Skunk Hunt

by J. Clayton Rogers

  "I have a bad feeling about this," said Barbara, holding up her tiny purse as a shield.

  "I don't see why," I said. "We used to come here all the time when we were kids."

  "Now I know better," she said. "When was the last time you saw him?"

  It had been nearly a month since I had last seen Flint, and I had only spoken to him because he spotted me skulking in the alley behind his house (recycling aluminum cans is an honest avocation, even for the non-homeless). The most pitiless thing about growing up, aside from learning about death and false hope, is the universal tendency to convert the oddballs you knew as a child into social demons. Except in this case, we had always known there was something screwy about Old Man Flint.

  When I was eight or so Flint rounded up a group of neighborhood kids to explain the odd shape of his forehead. It was a procedure he repeated every generation in a mostly vain attempt to ward off some of the human cruelty (let's not limit it to children) that misshapen people encounter. In this case, Jeremy had led an impromptu art class in drawing grotesque portraits of Flint on the old man's backyard shed. My own contribution had included a rhomboid head in pink chalk, complete with antennae.

  "I don't know which one of you came up with the alien," Flint critiqued, "but it's an interesting concept. In the twinkle of an eye, I was transformed from a fairly average human being into something from another world. It's not all that unusual. Go to any VA hospital and you'll see hundreds like me. Go to any hospital at all. People are always being transformed by car wrecks, strokes, disease...even things you can't see. Mental disease or plain old stress. One day you're one thing, the next you're something else. The lucky ones say 'Hallelujah!' Most just shit their pants in misery. But there are a few who for the rest of their lives see a different existence. One that can't be imagined. You have to be twisted, physically twisted."

  He had been piloting a UH-1 Huey MedEvac into Khe San when a chance bullet (the Viet Cong were aiming at America, not Flint in particular) from a Russian RPD pierced his skull. The 7.62mm round performed the usual ballistical gymnastics, and then some. It cavitated, yawed, tumbled—and then, amazingly, it left. Flint referred to it as a "GSW-TTH, gunshot wound through and through". "It entered here..." The old man planted an index finger on one temple. "And came out here." Whereupon he planted an index finger on the other side—and that's how he stayed for the next five minutes, like one of those toy arrows you fit over your head. It was though he was miming the permanence of a few seconds in his life.

  "Todd Randall was co-piloting, and I think the whole thing bothered him a lot more than me. I said, 'Todd, I think some of my brain has spilled out on your lap' and he forgot all about flying. Or maybe not. I don't recall it clearly, but one minute we were in the air and the next we had landed safely, and Todd was howling and trying to wipe me off his uniform. It was sort of like coming prematurely and the girl wiping you off in a fit." (I was eight, remember, and this bit left a puzzle in my head that wasn't solved for nine more years.) "I can't imagine me handling a joystick and control pedals in that condition, and Todd was fit to be tied. Maybe the Fearsome Lord took pity on me or Todd or the wounded we were going to dustoff and planted us nice and soft on the pad." He paused. "What was I saying?"

  "Premature ejaculation," said Jeremy, not much older than me but already wise in science.

  "The frontal lobe helps you process long-term emotional memory," Flint continued, "and I wondered at the time what had been erased. Who was in those little white and red chunks Todd was sweeping away left and right? There were parts of me scattered all the way from the pedestal panel to the overhead console. There were human beings tucked away in those pieces. People I'd known and loved or hated. Were they still in me? Did I care?

  "That bullet set me up for life. I get my government checks. I don't want much in the way of worldly goods. I never had to work an honest or dishonest job if I didn't want to. Just sit back and think about...what was I saying?"

  He was set up for life, all right. Aside from looking like a Star Wars humanoid analog (slightly more 'oid' than 'human') and an overindulgence in non sequitors, he fit right in with the chronic slackers of old Oregon Hill. He didn't even have to pretend he was looking for employment. His occasional eccentric behavior blended with the environment. He had an overwhelming desire to ejaculate in the female ear (hence his wife's departure, to avoid permanent hearing impairment), but that was an improvement on all the cretins who beat their girlfriends into bruised lumps. In some respects, old Flint was a breath of fresh air. Skunk must have thought so. He had spent an inordinate amount of time with the old man.

