“Indeed,” Bjoe said.
“You just hold your nose?” Cory said.
“First sip, yeah. After that, probably won’t need to.”
“Oh, shit,” Cory said. “I’m a fool.”
He took hold of his nose with one hand, lifted the skull to his lips, and sipped.
Carefully, he put the skull back down, removed his hand from his nose.
“That. Without a doubt. Is the foulest motherfucking thing I have ever put in my mouth. And I got to tell you, I once ate a turd because it had some kind of nuts in it. I think it was shat out by a bear or something. But that right there. That is some nasty shit. But ... it kind of grows on you.”
“What happened to your head?” Bjoe asked Cory. “Knife fight?”
“I shaved it. But not too well. I’ll have another jolt of that fish brew, if you don’t mind.”
“Help yourself. There are plenty of bowls of it. Would any of you like to try it?”
“I’ll pass,” Grace said. “I haven’t even had a bear turd yet, so I’ll hold out.”
Everyone else passed.
Cory grabbed two more skulls, drained them down. Then he burped, fell over backwards, unconscious.
Homer leaned over and looked at him.
I said, “He isn’t dead is he?”
“No, but his breath is really something,” Homer said. “And strong. It could hold up a tea set.”
“Would you like to hear how we came here?” Bjoe said. “And maybe I can clear up some things for you. About the fish, I mean. I know some of it, or rather I’ve noodled out a lot. Rest of it is guesswork. And some, shit, I don’t got a clue. Maybe you can fill in some holes.”
“Tell us,” I said.
PART THREE
In which Bjoe, while playing with his tallywhacker, recites
a tale of woe, boating, fish intestines, expert lighting, the Scuts,
and such. And, in the meantime, Cory stays drunk.
1
“I won’t begin where it began, because we all began there. The night of the drive-in and the big red comet with the hot white smile.
“Forget that.”
“I’ll begin where it began for us. The all of us here except you newcomers. There have been a few other newcomers, folks eaten by the fish, but they were all dead when they came through. And, frankly, we ate them.
“When the comet came back, like so many others, perhaps all who were in the theater, we started down the long road. We were among the first to leave. At the end of the road we found what you found. The goddamn drive-in again. We were on a loop, and we arrived at where we had left.
“Folks were coming into the drive-in to stay, but a caravan of us decided to strike out down a wide trail, bump our way along, and see if it went anywhere else.
“We went for a long time. Some of the cars conked out. People died. People got eaten. There were a few murders, rapes, and acts of depravity along the way, not to mention creature attacks, and that accounted for some loss. You know the drill. Been there done that, I’m sure.
“Finally we came to a wide break in the woods and found ourselves on the edges of great sea. Or so we think. Maybe it is a lake so great it seemed like a sea. But we found ourselves there, and there was no alternative but to stop.
“Critters were thick along that lake, and we decided to make tools from bone, plus use what tools we had. It’s amazing how much in the way of odds and ends can be found in the trunks and back seats of cars. Even car parts could be made into tools.
“So, what we did is we circled the cars, vans, and trucks in a double circle, to make a kind of wall—remember, there were a bunch of us, so it was a big circle—and inside that circle we began to build.
“During the day we cut timber and dragged it with pickup trucks. One of the cars served as a door to the circle, and the driver would pull it back and we would bring the logs in. Here we cut them and shaped them and coated them with clay to keep out insects as best we could, then we built them up into what can only be called one large goddamn home. Around the home we built palisades, tall, cut with sharp points on their ends. Beyond those, we slanted logs in the ground with points sticking out like angled porcupine quills. It wasn’t a bad job at all.
“In time, we used clay to cover the log walls. This not only kept out bugs, it better kept out the wind and insulated us from the cold and the heat, whenever it came. After a time, we built great chimneys on either end of the structure. Here community meals were cooked. Wild animals and roots and greens and such we found. Occasionally, one of our band would die and we would eat them, and let me tell you, if you haven’t had the old long pig, it can’t be beat. Now, I’m not suggesting anyone eat anyone here—unless they die—but, if you get the opportunity, don’t be squeamish. And I’ll tell you, it don’t taste like chicken. Or pork for that matter. It is a unique and sweet taste unrivaled by any meat. Damn. My mouth is starting to water just thinking about it.
