Donald Pollock - Knockemstiff

Porter tipped up a can of beer and killed it. “Man, am I glad you’re here,” he said to Duane. “You babysit the fat bastard for a while. He’s gettin’ to be a real pain in the ass.”

“Aw, he’s all right,” Duane said. “Lardy, you been bad again?”

“No, Duane, it’s him,” Lard protested, pointing a stubby finger at Porter. “He drink too much Blue Ribbon.”

Porter winked at Duane, then tossed his empty can at Lard’s head. “Duane, them two’s been at it like dogs all night,” he said, yanking a cigarette lighter out of his pocket. “It ain’t right. I say we light that cardboard bitch up unless the fat stud wants to start sharing.”

“No! No!” Lard cried. He tried to stand up, but fell back down. Pink sap ran slowly from a small puncture in his stomach, disappeared beneath the dunes of blubber. “Porter, you leave her alone,” he wailed, rocking side to side on the straw bales.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Duane saw Wimpy cock his arm back. “Incoming!” Wimpy yelled. Duane watched Lard jerk the cardboard cover up to his face just as a dart bounced off his chest and stuck in the dirt floor. “Almost got you, you damn freak,” Wimpy said.

“Darn you, Wimpy,” Lard said, smearing the tears running down his cheeks with a dirty palm, “you put my eyes out, my granny gonna be mad.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Duane said. “Shit, you got him bleeding again.”

“Hey, ain’t nobody twistin’ his arm,” Porter said. “He asks for it.”

It was true. Lard would do anything to get someone to pay attention to him. Sometimes late at night, after Armchair Theater signed off and the TV screen went dead, he would slip out of his granny’s house and walk up and down the dark road that ran through Knockemstiff. He’d wake people up by tapping on their windows, then hold out his darts and plead with them to come out and toss a few. Then he’d step away from their house, unfasten his bibs and let them fall to the ground. His white belly shone as big and bright as the fucking moon. Listening to the mosquitoes buzz in his ears, he might stand there for hours, waiting for someone to walk out and try to throw a bull’s-eye.

“Who cares?” Wimpy said. “Shit, his fuckin’ gut’s just one big scab anyway. That damn thing’s hard as a turtle shell.” He picked up a dart and started honing the short dull point against a grindstone lying on a workbench in the corner.

Duane handed Lard an oily rag that was lying on the floor. “Here, wipe yourself off. And fasten up those bibs.”

Porter fired up the bong, passed it to Duane. “Fuck, man, what happened to your neck?”

Duane pushed his glasses up, felt his face begin to glow red with embarrassment. He’d never been a good liar. “She tried to eat me up,” he answered. It was one of the lines he’d been rehearsing for his father.

Wimpy turned and squinted at Duane’s neck. “Boy, I’d say. Look like she tried to chew yer whole damn head off.”

Duane didn’t reply, just wrapped his lips around the mouth of the bong and sucked up smoke through everybody’s spit. The weed tasted vaguely of potato chips. In the light, he could see crumbs swirling in the bubbling water like tiny sea monkeys. He shuddered, then took another hit.

As soon as he had heard that Duane was taking a girl to the Torch Drive-in on Friday night, Porter had asked, “What’s her name?” He and Wimpy were huddled around the workbench in the garage, trying to wire an eight-track tape player to a leaky car battery.

Duane had spent weeks thinking up a name, went over a million of them in his head before finally stumbling across the perfect one. Already, he’d fallen in love with it, got hard every time it rolled off his tongue. “Mapel McAdams,” he said slowly.

“She got any sisters?” Porter asked unexpectedly.

“Uh…no, she’s an only kid,” Duane answered, tipping up his RC Cola and chugging a long drink.

Wimpy looked up from the mess of wires he was wrapping in black electrical tape. “I know her,” he said out of the blue. Duane coughed and fizzy pop shot out his nose.

“What the hell?” Porter yelled, jumping back. He wiped RC off his face with a big hairy forearm. “Jesus, Duane.”

Duane caught his breath. “Went down the wrong pipe,” he sputtered. Then he turned to Wimpy. “How could you know her? She’s a town girl.”

“So?” Wimpy said. “My cousin Jimmy, he used to take her out.” He leaned forward and bit the tape off, then added, “Yeah, he said she stunk so bad he had to roll the winders down.”

“That creepy bastard’s always talkin’ shit,” Duane said angrily. “This girl ain’t no damn Geraldine.” After all, they were talking about Mapel McAdams , not some zombie with dust balls in her hair. Besides, how could anyone know her? Duane wasn’t even sure he’d recognize Mapel himself. Hell, he was still making her up.

“Well,” Wimpy spat, “I bet you a dollar she’s the same one.”

“Aw, you stupid fuckin’…” Duane began, but then he shut up. It suddenly dawned on him that Wimpy’s lie had just made his woman that much more believable. He looked up and stared for a moment at a mud dauber’s nest plastered to one of the rafters. Then he walked away just as the tape deck shorted out in a shower of hot orange sparks.

…..

“DUANE, YOU GONNA GET MARRIED NOW?” LARD ASKED. Duane was helping him pull up his bibs. A black fly was smashed flat below one of his sagging tits.

“No, Lardy, she’s just some girl.”

“More like a goddamn vampire,” Porter said. “I hope you didn’t let her give you a blow job. From the looks of your neck, it’d be like stickin’ your dick in a meat grinder.”

Wimpy popped a beer, then asked, “So, Duane, what did it smell like? And don’t lie either.”

Duane paused to light his last cigarette, went over the prepared answer in his head once again. “Like a fish fry,” he said.

“See, I told you, didn’t I?” Wimpy said.

“Is she purty as Nancy?” Lard asked. He was looking down at the Boots record, tracing his finger over the pop singer’s face.

“Jesus, you fat fuck,” Wimpy said, “he just told us her snatch smelled like fish. What do you think, Duane’s got himself a movie star?”

Porter stepped closer, peered at Duane’s neck again. “So what did you end up doing with her?” he asked.

Duane sucked hard on his cigarette, tried to come off casual. “I soaked it in Boones Farm.”

“Bullshit,” Porter said. “Fucker, you won’t even take a turn with old Geraldine.”

Duane jerked the sticky panties from his pocket and held them up in the smoky air. “Oh, yeah?” he said. “Who you think these belong to?” He waved them in front of Porter’s bloodshot eyes like a matador taunting a bull. They were the final piece of evidence. He could imagine his old man mounting the underwear to the living-room wall like a dead animal.

Porter grabbed his hand, held it tight while he cautiously sniffed the trophy. “You gotta be kiddin’ me,” he said. “You mean this Mapel girl, she actually let you do that?”

“Yeah,” Duane swore, “she was into it. You can look. There’s fuckin’ apple wine all over the old man’s car.”

Porter turned to Wimpy. “Damn, maybe we oughta try that shit on Geraldine,” he said. “Douche it with wine before you start munchin’ on it.”

“Fuck you,” Wimpy shot back.

“Better yet,” Porter said, pointing across the garage, “rinse it with that goddamn gas can.”

…..

AS SOON AS PORTER AND WIMPY PASSED OUT, LARD REACHED up and switched off the trouble lamp. “That light hurts my eyes,” he muttered. Then he sank back down on the straw and stared quietly into the gloom. “Duane,” he finally said, his voice now low and serious, “you shouldn’t talk about your girlfriend that way.”