Joe Lansdale - Sunset and Sawdust

Hillbilly hit the floor on his back, so hard the lamp on the table jumped. He twisted around and came up, tried to come back on the old man, but the old man rolled to his feet and was facing him. Then Hillbilly felt the delayed pain in his balls, like someone had put them in a vise and tightened the crank. He bent forward, sick.

The old man came at him then, and it was fast. Real fast. As fast as Hillbilly thought he was. Faster. And the old man brought with him friends from hell. A left and a right. Followed it with a left hook that shook the inside of Hillbilly’s mouth and something came loose in there, then the old man had him by the waist, was lifting him up, rushing him backwards to the window, slamming him through it.

The whore bellowed throughout the whole thing, but she screamed loudest when Hillbilly went through the window, glass flying, blood drops spraying.

“You killed him,” the blonde yelled.

“Well, I was trying,” Lee said.

Clyde heard the racket, thought, I better go up, and was about to, when out the busted window came Hillbilly, hair, dick and balls flapping in the wind. It was a damn good drop, and Hillbilly hit hard. Still, the sonofabitch was trying to get up.

Clyde thought: Well, I guess that’s the goddamn signal.

Clyde went over there, and Hillbilly, spotted with glass cuts, his mouth dripping blood, on his hands and knees, looked up.

“You,” Hillbilly said.

“Howdy,” Clyde said, and swung the slap jack as hard as he could. The first blow caught Hillbilly on the side of the face, and he dropped, tried to rise again. The second blow caught him on the back of the head, and Clyde laughed as he delivered it. This time Hillbilly went down, stayed there.

Clyde turned, saw Lee coming down the stairs. He looked fine, his hair a little ruffled, his suit coat twisted. He was carrying a guitar. There was a woman at the top of the stairs wearing a sheet, cussing and yelling. Some lights in the downstairs apartment went on.

Lee walked over to where Hillbilly lay face down, studied him a moment, put the base of the guitar on the ground, rested one hand on the neck, leaned on it like it was a crutch. With his other hand he unfastened his pants, got out his Johnson, let piss fly. He wetted up Hillbilly’s head and the side of his face real good.

He said, “Here’s a message from the big dog.”

Hillbilly stirred, raised his head slightly.

“Sonofabitch,” Hillbilly said.

“Here’s a good-night tune,” Lee said, took the guitar by the neck and swung it. It was a beautiful swing. It whistled in the night, and when it struck Hillbilly, it made a sound like a rifle shot, then there was a ping and a sad throb of strings.

Hillbilly was down again, not out, just lying there, fragments of guitar all around, strings wobbling in the air like insect antennae. He got to his knees, cocked his ass in the air, as if ready to take it from the rear, froze there, not able to move, blacked out.

Lee put a foot on him and pushed and Hillbilly rolled over on his side and didn’t move. Lee fastened his pants, took Clyde by the elbow, said, “Let’s go. I need a drink. I don’t drink nothing alcohol, but a big bracer of cold milk will do me.”

Goose and Karen were out behind the oak, sitting on the ground with a pan of water and some knives, a kerosene lamp on the ground. Goose was skinning and gutting the four squirrels he had shot. Karen put them in the pan of water and used her hands to rub any loose hair off of them.

“Four squirrel, four shots,” Goose said.

“You were using a shotgun.”

“They weren’t sitting on the end of it.”

“Did you know them and rats is kin?” Karen said.

“Naw, they ain’t.”

“They are. They’re like in the same family or something.”

“They don’t look like rats-well, maybe they do a bit. Suppose they could be kinfolks. I got kinfolks might be rats, the way they look, so I guess any family can have rats in it.”

“Maybe we ought not think on that too much.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me. I ain’t much on thinking I’m eating a rat’s cousin.”

“All four of them are nice and fat,” Karen said.

“I love squirrel. Ain’t had one in ages.”

“Well, you shot them, so you get the first pick of the meat.”

“How do you like them fixed?”

“Fried. Squirrel and dumplings. I like them all kind of ways.”

“Me too… you sure are pretty.”

Karen smiled at him.

“You sure are blunt.”

“Just think you ought to tell a girl something like that.”

“You’re pretty young, aren’t you, Goose?”

“You’re young too.”

“I ain’t as young as you.”

“Well, I ain’t so young I don’t know a pretty girl when I see one. A girl like you, you was my girl, I’d take care of you. Anything you needed or wanted, I’d get it.”

“How about a million dollars?”

“It might take some time, but I’d get it. I’d rob somebody I had to.”

“That’s not what a girl wants to hear. Least it ain’t what I want to hear.”

“What do you want to hear? I’ll say it.”

“That ain’t the way either, Goose. Like that, it don’t have no meaning.”

“I can’t say nothing right, can I?”

“Not much.”

“I still think you’re pretty.”

“Thanks.”

“That was my baby in you, I wouldn’t run off. I’d make sure it had a home.”

Karen teared up. Goose said, “I didn’t mean to mention that. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“That’s how it is, ain’t it? Got myself knocked up, didn’t I? Listened to Hillbilly. Told me I was pretty, just like you did. Told me lots of things. I ought to known he was just talking. Just wanted under my dress. I’m just a chippie.”

“Naw, you ain’t. You just got tricked, that’s all. Anyone can get tricked.”

Ben came up, sat down, tried to look polite. Goose gave him the squirrel innards to eat.

“You finished, Goose?”

“Got them all done.”

“Why don’t we take them to the tent and I’ll fry them. You can help me.”

“I’m for that.”

When Lee and Clyde drove up, got out of the pickup, Sunset came out of the tent wiping her face with a napkin, wiping away the grease left from the squirrel she had been eating. She watched as Lee and Clyde came toward the tent. They looked happy.

“You two fellas look like you just ate the canary,” she said.

“Naw,” Clyde said, “but we busted his ass. He tried to fly like a canary, but the ground got in the way.”

“Yeah,” Lee said. “He was lucky the ground stopped his fall.”

Clyde let out a hoot.

Sunset studied them for a long moment, thought maybe they were drunk after all.

Lee said, “I don’t know how you’ll feel about it, Sunset. Maybe it wasn’t the thing to do. Childish, perhaps, but we went to see Hillbilly.”

“Had a come-to-Jesus meeting with him,” Clyde said. “Well, Lee here, he was the preacher, I was just in the amen corner.”

“You both jumped on him?”

“Not exactly,” Clyde said. “Not that I’d have cared if we had, and had some help. I wouldn’t have felt bad the army helped us.”

“Tell me.”

“We went over where Hillbilly told me he was,” Clyde said, “and he was with some whore, and your daddy went up there and beat Hillbilly’s ass like he was nailed to the floor, threw him out a window. I hit him with the slap jack then. Twice.”

Sunset brought her hand to her mouth. “Did it… hurt him?”

“Hell, yeah,” Clyde said. “He didn’t bounce worth a damn. You hit a guy with a slap jack, it’s gonna hurt. But that slap jack, it wasn’t nothing to what he got upstairs, way he came out that window, butt naked.”