DumDum

Chapter 1


I didn’t sit back down in the lawn chair on Mike’s porch as much as I landed in it. He had been laughing during my long, drunken march to the fridge for another beer and back.
“Smokin’ firecrackers!”
He coughed and hacked and laughed as tears rolled out of his eyes.
I laughed along with him and took a healthy swig of my tenth beer. Mike was beating me senseless in that race. He was at least into his eighteenth and just getting lit.
I was so drunk that I couldn’t remember what “smokin’ firecrackers” meant. Some busted, haggard drunken joke I’m sure. Perhaps I’d told the joke. Perhaps he had. I didn’t really care.
Lightning bugs lit up the trees that surrounded Mike’s double-wide like Christmas lights on the fritz. The sun had settled down behind the pines a couple of hours before and the mosquitoes were coming out and hunting blood.
“The bitch was smokin’ firecrackers….damn, D…that was a good one.”
So, it was me who told the joke. About some bitch smokin’ firecrackers. I couldn’t remember which bitch, though. Jokes about toothless women were the bread and butter of good, drunken banter in rural places with little to do.
Most of the time, those jokes were told by men with less teeth and less sense.
Mike lit another Doral cigarette and leaned back in the easy chair he left on the planks and nails that comprised the front entrance to his double-wide. The chair looked like it had been salvaged from a bomb site. Sun, rain, wind, wild animals, and especially Mike, had punished the chair. But, he refused to cover it or bring it inside his home. He’d cuss a blue streak at anyone within earshot if he wanted to sit in that chair and drink beer and smoke cigarettes if it was soaked with rain or some stray dog dragged a dead rabbit onto the seat to feed on it.
Why don’t you put a tarp on it, Mike?
Why don’t you pull the damn thing in the house, Mike?
Mike would look at the chair, shake his head at whatever easily avoidable atrocity had occurred and say, “Fuck it.” Then he’d bag the squirrel or throw a towel on the seat and get busy getting stoned.
Mike had won over a hundred thousand dollars in a lawsuit a few years back. We’d worked together at Reedman Steel for a good ten years together. He inhaled some fumes over in a sector he had no business being in while he was flirting with some bitch who looked like she’d been smoking firecrackers. Got severe pneumonia and nearly died. Mr. Reedman sent flowers, visited him, and assured Mike that everything would be taken care of. A lawyer stopped by shortly after Mr. Reedman departed and Mike was sold on fucking Reedman square in his ass for millions of dollars by an ambulance chaser who did his chasing inside the county general.
I loved Mike like a brother. He was a deplorable human being for the most part, though. Irresponsible, unreliable, crude, ill-tempered. But, there was just something about the guy that made you love him above all of his peccadilloes. I didn’t cherish the nights we’d sit on his rickety, questionable porch drinking beer and laughing. But he did. So, I never missed a Friday night to do so.
He loathed two out of his three ex-wives (his first wife, well…that’s for later). But it seemed that nothing would get his spirits up like cursing their names for hours about how they’d sucked him dry of his settlement money and fucked every Tom, Dick, and Nigger in town. Don’t even think about calling him out on the fact that all three women, by the grace of God, loved him unconditionally, took care of him, and wanted to be around him despite his painfully obvious shortcomings. He’d cheated and lied and went on benders and broke all their hearts until they all just followed his surly suit.
Once, he was on a full-blown tear about Rita, his second. How she’d shacked up with this black guy who lived in Weatherton and what a “no-good cheatin’ nigger-lovin’ whore” she was.
I said, after a few Bud Lights,
“You know, Mike…you cheated on her a lot.”
“I never got caught,” was his reply. I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and decided that when he went on his tirades, I’d just sit back and listen and nod my head in agreement until he was ready to crash on the couch in his living room. He never slept in his bedroom. Too far to walk after a case of beer, I suppose.
Mike took a sharp drag off his cigarette and sighed the beefy sigh of the three-pack-a-day smoker.
“You know, D, I’m not sayin’ I’d do it for sure…but, I’ve thought about killin’ just one of those two cunts a time or two.” He said this as though he’d never spoken the words out loud before. But I’d heard it. Plenty of times. The years of alcohol soaked days and nights were playing havoc with his memory. Don’t call him on that either.
“Really,” I said. Didn’t miss a beat. It was a play that I’d performed in many, many times.
“Hell, yeah. Just walk in on any one of them while they got a big ol’ dick in their mouth or their snatch or their god damn ear, for that matter, and just shoot ‘em. I got my pistol loaded up just for the occasion.”
I’d heard all of that before, too. That was my cue.
“Well, if you ever do, put a bullet dead in her ass for me, Mike.” He wheezed a good laugh and slapped me on the back, just like clockwork.
I checked my watch as he stood up and steadied himself for a trek to the fridge. 11:35pm. There was still at least another hour to go. I hate to say that, over the years, it had become something of a chore to have beers with a man I loved as a brother. But, well, it just had.
“You want another, D?”
“No, I’m good.”
As he fumbled around with the handle to the screen door, I pulled my own deck of smokes out of my pocket, fished a stick out, lit it, and sighed the less beefy sigh of a one-pack-a-day smoker. I lazily swatted at the mosquitoes dying for my blood.
I stared off into the darkness and watched the lightning bugs and smoked. I heard Mike give a rebel yell and crank up the radio in his living room. Shenandoah’s “Two Dozen Roses”.
I turned my head towards the door and cracked a smile. Then, I turned back and saw two of the biggest and brightest damned lightning bugs I’d ever seen. My eyes got as big as quarters and then narrowed to slits as the bugs got even bigger. The beer finally relented and my mind told me that those were not lightning bugs, but the headlights of a car. I could not remember, out of all the years I’d taken to the porch with Mike, ever seeing headlights coming up his gravel drive-way. Mike was not famous for his entertaining. Other than me.
“Mike! You expectin’ comp-nee?” The radio snapped off immediately.
“Hell fuckin’ no,” he bellowed as he stomped to the screen door.
“Well, looks like you got it.”
“SHIT! Help me eat this reefer!”
I jumped out of the chair and sprung into action. My beer toppled over and I dropped my cigarette as I raced into the double-wide.
“Just flush the shit, you dumb-ass,” I yelled as Mike was chomping a fresh ounce of bud.
“Good idea,” he mumbled as weed crumbs tumbled down his chin.
I heard the car crunching up with drive closer and closer as I cupped my hand under Mike’s chin and salvaged what he hadn’t swallowed. I ran back into the bathroom of his bedroom and to the shitter and clapped the reefer into the bowl. Then, I tried to flush. No dice.
Mike had the spray-gun of his kitchen sink in his mouth. Gargling like a madman.
“Mike! The god damn toilet won’t flush!”
“Awww, shit…I forgot. The fuckin’ things fucked! Shit!”
As I, yanked the lid off the top to attempt a quick fix, I heard a rap on the screen door.
“Hey! HEY! Well, I’ll be god damned!”
I froze in place and listened. Mike didn’t sound like he was face to face with a cop.
“Hey, buddy…come on in here! God Damn! Hey, D! It’s DumDum!”
I stared at the soaked dope floating in the bowl for a second or two. “Fuckin’ waste,” I mumbled and got to my feet.


