Knockemstiff

by Donald Ray Pollock

  Duane paused to light his last cigarette, went over the prepared answer in his head once again. “Like a fish fry,” he said.

  “See, I told you, didn’t I?” Wimpy said.

  “Is she purty as Nancy?” Lard asked. He was looking down at the Boots record, tracing his finger over the pop singer’s face.

  “Jesus, you fat fuck,” Wimpy said, “he just told us her snatch smelled like fish. What do you think, Duane’s got himself a movie star?”

  Porter stepped closer, peered at Duane’s neck again. “So what did you end up doing with her?” he asked.

  Duane sucked hard on his cigarette, tried to come off casual. “I soaked it in Boones Farm.”

  “Bullshit,” Porter said. “Fucker, you won’t even take a turn with old Geraldine.”

  Duane jerked the sticky panties from his pocket and held them up in the smoky air. “Oh, yeah?” he said. “Who you think these belong to?” He waved them in front of Porter’s bloodshot eyes like a matador taunting a bull. They were the final piece of evidence. He could imagine his old man mounting the underwear to the living-room wall like a dead animal.

  Porter grabbed his hand, held it tight while he cautiously sniffed the trophy. “You gotta be kiddin’ me,” he said. “You mean this Mapel girl, she actually let you do that?”

  “Yeah,” Duane swore, “she was into it. You can look. There’s fuckin’ apple wine all over the old man’s car.”

  Porter turned to Wimpy. “Damn, maybe we oughta try that shit on Geraldine,” he said. “Douche it with wine before you start munchin’ on it.”

  “Fuck you,” Wimpy shot back.

  “Better yet,” Porter said, pointing across the garage, “rinse it with that goddamn gas can.”

  . . . . .

  AS SOON AS PORTER AND WIMPY PASSED OUT, LARD REACHED up and switched off the trouble lamp. “That light hurts my eyes,” he muttered. Then he sank back down on the straw and stared quietly into the gloom. “Duane,” he finally said, his voice now low and serious, “you shouldn’t talk about your girlfriend that way.”

  Duane didn’t say anything. He was stretched out in a wooden chair, smoking one of Porter’s Camels, going over his story one more time before he went home to face the old man. A wave of disgust suddenly washed over him, soaking him in shame. Even though she wasn’t real, he knew he’d treated Mapel badly, said stuff about her he wouldn’t say about a dog. He whispered her name again, but it didn’t feel the same now. She was gone. Taking another drag off the cigarette, he thought of Geraldine gliding across her yard after Porter and Wimpy were done with her.

  They sat in silence for a few more minutes, then Lard spoke up again. “Duane?”

  “What now?”

  “Wanta trade?”

  “Trade? Trade what?”

  “I trade you my Nancy for your Mapel.”

  Duane looked over at Lard in surprise. The fat boy was clutching the Nancy album close to his heart, his huge stomach moving slowly up and down like a worn-out bellows. He’d had his Nancy for years now; they did everything together. She’d protected him from a thousand stray darts. “You don’t want to do that, Lardy,” Duane said.

  “Why not?” Lard asked. He was still staring up into the rafters.

  Duane thought for a minute. “Because…because she’s your girl, always has been,” he explained. “Heck, she’s better than any ol’ Mapel.”

  “Aw, Duane,” Lard said with a yawn, “Nancy ain’t even real. She’s just some old picture my granny give me.” Then he closed his eyes.

  Duane waited a while, then stood up and pulled the damp panties out of his Levi jacket. He crept softly across the hard dirt floor and stood over his fat friend. Lard was snoring now, his flabby arms crossed over his belly. He smelled like potato chips and grimy sweat. Glancing over to make sure Porter and Wimpy were still asleep, Duane noticed the darts lined up in a row on the workbench. Ever since they were kids, Lard had claimed that he couldn’t feel anything, insisted that the darts never hurt. Still, Duane had always pitched his underhanded, keeping a secret promise to himself never to break the fat boy’s skin. “Like a goddamn girl,” Wimpy liked to jeer.

  Duane stuffed the panties into the side pocket of Lard’s bibs, then gathered up all the darts and stepped outside into the night. He could hear the far-off rumble of a B&O freight as it rolled along the curved spine of the Summit heading west toward Cincinnati. Moving to the end of Porter’s driveway, he stared down at his parents’ house, moldering at the bottom of the hill like an illegal dump, surrounded by the old man’s rusty junk and overgrown lilacs and gray October fog. He couldn’t believe that he lived there.

