think about it. A big tit really doesn’t do you any good. You get to suck on it, or whatever you heteros do. Roll it around in your palms or rub your head with it. Whatever. Frankly, the thought of it kind of disgusts me. You’re not accomplishing anything there. Just buy a beach ball.”

“It’s not like that, Leonard.”

“Now, a dick, there’s somethin’s got a purpose.”

“I’ll be going now, Leonard.”

I opened the door, got out of the pickup. Leonard punched in his Johnny Cash cassette, waved at me, and drove off to the sounds of “Delia.”

Just as I unlocked my car door, tossed my cap on the seat, and was about to climb inside, I heard a weak voice in the nearby patch of woods beyond the fence.

“Help me.”

The voice had come from the trees beyond the great chain-link fence that surrounded the parking lot. Nothing else was said, but I could hear a whimper, as if a puppy were dying under an automobile tire.

There wasn’t much of a moon, but besides the whimper I could hear and see movement in the trees. I just couldn’t make out exactly what it was. I opened my truck door and jerked on the headlights, and what I saw horrified me.

Between two trees a young man was looking at me, startled, like a deer caught in headlights. His hair was mussed and full of pine straw and leaves, his face was smeared with something. He had hold of a woman’s wrist. She was on the ground, nude, her head turned slightly toward me, her dark hair spread out like a stain on the leaf mold. After a moment of glaring at me, the guy turned his attention to her and began stomping her, like he was trying to smash an insect. It was a horrible sound, way his booted foot came down on her soft face.

There wasn’t any way to get through the fence, and it was too far to go around. I thought about pulling my gun, but I’d done the gun thing already and was wearing scars from that, filling my head nightly with dark bad dreams. I was determined not to do it again. I leaped at the fence, climbed over, dropped to the other side.