Chapter 2


Paul “DumDum” Burge had earned his nickname, trust me. I could regale you with hundreds of tales from the legacy of his dumbness, but I’ll spare you those and just give you the last tale. The reason he went to prison for seven years.
DumDum developed a taste for crystal meth around the anniversary of his first year at Reedman Steel. He dove in head-first and never looked back. I didn’t like the guy too tough before he started getting amped, but after he had, I had almost nothing to do with the guy. I like some good smoke and plenty of beer, but meth and coke and shit like that aren’t my style. And folks who do that shit ain’t my style either. Mike loved DumDum, of course. I always kind of thought it was because next to DumDum, Mike looked like superhero.
Well, the need for a crystal fix eventually led to DumDum hiding himself inside a brand-new, fourteen-dollar, over-sized, Rubbermaid garbage can, on sale at Kirby’s Grocery, at about noon and waiting patiently there until ten o‘clock. Once the lights when out and the doors were secured at Kirby‘s, DumDum came out of his Rubbermaid shell, grabbed box after box of garbage bags off the shelf, and then began filling those garbage bags with meat. Why? His Uncle Brady was opening a restaurant and was bitching about the prices he had to pay for meat. DumDum, in all his idiot’s glory, told Brady he could get him a ton of meat for a fair price. Brady was no genius himself and bought DumDum’s claim that he “knew a dude” who could come through for him. DumDum had a plan. Get some meat, sell it to Uncle Brady, and stock up on meth.
That very night, DumDum put his plan into action.
He’d managed to sack up hundreds of pounds of ground beef, enough steaks to feed Cox’s Army, and loads of other assorted cow parts to fence to his dear, old uncle. DumDum, however didn’t realize that, eventually, the cops would roll by and notice a single vehicle parked smack in the middle of the Kirby’s parking lot after hours. And DumDum also didn’t think that the cops might also see a 6’5” meth-head stalking back and forth between the front entrance of Kirby’s and his pick-up truck with swollen garbage bag after swollen garbage bag of meat. Especially DumDum’s truck. DumDum collected DUIs from the local fuzz like some kids collect baseball cards and comic books.
But that’s not what go DumDum seven years in the pokey. No, sir.
DumDum was tossing a bag of sirloins over into the bed of his truck when the cheese rolled into the parking lot. Instead of throwing his hands in the air and admitting that the jig was up (especially with a rap sheet of petty crimes as long as John Holmes’ pecker), DumDum jumped in his old Chevy and took off out of Kirby’s parking lot with almost a thousand pounds of “Low-Priced, Quality Meat that can’t be Beat!”
DumDum made it all the way into Bowden County with the meat and every cop in the state behind him, let DumDum tell it, before he took too sharp a turn in an attempt to lose the cops inside the backwoods roads of Bowden. The truck turned turtle on him. The meat was minced under the truck, and DumDum, like true, idiot criminals before him, was unscathed.
DumDum probably wouldn’t have got seven to ten if this rookie cop who was chasing him hadn’t went head first into a telephone pole and died in the hospital a month later.
It was all over the papers. Tugged at the heartstrings. Ford’s Chapel raised over ten grand for his young widow and the new baby. Big story. Very sad.
He also probably wouldn’t have received seven years if the cigarette break he took inside the store during the heist hadn’t eventually caused Kirby’s to burn half-way to the ground. He’d thrown the still burning butt over an aisle and it landed in the middle of a pyramid of Huggie’s Diapers.
That was DumDum’s last adventure in the free-world before he went to Hooks County Correctional. He was lucky he only got seven years, to tell you the truth.


