Cheating on his wife thrilled Buttwynn. And with her gone in Wisconsin, the biggest rush would be to have his way with Dora in the bed he and his wife shared every night. Mister and Missus rarely had sex, and when they did it was merely for the purpose of procreation. There was nothing exciting to Randy Buttwynn about turning the lights off and fucking his homely wife through a hole in a sheet that covered the rest of her body. That’s what she insisted on – a hole in a sheet with just her bushy slit exposed. With the family gone, Buttwynn saw the opportunity of a lifetime to show the marriage bed what was really supposed to happen between a man and a woman. Thoughts of filling Dora’s various orificial openings with body parts and inanimate objects consumed Buttwynn as he parked his car in the driveway and briskly ushered her through the front door of his house. Greeting the couple was the welcoming fragrance of meatloaf and freshly baked bread.
“What the dickens is going on?” says Buttwynn to his lady friend, his nostrils flaring and twitching like an annoyed pig. “It smells as if someone is cooking. But nobody is here.”
“Don’t know,” answered Dora in the clipped tone she liked to use with Buttwynn. For the money he was paying her, she was willing to let him violate her however he wished. But that didn’t mean that she had to have a conversation with the creepy pig-faced man. “Don’t care. I wanna drink.”
Placing his hand on her bony back and sliding it down to grab her ass and nudge her forward at the same time, Buttwynn leads Dora to the theater room to fix them a drink.
“Now, what the dickens is this?” Buttwynn shouts when they enter the theater room and see the bulbous, hirsute little man passed out in the reclining chair, his boxers down around the ankles and the robe wide open and freely displaying wilted and reddened genitals. “I said, hey there fella! What the dickens is this?” Buttwynn kicks Askew’s foot to wake him. “I’m calling the police.” He turns and walks away from Askew with the intention of getting to a phone.
Askew is shaken from sleep by the irate Buttwynn. The man who always tipped him a quarter. The man who never said thank you. The Fucker who figuratively and invariably spits a big loogie in the face of pizza delivery guys. The Fucker who is kicking him in the foot and yelling at him. Askew leaps from his chair, boxers still around his ankles, and screams: “Hold it right there, Buttwynn!” Buttwynn continues to walk away. “Hold it right there, you Fucker, or I’ll fucking shoot you.”
Buttwynn stops in his tracks and turns to face Askew. He eyes him and then flashes a look of recognition. “Say,” says Buttwynn. “I know you, don’t I? Where do I know you from?”
“Shut up, Fucker! Shut up!” Askew, his voice rising in pitch, levels the blunderbuss at Buttwynn and yells at him, “Don’t you fucking worry about where you know me from! It don’t matter! And if you know what’s good for ya, you’ll keep your mouth shut and let me condemplate this situation!”
“I know where I know you from,” Buttwynn smiles and shakes his pointer finger at Askew. “You’re that funny-looking little pizza guy. The one who’s always late. The one who gave me my pizza with the cheese stuck to the top of the box last week. Always have something smart to say. I don’t even know why I’m so generous to you with my tips.”
“I said shut up or I’ll shoot!” Askew yells. Dora backs away from Buttwynn, away from the area where the odd-looking gun is pointed, and finds herself backed against a wall but well out of Buttwynn’s vicinity. “Just shut up!”
“Listen, Sonny,” condescends Buttwynn, “that blunderbuss that you’re holding is an antique. It’s for display purposes. It’s only been shot a few times, and it’s not loaded now, I can tell you that. So stop threatening to shoot me. Why don’t you just hand me that toy, and let me get on with calling the police?” Buttwynn sucks at his rat-like teeth, making a moist, squeaky sound, and starts in Askew’s direction.
“I said stay back, you Fucker!” screams Askew. He pulls the hammer from half to full-cock position. Buttwynn stops again.
