Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders

  Dynamite chuckled. “You know, my boys here can be a little crude. Come on, Shit—keep it in your pants.”

  “Hey,” Big man said, “time to put me down, now. I wanna walk.”

  At which point, a heavy man—the only one Eric had seen in a sport coat besides Big Man—came through a swinging door from the pantry or the kitchen, carrying a frosted bowl. “Anyone want some eggnog? It’s ready.” He lugged it over to a sideboard that looked a little too big for the living room and set it on a silver tray, circled with glass cups. “We couldn’t find no ladle.” The man stood up and turned.

  “Just use a cup there for a dipper. Come on, Shit! Don’t fuck around. Put me down.” And Shit set Big Man on the green rug, while the dwarf got his rubber crutch tip planted, to pull the bar back under his arm. “You want a cup, Mr. Haskell?”

  “Sure,” Dynamite said.

  (With one hand Shit held up his waist and with the other reached down inside his jeans. Carrying Big Man had apparently given Shit a boner.)

  “Jimmy—dip out a cup for Dynamite here. He’s an old friend of my daddy’s. Everybody go on and get some.” Big Man turned back to Dynamite. “Too bad he ain’t still here to say hello to you, sir.”

  “Oh, I see him now and then when him and his guys come up to the Dump to do some repair work. Oh—” and Dynamite turned to take a cup of eggnog. “Thank you, Kelly. Good to see you.”

  A few minutes later, leaning on his crutch, Big Man called to everybody. “Hey, come on out and meet Buddy and Danny.” The black dwarf led them over the green carpet, through the swinging door, into the kitchen, where, at sink and stove and counter, four of Big Man’s friends—three black fellows in jeans and one in a very frilly apron—were cooking. One of the black guys, Larson (a clothing salesman at the Hemmings Mall), seemed in charge.

  That night it was a roast beef dinner, Big Man explained.

  Greased muffin trays of greenish metal—they looked as if they’d been used many times before—stood along the counter. “After Thanksgiving, I’m so tired of turkey—” Big Man laughed—“I don’t know what to do. Larson says I should leave it all to him. He says he’s gonna make Yorkshire puddin’ with it.”

  “That’s just what I say.” Larson wore a bright red shirt.

  Big Man pushed open the kitchen door, and they followed his short, swaying figure outside onto the boards. “Hey—and out here’s is where I keep my friend, Danny.”

  Larson stepped out behind them. “Danny, do you or Buddy want some water?”

  Eric looked back and saw Larson was holding a metal dish. He put the dish down by the side of the door on the porch’s green boards.

  Big Man laughed. “What Danny wants is a beer!”

  “Actually—” Larson snorted—“I was thinking more of Buddy.”

  In the steel gray afternoon, his back to them, on the top step sat what looked like a hulking, blond farm boy—near Eric’s age, maybe twenty-seven or twenty-eight. Now he looked over his shoulder, smiled, then stood. Chains dragged (Eric heard them before he saw them), as he turned to grin. Danny was still thickly muscular, with bright blue eyes and all smile. As he stood, swaying a little, Eric saw that—again—he wore no shirt, but a black leather upper body harness over his muscular chest and full shoulders. His stomach was ridged as deeply as Eric’s.

  Nor, again, was there a crotch in his jeans.

  This time he wore no jockstrap, either.

  The denim had been cut away, and the edges reinforced with brown leather. Below his belt buckle—and further below a red-brown tuft of pubic hair—heavy genitals hung loose and low. In scuffed black engineer’s boots, Danny put one foot up on the top step. On his arms and pectorals were the old tats—jailhouse work, rather than Cassandra’s elegant decorations: a lopsided swastika; a childish skull; a World-War II fighter swooped over his forearm; the word “FUCK” and a capital “U” were inked above one pec—and, Eric saw, the tear, under the outer corner of one friendly blue eye—like Cassandra’s two.

  (Eric tried to remember if they’d all been there at The Slide that first afternoon. Was it five years back…? Or seven…?)

  “Hello…” Danny raised his hand. “Yall here for Christmas? That’s real nice. Me, too.”

  Just behind Eric, Shit said, “Hey, ain’t you the bouncer what used to work up at the Slide?”

