Grimoire Diabolique (18 page)

Rosser’s erection flexed, straining against the confines of his shorts. “I’d say the prospect of that circumstance presents a very
high
order of probability.”

Corey cracked out a guffaw and clapped his hands. “Stranger, I don’t know
what
the fuck you just said but I shore like the way you talk!”

No, the blonde wasn’t getting on but the passenger was now getting off. The scruffy kid didn’t even look twenty: long hair, baggy shorts, sneakers with no laces, no shirt.

“Damn boy must be et up with a case of the dumb-ass,” Corey remarked.

“What?”

“The punk’s Jess Fuller. Been run out’a town twice and now he’s back.”

“What was he run out of town for?”

“Makes that crystal-meth shit in his trailer, sells it ta kids.”

“What about the police? He should be in jail.”

“Cops down here ain’t got time, they’se all on the take for the moonshiners up in the hills. They get a cut for every run they protect into Kentucky. The ’shiners make it here, sell ta the dry counties across the line.”

An interesting societal commentary, at the very least. Rosser was uncomfortable but, at the same time, fascinated.
No. I am definitely not from around here.

As the punk debarked, Rosser’s eyes flicked back to the window, to the blonde. Seeing her seemed akin to a man in the desert stumbling into an oasis. Sweat glimmered in her cleavage. His eyes ran up her legs to the flat, impeccably tanned abdomen, the petite slit for a navel.
Jesus wept…
The waist of her cut-offs seemed to draw a line just above where her pubic hair would start, and the seam between her legs divided her vulva through the faded denim. Rosser sighed.

Then noticed something.

The blonde seemed alarmed; she was stepping back. Two tall bulky figures came around the stand of trees at one side of the bus shelter. Two more identical figures came around from the other side.

What’s this?

“Looks like the jig is up fer Fuller,” Corey said.

Outside, a confrontation began. The four tall bulky figures were indeed identical, brawny boys in their late teens, identical buzzcuts, identical shorts and shirts. Identical faces.

“Christ, they’re—” Rosser began.

“The Harkins boys. Quadruplets. They’re all nineteen er thereabouts. And lemme tell ya, they don’t take no shit. As bad-ass a crew as you’ll ever wanna meet. Watch.”

Rosser watched, all right. The quadruplets surrounded the punk named Fuller. There was some laughing, shoving, while Fuller pleaded the likes of: “I ain’t done nothin’ to you guys! I ain’t sellin’ ice no more, I swear!” and on and on, but the Harkins boys wouldn’t hear of it.

“Looks like we’re about to see a good old fashioned ass-kicking,” Rosser observed.

“Oh, it’ll be a tad more’n that, Hoss.”

One of the quadruplets’, in a split-second, slammed a knuckly fist to Fuller’s head. Rosser’s teeth ground—the blow sounded like wet leather snapping—and that was all for Fuller. He was out cold, flat on his back.

Next, the boys were pulling off Fuller’s baggy shorts.

What in God’s name?
Rosser thought.

“Bet they do a mallet-job on him,” Corey guessed.

“What?”

“Fuck his balls all up is what. Look—see? The one on the end…”

Rosser’s eyes darted to the last boy, who was hefting a large hubcap mallet while the others cackled.

“Come on, Tucker! Let ’er rip!”

“Teach this cracker piece’a shit not to sell drugs in our town—”

“Sells it ta kids, fer shit’s sake.”

“Do it! Do it!”

The quadruplet named Tucker knelt down, while another boy held Fuller’s shriveled penis back so that it wasn’t laying over the scrotum. Then—

WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!

Over and over again, Tucker smacked the scrotum with the mallet. Each blow caused Fuller to shudder in spite of unconsciousness.

WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!

Over and over.

Rosser was grateful that he couldn’t see the details.

“Shee-it, Hoss. Ain’t no nuts left in that sack, you can count on it. They’se mush. They done popped his balls.”

Rosser didn’t need the elaboration. He rushed up to the driver, who’d kept to door open so he could watch the foray. “You must have a radio or something on this bus,” Rosser demanded. “Call the police!”