“Come now. You must be kidding, Sir. I am confident that my gun is not loaded. And I’m sure that if you did find my shot and powder, you would have no idea how to properly load the gun and pack the barrel. Heck, you can’t even get my order right when I call for pizza.” Buttwynn starts again in the direction of Askew under the assumption that the gun is not loaded. Buttwynn is wrong.
BLAMMMMO!
A flash explodes from the end of the blunderbuss and propels a fiery load of metal shot and nails toward Buttwynn. The blast of debris hits him in the gut and knocks him backward; metal balls and nails chew a massive chunk of flesh from his torso. The shot exits his back and splatters the wall with bloody nails, fluids and bits and pieces of Randy Buttwynn. As he lies on the ground, the remainder of his life quickly seeping into the carpeting, he looks at the bloody splotch on the wall. In the pattern, he sees the face of his father, a face he had forgotten long ago.
• • •
Grundish takes in the scene without speaking. The beanpole-of-a-girl, in her cut-off shorts and pink t-shirt, cowers and whimpers in the corner, her face in her hands, her body shivering. On the floor is an overweight hunk of bloody pig-faced cadaver. The missing puzzle piece of the corpse is splattered on the wall in a shape that reminds Grundish of a prison transport van. Standing in front of the dead man is Askew, mumbling blankly to himself. “Shit. Fucking shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.” His hand still grips the wooden stock of the mighty blunderbuss, his finger still on the trigger.
24
Without a word, Grundish moves about the room and evaluates the situation. Dead guy splattered on the wall, he notes to himself, not good. He grabs the crusty blanket from the floor in front of Askew and covers the corpse sprawled out in front of him. Askew with a cannon in his hands and another homicide to answer for. Not good. Grundish grabs the barrel of the gun with one hand and grabs Askew’s wrist down near where he is gripping the gun. Askew allows the blunderbuss to be pulled from his grip. Grundish tosses the gun in the corner opposite the cowering girl. Skeletal girl going into shock in the corner. Tiny little pants. Chain around her boot. Shaking in the corner. She’s a teenage prostitute.[29] With a hand on her elbow and one hooked under her other arm, Grundish helps the girl stand. He walks her over to a reclining chair and sits her down.
Grabbing the pack of Blue Llamas from atop the pool table, Grundish extracts three cigarettes and lights them all at the same time, handing one to Askew, one to Dora, and keeping one for himself. Dora accepts the smoke and drags hard on it, her hand still shaking as she holds the cigarette up to her mouth. Askew jams his smoke in the gap between his front teeth and lets it dangle. Grundish sucks on his cigarette and gives Askew the hairy eyeball. “God damn, I wish you would quit smoking. I can’t quit if you keep doing it in front of me.”
“I know. I’m gonna quit at the end of the month,” Askew answers. He is happy that they are not talking about the single, solitary, thing that everybody in the room is thinking about: the fat dead guy on the floor.
“So, that must be Buttwynn,” says Grundish.
“Yeah. That’s him. He was coming at me, and he was gonna call the cops on us. And then he started talking about how generous he was with his tips. He was a real Fucker right to the end. So I shot him,” says Askew matter-of-factly, as if explaining why he took a right turn at a red light.
“Obviously,” says Grundish. He ashes his cigarette on the floor and takes another hit off of it. “So, what we’ve got here is what we call a situation. And if it ain’t a bona fide situation, it’ll do until the real thing comes along.”
“Uh-huh.” Askew nods and waits for his friend to figure out what to do.
“We have a dead body. We’re already wanted for the Bumpy D situation. We have a hostage upstairs. Now we have another person that we can’t let go. I have one mean bastard-of-a-hangover. And we don’t know when the rest of the Buttwynn family will be showing up here.”
“The family won’t be here for two more days,” says the girl under
her breath.
“What’s that, Sweetheart?” Grundish asks. “Speak up. I can’t hear you.”
She takes a long drag off of her smoke, burning the remainder of the tobacco, and says again, “I said, the family won’t be here for two more days.”
“Well, that’s good news. Now, what’s your name, Sweetheart?”
“Dora,” she answers and looks down at her hands.
