Buddy passed the jar to Wilson, and Wilson drank and nearly threw it up. "Goddamn," he said. "Goddamn. He must run that stuff through a radiator hose or something."
Jake took a turn, shivered as if in the early throes of an epileptic fit. He gave the jar back to Buddy. Buddy screwed the lid on and they walked on down the street, stopped opposite the house they wanted and looked at the man on the front porch, for they could clearly see now it was a man. He was old and toothless and he was shelling peas from a big paper sack into a little white wash pan.
"That's the pimp," Buddy whispered. He opened up the jar and took a sip and closed it and gave it to Wilson to hold. "Give me your money."
They gave him their five dollars.
"I'll go across and make the arrangements," Buddy said. "When I signal, come on over. The pimp might prefer we go in the house one at a time. Maybe you can sit on the porch. I don't know yet."
The three smiled at each other. The passion was building.
Buddy straightened his shoulders, pulled his pants up, and went across the street. He called a howdy to the man on the porch.
"Who the hell are you?" the old man said. It sounded as if his tongue got in the way of his words.
Buddy went boldly up to the house and stood at the porch steps. Wilson and Jake could hear him from where they stood, shuffling their feet and sipping from the jar. He said, "We come to buy a little pussy. I hear you're the man to supply it."
"What's that?" the old man said, and he stood up. When he did, it was obvious he had a problem with his balls. The right side of his pants looked to have a baby's head in it.
"I was him," Jake whispered to Wilson, "I'd save up my share of that pussy money and get me a truss."
"What is that now?" the old man was going on. "What is that you're saying, you little shit?"
"Well now," Buddy said, cocking a foot on the bottom step of the porch like someone who meant business, "I'm not asking for free. I've got fifteen dollars here. It's five a piece, ain't it? We're not asking for anything fancy. We just want to lay a little pipe."
A pale light went on inside the house and a plump, blond girl appeared at the screen door. She didn't open it. She stood there looking out.
"Boy, what in hell are you talking about?" the old man said. "You got the wrong house."
"No one here named Sally?" Buddy asked.
The old man turned his head toward the screen and looked at the plump girl.
"I don't know him, Papa," she said. "Honest."
"You sonofabitch," the old man said to Buddy, and he waddled down the step and swung an upward blow that hit Buddy under the chin and flicked his squirrel-looking hair-do out of shape, sent him hurtling into the front yard. The old man got a palm under his oversized balls and went after Buddy, walking like he had something heavy tied to one leg. Buddy twisted around to run and the old man kicked out and caught him one in the seat of the pants, knocked him stumbling into the street.
"You little bastard," the old man yelled, "don't you come sniffing around here after my daughter again, or I'll cut your nuts off."
Then the old man saw Wilson and Jake across the street. Jake, unable to stop himself, nervously lifted a hand and waved.
"Git on out of here, or I'll let Blackie out," the old man said. "He'll tear your asses up."
Buddy came on across the street, trying to step casually, but moving briskly just the same. "I'm gonna get that fucking Butch," he said.
The old man found a rock in the yard and threw it at them. It whizzed by Buddy's ear and he and Jake and Wilson stepped away lively.
Behind them they heard a screen door slam and the plump girl whined something and there was a whapping sound, like a fan belt come loose on a big truck, then they heard the plump girl yelling for mercy and the old man cried "Slut" once, and they were out of there, across the street, into the black side of town.
They walked along a while, then Jake said, "I guess we could find Mammy Clewson."
"Oh, shut up," Buddy said. "Here's your five dollars back. Here's both your five dollars back. The both of you can get her to do it for you till your money runs out."
"I was just kidding," Jake said.
"Well don't," Buddy said. "That Butch, I catch him, right in the kisser, man. I don't care how big and mean he is. Right in the kisser."
They walked along the street and turned left up another. "Let's get out of boogie town," Buddy said. "All these niggers around here, it makes me nervous."
