Edward Lee - Header 2

More ominous glances back and forth.

Dumar stammered. “But we ain’t never… been to any big cities.”

“Well, we’se shore as shit goin’ ta one now!” Helton roared. “And we’re gonna git our proper revenge on Paulie’s Maw! ”

“EEEEEEEEE-ha!”

Veronica pressed her palms to her ears. “Helton, please! You’re gonna let me go first, right? You’re not going to make me ride all the way up to New York City with you? Right?”

“Aw, don’t worry none about that, missy. We’ll make the ride comfortable for ya as possible.”

Veronica began to cry.

“Start the truck, Dumar!” Helton ordered in glee. “We’se a-goin’ to New York City, yessir!”

— | — | —

Chapter 11

(I)

But before they’d even gotten out of town, it occurred to Helton and his kin that they didn’t have a clue as to how to drive to New York City. All Veronica had told them was this: “Take West Main Street to Count Pulaski Drive, then merge onto Interstate 81. It’s about 500 miles, an 8- or 9-hour drive,” and after that, still handcuffed to the table, her despair, shock-induced exhaustion, and sheer dumbfoundment as to her predicament had shrouded her in a deep, troubled sleep. “Shit, Paw,” Dumar said at the wheel. “Where the hail we goin’?” And Micky-Mack: “I ain’t even been out the county ‘cept fer couple times in my life.” Helton looked back to see Veronica asleep and curled into a ball. “Well, after all Veronnerka’s done fer us, it ain’t right we wake her up, so…” He spotted something through the windshield. “Pull in there, son. We ain’t dopes. We’ll just up’n buy ourselfs a map. ”

“Great idea, Paw!”

It was a Hess station they pulled into, one complete with the ever-present convenience store. Micky-Mack was instructed to fill the tank and check the oil, while Helton and Dumar strode into the store. A bell rang, and upon the toll of that bell, a bosomy, remarkably-figured woman in her mid-‘20s looked up from the register and promptly frowned. “Well, hey there, missy,” Helton greeted. “We’se fillin’ up that big piece’a crap lookin’ truck out there, but what we also need is a map— ”

“Are you blind? Map’s up front in rack,” the registress snapped. She had dark, shiny hair, penetrating eyes, and a Russian accent. The stunning body and face, however, took second seat to the glaring frown. A name-tag read KASHA, and she wore a tight t-shirt emblazoned with the face of Vladimir Putin, not that Helton would know who the fuck that was. Nipples like cucumber slices printed against the shirt as the immigrant clearly wore no bra.

“Nice nips,” Dumar whispered.

“Yeah, son, that may be, but I can tell at a glance she’s about as friendly as a mad dog.” Helton examined the Rand McNally map rack while Dumar deputed himself to procure several sodas.

After some minutes of squinting, it was discerned that no maps of New York City existed on the rack.

“Hon?” Helton inquired. “These here look like just county maps’n such. What we need is a map that’ll show us how ta git ta New York City. ”

Kasha’s frown smoldered. “New York City! How stupid can you be?” the richly accented voice cracked. “Why would gas station in little shit Virginia town have New York City map?”

Helton stood, taken aback. “Well, I don’t rightly know but I thunk ya might have some, say, in the back.”

“You thunk wrong! Now why not you just pay for gas and leave? I don’t like you redneck types in store!”

Helton stilled himself. “Ain’t no call ta be nasty, missy. We’se just tryin’ ta get directions.”

The woman’s face turned pink with aggravation or even hatred. “This shit place and shit country! I should have stayed on potato farm near Magnitagorsk—”

“Well, then just you go back ta Mag-neeter-gorsh, missy, ’cos if’n ya don’t like America, then ya can pack yer blammed ‘taters up yer butt!” Helton could not refrain from objecting.

A hostile laugh and a jiggle of her outstanding breasts, and Kasha asserted, “You big dirty rednecks—oh yes!” and she pronounced “big dirty rednecks” as beeg darty redneeks. “This country full of nothing but shit people! That all I see all day! If it not you rednecks, it the welfare people or the farking old people or the drug add-eeks or the—” and she used the plural form of the N-Word.

Helton steeled himself against the desire to open up a can of whup-ass, but instantaneously, a better idea surfaced. “Well, gal, you certainly got’cher dander up ’bout somethin’ but I’se guess we all have our days like that. How ’bout we just pay up’n git?” He extracted a 1966 $100-bill just as Dumar approached and set several sodas down.

“Oh! Oh!” Kasha raged next. “Here come another redneck now! My God, I hate rednecks. You big fat redneck, and you-you little skinny scrawny redneck!”

“Well, hold on there, gal,” Dumar responded. “We ain’t said nothin’ ‘gainst you.”

“Oh, fark you! Fark both of you! In my country, Mother Russia, shit people like you get put in forced-labor camp! All you useless, shit people!” and it needs to be mentioned belatedly that she pronounced the word shit as “sheet.” She leaned forward—awesome mammarian-carriage swaying in the tight shirt—and exaggeratedly sniffed the air. “Oh! Oh! And you smell! ” She mimicked coughing. “You smell like shit! ”

Dumar began, “Paw? Are we gonna—” but Helton smiled and staid his son’s remark, then whispered very lightly, “Pull the truck ’round back.”

A knowing glint came into Dumar’s eyes, then he departed the store.

“Here ya go, hon,” Helton went along and gave her the hundred. “And since yer havin’ such a bad day, wine-cha keep the change?”

She grimaced at the bill. “Oh, fark! Even your dirty redneck money smell like shit!”

“But first ring me up fer one’a these here Cherry Ice Slush drinks,” Helton quickly added and lumbered to the machine at the rear of the store. He dawdled there, holding an empty cup, then cast a cruxed glance back. “Missy? Sorry, but—shee-it—I cain’t make out how ta work this fancy machine. Seein’ how’se I just left you some sizeable change, how’s ’bout you showin’ me?”

“Oh! Oh!” Her hands visibly shook. “How stupid can fat dirty redneck be to not know how even to pour ice-slush drink!” Her face was now past pink as she shot from around the counter and stalked to the machine.

As she did so—it needs to be mentioned—her breasts bobbed spectacularly up and down.

She snapped the cup out of Helton’s hand. “You just put farking cup under spigot and—”

No more words escaped the hostile woman’s mouth after Helton clacked a big redneck knuckle against her temple. She fell limp as a stuffed doll (mind you, a stuffed doll with great breasts) and Helton dragged her out the back of the store.

(II)

“Fuck,” Deputy Chief Malone said, and then, again, with emphasis. “And I’se mean fuck. ”

The stoop-shouldered and large-adam’s-appled Sergeant Boover nodded. The ambulance had just pulled away, and among its contents was the dead body of resident Clifford Giller, an old VFW-type cantankerous prick nonetheless well-known in the community. When Mr. Giller had noticed his adorable, week’s-old puppy missing from his yard, he’d immediately spied the crowd forming at one of the more decrepit slum-houses down the street. He’d investigated, of course, only to discover, to his incontemplatable horror, the severed head of his beloved pet mounted barbarously on a stick in the front yard.