Smashed, Squashed, Splattered, Chewed, Chunked and Spewed

by Lance Carbuncle

  We each take our own room. Mine has a bed with magic-fingers. That means if you feed it quarters the bed will vibrate and make your teeth chatter. Sal hands me a sandwich bag full of metal slugs that are the size of quarters so that I can enjoy the magic fingers all night if I wish. Without even pulling back the stained purple comforter, I lay down on my epileptic bed and feed it small metal disks. I need just a little bit of rest before I push on. Fat Elvis and Clubfoot Jasper will be performing in the lounge in a little bit. Later, Clubfoot Jasper’s estranged wife, Beulah, will be stopping by. They tell me to stop down in the lounge before I leave. The magic fingers gently tickle me to sleep.

  • • •

  “It’s good to see you again,” says Idjit. “I’ve missed you, ya big dork.” Idjit sits at the feet of a man in Daddy’s chair. The man wears a big yellow hat with a red feather stuck in the band and has a curious looking little monkey in his lap. The man is flanked by the two biggest dogs I have ever seen. The hounds look like giant versions of Idjit but they have ridged backs and tusks like boars. “These are my friends. This is Mr. Eshu.”

  The man in the big yellow hat nods at me. “It’s a pleasure. Mr. Galoot has told us much about you.”

  “It is nice to meet you too,” I tell Mr. Eshu. “Um . . . that’s my Daddy’s chair you’re sitting in. I don’t mean to be rude, but I would like you to get out of it.”

  “No, no, it’s okay,” says Idjit. “Your Daddy gave him permission to sit there. Everybody’s been in your Daddy’s chair lately.”

  “I mean no offense,” says Mr. Eshu. “If you wish for me to get up, I will.”

  “No . . . um . . . I guess it’s okay if Daddy said so.”

  “Mmmm-hummm.” One of the big dogs clears his throat to catch Idjit’s attention and then rolls his eyes at his other doggy friend.

  “Oh, I am sorry,” says Idjit. “This is Haskel.”

  “It’s a pleasure,” says the dog on the left.

  “And Cleaver . . . ”

  “Pleased to meet you,” says the dog on the right.

  “And the little guy there is Jorge.”

  “Hey, you’re muy interasante,” says the little monkey.

  “I need to speak with you about your friend, Clubfoot Jasper,” says Eshu. “He’s been quite a challenge. Jasper has been on our accounts receivable list for some time now. It is well past the due date for Mr. Moberly and it really is time for him to shed his mortal shell and pass into another realm.”

  “So Clubfoot Jasper is right,” I say. “He did sell his soul. And you’re the Devil. And you and those hellhounds are going to drag him down into the bowels of Hell and put his soul in an empty whiskey bottle in your liquor cabinet if he ever stops playing his guitar long enough for you to grab him.”

  They all laugh at me, even Idjit. “Listen,” chuckles Eshu. “You’re right about the guitar thing, but you missed the mark on the rest. I’m not the devil. These are not hellhounds. There are no empty bottles in my liquor cabinet. And I wouldn’t even consider driving Mr. Moberly into that neighborhood and dropping him off. Jasper never sold his soul to me; I am not in the acquisitions business. I am more of a guide, a psychopomp. I helped him because he was blessed with a talent that needed to be shared with the world. All that I wanted in return was for him to spread enlightenment and positive vibrations to his fellow man. He has more than met my wishes by making his gree-gree booger bags for others and through his music. He’s also helped to rid the world of some evil mean-mistreaters. And now it is time for him to pass on to the next level.”

  “Why don’t you just grab him by the ear and drag him into the afterlife?” I ask.

  “It doesn’t work that way,” says Eshu. “Everybody has something in life that gives their spirit strength. With Jasper it’s his guitar playing. It keeps him alive.”

  “You mean to tell me that your dogs couldn’t grab Clubfoot Jasper by the scruff of his neck and carry him like a puppy to wherever it is that he’s supposed to go.”

  “Well . . . ” Eshu pauses. “They should be able to but . . . once again . . . ” the dogs growl softly “ . . . it’s that guitar. As long as he’s playing it, they won’t go near him. Haskel and Cleaver are more refined. They prefer baroque music—lutes, harpsichords, oboes. They think blues music is crude, far too raw. Clubfoot Jasper’s guitar makes them howl in pain, makes their ears bleed, some of that crazy slide guitar he was playing with you in the car would have ruptured a spleen if they would have been too close. You should see the vet bills I have for these beasts after they attempt to snatch Mr. Moberly. They just will not go close to him while he is playing that guitar. And he’s always playing. Even in his sleep.”

