by Brian Hodge
Judd was now bouncing from side to side in his underwear. The elephant lashed out again, cracking him in the ass with the sound of gunfire. As Judd squealed, Max made another grab, this time only succeeding at ripping Judd’s underwear off as well.
SNAP! The trunk slapped into Judd’s exposed backside. By now, his ass had a blood red welt across it.
“STOP FUCKING HELPING ME!” Judd howled, as the elephant slapped its leathery trunk into his ass again. It had Judd by his left leg and was attempting to pull him from its back. One of the belts on the harness broke and Judd felt himself swing around to the backside of the animal, his face slamming into its balls.
The elephant gave up on Judd and smashed into the monkey cage, sending dozens of the small creatures scurrying into the screaming crowds. One monkey had somehow landed on the elephant’s head, shrieking and slapping his hairy palm down emphatically.
Just before the Elephant crashed into the bright orange circus tent, Max thought briefly of jumping off, but found he could not leave his friend. Chaos detonated into the tent as the beast sent clowns and spectators running in different directions. With a swing of its powerful trunk, it sent one clown airborne with a blaring squawk. The clown landed in the center of the crowd, his enormous psychedelic shoes flying from his feet and into the screaming masses. Max had the disconcerting feeling that he had become a live action cartoon. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw a POW! and a BAP! coming from the heads of the clowns as they flew around like Technicolor angels with noisy horns. It was the first time in his life he felt he truly understood what it felt like to be Judd.
Judd had stopped screaming and just sort of dangled over the elephant’s backside, his head crashing up and down dully. He did experience a certain kind of satisfaction as the trunk smacked the clown with the blue hair and sent him sailing into the bleachers, smiling a bit for a brief moment.
Max struggled to pull Judd back to the top as the beast continued to wreak havoc throughout the tent. He felt a painful slap on the back of his bald spot and turned around just in time to see the monkey scamper back to the safety of the elephant’s head. He turned back around and pulled at the harness with all of his strength, praying to God he would somehow save his friend. As if a miracle had arrived, he had actually almost pulled Judd all the way back to the top.
Max felt another biting sting as the monkey smacked the back of his neck, chattered angrily, and then returned to his seat on the enormous head. The harness came loose in his hand and Judd swung back over the side, blasting face first once again into the mammoth testicles.
“You little bastard!” Max yelled, turning around to face the monkey. The Elephant, obviously feeling the pain of Judd’s collision backed up into one of the tent poles, squishing Judd in an effort to rid itself of what it probably thought was a giant tick attached to its balls.
The monkey was screaming and chattering at Max in what could only be described as animal obscenities. It jumped up and down a few times and let out a string of what Max was totally convinced was the monkey version of “Eat shit!”
“Come here, you little fucker,” Max hissed, crawling towards the monkey as the Elephant crashed back outside into the screaming crowd and proceeded to run down the walkway that ran between the game center. Max swung out and cracked the monkey from where it sat, sending it soaring into mass of fleeing people. It caused a small panic where it landed, but Max had little time to notice as he saw Kenny Joe come gliding out of the crowd with a pitchfork.
Kenny Joe screamed what sounded like a war cry and launched his pitchfork into the side of the beast. The elephant bellowed and turned to face its attacker. Kenny Joe dropped the pitchfork, eyes wide in terror as he let go a womanly shriek and fled back from whence he came, striking old ladies and children to the ground in his effort to get away.
The elephant was spinning around in circles attempting to find the pain in its hind leg, Judd trailing in flight behind him like he was on the Dumbo ride at Disney World gone horribly wrong. As Max held on for his life, he remembered the buck knife he kept on his belt.
The elephant headed towards the end of the field and onto the interstate. A helicopter circled above them as Max sawed his knife into the leather harness, filming the whole thing from the safety of the air. Police cars were lined up behind them as Judd swung back and forth into the elephant’s ass with a dull thud.
