by Bryn Roar
Josie didn’t miss the tremor in Ralph’s voice, the helpless look in his scared brown eyes. She decided for the time being to let this sordid business go; she’d deal with it later, if at all. “Uh-huh. I just got off the phone with Buddy boy. He wants to meet up at Peg Leg’s.”
“The diner? How come?”
“For breakfast, and to talk about what happened yesterday in the Pines. We need to make a decision.”
Josie felt suddenly conspicuous in her sleep shirt. For the first time she was aware of how her breasts swayed underneath the cotton tee, how the hem barely covered her arse. It pissed her off that Ralph had made her feel so self-conscious in her own bedroom. Like I’m the one who needs to be ashamed here! She snatched up her blue jean shorts from the dresser on her way to the bathroom. Never before had she been so eager to put on a damn bra.
“Didn’t we do that yesterday?” Tubby said, holding on to his bookbag as if it was a life preserver. “When we burned up the dog?” He wasn’t the least bit hungry, still too ashamed of what he’d done. He just wanted to slink home and go back to the life he’d known before. He didn’t deserve to be aCreep, even if he was a creep.
Josie turned to him. On some level, she understood Tubby had only done what his body had driven him to, what his hormones cried out for, and yet she couldn’t help feeling betrayed. And very disappointed. “That was before last night. One rabid dog is bad news. Two rabid dogs means the bad news is spreading.”
Tubby blinked. “Jeepers. I guess you’re right.”
“Wait outside, will ya? I’ll only be a minute.”
Tubby failed to notice the look on Josie’s face. The same frosty look she gave anyone who openly ogled her. He turned to her as he was leaving, “Josie?”
She stopped at the bathroom, holding the shorts over her chest, curling her toes under her feet. “Aye?”
“I just wanted to thank you for last night.”
Josie’s eyes narrowed. She wasn’t entirely sure Tubby wasn’t mocking her. She stared him down, searching for the truth in his tense, unhappy face. It didn’t take long to find it, either. Tubby was as easy to read as a billboard. The truth was, before her stood one very lonely boy. That nasty thing Tubby did in her bathroom wasn’t an intentional act of disrespect. More like one of desperation and longing. Born of an enforced loneliness she couldn’t begin to understand. His big doe eyes didn’t stare at her lustfully (needfully was more like it), as others did, imagining her body as a plaything. The reverence in which this boy held her was obvious and Josie’s heart melted a little. The thaw brought forgiveness. “My pleasure, Ralph.”
*******
Lester Noonan awoke to the sound of a primal howl, out in the deep pinewoods, past his bedroom window. The Noonans’ lived in a dilapidated singlewide trailer on the western edge of the Pines, a mile or so beyond where Cemetery Road dead-ended. His daddy, Andy Noonan, had worked full time at the Research Center before hurting his back on the job. Now his old man collected liability and sat on his bony ass all day long, taking the occasional odd job at the Center on an off-the-books basis. Andy Noonan liked to brag that he held an important position at the Center. Lester knew better than that. The only thing his daddy ever held at that place was a broom or mop handle. The old man didn’t even earn cash under the table. Something the Noonans’ so desperately needed. Bidwell paid him in cheap booze. Andy Noonan’s lifeblood.
It was why Lester’s mom had left them when he was just a pup. He supposed she got tired of being Andy’s punching bag every time he had hisself a snoot-full. She’d bequeathed that fucking job to her two sons.
Lester sat up in bed and looked out his dirty flyspecked window. He could have sworn he’d heard something carrying on in the Pines but the woods were quiet now. He dropped back on his pillow and tried to will himself asleep. The memory of his finger pressing into Josie O’Hara’s fat tit popped into his head, ruining whatever chance he‘d had of knocking back some more Z’s. His eyes opened and his dick stood up at Attention. Lester reached down and began playing with his old stubby pal, trying to imagine it slipping into that bitch’s pussy.
He’d had a hard-on for Josie O’Hara ever since she showed up on the first day of school in September, looking like a fitter version of Christina Hendricks. The girl had ripened over the summer and Lester longed to pluck that juicy piece of forbidden fruit.
The incident with Josie on the school steps had gotten him so worked up, in fact, that he’d made a date with that sperm bank Tansy Wilky for later on this evening.
“I’d like to make a deposit,” he’d said to her yesterday, slipping his hand under her school skirt.
Tansy hadn’t been offended. That slut literally had no shame. “Take me to the Drive-In Saturday night,” she’d said, letting him slip a finger under her thong, “and you can make all the deposits you—
“Shit fire and save matches! I know I heard that fucker this time!” He jumped out of bed and hurried over to the window, his stumpy pecker peeking out the fly of his pee-stained skivvies. Sure enough, something was running around in the palmetto brush. That fucking shit was everywhere, surrounding the trailer on all sides. Moon Island’s version of creeping kudzu. In the winter, when the fronds all dried up, they made an awful racket at night.
Lester grabbed his Winchester rifle and hopped into some dirty jeans, nearly catching his still hard dick in the zipper. Hot damn! I hope it’s a deer!
