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by Edward Lee

  Helton began, “Is he—”

  Dumar nodded.

  Micky-Mack had taken one bullet directly in the navel.

  And five or six more directly in the groin.

  “Damn fool kid,” Helton said. He closed Micky-Mack’s eyelids. “But he died fightin’ for the family…”

  “That he did, Paw, and at least I’se avenged him by bustin’ that one fella’s coconut with the Webley,” Dumar commiserated.

  “They got one’a us, and we got one’a them. Still even odds, son.” Helton unbuckled the boy’s blood-saturated jeans and pulled them down. “But I gots me a hunch…”

  “A hunch, Paw?”

  “It’s called proverdence, Dumar”—he pointed to the gory mess of Micky-Mack’s bullet-perforated genitals—“and, see? I was right.”

  The tight group of bullets had completely severed Micky-Mack’s oversized penis. “That’s payin’ fer yer sins the hard way. I done tolt Micky-Mack not ta be braggin’ ’bout that big dick’a his, and look what happens. God saw to it that his peter get shot clean off.” Helton picked it up and shook it like a raw sausage.

  “Dang,” Dumar muttered.

  “But that weren’t his only sin, son.”

  “What’cha mean, Paw?”

  “See, Micky-Mack committered a even worse sin than the sin’a pride.” Helton eyed his son gravely. “He stole, too. He stole from the family…”

  “Huh?”

  Helton nodded. “When we’se first started out on this feud, Micky-Mack offered me some money for food, money he said Nuce Wynchel paid him fer helpin’ him and his son Tube finish up the post-holes on that lot’a land he got right next ta Charlie Fuchson’s pasture. But, see, Micky-Mack lied. ’cos we saw Nuce the other day just startin’ them post-holes.”

  Dumar scratched his head. “Then…how’d Micky-Mack earn that money?”

  “It pains me ta say this, but there ain’t no other way: Micky-Mack got hisself that cash-roll from none other than Hall Sladder—”

  “No!”

  “Yessir. That’s why Micky-Mack was out in the woods that day, tippin’ Sladder off ’bout where my ‘shine stash was hid, and probably even helpin’ him load the jugs. Then he kilt some hill-tramp’n made up some malarky ’bout it bein’ one’a Sladder’s cornmash whores.”

  “Gawd dang, Paw! That sucks!”

  “That it does. Greed’s a terrible sin, too, and I guess ever family’s got a touch of it. Pains me just as much ta say that your boy Crory—may the Lord take him—had a touch of it hisself. I caught the little tyke stealin’ more’n once.”

  Dumar nodded, dejected. “Yeah, Paw, I know. Little bugger was always rippin’ off change from me’n denyin’ it. Half the time I’se pretend I didn’t notice…”

  “But it ain’t fer us ta judge others, son. Only God do that. We’se all born in original sin and are subject to temptation.” His eyes readdressed his dead nephew. “Far as I’se concerned, Micky-Mack done atoned hisself fer his sins against the family by dyin’ fer the family.”

  “Amen.”

  They buried the boy summarily in the woods, and threw his severed penis into the grave too, before they covered him over.

  “So’s what we do now, ’bout Paulie I mean?” Dumar queried.

  Helton rested his chin on dirty fingertips. “We’ll drive ’round like before, look for him, try and sneak up on the evil bastard. If’n we cain’t find him right off”—he shrugged—“then we wait till we do. We got time but a fella like Paulie don’t. He ain’t patient, and those who ain’t patient always make mistakes.”

  Back in the truck, they ate more of their pilferage from Marshie Caudill’s kitchen, this time bluecorn tortilla chips and mojo-flavored plantain crisps.

  “Shore is some funny snacks she buy,” Dumar said, crunching chips.

  “This here fussy stuff’s rich-people food, Dumar. I’se think foo-foo is the word. God prefer it when a person’s humble ’bout their roots, but Marshie? Shee-it. That jizz-can was born poor in the backwoods like us, but since she inherit all that money? It get to her head, get her thinkin’ she’s better’n other folks, like eatin’ these fussy blue ‘tater chips mean she got class. Same reason she still drives around in that Rolls Royce, but in the end, it don’t matter what she eats, what she drives, or what she wears. She still ain’t nothin’ but a low-down, lyin’, thievin’, prideful money-grubbin’ backwoods whore.”

  Dumar nodded. “Wouldn’t mind suckin’ on them big hooters’a hers though, and jackin’ me off a big dick-snot on ’em.”