  Flint's salutary lecture (given eighteen years ago, can you believe it) was delivered calmly, as though he was talking to children—which even Jeremy was, although it's hard to think of anyone so consistently evil as ever being a child. There was no trace of apathy in the old mutant, just a relentless acceptance of fate that bordered on Buddhism. The recitation made little impact on the young hooligans who listened with avid but fragmented comprehension. If his intention was to get us to ease off our vandalism of his property, his plan was a masterstroke of incompetence. He had given us more subjects for our palette. Portraits appeared on Flint's fence and shed of exploding heads and rotting limbs. A particularly fine piece of artwork showed a man hanging out of a helicopter, his skull open and his brain falling earthwards while he stretched out in vain to catch it.

  Oddly enough, the old soldier did not seem to take any of this to heart. He continued to greet us as he strolled by (sometimes with wet 2-inch roller brushes still dripping paint in our hands) with an unflappable, benign smile. We assumed this had something to do with his wound, but it begged the question of why he had bothered telling us his war story. Maybe there had been no ulterior motive. Maybe he wanted to prove he was just as stunted as the rest of us, that he fit right in.

  After his wife left him a few other women were suckered by sympathy or desperation into Flint's domain. None of them stayed long. Flint would wear a downcast look for a few days, then return to his 2% amiable self. Over the last few years, as Oregon Hill upscaled or downscaled (according to your lights), he became more isolated. Like me, he didn't know what to make of the influx of students, and they didn't know what to make of him. These young perfections of upper-middle-class physiology, streaming along on their bicycles, girls in skimpy halter-tops, guys in cargo shorts, pulled up short at the sight of his imperfect head. The skewed brow became increasingly pronounced as he approached 80, like a doll losing its stitches, one by one. Outside of Skunk, social workers seemed to be his only acquaintances. They came and went, the women more quickly than the men. Maybe they knew what was on his mind when he began fondling their ears.

  "Get the door!" Flint repeated to someone inside as we waited on the porch, which began to sag under our combined weight. Barbara inched towards the steps, as though expecting a trap door to be sprung any instant.

  "Who is he talking to?" she asked.

  "Dead Army buddies," said Jeremy, following this with a spook-saturated "Whoooooooooaaaa..."

  I said nothing, but I was worried that my brother might be right. Someone living alone for so long invoked all sorts of invisible companions. I didn't have any dead buddies to talk to, but it was only a matter of time before Skunk put in an appearance. Maybe he already had.

  "Aw crap," said Flint beyond the door. This sounded far more cantankerous than the Flint of old. But when the plywood finally swung in, he greeted us with the usual empty smile. "Well, all the kittens, right on my doorstep."

  "Kittens?" said Jeremy.

  "That's what they call baby skunks," Flint explained, standing aside. "Come on in. Don't fall over anything."

  We entered warily, expecting to be attacked by an oozing wall of antique stench: liniment, unflushed toilets, layer after layer of dead skin, rotting food. Usually I met Flint outdoors. It had been so many years since I crossed his doorsill that I couldn't remember a stick or smudge. But as I led the wa
y, I was relieved to encounter nothing more than a faint mustiness no worse than a vacated warehouse. It was unnatural.

  The gruff voice that had bellowed behind the door had vanished. Flint's warning not to trip was mere courtesy. The sitting room, at least, was (by my standards) immaculate. The sofa and easy chair were threadbare, but clean enough to sit on. When Flint invited us to make ourselves at home, there was no clutter to shift out of the way.

  I wasn't used to formality. I was startled when the old man asked us if we wanted anything to drink. I've heard that people who travel overseas learn all kinds of manners. But Vietnam was a long time ago, and I would imagine civilian etiquette is the first thing to go in a war zone. Maybe Flint was just behaving normally. It had been a year since I invited anyone into my house, and I had been so busy grimly groping at the girl that courtesy had slipped my mind. I didn't know the routines of propriety.

  There were magazines on the scruffy coffee table: VietNow, DAV, The American Legion, Soldier of Fortune. Across each cover Flint had written SHIT, but the letters were so neat, lacking any hint of scribbled wrath, that they could have been printed by a demure librarian after a pleasant night's sleep.

