Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders

  Shit reached over and turned out the lamp.

  They dozed.

  “G’night, puppies.” In the dark, Dynamite rubbed the head of one or the other, dog or boy, with a callused thumb or forefinger behind the ear.

  Shit was awake enough to laugh. (“He gets that from Jay.”) And Eric enough to hear it.

  * * *

  [20] STILL ANOTHER DAY-off morning, when he woke in Dynamite’s bed, with Shit’s arm flung over him, from the empty sheet on his left, Eric realized Dynamite was already up. Turning his head, he saw, through the open porch door, sunlight fall over the cracked and blistered porch rail.

  “Hey—!” Dynamite called from outside. “Get up and come on out here. Come on, now! Get on out—take a look at this!”

  Stretched across the foot of the bed, Tom lifted his head, looked over one paw, then put his muzzle back down.

  Sleepily, both boys untangled themselves and slid off the bed, naked, then walked out the side door onto the uneven boards. In the ratty undershirt he’d slept in that night, Dynamite was down among the tall growths beside the porch. He beckoned them. “Come on. I wanna show yall.”

  As they went down the steps on bare feet, Shit first, Eric following, Eric realized, without pants, Dynamite was himself naked from the waist down.

  “Get on over here, now—and look.” Dynamite dropped to a squat before the ferns.

  Shit said, “What the fuck you goin’ on about this early in the goddam mornin’?”

  “Come on,” his father said. “Hunker down here.”

  The sun had cleared the cabin’s corner. Morning gold—it couldn’t have been much after six-fifteen—burned through fronds bending about them.

  It was cool, with direct sun making a warm spot on a shoulder, a hip.

  Eric squatted. On tickling stems, dew wet his buttocks, his thighs.

  Beside him, with a forward gesture of his big hand, Dynamite said, “Can you see her, there?”

  Behind them, Shit, too, dropped to a squat, a hand supporting himself on Eric’s shoulder, the other on his father’s. “Damn,” Shit said. “If you wasn’t such a good fuck, I’d take Eric and go get my own cabin so at least for a couple of mornin’s a week I could get some real sleep.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Dynamite said. “You get off on watchin’ your brother here suck my dick too much.”

  “Oh, that ‘brother’ thing gets him all excited.” Shit took two squatting steps forward. “Kinda turns me on, too.” ‘

  “I know.” Dynamite glanced back. “That’s how I can always getcha up to fuck me.” Eric glanced down, where grinning Dynamite jogged his knee. “Why would he wanna give that up to be a hermit?”

  Two tall fronds leaned widely apart. Between scalloped threads, a grand web rayed silvery lines from its center. Toward the middle, the dozen strands lost their precision. Hundreds of dewdrops caught along its lines, a third like diamonds in direct sun, another third in shadow became pearls, and still others, where reflected sunlight from the window behind them poured through its lattice, became prisms. Up on the left, in one patch, a marauding cricket had gotten snared, torn some lines, and been enveloped with white, while the net had been repaired around it. Yet most of the matrix was symmetrical perfection—or, better, symmetrical perfection adapted to its asymmetrical firmament. Eric shifted his weight—and dozens of dewdrops all over the morning web flickered and flashed. Prisms shook myriad colors.

  Yellow and black stripes on her less-than dime-sized abdomen, the spider, having crawled halfway toward the center, paused to move a black leg, slowly, in a welcoming gesture, four, five, six times—for exercise, for relief, or some arachnoid dance—before crawling further on the bright lattice.

  Eric glanced back at Shit. “You see that…!”

  “Yeah…” Shit’s voice was lower than Eric’s.

  Was that, Eric wondered, wonder?

  “Back when I was seven or eight,” Shit said, “you took me out to show me one of these, and I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever fuckin’ seen—and I still do.”

  “You remember that?” Dynamite asked.

  Shit just grunted.

  Eric said, “I never seen that before…I mean, up close, with dew on it.”

  In the chaos that overtook its center, in the irregular boundary, and in the rhythmic order between center and rim, each thread with a line of droplets, it was a glimmering polychrome glister.

  Behind him, after a confirming squeeze of his shoulder, Eric felt Shit stand. His voice came from above: “I’m goin’ inside an’ make you fuckers some coffee. ’Cause I sure want a cup.” He heard Shit move away, back to the steps.