When they were well up the street and there were no houses, they turned down a short dirt street with a bridge in the middle of it that went over the Sabine river. It wasn't a big bridge because the river was narrow there. Off to the right was a wide pasture. To the left a church. They crossed into the church back yard. There were a couple of wooden pews setting out there under an oak. Buddy went over to one and sat down.
"I thought you wanted to get away from the boogies?" Wilson said.
"Naw," Buddy said. "This is all right. This is fine. I'd like for a nigger to start something. I would. That old man back there hadn't been so old and had his balls fucked up like that, I'd have kicked his ass."
"We wondered what was holding you back," Wilson said.
Buddy looked at Wilson, didn't see any signs of sarcasm.
"Yeah, well, that was it. Give me the jar. There's some other women I know about. We might try something later on, we feel like it."
But a cloud of unspoken resignation, as far as pussy was concerned, had passed over them, and they labored beneath its darkness with their fruit jar of hooch. They sat and passed the jar around and the night got better and brighter. Behind them, off in the woods, they could hear the Sabine river running along. Now and then a car would go down or up the street, cross over the bridge with a rumble, and pass out of sight beyond the church, or if heading in the other direction, out of sight behind trees.
Buddy began to see the night's fiasco as funny. He mellowed. "That Butch, he's something, ain't he? Some joke, huh?"
"It was pretty funny," Jake said, "seeing that old man and his balls coming down the porch after you. That thing was any more ruptured, he'd need a wheelbarrow to get from room to room. Shit, I bet he couldn't have turned no dog on us. He'd had one in there, it'd have barked."
"Maybe he calls Sally Blackie," Wilson said. "Man, we're better off she didn't take money. You see that face. She could scare crows."
"Shit," Buddy said, sniffing at the jar of hooch. "I think Hoyt puts hair oil in this. Don't that smell like Vitalis to you?"
He held it under Wilson's nose, then Jake's.
"It does," Wilson said. "Right now, I wouldn't care if it smelled like sewer. Give me another swig."
"No," Buddy said, standing up, wobbling, holding the partially-filled jar in front of him. "Could be we've discovered a hair tonic we could sell. Buy it from Hoyt for five, sell it to guys to put on their heads for ten. We could go into business with Old Man Hoyt. Make a fortune."
Buddy poured some hooch into his palm and rubbed it into his hair, fanning his struggling squirrel-do into greater disarray. He gave the jar to Jake, got out his comb and sculptured his hair with it. Hooch ran down from his hairline and along his nose and cheeks. "See that," he said, holding out his arms as if he were styling. "Shit holds like glue."
Buddy seemed an incredible wit suddenly. They all laughed. Buddy got his cigarettes and shook one out for each of them. They lipped them. They smiled at one another. They were great friends. This was a magnificent and important moment in their lives. This night would live in memory forever.
Buddy produced a match, held it close to his cheek like always, smiled and flicked it with his thumb. The flaming head of the match jumped into his hair and lit the alcohol Buddy had combed into it. His hair flared up, and a circle of fire, like a halo for the devil, wound its way around his scalp and licked at his face and caught the hooch there on fire. Buddy screamed and bolted berserkly into a pew, tumbled over it and came up running. He looked like th
e Human Torch on a mission.
Wilson and Jake were stunned. They watched him run a goodly distance, circle, run back, hit the turned-over pew again and go down.
Wilson yelled, "Put his head out!"
Jake reflexively tossed the contents of the fruit jar at Buddy's head, realizing his mistake a moment too late. But it was like when he waved at Sally's pa. He couldn't help himself.
Buddy did a short tumble, came up still burning; in fact, he appeared to be more on fire than before. He ran straight at Wilson and Jake, his tongue out and flapping flames.
Wilson and Jake stepped aside and Buddy went between them, sprinted across the church yard toward the street.
"Throw dirt on his head!" Wilson said, Jake threw down the jar and they went after him, watching for dirt they could toss.
