Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders

  “A few times,” Eric said. “We got one, back in the Dump. We just about got ’im so he’ll climbs into bed with us, and Shit likes to watch me do that. So does my dad—Dynamite. It gives ’im somethin’ to beat off over.”

  “It does? Lucky you.” Danny chuckled. “My daddy caught me doin’ that once and like to fuckin’ kill me. But that was before I went to jail. He’s the one whose cockamamie scheme got me in there in the first place. He’s still in the fuckin’ hoosegow—’cause the drunken ol’ fool accidentally kilt a damned guard trying to rip off that old warehouse.”

  “How did he…accidentally kill ’im?”

  “Hit a guard in the head with a length of pipe—an’ the dumb bastard had a heart attack and died. Ain’t that a bitch? Hit somebody in the head, and because he got a weak heart, it stops. You know, when I was in jail, they kept on tellin’ me that niggers wasn’t really human. They was all really animals—and I used to pray that they was right. I can’t even hardly go to bed with most white guys, unless I pretend they’re at least half some kind of animal. You know what I mean? Course, if you’re at this party, I guess you gotta be part animal yourself. Right? So I could probably fuck with you—if you wanted to.” He frowned at Eric, as though the ghost of a memory remained. “Big Man is fun—he’s easy to fuck with. He’s like fuckin’ with a monkey or a raccoon—some animal that’s always pissin’ all over you.” Danny shook his head. “Since my daddy’s been away, I can live by myself, and I can do whatever the fuck I want. I been suckin’ off this hound every day since I goddam got the sonofabitch. He loves it, too. He come right in my mouth. You got to hold it real firm, though—otherwise he gonna pull loose. See, they can lick themselves, but they can’t make themselves shoot. They need a person for that. That’s why man is dog’s best friend. Or somethin’. You wanna suck ’im? I mean, you know how to do it so the sonofabitch’ll come? That’s what I was gonna do—”

  “Naw,” Eric said. “Naw, that’s all right.”

  “So, what can I do for you?” Danny looked quizzical.

  “I want some goddam piss.” Eric grinned. “That’s what I want.”

  Danny reached down to lift his genitals from where they splayed on green painted wood. “Well, you come to the right boy. Actually I was tryin’ to make up my mind whether I was gonna take me another leak or suck off my damned dog again. You want it right out the spigot, or—if you like—I’ll do it in an empty can, and you can take it inside with you and nurse it awhile.”

  “I might do both,” Eric said.

  “That’s fine too.” Danny leaned forward, stood up, turned and climbed back up to the top step. “Come on—get down on your knees. I can’t hold her back too much longer.”

  Eric went forward and down—and got a splash on his cheek, before he got it in his mouth. One of the things Eric had learned at the Slide was that, with most pissers, you had to keep your tongue away from the head. Usually, any touch would stop the flow.

  Not Danny.

  Eric’s tongue was all over his cockhead, and deep into the piss slit as well, his tongue only pushed out by the stream’s force. After he ran out, Eric sucked for another minute, before Danny asked, “You okay?”

  Eric pulled off. “Yeah, I’m fine. That was nice.”

  Released from his grip and flopping down, Danny’s cock began to drip on the boards. “Three of them cans next to the case is already full—but if you don’t mind waitin’ a few minutes, I’ll have to go again in ten minutes. I’ll fill up one with some hot stuff, and you can take it inside.” Danny stepped over, pulled another king-sized Coors from the case, popped it, upended it, then picked up another can already sitting out, shook it to make sure nothing was in it, and brought both back to the steps. “Come on and sit down with me—we can jaw a spell and swap lies.” He lowered himself. “Or you can just sit and watch me suck off Buddy. You wanna jerk off while I do it, I don’t care. You say your kinfolk like doin’ that anyway…”