  As the sound of the train died away, the wind suddenly picked up, rattling the dry weeds in the field across the road. The cool air tingled on his blistered neck. He saw his parents’ porch light flash on, then off again. Looking up, he searched out the brightest star throbbing in the sky above Knockemstiff, then drew back and flung one of the darts at it. He kept throwing them, as hard as he could, until they had all disappeared into the darkness that surrounded him.

  FISH STICKS

  IT WAS THE DAY BEFORE HIS COUSIN’S FUNERAL AND DEL ended up at the Suds washing his black jeans at midnight. They were the only pants he owned that were fit for the occasion. Even Randy, the dead man who didn’t give a fuck anymore, would look better than Del. The one decent shirt in his trash bag had TROY’S BAIT SHOP stenciled across the back of it.

  That wasn’t all. Del was with a woman he couldn’t get rid of, no matter what he did or said. Every time he dumped her off at the group home, she beat him back to his room with a fresh load in her automatic pill dispenser and another wad of clean underwear. To make matters worse, she kept bugging the shit out of him with these fish sticks she reeled up from the bottomless pond of a plastic purse. They were cold and greasy, feathered with gray lint. And even though she was probably the best woman Del Murray had ever been with—gobs of bare-knuckle sex, the latest psychotropic drugs, a government check—he was still embarrassed to be seen with her in public. Anyone who’s ever dated a retard will understand what he was up against.

  Del bought a box of soap from a little vending machine that charged exorbitant prices and poured most of it into the washer, then walked over to the bulletin board. Every Laundromat has one, a place on the wall where people can peddle their junk or swap their kids. There was a notice for a big tent revival over on the hopeless side of town, a crudely written flyer promising a better life, something that Del had craved for a long time. In one corner a cartoon Jesus floated on a pink cloud above the earth, in the other a bloody fiend sat in a prison cell snacking on a plate of skulls labeled like homemade preserves: JUNKIE, WINO, HOMO, WHORE, ATHEIST. It was designed to scare the fuck out of the type of people who wash their clothes in a public place. But more than anything, the poster dredged up memories for Del, reminded him of the time he and Randy wasted an entire year attending the Shady Glen Church of Christ in Christian Union just to win a prize, a little red Bible that fell apart the first hot day. They were eight years old.

  . . . . .

  SEVERAL YEARS AFTER THEY DROPPED OUT OF SUNDAY school, Randy and Del enrolled in a mail order Charles Atlas course. This was back in the days when a kid could still change the course of his life by filling out one of the order forms found in the back of a comic book, a long time ago, years before the Fish Stick Girl was even born. A new envelope filled with exercises arrived in the mail every week, but Del couldn’t get into it, all that work just so you could tear a phone book in half. Instead, he shoplifted a paperback from Gray’s Drugstore in Meade called “Reds.” Del wasn’t much of a reader, but he needed something to kill time until Randy gave up on building a different body.

  Del would never forget “Reds.” He probably read it a dozen times that summer. It had the same powerful effect on him as the public service announcement on the radio about the guy who ripped his arm open with a can opener so he could blow dope in the bloody hole with a plast
ic straw. In the book, a clean-cut hero named Cole picks up these two runaway girls who shoot sleeping pills in his dad’s new Lincoln. For Del, it was like flipping on a light switch, and by the time the crazy bitches dropped acid and torched the hippie’s crash pad, he knew exactly how he wanted to live his life.

  “Man, you gotta read this,” Del said, waving his copy of “Reds” under Randy’s nose. They were listening to a Hendrix album while Randy stood in front of the open window and worked out in the nude. Charles Atlas was big on sunshine and fresh air, which probably would have been fine if you lived on the moon, but in their county, the smog from the paper mill made everything smell like rotten eggs. Randy had already scratched the shit out of “Purple Haze,” and Jimi kept repeating “…while I kiss the sky…while I kiss the sky.” Glancing out the window over Randy’s shoulder, Del saw a dirty brown cloud drifting by, high over Knockemstiff, the holler where they lived.