  “Any natural man’d want to do that, son.”

  “But…speakin’ of hooters…”

  Both men looked into the forward corner…to Veronica.

  She lay there asleep, and not even handcuffed anymore.

  “Poor gal,” Helton sympathized. ‘S’my fault. Since showin’ her the movin’-picture, Veronnerka been in shock. I’se even tolt her she could leave after she send Paulie our last movie but instead she dozed off again and been that way all day…”

  “Dang shame…”

  “Might take her a spell ta git back ta normal, or maybe…” Helton thought of something. “Maybe if’n she see somethin’ familiar, she’ll snap out of it.”

  “What’cha mean, Paw?”

  “Like maybe…that place she work! The Best Buy where she solt us the fancy camera!” Helton stared the big truck. “Try to roust her up, son. Won’t be but a few minutes ‘fore we’re there.”

  Helton pulled the truck out, made the proper cumbersome turns, and was soon heading down the proper gayly-decorated thoroughfare. There’s the place, he thought, spying the well-lit sign. However, even at the intersection before the store, he could see…

  God on High, I cain’t thank Ya enough!

  Paulie’s Winnebago was parking in the Best Buy lot, right before the OPEN TILL MIDNIGHT sign.

  It was only twenty of.

  “Change’a plans, son!” he yelled back and pulled around the block. “Look around back…and see if ya can find the crowbar…”

  (VII)

  Paulie and Argi walked briskly toward the store. Argi had an overcoat on but hadn’t yet fastened it. Paulie frowned.

  “Argi. What’d’ya think you’re doin’? We’re going into a store, you know? A public place. Ya got your ball hangin’ out of your pants.”

  Argi stopped, wincing at the persistent pain. “I know, boss, but shit, if I put it back in my pants, it even hurts more.”

  Paulie leaned over to look. “Fuck, man. It’s swollen up the size of a fuckin’ avocado!”

  Argi daintily dabbed at the distended scrotal sack. Indeed, the afflicted testicle had inflamed to several times its normal size. “Big as it is now, I probably couldn’t get it back in my pants if I tried. I’ll just have to leave it out and keep the coat over it. Wouldn’t want to offend any Christmas shoppers.”

  “Naw, you’re right. We wouldn’t wanna do that…”

  The doors yawned open; they strolled into the brightly lit store. Immediately a spiked-haired young man greeted, “Welcome to Bust Buy, and happy holidays. How can I help you?”

  Paulie wagged the cellphone and broken charger. “I need a phone charger. Now.”

  “Right over here, sir.”

  The clerk took them to the phone section. In the background, at the television department, dozens of super-bright flat-screen TV’s showed a local male newscaster with a crooked red- and green-striped tie pointing to a weather map of North America. “And, folks, this just in! NORAD has just reported Santa’s official entry into U.S. airspace!” He chuckled. “Let’s just hope the Air Force doesn’t shoot him down!”

  The clerk produced the necessary charger. “Here you go, anything else?”

  Paulie busted the charger out of its box. “Yeah, I need to charge my phone here, I’ll pay extra. I gotta make a real important call.”

  The clerk’s brow rose. “It’ll take a while to charge up a totally dead cell, but I’d be happy to loan you
my phone.”

  “Naw, naw, the number I gotta call is on this phone…”

  The clerk squinted at Paulie’s cell. “That’s the same Blackberry I have, sir. Here”—he took the battery out of his phone and put it in Paulie’s. “Go ahead and make your call.”

  “Argi, give him a C-note,” Paulie said and started dialing.

  “Sure, boss,” Argi said.

  “Why, thanks very much, sir!” the clerk beamed.

  Paulie ambled off, phone to ear. The line was ringing, then—

  “Hello?” came the voice of Helton Tuckton.

  “You Gomer Pyle redneck fuck! Nobody fucks my kid in the head! Nobody!”

  “Yeah? Well we’se just did.”

  “How can ya fuck a dead baby in the head!”

  The clerk gulped, and asked Argi, “Uhhhh…what did he say?”

  “Nothin’, kid, nothin’.”

  “Easy. ’cos it was your baby,” Helton’s voice replied over the line. It was strange, though. He seemed to be whispering. Why would he do that? “And lemme tell you this, Paulie—I’se never had such a good cum in my life.”

  “So fuck all this movie shit! We’re havin’ it out! Tonight! You name the place, we’ll be there. And we’re gonna grind your hillbilly faggot asses into ground chuck!”

