L Akers: Shoot Like a Girl

Grayson handed the frame to Jake, who read it quietly and then looked at back at him.

“Holy shit,” Grayson mumbled.

Jake sat the frame back onto the dresser. “That all you gonna say today?”

Grayson shrugged his shoulders, at a loss for words. So, the kid’s name wasn’t Puck. It was Finn. And he was the way he was from an accident. That explained a lot. But where was his dad? And why did Puck/Finn think he was dead? Maybe the boy couldn’t read? Maybe no one had read him the letter?

Grayson’s eyes watered, and he turned away. Poor kid. That’s a damn shame. All of it. He swiped at his face, cursing himself. What was the matter with him lately? Carrying on like a moody woman.

He turned back and nudged Jake, who was gathering Puck’s crayons, pencils and paper. “Come on. Jenny’s got to be in that last room, or she’s just not home. Let’s check it out before you gather his stuff.”

Bang!!

The sound reverberated through the house from the next room, followed by something even stranger…

“ Heehaw . ”

They hurried to the last door.

Grayson kicked it open and stood gaping at the sight in front of him.

A donkey.

A very upset donkey.

“Holy shit,” Grayson mumbled.

“Again… is that all you’re going to say today?” Jake pushed in beside him and stared at the huge beast. “Well, I’ll be… you think that’s Jenny?”

Grayson tilted his head to the side and leaned over to take a peek. He nodded. “Well, it ain’t a Jack; There ain’t no pecker on it, so that’d be a jenny—or jennet, to be correct.”

The room was covered in the poor critter’s manure and urine. The bottom pane of the window was a gaping hole surrounded by jagged shards of glass. Nothing was left atop the nightstand—it was all knocked to the floor; much of it broken. A lamp, candle, books…

Strangely the bed was unmolested, other than the blankets and pillows that were a mess.

The enormous beast brayed once more, and stepped up onto the bed. Just like a dog, it turned around three times and laid down, seemingly finally at peace by just not being alone. It opened its mouth, giving them a toothy smile and a yawn, and stuck its tongue out.

Jake snorted and held back a laugh—for a second. But unable to hold it back, he doubled over, laughing until tears came.

Grayson stood still, scratching his beard, staring in disbelief at who, or what, Jenny had turned out to be. His sore tooth was aching madly. He massaged it with his tongue as he tried to take in the crazy scene. “On the bright side, the boy can take instructions. I did tell him to make Jenny come into the house to sleep…”

At the clearing for the new latrines, Tucker saw his boys and their friends had painstakingly finished their job of gathering pea-sized and other larger sizes of gravel, one wheelbarrow at a time from a nearby construction site. It was dumped in heaps, ready for use, next to a pile of landscaping fabric.

Tucker shook off his bad mood and cleared his throat. “Okay, guys. Here’s what we’re doing. Believe it or not, it’s not the crap that stinks so bad at our other latrine. It’s the piss mixed with the shit. So, we’re gonna try to separate those out as much as we can. Let’s start with the guys side.”

He waved his arm toward the pile of pipes, doing his best Vanna White impression. “And for the gentlemen, we have these urine tubes .” He held up two of the tubes, each six inches in diameter and ten feet long. “These are only six inches wide. I won’t be able to use it, but you boys should all be fine.”

The guys cracked up.

Tucker continued. “On the bottom four feet of the pipe, I’ve drilled holes into the sides. At the top of the pipe,” he turned the pipe around to show the guys, “I put a screen in it about six inches from the top for urine splash and to keep the flies out. We don’t want creepy crawlies crawling up your pecker late at night, ammirite?”

The guys laughed again.

“Let’s start by digging the holes for these pee pipes, also known as urine tubes, about six feet deep. We’ll fill the hole with four feet of large gravel, covered with landscaping fabric, then two feet of pea gravel… pun intended… until we’re at ground level. The fabric is to stop the pea gravel from filling in the holes between the larger gravel, but will allow water to pass for rain—or poor aim.”

No one laughed at that.

Tucker stepped over to a set of fifty-five-gallon half-barrels, each spaced ten feet apart. There were three. “And for your pooping pleasure, I give you these.” He waved his arm at the barrels, ala Vanna White again.

“Kenny helped me confiscate some diesel fuel for each one of them—don’t ask, don’t tell—and this diesel fuel will cover the solid waste, and keep the smell down and the flies from landing. Also, don’t put nothing else into the barrel. Not your tissue, paper towels, toilet paper, or whatever… Use the bag hanging on a nail next to the barrel. We’ll burn the bags separately when they fill up. Oh, and we’ll burn the diesel fuel and crap, too. If we can get it lit…” he finished in a mumble.

Contrary to belief, it wasn’t easy to light diesel fuel on fire. They’d have to add something to get it lit; he’d figure that out later.

He looked around at the group. “Y’all understand?”

A few men nodded. Some looked confused.

“Okay. Let me make it simple. You walk over, sit down and take a shit. If you’ve got to pee, don’t. Put your finger on it, if you have to. Shit, wipe, and bag your ass-wiper. Then stand up, pull out your pecker, and pee in the pipe . Don’t shit in the pipe, and don’t piss in the barrel. And don’t put anything but shit or piss down in the pipe or the barrel. Bag it. Is that more clear?”

Everyone nodded.

“Good. When your done doing your business, wash your hands. We’re not going to have a water station here—for now—so be sure you go back and wash up before doing anything else. That’s really important for lots of reasons. I don’t need to nag you guys, I think you understand spreading germs right now is deadly, right? You picking up what I’m putting down?”

All agreed.

He went on. “So, we’ve pre-cut some lumber to serve as seats for the barrels. That’s all that needs to be done with those. If the power doesn’t come back on soon, we’ll put a roof and some walls around them and make this a real shit-house. If I can get two volunteers to work on the seats, everyone else can get to digging.”

Tucker waved Kenny to him and turned to go to the other side of the clearing, but stopped suddenly. “Oh wait,” he said. “One more thing. Don’t smoke around here or you might blow your balls off. I’ll be adding something more flammable to those barrels eventually. It’s all fun and games until someone loses a wiener, right?”

That was met with wide eyes and frantic nods of understanding. One of the guys raised his hand.

Tucker laughed at that. “What is it?”

“Couldn’t we be using that diesel fuel for something more important? Like to run a vehicle? Or for lamps?”

Tucker shook his head. “We have more. But there’s nary a diesel-ran vehicle in the entire neighborhood, and I think this is important. Sanitation and hygiene have to be high on the list. Bad sanitation disposal breeds disease. We’ve already voted on it as a group and everyone agreed.”

As though a light bulb went on over the man’s head as he remembered, he nodded and grunted, “Oh, yeah.”