Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders

  “Yeah—but I wanna get to lick around on your goddam gums ’fore you put your teeth back in.”

  Shit chuckled. “You can do this nigger anyway you like, white boy. It ain’t like you don’t know that already.” Again, he took Eric in his mouth.

  A couple of minutes later, Shit turned his face to the side in Eric’s lap and again let him slip free. “It’s funny. I was just thinkin’ down here—”

  “You ain’t supposed to think,” Eric said. “You supposed to suck.”

  “Well, I was thinkin’, anyway. Sometimes, I guess, you want somethin’ so fuckin’ bad that when it does happen, it don’t even stay with you…You know, sometimes I think I must be pretty fuckin’ lucky—especially when I look at all the people around me, straight ones, gay ones: I lived most of my whole life with somebody I loved—you, I mean—and with somebody I never once wanted to murder. That’s you, too. In case you didn’t know. Oh, a few times, there, I done got annoyed with you. But I never thought about killin’ you.”

  Eric was surprised. “Did you ever want to kill anybody?”

  “Yeah—my daddy, once or twice.”

  The surprise grew. “Why?”

  “For not havin’ sex with me a couple of times when I was a little kid and really wanted it—and he didn’t think it would be good for me. He was probably just tired.” Shit laughed. (Eric rowed.) “But see, I didn’t know no better, back then.”

  Eric looked down. “I guess all that ‘nigger’ stuff still works with you, too, huh?”

  From his lap, Shit said, “Yeah. A little bit—some.”

  “What you mean, ‘some’?”

  “Well, it ain’t as much as when I was kid. But ’cause it works for you, it lets me know how much you want it to work for me. And that’s about the best thing there is—knowin’ how much you really want me to…I don’t know: want you. ’Cause you’re still the fuckin’ sexiest thing I know runnin’ around the coast.”

  “Oh…” Eric said, actually surprised. “Hey, you want me to give you a hand up?”

  “Nope. I’m stayin’ down here and lettin’ you row me home. Next time we do this, it better be in a damned bed—or, I swear, I’ll gum your damned dick off!”

  The boat moved on the sea’s whisper and flap.

  * * *

  [97] WHAT HAPPENED WHEN they picked up a black twenty-seven-year-old—Caleb—on a visit to Turpens is a tale. Caleb had hitch-hiked over from Kentucky and had been living in Turpens’ halls and johns and rooms for three days, with their loose doors that you could pry open with a credit card, when they ran into him. He had a low, broad forehead, low broad shoulders, and all his teeth. He wore black jeans and large engineers boots—and moved in with them at the Gilead cabin during Shit and Eric’s joint seventy-fourth and seventy-sixth birthday blowout.

  (We’re gonna have a party, this evening. Some friends are helpin’ us with it. So we come over there for a couple of hours of pre-party celebratin’. You say you really like old guys—and I don’t think a nigger’s dick could lie that much. Why don’t you come on over with us?

  (Sure, why don’t you come along? You might have fun.)

  Caleb hung around to help clean up the soda bottles and long looped balloons and pick up the plates with half eaten cake slices and chocolate ice cream pools—and stayed…three-and-a-half years. By his fourth day, like Shit, he was going barefoot most of the time, though he always carried an e-reader in his back pocket, with a narrow black and silver frame. “You know,” Eric said as they lay in the big bed, listening to crickets and the ocean, “I still get a hard-on every time I see that man diggin’ in his nose and eatin’ the stuff or blowin’ it into his hand and lickin’ it off or bitin’ on his nails. You believe we still trade with each other?”

  “Yeah,” Caleb said, “I get a hard-on, too, when I see either of you guys doin’ that.” (And again Eric was surprised someone had noticed what he still imagined private.) “Shit told me he’s the same way about you. And I didn’t think I was ever gonna meet nobody like me that got turned on by that stuff. Then, I meet two of you at the same time…I mean, fuck, man! And what’s more, you’re old guys—” Caleb took a breath that sounded as surprised as Eric had felt a moment before, in the dark—“like I always fantasized about. Hell, the only thing yall don’t do that I used to dream about is eat each other’s shit.”

