I tried to move my hands again and the doctor started pulling Velcro straps off my arms. “You were most active when you arrived. We attempted to sedate you but even when I exceeded the safe limit the medication had no visibly effects. I am proposing the enormous amount of blood hibernating in your elephant-like penis allows you to absorb a great amount of medications with very little of the normal effect. And I think you will recover from your...I think the technical term appropriate would be ‘ass kicking’, I think you will make a full recovery.” He shook his head and stated, “The Gods have blessed you with as much muscle as they have good looks and obvious fertilizing ability, but he may have reduced your intelligence to compensate. I am going to update your chart, there is much notations to be made. And I’ll have a nurse come in and take those photos when you’re ready.” He nodded and half-bowed around the room and then walked out the door.
I was feeling around the tube coming out of my left wrist when I saw Dave lean over the bed. “I’m glad you’re alive, Foster. When I saw Rob and Paul pulling you up the steps to the parking lot I thought—”
“Don’t get all gay weepy over me, Dave. I’m right here, I’m alive.”
He gave me an odd look and said. “No shit, I knew you were alive, I was just hoping that asshole hadn’t done anything permanent to your face. I know how much you count on your good looks to get you through life.”
“Anyway,” Spence spoke up. “Mr. John Smith is heading straight to federal prison after he heals a little bit. You don’t need to worry about him for a long fuckin’ time.”
I shook my head a little. “That seems harsh, it was a fistfight, nothing special. Things just got a little...out of hand. For all you know I started it.”
Rob shook his head. “Paul got a warrant and we searched Smith’s car. He had the floor plan to the frat house, your class schedule, two pistols, a stun gun, some plastic explosives, chloroform, duct tape, some Cheetos, some garbage bags, and...a saw. He meant to do you some great fucking harm, Foster.”
I considered that and then said, “I dunno, that evidence seems kind of...circumstantial, don’t ya think?”
Spence spoke up. “Rob forgot to mention the flash drive they found—it had a whole lot of twisted fucking things that douche had planned for you. If he had managed to get you away from the house you wouldn’t even be...well, whatever.”
Rob sounded a little pissed but mainly concerned when he asked, “How did the two of you get downstairs without anyone seeing you? And we all knew that guy was shady, why would you agree to just disappear with him like that?”
I attempted to shrug but it hurt too much. “I just wanted to figure him out, I guess. Maybe I knew it was gonna end up like that, maybe I wanted to push it forward and see how hard he pushed back. At first I thought he had a grudge against me because of my father and Megan. He was such a skinhead psycho kind of douche that I thought maybe if I kicked his ass he’d run away with his tail between his legs. That was an epic failure of judgment on my part.”
“By the amount of blood splattered on the walls and the couple of tons of equipment tossed around I’d have to say somebody was looking to do more than just kick some ass,” Dave said. “Did something else happen down there? Never mind, Foster, I’m not even sure I want to know.” He gave me an odd smile that felt like it had some pity in it and then he stared out the window.
“Who found us?” I asked Rob, “How did you figure out where I was?”
He turned a little red and shook his head. “It was the Phillip kid, you know, the guy who posed for the pics in front of the statue with us. He asked Paul where you were and Yoda or somebody said they saw you walking out the door with Smith. As soon as I heard that we all split up and started searching the house and the lawn. Somebody down in the basement told me they’d heard a bunch of shit going on in the weight room. By the time we got that door open the two of you were passed out on the floor and bleeding all over the place.”
“How did you get that door open?” I asked. “It was locked from inside.”
Dave spoke up, “You can thank Patrick for that. He threw himself against that door and the door frame just kind of disintegrated—which is pretty damn amazing since it was a metal frame. He’s down the hall with a dislocated shoulder. The nurses are shoving food and meds under the door for him, nobody will actually go into the room until he gets a little more sedated.”
“No doubt. Maybe I could slide a get well card and a pizza under the door, he’d like that.” I asked Rob, “So what’s John Smith’s story? Did some ultra right-wing group send him here on a suicide mission or somethin’ like that?”
“Not exactly, and his real name is—get this—Milton Hornwell.”
“You’re shittin’ me.”
“I shit you not, Foster. His folks call him Junior, and they kicked him out of the house a year ago. Evidently his Mom’s a fan of true-crime TV, and she claims Junior was making her a little nervous. According to her he liked to set fire to barns and whatnot, he got caught peeking into a lot of windows, and she thought he seemed a little too attached to some of the barnyard animals they had. She told me she wasn’t a forensic scientist but she knew enough to believe Junior was one checkmark on the list away from becoming a full-fledged psychopath. But when one of the agents interviewed their neighbors they had a different story. They said Junior's parents operated a fairly productive meth lab tucked away in some hills, and they kicked him out when he started using more than he was selling. And Paul found a bunch of steroids and Adderall and some other stuff in his car. The neighbors said that until he discovered meth he was a harmless guy. The shrinks at the hospital think if he survives and makes it through a rehab program he might actually be a good kid.”
