Edward Lee - The Minotauress

A wood-fire crackled faintly in the middle of the yard, over which hung a big can of crawdads attached to a hook.

"Smells great, don't it?" Balls said. He took the can down with an oven mitt on which had been embroidered GOOD MORNING SUNSHINE! He drained the can, then emptied it into a bucket to cool. Steam poured off the pile of bright-red crustaceans.

Indeed, they did smell good, but Dicky was curious now. He looked about the yard. "So, Balls... Where's this immer-grint chick?"

"Right over there." He pointed to the pile of dirt.

Dicky walked over, half-reluctant. Ooo, he thought when he looked on the other side of the dirt pile and saw a shallow grave. At the bottom lay a naked Hispanic woman with no ears. Both knees looked like plops of raw burger, and her arms lay shuddering at her sides, barely mobile. When she saw Dicky, she began to quake, her eyes widening as if to fire out of their sockets.

A terrified voice twisted out as if by pressure. "Ayúdeme! Por favor!" Her shrieks hitched up and up. "Aquel hombre es loco! En nombre de Dios, ayúdeme!"

"Shee-it," Balls sputtered down at her. "This is America, honey. Ya gots to speak American if'n ya wanna be understood."

"Pleese! That man—heese crazy! "

"There ya go bad-mouthin' my friend again," Dicky chided her.

Horror and pain bloated her face. "Heese loco! Hee-elp—él es un malo hombre!"

Dicky heard footsteps, then saw Balls appear with a shovel full of red-hot coals from the camp fire. "Let's see if'n this puts a hair up yer ass," and then—

FLUMP!

—Balls dumped the coals right on her feet.

The woman lurched six inches off the bottom of the grave, emitting a scream now that sounded like her throat tearing.

"Noisy little dickens, ain't she?" Balls chuckled. He returned with another shovelful and dumped it on her belly.

The next vocal protests sounded more animal than human. In the grave, she jerked and jigged and flipped and flopped.

"A reg-lar Mexican jumpin' bean!" Balls bellowed.

The last shovelful went on her face, and the woman's screams descended to a low, fleshy grind.

Balls looked back down and seemed to disapprove of something. "Dang. Not quite as spek-tacka-ler as I'd'a thunk," and then he started dropping in pieces of cordwood—

THUNK, THUNK..THUNK... THUNK!

—until the hole was mostly full. It could be said that the laugh which exploded next from his throat had a devilish treatment to it, as he squirted half a can of lighter fluid into the grave and watched the flames gust.

"Dang," Dicky commented, stepping back from the heat.

"That should be a lesson to ya, la kookoo-ratchah!" Balls yelled down into the pit. "Don't talk shitty to Americans in America! "

All that came from the grave now were a few fading mewls.

Balls slapped Dicky on the back. "Come on, partner! Let's eat us some crawdaddies on ours way ta Clyde Nale's."

"Sounds fine ta me, Balls," but as they walked away, Dicky took a final uneasy glance back at the crackling grave and the corroding mewls that seemed to issue off its smoke. Yessir. That dude really IS crazy...

Balls grabbed Dicky's arm, as if alarmed. "Dicky!"

"What?" Dicky snapped back, alarmed himself. "What is it, Balls? You hear someone comin'?" The sudden surprise left Dicky one tremble short of emptying his bowels in his pants.

"Naw, but is that... " Balls sniffed the air, intent on something critical. "Is that... an-cher-ladas I smell cookin'?" and then he roared more laughter as he and Dicky went back in the house.

««—»»

Balls and Dicky loaded their hundred-gallon run into the ‘Mino's back deck, then snapped the tarp down over the entire load. Each gallon was sold to the middlemen aka "distributors" in Kentucky for fifteen dollars, after which they were marked up and sold to the consumer. Dicky and Balls got a buck for each jug they delivered, and it was also their duty to bring back the purchasing price, minus their cut, and give it to the "manufacturer," who in this case was a tired, skinny, whiskery guy in his fifties named Clyde Nale, the Number Two moonshine producer in the county. But it was solid bread that social rejects like Dicky and Balls were earning, so one had to at least give them the benefit of the doubt for having a work ethic. No welfare for these industrious young men...

"We'se loaded up'n ready ta roll out'a here, Clyde," Dicky called over to the man who checked a thermometer in a cork float by the main vat. Various other "staff members" came in and out of the hidden clearing, engaged in their tasks: jugging, shucking, stoking the big fire beneath the vats. Clyde Nale lumbered over to them, straining as if he had bad knees. He wore a floppy canvas hat and a stained jumpsuit like a mechanic. Shee-it, Balls thought, about to get in the car. One cracker after another in these parts. He was ready for something new, and after tonight— After we'se empty out old man Crafter's house full'a val-yer-bulls— he just might get it.

"Don't leave just yet, boys," Clyde spake, wiping his hands off on his chest. "Got a Hock Party goin' on up the house, five-dollar ante. You fellas are in, ain't'cha?"

Dicky's mouth took a configuration as if he'd just tasted something wholly unpleasant. "Naw, Clyde, thanks, but we'se wanna git this run done."

But Balls had paused at the car door. "A what party?"

"Hock Party, son. It's a roarin' good time, it is," Nale tried to entice. "Five bucks a head? Come on, boys. Ya got touch'a the kike or what?"

"I'd like ta see me this Hock Party," Balls spoke up, always curious and willing to broaden his life's fund of knowledge.

"Balls," Dicky complained. "Let's just git—"

"Winner gets half the pot," Nale prodded, "and the pot's up ta damn near a hunnert."

Balls liked a good gamble. He whipped out two five-spots and pushed it to Nale. "Come on, Dicky. Like it or not, we'se in. Let's check it out."

They followed Nale up the short road to his weathered, gray farmhouse, and before they were even there, Balls could hear something of a commotion around the back. Balls asked Dicky aside, "It's—what?—a spittin' contest, right? Which ever fella spits the farthest wins?"

Dicky smirked. "No, Balls. It's not... that... "

Clyde Nale just laughed.

But Balls saw what it was a moment later as he came around the house. Tarnations... This is some show!

A barefoot girl with lank-brown hair so greasy it looked like black udon noodles sat tensed in a fold-down lawn chair. Probably thirty but beat. She was skinny yet with what looked like ample breasts pressing the front flap of the standard farmer's overalls she wore. Twenty feet in front of her was a line drawn in the dirt, and behind the line stood roughly twenty hillbillies of all ages and sizes. They were taking turns...

"Come on, Jedder!" someone yelled.

"Give it'cher best spit!"

"Open wiiiiiiiide, Ida, honey!"

The hayseed with the unlikely name of Jedder stepped to the line, took a few moments to loudly clear his throat, then hauled back and spit in the air.

The girl sat, head craned back and wincing, eyes squeezed shut. She stretched her mouth wide open.

"Aw, fuck!" Jedder's expectoration hit the girl's upper arm. Balls, meanwhile, took note that the girl's overalls were daubed by dark spots which, on closer examination, turned out to be wads of phlegm.

Balls turned to Clyde Nale. "You mean—"

"First fella to get a loogie right in her mouth gets a blowjob from Ida and wins half the pot."

Groaty, Balls thought. But I LIKE it. "And the chick gits the other half."

Nale smirked as if slighted. "Naw, son. The house gits the other half. Ida gits paid in free moonshine. A hardcore alkey's what she is."