  Off in the brush, Eric heard Uncle Tom moving—whose interests were food, sex, rubs, and hugs, with all of which, Eric figured, they were pretty generous.

  *

  In front of the kitchen window, Shit was sliding the carafe from under the drip hopper by the handle, when, outside, something moved the long grasses, chain clinked, and boots thudded up the loose board.

  Some ways outside the door, two large trees down the slope stood tall before the sun, so that the light was a white gold net among the lapping shards the leaves became, filling the doorway, when it pushed in.

  Sitting on a carton and roughhousing with Tom, Eric looked up to see the stocky silhouette step across the lintel. “What yall doin’? If I’m interuptin’ yalls Sunday mornin’, I’ll come back later.”

  Eric’s ears said the man had walked up through the brush, but for all the world Eric’s eyes said—at least momentarily—the stocky figure had swung down from the branches to land on the kitchen porch.

  Something squatting behind the man’s right leg lingered outside, while the fellow yanked the chain leash that ran up to one wrist. “Come on—get in here, you two-bit piece of shit.” His voice was deep and black and country.

  As if recognizing it, Tom pulled up and out of Eric’s grip, to hurry toward the door.

  Naked (except for his T-shirt) in a kitchen chair, its front legs up off the floor, Dynamite rocked and said, “You ain’t interuptin’ nothin’, Bull. Come on in. Shit just made some coffee. Pour Bull a mug—put lotsa sugar in it. And no milk—that’s how the Bull likes it, right? Black and sweet. Come on in and drink it with us.”

  “Sure.” The loose cuffs of Bull’s once black jeans, now between brown and colorless, were pushed into the tops of his scuffed boots. Over a naked chest, he wore a black leather vest with no fastenings. His muscles rivaled Jay’s out on the island. “How about it, now—I get a chance to drink coffee and watch you all scratchin’ your balls!” Bull exploded with basso laughter, while Shit spooned two, three, four teaspoons from the wide-necked sugar jar into the just-filled mug, then handed it to Bull, who took it and lowered himself onto the seat that Shit had been sitting on.

  Shit took his own mug and went to the table, turned, and pushed himself up on the edge. “Hey, Whiteboy? You want some coffee?” Shit looked over toward the door, down at the floor.

  Bull looked over, too. “Don’t give that retarded piece of mule shit no coffee. He already had too much this mornin’.”

  Scrawny Whiteboy squatted, naked, on the floor before the half-closed kitchen door. His black dog collar was attached to a swaying chain that ran to Bull’s leather wrist brace. Tom had gone straight for him, and with grubby hands Whiteboy was playing with Tom’s black and brown head while Tom licked at Whiteboy’s mouth. “See, he wants to kiss me—that old hound really loves me, don’t he? Well, come on—I don’t care. You can kiss on me if you want. I’ll kiss on you, too…” Suddenly, Tom dropped his head and, as the kid bent over him, went for the wrinkled belly and below. “Oh, fuck—!” The folded skin behind his knees and at the bend in his arms made Eric suspect that the grubby “kid” was in his thirties, rather than his teens or twenties, the first impression he always had. The “kid’—if that’s what he was—fell over on his back. “Tom just nipped my goddamn balls!” His legs and soiled feet were in the
air, and he was laughing.

  “Yeah,” Shit said from the table edge, “and now he’s eatin’ out your asshole, too,” while Tom, head to the side, licked vigorously, his nose between grubby hairless buttocks.

  Dynamite said, “Whyn’t you make that boy put some clothes on, before you go visitin’?”

  “Why? Your boys ain’t wearin’ none.” Bull looked over, haughtily. “And you just got on that ratty T-shirt. Besides, this is the fuckin’ Dump. This is work I’m doin’. I wear enough for everybody, especially you dumb fucks!” Again Bull’s manic basso exploded.

  Eric grinned. (From earlier meetings he’d already learned that Black Bull’s concept of humor lay at right angles to anything Eric ever found funny. But the limp and lame jokes Bull thought were riotous made Eric laugh, if only for their eccentricity and lack of logic—something he’d failed to explain to Shit, who responded, Naw, the nigger don’t know how to tell no joke. That’s all.)