  A black mongrel looking dog walked up the steps. It could have been from the same litter as Uncle Tom. It took a few steps over the porch, stopped, and looked around with lolling tongue.

  Danny nodded. “Naw—I ain’t been there in a few years. Saul didn’t want me around no more. Said I got on his nerves.” He looked very happy. “I been workin’ a real job for a while, though. At the factory over at Hemmings. I gotta work with fuckin’ white guys. But they leave me alone, pretty much. And I don’t mess with ’em. Big Man said me and Buddy could come down here and have ourselves some Christmas with yall.” He bent down and roughed the dog’s head, then went back to looking around at them. “I’ll have a lot more fun here.”

  On his crutch, Big Man hobbled forward. “Now most of my friends, I guess it’s no surprise—” He reached down and lifted his translucent urine bag, a third full—“are pretty much into piss, one way or the other.” Some laughed. “I guess they gotta be to stay friends with me. But this ain’t no orgy—piss or any other kind.”

  Kelly said, “Hey, don’t go makin’ judgments about all your friends, now, Little Man—some of us, you know, just like you.”

  Three of the other called out, “Big Man…It’s Big Man, Kelly! Big Man…”

  Kelly said, “I’m sorry. I meant Big Man. I used to have another little person for a friend. See. We called him Little Man. That’s all.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Big Man said. “I know, all us little people look alike.”

  The others laughed again.

  Big Man went on, “Naw, it’s a party. This ain’t no fuck fest—unusual as that is for me. Remember that. Still, if you want somethin’ special, don’t come botherin’ me for it. Bring your glass out here, or you can get it right from the source—” Reaching over, he lifted Danny’s cock in his thick, stubby hand. “If you know Danny, you know he ain’t gonna mind. He got his case of beer right here for the night.” The carton sat to the side of the upper step. Three king-sized Coors cans already stood beside it on the porch’s green boards.

  Some of the guys laughed.

  In another yard, lights went on in two windows with wreaths in them, scored by the slats of Venetian blinds. It was overcast enough so—though it was not yet three o’clock (the hour set for dinner)—it wasn’t surprising.

  Though he wasn’t Al, Danny was pretty well hung. He smiled down, where Big Man held his penis.

  “There ain’t a better Piss Master on the goddam Georgia coast than Danny Turpens.”

  Danny said, “Yeah, I can be a Piss Master, but—” actually he sounded sheepish—“really, I’m a fuckin’ slave. It’s nice of you guys to let me and Buddy come here, and it’s real nice of Big Man to chain me up back here so me and Buddy can have some Christmas, too.”

  Kelly said, “You ain’t comin’ in with us…?”

  “Naw.” Danny practically beamed. “Big Man ain’t gonna let me in there with you black fellas.”

  Big Man drew himself up on his crutch and barked like Marine Sergeant Ermey, “Tell me why, you white piece of crap!”

  Eric, who had been to bed with Big Man half a dozen times, with and without Shit, was surprised that that much sound could come from him.

  With his farm boy grin cast down at the porch Danny moved the toe of his boot back and forth. “’Cause I’m too low down and even nastier than you are.” He glanced up at the guys. “So he gonna keep me chained up back here—with my dog, Buddy.”

  Eric noted no chain held the dog.

  One black guy who’d come out with them asked someone beside him in a kind of nervous way, “That’s what he wants…?”

  “Naw,” Danny said, “he
ain’t gonna let me inside. I gotta stay out here, in the back.”

  Big Man let Danny go. Danny’s eight-inch cock flopped down over his testicles.

  Leaning on his crutch, with his broad dwarf’s head and his maroon suit, the little fellow lumbered around on the porch. “That there is gonna be Danny’s Christmas dinner.” He pointed to a metal bowl beside where Larson had set the water dish. “That is to say, Danny and Buddy’s Space Program Recommencement dinner,” he corrected himself. “Right? So when yall finished eatin’, you come on out and scrape your plates into that bowl, there. Then you can leave the plates up on the table over there. Okay? You got to do that, otherwise they ain’t gonna get nothin’ to eat. Understand?”

  “Big Man gonna keep me chained up out here, while you guys have fun inside. I’ll be here if you need anything off me. But that’s how me and Buddy gonna have our Christmas.” Danny nodded. “Me and Buddy always eat out the same dish—we share our food.”