I tried to shift in the bed and all I could do was moan. “Well, good for him. And I hope that rehab place is on the other side of the planet, because if I ever lay eyes on him again I’ll kill him, plain and simple.” Rob nodded and held up his cell phone like he had a call as he disappeared out into the hall.
Spence slid a chair up to the bed and said, “I’m trying to figure out what to do about your mother. Some idiot from here called her to check your prescription history or allergies or whatever and she’s gone thermonuclear. I talked her out of flying here to see you, I told her it would be like a concerned mom running out on a football field after her son got tackled. It was just a stupid fistfight at a fraternity party and you’d be fine.” He looked at me and seemed a little hesitant when he asked, “You will be fine, won’t you, Jake?”
I grinned and I felt how raw and crooked my smile was. “Sure, I’ll be fine. All this shit will heal, and we’ll have an Over My Dead Body party at Halloween. Everything’s good, Bro, it’s all going to be okay.”
They looked happy and hopeful, and I knew I had just told the biggest lie of my life.
The End
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A Gator Tale Excerpt:
.........Before I could respond the rear doors to the hall slammed open and what looked like the Creature from the Black Lagoon stood there, dripping. I studied the figure for a while and realized it was Cooper Parker, and I knew immediately that the cookout discussion was going to be replaced with something more ominous.
When Cooper started moving down the aisle to the stage people grimaced and covered their noses. He was covered in all kinds of swamp muck and there was what looked like seaweed or Spanish moss draped over one shoulder. He noticed it and plucked it off, dropping it on the plush carpet with a squishy splat.
“I hope I’m in time to make a report to everybody!” I motioned him up to the podium and he walked up to it, leaving black muddy footprints behind him. He cleared his throat. “I just got back from checking out the causeway and I heard about this meeting. Figured I’d give everybody a report on what I found.” He looked around for Bucky but he finally settled his eye
s on me and I nodded for him to go ahead.
Sam spoke up and told Cooper, “I’m here from FEMA.” There were more boo’s from the audience and he winced. “And after you tell us what you found I’d like to officially debrief you.”
Cooper considered that and said, “Well Mr. FEMA-man, I’ll tell you what I saw—but you stay out of my briefs!” He looked back at me. “Rumpholt, is this some friend of yours?”
Sam looked at me and I glared at Cooper. “Just go ahead and give us a scouting report, Cooper!”
Cooper slicked his wild hair back and patted himself down one more time to shake off the muck. “So, okay. I was out in the swamp collecting water moccasins—you know, to sell their venom to the hospital for a little extra cash. Anyway, I had just made it to the edge of the mainland when the first squalls from the storm started to hit. I should have just stayed there, found some shelter, but like an idiot I decided to head back here. The storm hit and I spent most of the night with my boat tied up to a tree with a bag of angry snakes on board—it’s not as fun as it sounds.
“Anyway, I tried to follow the causeway back to the island, but it’s completely submerged. And judging by the way the current was moving there are some spots where it may just be gone.” The crowd in the hall groaned a little. “So, yeah, it’s about as bad as I’ve ever seen it—and the channel next to it isn’t really any better. The whole swamp—all of the creeks, all of the marshes, everything—it’s full of debris. I could barely make it through the logs and trash and shit that’s piled up. My guess is that it’ll be a week or maybe even two before anybody from the mainland can make it out here.”
I relaxed a little bit with that report and said, “Well there you go, folks. It’s a little bit worse than average but we’ll be fine for a week or so. Everything can be business as usual around here, no need to—”
“Well, Rumpholt, I wouldn’t exactly say that. I haven’t told you about Jolly Roger, yet.”
I didn’t really want to, but I went ahead and asked. “Okay, Cooper. Who’s Jolly Roger?”
Betty chimed in. “Well, Chief, Mayor…Jason, Jolly Roger is just a myth! It is a legend that’s so old nobody even talks about it anymore, it’s no wonder you haven’t heard of it. The older pirates—excuse me—Parkers, they used to talk about giant alligators living out in the swamp. Whenever a Parker or a Rumpholt would disappear from the island they’d blame it on those gators. Supposedly the king of the gators was over twenty feet long, and somehow he got named ‘Jolly Roger’. The Parkers probably named him that after he swallowed a few Rumpholts. After that anytime something odd would happen they would say, ‘It’s Jolly Roger again!” Of course that was about 250 years ago, at least. Even if there had been a giant alligator around here it would be long dead by now.”
