Appalachian Galapagos

by Ochse, Weston

  The men watched Bailey quietly, all of them trying to imagine their portly friend floating blissfully through the heavens with a can of beer in his hand, an enormous grin on his bearded face. The image conjured up instant smiles.

  "You really think that thing is going to fly?" Judd asked, walking over and staring down at the decomposing invention. Long pieces of plastic hung from at least two of the lawn chairs.

  "I know it is," Bailey said, wrapping one of the corners in duct tape.

  "How the hell you goin' to land once you get up there?"

  Bailey pointed over at his BB gun. "That's my landin' rod."

  "So, you're just going to shoot balloons until it starts to float back downwards?"

  "Yep."

  "That's insanity. Real life does not work like it works in the cartoons, fool."

  "Maybe."

  "You won't float, Bailey. You'll fall. You'll fall like a fuckin' stone."

  "I have faith in myself. Faith is all you need."

  Judd ran his hand over one of the chairs. "How you gonna steer it?"

  Bailey sighed. "Judd, I'm working on that. Please let me finish it, unless you're goin' to help me. I want to get this sucker in the air by at least three today. I have work on Sunday."

  The men watched Bailey as he built his homemade balloon, grinning and shaking their heads as their friend made damn sure the beer cooler was secure.

  They continued to dig into their seemingly never-ending supply of Budweiser until they were quite drunk. Bailey worked quietly, a look of deep concentration on his wooly face.

  "You really think that thing is gonna work, Kenny Joe?" Max asked, tossing an empty beer can into the recycle bin and grabbing a fresh one.

  Judd shook his head drunkenly and smirked. "Please, Max. There ain't no way in hell that—that thing is gonna carry that fat bastard anywhere." He burped, covering his mouth with his hand.

  "Oh, it'll work, bro," Kenny Joe said. "Bailey is the man when it comes to buildin' contraptions. He's been making things since we was kids. He has a talent."

  Judd snickered. "Oh really? What kind of successful contraption has he built that works? I remember that 'beer machine' he made last year that spit out stuff that looked like neon green diarrhea. It made the both of you so sick that you were hospitalized for three days."

  Kenny Joe chuckled. "I forgot about that. That was the worst beer I ever tasted. Tasted like beer-flavored bubble gum. Turned your piss green. That was one of Bailey's only failures."

  "Really?" Judd asked. "Well what about that bass boat he built back in high school? You guys sunk before you even got fifteen feet from the shore. Me and Max laughed so hard we could not even fuckin' stand. When I need to smile, I still picture you chubby bastards swimmin' toward the shore, takin' swings at each other as you go."

  "Okay, that was two failures," Kenny Joe said, watching as Bailey applied more duct tape. "Big deal. Every inventor makes a mistake or two in their career. The reason the boat sunk was my fault. I built the bottom."

  "Kenny Joe, you are so fuckin' full of shit!" Judd exclaimed, grabbing another beer. "Name one goddamn time Bailey built somethin' that worked!"

  "He put that entertainment center together you got us for Christmas."

  "Oh, God."

  "Well he put it together, did he not?"

  "Kenny Joe, you know what the hell I mean," Judd said. "Name one time he built somethin' from scratch that worked. Remember that tree house he built us back in the sixth grade? I do recall spendin' the rest of the summer in a fuckin' body cast."

  "You never regain a summer like that," Max said.

  "Yep," Kenny Joe said. "Summertime ruled when we was kids."

  "Sure did," Max said. "That summer Judd got hurt may have been the best one too. Remember when Becky Sue kept showing us her titties?"

  "Ah, memories," Kenny Joe said, looking wistful. "I've never looked at bee stings the same way again."

  "Nor have I," Max said.

  "See? I knew it," Judd said. "You try and change the subject. You can't even name one time Bailey built somethin' that worked."

  Kenny Joe's face went dead serious. "Well...you remember that winter me and Bailey was gone for a month back in high school? Our mama told you we got measles, Judd?"

  "Yeah, I do."

  "Well, we didn't really have no measles. You see—Bailey built us this time machine, and we spent that month fightin' off pirates and whatnot back in the sixteenth century. I didn't think we was ever gonna make it back. That was a scary time, let me tell you right here."