Once upon a time Moon had been crazy with deer. The herd had been thinned out, though, mostly by the Noonans’ themselves, who depended on the deer and the occasional raccoon and possum for meat. They would have had more success if they’d ventured deeper into the Pines, out by Lizard Lake, but ever since Lester’s daddy claimed to have seen the Red Eyed Man walking plain as day out there, his damn eyes glowing like the fires of Perdition, just like that crazy Bud Brown had said, none of the Noonans’ liked to travel out that far anymore. Lester thought his daddy had probably imagined the whole thing, drunk as he usually was, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Besides, the lake was Bud’s neck of the woods.
He slipped his feet into his duck shoes by the cinderblock steps and hustled stealthily into the palmettos. Even more than pussy, Lester hungered for some juicy red meat. His daddy rarely spent his disability on frivolities, such as food or clothing. It usually went for more liquor and the occasional bill. Their refrigerator held a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, some putrefied vegetables in the crisper, and a buck’s severed head that Andy Noonan had been meaning to take over to the taxidermist in Beaufort for over a month now. Its eyes slimy and gray.
Not even a jar of peanut butter to dip a finger into! If it hadn’t been for school and the money Lester extorted there, he would have faded away to a shadow long ago.
Lester was proud of the status his family name carried among the timid folk on Moon. Of course, at one time the Noonans’ had been even more feared on the island. That all changed, though, the day Bud Brown tore into Charlie like a shark into a sardine. Last time Lester went to see his older brother over in Beaufort, Charlie had looked more like the geeks he used to beat up than the ten-foot-high giant Lester had once imagined him to be.
It was a crying shame is what it was! Their daddy had become enraged over Charlie’s beat down, threatening to kill Bud Brown, and his daddy too, if William Brown was stupid enough to try and stop him.
Well, Mr. Brown did try to stop him.
Did stop him, in fact.
It was something that no one else, ‘ceptin the sheriff, on Moon knew about. At least there was that saving grace. Much to Andy Noonan’s ever-lasting surprise, Bill Brown showed up on their doorstep two days after his son laid Charlie up in the hospital. Cool as a coon in a cucumber patch.
What transpired next in the front yard of their trailer occurred so swiftly that Lester couldn’t quite recall the exact sequence of events. The first thing he remembered was Mr. Brown asking Lester’s daddy if it was true, what he was hearing around town.
A
ndy Noonan had hitched up his green workpants importantly and said, “And what’s that, pray tell?”
“That you intend to kill my boy?”
After Andy Noonan declared, “Hell yeah, I said it! What of it, you motherfucker—everything became a blur.
All Lester could be certain of was that Mr. Brown had put such a whupping on his daddy that his father hadn’t been the same since. That crazy loon put the Fear of God into my daddy! Then he’d turned his wild glare on Lester.
Mr. Brown wrapped one hand around Lester’s neck and held him by his throat against the wall of the trailer, feet dangling in the air, squeezing his windpipe until little black dots exploded behind his eyelids. He’d warned Lester that if he were the cause of Bud returning to the hospital that he’d be back to nail his sorry hide to the front door of their piece of shit trailer. Lester didn’t doubt it for a second. He’d seen the look in that man’s scary blue eyes. The same crazy look Bud had on his face the day he fucked up Charlie. Lester didn’t need any more warning than that.
The Noonans’ were like predators of the field. Only out to dominate those weaker than themselves. It was the law of the jungle, after all. The hyena had no business fucking with the lion. Charlie had simply forgotten that fact, and had paid the price for his arrogance.
Still in all, it could have ended up much worse for Lester. Bud Brown could have laid claim to the schoolyard, as was his right when he’d dethroned Charlie. Yet for some reason no Noonan would ever be able to understand, Mental had left the spoils for Lester to collect!
Which he’d done most gratefully—like a cur dog presenting his belly to his better.
There had been an unspoken truce between the two ever since: Leave his friends alone (that shrimp Rusty Huggins, the oh, so fuckable Josie O’Hara, and her little brother, too), and you can pretend you’re the Big Dog on the front porch. Lester had almost screwed that up yesterday by touching Josie’s tittie. And that lioness belongs to Bud! He didn’t think she would tell on him, though. She and Rusty were forever steering the big son of a bitch away from trouble. He gave nary a thought to Tubby Tolson. In the course of a single school day Lester bullied dozens of kids. The fat boy’s humiliation posed no more significance in his mind than his pre-shower shit.
Shouting in the distance brought Lester to a halt. Two gunshots followed. He listened intently: when he heard another gunshot, followed by more angry shouts, he decided it was time to get gone.
Somebody’s up to no damn good. Probably something to do with the Army Base, he thought. Maybe one of those test animals his daddy had told him about had gotten loose. Just another reason to get his ass back to bed.
Something wet and nasty fell on Lester’s outstretched hand. Semen-like. He flung it off in disgust, wiping his hand on the back of his jeans. Lester looked up and saw several similar splotches adhering to the branches above, like wads of bloody snot.