Cooper was stomping his feet and swinging his arms in protest, and his swamp stink was coming at me in waves. I swore to never drink alcohol again. He started yelling at the crowd. “If that wasn’t Jolly Roger than it was his long-lost cousin, or great grandson, or something like that! I’m telling you, right after the storm passed I was taking a break from bailing my little boat out, and I guess the moccasins had finally settled down for a nap or something. That’s when I heard the most terrible bellowing throaty kind of noise—like the devil himself was snoring. When I finally got my little outboard started I was struggling to get through all the crap in the water, and trying to put as much distance as I could between me and that god-awful sound! I made it out of the swamp and was winding my way back to the island—there are so many new sandbars and channels it’s going to take forever to learn ‘em all—anyway, just when I thought I had made it here this giant beast comes cruising right at me! It swam up right beside and it was as twice as long as the boat! Maybe it wasn’t ol’ Jolly Roger himself but it was sure as hell a man-eater!”
The crowd was on the edge of their seats listening to Cooper’s gator tale. I realized this was just going to make things crazier on the island and tried to cut him off from getting anybody more worked up. “Now, Cooper, if this Jolly Roger thing was that big—a ‘man eater’ like you say, then what are you doing standing here? Shouldn’t you be in his belly right now?” I hoped the crowd would see some logic in that question.
Cooper looked extremely proud of himself. “Well,” he explained, “the gator was closing in and I had to do something! So I shook that bag of snakes as hard as I could and threw it right in front of him! The gator swallowed the bag whole and then started thrashing around like a rabid beaver! His tail hit the side of my jon boat and flipped it over and I was thrown into the water. I’m not sure if he spit the snake bag out or if was stuck in his throat, but the next thing he went after was the propeller on the outboard. While he was taking out his hostility on my boat I managed to get to the shore and climb out of the water!”
The crowd was eating all of this up, so to speak. Somebody yelled, “He probably passed on eating you when he smelled you!” Cooper looked at me and I just wrinkled my nose and nodded.
“Anyway,” Cooper said, “without any help from the mainland we’re going to have to deal with Jolly Roger ourselves!”
I tried to make a rational argument for why this wasn’t something else to worry about. “If the alligator ate a bag of venomous snakes and then tried to swallow a boat motor don’t you think he’s either dead or heading back to the swamp? I read somewhere the only thing that protects a gator from a snake is their skin, or hide, whatever. If he swallowed the whole bag he has to be dead, they would be biting him from the inside.” The crowd murmured and seemed to agree with my theory.
“Well, Jason, I’ve heard that too. I’ve also heard if you rub a gator on his belly he’ll go all still and docile. Would you like to hop out there in the water and test either one of those theories, dumbass?” He pointed at me and then pointed at the big screen behind me. “Take a good look at that screen, everybody! It’s got to be at least twenty-feet wide, and I’m telling y’all that’s how long Jolly Roger was from his nose to the end of his tail!”
Sam and I looked at each other and he just shrugged. “This is really your jurisdiction, Mayor Rumpholt. I can double check but I’m fairly sure FEMA doesn’t get involved in man-eating alligator disasters.” The three of us were standing there at the podium and I couldn’t decide if I wanted to punch Sam or Cooper first, then I reminded myself that they both towered over me.
“Okay, Cooper.” I tried to get myself off the hook for dealing with Jolly Roger. “Tourist season is over. Mullet Festival ended three days ago. It’ll just be us for the fall and winter, as usual. All we have to do is just stay out of the water for a while and it’ll go back into the swamp where it belongs. It’s gotta eat, it’ll head back and eat deer or raccoons or pine cones or whatever those things like to munch on, and we’ll be done with it.” The crowd looked pleased and I felt like I was making some headway as their leader.
Cooper kept arguing. “What if it doesn’t go away? What if it’s here next spring? We all make a lot of money off the tourists, it’s what keeps us going all year! How am I supposed to do my eco-tours when there’s a gator snacking on people?” I was kind of at a loss on that one because he did have a point.
Betty chimed in, “Mr. Cooper, exactly how do you think we should handle this? What would you have us do? Do any of us have giant alligator traps sitting around? Do you want to go out on the Chief’s boat and track it down? Maybe Jason and Sam and you can all go out together and kill it?”
Cooper slapped his hand on the podium and a clump of mud hit me on the side of the head. “Betty, that’s exactly what I was thinking! We can go out there and find it, get a chain or a net around it, and then either take it back to the swamp or shoot the hell out of it. I personally vote for killing it! And,” he smiled at the crowd, “I’ll only charge fifty grand to lead the expedition. But I will need a new boat—a bigger boat.”
Betty looked pissed. “Do you really think Mr. Cooper, that this is some kind of shark movie? You know—a man-
eater, three men going out to kill it, saving the tourist season for the town and generally being heroes? You may want to stop and think about that one, as I recall that movie ends with the leader of the expedition being swallowed.” Cooper got a little pale as he pondered that.
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