“Well, Dora, first off, let me tell you this. We ain’t gonna hurt you or nothing. But we can’t let you leave here right now either. You’re gonna stay here while I figure out what to do. Okay?
“I guess I don’t got no choice, do I?” she says.
“No, you don’t. Now, I need to know how you are so sure that the family won’t be here for two more days.”
“Well, if you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m, like, an escort, so to speak. That man,” she looks at Buttwynn, “paid me for two days of services. And we was planning on staying here in his house and partying while the family was gone.”
“And he told you that?”
“Yep.”
“And he brought you to his house while his wife and kids are gone?”
“Yep.”
“What a Fucker!”
“I told ya,” says Askew. “I told ya! The man is a Fucker!”
“Well, we need to be out of here within a day. And the sooner the better.” Grundish drops his butt on the carpet and smashes it out. “Where the hell is Turleen, anyway?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” answers Askew as he crushes his cigarette out on Buttwynn’s head.
• • •
Turleen is sleeping the sleep of a one-lunged octogenarian who has been awake for several days straight, cooking, drinking wine, and breathing in as much second-hand smoke as she can manage. Laid out spread-eagle on the Buttwynn guest bed, one arm curled around an empty, wicker-wrapped Chianti bottle like it’s a teddy bear, and twitching the minor spasms of one in deep REM mode, Turleen soundly sleeps through screams and gunshots. Instead she finds herself in a smoky pool hall leaning up against a table and surrounded by dogs.
“Hello, Darlin’,” says a low, gravely voice behind her. “Nice to see you. It’s been a long time.”
She turns around to discover Stubs standing behind her, leaning on a pool stick with one paw, holding a frothy mug of ale in the other. “Stubs,” she says, happy to see him. “Why, I must be dreaming again, I must. Give me one of your fags, please.” Stubs reaches into his shirt pocket and shakes a cigarette halfway out of the pack and holds it out toward Turleen. She takes the cigarette, rips the filter off of the end, and puts it to her mouth, waiting for one of the crowd to offer a light. Stubs, the Spitz, and the Great Dane all scramble for their lighters. Stubs wins the honor of giving the lady a light. “Where’s your friend? The hound dog.”
“I don’t know.” Stubs looks around the room. “He was just here.”
Turleen feels a cold wet sensation on her foot. “All right, Mr. Galoot. I can feel you down there, I can. And you promised to never lick my feet again.”
Idjit Galoot pops up from under the table and flashes a sheepish grin. “I wasn’t licking them, Ma’am. Just getting a nice little sniff. Sorry if my nose is a bit cold.” Turleen stares at him with one eyebrow cocked. “I assure you,” says Idjit, “it won’t happen again.”
Turleen looks down and sees that she’s wearing the red dress, but her cleavage is full and firm and wrinkle-free. She tugs this way and that at the shoulders of her dress to re-adjust the way her breasts hang. The room about her is a seedy dive of a bar. “Kind of a rough crowd here,” she says to Stubs. “I like it.”
Stubs nods in agreement. “It feels like home, doesn’t it?”
“Well, I don’t know about that. But it sure looks like an interesting time, it does.” She nods toward the front door where a beagle drags his ass on the welcome mat.
“Yes, well, ah-hum,” Stubs clears his throat. “We’re here to show you something. Take a look past the billiards table. Toward the other side of the room.”
Turleen looks and the area on the other side of the pool table is a swirling gray and brown mass, like a vortex to another realm. “I cain’t see nothing but a gray cloudy mess. What am I supposed to be looking at?”
“Just focus your eyes on one point,” say Idjit. “Don’t blink. Don’t look away. It’ll come to you.”
“What’ll I see? Because it all looks like a big shit cloud to me, it does.”
“Just keep staring, please.”