  "I must agree," Bailey said, packing his cooler with ice and fresh beer. He didn't even bother to turn around. "I don't think I was never so scared as then. That Bluebeard was a scary man. The way he had them candles in his beard like that made him look like a demon. I think I nearly screamed like a woman every time I saw his ass off in the distance. Fucking frightenin', I'll tell you what."

  Kenny Joe nodded. "Way I remember it, you did scream like a woman every time you seen him. Don't feel bad, brother, we was just kids then. The worst part of being back in the sixteenth century was they didn't have no Budweiser."

  "That was unfortunate," Bailey added. "I never did get used to ale and mead, neither. And the cannon fire hurted my ears somethin' fierce."

  "Yep," Kenny Joe said. "And I never did get used to the shit they used to say. 'Shiver me timbers' and whatnot. What the hell does that mean anyway?"

  "Got me. I never did understand that, neither. And I hated when they called me Matey too. I ain't never gonna be no mate to a man."

  Judd laughed. "God, you two are dickheads. Fuckin' joke all you want. All it means is you can't think of one thing Bailey made that worked."

  Bailey approached the picnic table. "Listen, Assman. If you are so certain it ain't gonna even go off of the ground, why don't you sit in one of them chairs when I float out of here in about fifteen minutes?"

  "Bailey, what the fuck did I tell you about calling me Assman?" Judd asked. "I ain't gonna tolerate that name no more. I'm serious now, you hear? No more." He stood up and stared at the balloon. "I'll gladly sit in that chair. It ain't gonna take your fat lumberjack lookin' ass off the ground, let alone the both of us."

  Max shook his head. "I wouldn't do that, Judd. You know how bad shit can go down for you. I know I don't need to remind you of that."

  "Fuck it, Max," Judd said, already sitting in one of the chairs. "Hell, let's all sit down! We got nothin' to worry about at all! It ain't gonna work!"

  "If this were a movie, in the next scene it would show you shriekin' and fallin' to the earth in a red-checkered blur," Max said.

  "I'm tellin' you, it ain't gonna work, Max."

  Max sighed, shaking his head sadly.

  Ten minutes later, Bailey added the last balloon. In the center of the smaller balloons, was a larger homemade one he had made from a parachute. Above the four lawn chairs was a mass of helium-filled multi-colored balls so immense it threw the men in shadow.

  All of the men, with the exception of Bailey, were sitting comfortably in their lawn chairs, a beer clutched in their hands. Kenny Joe wore a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses.

  "I look like Tom Cruise with a beard in these sunglasses," Kenny Joe said matter-of-factly.

  Judd snorted. "I suppose if I had to describe you now, I would go with a fat-ass Tom Cruise."

  "If I'm a fat-ass, you're goddamn circus performer fat," Kenny Joe said.

  Bailey stood back a bit, half in sunlight, half in shadow, and surveyed his invention, fingers pulling at his beard. He wasn't even listening to his friends. He took a long sip of his beer, nodded appreciatively at the colorful contraption, tossed the beer can into the grass, and sat down in one of the chairs. "You boys ready?"

  Judd smiled arrogantly. "Hell yeah, I'm ready! Let's do this!"

  Max looked terrified, shaking his head. He was staring at the multi-colored mass of helium-filled balloons above. Bailey leaned down, buck knife in hand, and cut one of the many pie
ces of rope he had attached to the bottom of his chair.

  The chairs wavered for a moment, and gently floated a few feet off of the ground.

  "Yeehaw!" Kenny Joe shrieked. "It's workin'!"

  "Who's your daddy?" Bailey asked, nudging Judd.

  Judd looked at Bailey sideways. "Are you too drunk to realize we are only about one foot off the ground, you dumbfuck moron?"

  "Watch this," Bailey said, cutting another rope. There was a thud as a cinderblock fell to the ground a few feet below.

  Max closed his eyes and bit his bottom lip. He knew the two-word statement 'watch this' when uttered by a redneck was trouble, but when uttered by a Butler brother it was cause to fall to the ground with hands clutched protectively over your head. It was the equivalent of shouting "Get Down!" while fighting in Vietnam.

  The balloon floated upwards fifteen more feet.

  Judd watched the picnic table grow smaller with comically-wide eyes, genuinely stunned he was flying. John Wayne barked furiously below, chasing after the balloon until it drifted over the wooden fence.

  In the next yard, old man Cletus looked up from his hammock, his mouth dropping open in a wide 'O' of amazement. "Now this takes it all! What the hell you crazy fool boys up to now? I told you not to be trespassin' in my yard!"