Chapter 3

I walked into the living room and wiped the sweat off my brow with my forearm. I was shocked at what I saw. I still had this picture of DumDum in my head. Severely lanky and gawky to a fault. Meth will fuck your face up royally the longer you smoke it. All the poisons in meth will eventually leave your body through your face and you wind up looking like a nuclear fall-out survivor.
DumDum had undergone quite the transformation during his bid in the state pen. He wasn’t lanky anymore. He had, in fact, put quite a load of muscle on. With his height, he could have been an NBA guard , in fact. His skin was as clear as a bell. He’d lost the wispy-thin goatee and the permanent stubble that always surrounded it. His dirty blond hair was down past his shoulders before his trial started. Now, it was a military-esque high and tight and…cleaner, somehow.
Mike had DumDum trapped in a manly bear hug and was laughing and slapping his back with reckless, drunken joy. Mike finally released him, grabbed DumDum’s biceps and stepped back to look at him.
“You son uva bitch! Sneakin’ up on us like that! You dirty fucker! We just lost about an ounce of weed because of you!”
Mike smiled and laughed as he berated DumDum and then grabbed him into another manly bear hug.
Finally Mike relented and told DumDum to cop a squat on the couch.
DumDum saw me and said,
“D? Is that you?”
He stuck his hand out and approached. I grabbed his hand and said,
“Dummy…it’s been a while.”
“Yeah, sure has.” As I locked eyes with him, I saw something else different about DumDum. It seemed that that wildness and idiocy in his eyes had been replaced with a look of…something I could only say was sadness. Or calm, maybe.
“Good to see ya‘, D…real good to see you,” he said, pumping my hand firmly and releasing.
“Sit down, brother,” I said.
Finally, Mike and DumDum hit the couch. I pulled a couple of milk crates that Mike used as furniture from the wall and joined them.
“Well, god damn, DumDum when did you get out?”
“Last week, Mike. Last week. It’s great, man.”
“Well, fuck yeah it’s great! I wish we still had that weed and we’d break bread with ya’!” Mike laughed hard, clapped DumDum on the back, and looked at me for approval.
“That’s cool, brother. I’m good. I would have called, but I couldn’t find anybody around town with your number. I didn’t mean to impose on ya’ll.”
“Well, shit-fire, DumDum, don’t apologize for that shit! It’s good to see you, man! I’m glad you stopped by, man! I don‘t give out my number to anybody but friends, brother. And that‘s you and that silly son uva bitch sittin‘ right there!” Mike made a pistol with his hand and shot me. I fired back with my middle digit.
“Thanks, Mike, I really appreciate that,” DumDum said with a sincere, grown-up quality I‘d never seen in DumDum.
“You want a beer, though? I got plenty of that!” Mike laughed hard again and stood up.
“No, no…thanks anyway, Mike. I’m fine.” Mike’s smile faltered a bit as his face screwed up into a quizzical look.
“Actually, Mike, I’m sober now. Been that way for five years and seventeen days now.”
Mike’s smile was swept completely off of his face after that bombshell. Before DumDum got on the meth, he was the drinkenest, smokin’est, pill-poppinest son of gun any of us knew. A one-man, show-stoppin’ party.
“I know, I know,” DumDum said hanging his head with a hint of embarrassment at the stunned looks on mine and Mike’s face. And perhaps embarrassed by his old self.
“After a couple of years in the penitentiary, I just let it go, ya’ know. I gave my life to God, ya’ll.”
If we looked stunned before, we were positively catatonic after that. “God“? DumDum once took the candle out of Joseph’s hand in the Ford’s Chapel Nativity scene and put a huge, rubber dildo in it‘s place. The night before the big Christmas Parade.
Mike slowly sat back down on the couch beside DumDum and said, I guess, all he could think of to say.
“No shit?”
“That’s great, DumDum,” I managed.
DumDum nodded and bit his bottom lip.
“Actually, that’s kind of why I came to see you, Mike.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, I got sober after about two years in the joint. Before that, I was just as much of a bastard inside as I was in the free world. Still drinkin’, smokin’, fightin’. I was out of control. That was before I took the oath.”
“The oath, huh? Is that, like, a Jesus thing?”
“No, no…NA/AA. Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous. That oath.”
“Oh…cool, brother.” Mike seemed to be struggling even more now. DumDum’s new wardrobe was sobering him up too quickly. I could tell he really wanted to wash all of this down with a beer. But, was unsure how to proceed in that respect.
“Anyway, part of the oath is sort of religious, I guess. It’s where you’ve got to confess and apologize to the people you hurt in the past. Ya’ know?”
“Yeah, yeah man…sure.” I could tell that Mike had no idea what DumDum was getting at. But I did. An uneasy feeling welled up inside of me. It made we want to get somewhere fast. But, I didn’t leave. I just lit a cigarette and let it happen. I wish I could go back. I wish to God I could go back. Because I knew what was coming. I’d imagined, many times, doing the same thing myself.

