Bumper Crop

by Joe R. Lansdale

  BUMPER CROP

  By Joe R. Lansdale

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  © 2012 / Joe R. Lansdale

  Cover Design By: David Dodd

  Partial cover image courtesy of:

  http://fantasystock.deviantart.com/

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Meet the Author

  BIO: Champion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over thirty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in eighteen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His novella Bubba Hotep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" was adapted to film for Showtime's "Masters of Horror." He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Scienceand its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.

  Other Crossroad Press Books by Joe R. Lansdale:

  The Magic Wagon

  Written With a Razor

  Joe Landsale's Website

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  Contents

  Foreword: The Remains of My Days . . .

  The God of the Razor

  The Dump

  Fish Night

  Chompers

  The Fat Man

  On a Dark October

  The Shaggy House

  The Man Who Dreamed

  Walks

  Last of the Hopeful

  Duck Hunt

  Down by the Sea Near the Great Big Rock

  I Tell You It's Love

  Pilots—with Dan Lowry

  In the Cold, Dark Time

  Bar Talk

  Listen

  Personality Problem

  A Change of Lifestyle—with Karen Lansdale

  The Companion—with Keith Lansdale and Kasey Jo Lansdale

  Old Charlie

  Billie Sue

  Bestsellers Guaranteed

  Fire Dog

  Cowboy

  Master of Misery

  To my son, Keith

  Foreword

  The Remains of My Days . . .

  High Cotton, previously published by Golden Gryphon Press, contained what I believe to be among the best of the best stories I've written. What follows is Bumper Crop. In Southern terminology, High Cotton is when the cotton is growing well and growing high. Bumper Crop refers to when your crops give an added splurge, usually referring to vegetables, not cotton, but it's a kind of surprise crop. An added treat.

  Therefore, the title.

  Many of these stories are favorites of mine, and if they are not my very best, they are among the best of my shorter works. In fact, most are very short. A few, like "God of the Razor," have added greatly to my career. Primarily in the novel The Nightrunners. But I've also written about the razor character in comics and other stories. An anthology of God of the Razor stories written by others, as well as myself, will soon be forthcoming from Subterranean Press under the title Lords of the Razor.

  Numerous writers have told me how much they like my story "Bestsellers Guaranteed," because they understand the frustration of the main character.

  But I won't discuss them all. I'll just say a number of readers have picked one or more of these stories as their favorites, and I've been asked repeatedly, when will they all be collected. Many were collected in Bestsellers Guaranteed, but it is long out of print and hard to find used. Some stories have never been collected, or were collected in a very limited manner.

  Therefore, my reasoning for this collection.

  Although some stories have not been collected before, most have been reprinted again and again. Here and overseas. A few I gleaned from two collections I did for Subterranean that contained early work. Most of the stories in those collections were not great and this was known up front. That was the fun part of those collections.

  The books were limited and designed for fans who wanted to see how I was "birthed" as a writer, so they were a perfect and fun showcase for that kind of thing, and, they contained a lot of introductory material on how I became a writer, for those who care about such things, and that, in many ways, was more the drawing card for the collections than the stories themselves.

  But, a few of the tales in those books weren't bad at all, so I borrowed the best of those. I also added a few from lesser-known collections, like A Fist Full of Stories, and one, "Fire Dog" is very recent, and is a favorite of mine. It came from a Golden Gryphon anthology.

  A large number of the stories in this book are what I call catchy.

  Once you read them, you remember them, and may even find yourself telling them to others, the way you find yourself humming a catchy tune. It's what makes them memorable. Their simplicity, and that catchy element.

  In spite of the fact that many of them can be told quite well, I prefer you read them. I like to think the prose adds considerably to the flavor of the tales, and that's how I butter my bread, you buying the stories and me spending the money.

  High Cotton and Bumper Crop are, to date, the definitive volumes of my short work.

  Of course, new work, new collections come out all the time. But, if you like what I do, then these two books are a good way to introduce others to my work, or if you would like to have collected the largest part of my worthwhile short work, these are the books to do it.

  Each book represents a different take on the short story. The former, High Cotton, is pretty Southern Gothic, though not exclusively, and this one is much more of the twist and surprise and ain't that damn weird school.

  So, as I said, these two books are my best short story representatives.

  Now, in the next few years that may change.

  I hope it does.

  I hope I have many short stories left to write. Many more volumes to provide readers.