Just when she’s about to blink, when her eyeballs go dry and scratchy, just when she’s ready to give up and look for a newspaper to roll up and start swatting dogs with, it comes to her. The haze clears. In front of them, on the pool table, the bulldog sinks the eight-ball and smiles. The Finnish spitz throws a fifty-dollar bill on the table in disgust and walks away. Turleen doesn’t notice. Instead, she looks just past the action with the dogs and it is as if she is gazing through a two-way mirror into the Buttwynn’s billiards room. But the room looks different. On the wall is a red splatter that, to Turleen, looks like a giant human heart. Not the romantic Valentine’s Day heart symbol, but like a throbbing human heart. In front of the splotch on the wall is an oversized wild boar, slit open down the middle with its entrails spilling out onto the floor. Hanging on one wall is a three-by-five painted portrait of Mrs. Buttwynn. Her face is smeared with heavy make up, her mouth twisted into a malignant grin as she looks down at the boar. Standing over the bore are Grundish and Askew, in their robes and sock garters, with blood smeared on their faces and arms. They smoke and talk, but Turleen cannot hear what they say. Turleen’s peripheral vision catches movement in the corner of the room. She directs her attention toward the movement, toward the battered blond angel hovering in the corner. The angel’s arms are bruised, her hair tangled. She wears a poncho. A real poncho. A Mexican one. Not a Sears poncho.
“Those boys mucked things up again, they did,” says Turleen.
“A-yup,” agrees Stubs.
“What’s all that light and fog forming around their heads?”
All around the heads and shoulders of Grundish and Askew is a fog. Grundish is enveloped by a glowing apple-green mist. Askew’s head throws off coils of black with reddish streaks.
“I don’t know, Turleen. I’m just a dog[30],” answers Stubs. “But if I were to guess, I’d say those are probably their auras. The big bearded fellow there looks healthy. But, uh, that funny looking little guy seems almost like he’s polluted or something.”
“It does look that way, it does. Why are you showing me this?”
“Because one of those boys needs your help.”
“How am I supposed to help him?”
“That’s for you to figure out,” says Stubs. “I think they need you now, though.”
The vision on the other side of the pool table returns to a swirling vortex. The image of the Buttwynn billiards room fades.
“Well, I better get going then, I better.” Turleen starts for the front door of the bar and stops again. “How about one more cigarette before I go, and an extra for the road, Mr. Stubs?”
Stubs shakes two more smokes free from his pack and hands them to Turleen. He lights one for her and she tucks the other behind her ear. “Thanks, Boy,” says Turleen as she scratches him on the back, just between the shoulder blades.
“You’re quite welcome, Turleen. Anytime.” Stubs thumps his foot on the floor in response to the back scratching. “Hopefully, we’ll meet again soon.”
Turleen turns away from the pack of beer-swilling, pool-playing dogs and walks out the front door of the bar. Once out of the bar she turns and looks at the building. A blinking green neon sign hangs above the front door, announcing the simple but powerful sounding name of the bar, THE HUB.
• • •
“Where the hell is Turleen anyway?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” answers Askew as he crushes his cigarette butt out on Buttwynn’s he
ad.
“I’m right here, I am.” Turleen walks through the doorway, a cigarette tucked behind her ear. “And you’re right, Grundish. We need to get out of here now, we do.”
“Well, we have to figure out where to go.” Grundish scratches at the thick pelt of hair on his head, trying to stimulate his brain into coming up with an idea.
“I’ve got that figured out, I do. It’s all taken care of. You just figure out the best time for us to leave, how we’re going to travel, all of that crap, and I’ll take care of the rest, I will. I have the perfect place for us all to lay low and for however long we need to.”
25
“All right, Turleen, tell me what you’ve got planned for us.” Grundish grabs another of Askew’s Blue Llamas and torches it up. Turleen inches closer to Grundish.
“Well, the way I see it, we need to put some distance between us and this mess, we do. And I’ve got just the place.” Turleen inhales as deeply as her one lung allows, relishing the second-hand smoke. “So I set up what they call a safehouse for us a little ways away from here, over in Polk County. It will, at least, buy you boys a little time to figure things out, it will.”
Grundish & Askew Page 13