Chapter 4

Mike pulled a cigarette he had tucked behind his ear, lit it, and then noticed some weed crumbs on his shirt. He absently brushed them off and then gave DumDum a doe-eyed look of abashment.
“You don’t mind if I smoke, do ya’,” he asked innocently.
“No, shit, brother. Get a beer if you want. It’s not contagious.”
At that, Mike hesitated not and took what seemed three long strides to the kitchen. He was back in the living room in seconds twisting the cap off a fresh bottle of Sully’s. He dropped himself onto the couch beside DumDum.
He raised the bottle to his lips, paused, and asked, “You sure, brother?”
“Yeah, Mike. It’s cool. It’s really cool. I lost my taste for the stuff, that’s all.”
Mike swallowed about half the bottle in one strike. Making up for lost time, I assumed. His formerly uncomfortable demeanor changed immediately. He was back on track and able to handle this old stranger a little better.
“Anyway, I’m kind of glad you’re here too, D. I guess you guys were really good to me back in the day. And I really appreciate that. ‘Cause I know I was a real piece of shit.”
“Hey, brother, no sweat,” Mike said giving DumDum a friendly punch in the shoulder.
I stood up to get a beer and said, “Yeah, dude. No sweat.”
As I walked to the kitchen, that sick feeling that I had before began to worsen. I knew that DumDum didn’t come up to Mike’s house at almost midnight just to catch up on old times. Old times were getting as high and fucked up as possible and riding around town looking for pussy or trouble. This guy was stone-cold sober, at least for the moment. So, his intentions had to be just as sober. Could he not tell that Mike and I were drunk? That this wasn’t the time or the place for serious business? I grabbed a beer out of the fridge, twisted the cap, and took half the bottle down my throat. I couldn‘t make out what DumDum and Mike were discussing from the kitchen. But, I listened for trouble.. I finished off the bottle in another pull, reached in the fridge and got two more. I paused and stared at a picture of Mike holding up a twelve pound bass that was scotch-taped to the freezer door. Then I twisted the cap off one of the bottles and headed back to the living room.
When I got back to the milk crate Laz-E-Boy, DumDum was in the middle of a story.
“…and then I just looked at the guard and said, “You can stick it up your ass, Fuckboy.”
“God damn,” Mike said breathily, getting into what he must have thought of as a really boss prison story.
“Well, brother…about five or six guards wound up beatin’ the shit out of me in lock-up that night. I was in the infirmary for two weeks.”
“God damn,” Mike said again.
“Yeah, well…while I was in the infirmary I had a dream. It was more than a dream, though, ya’ll. It was more like a vision. I saw Jesus, ya’ll. And he told me that I was going down the wrong path. No shit, right,” he asked looking from Mike to me and then to the top of Mike’s coffee table. A smokin’ babe with big, fake tits looked back at him from the cover of a Hustler Magazine.
“Anyway, that’s when I started trying to be a better man, ya’ know? Really trying to find a righteous path and right some wrongs.”
“Yeah, brother…that’s great,” Mike said tipping his empty beer bottle all the way up to the ceiling for the last few drops. He sat the empty bottle on the Hustler babe’s enormous rack and opened his hand for the toss. I flung the beer up and it smacked into Mike’s palm. He was into the middle of the bottle in seconds.
“And, the reason I came up here so late was…well, I’ve been putting off coming to you, brother.” DumDum looked at Mike hard, then put his hand on Mike’s knee.
“I got something that I really need to confess to you. And, tonight, I was sitting at home and the Lord was telling me that I need to do this. Tonight.”
“Do what, now?” Mike wasn’t listening to DumDum as much as he was watching DumDum talk, I think.