  "Bite me, Cletus!" Kenny Joe yelled down, giving his middle finger. "The air ain't your property! We'll be floatin' by your sorry ass soon enough, so shut your flappin' lips!"

  Bailey reached into the cooler and snatched a beer, dropping it down. "Have a beer, old man Cletus!"

  The beer landed in the grass, foam spraying in wild directions. The old man shook his fist angrily as they floated by.

  Casey and Renny were in the next yard, puffing heavily from an obscenely fat blunt as they floated around in their aboveground pool on chairs. They started roaring in laughter the very second Bailey's balloon hovered above, covering them in a black shadow.

  "Kenny Joe and Bailey, you crazy fucks!" Casey yelled in between fits of laughter. "You're gonna get yourselves killed!"

  "Want a beer?" Bailey yelled down. "They're cold!"

  "Hell yeah!" Casey and Renny yelled simultaneously as Bailey tossed two beer cans into the pool.

  "Thanks, man!" Renny exclaimed, exhaling smoke towards the boys above.

  "No problem!"

  Judd was clutching the side of his lawn chair with white-knuckle fingers, face held straight as if he was afraid to look down lest his reality be a true one. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

  Max, too, looked horrified. He was staring down at the ground below as if it was covered with flickering flames, eyes so wide they threatened to pop from his head. "I wouldn't be so damn scared if Judd wasn't on this damn thing with us."

  Bailey leaned over and cut yet another rope. A cinderblock fell from the bottom of the chair and went crashing into a tree below. "Let's go higher."

  Judd's head darted at Bailey with lightning-like speed. "Bailey, you're droppin' fuckin' cinderblocks to the ground like bombs! You're gonna fuckin' kill somebody!" He leaned over and peered down, his eyes bulging like a frog's.

  They were rising upwards alarmingly fast.

  Already Renny's swimming pool was beginning to look like a small blue circle.

  "Higher?" Judd asked.

  "Don't go any fuckin' higher! You're gonna kill us all!"

  Bailey grinned. "I thought you said it wouldn't fly? Yet here we sit, floatin' through the heavens, my man. I want to know who your fuckin' daddy is, Judd."

  "Bailey, land this fuckin' balloon!" Judd shrieked.

  "I ain't landin' this yet," Bailey said, tossing his empty beer can into the air. "We just got off the ground. We gotta float around a bit. Enjoy it, Judd."

  "Yeah, calm down, Judd," Kenny Joe said, throwing his brother a beer from the cooler. "Enjoy the flight. It ain't everyday we get to fly around town like this."

  "Enjoy it!" Judd yelled. "Enjoy it! Are you two out of your fuckin' minds? Bailey don't even have anything to steer this goddamn thing!"

  "Don't need nothing to steer with, Judd," Bailey said. "There ain't no obstacles up here to hit. We'll just float around for a bit, then we'll land."

  Judd shook his head, an anguished expression on his pale face. "Bailey, if I didn't know any better I would think you and Kenny Joe was raised in a group home for the mentally retarded! No obstacles! There are fuckin' power lines! There are fuckin' planes!"

  Bailey shook his head. "First off, we are like one thousand or so feet above the power lines. Second of all, I don't see no planes nowheres."

  A panicked expression of realization detonated over Judd's sweating face. "Wait a second! How the hell we gonna land?"

  Bailey patted the BB gun. "I done told you before. We'll just shoot a couple of balloons and then float down all nice."

  Judd looked at the BB gun and let his eyes drift upwards to the hundreds of balloons before dropping them back to the gun and back to Bailey's grinning face. Somehow floating down 'all nice' was not easily conjured up in his mind. "Oh my fuckin' God. We are gonna die."

  "Judd, just calm down, man," Max said, the wind blowing gently through his hair. "I'm sure everythin' is goin' to be okay."

  Judd turned around. "Max, I think you better take a good long look at the history of my life, my friend. Snake bite to the dick. Alien probes in the ass. A fuckin' elephant runnin' amok. A pissed off voodoo priestess God does not like me, my friend."

  Max considered his friend's words. "Okay, we're gonna die."

  Kenny Joe snickered. "Well, if we're gonna die, we may as well enjoy the flight, right? Seein' that it's gonna be our last one?"

