Freezer Burn (5 page)

When they were a few feet from the trailers, the dog-man and a large fiftyish man with thick snow white hair and eyebrows housing a couple of renegade black hairs appeared.

The man wore a nice white suit, a white and yellow checkered vest, a pearl white shirt, and a bow tie that was checked to match the vest. He had on shiny white shoes and thin white socks which were visible because the pants were a smidgen too short. Little white hairs poked through the thin socks. He looked at Bill in a quizzical manner, turning his head this way and that.

The dog-man was still bouncing, and now that he was close up, Bill could see that he was wearing gray
coveralls. He had a dark elongated face that looked all the world like a dog snout, and beneath the snout there was a well-tended pencil-thin mustache. His ears had hair growing out of them, and his back legs ended in pithy nubs encased in leather bags drawn tight around his ankles. His hands were flat against the ground, and around the palm area he had wrapped some sort of padding.

The dog-man sat back on his haunches and kept repeating something over and over that Bill couldn’t quite make out because the dog-man spoke as if he might have a biscuit lodged in his throat.

Weak from hunger, Bill felt himself collapsing between the arms of the bulb heads, and pretty soon he lay on his back and the sky whirled blue and gray with orange at the fringes. The bulb heads bent over him.

He heard someone say, “Give him air,” and the bulb heads moved away. The face of the snow-headed man moved into his line of sight, and the man bent over him, and he felt the man’s hands at his chest, unbuttoning his shirt. He began to breathe better. He rolled his head to the side and smelled the drying grass, and from that angle he could see the last of the sunlight hanging between the trees, as if a giant with an inflamed hemorrhoid was mooning him.

The dog-man was repeating himself over and over, and finally Bill realized what it was he was saying.

“One of us. One of us. One of us.”

Bill had a fuse in his dick and it was being lit by the deputy. As the fuse burned down, taking his dick with it, nearing his balls, he knew there was going to be an explosion, but there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it.

He just lay on his back on a little spit of land out in the middle of the swamp swarming with water moccasins, and couldn’t move. The deputy, whose jaw was hanging by a stringy strand of flesh, sat on a cypress stump and looked at Bill and moved what was left of his mouth. He couldn’t make a sound, but Bill knew he was saying, over and over, “Cocksucker. Cocksucker. Cocksucker.”

Bill tried to lift his hands to put out the fuse, but nothing happened. He was confused by this. He had lifted his hands often enough, and had certainly pulled his johnson under some pretty difficult circumstances (such as trying to concentrate while the smell of his dead mother floated into his bedroom from next door and stuck up in his nostrils thick as dirty cotton wads), but now, he couldn’t do a thing with his thing. The fuse was almost to his balls, and when it went, well, it was
going to blow him all to hell and back, and it wasn’t going to do his nuts any good either.

He thought maybe he ought to let it burn down and go. Here he was, all worn out on an isle in a swamp surrounded by water moccasins, a dead deputy dripping his jaw on a stump nearby, and his dick burning away as he lay helpless on his back, so maybe he ought to just lie here and close his eyes and let it all go, blow him out of this life and into nothingness. What was the point of going on?

He lay there committed to doom, waiting to blow, then decided he couldn’t do that. Couldn’t just lie back and explode into nothingness. He felt stronger suddenly, reached for his dick, found it under a sheet, then heard, “One of us,” and opened his eyes.

“No, Conrad,” said the white-haired man. “I don’t think so. I think he’s some kind of accident.”

Bill considered this but couldn’t figure what the man meant by that. He was lying on a bed, naked under a sheet, holding himself, and the white-haired man was reaching over to lift his head with one hand and place a cup of water to his lips with the other.

Bill looked up into the white-haired man’s face. The face was somewhat fleshy and pink and the eyes were so blue they looked almost purple. The lips were pale, and there was a hint of white stubble on his upper lip and chin. There was a bright light behind the man’s head, and it shined through his pale hair and around his head and looked like a halo.

Bill drank.

The dog-man, Conrad, was nearby, almost even with the edge of the bed, snuffling near the old man’s elbow. Conrad lifted his head and poked it close to Bill’s face.
Bill rolled his head toward Conrad’s strange snout and pulsating nostrils. He could see the neatly trimmed mustache, under the dog-man’s nose like a trained caterpillar. He was so tired he didn’t really feel surprised, disgusted, or amused. He didn’t feel much of anything.

The dog-man changed his snuffling from the old man’s elbow to Bill’s face. “One of us,” the dog-man said defiantly.

“Have it your way,” said the white-haired man, lowering the cup, then lowering Bill’s head onto the pillow. “How are you, son?”

Bill couldn’t speak. His tongue seemed too full in his mouth. He nodded.

“Can you sign?” said the white-haired man. “I can read sign.”

Bill shook his head.

Another face appeared. A young woman with short blond hair and a face sugary as a confection. She had a cute freckled nose, lips so red they looked as if they had been colored by a cherry snow cone. She was bouncy. She bent over him and he could smell her, and she smelled like fresh cut hay and wet sex and a dab of men’s cologne and a sheen of healthy sweat. Her eyes were almost black and he could see himself in them.

She was wearing a man’s white strap T-shirt and her round breasts swung inside it like two sweet melons in a cotton sack. She had a puzzled look on her face as she examined him.