“Well…”, DumDum closed his eyes and froze. Slowly, he opened them and then looked at me. He quickly sat bolt upright, reached around his back, and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket.
“Here, D…I know I owe you a lot more…but here’s twenty. The halfway house got me a job at the chicken plant…I’m sure I owe you more…and I’ll get it to you after I get my first paycheck.”
Dumbstruck, I took the bill from his hand. He had a desperate, hopeful look in eyes when I took it.
“Thanks, DumDum. But, this ain’t necessary.” Truthfully, DumDum had borrowed between five and ten dollars every other day that he and I had worked at Reedman together. He was into me for hundreds of dollars, I‘m sure. I never, ever expected to see a cent of it.
When I slipped the bill into my front pocket, egged on by that look in his eyes, he smiled big and satisfied.
Mike tipped his bottle up and then looked at me. The look on his face said, “What the hell was that?”
“Well…what I have to tell you, Mike is…I…did something really bad, brother. So bad…really wrong.”
Mike wiped beer off of his lips with the neck of his “Alabama” t-shirt and nodded slowly. DumDum’s fists were clenched so tight his knuckles were white. He stared straight ahead into the busted big screen T.V. that Mike bought shortly after the first settlement check came in. Tears welled up in DumDum’s eyes.
My guts clenched up to the size of a golf ball inside me. A tempest of tension was swirling in the living room.
“I had…relations…with Susan.” DumDum blew out a huge breath like he had just passed a kidney stone.
My jaw dropped to Hell. I stared right through DumDum into oblivion.
Susan. Mike’s first wife. Mike’s first fuck. Mike’s first love. Hell, maybe the only thing, other than beer, Mike really ever loved.
The beer bottle shattered along with the silence. There was blood before I could blink.


Chapter 5


I grabbed Mike around his neck with both arms and pulled with everything I had. He was driving the jagged, broken bottle into DumDum’s neck with his right hand and choking him with his left. DumDum was gagging and his eyes were bulging so hard I thought they’d pop out of his fucking head. Finally, I managed to turn my body enough and bring Mike down off the couch to the floor with me in a heap.
DumDum slid off of the couch and dropped to his knees beside the coffee table. I got on top of Mike and wrestled the broken bottle out of his hand as fast as I could. I tossed it aside and then pinned Mike down by his shoulders. He was screaming like the Devil. Every curse that was ever spoken by Man was spewing from his mouth. The smell of beer and sweat was in my nostrils. I was screaming back into Mike’s face to no avail. He was struggling and screaming and, I finally noticed, crying. The tendons in his neck were standing out like tree roots as tears corkscrewed out of the corners of his eyes.
Through his hellish screaming, I could hear DumDum chanting, “I’msorryI’msosorryI’msosorryI’msosorryMikeI’msofuckingsorryMike”
“Get the fuck out of here, Dummy! Now, get out!” I was screaming at DumDum, but looking at Mike.
“NO, I can’t leave! I’m so sorry, Mike!” He was now standing over my shoulder and looking down at Mike. Blood dripped onto my cheek and onto Mike’s face. The blood mixed with the tears and sweat. Mike’s struggling worsened and there was nothing but murder in his eyes.
“DUMDUM, GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS FUCKING HOUSE RIGHT NOW!”
“Jesus forgive me, PLEASE! Mike, please forgive me!” DumDum’s voice had this child-like lilt to it that was turning my stomach. If he had continued, I might have let Mike up and events unfold. Instead, DumDum hit the screen door. I looked up for a split second and saw him fishing his keys out of his pants pocket with one hand and holding his neck with the other as he stomped down the porch steps.
I didn’t let up on my hold on Mike until I felt something cold enter the side of my stomach. Then, vicious pain. I looked down and saw the handle of Mike’s pocket knife. The blade was inside me.