  "Damn straight," Bailey said, reaching over and turning on the radio. Hank Williams's "House of Gold" filled the air around them.

  The music seemed to calm Judd for a moment and the men stared at the ground below. From their vantage point, the cars looked like toys. The houses were nothing more than miniature squares. Just above them, they could see the puffy clouds floating lazily in the summer air. The wind blew around them so lightly they seemed to be bobbing around the vast sky like a boat on a very calm blue sea.

  Judd was actually smiling until the wind gust blasted into them like a ferocious tidal wave. The world spun around them in a colorful haze. Max, Kenny Joe, and Judd all howled as they were whipped spastically about.

  Only Bailey remained calm, confident his invention would hold together.

  The top blew off the cooler and dozens of beer cans and ice cubes flew into the air around them, floating about for a brief moment like they were in zero-g.

  Bailey joined up with the womanly shrieks of the rest of the men, reaching unsuccessfully for one of the cans as they fell spinning to the ground. He could handle most anything but the loss of his beloved Budweiser supply.

  Judd felt he had somehow joined the cast of a southern parody of The Wizard of Oz. He was reminded of Dorothy's ride through the tornado. He continued to squeal, swatting away beer cans and ice cubes as they pounded into his face.

  The wind stopped as suddenly as it had come.

  The men stared at each other in horror, exhaling simultaneously. They bobbed around delicately for a moment, all of them too terrified to utter a word.

  A ripping sound penetrated the air.

  The boys gaped around, their heads darting in every direction.

  Judd suddenly vanished, his chair falling, his voice reaching a pitch so high the rest of the men could only wince. The chair did not fall completely, but hung in the wind by only three pieces of stretching duct tape.

  "Bailey, you gotta tie Judd's chair before he falls!" Max screamed. "You got any extra rope?"

  Bailey, not thinking, pulled one of the ropes up and cut one of the cinderblocks loose.

  They shot upwards like a shrieking cannonball—shrieking as they flew in a dizzying, yet colorful, blur.

  Judd, who was now hanging by only two strands of duct tape, felt that his stomach had flown out of his ass. Bailey manag
ed to get the rope tied to Judd's chair just as the final piece of duct tape snapped.

  Judd fell a bit more, then just hung there, hands gripped to the sides of his chair, eyes bulging furiously. "PULL ME THE FUCK UP!"

  "There ain't no way, Judd!" Kenny Joe yelled down. "Even if we could, it's liable to tip us over!"

  "I DON'T CARE, KENNY JOE! PULL ME UP! FUCKIN' NOW!"

  Judd hung about three feet from the rest of the balloon, his chair swinging tempestuously in the wind.

  Max leaned to the side and stared at his friend. "Judd, you need to calm down!"

  Judd's face shot upwards, hair whipping around his head as he rode the furious wind. "CALM DOWN? CALM DOWN? I'M HANGIN' BY A FUCKIN' LAWN CHAIR ABOUT TWO THOUSAND FEET FROM THE GROUND IN A BALLOON THAT FUCKIN' BAILEY BUTLER MADE WITH DUCT TAPE!"

  At that statement, even Kenny Joe looked mortified.

  A plane flew by off in the distance, the roar engulfing the air around them like a nuclear bomb.

  The men stopped and watched it, their faces growing pale. The balloon spun around frenetically, a rush of wind sending them into frenzied circles. They were still rising upwards at a frightening speed.

  When the men looked down again, Judd was hanging from the bottom of the chair by only his fingers, his legs kicking around in a panic.

  Max was already out of his chair, climbing precariously towards Judd. He made his way slowly down the rope, the wind nearly throwing him off into the blue sky. "Judd, grab my ankle!"

  Kenny Joe, in the meantime, had picked up the BB gun and was shooting balloons one at a time. Soon they descended at what could be called a leisurely pace.

  Max had managed to pull Judd back up into the chair—they were holding each other in a fierce and awkward embrace. Tear tracks ran from the sides of Judd's face and towards his ears. Max was looking at the ground in dismay—his mouth opening and closing.

  Judd looked up at Bailey. "I'm gonna beat your ass but good! You're dead!"

  Bailey made a fart noise with his lips. "Oh please, Judd. You couldn't beat my ass even if I didn't have no hands."

  "Dead! Fuckin' dead! You hear me! Dead!" Judd shrieked, still crying.