Teeth gritted in determination, Max finally cut through the harness. Judd tumbled to the road, a tangle of leather and naked flesh. Max waved at the helicopter like an action hero and leapt away, landing in a muddy ditch just to the side of the road. The elephant destroyed two police cars before they managed to kill the poor beast.
Two months later, Judd, Max, Kenny Joe and Bailey sat on the beer-stained couch and watched the television screen in anticipation. Each of them had a beer can between their legs. All week long they had seen the commercials.
“Welcome back to When Animals Go On A Rampage!” the television blared. “In this day and age, people videotape everything! Watch what happens to this poor soul as Bart the Elephant goes on a rampage after years of living a docile existence in the circus! We must warn you that some of what you will see will be disturbing!”
Judd buried his face in his hands. “I can’t believe the whole world is seeing the worst moment of my entire life.”
Kenny Joe shook his head. “I thought your worst moment was the time that snake-”
KJ, could you kindly shut the hell up?” Judd said from his buried hands. “I told you that was never to be spoken of.”
“Ouch,” Kenny Joe muttered, wincing as he watched the TV screen. “I bet that welt is STILL on his ass.”
Bailey scrutinized the video, a scholarly look on his round bearded face. “Well at least you had the elephants balls to cushion your head, did you not?”
“Ooooh! That has to hurt!” The television host screamed. “Poor Judd Peterson, this has got to be something he doesn’t want his kids to see!”
“Well, Judd,” Kenny Joe continued. “At least you’re a star. Everyone knows who you are now.”
Judd started weeping, wondering why God had wished so much abuse on him.
A Chorus of Earthly Rage
by Weston Ochse
The hard rays of the full moon filtered green through the thick kudzu canopy illuminating the 1972 Ford LTD in a cold sweaty aura. Coleman slid from the driver’s side and raised his arms above his head stretching out the kinks from the two-hour drive out of Chattanooga. He spun his red baseball cap around and wiped his forehead with a broad hand.
Davey stepped from the passenger side of the car and brushed the residue of the burger and fries off his lap. He paused to stuff the wrapper and box back into the paper bag before he joined his lifelong friend near the trunk.
“I’m sure as hell gonna miss you, Davey,” came Coleman’s slow drawl. “Why the fuck y’all gotta leave the country for two years. Can’t you just get your converts here?”
Davey winced at his friend’s choice of words.
“It’s just the way we do things, is all. There’s only so much we can do around here and there’s so many who have yet to hear the word of God. It’s our Mission to spread the word.”
Coleman inserted the keys into the lock and opened the trunk. He peered at the struggling figure packed within and turned again to his friend.
“My Momma, she says y’all are gonna take over the world someday.”
Davey raised his lanky arm and punched the body in the trunk. Two times. Hard. “Your Momma’s right.”
Coleman pulled the groaning skinhead from the trunk and let him fall to the ground. He knelt down, careful to plant his knee firmly in the man’s crotch and checked the tape around the ankles, wrists and mouth. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the bent roll of silver duct tape. The stickiness of the blood seeping from the man’s nose, missing teeth and cracked lips made the tape loose. He reapplied it by adding two more glistening strips.
/> The skinhead’s eyes were crazy with fear as he watched Davey’s every movement.
Coleman stood and glanced around the clearing.
“I wished we didn’t have to carry this boy all the way in.”
“You can wish all you want,” said Davey. “John Henry likes his privacy.” He cocked his head and picked up the far sound of a howl. “Do ya really blame him?”
A savage zest of unearthly howling raged from the roaring maw of a house that appeared to grow like a tangle of wood from amidst a mound of carefully collected junk. The brown-gray boards vibrated and the black plastic garbage bags, taped over windowless frames, puffed in and out with frustrated rage.
An old man sat on the second step of the three-step porch, leaning back on elbows, feet kicked out. He stared at the approaching boys. The only movement was his left foot keeping beat to an internal song, the switch on his hearing aid turned to off.
They came dragging their burden by his arms, heels drawing snake-like furrows that surely traveled back the two miles to the car. As they approached, Coleman smiled and nodded twice. Davey patted the large swastika tattooed on the head between them.