  Behind the bowl stood three glass Mason jars. One already had three inches of clear yellow liquid in it.

  (It was maybe forty-five degrees out, but Danny didn’t seem to mind.)

  Walking over—the links clinked—to stand behind it, Danny scratched his pubis in his cutaway jeans, then took his penis in his own hand, and pointed it down. A stream of urine fell into the jar’s rim. “I don’t lie about it. I’m a fuckin’ beer drunk—but I really have to cut it out.” As his water roared into the Mason jar, through the glass Eric could see the surface become froth. “When you fellas wandered out here, I was about to take a leak anyway.” He looked around with his farm boy grin, while his water chattered down. “Anybody want some? Come on and get it, if you want. I don’t care. If I’m pissin’, anybody can bend down and take a drink.” Nobody said anything. Eric looked around to see some of the black fellows were grinning, though. “Well,” Danny said, seconds later, when he was running out, “maybe after a while, then, when things are gettin’ on. Doc says if I drink too much more beer, it’s gonna kill me. But I been drinkin’ pretty steady, since I was a kid—’cept for when they put me in the jail. The Doc says that year off from the suds is the only reason I’m alive—I couldn’t drink for a year, ’cause I was locked up. Well, maybe someday I’ll be able to quit. But not for a while, I don’t think.”

  Danny shook himself, then ran his thumb over his cock head, then underneath and around what Eric had only recently heard someone in the Dump call a “Georgia sun hat.” Letting himself go, he put his thumb in his mouth to suck away the urine. “That stuff is good…” He grinned at them. “But you—” he pointed to one of the older black men watching—“already know that, don’t you. Yeah, I remember you. You musta drunk a couple of gallons of it back behind The Slide. Right?”

  Over by some shovels and rakes in a corner, someone else chuckled.

  “Okay, now,” Big Man said. “Come on. Let’s go back in and have us some good times and some good dinner, and leave Danny and Buddy to their thing out here—” he reached over and rubbed the dog’s head, who got up and began first to lick his hand, then turned and started nuzzling and licking the urine bag—“Hey…!” Big Man stepped back. “Cut it out, dog! You bite a hole in this thing and I’ll bite your fuckin’ nuts off!”

  “He likes it ’cause it probably got some salt,” Danny said. “From the piss.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Big Man said. He stepped back again. “Well, fuck him!”

  The guys laughed again.

  As Danny turned, Eric saw now that his crotchless jeans were completely split up the back, so that moments of pale skin flicked between the edge, as he went back down a couple of steps.

  Shit must have seen it the same time. “Hey—”

  Danny looked back. “Huh?”

  “You ain’t got no ass in your pants,” Shit said. “Can we fuck you?”

  Dynamite said, “Come on, Shit. Big Man already told us, this ain’t a fuckin’ party. It’s just for eatin’ and talkin’.”

  “Well, I mean,” Shit said, “I wouldn’t take him inside. I’m cool with that. But since it was out here, I thought maybe—”

  Danny reached up to grip the chain attached to his leather collar. “Naw—the Big Man ain’t gonna let me come in there with you guys. I gonna stay outside with Buddy.”

  “You wavin’ your dick around,” Shit said, “and anybody who wants can get a drink or a suck, I just thought, since your asshole was flickin’ in the wind, maybe you wouldn’t mind a dick or so up that thing.”

  Danny said, “You niggers can do whatever the fuck you want with me—long as it’s okay with Big Man, here. That nigger’s the boss tonight, ain’t he?”

  “Come on.” Big Man started back across the porch. “Whatever you do out here’s fine, long as nobody starts screamin’ bloody murder. You know, we got people livin’ next door.” (As if in response, two more windows in another house lit up.) “Let’s go inside. I’m gettin’ hungry.”

  Danny laughed. “And I’m gettin’ fuckin’ thirsty.” Stepping from the jars to the carton—the Coors—he bent. (The flaps of his jeans slipped open over a slice of white buttocks, split by the crevice between.) Pulling loose another king-sized can, he stood, popped the top, and upended it over his mouth, while, with his other hand, he moiled his genitals.

  As they started back in—ahead, the wheels on Pike’s chair bumped over the sill—Shit said to Eric, “Hey, that’s neat. Havin’ your own slave outside—like Bull and Whiteboy.” Beside them, Eric saw, Buddy sat, then stretched out on the porch, muzzle along the boards.