“But we built this great place, and we called it home, and let me tell you, after all we had been through, it wasn’t so bad.
“Fact was, it wasn’t bad at all, and we should have stayed there, and we might have, but along came Noah.
“That wasn’t his real name, but it’s what we came to call him, at first derisively, and finally, respectfully, and then ... Well, let me go back to the story.
“Noah, actual name Tim, said we should build a great boat.
“He wasn’t preaching religion, wasn’t saying it was going to rain. He wasn’t even saying life was too hard, because, actually, all things considered, it wasn’t. He was saying we should build a great boat because he knew how, and it would give us something to do, and we could sail across the sea.
“Now, he did have one idea. He thought that on the other side of the sea we might find home.
“I don’t know if this was a silly idea or not. I suppose it was, knowing full damn well there were no seas or great lakes like this in East Texas, but it was hard to know what to think, and finally, what I think made us all decide to build it was a simple factor.
“Boredom.
“I kid you not. There we were, plenty of food from the forests. Small animals, the nuts and berries, wild greens program, and we were catching small fish from the freshwater sea. We had plenty of water. Our fort was pretty safe, even from dinosaurs. It was clean and dry and warm, cool on hot days, and we were fornicating pretty much at will and babies were being born, and most of them were living, looked like they’d grow up and our community would swell.
“What I felt like was this. One time I saw a cow on the side of the road, behind a fence, but she had her head through the fence and was eating grass growing on the other side, near the highway. I remember thinking, silly cow. She had a whole pasture full of fine green grass, and there she was nibbling at some scrawny grass growing by the fence that had been dosed with the fumes from thousands of exhausts.
“How stupid. If she could break through the fence, pretty soon she’d be on the highway, and maybe get hit by a car.
“Looking back, we were that cow with our heads through the fence, but we didn’t have grass to nibble. All we had was Noah’s idea.
“We called him Noah because he said he was a builder, and he had proved this by helping to design and construct our fort, which, by the way, we called Fort Drive-in.
“He said, we can build a boat, like Noah’s ark, and we can sail out and see what there is to see. And maybe, he said, we can expand what we have here. Find better food, build greater forts, and form a kind of community of forts. Sail the waters. Establish trade between forts. I mean, he had the whole nine yards laid out and marked off and ready to cut.
“He drew up plans. First in the dirt, then on animal hides. He marked this, he marked that. He drew an overall picture of the boat. It was to be huge. It looked like Noah’s ark. We began to call him Noah.
“Now, I got to tell you, there is to me no dumber idea than to think that ever there was a man that built an ar
k that held all the animals of the world, and a family too, and that they sailed on the ocean for forty days and forty nights. Dumb. I don’t care who you are or what you believe, that’s just goddamn dumb.
“But, you know what? This Tim, this Noah, he was almost telling us the same thing. Build this big-ass boat, stick in a few of the wild birds we had caught, a few of the wild animals (pig-like critters mostly), and all our nasty asses, and we would set sail on water so big we had no idea if there was an end to it anywhere. Just get on out there and sail around and see what happens.
“Let me tell you, in retrospect, I consider it one of the dumbest ideas since people came up with and believed the story of the original Noah, and the only thing dumber is pet rocks and an idea I had once about a portable pet called porta-kitty, legless and in a sack that hung on the wall and mewed when you turned on the lights. But I won’t go into that.
“I’ll just say, we built that boat.
“The boat was very big, because it was decided that everyone but a handful of us would go. Some would stay and hold down the fort, so to speak, while the rest of us went adventuring. The idea was to come home with plenty of exotic information, foods, and such, and since we weren’t being assailed by wild Indians at the fort, it was thought all that was needed to hold it was a skeleton crew. I suppose they are there yet.