  Eric laughed, then went to sit next to Danny on the steps, who held both the cans down between his knees, now. “It’s funny, every time my daddy ever remembered I was a goddam faggot, he’d try to fuckin’ kill me. But I think, sometimes, bein’ a goddam faggot—especially the kind of faggot I am—was the luckiest thing what ever happened to me. I mean, I met so many interestin’ people—and interestin’ kinds of people. Like Big Man—I never would of knowed him if I wasn’t. I wouldn’t be out here, haven’t this nice talk on Christmas Day with you—or all these guys. You know, where I live, I don’t sleep inside no more, I sleep out on the ground, most nights, on some old blankets, with Buddy. I drink my case of beer, pass out, and hug on that hound, and pretty much every night I piss all over the two of us. Sometimes I wake up, and he’s up and lickin’ my nuts, or eatin’ out my ass. It’s nice. I got a couple niggers—they’re the same way, just like Buddy—only they bring the beer. That’s how I met Big Man. They come on out to my place, we drink beer together till I pass out on them blankets under the stars, and I hug on ’em all night long, and pee all over ’em. I don’t know why, but they really like when I do it in my sleep. After a while, I wake up and they’re suckin’ my dick, or lickin’ out my hole—like Buddy. I’ll fart in their face or somethin’. Niggers like that. Probably ’cause I’m white. Only Buddy likes it, too, and I don’t think he really knows. Like I say, I don’t like real people too much, but niggers and other animals is okay. I guess that’s why I like you. ’Cause you’re a nigger—I can tell.”

  Eric chuckled. “Hey. You ever run into somebody named Jay MacAmon?”

  “Huh?” Danny hefted the two cans. Raising one, he drank. “I heard the name—MacAmon. I mean, I’m a Turpens, so we all know that name. But I ain’t actually met too many of ’em.”

  “That’s the name of the truck stop,” Eric said.

  “Yeah,” Danny said. “Turpens used to be in my family. Before that crazy nigger Robert Kyle bought the damned thing from my great uncle, Joe Turpens—back at the beginning of the ’eighties.”

  “‘A Georgia institution since nineteen thirty-six,’” Eric quoted.

  “A Georgia institution for a lot longer than that!” Danny looked at Eric. “That’s just when it used to be a real weigh station and everything. That place goes back before World War I. Probably back to the Civil War. We just didn’t want our name on it till after prohibition was over. ’Cause it was always for guys pullin’ illegal loads and gin runners and crap like that—plus, it was the same kind of faggot hangout even back then, like it is today.” He laughed again. “But then that crazy faggot nigger, Robert Kyle, decided, I guess, he was gonna make it a famous faggot hangout, back in the eighties or something—and bought it off of Uncle Joe, ’cause he still had the papers on it. By that time there wasn’t too much left of the Turpens family. We’s all pretty much what we are now—drunken thugs, doin’ crazy shit all up and down the coast, with all of us in and out of jail every other year—that’s if we’re lucky.” Again, Danny shook his head. “Jay MacAmon—I think an uncle or somethin’ of his kilt a cousin of mine, once, in a car wreck or somethin’, on I-22. I was just a baby when it happened, but I heard about it a lot growin’ up. That’s right, Franklin Turpens. MacAmon’s uncle was…Shad MacAmon…? I remember they said he got messed up real bad. But Franklin was fuckin’ dead! We all thought it shoulda been the other way around.”

  Eric frowned. “That’s right…Your cousin worked for Mr. Johnston back then, didn’t he?”

  “Hell, all us Turpens work for Johnston one time or another—except me. That damned Johnston asshole is the worst thing that ever happened to us Turpens, if you bother to ask Danny Turpens, here. He comes up with some fool scheme and goes out and gets a bunch of Turpens—and maybe a few Wilsons and a couple of Ricketts—gets ’em drunk first; then tells ’em to do it for ’im. Only we’re the ones what get caught and end up goin’ to jail. And ’cause we used to be a little higher and mightier than we are, we’re fools enough to keep on doin’ it, like somehow i
t’s gonna get us somethin’…Fuckin’ asshole!” Again, Danny looked down at the two cans. “I mean, my daddy would wanna smack me in the head with a two-by-four if he heard me sayin’ it, but sometimes I think Kyle had the right ideas, about helpin’ faggots to get organized and get somethin’ for themselves. I mean, I was a goddam bouncer in The Slide—best fuckin’ time I ever had. The Slide’s just as much Kyle’s as goddam Turpens is today.” He shook his head. “The best time—’cept when I’m sleepin’ out on my blankets, with Buddy. Or with one of my niggers.” Again he looked up, with his drunken grin. “You ever go to bed with Big Man?”

  “Sure,” Eric said. “Me and Shit both fucked around with him.”

  “That black cut-down half-pint is a fuckin’ mess, ain’t he?” Danny grinned. “I mean, you been up in his part of the house. Upstairs—through the fire door his dad put in for the smell.”

