The Goonies (15 page)

“Then he holds it out to me, like he's offerin' me a bite. I'm real polite, though. I figure he's not the kinda guy you wanna
insult. ‘Ah, no,’ I say, real smiley, ‘you keep it. I like mine not so crunchy.’

“So he just shrugs and finishes eating the thing, bones and all. Guy's got a lot to learn about manners. Anyway, I notice
there's a phone on the table, so I pick it up and dial the police. I mean, what luck finally. So the sheriff himself answers.
‘Hello? Sheriff?’ I say, ‘I'm at the old Lighthouse Lounge, and well, I'd like to report a… first, there's a murder. Actually,
two murders. Plus we found the hideout of those Fratelli people. Then—’

“‘Wait a minute, just hold on there,’ he says. ‘Is this you again, Lawrence?’

“Well, you can imagine I'm kind of embarrassed that he recognizes my voice, but I say, ‘Ah yes sir, it is.’

“So he snaps back, real rude, ‘When the hell are you gonna stop buggin' me? Do I have to call your mother again?”

“Meanwhile I'm watchin' Sloth devour a whole frozen turkey. He cracks off one of the legs, but it's like solid ice, so it
slips out of his hand and flies across the room and bounces into the fireplace. So he chases after it—I have a feeling like
the drumstick is his favorite part.

“But I hear the sheriff still raggin' at me in the phone, so I say, ‘But Sheriff, this time I'm tellin' the truth.’

“‘Sure,’ he says, ‘just like the time you told me fifty
Iranian terrorists took over every Sizzler Steak House in the city.’

“‘Okay, I'll admit that was a joke,’ I say. Then he starts bellyachin' again, and now Sloth is stickin' his head down the
hole in the fireplace floor to see where his turkey leg went to. But it's not there, I guess, because he lets out this roar
down the hole that sounds like an elephant in heat. Then, about two seconds later, the roar echoes back outta the passageway.
So the big guy jumps back like his mom yelled at him or somethin', and then he laughs. Then he sticks his head down there
and roars again, and sure enough, it echoes back again, and he laughs even harder. I think, he thinks he found another friend
down there who talks his language or somethin'.

“Anyway, the sheriff is slartin' to sound like a broken record, so I try to be nice and sincere and stuff. ‘Honest, Sheriff,
you gotta believe me.’

“‘I do?’ he says. ‘Just like that last prank about all those little creatures that multiply when you throw water on 'em?’

“I can see I'm not getting anywhere with the bozo. I mean, just because I've exaggerated a little from time to time, he hasn't
got that police-thing down to know when I'm really on the level. And besides, Sloth is beginning to climb down into the passage
under the fireplace, and I don't wanna be left alone here now, in case the Fratellis show up again, so I say, ‘Sheriff, hold
on a minute,’ and I call out to Sloth, ‘Wait! Get back here! Hey!’ But when I make my move to go toward Sloth, I accidentally
pull the phone out of the wall. Cheap equipment.

“So Sloth is down under the basement now, chasing his echo, or maybe he's just after the turkey leg. So I decide to follow
along with him. I mean, I figure I told the sheriff where we are, that's all I can do. If we turn up missing, at
least he'll know where to start. Besides which, I'm afraid to be alone, and I don't know where I can go now that
is
safe. Besides which, I'm worried about
you
guys, and I want to find out where you've gone to. Besides which, I'm startin' to really like this Sloth guy, and I don't
want him gettin' into any deep shit, 'cause I'm afraid he's not too bright. I mean, it's probly just a learning disability
or something, the guy probly just needs tutors.

“So I climb down into the passageway with a flashlight I find in the cabinet. I thought about takin' one of the guns, too,
but I figure my mom would kill me if she found out, and besides, I'd probly blow my toe off.

“Sloth is rooting around down in the dirt, and he comes up with his turkey leg, gnawing on it, and yells into the tunnel,
and the tunnel yells back, so he looks at me and giggles and starts walking down the passage. So I run along behind him. I
mean, his legs are pretty long. We go down and up and around… it's like a maze down there. Any minute I expect to find this
big piece of cheese.

“And at every new turn Sloth lets out this loud scream, and his echo answers him, and he chuckles like he just heard somethin'
pretty damn funny.

“Finally I grab his arm, 'cause I figure if somebody doesn't tell him, he's gonna be in for a big letdown. ‘Wait, listen to
me,’ I say, ‘that's not a person. That's just your echo. Understand? Your echo. Echo.’