  “Funny, I never got into that—I mean, more than what you ordinarily got to get down if you like fuckin’ and suckin’—in that order. Which I do. Course, after a couple of years with Shit and Dynamite, I’d turned into a stoned piss freak.” Moving his head on the pillow, Eric chuckled. “So I was pretty sure I’d eventually take up the other, too. Only I never did. Shit surprised me, though. I mean, he’ll eat his own—and yours too, if you want, or anybody else’s he really likes.” A decade back, the Settlement Association had put up a road light some twenty yards down the new paved-over road, with the old macadam sticking from under its edges, outside their bedroom window. Its light came in around the shade’s edges, pretty much all night. Shit had complained about it heatedly the first six weeks—though it didn’t seem to keep him from falling asleep by more than a minute. Eric looked over at the window’s edge. “Shit started that back at the Opera House in Runcible. A bunch of guys used to do it up on the landin’ to the top balcony. Had ’emselves what we used to call a regular Breakfast Club up behind Nigger Heaven—what they used to call the place they put all the black people, back when it was a real theater. I mean, in the twenties and thirties—of the last century. Yeah, we called ’em the Breakfast Club. Anyway. I nosed ’em for two weeks before I found where they was doin’ it—Stash and his buddy Polack Ron and a fella from Tennessee they called Haystack. He was a big, blond, hairy guy with the biggest dick I think I ever seen—I mean, ever, too. He beat out any nigger I knew. And there was some hung bucks who came in there pretty regular, ’cause they could always make a few dollars—or a few hundred, after the devaluation. Not just Al. And that ain’t even takin’ into account the three inches of cheesy skin he had hangin’ off it. But…maybe there was somethin’ wrong with it—like Jay’s big nuts. You never knew Jay, but his nuts had kept on growin’, first one, then the other. By the time he died, you know, one was bigger than a damned grapefruit. And the other one had started swellin’ up too—like a big old navel orange, or something. Anyway, Haystack looked like one of Jay’s relations—his big relations. People was always tryin’ to get close to him, so they could suck it or sit on it—and he’d let ’em do it, too, to be obligin’. See, he was nice fella. A drunk—not real bright. And full-out died-in-the-wool alcoholics were gettin’ rarer and rarer by then. But he was still a nice fella. He’d piss in my mouth pretty much any time I wanted. All he really wanted to do was eat nigger shit, get drunk, and tell stupid jokes that didn’t make much sense. And would, too, when he got drunk enough—all of ’em was regulars. Finally, I had to make ’em take it out in the back alley and do it—prop the emergency door open with a cinder block, so they could get back in.”

  “That must have been in the thirties, huh? Everybody’s got such great stories to tell from back then. Sometimes I think that’s when I ought to have been around.”

  “Well, them Three Bombs were pretty bad. That’s what I think about, when I think about the thirties. I don’t even like to remember that stuff.”

  “I was born in Tallahassee—a couple of years after them things exploded. So I can’t remember nothin’ about ’em, other than what we saw in school. Other than all those little cars from India that were still all over the roads, I don’t hardly remember the thirties at all.” Caleb stretched. Then he said, “Yeah, Shit’s done it for me a few times. I mean, he took a few bites off something I laid out for him—God, I never come so hard in my life! And I was just watchin’.”

  “Yeah…?” Eric was surprised again. He hadn’t known. “Damn—I wish he’d tell me when he does somethin’ like that. Well, it ain’t all that important.”

  “La
st time, I told him he had to hold out on doin’ it anymore. It liked to kill me. I mean, I couldn’t take it—I been beatin’ off thinkin’ about stuff like that all my life. I always have, since I was a kid. But sometimes when you find the real thing, it’s…too powerful, almost. You know what I mean?”

  “Sure,” Eric said. “There’re always things like that.”

  “Shit said he had this dog that used to drop a turd then turn around and eat it. And watchin’ always turned him on. So when he met these other guys in the theater, he just started doin’ it, too—”

  “Uncle Tom.” Eric smiled. “Oh, yeah. And Mex, too. He wasn’t a dog. But he probably wanted to be.” The smile became a chuckle. “So did I, back then. I guess that was how it started. I’d go out there sometimes and watch ’em all. I did it a couple of times to be sociable. But I could always pass it up…Shit, though? Once we got to the Opera House, there wasn’t nothin’ nasty Shit could leave alone. There used to be a bar on the mainland called The Slide—they actually had contests in the place. Who could drink the most piss or eat the most…well, you know. A few times somebody brought Haystack over from the Opera House, though—and that was the end of that!”