  Shit said softly, “You remember Danny?”

  “Sure, back when you first took me over to Saul’s.”

  In the efficient looking kitchen, Larson had half removed the roasting pan from the upper oven and was ladling hot grease from it into one of the muffin tins, while Earnest, with a bowl of batter, beside him, spooned it into the tin. Immediately it bubbled and hissed, as—spoon after spoon—he filled one cup after another.

  A dubious Shit whispered in Eric’s ear, “What’s that…?”

  “I don’t know,” Eric said, “but Chef Ron ought to be here. That’s somethin’, huh?”

  “Maybe,” Shit said. “I guess so. It smells a little funny—but it looks interestin’.”

  “That’s the puddin’,” Earnest said, glancing at them. “The Yorkshire puddin’. Now, come on, get outta here—or it won’t be no surprise.”

  Moments later, as they were leaving to go back into the living room, roast and muffin pan both went back into the upper oven.

  Still later, when they were eating, Shit said, “It’s fried bread—that’s all it is!” (Shit’s judgment.) “I guess it’s…okay,” while others were more praiseful.

  There was a fair amount of joking, and Kelly and Pike got into an argument about gay spirituality and black spirituality and whether there were similarities—Pike was the one who had sounded uncomfortable about leaving Danny out back.

  That’s when Eric looked up to see that Shit was gone. Minutes later, while the lazy conversation moved to laughter and back, among the men sitting around, some with beer cans on their own, some with glasses of red wine, Shit came back in, looking very pleased. Every once in a while, Shit adjusted or rubbed at his crotch.

  Waking up in the big wing chair, Dynamite asked, “What’d you do with your plate?”

  “I scraped it into the dog bowl and left it outside on the table like I was supposed to,” Shit said jocularly. He shook his head, then said, “He don’t never think I can do anything right.”

  One of the other guests—Larson—looked over; and Eric realized that he probably hadn’t realized Shit and Dynamite were father and son; or nephew and uncle; or lover and lover; or whatever…

  One of the others—who apparently did—laughed.

  Jesus, Eric thought. I bet he was out there and fucked that goddam drunk! Next he thought, I could use a glass of beer piss myself. Dad’s and Shit’s is always so strong. And I’m pretty full—maybe, just so I
can tell Shit I did it. And also to see if the guy can still walk. Eric carried his plate through the kitchen, clinked all his silver but his knife into the sink, where it was piled for rinsing, then went outside.

  Beside the mason jars, the dog dish was half full of scraps, beef and vegetables…and a couple of Yorkshire puddings (probably from guests who’d felt about them like Shit had). The first Mason jar was filled with gold urine, greenish in the evening overcast. The other two were about a quarter full each.

  Two cardboard flaps had been ripped from the beer case. Half a dozen cans stood next to it—empties, Eric assumed.

  Danny sat a step down, leaning over, doing something. Over his sculpted shoulder, a black strap loosened and tightened on its steel ring, as he moved his muscular arm.

  Eric stopped to scrape his own leavings into the dog bowl—using the knife—then stacked the plate on top of the others on the table corner.

  Inside the conversation had been interesting enough so that he hadn’t noticed when men had left it or returned. He stepped over to see what Danny was doing.

  Buddy was on the step below the big country boy. The dog lay on his back, head up and panting. On the step above, knees jackknifed and leaning wide apart, Danny had reached down with one hand to hold the dog’s penis in his labor hardened fist, massaging it. Three inches of red and white streaked inner cock thrust from its sheath as Danny rubbed. Now and again, Buddy leaned forward and licked at himself. Danny looked up, with the same grin he’d had before—and kept rubbing. From his unfocused smile, Eric realized he was more drunk than before.

  “Hi—Danny Turpens.” Danny reintroduced himself, then raised his other hand and thrust it toward Eric; clearly he had no particular memory of Eric among the others.

  Eric took it and shook; his grip was firm, dry, and rough.

  “Eric Jeffers,” Eric said.

  The grip between them held long enough for Danny to start smiling even more. “I’m just makin’ sure ol’ Buddy here gets some Christmas, too.” The chain from Danny’s neck draped over one knee. “He really likes it when I jerk him off. You ever suck a dog?”