  “You need to help Eshu to help Clubfoot Jasper,” says Idjit Galoot. “This guy’s on the level. You will be doing Mr. Moberly an enormous favor.”

  “What can I do?”

  “I’m going to deputize you. You will be an assistant psychopomp. You’ll know what to do when the time comes,” says Eshu. “And as my employee, as a deputy soul guide, you will need a nametag. Here . . . ” Eshu slaps a sticker on my chest. It’s a nametag like they use at conventions that reads HELLO. I’M . . . and somebody hand-wrote Gay in the spot where you’re supposed to write your name. Once again, everybody laughs at me, especially Haskel and Cleaver. “Now be gone.”

  I bend down to scratch Idjit behind the ear. His foot involuntarily thumps out a rapid rhythm on the floor. He licks my hand and looks at me with the saddest brown eyes I have ever seen. He lays down and falls asleep immediately.

  • • •

  I wake up face-down on my bed. I am groggy and my body is stuck to the bed sheets. My wounds have been leaking, draining me while I slept. I am crusted to the scratchy purple comforter on my bed, like a scab stuck to an enormous gauze bandage. I peel myself from the bed, leaving bits of flesh and coagulated blood adhered to the tacky bedspread. The digital clock beside the bed says that it’s 11:00 a.m. I know that that can’t be right because it would mean I have been sleeping over sixteen hours. It is daylight out. Fuck, I’ve gotta get a move on. It’s like I am losing energy. I only wanted to sleep for an hour or so before getting back on the road.

  My feet hit the floor and the haze of sleep begins to clear. I just have to take a shit before I go. I flip on the TV and turn to the cable news channel, turning up the volume so that I can hear it in the bathroom. With the bathroom door left open so that I can hear the latest, I cop a squat on an ice cold toilet seat. Most of the news is typical. Somebody somewhere in the Middle East blew something up and killed people. Some celebrities are having babies and some other ones are getting divorced. Some politician had some sort of a sexual scandal involving an employee and a bag of organic babycarrots. Some catholic priests didn’t play in a nice way with some choir boys.

  A reporter by the name of Cleveland Steamer mentions the Sombrero Tower Bombers. Steamer says that several possible co-conspirators were taken into custody in South Florida. I jam a wad of toilet paper between my butt cheeks, jump off of the toilet seat with my pants around my ankles, and shuffle-run out of the bathroom to catch the story. Standing in front of the TV with my pants down around my ankles, I watch as Steamer reports over video of Arnette and Pervis being handcuffed outside of their little house. Buddy does not seem to be anywhere around. “The two brothers seen in this video are suspected of harboring the bombers and helping them evade arrest,” says Cleveland Steamer. “Also found in the brothers’ house was an unconscious college student who had been an intern traveling the country in the Albert Morgan Bratmobile. It is believed that the suspects car-jacked the vehicle and took the driver and his coworker hostage. The other college student has not been found and may still be a hostage. The details are still unfolding here and we will keep you updated as we learn more. Back to you, Suchi.”

  I shuffle back to the toilet and sit down to finish my business. Just as I relax, gunshots slam my ears. Thunder booming in the room next to mine. Blam Blam Blam. Clubfoo
t Jasper’s room. The door that joins my room to Jasper’s flies open. Jasper bursts in with his guitar in one hand and my Luger, still smoking, in the other. He stands in the doorway of the bathroom, frantic, shaking, gore splattered on his face and chest. I stare back at him, in shock myself. There’s not a more vulnerable feeling than sitting on the crapper and having somebody barge in on you. It’s bad enough in normal circumstances when you’re in a stall and the door is flung open. You’re sitting there in your own funk, pants around the ankles and defenseless, your goodies just hanging out. The Pooper always blurts out something in a clipped tone like occupied or in here. The intruder, usually also shocked will respond Sorry or maybe a funny Caught ’cha with your pants down. Even worse, though I’m caught by surprise, mid-wipe, leaning over to my left, one butt cheek lifted off of the seat, when Clubfoot Jasper bursts in after some sort of shooting spree.