  "What can I do you folks for?" Flint asked, dropping his seventy plus years slowly onto the couch next to Barbara. My sister leaned away, trying to discretely cover the ear nearest our host. She had heard the stories, too.

  Our approach was ill-planned, meaning we had no plan at all. How could we tell him we wanted to look into his old ammo chest for stolen money?

  "We were just wondering about Skunk," said Jeremy. This sounded like a promising start, such as it was, and I let him keep the lead—like I had a choice. Anyway, Jeremy seemed to know what he was doing. If we could somehow get the Brink's cache without cutting Flint in, all the better. But how could the old man not know there was over three-quarters of a million dollars under his roof?

  "Your father was an interesting man," Flint said, then scowled faintly. "He certainly was fond of my whiskey. Always coming over here to bum a drink." He licked his lips. The memory made him thirsty.

  Jeremy leaned forward in his chair. "Go ahead, pour yourself a stiff one. We don't mind."

  Flint lowered his ancient hands between his knees. His skin was a wasteland of seborrheic keratoses and cherry angiomas. Maybe the vestiges of Nam skin, saturated with jungle fungi and Agent Orange, a permanent reminder of the Far East and the wretched tortures of foreign service. He picked at his skin, as though trying to scrape off his past. He looked oddly thoughtful and absent.

  Barbara squeezed against the arm of the couch, staring at those hands, wondering where they might be headed.

  Flint's head, which had been sunk in a cloud, suddenly rose. The weirdest sequence followed. His face brightened, perhaps with the idea of the nip Jeremy had suggested. The dreamy contemplativeness of a drunk smoothed his features, with a few tokens of deep thought. Then awareness—and dread. He shook his head. "Can't," he said.

  "What?" Jeremy asked. "You can't have a drink?"

  "She'll get on my case."

  "Who will?"

  "Mom." Flint bobbed, his eyes rolled. "That voice of hers. Can't take it."

  We skunk kittens exchanged glances. I'd never known Flint to have a mother, although I guess in the scheme of things he must have had one. He was Oregon Hill born and bred, but most of his life had passed before I was born—including, I suspected, the passing of his mother. Not that I'd ever thought about it before.

  "Your mother moved back in with you?" Jeremy asked, using a gentle inquiring tone that sounded surprisingly genuine.

  "Never moved out," Flint whispered, casting a wary glance over his shoulder.

  Hoo-boy. So Mama Flint lived in his head? Well, maybe it wasn't farfetched. Aside from the fact that old Flint was even more seriously crocked than I imagined. And sicker still, that he had been performing auditory sex while his interior mother enjoyed the show. Shades of Psycho. I wondered if Mama Flint wasn't the only one watching over and through his shoulder. Could be a whole crowed. It might even be beneficial. Sort of an interior group therapy. And who was to say Skunk wasn't living inside of my head? An entity so palpable it communicated via the U.S. Postal Service?

  "That's swell," Jeremy said, a little less convincingly. "A guy should always be close to his mom..."

  "Y'think?" Flint said doubtfully, picking at his skin as though it bore an incriminating tattoo: MOM. Then his eyes lifted at my brother with a look so sharp and cagey I was sure, for a moment, that they shared a secret. But Jeremy broke away, frowning at us with angry confusion. Barbara was so intent on keeping her ears out of sight she didn't notice the exchange. I couldn't draw conclusions from this dribble of evidence. Not yet, at least.

  "I don't know what you're going on for about Mom," Flint said, turning stiffly. But there was nothing stiff about the grin he shot Barbara. He looked like a boy wanting to play tiddlywinks. Or maybe doctor. Make that an ear, nose and throat doctor. "Why, Sweet Tooth, haven't you grown into a pretty thing?"

  Having her family nickname raised by the neighborhood pervert was too much for my sister. With a squeak of dismay she leapt up and ran to the easy chair she had first assumed Flint would occupy.

  I gave Jeremy a blank look. His interpretation of my gutless neutrality was far more aggressive than I had intended. He decided I was impatient to cut to the chase—and so was he.

  "Flint, Skunk told us you had something tucked away in your old ammo locker. Something he had saved for us. You must know what I'm talking about."