“The boat took a long time to build, and it was hard work. But I found it a wonderful thing to do. Boredom was on the run. Adventure was in the air, and I was banging regular tail, two women who didn’t mind sharing me, and I didn’t mind sharing them.
“We were clean and well fed and spent the nights, sometimes the days when we were too tired to work, talking about our quest.
“Yippie. Out there on the water. Sailing about. Adventuring. Yeehaw.
“Again, I never even liked the deep end of the pool back home, so what was up with me and the boat and Noah? It’s hard to figure. Life certainly turns you some spins, that’s for sure.
“So there came a day when the boat was finished to Noah’s specs. We had driven wooden pegs into wooden ribs and swollen them up with water and poured tree sap into cracks. Noah said this was the thing, the sap, the resin, and that it would hold tighter than an eighteen-year-old virgin’s doohickey on her wedding night.
“We used our trucks and cars to pull the great boat up on a ramp, and then we built another ramp below the front end of the boat, and we greased it with animal fat and dung, and with all of us pushing, we were able to make it slide out and down and into the water. There it was held by ropes made from vines and strips of bark. Big and broad and ready to go.
“We cheered.
“I distinctly remember cheering.
“Yeehaw. I’m a dumb ass. I’m going to leave a nice home on the banks of a beautiful body of water, surrounded by great trees, with plenty of food, and a lazy lifestyle, to climb onto a boat and sail off to ... Nowhere.
“Seemed like a good idea at the time.
“Anyway, we swarmed aboard. The boat was already packed with food and stuffs, and there were, in fact, a dozen long lifeboats on that sucker. It stood high out of the water like it was proud of itself. We were ready and eager to set sail.
“The sails went up. Made from animal hides and vines, they were, but they were solid and they caught the wind, and we set out. And the wind was good that day, strong and blowing harder than a whore at Mardi Gras.
“About one day out something that should have occurred to us before, suddenly became prominent. Noah may have known how to build a boat, and we knew how to hoist sails, but frankly, none of us, Noah included, knew how to actually sail.
“And the good wind went away.
“Another problem. The boat was so big, that the only way it moved was s-l-o-w-l-y. Out there far from land, we became becalmed.
“This was okay for a day or two, you know, benefit of the doubt and all that, but within a few days we were pissed. All of us.
“We went to Noah, and in polite words, told him to turn that motherfucker around and take us back to Fort Drive-in, and from now on he could live in the fucking boat.
“No, someone said, the boat would become a second fort, up a ways from the first, and those with children, they could live there, make it a giant nursery.
“But, the bottom line, thing that counted, was this. We wanted to take our asses back to Fort Drive-in.
“‘No,’ said Noah. This was just the sort of thing that ruined a good adventure. Sailors always grumbled. The becalming would pass, and with it would come a good wind, and we would sail on into adventure.
“Besides, he made a very good point.
“Without any wind, becalmed as we were, we weren’t sailing anywhere. Home or otherwise.
“Did I tell you this Noah was a good speaker? He could talk the pork off a pig. He was that kind of guy, had that kind of voice. Held himself firm and high, had a beard. Reminded me of Charlton Heston in that Biblical movie, The Ten Commandments. So, to make it short as my hopes, I’ll just say we were famboozled again and hung in there.
“He had even given us a little fire in our bellies, made us think it was a good idea.
“So, finally we did catch a wind, and it was a good one, and it carried us far, far out, and land was no longer a distant line of brown. It was lost to us. There was only the sea and the sky, and once again, guess what? No fucking wind.
“Died like a politician’s promises.
“Let me tell you. I just thought that I was bored at Fort Drive-in. That big boat soon seemed like a fucking canoe. I paced it daily, as did a lot of others. Noah, he stayed away in his cabin. Sight of him made us angry, and he knew it.