“So he holds up and thinks about it a minute, and all of a sudden, his face lights up and he nods like he understands. ‘Eggo,’
he says, ‘Eggo Waffle!’

“Then he turns and starts walkin' down the tunnel again, repeating it over and over to himself, real excited. ‘Eggo Waffle!
Eggo Waffle!’

“I follow along, trying to reason with him. See, I still
don't think he's got it like crystal-clear. ‘No, not Eggo,’ I say. ‘Echo. Echo!’

“He just smiles, though, and keeps on truckin' and mumblin' to himself.

“We twist around through all these tunnels, and he finally does quiet down, though. We get to this cave all filled with pipes
leakin' and sprayin' water everywhere, so I figure we must be on the right track, 'cause it looks like Mouth's handiwork,
tryin' to fix a pipe that wasn't broken before he got to it. Sloth was real thirsty after his steak and turkey, so he just
sucks on one of the gushers for a while, and then we set off again.

“We get to this tunnel full of boulders, and the first one is sitting on top of the crushed skeleton of an old miner, no lie!
Pretty cool. We just moved on, though. You know, my, Uncle Sydney was a miner, and he told me never hang around in a cave
where you find a dead miner, 'cause you never know what killed him, like it could be natural gas. You know, they used to bring
canaries in cages down to the mines with them, and if the canaries dropped dead, the miners knew there was a gas leak, so
they split in a hurry—so, seeing a dead miner just lying there is kinda like havin' a free dead canary. Now like I said, this
miner was crushed under a boulder, but you can't jump to conclusions in these matters. It still might've been gas that killed
him. I ever tell you about the times Uncle Sydney took me down to the mines with him? Oh, yeah, he relied on me. See, I was
a lot smaller than him, so there were holes I could crawl into to get stuff that he couldn't, so I'd crawl through these little
tight spaces, sort of explore it for him, then come back and tell him about it. Never found any gold, o' course, but we weren't
lookin' for any—aluminum is what Uncle Sydney was after, raw aluminum ore. Sells for millions up in Canada. They make cans
with
it, but they don't have the resources up there, so they gotta import the stuff. Still drink most o' their beer outta bottles,
that's how underdeveloped they are.

“So, anyway, I know a thing or two about mines and miners, and I know it's best just to move along now before gas overcomes
us and we get too groggy to dodge the boulders.

“We go through this hole in the wall into this big cavern, which is obviously where the bats came from, and that leads us
down this real narrow passage, and then things get tense—'cause way up in the distance I can hear voices. And it sounds like
the Fratellis.

“I look at Sloth right away, to see what he's gonna do, to see if I have to run and hide somewhere or what. But he just gives
me this big sneaky grin and holds his finger to his lips like he wants me to be quiet and then snickers and covers his mouth
with his hand so
he
don't make no noise. Then he motions me to tiptoe up with him, so we do, until we're close enough to the Fratellis to see
'em and hear 'em but far enough back to be hidden in the shadows.

“The Fratellis are standing in this shallow pool of water, with moonlight shinin' down right on 'em, when suddenly they start
squawkin' and jumpin' up and down and yellin' that there's
leeches
all over 'em. Makes me shiver just to think of it.

“So they get out of the pool, and they all light cigarettes, and they start burnin' the leeches off their skin with the lit
ends. Talk about gross. Then Mama looks down at the ground and says, ‘They went this way. There's little Nike prints all over
the ground.’ So they walk on.

“So we sit there a minute, figuring what to do. I don't wanna follow too close, 'cause I don't want the Fratellis to see us.
On the other hand, I wanna see where they're
goin', 'cause if they're in front of us, they're not behind us. Right?

“And Sloth just seems like he thinks it's the greatest trick since bubbles that he saw them and they didn't see him. So we
just sit there a minute. Pretty soon he crosses his legs and leans forward and starts drawing something in the dirt—it's a
circle with these spoky things and like a grid, and I can't figure it out at first, and then all of a sudden it hits me—it's
a TV test pattern, from when they sign off the air. This one's channel nine, I think. So he finishes drawing, and then he
stares at it real intense, sitting there cross-legged with his hands on his knees the way Mom sits when she's doin' yoga,
and he starts breathin' in and out real deep and fast like he's out of breath or somethin', and then all of a sudden he takes
a deep, huge breath and lets out this long, soft, high-pitched sound. It sounds just like the test-pattern sound, like when
the radio does its emergency-test sound for a minute sometimes. It sounds like ‘Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.’ Only Sloth makes the
sound a lot longer than a minute, and without takin' a breath, too, he just keeps sayin' ‘Deeeeeeeeeeeeeee,’ and pretty soon
his eyes sorta glaze over, and I realize he's in a trance.