Chapter 6


Susan was that girl that every guy loved back in high school. And I don’t mean the gorgeous cheerleader with her nose stuck so high up in the air that she could smell the biscuits cookin’ in Heaven’s kitchen either. I’m talking about the girl better than that. The girl who was as sweet as honey, girl-next-door precious. Who was beautiful and smart without a bit of ornery pride about how beautiful she was. The kind of girl who was friends with everybody and remembered your name to your shock and amazement. The girl who, even though she asked you about your weekend, you could never ask out. Everybody wants her. What makes you think you’re so god damn special that you can get her. So why try, right?
The thing about that is, Susans are girls who grow into women who wind up with the wrong guy. It takes a guy like Mike…a simple, handsome, country-boy who says, “What the hell?” to any challenge he’s given. The type of guy who could actually step up to a girl like Susan was and say, “I know you want to kiss me. So, let’s get it over with tonight. What about it, Darlin‘?”
The Susans of the world don’t get guys come up to them. They get stares, yes. They get guys who turn to jelly and blow compliment bubbles out of their quivering lips as they wring their hands with nerves. The cocky, Johnny Footballhero guys come on way too strong, overcompensate and turn a Susan off. So, the Susans of the world stay pretty lonely, if you want to know the truth.
Shortly after graduation, a graduation that Mike was barely able to attend, Susan took Mike as her husband.
The honeymoon was short, though. Another thing about the Susans of the world is that they make mistakes like Mike all the time. Susans want a soul mate. And, unfortunately for the Susans of the world, they figure out that a great smile, a Camaro, and the ability to make you laugh do not make a soul mate.
Mike’s Susan found that out a year or so too late.
See, even after Mike had the girl that every guy wanted, he still always said, “What the hell?”
Susan caught Mike ramming Susan’s best friend, Monica, from behind while Monica screamed her husbands name into Susan’s pillow.
And that was the end of that.
Chapter 7


I slid off of Mike’s sternum never taking my eyes off of the handle of that pocket knife. The handle, an ivory press with a single alligator tooth embedded in the center. Mike was up and out the door in a flash. From what seemed like a million miles away, I heard a tiny squeak come out of my mouth. I wrapped my fingers around the handle of the pocket knife and shut my eyes tight. I counted to three and yanked as hard and as fast as I could. The pain was like nothing I’d ever felt. I fell back on the floor and stared at the ceiling. A piss-yellow water stain looked down on me and then began to grow hazy. As I began to tick away, I heard gunshots. One shot, two shots, three shots, four shots, five shots…six…shots. And then, I was out cold.


Chapter 8


When I came to, Mike was crouched beside with a bottle tipped upside down in his mouth. He killed the beer and tossed the bottle aside.
“Get up, D. I’m sorry about that knife, brother. But, I need your help right now. Suck it up, D.”
I touched my left side with my right hand and then, with tremendous effort, brought the hand up to my face. No blood.
“I patched ya’ up, D. Come on man. Take these.” Mike turned his palm over onto my face and capsules spilled out into my mouth.
“Chew ‘em, brother. You got to help me out.”
“What…the fuck.” That was all I could manage. I had no idea how long I was out. Mike had been a paramedic shortly before he got the job at Reedman. But, I knew that I needed more than some gauze and whatever pills he had just force-fed me.
“Mike…I need…a doctor.”
“You don’t. You’re fine. You ain’t dead, right.”
“Mike, what happened…with Dum…”
“That’s what I need your help with, D. Now get up.” Mike grabbed both of my hands and pulled me up into a seated position. Pain, dark blue and throbbing, shot up through my entire left side. I screamed.
“Come on, D. Cut that out. Somebody might have heard the shots. You got to suck it up, man.”
“Mike, Jesus Christ, I need a fucking doctor. What did you do!?” My head rolled around like my neck was broken. I had no strength. I wasn’t thinking about anything except the pain.
“I killed that son uva bitch. Now, I’m going to get rid of what’s left of him. And then me and you are going to take care of Susan, ya’ hear me?”
I didn’t hear him. I couldn’t comprehend anything. The pain was crippling and I was so thirsty. I wanted water so bad. Instead, Mike tipped my head up by my chin and poured warm beer into my mouth to wash the pills down that were stuck to my tongue. I tried to cough and spit them out. Mike clamped down on the top of my head and under my jaw and said, “D, swallow the god damn pills…they’re for the pain. Do it!”
I began to chew and swallow. My mouth was filled with an awful, acrid test. Like a mouth full of nickels.
When I opened my eyes, I looked through the screen door and saw that it was dawn. And in the low, humble light, DumDum’s torso was face down on the porch. His body draped down the steps out of my sight.
I screamed again. And again. And again.