  On the other side of the bed, Shit rolled on his back, and, without opening his eyes, said, “The thing about eatin’ shit is, it’s a group thing. You gotta get a bunch of guys together, see. And most of it’s gonna be all nasty talk, gettin’ up to it—a couple of yall lay some nice big ones there in the middle for everybody, and you can go around and around them things for forty minutes, pickin’ up and passin’ around and sniffin’ at it, and puttin’ down again. But by the end, two or three of yall got to get in there an' eat some of it for real. But with us, one of the two or three was always Haystack. Especially if that stuff had come out some nigger’s ass—like mine. It always really tickled me when somebody wanted to get in there and kiss on ’im, when he had a mouthful of that stuff. I’ll admit it, that’s what I liked to do most, I think.”

  Eric said, “That’s his standard speech about coprophagy.”

  “It ain’t about eatin’ no cops,” Shit said, opening his eyes and glancing over. “It’s about eatin’ shit!” He closed them again.

  “You know,” Eric said, “you got to watch out for worms and parasites, if you really get into that. There used to be a doctor who was a regular, who used to be a Breakfast Club member in good standin’—Dr. Greene. He’d write out prescriptions for the fellas, and they’d get’em at the clinic. It was right up the street.”

  “See, if he was really into it the way I was, he wouldn’t be tellin’ you about no parasites. He’d just be talkin’ all nasty to you and tryin’ to get you to drop a nice big one right here.”

  “I’m tellin’ him about parasites ’cause you done give ’em to me so many goddam times! At least back then. I don’t mean I didn’t pick up a few of ’em on my own. But you gotta keep them things under control. Hey, Shit, I didn’t know you was eatin’ this boy’s turds—?”

  Still on his back, Shit grunted, “Yep. Don’t worry, though, I’ll get to yours. Jesus, it makes the nigger go crazy. You should see ’im. Okay. Now me an’ my hard-on both is gonna go back to sleep…don’t mind me. You go on talkin’. It ain’t gonna bother me.”

  “You know,” Eric said. “Once I was talkin’ to Haystack about it—and, yeah, fuckin’ around with him, off on the side—and he told me it was like a Christ thing for ’im. He liked eatin’ shit for all the guys who got off on it. That’s what really turned him on about it. Like I said, he was pretty thick. But sometimes ol’ Haystack would surprise you.”

  Without turning over, Shit said, “You should tell ’em that the ‘Jesus Christ’ part was your addition. Haystack eats shit for ours sins—that’s like somethin’ old Shad would’a said. He just said he got off on other people gettin’ off on him. That’s all. Ain’t nothin’ weird about that. But, see, Eric got to find somethin’ smart in everybody. That’s just ’cause he’s really smart hisself. But even ol’ Whiteboy, there, toward the end—I mean, we even used to fuck with ’im. But finally, when they had to take Bull away, he got to be such a nuisance that I’d see ’im and try to slip off so I wouldn’t even have to say ‘Hello, how are ya’?’ I mean, if I was treatin’ ’im like that, you know how nasty he’d gotten. But Eric here’d talk to him, nasty or no. You even took him in the back and hosed him down, with soap and everything, a few times. Then he’d come back and tell you two or three things Whiteboy said that were really smart—that he thought was interestin’.” Shit humphed. “‘Interestin’’!”

  “Yeah—Bull used to do that hosin’ thing for ’im, every week or two. But once they took Bull off, Whiteboy wasn’t together enough to keep himself clean. It’s what they used to call ‘hebephrenia’—where you were supposed to get so lazy and laid back you forgot to wash yourself, wipe your ass, take your dick out your pants to pee. Wipe food—or shit—off your face when you was eatin’ it. A few times when we was livin’ at the Opera House, I’d go back there and run into Whiteboy, take ’im upstairs and wash him down. I did his clothes for him three or four times. And I guess a couple of other people did it, too—though we probably should have been doin’ it more. Because it was the Dump, though, nobody—or most people—would get too twisted out of shape if this scrawny white feller was walking around, starkers, or sitting in the road, nekid, beatin’ off.”