“No lie, he looks just like my mom did when she was doin' meditation a lot to try to stop eating, only instead of saying ‘Ommmm,’
he's sayin' ‘Deeeeeee.’ So I realize then that Sloth is actually a very spiritual guy. Probly a highly evolved person. I feel
like honored to be in his presence.

“So he does this for a while, and then he finally stops and like snaps out of it and takes a big, relaxed sigh and smiles,
like he's ready to go on.

“But he doesn't get up. Instead he reaches into his
pocket and pulls out a Jew's harp, and knocks the lint off it and brings it up to his mouth and starts playin' away.

“‘Hey!’ I tell him. ‘That's a Jew's harp, and I'm Jewish. What an incredible coincidence!’ He just nods and keeps playing,
and then I realize it's probly not such a coincidence at all. We actually have a lot in common, like we share mutual interests
and stuff.

“Anyway, he gets up and starts stompin' his feet as he plays, and I start,clappin' along. It's real familiar but I can't quite
place it, and then I realize he's playin' the Gilbert Chevrolet commercial they do on channel thirteen late at night. Then
he starts doin' a whole medley of TV commercials, like, ‘You deserve a break today at McDonald's,’ and ‘Ajax the foaming cleanser.’
Stuff like that. I guess those are the only songs he knows.

“So he goes through his repertoire, and now he's completely cooled out and ready to go. So we march on again, in the direction
his mom and brothers went.

“We're real careful to walk around the pond with all the leeches in it, even though there's a whole shitload of coins at the
bottom. Maybe the leeches put the money there to try to lure people in so they could suck their blood, I don't know.

“Anyway, we walk along for a while, around a bunch of other tunnels, until we come to this dead end with a hole in the floor,
and a grappling hook snagged on a rock at the end of a rope that dangles down into the hole. I look down the hole, but I can't
see bottom, and I think I can hear the Fratellis' voices at first, but then they disappear.

“I'm kind of reluctant to shinny down this black hole, though, you know what I mean? I mean, I'm not the best climber in class,
anyway. But Sloth kind of understands that, I think. So he hoists me up on his back, and I hang
on, and
he
lowers us
both
down the rope. Nice and slow and steady.

“So my face is right next to his now, so I get to study it real close. And the walls are startin' to glow from this sea-slime
stuff I think, so I can see pretty good. And lookin' at him that way, in that light, from the position of being carried on
his back, he doesn't look so bad. I mean, he's not gonna be in
Playgirl
next month or anything, but I've seen worse. You ever see my Uncle Grobnick?

“So I say to Sloth, ‘Ya know, you're not such a strange-lookin' guy. I used to have a snake with two heads.’

“So he grunts at that, sorta like he knows what I'm talkin' about. So I keep talkin'. ‘And I got this other friend, Mitch,
and he's got this big hairy thing growin' out of his neck, and people always make fun of it, so he only goes out to play at
night. I bet you only like to go out at night, huh?’ He nods, so I go on talkin'.

“‘Yeah, I know how you must feel,’ I say. ‘It's like when I go swimmin' at the public school and I gotta take my shirt off,
I get really embarrassed, 'cause all the other guys got dark tans and ripples in their stomachs, and I'm this Pillsbury Dough
Boy. So I swim in a sweatshirt.’

“So he grunts with total understanding, you know? Like he knows just how I feel. Right then he reaches the bottom of the rope
and steps down to the floor, which is covered with these giganto wooden spikes under the shaft, so if we'd fallen, it would've
been Chunk Kebab.

“We look around. It's like a big cave, and at one end is this pirate skeleton that's pointing to these three tunnels at the
other end. I mean, it's this mummified human skeleton dressed in pirate clothes. So what does Sloth do? He takes the pirate
hat off the skull and puts it on himself and wiggles his eyebrows at me. I mean, c'mon, what was I
supposed to say to the guy? So I say, ‘Man, you are a stud.’ So he smiles at me, kind of embarrassed, you know? Funny guy.

“Then he pulls himself together, real suavelike, and gets a cigarette out of his coat pocket and sticks it in the corner of
his mouth and lights up with this Bic lighter and takes a long drag and leans back against the wall and takes a coin out of
his pants pocket, and he starts flippin' it and catchin' it, flippin' and catchin', just like that smoothtalkin' mobster in
that old gangster film. Musts seen it on TV.