Chapter 9


They weren’t pain pills. I don’t know exactly what they were. Like I said, I wasn’t ever into pills. But Mike was. Whatever they were, I didn’t exactly stop feeling pain as much as I just forgot about it. The pain just escaped my consciousness. Along with reality. My pulse was racing and a feeling of euphoria fell over me shortly before I started rolling DumDum’s bullet ridden body up in the tarp that had covered the bass boat that Mike had purchased with his second settlement check. He was now backing his truck up to that boat. He would hitch the boat up, we’d throw DumDum in the back and take a fishing trip. That was his plan.
As I stood up and looked down at the bright, blue tarp that was wrapped around a dead ex-convict, ex-co-worker, ex-drug addict…I started to cry. And I really didn’t know why. The pills were bad news. I thought that maybe Mike had given me the wrong ones. I started wringing my hands as Mike hitched the boat the back of the truck.
“D…cut that shit out. That’s enough.” Mike walked up to me and put his hands on my shoulders.
“D, this son uva bitch fucked my wife. Okay, I flipped out and I shot the fucker. It’s not good, brother. You’ve got to help me out.”
“What did you give me?”
“What?”
“What pills did you give me?”
“Doesn’t matter. Help me get this bag of bait into the boat.”
I grabbed one side of the tarp and Mike grabbed the other. It was so heavy. We walked across the front yard towards the boat with DumDum between us.
“Shut up, D. Stop that shit.”
“Stop what?”
Mike shook his head and struggled to shift the weight of DumDum’s head and shoulders around.
Apparently, I had been singing “The Night the Lights went out in Georgia” as we were hauling DumDum‘s corpse. And I didn’t know I was doing it.
When we sidled up next to the boat, Mike looked at me and raised his eyebrows in order to communicate and conserve oxygen. He moved DumDum slightly away from the boat, then back towards it. Slowly away, then back towards it. Then nodded emphatically. Through my haze, I read him and followed suit. I smiled a big, idiot’s smile like it was a game. He counted to three loudly and we heaved DumDum up and over the bow of the boat. But, we didn’t make it.
DumDum hit the rail of the bow and came tumbling back down between Mike and I. Mike tried to catch him. I simply looked down at the pile of pale flesh and blue tarp. DumDum’s arm was sticking out of tarp. In my mind, the position of his arm and the way his fingers were splayed, he looked like he was one of Barker’s Beauties showing a toaster oven or a Hibachi. A fabulous prize! I started giggling.
“God dammit, D! Get a fucking grip!”
“You gave me the fucking pills you fucking murderer!” I screamed this with impunity and then began laughing like a hyena.
Mike looked from me back down to DumDum and then put his hands on his hips.
“Get in the fucking house, D. Go on!”
“You can’t tell me what to do, Douchenozzle!”
“Get in the FUCKING HOUSE NOW, D!”
I don’t recall what I said then. But, Mike pulled his pistol from the back of his jeans and pointed it at me. I began crying like a child and ran into the house and swan dived onto the couch and buried my face in a pillow. When I finally sat up, I noticed that the makeshift bandage that Mike had fashioned from gauze and tape was puffing out a little. I opened it just a bit and looked. Then I started singing “Total Eclipse of the Heart”.

When Mike stepped into the house, sweating like slave, I turned to him and sang “Turn around BRIGHT EYES” into the empty beer bottle that had become my microphone. It was the tenth or eleventh time I’d sung the entire song. Mike looked at me like I was a rare, but not particularly attractive, species of bird.
He stalked into the kitchen as I began the Bonnie Tyler hit again. He came back into the living room with another handful of pills. I took them right away and said, “Thank you sir! Any requests?” In one minute, I was passed out on the floor.


Chapter 10


My eyelids felt like they weighed ten pounds each. I struggled to lift them. The pain in my side was there and screaming. I propped myself up on my elbows and swooned. I crashed back down on the floor and closed my eyes. I don’t know if I really heard this, but the sound of a shovel scraping against hard dirt again and again sang me back to sleep.


