Read The Complete Drive-In Online
Authors: Joe R. Lansdale
The Complete Drive-In (47 page)
“How’d you come by your tableware?” I asked.
“Folks that died,” Bjoe said. “We ate them. Waste not, want not. You have a problem with that?”
Actually, I didn’t. I didn’t like it, but in this world, you did what you could. It was okay by me. Cannibalism has its place.
If they had in fact died, and not been helped along.
I had a tense sensation that we might have just climbed a long ladder to unwillingly accept a dinner invitation.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Bjoe said. “And no. We’re not going to murder you.”
“I could have told you that,” Grace said, looking ready to fight.
“We may not look like much,” Bjoe said. “And I may play with my dick more than a rap musician, but we don’t mean you any harm. Long as you abide by the rules and get along and such.”
“That’s good to hear,” Steve said.
“What about that booze?” Cory said.
“We’ll come to that,” Bjoe said. “Please. Make yourself at home. Guys, play with your dicks if you want. We don’t discourage it. Ladies, you can plunk your pudding if you like. We don’t consider it vulgar here.”
And they sure didn’t. Three of the women had revealed themselves and were slapping their meat in a savage manner, grunting like pigs to trough.
“Maybe later,” Grace said.
“Suit yourself,” Bjoe said.
We sat down cross-legged, and I could feel the great fish’s flesh vibrating beneath me, taut as a harp string. The meat against my ass was warm, and I could imagine going to sleep quite comfortably in this cave.
The women who had chosen to explore their valleys were still at work, and even though only one of them was moderately attractive, I couldn’t help but watch. There was nothing really sexual about it for me. It was just interesting to see. Sort of like midget wrestling.
Bjoe went over to a row of skulls against the fleshy wall and picked one up. He brought it over, set it down in front of us, squatted to join us.
“So,” Cory said. “You just get some weed the fish ate, let it rot and such, and it’s ready to go.”
“We spit in it too.”
“Whoa, now,” Cory said. “I didn’t need to know that.”
“Saliva blends with it, makes it ripe.”
“I bet,” Steve said.
“You really should try some,” Bjoe said. “It’ll set you free.”
Cory leaned over and sniffed it. “It smells like a dead animal,” he said.
“Indeed,” Bjoe said.
“You just hold your nose?” Cory said.
“First sip, yeah. After that, probably won’t need to.”
“Oh, shit,” Cory said. “I’m a fool.”
He took hold of his nose with one hand, lifted the skull to his lips, and sipped.
Carefully, he put the skull back down, removed his hand from his nose.
“That. Without a doubt. Is the foulest motherfucking thing I have ever put in my mouth. And I got to tell you, I once ate a turd because it had some kind of nuts in it. I think it was shat out by a bear or something. But that right there. That is some nasty shit. But ... it kind of grows on you.”
“What happened to your head?” Bjoe asked Cory. “Knife fight?”
“I shaved it. But not too well. I’ll have another jolt of that fish brew, if you don’t mind.”
“Help yourself. There are plenty of bowls of it. Would any of you like to try it?”
“I’ll pass,” Grace said. “I haven’t even had a bear turd yet, so I’ll hold out.”
Everyone else passed.
Cory grabbed two more skulls, drained them down. Then he burped, fell over backwards, unconscious.
Homer leaned over and looked at him.
I said, “He isn’t dead is he?”
“No, but his breath is really something,” Homer said. “And strong. It could hold up a tea set.”
“Would you like to hear how we came here?” Bjoe said. “And maybe I can clear up some things for you. About the fish, I mean. I know some of it, or rather I’ve noodled out a lot. Rest of it is guesswork. And some, shit, I don’t got a clue. Maybe you can fill in some holes.”
“Tell us,” I said.
PART THREE
In which Bjoe, while playing with his tallywhacker, recites
a tale of woe, boating, fish intestines, expert lighting, the Scuts,
and such. And, in the meantime, Cory stays drunk.
a tale of woe, boating, fish intestines, expert lighting, the Scuts,
and such. And, in the meantime, Cory stays drunk.
“I won’t begin where it began, because we all began there. The night of the drive-in and the big red comet with the hot white smile.
“Forget that.”
“I’ll begin where it began for us. The all of us here except you newcomers. There have been a few other newcomers, folks eaten by the fish, but they were all dead when they came through. And, frankly, we ate them.
“When the comet came back, like so many others, perhaps all who were in the theater, we started down the long road. We were among the first to leave. At the end of the road we found what you found. The goddamn drive-in again. We were on a loop, and we arrived at where we had left.
“Folks were coming into the drive-in to stay, but a caravan of us decided to strike out down a wide trail, bump our way along, and see if it went anywhere else.
“We went for a long time. Some of the cars conked out. People died. People got eaten. There were a few murders, rapes, and acts of depravity along the way, not to mention creature attacks, and that accounted for some loss. You know the drill. Been there done that, I’m sure.
“Finally we came to a wide break in the woods and found ourselves on the edges of great sea. Or so we think. Maybe it is a lake so great it seemed like a sea. But we found ourselves there, and there was no alternative but to stop.
“Critters were thick along that lake, and we decided to make tools from bone, plus use what tools we had. It’s amazing how much in the way of odds and ends can be found in the trunks and back seats of cars. Even car parts could be made into tools.
“So, what we did is we circled the cars, vans, and trucks in a double circle, to make a kind of wall—remember, there were a bunch of us, so it was a big circle—and inside that circle we began to build.
“During the day we cut timber and dragged it with pickup trucks. One of the cars served as a door to the circle, and the driver would pull it back and we would bring the logs in. Here we cut them and shaped them and coated them with clay to keep out insects as best we could, then we built them up into what can only be called one large goddamn home. Around the home we built palisades, tall, cut with sharp points on their ends. Beyond those, we slanted logs in the ground with points sticking out like angled porcupine quills. It wasn’t a bad job at all.