  Helton chuckled over the line. “I’se name the place, huh?”

  “Yeah! Then we go head to head!” Paulie yelled. “Tell us where to meet ya!”

  “All right. How’s about we meet…right here?”

  “What the fuck you talkin’ about! I’m in a goddamn Best—”

  The clerk began to object, “Uh, sir? What’s going on?”

  sheeeeeeeeeeeesh…SWACK!

  The clerk hit the floor like a metal duck in a shooting gallery.

  “Holy fuck, boss!” Argi yelled and drew his gun.

  Paulie gaped at the clerk, who now had a red hole right in his forehead.

  “Aw, sheee-it. I up’n hit the wrong fella,” Helton’s voice echoed, but not over the phone.

  From somewhere in the store.

  Paulie and Argi ducked behind the phone counter.

  “They’re in the fuckin’ store, boss,” Argi stated the obvious.

  “How the fuck they get in without us seein’ ’em?”

  “Must’ve busted in through the back.”

  “Helton, you fuck!” Paulie bellowed. “Where are ya?”

  Helton’s voice boomed like a megaphone now. “Why, I’se right here…”

  Paulie and Argi peeked over the top. Beside a dump-stand of Microsoft Office Home And Student stood Helton, shielding most of his hulking frame. He held a slingshot.

  Argi nudged Paulie. “And over there, boss.”

  Dumar knelt beside a row of compact disk bins. Only half of his face could be seen, but held out before that face was a big pistol.

  Helton extended his arm, the slingshot dangling from his hand. “All right. Let’s see just what kind’a man you really is. No weapons, just bare hands. Right here. Us against you…”

  “You’re on, Jed Clampett!”

  Helton smirked. “Who? I don’t know no…,” but he just shrugged and dropped his slingshot. Then he stepped fully out into the aisle.

  Dumar—

  CLACK!

  —dropped the big pistol.

  “I’ll take the long-hair,” Paulie said. “You take Helton.”

  “It’d be a pleasure, boss.”

  Both mobsters threw their guns over the counter, then stood up—

  “EEEEEEEEE-Haaa!” Dumar yelled and was already somersaulting through the air. His body smacked across Paulie’s chest and toppled him. Helton charged as well, clotheslining Argi as the beefy lieutenant was trying to take off his overcoat. And from this point on, sheer pandemonium ensued.

  Dumar pummeled Paulie on the tile floor, then—

  THUD!

  —several teeth flew out when Paulie hoisted a lucky knee to the redneck’s chin. Helton and Argi duked it out in fisticuffs, big knuckles colliding into faces. But when Argi rammed his head into Helton’s belly, Helton went down. This gave the lieutenant time to finally divorce himself of the cumbersome overcoat.

  Helton sprang back up but paused, gaping. “What’s that there hangin’ out’cher pants, fella? That ain’t a ball, is it?”

  “It sure as fuck is, hill-trash!” By now inflammation had swelled the injured testicle to something almost as large as a mango. “That blond-haired hillbilly punk busted it with his slingshot!”

  Helton chuckled at the ludicrous sight. “Well, I’ll be bustin’ the other one fer ya, and then I’m gonna fuck ya in yer head!”

  “Go ahead and try, Gomer!”

  Helton scratched his head. “Why the hail yawl keep callin’ me Gomer?”

  Glass shattered. Fists rammed into ribs. When Paulie kicked Dumar’s feet out from under him, the backwoods man had an entire revolving rack of MP-3 players hauled down on his back. Paulie climbed onto a counter, poised himself, and jumped, knees heading for Dumar’s chest, but—

  Dumar rolled out of the way at the last second.

  “Fooled you, city boy!”

  Paulie rocked on the floor in agony, and as he did so—

  whisssssssssssssssssss…

  Dumar urinated in his face.

  Meanwhile, Helton and Argi had rough-and-tumbled their way toward the kitchen appliance section. When Helton heaved a Galantz 0.6 cubic-foot microwave at Argi, the latter man ducked and heaved back a Haier-brand mini-refrigerator. The fridge struck Helton right in the head—

  “Have a headache on me, Gomer!”

  Helton merely blinked, shrugged, then laughed.

  They shambled down the aisle, heaving every conceivable appliance at one another: blenders, toaster ovens, knife-sharpeners, can-openers, even a rotisserie hot-dog cooker. Helton took a Brellville Fountain Elite Juicer right across the sternum, he fell over, sprang back up, and—

  WHAM!