“I think Conrad’s right,” she said. “I think he’s one of them. I betcha too, way he’s all hunched up there, he’s playin’ with his pecker.”

Bill let go of his dick and carefully slid his hand
down by his side. The girl stood up and Bill rolled his head slightly. His eyes came to rest on her belly. The T-shirt did not extend that far, and her little belly button, which he noted was an outtie, not an innie, was exposed, as if inviting him to suck it. It had a ring through it and on the ring was a little jewel the color of blood.

She had on faded blue jean shorts with very little jean or shorts to them. Her legs, like the rest of her body, were smooth and tanned. She was not very tall, but at least two thirds of her appeared to be legs. The shorts fit her tight in the crotch and her pussy looked as if it might be working the zipper from the inside.

Hair fanned out from the top of the shorts, which were unbuttoned and curled open and held in place by the zipper alone. The hair thinned as it crawled up her belly and into the belly button. The hair that escaped from the shorts was darker than the hair of her head, reddish, as if formerly blond but dyed with blood, or perhaps a hint of rust.

“Just another one of your strays,” said the girl.

The white-haired man looked at the woman and frowned. He turned his attention back to Bill, said, “It’s all right, son, don’t pay her no mind.”

Bill managed to weakly shake his head.

The old man said, “I had to dispose of your clothes. They were quite soiled. But we have some that will fit you. Right now, you need rest.”

“You’re nothing but a sucker, Frost,” Bill heard the girl’s voice say.

“Yes,” he answered, “I lack your Darwinistic view, I suppose.”

“Hah!” the girl said.

Bill tried to speak again, but still couldn’t. His tongue
was like a dry sponge. The old man smiled at him and made a kind of face that told him everything was okay.

Bill stared into the white-haired man’s face for a long moment, then turned in search of the blonde’s belly button, and found it. He kept sight of it and the red jewel in it as long as was possible, then closed his eyes.

He fell asleep almost immediately. He didn’t dream of a fuse this time. He didn’t dream of the deputy with the blown-away jaw. He didn’t dream of an isle in a swamp or water moccasins either.

He dreamed of laying the blonde on her back and licking her belly button, lathering up the hair below it, pulling down that zipper. From there the dream really got good.

When he awoke it was dark in the room except for one light that was by the door, and it was a weak light. It made a pool on the floor like dirty melted cheese.

Bill sat up in bed and pulled the sheet down. He was completely naked. He looked around for his clothes, but he couldn’t see that well, as the light didn’t extend that far.

He pulled the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around himself and wandered over to the light and discovered a chair on the other side of the door by a desk. He sat down in the chair and felt very ill. He was still hungry.

“Ah, you’re better.”

Bill jumped.

A shape glided into the room, a switch was flicked, and there was full light. The white-haired man was standing over him, and he leaned forward and touched Bill’s forehead, then touched Bill’s eyelid with his thumb, peeled it wide and looked into Bill’s eye. He switched to the other eye and did the same. When he was finished he made a kind of huffing sound, said, “You look much better, son.”

“Thank you,” Bill said, discovering his tongue to be working.

“You can speak,” said the white-haired man. “Capital. My name is Frost. John Frost. Some people call me Jack Frost but most just call me Frost. A little joke, you see. You’ve heard of Jack Frost, haven’t you?”

“Nips your nose, or something,” Bill said.

“There you are. And your name?”

“Bill.”

“Good. Bill. That’s easy to remember. Hungry, Bill?”

“I’ll say.”

Frost disappeared from the room and down a short hallway and into what served as the motor home’s dining area. Bill leaned forward in his chair and watched him move around in there by the stove. Bill stood up and securely fastened the sheet about himself and went after him.

When Frost saw him, he smiled. “I have some chicken broth here. Quite good for what ails you. And I have some thick bread and cheese. I hope that will be adequate.”

“Right now I could eat the ass out of a menstruatin’ mule,” Bill said.

Frost reddened, making him look a bit like a beardless Santa Claus. “Well,” Frost said. “Well. Certainly. A mule. Yes.”

Frost poured the broth from a steaming pan into a large cup and sat it in front of Bill, who had taken a seat at the dining table. He brought plates to the table, then the bread and cheese. He poured Bill and himself a glass of milk.

“Eat, boy, eat,” Frost said.

Bill ate. He tried to go about it nicely, but he was
too starved. His lips were so swollen from the mosquito bites he found it was difficult to stick the food into his mouth, so he drank all the soup and ate a little of the cheese and bread. Frost gave him more soup. Bill soaked the bread and cheese in it and slurped it down noisily and drank another glass of milk.

Frost said, “I have some clothes you can wear. I’m a little heftier than you, but they should fit you all right. Loose is the fashion, they say.”

“Thanks,” Bill said. He studied the man carefully as he sipped his second glass of milk. He seemed genuinely kind and gentle. One of those souls you read about or see in movies, but seldom encounter. A true Good Samaritan. Bill thought this could really work out. The blonde was right. Frost was a prime sucker. Bill began to figure the angles, but soon gave it up. After all he had been through, angles were a little hard to come by.

“What you got here?” Bill asked.

“How’s that?”

“This a freak show?”

“Why yes.”