“‘Bout time you boys made it around. Vivi’s getting righteous. Done scared the dogs away thinking I’d have to send them in, instead.”
“You won’t believe where we found this one, John Henry,” said Davey, yelling over the demonic noise and making sure to look directly at the old man when he talked.
“Yeah, he was shit-kicking the hell out of this black dude right in the middle of Martin Luther King Boulevard. Old Hitler here was acting like Mike Tyson at a Beauty Pageant and he never even saw Davey get him. Ain’t that right, Hitler?” asked Coleman, wrapping hard on the man’s head.
The skinhead’s eyes bulged like a road-kill cat as he stared at the open door of the house, entirely unable to fathom the source of the sound. A pool of yellow began to mix with the mud below him.
“That’s not fair, Coleman. It wasn’t like I snuck up on him. If he’d been paying attention he could have blocked the crowbar.” Davey cast a wounded glance at his friend.
“Aw shit. Looky here. Old Hitler soiled hisself”
Davey glared at the limp form between them like a mother to a child and whipped his fist into the face—five, ten times.
“Hey, Boy! This here’s the home of John Henry Wordsworth and it ain’t polite to take a crap without first askin’,” said Davey, leaning close in so the man could hear him over the noise.
John Henry reached over and mussed Davey’s thick mop of brown hair. “Remember, Son. There is nothing neither good or bad. It’s thinking it that makes it so,” said John Henry, standing up and digging his hands in his pockets. “I got yer money. And I swear, if you’d taken any longer I was gonna have to find where the dogs had gotten to.”
“What you gonna do when I leave?” asked Davey, his face a little sad.
“Fear not, my boy. Hunting season’s in two months and will provide a supply to last old Vivi through the winter. I’ll miss ya, but don’t you worry.”
John Henry scratched his beard and leaned down to look into the skinhead’s rheumy eyes. He pulled out a wickedly long knife and lifted the man’s chin up with the tip to get a better view.
“Let’s see who we have here. Coleman, run and get the chair.”
The muscular boy let go of his burden and the skinhead immediately sagged to the ground. Davey let his side go, as well, and wiped his hands on the sides of his pants, upset about the dirt and blood that had soiled them. Coleman scampered around the side of the house and picked through a spiky pile of junk. He returned a few minutes later with a grimy chair, made from white PVC tubing.
John Henry cut the tape around the wrists and ankles and the boys levered the captive heavily into the chair. Within moments, the skinhead’s wrists were retaped to the chair’s arms, his ankles to its legs, and his forehead to a length of pipe that protruded two feet up from the back of the chair.
“Let’s see if he can talk,” said John Henry, glancing at Davey.
The gangly boy grasped the edge of the tape and jerked it free. The skinhead immediately broke out into a scream, bubbles of blood popping through the ruined mouth and floating gently down to the dusty earth. As loud as he was, it was a mere undertone to the rage blasting from the house. Still, Coleman brought his boot up and into the man’s stomach, cutting off the scream in mid-terror.
John Henry leaned in, knelt down and perched an elbow on the skinhead’s leg. “Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste of death but once. So why don’t you be our little Prince Valiant and just stop yer yammerin’. Stop worrying what’s going on with old Vivi and pay attention to what’s going on here.” He locked eyes with the man and spoke to the boys. “Check his wallet?”
Davey dug deep in his back pocket and pulled out a worn brown leather wallet. Flipping it open, he said, “Lemme see. He’s got eleven dollars, a few business cards. Hey. Here’s a coupon for two-for-one subs.” He shoved the coupon and the money into his pocket and glanced happily at Coleman. “Finder’s keepers. Okay, he also has a rubber. Says, ribbed and lubricated.”
“Maybe that means he’s a clean one,” said Coleman.
“That would be nice for a change. Sure make Vivi happy,” said John Henry.
“Okay, here it is,” said Davey, pulling out the driver’s license. He looked from the license to the skinhead and back to the license several times. “Ha. You know I think he looks better bald. His name is Edwin James Roomer. Edwin. I think Hitler is more fitting.”