  —hit Argi right in the exposed testicle with a George Foreman Grill. Argi’s eyes crossed, his cheeks billowed, and he collapsed in incalculable agony.

  “Now there’s the ticket!” Helton rejoiced.

  Quite bemused, he watched the convulsions of his adversary. The ox-like Argi cringed in a series of caterwauls, shrieks, bellows, and outright baby-bawling, hands clasped to the vandalized organ.

  That fella won’t be gettin’ up soon, Helton reasoned. He loped back to check on his son, noticing that the entire phone department was trashed now, every glass counter blown out. Then, like someone at a tennis match, Helton looked left but his gaze swerved right watching Paulie fly through the air and crash headlong into a DVD display that boasted: HORROR MOVIE BLOWOUT SALE! BUY NINE LIVES STARRING PARIS HILTON FOR $1.99 AND GET PINATA: SURVIVOR ISLAND, THE DEVIL’S CURSE, VENOM, THE EMPTY ACRE, THE SANDMAN, JUST BURIED, DEMONESS, BARN OF THE NAKED DEAD, THE HOUSE WHERE HELL FROZE OVER, AND BLOOD SHACK FREE!

  Lousy DVD’s flew everywhere.

  “Well, hey there, Dumar!” Helton complimented, “That there’s some’a the finest man-throwin’ I’se ever seed!”

  “Thanks, Paw,” Dumar said, dusting himself off. “T’was easy.”

  They both grinned as a pummeled Paulie crawled dazedly away on hands and knees.

  Argi remained shuddering on the floor between the washers and dryers when his boss caromed around the corner.

  “Goddamn, Argi! Those rednecks are kickin’ our asses!”

  Argi’s teeth chattered when he replied, “You ain’t kiddin’, boss…”

  “That skinny kid was throwin’ me around like a frisbee!”

  Agri nodded through persistent agony. “And that big one? Fuck, I must’ve punched him in the head ten times—hard—but it was like bangin’ my fist into a rock. I even hit him in the head with a fuckin’ refrigerator and nothin’ happened. Then he got me in the nut with a Foreman Grill—”

  ”Ouch!” Paulie wiped blood off his face. “We gotta get our guns back—”


  “Yeah, but they’re all they way over the in phone section.”

  “We don’t stand a chance…”

  Chuckling could be heard, then Helton boomed, “You citified fellas cain’t hack a tussle with real backwoods men.”

  “Guess they’se need a breather, Paw. We up’n tuckered ’em out.”

  “S’fine with me. Go ahead, Paulie, take a breather, then we’ll have another go and finish this. Been dickin’ ’round with you low-lifes fer too long. Yeah, we’ll finish it, all right, and then we’ll fuck both yer heads.”

  “I wanna fuck that Paulie in the head fierce, Paw!”

  “Yeah, son, we’ll have ourselfs a dandy header with him, and we’ll make a movin’ picture of it and get it to his wife, and then we’ll find her too, and fuck her head.”

  “EEEE-doggie!”

  Paulie shot his lieutenant a look of total dread. “Fuck, Argi, what we get ourselves into?”

  “It’s fucked up, boss. I don’t think we’re gonna get out of this one.”

  Paulie sighed. “Well, then we’ll fuckin’ die tryin’…”

  “We’se ready when you all is, Paulie,” Helton’s voice echoed.

  Paulie and Argi dragged themselves up…

  But Helton and Dumar were strangely looking off. They were looking at a row of big-screen, high-def TV’s.

  “What gives here?” Paulie muttered.

  The weather forecast on the TV abruptly snapped off, and a stolid newscaster was saying: “We interrupt this broadcast for some late-breaking news. Just minutes ago the Pulaksi County Sheriff’s Department reported a break in what local residents have come to know as the ‘Puppy Killer Case,’” and then the screen flashed to a close up of a jowly police officer under which a legend read DEPUTY CHIEF DOOD MALONE. The man seemed to be chewing tobacco as he spoke. “Folks, I’m happy as all get-out to report that we’se finally got ourselves a solid lead in this horrifyin’ case that has just been up’n ruinin’ the holiday season for so many of us. See, what we got is a police surveillance video of this low-down, dog-torturin’ psychopath.” Malone pointed into the camera. “Now I want yawl to watch…”

  “What the hell’s this?” Paulie asked. “They caught that guy who was cuttin’ off puppies’ heads?”