  Falling, Whiteboy had jerked the chain, pulling Bull’s heavy wrist. “Jesus Christ…!” Coffee sloshed over the mug’s rim. Bull swiveled on his chair, sat the mug among the pans and dishes crowding the counter top, stood up, and with his booted foot pushed the dog away.

  He stepped astraddle Whiteboy.

  At once, Bull hauled back his fist, so that the muscles beyond the vest’s arm hole were a clutch of perfect spheres, as black as gun metal in the sunlight through the kitchen window. Then, grinning, he swung his fist down, almost too fast to see, at Whiteboy’s head—

  Whiteboy gasped, grunted, and jerked away on the floor.

  Eric almost fell off his box—even as, a beat later, he realized it had been a feint and the black boulder of Bull’s fist and Whiteboy’s stubbly blond jaw had not connected.

  Grimacing, Whiteboy pushed upright.

  The swing had carried Bull into a crouch. Shaking his head, he stood again, looked for his coffee, found it, and sat again on his chair.

  The leash between Bull’s wristbrace and Whiteboy’s collar swung.

  From his seat on the table, Shit laughed (that, apparently, he found funny)—and Eric looked bewildered.

  Dynamite was still rocking in his chair, still scratching himself.

  Tom had walked off some three steps to sit and watch.

  Hands on the table edge, either side of his legs, Shit said, “See? That’s how Bull makes Whiteboy shoot his load—”

  Whiteboy’s cock thrust from its tow-haired tuft like a bone-straight five-inch length up his heaving belly. Whiteboy panted. A colorless splash glistened on the wrinkling and unwrinkling flesh. Moving back against the wall, with one hand Whiteboy rubbed his stomach then raised his fingers to suck them. Then, with the same hand, he rubbed his jaw where the blow might, indeed, have connected. Looking around, he said, “Bull beats the shit out of me, a lot. He knees me in my nuts. That hurts real good—or punches me in my face. Yeah, it makes me shoot. But that’s ’cause I don’t cum like most guys.” He looked down at his belly and rubbed again. “I shot this ’cause I was scared. That’s what makes me cum.”

  From the table Shit said, “But with you it lasts longer than with regular people. Ain’t that right?”

  Whiteboy nodded. “Un-huh.”

  “I mean, you’re still cummin’ now, ain’t ya?”

  “Un-huh.” Again Whiteboy nodded. “When I have a’ orgasm, like now, it goes on and on for, you know, four, five, six minutes. It feels real good. I’m still gettin’ chills all up and down my legs and my back—and under my balls.”

  “Yeah,” Shit said. “He’s’ more like a dog. You know when Tom comes, how long he goes on shootin’.”

  Whiteboy nodded. “Once I timed it with a clock—it went on for nine whole minutes. You can tell with me—I’ll be cummin’ till you see my dick go down.” He grinned at himself again, and, with his thumb, pushed his cock forward. Still hard, it snapped back against his stomach. He looked around, grinning. “It feels real nice, now. I like it when Bull makes me come like that.”

  “It calms the scumbag down,” Bull said to Eric. “That’s all.”

  On his own chair, Dynamite nodded.

  Kind of dreamily, Whiteboy said, “Most of the time, Bull just fakes it—like then. But it still scares me. That’s ’cause every six, seven times, he really hits me. Hard, too. That way I don’t never know if it’s gonna connect or not. It’s the bein’ scared that makes me have a’ orgasm. The ones where he really hits me, those is the best—the longest ones. Like that nine minute one. But Shit and Dynamite know all about that. Bull likes me to tell people what might not understand, like you. So they don’t get upset.”

  “He knows you’re all relaxed and calm, now,” Bull said. “All right, Mr. Garbage Man—” Bull took a long swallow, then set his mug back on the counter—“I got a message for you.”

  Dynamite said, “Huh?”

  “We oughta go on outside, though.” Bull eased forward and stood. “Get off that box now.” He gestured to Eric. “Yall come on with me.”

  Eric frowned at Bull. “Huh—?” echoing Dynamite.

  “You, too. I ain’t playin’, cocksucker.”