  Randy glanced at the cover of the book, the picture of the four-eyed boy and the two wasted chicks standing by a highway sign with their thumbs in their pockets. He snorted in disgust, then took a big gulp from the jelly glass of raw eggs he kept by the bed. He was up to a dozen a day. Sweat was dripping off the end of his dick. His stomach resembled a car grill. “I could break that sonofabitch like a pencil,” he said, flexing his biceps.

  “Shoot, this guy gets more pussy than you ever dreamed of,” Del said. “He don’t need no muscles either.”

  “Bullshit. Girls love muscles. What about the guy who gets sand kicked in his face down at the beach?” Randy asked.

  “You don’t even like to swim,” Del pointed out. “Look, girls don’t care how many push-ups you can do. They just want to get high and wear flowers in their hair. Maybe steal a car.”

  “Yeah, then we end up in jail like your brothers.”

  “Hey, I begged them to read this before they broke into that gas station,” Del said.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Randy yelled. He’d already started another set of leg lifts. Del reached over and cranked up “I Don’t Live Today” past the little piece of tape that Randy’s brother, Albert, had stuck on the volume control. The speakers started making a funny noise, like someone was pounding the piss out of them with one of the dumbbells lying on the floor.

  “I say we go to Florida and find these girls,” Del said, holding the cover up to Randy’s red, pimply face. “It’s like hippie heaven down there.”

  “Damn, Delbert, that little one looks like somebody’s sister,” Randy grunted, just before the speakers blew.

  . . . . .

  THE FISH STICK GIRL TOOK OFF HER ARMY JACKET AND loosened the belt on her shiny jeans, then got down on the floor in the Laundromat amid the fuzz balls and cigarette butts and started doing stretches. Del figured that somewhere along the way, probably the night he hogged all of her Haldol, he’d confessed that he got a kick out of watching other people work out. It wasn’t a kinky sex thing, but more like the pleasure a person gets out of seeing their best friend lose a job or some rich bastard go down in a plane crash. He wondered what other secrets he might have revealed. Del watched his pants slosh around in the window and tried to ignore the sexy sighs the Fish Stick Girl emitted with each slow movement. Though she’d been cursed with certain defects, she could bend into shapes that most people associate only with circus freaks and world-class contortionists. It was, he knew, just another part of her plan to make him a slave.

  . . . . .

  ON THE BUS GOING TO FLORIDA, DEL READ RANDY THE juiciest passages in “Reds” over and over, but always avoided the ending. By the time they hit Atlanta, Randy had even memorized the entire chapter about the Spanish fly orgy in the abandoned beach house. He became convinced that the psychotic Dorcie would be waiting for him when they pulled into the station at St. Petersburg. After his cousin nodded off, Del slipped back to the restroom and tore out the last few pages of the novel. He didn’t have the heart to tell Randy that Dorcie, his little needle queen, had jumped off a bridge and drowned when the cops started closing in.

  . . . . .

  “I’M HUNGRY, MAN,” RANDY SAID, THE MORNING THEY HIT the Florida state line. There were rows of orange trees along the highway. Everything smelled like air freshener.

  “Look, those oranges are big as basketballs.”

  “No, I mean I’m losing muscle fast,” Randy said. “I got to find some eggs.” It was true—Randy was starting to look like a rubber doll that had stepped on a nail. He was deflating before Del’s eyes.

  “We’ll buy a dozen as soon as we get some money.”

  “How we do that?” Randy asked, his voice cracking. “Does it say in that book how we do that?”

  “Don’t worry,” Del said. “This guy tells you everything.”

  . . . . .

  THREE DAYS LATER IN ST. PETERSBURG, THEY MET A HOTDOG vendor named Leo. He was dumping new meat into a stainless-steel steamer. The smell of snouts and eyeballs wafting from the stand had been driving Del and Randy crazy ever since they’d started sleeping under the pier. “Come by my place this evening, you,” Leo said, handing the boys a couple of dogs along with an address scrawled on a matchbook. “Go ahead, eat up, you,” he said, winking at Randy.

  “Hey, Del,” Randy said later, “you think that guy’s funny?” Dried mustard was plastered on his chin.

  “Who cares? I can’t go home, that’s all I know. My mom will kill me.”

  “How much you figure people will pay for something like that?” Randy said.