Lurch looked blankly at him. “Why?”

“
Why?
There’s a major assault going on out there!”

“Ain’t no need fer police. Things down here have a way of takin’ care of themselves. When somethin’ ain’t right, the Harkins boys fix it.”

Rosser felt uselessly outraged.

“Sit back down, Hoss.” Corey was pulling him back to his seat. “This is how things work down here is all. You’ll git used to it. Besides, you’re missin’ the show!”

Rosser sat back down, dazed. He couldn’t believe this. Corey continued to talk but only half the words were getting through: “—back shore is a motherfucker, huh?” and “—teach his ass.” Then: “Look, now they’re gonna dick-snaggle him.”

Something roused Rosser from the outrage. “What did you say?”

“Ain’t never heard of a dick-snagglin’? Shee-it, Hoss. Watch. Learn somethin’.”

Rosser dared to let his gaze return to the window. One of the quadruplets was now gnawing on Fuller’s penis.

Not biting it off. Just gnawing, as if on a tough piece of steak.

Rosser’s stomach churned churning.

Lurch grinned back at Corey, tittering. “Ain’t seen me a good dick-snagglin’ in a long spell.”

“Me neithers! It’s a sight, ain’t it?”

“That it is…”

The festivities outside were coming to an end. The blonde stood at the other end of the shelter, smoking. She didn’t seem at all concerned.
An everyday occurrence?
Rosser wondered absurdly.
Dick-snaggling? My God.

“Well,” one of the Harkins said, “if he don’t learn this time, he ain’t never gonna learn.”

“Oh, and just so ya cain’t make no more crystal—”

WHAP! WHAP!

One of the Harkins smashed each of Fuller’s hands with the mallet. The punk heaved, convulsing.

“Break his legs, too!”

“Naw, ya dope. He cain’t leave town with busted legs.”

“He ever comes back? We’ll just kill the piece of shit’n be done with it.”

“We should’a done that this time.”

“Yeah, but this is more fun.”

More fun,
Rosser thought.

The Harkin’s boys disbanded. The blonde tapped an ash. Did she wink at Rosser? He was too disarrayed to even think about it, and after the atrocity he’d just witnessed, sex was far from his mind.

But not Corey’s, evidently. “Yeah, I’d punch blondie’s little hole but good. Bet she squeaks when ya fuck her, huh? Then I’d flip her over fer a butt-fuckin’. Man, I’d come so much up her ass, she’d shit cream fer a week.”

Rosser felt nauseous. The day was dead for him, and it was only afternoon. Indeed, he needed to come to a different world and, by God, he’d found it.

The driver snapped the door shut and put the bus in gear. Before he pulled away from the stop, Corey looked right at the blonde and licked his lips.

“Corey Ryan, what’choo lookin’ out there at that skinny bitch for?” the woman with the baby said in an irritatingly high drawl. She crudely hefted a breast in her hand. “You wanna real woman, you know where she is.”

Corey promptly responded, “I’ll tell ya where she
ain’t,
Maxine. On this bus.”

But the woman just smiled coyly at the insult. “Oh, you know you want it. You cain’t jive me.”

Corey leaned to one side and cut a fart.

Oh, man,
Rosser thought.
I am so out of my element.

The monotonous scenery rolled by in the window. Rosser’s thoughts blanked. More glurpy baby noises resounded, and Corey was rubbing his crotch.

“Next stop, Pegleg Road, connection to Luntville crossroads,” the driver announced. Rosser wearily raised his hand to pull the bell but it rang before he could. When he looked over, he saw the fat woman lowering her arm.

Corey chuckled gutturally. “Looks like she’n you’re gettin’ off the same stop. Have fun. Drop some wax fer me, will ya?”

Rosser shook his head.

“Look, I know what’cher thinkin’.”

“What am I thinking, Corey? Please. Tell me.”

“You’re thinkin’ you couldn’t get it up fer that fat shit-bag in a million years, ugly as she is—”

“I can say with all certitude: that’s
not
what I was thinking.”