  These tales have certainly added greatly to my life, in pleasure, finance, and, hopefully, since they entertained me while writing, they will entertain you.

  Joe R. L
ansdale (his ownself)

  Nacogdoches, Texas

  June, 2003

  Author's Note on God of the Razor

  In 1980, while holding down a full-time job, I began a novel called The Night of the Goblins. I had just written Act of Love and Dead in the West in the same year! Not to mention numerous other things. (God, how did I do it?) I thought it might be nice to try and write a novel proposal—fifty pages and an outline—and try to sell from that.

  I wrote the proposal, sent it to my then incompetent and highly irritable agent, and waited. Act of Love sold before the proposal went out, I believe, then The Night of the Goblins went to the same publisher. They thought it was too violent, too strange, and basically, they didn't understand it.

  I thought, gee, what's to understand?

  I finished the novel in 1982 in a four-month blitz, sent it to my new agent, and he said it didn't fit in any box he could find. It wasn't horror. It wasn't mystery. It wasn't suspense. It wasn't exactly mainstream.

  I told him thank you, fired him, marketed the novel around, got the most savage rejects you could imagine, none of them really complaints about the writing, but complaints about the fact that I was trying to write something that shouldn't be talked about. Some of the written rejects practically stuttered.

  At least they were paying attention. That was a good sign.

  I put the novel away and now and then, assuming it was never going to sell, I borrowed from it. I took a portion out of it, revised it, and came up with this story, "God of the Razor." I felt I could at least make some profit out of the time I had invested in the book.

  Nope. No one wanted the short story.

  Until Peggy Nadramia at Grue bought it. Thanks, Peggy.

  The story was later picked up for The Second Black Lizard Anthology of Crime Fiction and a mystery best-of-the year volume as well. Editors who rejected it the first time out, and don't remember they did, love to tell me how much they liked it. Uh huh.

  By the way, the book it was stolen and revised from, as were a number of other stories, did sell and came out in 1987, five years after it was finished, seven years after it was conceived. The title was changed. It was called The Nightrunners.

  The God of the Razor

  Richards arrived at the house about eight. The moon was full and it was a very bright night, in spite of occasional cloud cover; bright enough that he could get a good look at the place. It was just as the owner had described it. Run down. Old. And very ugly.

  The style was sort of Gothic, sort of plantation, sort of cracker box. Like maybe the architect had been unable to decide on a game plan, or had been drunkenly in love with impossible angles.

  Digging the key loaned him from his pocket, he hoped this would turn out worth the trip. More than once his search for antiques had turned into a wild goose chase. And this time, it was really a long shot. The owner, a sick old man named Klein, hadn't been inside the house in twenty years. A lot of things could happen to antiques in that time, even if the place was locked and boarded up. Theft. Insects. Rats. Leaks. Any one of those, or a combination of, could turn the finest of furniture into rubble and sawdust in no time. But it was worth the gamble. On occasion, his luck had been phenomenal.

  As a thick, dark cloud rolled across the moon, Richards, guided by his flashlight, mounted the rickety porch, squeaked the screen, and groaned the door open.

  Inside, he flashed the light around. Dust and darkness seemed to crawl in there until the cloud passed and the lunar light fell through the boarded windows in a speckled and slatted design akin to camouflaged netting. In places, Richards could see that the wallpaper had fallen from the wall in big sheets that dangled halfway down to the floor like the drooping branches of weeping willows.

  To his left was a wide, spiraling staircase, and following its ascent with his light, he could see there were places where the railing hung brokenly askew.

  Directly across from this was a door. A narrow, recessed one. As there was nothing in the present room to command his attention, he decided to begin his investigation there. It was as good a place as any.

  Using his flashlight to bat his way through a skin of cobwebs, he went over to the door and opened it. Cold air embraced him, brought with it a sour smell, like a freezer full of ruined meat. It was almost enough to turn Richards's stomach, and for a moment he started to close the door and forget it. But an image of wall-to-wall antiques clustered in the shadows came to mind, and he pushed forward, determined. If he were going to go to all the trouble to get the key and drive way out here in search of old furniture to buy, then he ought to make sure he had a good look, smell or no smell.

  Using his flash, and helped by the moonlight, he could tell that he had discovered a basement. The steps leading down into it looked aged and precarious, and the floor appeared oddly glasslike in the beam of his light.

