Joe Lansdale - The Best of Joe R. Lansdale

Then the screen door slammed and Wilson and Jake edged around to the corner of the house for a peek. It was Buddy coming out, and his mother’s voice came after him, “Don’t you come back to this house with a disease, you hear?”

“Ah, Mama,” Buddy said.

Buddy was dressed in a long-sleeved paisley shirt with the sleeves rolled up so tight over his biceps they bulged as if actually full of muscle. He had on a pair of striped bell-bottoms and tennis shoes. His hair was combed high and hard and it lifted up on one side; it looked as if an oily squirrel were clinging precariously to the side of his head.

When Buddy saw Wilson and Jake peeking around the corner of the house, his chest got full and he walked off the porch with a cool step. His mother yelled from inside the house, “And don’t walk like you got a corncob up you.”

That cramped Buddy’s style a little, but he sneered and went around the corner of the house trying to look like a man who knew things.

“Guess you boys are ready to stretch a little meat,” Buddy said. He paused to locate an almost flat half-pack of Camels in his back pocket. He pulled a cigarette out and got a match from his shirt pocket and grinned and held his hand by his cheek and popped the match with his thumb. It sparked and he lit the cigarette and puffed. “Those things with filters, they’re for sissies.”

“Give us one of those,” Wilson said.

“Yeah, well, all right, but this is it,” Buddy said. “Only pack I got till I collect some money owed me.”

Wilson and Jake stuck smokes in their faces and Buddy snapped another match and lit them up. Wilson and Jake coughed some smoke clouds.

“Sshhh,” Buddy said. “The old lady’ll hear you.”

They went around to the back window where Buddy had dropped the shoes and Buddy picked them up and took off the ones he had on and slipped on the others. They were smooth and dark and made of alligator hide. Their toes were pointed. Buddy wet his thumb and removed a speck of dirt from one of them. He put his tennis shoes under the house, brought a flat little bottle of clear liquid out from there.

“Hooch,” Buddy said, and winked “Bought it off Old Man Hoyt.”

“Hoyt?” Wilson said. “He sells hooch?”

“Makes it himself,” Buddy said. “Get you a quart for five dollars. Got five dollars and he’ll sell to bottle babies.”

Buddy saw Wilson eyeing his shoes appreciatively.

“Mama don’t like me wearing these,” he said. “I have to sneak them out.”

“They’re cool,” Jake said. “I wish I had me a pair like ‘em.”

“You got to know where to shop,” Buddy said.

As they walked, the night became rich and cool and the moon went up and it was bright with a fuzzy ring around it. Crickets chirped. The streets they came to were little more than clay, but there were more houses than in Buddy’s neighborhood, and they were in better shape.

Some of the yards were mowed. The lights were on in the houses along the street, and the three of them could hear televisions talking from inside houses as they walked.

They finished off the street and turned onto another that was bordered by deep woods. They crossed a narrow wooden bridge that went over Mud Creek. They stopped and leaned on the bridge railing and watched the dark water in the moonlight. Wilson remembered when he was ten and out shooting birds with a BB gun, he had seen a dead squirrel in the water, floating out from under the bridge, face down, as if it were snorkeling. He had watched it sail on down the creek and out of sight. He had popped at it and all around it with his BB gun for as long as the gun had the distance. The memory made him nostalgic for his youth and he tried to remember what he had done with his old Daisy air rifle. Then it came to him that his dad had probably pawned it. He did that sort of thing now and then, when he fell off the wagon. Suddenly a lot of missing items over the years began to come together. He’d have to get him some kind of trunk with a lock on it and nail it to the floor or something. It wasn’t nailed down, it and everything in it might end up at the pawn shop for strangers to paw over.

They walked on and finally came to a long street with houses at the end of it and the lights there seemed less bright and the windows the lights came out of much smaller.

“That last house before the street crosses,” Buddy said, “that’s the one we want.”

Wilson and Jake looked where Buddy was pointing. The house was dark except for a smudgy porch light and a sick yellow glow that shone from behind a thick curtain. Someone was sitting on the front porch doing something with their hands. They couldn’t tell anything about the person or about what the person was doing. From that distance the figure could have been whittling or masturbating.

“Ain’t that niggertown on the other side of the street?” Jake said. “This gal we’re after, she a nigger? I don’t know I’m ready to fuck a nigger. I heard my old man say to a friend of his that Mammy Clewson will give a hand job for a dollar and a half. I might go that from a nigger, but I don’t know about putting it in one.”

“House we want is on this side of the street, before niggertown,” Buddy said. “That’s a full four-foot difference. She ain’t a nigger. She’s white trash.”

“Well…all right,” Jake said. “That’s different.”

“Everybody take a drink,” Buddy said, and he unscrewed the lid on the fruit jar and took a jolt. “Wheee. Straight from the horse.”

Buddy passed the jar to Wilson and Wilson drank and nearly threw it up. “Goddamn,” he said. “Goddamn. He must run that stuff through a radiator hose or something.”

Jake took a turn, shivered as if in the early throes of an epileptic fit. He gave the jar back to Buddy. Buddy screwed the lid on and they walked on down the street, stopped opposite the house they wanted and looked at the man on the front porch, for they could clearly see now it was a man. He was old and toothless and he was shelling peas from a big paper sack into a little white wash pan.

“That’s the pimp,” Buddy whispered. He opened up the jar and took a sip and closed it and gave it to Wilson to hold. “Give me your money.”

They gave him their five dollars.

“I’ll go across and make the arrangements,” Buddy said. “When I signal, come on over. The pimp might prefer we go in the house one at a time. Maybe you can sit on the porch. I don’t know yet.”

The three smiled at each other. The passion was building.

Buddy straightened his shoulders, pulled his pants up, and went across the street. He called a howdy to the man on the porch.

“Who the hell are you?” the old man said. It sounded as if his tongue got in the way of his words.

Buddy went boldly up to the house and stood at the porch steps. Wilson and Jake could hear him from where they stood, shuffling their feet and sipping from the jar. He said, “We come to buy a little pussy. I hear you’re the man to supply it.”

“What’s that?” the old man said, and he stood up. When he did, it was obvious he had a problem with his balls. The right side of his pants looked to have a baby’s head in it.

“I was him,” Jake whispered to Wilson, “I’d save up my share of that pussy money and get me a truss.”

“What is that now?” the old man was going on. “What is that you’re saying, you little shit?”

“Well now,” Buddy said, cocking a foot on the bottom step of the porch like someone who meant business, “I’m not asking for free. I’ve got fifteen dollars here. It’s five a piece, ain’t it? We’re not asking for anything fancy. We just want to lay a little pipe.”

A pale light went on inside the house and a plump, blond girl appeared at the screen door. She didn’t open it. She stood there looking out.