Chapter 11


I dreamed about Susan. I dreamed about her sucking me off and pinching my balls as she did so. I was running my hands through her thick, brown hair and moaning in absolute ecstasy. Her soft, warm breasts brushed against my thighs and I screamed her name. She straightened her posture and put my throbbing dick between her tits and squeezed them together with her palms. She moved up and down and said my name. I looked down at her. Locked eyes with her.
“Do you like this,” she asked and bit her bottom lip.
“Yes,” I said. “Oh, God, yes!”
When I came, she released my dick from the comfort of her tits and took me back into her mouth. And sucked me clean and dry.
I threw my head back and screamed her name again and again.
When I finally came back down from the peak of pleasure, I ducked down to kiss her. Hard.
But she was gone. Instead, I looked across the room and Mike was standing there with his pistol pointed at me.
“You son uva bitch. You fucked her, too.”
I tried to speak, but no words would come. I was no longer sitting on the edge of their marriage bed, but on Mike’s milk crates stark naked.
“You fucked Susan.“ As he said it I could see the cylinder in the pistol move ever so slightly. I looked down and DumDum had my cock in his mouth and was going to town on me.
I screamed myself awake.


Chapter 12

I sat up and, once again, the pain seized me. I grabbed my side and grimaced.
“D, this is bad, brother.” I looked up and saw that Mike was sitting on the milk crates facing the big, dumb, blank face of his fucked, giant television.
“What?”
“This is so bad, brother.”
“Mike, what happened?” I shut my eyes and almost begged Mike to get me some more pills. But, I figured I’d had enough. I’d have to swallow the pain now.
“I killed DumDum, man.”
“Jesus Christ, Mike. What are we gonna do?”
“I guess…I don’t know.”
The memory of my dream flashed in my mind. Her nipples nearly touching each other around me. I shook my head hard and tried to stand.
“Mike, we’ve got to call the cops.”
“No. We can’t.”
“Mike, for Christ’s sake…you killed him. There’s nothing else to do. If you run, it’ll look even worse.”
I couldn’t get on my feet. I fell back down onto the couch cushions. My side let me know that was not the coolest thing to do.
I yelled.
“D, I buried him.”
“Oh, shit.”
“I cut him up and buried him. Out back.”
“Oh, shit.”
“I need to get rid of the car. Maybe no one knew he was here. I can’t believe that son uva bitch fucked Susan. I can’t fucking believe it.”
I saw her cleaning the head of my cock with her tongue. Mike tipped a beer up, killed it, and tossed it aside.
“I loved her so much, D. I loved her so much. And she just fucked anything with a dick. That fucking slut.”
“Mike, don’t say that…you don’t know…what happ…or when.”
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter now.”
I saw her, not as she was in my dream, but afterward. Lying there behind her. My hand cupping her breast and breathing in the sweet scent of her hair. Her slowly moving her hand up and down my thigh. Giggling. Her husband five miles away on third shift at Reedman Steel. I entered her.
“D, I wish I had done things differently. But…she didn’t have to leave me. And go fuck him. Or you.”
I froze. The pain in my side was temporarily out of service. Sometimes, when you hear something you don’t believe you just heard, you try to stop your world from spinning. As though maybe you can reverse time and make sure you heard it right.
“D, why did you fuck my darlin‘?”
“Mike, I don’t know what…”
“Yes you do. I knew you did. I knew it all along. Just tell me why.”
“Mike, please…I’m so sorry, brother…I don’t know what happened it was just…this thing that got out of control…”
“Awww, shit, spare me.” Mike twisted the cap off another Sully’s and tipped it up. I started sweating profusely. My lips were trembling. Mike still had his back turned to me.
“Don’t sweat it, brother. I just need your help.”

Three hours later, I was standing in a dried out ravine in the middle of nowhere in Collier County. I flicked the Zippo in my hand and tossed it into the front seat of DumDum’s car. Then, I ran.
I ran the half-mile back to Mike’s truck on Route 191 as fast as I could go. My side started bleeding badly as I ran. But, I didn’t care. I didn’t give a fuck.

Chapter 13


Mike and I had waited until midnight to ditch the car. Mike hadn’t slept at all the whole day. Just sat and drank beer and stared into his dead television behemoth until the time came.
I followed Mike in DumDum’s car for the three-hour ride out to Collier County. Between beers, Mike had said only one thing.
“I know a place. Where I was going to take Rita. Or Beth. Whichever one I killed.” I had no response.

On the ride back, Mike turned on the radio. Country music. I laid my head against the window and watched the rural counties melt into one another until I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Mike, if you knew…why didn’t you ever say anything.” Mike turned the volume down on the radio and said,
“I didn’t know.” Then he turned the volume back up. With the hand that held his pocket knife.
“You talk in your sleep, brother,” he said.