Buddy was fast for someone on fire. He reached the street well ahead of Wilson and Jake and any discovery of available dirt. But he didn't cross the street fast enough to beat the dump truck. Its headlights hit him first, then the left side of the bumper clipped him on the leg and he did a high complete flip, his blazing head resembling some sort of wheeled fireworks display. He landed on the bridge railing on the far side of the street with a crack of bone and a barking noise. With a burst of flames around his head, he fell off the bridge and into the water below.
The dump truck locked up its brakes and skidded.
Wilson and Jake stopped running. They stood looking at the spot where Buddy had gone over, paralyzed with disbelief.
The dump truck driver, a slim white man in overalls and a cap, got out of the truck and stopped at the rear of it, looked at where Buddy had gone over, looked up and down the street. He didn't seem to notice Wilson and Jake. He walked briskly back to the truck, got in, gunned the motor. The truck went away fast, took a right on the next street hard enough that the tires protested like a cat with its tail in a crack. It backfired once, then there was only the distant sound of the motor and gears being rapidly shifted.
"Sonofabitch!" Wilson yelled.
He and Jake ran to the street, paused, looked both ways in case of more dump trucks, and crossed. They glanced over the railing.
Buddy lay with his lower body on the bank. His left leg was twisted so that his shoe pointed in the wrong direction. His dark, crisp head was in the water. He was straining his neck to lift his blackened, eyeless face out of the water; white wisps of smoke swirled up from it and carried with it the smell of barbecued meat. His body shifted. He let out a groan.
"Goddamn," Wilson said. "He's alive. Let's get him."
But at that moment there was splashing in the water. A log came sailing down the river, directly at Buddy's head. The log opened its mouth and grabbed Buddy by the head and jerked him off the shore. A noise like walnuts being cracked and a muffled scream drifted up to Wilson and Jake.
"An alligator," Jake said, and noted vaguely how closely its skin and Buddy's shoes matched.
Wilson darted around the railing, slid down the incline to the water's edge. Jake followed. They ran alongside the bank.
The water turned extremely shallow, and they could see the shadowy shape of the gator as it waddled forward, following the path of the river, still holding Buddy by the head. Buddy stuck out of the side of its mouth like a curmudgeon's cigar. His arms were flapping and so was his good leg.
Wilson and Jake paused running and tried to get their breath. After some deep inhalations, Wilson said, "Gets in the deep water, it's all over." He grabbed up an old fence post that had washed onto the bank and began running again, yelling at the gator as he went. Jake looked about, but didn't see anything to hit with. He ran after Wilson.
The gator, panicked by the noisy pursuit, crawled out of the shallows and went into the high grass of a connecting pasture, ducking under the bottom strand of a barbwire fence. The wire caught one of Buddy's flailing arms and ripped a flap of flesh from it six inches long. Once on the other side of the wire his good leg kicked up and the fine shine on his alligator shoes flashed once in the moonlight and fell down.
Wilson went through the barbwire and after the gator with his fence post. The gator was making good time, pushing Buddy before it, leaving a trail of mashed grass behind it. Wilson could see its tail weaving in the moonlight. Its stink trailed behind it like fumes from a busted muffler.
Wilson put the fence post on his shoulder and ran as hard as he could, managed to close in. Behind him came Jake, huffing and puffing.
Wilson got alongside the gator and hit him in the tail with the fence post. The gator's tail whipped out and caught Wilson's ankles and knocked his feet from under him. He came down hard on his butt and lost the fence post.
Jake grabbed up the post and broke right as the gator turned in that direction. He caught the beast sideways and brought the post down on its head, and when it hit, Buddy's blood jumped out of the gator's mouth and landed in the grass and on Jake's shoes. In the moonlight it was the color of cough syrup.
Jake went wild. He began to hit the gator brutally, running alongside it, following its every twist and turn. He swung the fence post mechanically, slamming the gator in the head. Behind him Wilson was saying, "You're hurting Buddy, you're hurting Buddy," but Jake couldn't stop, the frenzy was on him. Gator blood was flying, bursting out of the top of the reptile's head. Still, it held to Buddy, not giving up an inch of head. Buddy wasn't thrashing or kicking anymore. His legs slithered along in the grass as the gator ran; he looked like one of those dummies they throw off cliffs in old cowboy movies.