Weird how it’s so high up in the trees like that...
He hurried along now, suddenly aware that he was no longer alone. Something up there’s watching me.
A briar stabbed Lester’s thumb in flight, and he brought it up to his mouth to suck the wound.
The same dirty hand he’d just wiped on his jeans…
*******
Tubby and Josie were almost to the Academy when they noticed the sheriff’s car parked on the side of the road by the Old Oyster Trail. Parked in front of the patrol car were two green Ford Explorers. Josie and Tubby looked at each other at the same time. “What do you suppose—”
A bald, stumpy looking fellow, wearing a white lab coat, stepped from out of the trail, heading towards the first of the parked Explorers. Dressed all in white and bald as a cue ball, he looked like Mr. Clean.
He glanced over at Josie and Tubby, coming his way, before retreating to the back of his vehicle.
Josie grabbed Tubby by the arm and pulled him towards the other side of the street. Mr. Clean gave them a look over his shoulder, and then bent under a yellow streamer of crime scene tape, stretched across the trail.
Looking straight ahead, Josie hissed, “Stop staring, Ralphie!” They passed Moon Man’s before Josie allowed them to re-cross the street. She looked back up the dirt road. “Huh. Those SUV’s belong to the Research Center.” Her eyes opened wide. “Shite! Buddy boy was right!”
“About what?”
“About that feckin’ place out there being involved.”
Like a little kid in his older brother’s long shadow, Peg Leg Pete’s stood next door to the wax museum; the two rooflines three stories apart. Josie informed Tubby that theCreeps had a Tab there, which they paid at the end of every month. He followed behind as Josie pushed through the front door. A bell jingled merrily overhead. Peg Leg’s, despite its pirate sounding name, had no particular motif or style. Never having set foot in here before, Tubby had assumed it was a seafood restaurant. The chalk menu-board, posted behind the long serving counter, held a multitude of diverse choices, though none related to the sea. In fact, most of the items were breakfast related. At one time Peg Leg Pete’s was indeed a seafood restaurant. Mr. Peteovich, the owner, learned quickly on, though, that the residents of Moon ate enough free seafood at home to want to go out and pay for it at his place. Soon thereafter, he ascertained what the good people of Moon did want: Comfort food and plenty of it, too. Besides the multitude of breakfast choices, served all day, there were the inevitable cheeseburger platters, pork chops, fried chicken, and Pete’s famous specialty: Gyro wraps—even though he was Polish and not Greek. It wasn’t unheard of for a mainlander to come out all this way for one of Gregor’s hot lamb wraps.
Tubby looked around and tried to ignore the heavenly aroma of slow roasting lamb. Besides the counter, packed with the usual morning trade, sitting atop a row of red vinyl covered stools, there were a dozen tables topped with crisp white tablecloths. Five spacious booths lined the opposite wall. Rusty and Bud occupied the one farthest from the counter. Like a Great Dane and a Chihuahua sitting across from one another, it was a damn funny sight.
Josie pulled Tubby over to their booth. Rusty was downing a large tumbler of orange juice. “What’s up,Creeps,” she said, sliding next to Bud. She kissed him on the cheek and pulled his arm over her shoulder.
Rusty rolled his eyes as Tubby sat beside him. “Do you mind, Big Red? Jeez alou, I’m about to eat, and already you’re ruining my appetite with all that touchy-feely shit.”
Josie returned his perturbed gaze. “Nothing could ruin your appetite, Gnat.”
“I think I know what could put him off his feed,” Tubby said.
“Oh, yeah?” said Bud, noticing the annoyed look on Josie’s face. It was obvious she would’ve preferred Tubby keep that to himself. “Something you want to tell us, Joe?”
Sighing, Josie told Bud and Rusty what they’d just witnessed outside the Oyster Trail. “No big whoop, Bud. Just one of those lab rats pokin’ around out there.”
Bud didn’t seem all that surprised, while Rusty’s eyes widened at the news. Despite what Josie said, he knew it was a “Big Whoop.” Sightings of Center personnel were about as rare as the albino porpoise, which hadn’t been witnessed in these waters since 1999.
Rusty was about to venture a guess as to their motives when Mr. Pete walked over to their booth.
Gregor Peteovich was a short, burly looking man, with salt and pepper hair, matching bushy mustache, and a large bulbous nose. His arched eyebrows gave his mug a furious aspect in which his gentle gray eyes didn’t seem to belong. He took an order pad out of the front pocket of his apron and sighed wearily, waiting for them to order.
“Hey there, Mr. Pete,” Bud said, needling the testy Pole. “Nice day, huh?” Peteovich growled as he tapped a blunt pencil on his order pad.
Teasing Mr. Pete was one of Josie’s favorite pastimes. “It is a nice day! And thank you, Mr. Pete! You look lovely today, too! By the way,” she said, pointing at Tubby. “This fine lookin’ fellow here is Ralph Emerson Tolson. Sounds like a p
oet’s name, doesn’t it? Even so, he’s okay to use our Tab.”