  “AYOW!” Jasper drops the Luger. It cracks one of the bathroom floor tiles and rests between his feet, pointing right at me. “I done went to meet with Beulah after the show and found her in the room wit’ ’nudder man. ’S good thing I done taked dis ’ere gun from yer pack. Dat mean mistreater. A-yow.”

  Before I have time to finish my clean-up down under, Jasper drops the guitar and yanks me off of the john. “We’s gots to go. Come on boy.” I yank up my pants, feeling only half clean. I think to myself that a warm white washcloth with a dab of lemon juice on it would be nice for freshening up. I drag Clubfoot Jasper from the bathroom. We grab my backpack and the guitar and run out of my hotel room.

  In the mad dash from the room, Clubfoot Jasper’s guitar smashes on the door frame. The strings are connected to the head of the guitar. The head used to be connected to the neck. The neck and the head are now separated. Lonely, jagged wooden bits from the head and neck extend into the air, seeking out each other like desperate jigsaw puzzle pieces. The head dangles from six strings and drags on the ground. As I pull Jasper from the room, a metallic clanging chimes from the resonator of the steel bodied guitar. “It’s time to go,” I tell him.

  Jasper grabs onto the handrail outside of the room and hooks his clubbed foot between the handrail posts. “A-yow. Gots to get another guitar. A-yow,” he pleads as I tug on his arm. His speech is as clear as I’ve heard it yet. I pull again and hear a cracking noise, probably his ankle. As I drag Jasper away, his orthopedic shoe is wedged off by the posts.

  “No time,” I tell him. “You have to get out of here now.”

  Jasper’s body goes limp in protest. I drag his rag doll body behind me as he pleads the whole time to go back and get another guitar. Jasper tells me that he thinks Sal might have a guitar in his office. “Please, mistuh, please. Lets me get me another guitar. I’s gots to play or those devil dogs’ll get me. A-yow.”

  I drag Jasper’s limp body into the front office and tell him: “Okay, let’s see what Sal can do for you. Maybe he has a guitar. Then we’ve gotta go. The cops’ll be here any minute now.” Clubfoot Jasper’s body finds its muscle tone and he resumes an upright position. Jasper taps out a frantic rhythm on the bell on the front desk and Sal stumbles into the front office, rubbing his eyes and looking befuddled.

  “What?”

  “Gimme your guitar! A-yow.”

  “I don’t have a guitar anymore. Some fool broke into my unit last week, stole my guitar, and left a giant turd in my toilet. Just a turd, and one little square of toilet paper,” says Sal as he tightens the belt on his robe.

  “How about a bass, a banjo, some sort of stringed instrument?” I ask.

  “All I have is my niece’s autoharp and a rhythm fish. I don’t expect you’ll be wanting either of those.”

  “Get the autoharp,” I snap. “Please just get it.”

  “A-yow,” agrees Jasper.

  In the distance a single police siren approaches. I grab the autoharp in one hand and Jasper’s wrist in the other. “Come on. It’s time to go,” I tell him. Jasper puts weight on his injured ankle and collapses. I hook one arm under his armpit and around his chest and drag Jasper outside. Fat Elvis comes running down the steps with a bath towel wrapped around his waist. The towel is far too small, showing the most part of a fat hairy thigh, and barely covers little elvis.

  “What the devil is all of this cacophony I’m hearing?” he asks as he sees me dragging Clubfoot Jasper down the sidewalk.

  “Clubfoot Jasper shot Beulah,” I tell him.

  “Not again,” Fat Elvis shakes his head. “That incorrigible, impetuous, buffoon. I’ll get my keys and run interference. You get him in the car.”

  “I needs a guitar. A-yow,” Clubfoot Jasper tells Fat Elvis.

  “I don’t have another one, Jasper. Just worry about getting out of here right now and we’ll get you another guitar once we are clear of this.”

  I drag Clubfoot Jasper’s floppy frame into the front seat of the car as he moans about not having a guitar. Fat Elvis, still wearing only a towel, throws me the keys to his Blackhawk and tells us: “Beat it. I’ll slow down Johnny Law with obfuscation, prestidigitation, and pandemonium.” Fat Elvis pulls off his towel and sets off the fire alarm. He grabs a fire extinguisher from the wall and sprays the parking lot with a powdery cloud from the canister.