  “Sure.”

  “That place stinks like my goddam yard and my goddam blankets when it ain’t rained for a fuckin’ month. With that fuckin’ piss bag of his, when he takes his hose loose off his pecker—man, that’s pretty foul. I love it, though. He’s gonna keep me chained up here in the back till after you all go. Then he’s gonna let me in and maybe help him clean up a little. I love takin’ orders from that little guy—I mean, if I can still stand up and ain’t passed out, yet. Then we’re gonna go up to his part of the house and mess around. I mean, get the two of us wrastlin’ around together and we’re a fuckin’ mess, man. Oh, here we come—here it comes. I’m gettin’ ready.” Danny slid forward so that his genitals slipped off the step’s edge—

  “Hey, don’t get no splinters—!”

  “Don’t worry. I been sittin’ here all day, and I ain’t gotten none yet.” Danny moved one of the cans under his long-collared cock head. “Grab my cock there and point it in there for me, so I don’t piss all over the stairs, okay? We’ll get you a nice hot can.” He raised the other can and drank.

  Eric reached over, put one hand on his thigh, and held Danny’s thick cock—which began to squirt. Drunk or not, apparently he’d had some practice, and his water chattered into the hole in the can top.

  Then Buddy was up, pushing his head over Danny’s far leg, to lick, spilling urine over Danny’s rough thumb.

  “Get the fuck off, dog!” Danny barked. “You can have some later. This is for the damned nigger here.”

  Buddy yanked back and looked up at his master, then at the can.

  “You don’t mind a little dog spit in with your piss, do you?” Danny asked. “Most niggers don’t. Buddy and me kiss on each other all the time, and I ain’t never come down with nothin’.”

  “Naw,” Eric said, chuckling. “I guess not.”

  Danny drank from his beer some more—and pissed some more in the empty hanging in his fingers, between his shins.

  Finished drinking, Danny wiped his mouth with his wrist, then set the new empty on the step beside him. The urine still flowed, though, and the sound from within the can grew higher and higher.

  Again, Buddy started forward.

  “Get back there, you sonofabitch!” (Buddy jerked back.) “You’ll get yours. You know I don’t forget you.” Grabbing Buddy’s collar with his free hand, he held him away.

  When his urine ran out, his cock dripped on his thumb. Danny raised the can, sucked his knuckle, then offered the can to Eric. Suddenly he brought it back, took a drink, then offered it again. “Yeah, that’s real hot—good beer piss. I was checkin’ it for you, you fuckin’ nigger scumbag. Hope it’s to your taste.” He grinned at Eric.

  Eric laughed again. “Thanks.” He took the can, took a long drink, then nodded. “Yeah. That’s nice.”

  “Wow,” Danny said. “This has been such a fuckin’ great Christmas, with all you niggers. Really. The way Big Man got me all chained up back here and won’t let a piece of fuckin’ white trash shit like me into his house—with all you niggers. That’s so great. Hey. You know what the last guy who came out did?’

  “What?” Eric drank more.

  “It was fuckin’ amazin’,” Danny said. “He come out here, made me lean over the rail, and fucked my goddam ass—’cause I’m so drunk, he didn’t even use no spit. Then, you know what?”

  “What?” Eric asked again.

  “He pissed in our food bowl. Then he made me eat it—Buddy ate some too. At home, me and Buddy always eat out the same bowl.” Danny, Eric realized, was repeating himself. “I mean, that’s real nice when people do that who wanna do it ’cause they know you like it. It makes you feel good. In jail guys’d gang up on me, once they found out I’d do that kinda stuff—and they’d make me do it. And laugh at me—and beat me up, sometimes. And, you know, sometimes I could even pretend that they was really bein’ nice. But it ain’t the same.”

  Eric said. “That was my brother—Shit.”

  “Your brother?” Danny looked surprised. “The other nigger?”

  “Yeah—he’s a nice guy like that.”

  “Oh…Wow! Yeah, it’s better when they’re doin’ it ’cause they like you.”

  “I gotta go inside now.” Eric stood up. (Buddy got loose and began to lick Danny’s cheek.) “You’re a real good Piss Master, Danny—and a real good slave.”

  “Thank you,” Danny said, unsteadily. “Hey, you niggers are really lucky. And I’m pretty lucky to know you.”

