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“Poor Melda,” the doctor mourned.

“Poor Melda? Fuck that,” Paulie griped. “Poor me. Where else am I gonna find a woman with a pussy as big as hers?” He stalked back toward the front of the vehicle. “Shit on this! This just keeps gettin’ worse—these rednecks are ruining my vibe! They fuck my step-kid in the head, they fuck my mother in the head, they fuck my dead baby in the head, then they kill Cristo and now this! Fuck it! We ain’t playin’ hide’n seek no more.” He whipped out his cellphone.

“You callin’ Jersey for reinforcements, boss?” Argi asked.

“Fuck, no, I’m callin’ them. I’m gonna challenge ’em.”

“Challenge ’em, boss?”

“It’s them two against us two. I’ll dare ’em to meet us someplace, neutral ground. Then we’ll fight it out between the four of us.”

“A good ole-fashioned brawl, huh?”

“Fuck, yeah,” Paulie said, but then grimaced at the cellphone. “You gotta be shitting me! The battery’s drained!”

“Use mine,” Argi offered.

“The number for the phone we sent Tuckton is only on this?phone!” Paulie percolated in more rage. He gave the cellphone to Dr. Prouty. “Doc! Plug it into the charger!”

“Of course, sir,” and the doctor went to do just that. In only moments, though, more bad news was related. “How utterly inconceivable,” Prouty muttered.

Paulie jerked his gaze back. “What’s that, Doc?”

Prouty held up pieces of the charger in one hand and a ball bearing in the other. “It seems, Mr. Vinchetti, that the slingshot projectile which penetrated the windshield collided with the phone charger itself.”

Paulie howled. “That’s fuckin’ impossible!”

Impossible? Or merely convenient for the author?

Paulie gestured to pull his own hair out. “This is just so fucked up! Where are we gonna find a phone charger at 11:30 at night on Christmas Eve?”

Just down the road, a great yellow and black sign glowed.

“Hey, boss?” Argi chuckled even in the midst of his discomfort. “Check it out.”

The sign read BEST BUY, and a banner on the store’s front window told them: OPEN TILL MIDNIGHT ON CHRISTMAS EVE.

(VI)

Once Helton found a wooded clearing to hide in, he rushed to the back. Dumar had Micky-Mack up on the table, and it was a solemn glance indeed that he relayed to his father.

Helton began, “Is he—”

Dumar nodded.

Micky-Mack had taken one bullet directly in the navel.

And five or six more directly in the groin.

“Damn fool kid,” Helton said. He closed Micky-Mack’s eyelids. “But he died fightin’ for the family…”

“That he did, Paw, and at least I’se avenged him by bustin’ that one fella’s coconut with the Webley,” Dumar commiserated.

“They got one’a us, and we got one’a them. Still even odds, son.” Helton unbuckled the boy’s blood-saturated jeans and pulled them down. “But I gots me a hunch…”

“A hunch, Paw?”

“It’s called proverdence, Dumar”—he pointed to the gory mess of Micky-Mack’s bullet-perforated genitals—“and, see? I was right.”

The tight group of bullets had completely severed Micky-Mack’s oversized penis. “That’s payin’ fer yer sins the hard way. I done tolt Micky-Mack not ta be braggin’ ’bout that big dick’a his, and look what happens. God saw to it that his peter get shot clean off.” Helton picked it up and shook it like a raw sausage.

“Dang,” Dumar muttered.

“But that weren’t his only sin, son.”

“What’cha mean, Paw?”

“See, Micky-Mack committered a even worse sin than the sin’a pride.” Helton eyed his son gravely. “He stole, too. He stole from the family…”

“Huh?”

Helton nodded. “When we’se first started out on this feud, Micky-Mack offered me some money for food, money he said Nuce Wynchel paid him fer helpin’ him and his son Tube finish up the post-holes on that lot’a land he got right next ta Charlie Fuchson’s pasture. But, see, Micky-Mack lied. ’cos we saw Nuce the other day just startin’ them post- holes.”

Dumar scratched his head. “Then…how’d Micky-Mack earn that money?”

“It pains me ta say this, but there ain’t no other way: Micky-Mack got hisself that cash-roll from none other than Hall Sladder—”

“No!”

“Yessir. That’s why Micky-Mack was out in the woods that day, tippin’ Sladder off ’bout where my ‘shine stash was hid, and probably even helpin’ him load the jugs. Then he kilt some hill-tramp’n made up some malarky ’bout it bein’ one’a Sladder’s cornmash whores.”

“Gawd dang, Paw! That sucks!”

“That it does. Greed’s a terrible sin, too, and I guess ever family’s got a touch of it. Pains me just as much ta say that your boy Crory—may the Lord take him—had a touch of it hisself. I caught the little tyke stealin’ more’n once.”

Dumar nodded, dejected. “Yeah, Paw, I know. Little bugger was always rippin’ off change from me’n denyin’ it. Half the time I’se pretend I didn’t notice…”

“But it ain’t fer us ta judge others, son. Only God do that. We’se all born in original sin and are subject to temptation.” His eyes readdressed his dead nephew. “Far as I’se concerned, Micky-Mack done atoned hisself fer his sins against the family by dyin’ fer the family.”

“Amen.”

They buried the boy summarily in the woods, and threw his severed penis into the grave too, before they covered him over.

“So’s what we do now, ’bout Paulie I mean?” Dumar queried.

Helton rested his chin on dirty fingertips. “We’ll drive ’round like before, look for him, try and sneak up on the evil bastard. If’n we cain’t find him right off”—he shrugged—“then we wait till we do. We got time but a fella like Paulie don’t. He ain’t patient, and those who ain’t patient always make mistakes.”

Back in the truck, they ate more of their pilferage from Marshie Caudill’s kitchen, this time bluecorn tortilla chips and mojo-flavored plantain crisps.

“Shore is some funny snacks she buy,” Dumar said, crunching chips.

“This here fussy stuff’s rich-people food, Dumar. I’se think foo- foo is the word. God prefer it when a person’s humble ’bout their roots, but Marshie? Shee-it. That jizz-can was born poor in the backwoods like us, but since she inherit all that money? It get to her head, get her thinkin’ she’s better’n other folks, like eatin’ these fussy blue ‘tater chips mean she got class. Same reason she still drives around in that Rolls Royce, but in the end, it don’t matter what she eats, what she drives, or what she wears. She still ain’t nothin’ but a low- down, lyin’, thievin’, prideful money-grubbin’ backwoods whore.”

Dumar nodded. “Wouldn’t mind suckin’ on them big hooters’a hers though, and jackin’ me off a big dick-snot