  I pull the Blackhawk out of the parking lot with Clubfoot Jasper strumming on the autoharp. “This ain’t no autoharp,” Clubfoot Jasper growls. “’S a gawdamm zither. A-yow. Howza man ’opposed to sing da blues wit’ a gawdamm zither.” A black and white police cruiser passes us on the street, its siren dopplering behind us. In the rearview mirror I see naked Fat Elvis smashing in the front window of the Paradise with a garbage can. The fog from the fire extinguisher clouds the parking lot and the cruiser’s siren sings a warbling duet with the hotel’s fire alarm. Obfuscation and pandemonium indeed.

  I ease the car back out onto I-75 as Jasper continues to moan about the gawdamm zither. As we cross the state line going into Tennessee, Jasper opens his window, leans out and thrusts his good hand as far forward as he can. “Haw-haw-haw. I’s the first one into Tennessee. A-yow,” he laughs and then goes back to strumming his zither. It’s hard to tell, but the driver of the truck behind me seems to be wearing a big yellow hat.

  As we get closer to Erwin, I feel a sense of hope. This journey will be over soon and I will be back with Idjit Galoot.

  The news on the radio reports that there is an all points bulletin out for a Stutz Blackhawk on I-75 in Tennessee. State troopers are keeping an eye out for Fat Elvis’s car. We run out of gas just outside of Knoxville. I pull the car over on the shoulder of the road and curse my luck. Going south on 75 I see a trooper slowing down as he passes us. I grab Jasper and drag him from the car. His ankle is swollen to the size of a football and he is unable to walk. I haul him across the ditch and into the woods.

  The trooper pulls across the median and parks just behind the Blackhawk. He did not see us get out. With Jasper slung over my shoulder, I run through the woods. Jasper continues to strum the zither and I continue to run. I continue to run, and Jasper continues to strum the zither. Zither and run, hither and yon, run and zither, yon and hither. I am going nowhere in particular, just as far away from the trooper as possible. I have not come this far just to fail because of a hungry gas-guzzler with an empty tank.

  Overhead the whir of a police helicopter drones as I drag Jasper through the woods. As the sun sets I find myself dizzy from exhaustion. Jasper strums the zither and gently croons something unintelligible. We come to a ten-foot tall fence topped with razor wire. I walk the wood-planked barrier until I find a hole that has been dug under the fence, probably by some sort of a large animal. I climb under the fence and help Jasper under after me.

  The woods stink of some awful rot. Sewage, decomposition, filth. The forest reeks of death. I drag Jasper, my right arm wrapped around his torso, like carrying a sack of flour. Under a giant oak tree I set Jasper down and collapse in exhaustion beside him. Jasper strums the zither and I fall hard onto my shoulder and into slumber
. My weariness is so great that a knotty tree root suffices for a pillow.

  • • •

  “That was a good thing you did: giving him the zither,” says Idjit. “Messieurs Haskell and Cleaver couldn’t stand the blues dobro. But the zither. Well, Jasper’s playing was close enough to the baroque music that those dogs love so much. They dragged that poor old man kicking and screaming to his final resting place. You’d think they were throwing him into the lake of fire by the way he fought.”

  “A-yow. It was time for me to go. Thank you kindly, sonny. A-yow.” Clubfoot Jasper sits in Daddy’s chair with Idjit on his lap. Jasper looks young and spry with a gleam in his eye, not a day over 20 or so it would seem. He appears vital, not like the twisted old blues-man I knew.

  “Jasper, I’m sorry. I should have got another guitar for you. I wasn’t thinking. Things got crazy and I just wanted to get you out of there. I didn’t know it was going to kill you.”

  “It’s aw-right.” Jasper flashes a grin; the diamond in his gold tooth glimmers. “Dis where I done needed to be for long time. A-yow. I’s jus’ too dang stubborn and dumb to realize it.” Jasper scratches Idjit’s neck and then sniffs his fingers. “A-yow. Musky.”

  “So you’re not mad at me?”

  “Haw-haw-haw. A-yow,” Jasper laughs. “Dis place even better den da Paradise Inn with its magic fingers and adult movies. All dem mistreaters I put out dey mis’ree. Dey ain’t so bad now dat dey’s rid of dem earthly bodies, A-yow. And dey’s all waiting here for me. I done put dem where deys needed to be. Dey’s better off. An’ now you done da same for me, A-yow. Alls I does is eats country ham with red eyed gravy and plays da sweetest blues picking I’s ever played. My hand works and my foot’s like new. And I sexes up a diff’rent one a my ladies whenevers I’s in da mood. A-yow. And we even gets HBO here.”