  . . . . .

  LEO CAME TO THE DOOR WEARING A FLOWERED BATHROBE and a pair of old tennis shoes with the toes cut out of them. His swollen feet looked like a pair of sea urchins. He lived in a sad motel room, with black tar footprints on the dirty carpet, somebody else’s sand in the tub. It was the kind of place that Del would always gravitate toward later on, the kind of dump where something always happens that nobody wants to admit happened.

  “He can wait outside,” Leo said, nodding over at Del.

  “No way,” Randy said. “I ain’t staying here by myself.”

  “What? You think I’m going to bite it off? Nibble it like a little fish stick?” Leo said, laughing. “All right. At least have him stand over in the corner so I don’t have to look at him, you little fraidy cat, you.” Then he handed Randy an old wrinkled Playboy to look at while he got ready. The magazine was evidently Leo’s idea of foreplay, but some other kid had already drawn pointy beards on all the naked women.

  While Leo was in the bathroom gargling mouthwash, Randy instructed Del to smack the bastard in the head if he saw any blood. “You heard what he said,” Randy whispered. “Shit, he might be a cannibal for all we know.” He pointed at a lamp by the bed that had blue seagulls flying around a yellow shade. He grabbed Del by the shoulders. “Don’t fuck this up,” Randy said. Del walked over and pulled the lamp plug out of the wall. Then he stepped into the corner and listened to the ocean just a block away. He could hear little kids squealing in the undertow, happy vacationers laughing in the sand. The whole world seemed louder that day at the Sea Breeze Motel.

  . . . . .

  “WHAT YOU THINKING?” THE FISH STICK GIRL ASKED. She’d finished her workout and was washing her hair in one of the big metal tubs with the last of Del’s detergent. She wore her hair parted down the middle, one side dyed jet-black and the other side platinum blonde. It made her look like she had two heads.

  “Nothing,” Del said, staring out the window at the SUDS sign swaying gently back and forth in the wind.

  “Jeez, what an answer,” she said. “You always say the same thing.”

  “Well, don’t ask then.” Somebody had etched WILL WORK FOR DOPE across the grime of the window with a shaky finger. Del turned away satisfied that he would never get that bad.

  The Fish Stick Girl turned off the spigot and began squeezing the soapy water out of her hair. “Sweetie, I’m telling you,” she said, “your best bet is the Henry J. Hamilton Rehabilitation Center
. It’s a lot of paperwork, but I know some people.”

  “What makes you say shit like that?” Del asked. He lit a cigarette, ignoring the NO SMOKING signs hanging everywhere.

  “Because you’re the type that does well in a constructive environment,” she explained, sounding like she was reciting a poem. “I noticed that the first time I saw you. At least you should take the test.”

  Del decided to ignore her. “I keep thinking about the time Randy and me went to Florida. I ain’t never been that hungry. You couldn’t buy a job, it was so bad.”

  “You used to work?” she asked incredulously.

  “Well, it was a different world back then.”

  “I got more fish sticks,” she said, reaching for her big purse.

  “Put those goddamn things away,” Del said. “It was almost thirty years ago.”

  “You never go hungry at the Henry J. Hamilton Center,” she said. “They have special activities. Wanda keeps track of your SSI. Shoot, they even have some old lady do your laundry. We could be snuggled up watching TV right now. I always tip her a fish stick.”

  “Look, I told you, I ain’t moving in that place!” Del yelled.

  “Suit yourself. So why did you go to Florida?”

  “I don’t know,” Del said. “I read this book. I guess you could say we were looking for a better life.”

  “Did you find it?” the Fish Stick Girl asked.

  “No, it was just a goddamn book. I ain’t read one since.”

  . . . . .

  WHEN LEO FINISHED WITH RANDY, HE MOTIONED FOR DEL to help him up. The old man was gasping for air. Del could hear his knees crackle as he stood up. They sounded like a landslide in an old cowboy movie. A white dab of Randy’s jizz lay on his bottom lip like a salted slug. Leo’s bathrobe came loose, revealing purple stretch marks that crisscrossed his bloated belly. Then he farted and limped over to his Listerine bottle, tipped it up like a wino with a jug. Randy just stood there like a gas station loafer, silent and dazed, waiting for another car to pull in.