Удушье (Choke)

Here I am, the backbone of early colonial America.

The stupid shit we do for money.

From the edge of the town square, His Lord High Charlie, the colonial governor, is watching us, standing with his arms crossed, his feet planted about ten feet apart. Milkmaids carry around buckets of milk. Cobblers hammer on shoes. The black­smith bangs away on the same piece of metal, pretending the same as everybody else not to be watching Denny bent over in the middle of the town square, getting locked in the stocks again.

'They caught me chewing gum, dude,' Denny says to my feet.

Being bent over, his nose starts to run, and he sniffs. 'For sure,' he says and sniffs, 'His Highness is going to blab to the town council this time.'

The wooden top half of the stocks swings closed to hold him around the neck, and I snug it down, careful not to pinch his skin. I say, 'Sorry, dude, that's got to be way cold.' Then I do the padlock. Then I fish a rag out of my waistcoat pocket.

A clear little drop of snot dangles off the tip of Denny's nose, so I hold the rag against it and say, 'Blow, dude.'

Denny blows a long rattling goob I feel slam into the rag.

The rag's pretty nasty and full already, but all I'd have to do is offer him a nice clean facial tissue and I'd be next in line for a dis­ciplinary action. There's about countless ways you can screw up around here.

On the back of his head, somebody's felt-penned 'Eat me' in bright red, so I shake out his shitty wig and try to cover the writ­ing, except the wig's soaked full of nasty brown water that trickles around the shaved sides of his head and drips off the tip of his nose.

'I'm banished for sure,' he says and sniffs.

Cold and starting to shake, Denny says, 'Dude, I feel air. . . . I think my shirt's pulled out of my breeches in back.'

He's right, and tourists are shooting his butt crack from every angle. The colonial governor is eyeballing this, and the tourists keep right on taping as I grab Denny's waistband in both hands and tug it back up.

Denny says, 'The good part about being in the stocks is I've racked up three weeks of sobriety.' He says, 'At least this way I can't go in the privy every half hour and, you know, beat off.'

And I say, 'Careful with that recovery stuff, dude. You're li­able to explode.'

I take his left hand and lock it in place, then his right hand. Denny's spent so much of this past summer in the stocks he has white rings around his wrists and neck where he never gets any sun.

'Monday,' he says, 'I forgot and wore my wristwatch.'

The wig slides off again, landing smack wet in the mud. His cravat, soaked in snot and crap, flaps in his face. The Japanese all giggle as if this is a gag we'd rehearsed.

The colonial governor keeps staring at Denny and me for signs of us being historically inappropriate so he can lobby the town council to banish us to the wilderness, just boot us out the town gate and let the savages shoot arrows and massacre our un­em­ployed butts.

'Tuesday,' Denny tells my shoes, 'His Highness saw I had Chap Stick on my lips.'

Every time I pick up the stupid wig, it weighs more. This time I slap it against the side of my boot before spreading it over the 'Eat me' words.

'This morning,' Denny says and sniffs. He spits some brown gunk that got in his mouth. 'Before lunch, Goodwife Landson caught me smoking a cigarette behind the meetinghouse. Then, while I'm bent over here, somebody's little shitface fourth-grader grabs my wig off and writes that shit on my head.'

With my snot rag I wipe the worst of the mess away from his eyes and mouth.

Some black-and-white chickens, chickens with no eyes or only one leg, these deformed chickens wander over to peck at the shiny buckles on my boots. The black­smith keeps beating his metal, two fast and then three slow beats, again and again, that you know is the bass line to an old Radiohead song he likes. Of course, he's ripped out of his mind on ecstasy.