  “Wow…!” Caleb said. “That place must’ve been weird.”

  “Well,” Eric said, “sometimes it was.”

  And Shit had started to snore.

  Later, Caleb asked with the brashness of the young, “I mean, you two are so…well, close. What’s gonna happen when one of you dies?”

  “If he goes first—” and Eric thought, nobody, not even me, says ‘if’ anymore; it’s ‘when’—“I’ll get over it. Or over the part of it you can get over, anyway—after a good night’s cry. If I go first, it’ll take him about three to…um, ten days. Then he’ll be okay,” and thought about how he’d learned that.

  On his own side of the bed, Shit went on snoring.

  “I mean,” Caleb said, “is it all right if I love the two of you old fuckers?” His hand was on Eric’s face, against his beard—which so frequently he forgot he had, unless Shit’s face was pressed against it.

  “Maybe,” Eric said, “we’ll find out.”

  “Man,” Caleb said. “Gerontophilia is a funny perversion.”

  “Is that what they call it?” Eric grinned. “I guess they got a name for everything. I used to try and find out the fancy names for all the ones I was really into myself—there was so many of them. I had some old guys—and some young ones. But that one was never anything really—I mean, special for me.”

  “Well,” Caleb said, turning back to face him. “It sure is for me.” He put his face up against Eric’s side. “Old guys just…smell different.” He breathed in. “And smell good…”

  * * *

  [98] THAT APRIL, BEHIND the steel and wooden counter, Molly was working there again. Eric looked around at the plank walls, at the glass panels letting in misty sunlight between tan-roofed buildings in front of the water. “Well, lemme pay my taxes and go home.” He fingered down in the orange canvas. He’d put the papers in the envelope in that thing, hadn’t he…?

  Molly laughed. “They’re paid, Mr. Jeffers.”

  On the wall hung a glassed in photograph of some Indians, squaws and braves, and some white and black men who looked like they belonged around a western campfire. “Now that—” Molly saw him looking—“we really ought to take down. Mr. Jenkins at the Herald brought that over to us three years ago.” Eric had never really looked at it before. “At first, he told us that it was a picture from 1878, which is about when this building dates from.” On the matt, below the picture proper, in gold foil letters, it read: Gilead Island, 1878. “One building in the background might even have been this place—at least that’s what Mr. Jenkins thought, when he gave it to us.

  “
But then Mr. Jenkins’ niece was digging in the files in the basement. Apparently the picture was taken in nineteen sixty-eight.” Molly laughed.

  Eric said, “Well, that’s still pretty old. It’s before I was born.”

  “The young fellow there in that gorgeous Indian costume is someone who lived out here—Walter Holota. That child strapped onto the woman’s back board—?”

  “His son?”

  “No, his nephew. They took that in Hemmings at the old Baptist Community Church, just before they pulled it down to build the new one—that is, the one there now. It was a local celebration; when Indians were still out here—they broke out their ceremonial dress and came in for it.”

  People got older, sure. But it was hard to imagine that red, rough old man, kind as he was, who lived in the cabin before him with Ruth, ever looking like that. Maybe…what was his nephews name? Raven? Rome? Roan…? But not him.

  “What fooled Mr. Jenkins is apparently some men used to wear their hair long, back then, too. But that’s not nineteenth century wildness—just some late sixties’ longhairs. We should take it down, but some of them did live on the island here—and people like it.”

  “Or at least—” Eric frowned—“put the date right.”

  Outside, Eric walked down the street. A short-haired woman with only one arm was putting up cardboard signs, with a brush and a bucket of adhesive, for a mainland fair. As he walked by, pictures of colorful rides—the Wonder Wheel, the Tilt-a-Whirl—turned and swung over the laminated surface; behind the bars of its wagon a leopard paced. The movement made you all but expect the figures to make noise. On the mainland, a few of the signs actually did. But out here the audio ones, with their babbling crowds and calliope music, had been banned as a nuisance.