  Flint withdrew his longing gaze from my now-distant sister, his disfigured brow puckered in bemusement. "My ammo locker? That's got nothing but old socks and stuff. What kind of thing are you talking about?"

  Jeremy was stumped, which presented a problem, since Barbara and I had handed the initiative to him.

  "Mute..." said Flint, shifting his bleary eyes at me. "What do you have to say about this?"

  I rolled sideways like a stunned rabbit. I was surprised he remembered our childhood nicknames, especially when he had usually improvised his own. He had occasionally referred to me as 'Runt', and I vividly remember him once calling Jeremy 'Laser Dick'—leaving the how and why of this unrepeated moniker to my torrid imagination. He had to have learned the names from Skunk, but that posed another conundrum. Our father had never had much patience for Flint, and called him 'Lame Brain' to his face. People with an overabundance of deficiencies don't take kindly to those with a genuine excuse for their failures. And in Skunk's eyes, Flint was a failure. No particular reason. The veteran had not run for President or succeeded in business or joined the Rotary Club or even spawned—the human ear not being the seat of procreation. Skunk's own achievements could be elaborated on the back of a postage stamp, but he had no excuse beyond being dim and ornery. Why, even Bread and Butter, the omni-challenged kid on China Street, had grown up to separate socks at the Salvation Army. Flint hadn't done a thing after laying his sad ass out for God and Country. He had not even...well, robbed a convenience store.

  To Skunk, Flint was a no good no-good. That he would sit down with Lame Brain and regale him with tales of family life over a cold cheap beer was almost as inconceivable as leaving the Brink's stash in his care. And yet we knew he had spent days on end on Flint's porch, drinking and talking and occasionally looking convivial.

  "You still don't have much to say, do you?" Flint poked his upper denture back into place as he smiled at me. I found myself thinking that my childhood portrait of an insect-like Flint with antennae hadn't been far off the mark. Old age makes aliens out of all of us. We morph into bizarre lifeforms, the atmosphere becomes inadequate or poisonous.

  "I guess I don't have much to say," I said.

  "Folks who don't have much to say and don't say it are a rare breed," Flint nodded. "You don't have anything to add to what your brother is telling me? I bet you didn't expect largesse from ol' Skunk."

  I knew what he meant. To my surprise, even Jer
emy comprehended him. Sadly, though, the first words out of Barbara's mouth since entering confirmed our opinion of her intellectual attainments.

  "I don't think it's all that large," she said.

  "Microcosmic," said Flint, giving her a benevolent and amatory gaze. "If he's left something here for you, I haven't seen hide nor hair of it."

  "I..." I said, then became tongue-tied. I suddenly saw Flint in his Huey, apologizing to his co-pilot for spilling his brains on his lap. Empathy? Sympathy? I wasn't sure I knew the difference, but something gooey had splashed on my inner narrative. But as soon as my heart went out to him, I gulped it back down. We were up to no good, here, slobbering greedily after stolen loot. Our primary concern had been to avoid arrest and incarceration—in Jeremy's case, re-incarceration, aka recidivism. But there were others who would be less delicate about our well-being. A cop would shield the top of my head with his hand while guiding me into a police cruiser. Someone more sinister would rearrange our craniums. I might end up with kids drawing antenna-topped heads on my worm-eaten clapboards.

  Flint was still looking at me, his eyes looking more buggy than ever.

  "I don't know," I said finally. "Skunk didn't have much to pass on."

  "Just the Brinks money," said Flint.

  Well yeah, almost everyone knew about that. We had been hoping that bit of current events had slipped past unnoticed by the old vet. Even at the time of the robbery the Oregon Hill grapevine was in tatters, with only a few dozen of the original inhabitants left to spread rumors and gossip. But it had been a fairly major crime, a break from the usual headlines of petty murder. Skunk became a celebrity. Mugshots of him and the Congreve brothers were scattered thickly across the media. In the old days, our neighbors would have considered him something of a heroic bandito. And while college students cast indifferent glances at our house when the police wrapped it in yellow tape in a vain attempt to find batched money or a sliver of evidence, a handful of diehards dropped by to admire the home of the local hero. I don't recall Flint being among them, but now I realized that, one way or another, he was bound to have heard about the robbery. A tidbit that clung tenaciously to the rattled filaments of his mind.