“—so just think about that angel-food-cake blonde whiles yer doin’ it. A nut’s a nut, brother. We fellas gotta get it whiles we can.”

Rosser grabbed his bag and sighed. “I appreciate the elucidating discourse.”

“Yeah, man, I just
love
the way you talk! Later, Hoss. I’ll be seein’ ya.”

God in Heaven I hope not.

Rosser stepped off into bristling heat and humidity. The bus pulled away before a wake of dust. His worst fear was that the fat woman would be sitting in the shelter, waiting for the next bus, which was exactly what Rosser had to do unless he wanted to walk a mile-plus to town.
Maybe she lives here,
he thought.
Please, God, let it be so that she’s NOT waiting for the next bus. Let it be so that she’s already walking home.

God did not oblige his plea.

“Howdy, handsome,” Maxine said, plopped fat and sassy in the shelter. The baby remained hooked to her side, dirty foot sticking out.

“Ga!” the baby blabbered. “Ga-Ga!”

“Uh, hello,” Rosser had no choice but to respond. “I…presume you’re…waiting for the…next bus?”

“Shore am, just like you. You live in Luntville?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I do too! And we ain’t got but a half hour to wait for the bus.”

Jesus Christ! A half hour?
“That’s…not too long.”

Rosser elected not to sit down next to her. She was truly hideous. Moles sticking out, plump fat face shiny in sweat, alcoholic nose like a strawberry. The elephantine thighs filled up the hem of the sundress to the extent that the material looked fit to rip. Corns pebbled the sunburned feet in dowdy flipflops, and tufts of hair, like Brillo, sprouted from her armpits.

“I’m Maxine,” she said. “But I’se shore that character Corey told ya all about me.”

Yeah, a ten-dollar prostitute.
“Um, a little.”

“Well, good, ’cos I gotta say I had my eye on you since I stepped on the bus. You’re about the handsomest thang I seen in a while. What I mean is we can make a deal.”

Rosser felt dead standing there. He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to be in any proximity at all to this woman.

“Oh, say hi to my darlin’ little boy,” and then she held her baby up. It was the first time Rosser got a direct look at the infant, and—

He nearly gagged.

It was a fat baby—six months old, eight months, he wasn’t sure—and the child’s head looked twice as large as it should’ve been and was slightly warped from what Rosser assumed was some congenital affliction. Rolls of fat under the chin, around the neck, bulbous cheeks. Tiny beady mud-brown eyes seemed hidden in folds of still more fat. The baby’s lips looked inflated, like a pink sucker, smeared with chocolate. Mucus crusted its nostrils. Saliva glazed its chin.

The baby even had some moles on his neck.

Rosser was not a man prone to profanity, but when he got a good look at the child, he thought:
That is the ugliest motherfuckin’ baby I’ve ever seen in my fuckin’ life…

Then the baby looked dully up at Rosser and blew out a wad of bubbly, Pop-Tart-flecked spit.

“His name’s Shots.” The woman held the baby’s hand up, puppeting it to wave.

“
Shots?
” Rosser had to question.

“Named the little fella that on account of that’s what I spent the whole time drinkin’ when I was pregnant.” She giggled. “Shots of vodka mostly, and Black Velvet whiskey.”

I guess that explains the warped head,
Rosser concluded.

“Say hi to the nice man, Shots. Hi, Mr. Nice Man.” The woman beamed. “Ain’t he just the cutest li’l thing?”

It’s a fucking abomination…

“Where you from, sweetie?”

“Uh, Utah,” Rosser lied.

“Oh, wow! A Canadian! It’s easy ta tell you’re new in town. I’se kin tell by yer shirt. Guess you used to be a businessman, huh?”

“Used to be. Yes.”

The baby, now, seemed to be glowering at Rosser. If disdain could possibly be conveyed at so young an age, this was it. A pudgy pinky picked a booger from its nose and wagged it at Rosser. The other hand picked at a neck-mole.