  Eric went back through the kitchen and took his beer can into the living room to sit down and rejoin the conversation that had moved onto the media’s suppression of gay news.

  Soon, outside, headlights swept across the living room window curtains, and Eric heard a car pull up. Suddenly, Big Man was standing, saying jocularly but quickly, “I think it’s time to break the party up and send you fellas back home now. I hope you had a good time.” They’d come in about one. Dinner had been at three thirty, so that to Eric, used to going to bed in sunlight, it didn’t seem so early.

  From his chair, Pike said, “That roast beef was out of this world, man.”

  “Thank Larson, Bill, Sammy, and Leonard, for that,” Big Man said, swaying on his crutch.

  In the vestibule, a key turned.

  “My dad’s back, and I told him I was gonna have yall out of here by the time he come home.”

  “Oh,” Pike said. “Yeah, sure. Where did you put the jackets…?”

  “In there,” Big Man said.

  Then the door swung open. A broad black fellow in slacks and work shoes came into the room. “Hello, guys. Yall still here havin’ fun?”

  “They was on their way, Dad,” Big Man said. “I thought you said you was comin’ back at seven or seven-thirty. It’s ain’t six forty-five.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m a little early. Hey, yall don’t have to run outa here like that.”

  “No,” Kelly said, returning with his overcoat. “No. We were just gettin’ ready to go, anyway, Mr. Markum. Besides, we ate up all your food.”

  “No. No…” Mr. Markum said. “No. Really, I come home a little earlier than I said I was. I know that…

  Big Man said, “They ain’t ate it all. There’s still enough for you to have a plate full. And one tomorrow. And one the next day. And one the day after that, too—probably.”

  Markum looked around. “Hey—Dynamite Haskell? What are you doin’ here with all these crazy fellas?”

  “I was here with my boys.” Smiling Dynamite, a head taller than Markum, stood up out of the chair. “Your son put out a real nice Christmas spread for us, Joe.”

  Big Man just smiled—and did not chose then to correct him on the occasion’s celebratory nature.

  “Hey,” Markum said. “I knowed this fellow for years. He was Robert Kyle’s friend, back when I was first building all them houses for ’im, over in the Dump. And—what, now you’re livin’ in one of them, I hear.”

  “That’s right.” Dynamite looked around. “You know my boy—Morgan.”

  “This is…Morgan?” Markum sounded astonished. “My God, son—last time I
seen you, you was—what? Ten years old? Eleven? I seen him come in here a couple of times with Big Man. But I didn’t realize you was Dynamite Haskell’s boy. Probably I should’a figured it out. ”

  Behind him, one and another of the men were pumping Big Man’s hand and slipping out. Pike called, “Merry Christmas, everybody!”

  “And Happy Space Program,” Big Man said, as Pike’s wheels thumped.

  “And this here is Eric—who works with us on the garbage run.”

  “Yeah, I seen him come here, too. But now it’s good to know who you are, son. Eric, huh? You wanna sit a spell, maybe have another drink?”

  “Naw,” Dynamite said. “We got to get up and go to work tomorrow, anyway.”

  “I think,” Shit said, “I better be the…what do they call it? Designated driver? I had one cup of eggnog, when I come in. That was gonna be your job, Eric, but I seen you slip out and come back four or five times in the last couple of hours, stealin’ poor Danny’s Christmas beers.” Shit made a mock disgusted sound, then grinned at Eric. “So I guess I’m the one, huh?”

  Markum frowned. “Is he here…?”

  “Yeah,” Big Man said. “Danny’s out on the kitchen porch.”

  Markum shook his head. “Am I supposed to go out there and say hello to ’im and Merry Christmas? I mean, if he’s got on them crazy pants with nothin’ over his privates, I…well, I admit it. I try to be open-minded, but I just don’t feel comfortable walkin’ up to a man dressed that way and shakin’ his hand. I keep thinkin’ he expects me to shake somethin’ else. And that just ain’t the way I’m built.”

  Big Man stepped back around to say, “Dad, it’s just Danny. You don’t got to do nothin’ with him, if you don’t want. Leave ’im out there. I’ll take ’im up to my place by the back way. If you’re still hungry, like I say, there’s some good roast beef in the refrigerator. Whack yourself off a couple of slices. And there’s some slaw out there that won’t quit. And half a pot of greens. There’s still some yams. You can make you a nice plate of leftovers. And we’ll get out of your hair.”