  So he could examine every nook and cranny of the basement, Richards decided to descend the stairs. He put one foot carefully on the first step, and slowly settled his weight on it. Nothing collapsed. He went down three more steps, cautiously, and though they moaned and squeaked, they held.

  When Richards reached the sixth step, for some reason he could not define, he felt oddly uncomfortable, had a chill. It was as if someone with ice-cold water in their kidneys had taken a piss down the back of his coat collar.

  Now he could see that the floor was not glassy at all. In fact, the floor was not visible. The reason it had looked glassy from above was because it was flooded with water. From the overall size of the basement, Richards determined that the water was most likely six or seven feet deep. Maybe more.

  There was movement at the edge of Richards's flashlight beam, and he followed it. A huge rat was swimming away from him, pushing something before it; an old partially deflated volleyball perhaps. He could not tell for sure. Nor could he decide if the rat was trying to mount the object or bite it.

  And he didn't care. Two things that gave him the willies were rats and water, and here were both. To make it worse, the rats were the biggest he'd ever seen, and the water was the dirtiest imaginable. It looked to have a lot of oil and sludge mixed in with it, as well as being stagnant.

  It grew darker, and Richards realized the moon had been hazed by a cloud again. He let that be his signal. There was nothing more to see here, so he turned and started up. Stopped. The very large shape of a man filled the doorway.

  Richards jerked the light up, saw that the shadows had been playing tricks on him. The man was not as large as he'd first thought. And he wasn't wearing a hat. He had been certain before that he was, but he could see now that he was mistaken. The fellow was bareheaded, and his features, though youthful, were undistinguished; any character he might have had seemed to retreat into the flesh of his face or find sanctuary within the dark folds of his shaggy hair. As he lowered the light, Richards thought he saw the wink of braces on the young man's teeth.

  "Basements aren't worth a damn in this part of the country," the young man said. "Must have been some Yankees come down here and built this. Someone who didn't know about the water table, the weather and all."

  "I didn't know anyone else was here," Richards said. "Klein send you?"

  "Don't know a Klein."

  "He owns the place. Loaned me a key."

  The young man was silent a moment. "Did you know the moon is behind a cloud? A cloud across the moon can change the entire face of the night. Change it the way some people change their clothes, their moods, their expressions."

  Richards shifted uncomfortably.

  "You know," the young man said, "I couldn't shave this morning."

  "Beg pardon?"

  "When I tried to put a blade in my razor, I saw that it had an eye on it, and it was blinking at me, very fast. Like this . . . oh, you can't see from down there, can you? Well, it was very fast. I dropped it and it slid along the sink, dove off on the floor, crawled up the side of the bathtub and got in the soap dish. It closed its eye then, but it started mew
ing like a kitten wanting milk. O0000wwwwaaa, 0000wwwaa, was more the way it sounded really, but it reminded me of a kitten. I knew what it wanted, of course. What it always wants. What all the sharp things want.

  "Knowing what it wanted made me sick and I threw up in the toilet. Vomited up a razor blade. It was so fat it might have been pregnant. Its eye was blinking at me as I flushed it. When it was gone the blade in the soap dish started to sing high and sillylike.

  "The blade I vomited, I know how it got inside of me." The young man raised his fingers to his throat. "There was a little red mark right here this morning, and it was starting to scab over. One or two of them always find a way in. Sometimes it's nails that get in me. They used to come in through the soles of my feet while I slept, but I stopped that pretty good by wearing my shoes to bed."

  In spite of the cool of the basement, Richards had started to sweat. He considered the possibility of rushing the guy or just trying to push past him, but dismissed it. The stairs might be too weak for sudden movement, and maybe the fruitcake might just have his say and go on his way.

  "It really doesn't matter how hard I try to trick them," the young man continued, "they always win out in the end. Always."

  "I think I'll come up now," Richards said, trying very hard to sound casual.

  The young man flexed his legs. The stairs shook and squealed in protest. Richards nearly toppled backward into the water.

  "Hey!" Richards yelled.

  "Bad shape," the young man said. "Need a lot of work. Rebuilt entirely would be the ticket."

  Richards regained both his balance and his composure. He couldn't decide if he was angry or scared, but he wasn't about to move. Going up he had rotten stairs and Mr. Looney Tunes. Behind him he had the rats and water. The proverbial rock and a hard place.