“Come on, Davey. Get on with it,” said Coleman, tracing his finger back and forth across the swastika design on the man’s head.
“Sorry man. Says he’s not an organ donor. Not very considerate of him. Also says he’s AB negative.” He looked excitedly at John Henry who had broken into a smile. “Hey! That’s her favorite, ain’t it?”
“Sure is,” said Coleman, who had been looking hard at Davey as he spoke. “I think it’s time to ask him a few questions. Get something to clean his mouth out, will ya, Coleman? There’s too much blood for me to get a good gander at what he’s saying.”
Coleman scampered off again, but only went as far as the porch before he returned with a large Mason jar of clear liquid.
“Is this okay, John Henry?” he asked breathlessly. “Alcohol kills germs on contact, right?”
John Henry nodded. “So they say. So they say. It’s some nasty shit anyway. Just some more of that old Bloodsucker Special.”
Coleman poured the white lightning over the skinhead’s face, making sure to get a liberal amount into the cracked and broken mouth. A reciprocal scream erupted immediately, but it took a few moments before it crescendoed enough to be heard over the already agonizing din from the house. The skinhead tossed his head back and forth, his eyes rolling up and arms struggling to rise as if to wipe the blistering toxin clear of his wounds. His legs undulated and his entire frame rose in an arced bow that only returned to the chair after Davey’s fist buried itself into the man’s sternum. It took several moments before the skinhead finally swooned back into fearful reality.
His eyes had locked once again on the howling door and it wasn’t until John Henry had tapped the knife on the man’s forehead several times that he looked at the old man kneeling, once again, before him. A thin rivulet of blood ran the length of skinhead’s nose and dripped like an hourglass.
“Listen to what I have to say, boy. It’s important. Do I have your attention?”
It took two more pokes of the knife before the skinhead nodded.
“What were you doin’ beating on that black man?”
The skinhead blinked twice, his bloody, cracked lips trembling.
“Come on, Son. You gotta answer the question.”
The skinhead tried to struggle, but stopped after a few small attempts. His body sagged in the chair, as if it realized, finally, that it couldn’t escape. He struggled to speak and it took him se
veral tries before the words formed successfully.
“I didn’t really mean to hurt him bad. I was just... ”
“Now, Now. There’s no reason to be making up stories. No reason at all. You don’t want to meet your maker with a lie on your lips, now do ya?” asked John Henry, standing up stiffly.
He shoved the knife back in the sheath dangling from his leather belt. He stepped back and appraised his prize, huddled and small in the chair. He ran his hands through his thick mane of wild silver hair and knelt down once again.
“You have one chance. One chance in the world to save yourself. Are you ready?” asked John Henry.
The skinhead nodded, his head picking up pace until it threatened to come free from the body.
“Alright. Here it is. Tell me a riddle.”
John Henry, Coleman and Davey stared at the Skinhead, expectant looks on each face. The skinhead blinked several times and tried to speak but each time stopped, as if to reconsider these words of life importance. It wasn’t until the tears began to pour freely that he spoke.
“My mother... my mother, she loved me,” he said simply.
Coleman and Davey glanced at each other, faces creased with sadness.
John Henry reached up and stroked the boy’s cheek. “Yep. That’s certainly a riddle.”
He stood and craned his neck towards the house and held it there for several ponderous seconds before he turned back to the skinhead. He sighed and looked hard at each boy. “Davey, Coleman. Grab the chair, let’s take it inside. Vivi’s waiting.”
The skinhead screamed. “You told me it was a riddle. You told me it was a riddle. You said I had a chance!”
“You did, my boy. But you see, everyone has that riddle.”
The skinhead’s screams merged with the roar from the house as the boys carried the chair up the porch steps, Coleman behind and guiding. The warped wood was most surely groaning beneath their feet, but the sounds went unheard. Coleman turned and shouted something to Davey, but, this close to the house, it was lost in the hurricane of screams.