the foray. “You must have a radio or something on this bus,” Rosser demanded. “Call the police!”
Lurch looked blankly at him. “Why?”
“
“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.
“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.”
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
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.
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
“—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
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.
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.”
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.”
“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.