“It was also obvious to us by this time that if we wanted to go home, we wouldn’t know how to do it. We had been turned and moved by that last good wind, and in fact, felt as if we were doing little more than spinning about like a top in pretty much the same place, so no matter which direction we decided to go, it would be a crapshoot.
“You know how it is here on this world, this place, this dimension, whatever it is. The sun might come up in one spot one day, in another the next. Same with the moon. And the stars. They move about like fireflies.
“These, of course, are things we should have thought of. But, like a lot of fools, we had put our fate into the hands of one person. Someone who KNEW THE ANSWERS. It wasn’t until we were on the ocean, becalmed, going a little crazy, starting to go short on supplies, and catching no fish, that we determined Noah didn’t know his dick from a grub worm.
“So, and I’m a little ashamed to tell you this part—but not real ashamed—there came a time when we had had enough, and we pulled him from his cabin and cut off both his ears, his nose, his dick and balls, tied him to the rigging and hoisted him up.
“He lasted a long time, hanging up there, bleeding to death, screaming and cussing, wiggling with his hands tied behind his back, his feettied together, as big white birds pecked out his eyes and took off chunks of his flesh. He was plagued by insects too. Big mothers. They tore at him as well.
“It was horrible to see.
“All that meat going to waste.
“So after a time, on a dark night, we brought him down and beat his head in and cooked him up and he was good. And might I add, we ate him by his own light, having used some of his fat which was not much at that moment in time, him having lost weight up there on the ropes—to stick in bowls to light as lamps. So there’s an irony, or at least if it isn’t irony, it’s a strangeness, to make a light of him to eat him by.
“When we were finished, we beat in his meatless jaw with clubs, knocked out his teeth, gathered them up, and in a kind of ceremony, tossed them into the dark waters, one by one. And for a long time, I kept a toothpick made of a snapped and fragmented bone from his skull, stuck it in what were then the remains of pants and/or now just so much fiber dust somewhere inside this fish.
“But, shit, I lost the pants, I lost the toothpick.”
2
“Well, there we were. Out there on the vastness of the wetness, having eaten our captain, who was about as seaworthy as Captain Crunch, in a boat that looked like a giant Noah’s ark with a rudimentary sail, and we weren’t sail ing so good.
“We cursed the drive-in world, and we cursed the lack of wind. We cursed Noah, and we cursed the ship. We even got around to cursing ourselves. I missed the college classroom, teaching, which is what I did for a living, gentlemen and two ladies. Liked teaching fine. Spreading knowledge. Meeting young women. Truth be told, I fucked a lot of my students. I know that isn’t ethical but, as you can see, I’m sort of dick oriented, and I, like my students, am young, in my twenties. I just couldn’t help myself. Hear what I’m saying?
“So, I liked to do what they did. Go to the drive-in being one of those things. I took one of my students as a date. She was fine. I mean fine. But when things got bad, shit, had to eat her. And, not the usual way that word is used. I mean, you know, I did that too. Before I got hungry. And then, I actually ate her. Cooked her. Had matches in the glove box and a lighter on my person.
“God, I miss my cigarettes.
“I miss her as well. She was pretty special. I think we might have gotten married when she graduated. One thing for sure, she was gonna make an A in my class, she did the work or not.
“Not that she couldn’t do it. She could. She was smart. Hell, she even cooked up good. Sometimes I think I can still taste her. You haven’t eaten until you’ve had human flesh ... Did I mention that? A tittie, it fries up good.
“Oh, yes. The boat. We were on the boat. And I’m thinking, where the hell are we, really? I’m sure we’ve all thought that. I know I have. Where are we?
“Another planet?
“Another universe?
“Up a duck’s ass?
“I sort of like that idea. Not the duck ass. The different universe idea. You know, all that stuff about multiverses. Expanding out beyond our own universe, and the laws of physics not applying in the same way, or at all, and the laws of physics here being nothing more than bylaws. You hear what I’m saying? Bylaws. What applied where we were, our world, does not apply here. Someone has laid out a whole new list of what does and what don’t.