“In time, we used clay to cover the log walls. This not only kept out bugs, it better kept out the wind and insulated us from the cold and the heat, whenever it came. After a time, we built great chimneys on either end of the structure. Here community meals were cooked. Wild animals and roots and greens and such we found. Occasionally, one of our band would die and we would eat them, and let me tell you, if you haven’t had the old long pig, it can’t be beat. Now, I’m not suggesting anyone eat anyone here—unless they die—but, if you get the opportunity, don’t be squeamish. And I’ll tell you, it don’t taste like chicken. Or pork for that matter. It is a unique and sweet taste unrivaled by any meat. Damn. My mouth is starting to water just thinking about it.
“But we built this great place, and we called it home, and let me tell you, after all we had been through, it wasn’t so bad.
“Fact was, it wasn’t bad at all, and we should have stayed there, and we might have, but along came Noah.
“That wasn’t his real name, but it’s what we came to call him, at first derisively, and finally, respectfully, and then ... Well, let me go back to the story.
“Noah, actual name Tim, said we should build a great boat.
“He wasn’t preaching religion, wasn’t saying it was going to rain. He wasn’t even saying life was too hard, because, actually, all things considered, it wasn’t. He was saying we should build a great boat because he knew how, and it would give us something to do, and we could sail across the sea.
“Now, he did have one idea. He thought that on the other side of the sea we might find home.
“I don’t know if this was a silly idea or not. I suppose it was, knowing full damn well there were no seas or great lakes like this in East Texas, but it was hard to know what to think, and finally, what I think made us all decide to build it was a simple factor.
“Boredom.
“I kid you not. There we were, plenty of food from the forests. Small animals, the nuts and berries, wild greens program, and we were catching small fish from the freshwater sea. We had plenty of water. Our fort was pretty safe, even from dinosaurs. It was clean and dry and warm, cool on hot days, and we were fornicating pretty much at will and babies were being born, and most of them were living, looked like they’d grow up and our community would swell.
“What I felt like was this. One time I saw a cow on the side of the road, behind a fence, but she had her head through the fence and was eating grass growing on the other side, near the highway. I remember thinking, silly cow. She had a whole pasture full of fine green grass, and there she was nibbling at some scrawny grass growing by the fence that had been dosed with the fumes from thousands of exhausts.
“How stupid. If she could break through the fence, pretty soon she’d be on the highway, and maybe get hit by a car.
“Looking back, we were that cow with our heads through the fence, but we didn’t have grass to nibble. All we had was Noah’s idea.
“We called him Noah because he said he was a builder, and he had proved this by helping to design and construct our fort, which, by the way, we called Fort Drive-in.
“He said, we can build a boat, like Noah’s ark, and we can sail out and see what there is to see. And maybe, he said, we can expand what we have here. Find better food, build greater forts, and form a kind of community of forts. Sail the waters. Establish trade between forts. I mean, he had the whole nine yards laid out and marked off and ready to cut.
“He drew up plans. First in the dirt, then on animal hides. He marked this, he marked that. He drew an overall picture of the boat. It was to be huge. It looked like Noah’s ark. We began to call him Noah.
“Now, I got to tell you, there is to me no dumber idea than to think that ever there was a man that built an ark that held all the animals of the world, and a family too, and that they sailed on the ocean for forty days and forty nights. Dumb. I don’t care who you are or what you believe, that’s just goddamn dumb.
“But, you know what? This Tim, this Noah, he was almost telling us the same thing. Build this big-ass boat, stick in a few of the wild birds we had caught, a few of the wild animals (pig-like critters mostly), and all our nasty asses, and we would set sail on water so big we had no idea if there was an end to it anywhere. Just get on out there and sail around and see what happens.
“Let me tell you, in retrospect, I consider it one of the dumbest ideas since people came up with and believed the story of the original Noah, and the only thing dumber is pet rocks and an idea I had once about a portable pet called porta-kitty, legless and in a sack that hung on the wall and mewed when you turned on the lights. But I won’t go into that.
“I’ll just say, we built that boat.
“The boat was very big, because it was decided that everyone but a handful of us would go. Some would stay and hold down the fort, so to speak, while the rest of us went adventuring. The idea was to come home with plenty of exotic information, foods, and such, and since we weren’t being assailed by wild Indians at the fort, it was thought all that was needed to hold it was a skeleton crew. I suppose they are there yet.
“The boat took a long time to build, and it was hard work. But I found it a wonderful thing to do. Boredom was on the run. Adventure was in the air, and I was banging regular tail, two women who didn’t mind sharing me, and I didn’t mind sharing them.
“We were clean and well fed and spent the nights, sometimes the days when we were too tired to work, talking about our quest.
“Yippie. Out there on the water. Sailing about. Adventuring. Yeehaw.
“Again, I never even liked the deep end of the pool back home, so what was up with me and the boat and Noah? It’s hard to figure. Life certainly turns you some spins, that’s for sure.
“So there came a day when the boat was finished to Noah’s specs. We had driven wooden pegs into wooden ribs and swollen them up with water and poured tree sap into cracks. Noah said this was the thing, the sap, the resin, and that it would hold tighter than an eighteen-year-old virgin’s doohickey on her wedding night.
“We used our trucks and cars to pull the great boat up on a ramp, and then we built another ramp below the front end of the boat, and we greased it with animal fat and dung, and with all of us pushing, we were able to make it slide out and down and into the water. There it was held by ropes made from vines and strips of bark. Big and broad and ready to go.
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