  Bull gave the leash a tug. Still crouched, Whiteboy scurried toward him. Bull pushed out the screen door. Dynamite stepped after him. Eric and Shit followed. “Seems I gottta take me a goddam piss.” Bull stepped forward. One boot landed half on a yellow-handled screwdriver that lay on the porch planks. Bull kicked it inside. It slid across the threshold, hit Dynamite’s foot—who put the toes of one foot on top of it, and with a push rolled it further back into the kitchen, till, through the screen, Eric saw it hit another carton.

  Dynamite plodded over the porch.

  “Get on down them steps!” Bull barked at Eric.

  Whiteboy pushed out between Eric and Shit. The leash tugged around Eric’s shoulder. “Bull pisses on me, all the fuckin’ time—in my mouth an’ everything. He makes me drink it.” (The leash slipped up Eric’s shoulder, to slide there.) “You like doin’ that?”

  Eric said, “Um…” Chills started somewhere behind his knees. Except for Dynamite’s T-shirt, everone but Bull was naked; for a moment Eric wished they weren’t. “I dunno. Maybe, I guess…”

  Shit was watching, grinning, walking down.

  “Bull,” Dynamite asked, “what did Doctor Greene send you over here for?”

  Bull took Dynamite’s shoulder and stepped with him to the side. He called to the others, “Get on down there, turn around, and look up here!”

  Still grinning, Shit said, “We better do what Bull says. Bull ain’t used to havin’ people question what he wants—” He had one hand on the back of Eric’s shoulder, one hand on the back of Whiteboy’s.

  Up by the porch rail, Bull was saying: “It wasn’t Dr. Greene—Dis one come from you frien’ Jay, out on Gilead.”

  At the steps bottom, Eric, Shit and Whiteboy all looked up. The earth beneath Eric’s naked feet was soft.

  By the porch rail, Bull said, “Get that dog outta there. It’s gonna be enough of a mess without ’im carryin’ on and getting’ in the way.”

  Again, the leash had stretched out straight.

  Whiteboy reached down and grappled passing Tom to drag him up one, two, three stairs and sat. The leash sagged, and Whiteboy got panting Tom under one arm to sit with him.

  Again, Bull turned to Dynamite, his hands at the waist of his beltless jeans. “You know, fella, that new son you got there is a prime guzzlin’ piss pig—” Bull looked down at Eric. “That’s a title you can be proud of, comin’ from Jay.”

  Dynamite leaned forward, frowning. “What you mean? How’s he gonna be a prime anything? He’s a fuckin’ kid…”

  “I mean what you think I mean. Jay done told me—and if anyone should know around here, it’s Jay. It ain’t like you ain’t never pleasured one before—you like it, too. I seen you at The Slide—”

  Dynamite said, “I don’t go there no more.”

  “Well, you been there. And you done spilled your ten or twe
lve pails of fun—if you ain’t drunk up a few as well; even if it ain’t been for a couple of years. Eric probably ain’t like Whiteboy—yet. Still, you gonna have to do a little topppin’ for ’im.” He grinned at Eric. Somehow Bull had most of his teeth—at least the front ones. They were broad and ivory colored.

  Eric felt prickles up the backs of his legs, along his neck.

  Through the porch newels he saw Bull unsnap his steel waist button. A triangle of worn cloth fell from snarled pubic hair. Bull pulled up his thick penis. With two fingers, he slid back his black collar from the brown head. He looked down at Eric. “Open your mouth, son—”

  Shit chuckled and stepped back. “Oh, fuck…!”

  “—Hey…” Dynamite frowned.

  Among Bull’s fingers and within the thick hood, Eric saw the pee-hole that slit the head widen.

  The width of a kitchen knife, a yellow blade leaped forward, fell from the porch, down, to break on Eric’s chin. A quarter of a second before hot urine hit, Eric felt like somebody had given him an electric shock that rose up through his body, paralyzing it.

  Shit whispered, “Open your mouth…!”

  Eric opened it. What was happening to Eric had only registered as real with the splash’s heat. He remembered when he’d first seen Shit eat snot in the men’s room. . .

  “Go on…”

  Brine drowned his tongue, and he swallowed—and swallowed—keeping his mouth open and working his throat. That first heat had made him think the urine was actually hot. But it was just warm. Drops bounced out around his mouth’s edges.

  “You like that, cocksucker, don’tcha? I bet you do!”