Wilson caught up, started kicking the gator in the side. The gator started rolling and thrashing, and Jake and Wilson hopped like rabbits and yelled. Finally the gator quit rolling. It quit crawling. Its sides heaved.
Jake continued to pound it with the post and Wilson continued to kick it. Eventually its sides quit swelling. Jake kept hitting it with the post until he staggered back and fell down in the grass exhausted. He sat there looking at the gator and Buddy. The gator trembled suddenly and spewed gator shit into the grass. It didn't move again.
After a few minutes, Wilson said, "I don't think Buddy's alive."
Just then, Buddy's body twitched.
"Hey, hey, you see that?" Jake said.
Wilson was touched with wisdom. "He's alive, the gator might be too."
Wilson got on his knees about six feet from the gator's mouth and bent over to see if he could see Buddy in there. All he could see were the gator's rubbery lips and the sides of its teeth and a little of Buddy's head shredded between them, like gray cheese on a grater. He could smell both the sour smell of the gator and the stink of burnt meat.
"I don't know if he's alive or not," Wilson said. "Maybe if we could get him out of its mouth, we could tell more."
Jake tried to wedge the fence post into the gator's mouth, but that didn't work. It was as if the great jaw was locked with a key.
They watched carefully, but Buddy didn't show any more signs of life.
"I know," Wilson said. "We'll carry him and the gator up to the road, find a house and get some help."
* * *
The gator was long and heavy. The best they could do was get hold of its tail and pull it and Buddy along. Jake managed this with the fence post under his arm. He didn't trust the gator and wouldn't give it up.
They went across an acre of grass and came to a barbwire fence that bordered the street where Buddy had been hit by the dump truck. The bridge was in sight.
They let go of the gator and climbed through the wire. Jake used the fence post to lift up the bottom strand, and Wilson got hold of the gator's tail and tugged the beast under, along with Buddy.
Pulling the gator and Buddy alongside the road, they watched for house lights. They went past the church on the opposite side of the road and turned left where the dump truck had turned right and backfired. They went alongside the street there, occasionally allowing the gator and Buddy to weave over into the street itself. It was hard work steering a gator and its lunch.
They finally came to a row of houses. The first one had an old Ford pickup parked out beside it and lots of junk piled in the yard. Lawn mowers, oily rope, overturned freezers, wheels, fishing reels and line, bicycle parts, and a busted commode. A tarp had been pulled half-heartedly over a tall stack of old shop creepers. There was a light on behind one window. The rest of the houses were dark.
Jake and Wilson let go of the gator in the front yard, and Wilson went up on the porch, knocked on the door, stepped off the porch and waited.
Briefly thereafter, the door opened a crack and a man called out, "Who's out there? Don't you know it's bedtime?"
"We seen your light on," Wilson said.
"I was in the shitter. You trying to sell me a brush or a book or something this time of night, I won't be in no good temper about it. I'm not through shitting either."
"We got a man hurt here," Wilson said. "A gator bit him."
There was a long moment of quiet. "What you want me to do? I don't know nothin' about no gator bites. I don't even know who you are. You might be with the Ku Kluxers."
"He's . . . he's kind of hung up with the gator," Wilson said.
"Just a minute," said the voice.
Moments later a short, fat black man came out. He was shirtless and barefooted, wearing overalls with the straps off his shoulders, dangling at his waist. He had a ball bat in his hand. He came down the steps and looked at Wilson and Jake carefully, as if expecting them to spring. "You stand away from me with that fence post, hear?" he said. Jake took a step back and this seemed to satisfy the man. He took a look at the gator and Buddy.
He went back up the porch and reached inside the door and turned on the porch light. A child's face stuck through the crack in the door, said, "What's out there, papa?"
"You get your ass in that house, or I'll kick it," the black man said. The face disappeared.
The black man came off the porch again, looked at the gator and Buddy again, walked around them a couple of times, poked the gator with the ball bat, poked Buddy too.