Sourmouth

by Cyle James

  Violet raised her eyebrows before simply nodding in response.

  Without bothering to continue talking Riley walked past his wife and headed up the stairs to the second floor with the intention of grabbing the little bound book from its attic hideaway.

  Violet mutely collected what was left of their breakfast in the grocery bag, hoping that it was the last time she’d be seeing the inside of Poyam’s house. Of course she took the time alone to envision their next steps. What could they do aside from run? Did she actually think that they could turn this situation around into a run of good fortune? Or was she merely deluding herself in effort to try to make her husband as happy as she could without endangering them?

  Riley came back down the stairs two at a time, the journal clutched tightly in his right hand. While up there he had grabbed his last bag and a light windbreaker from the master bedroom and threw both over his shoulder.

  He walked straight to the front door and paused as he looked back with it half open, “Are you ready or am I going alone?”

  Violet heaved the grocery bag over her own shoulder and followed her husband out as he locked the door behind them.

  To anyone watching it might have looked like he was casually chasing her as she nearly sprinted to the car. Of course while he wasn’t actually chasing her, Violet couldn’t help but want to get away from him until she had the time to calm down. Sadly for her desire for a moment alone, Riley immediately joined her in the car.

  Riley looked over and noticed the tightened jaw and the frown on his wife’s face, “What did I do wrong now?”

  “Nothing,” she said definitively.

  “Nothing? You seem like you’re ready to smother me to death with that plastic bag”.

  Violet turned to her husband as she tossed the groceries into the back seat, scattering them about on the floor, “You’d honestly deserve it if I did. You, acting like a chump like this”.

  “A chump? No, a chump is some loser on the corner bumming for nickels and dimes. I’m a lot of things, but a chump isn’t one of them,” he defended.

  “You’re a chump because you’re turning your back on me when we’re supposed to be sticking together. Right now we’re in the shit. Knee deep in the fucking shit. And I could use my husband right now, my fellow fucking soldier. But you’re mentally AWOL on me and I’m all alone”.

  “I’m here. I’m right here with you trying to figure this out. I always have been. It isn’t easy when I’m getting yelled at. Or when I’m working off a plan that’s constantly being shredded and pieced back together”.

  “But that’s part of it. The randomness of not knowing what we’re doing. That is a perfectly acceptable reaction to all this, especially to this. But even in that, in the confusion, at least we’re together on it. Or we’re supposed to be”.

  Riley turned the key in the ignition and started off in a slow roll, gripping the steering wheel tightly as he picked up speed. He wasn’t sure how he could respond in a way that would smooth things out. The way he saw it, she was just as much at fault for the tension between them as he was. The difference was that she still wanted to blame him and he didn’t have the energy to blame her back.

  Violet snorted and slunk back into her seat, eyeing the book wrapped in its garbage bag on the dashboard. Part of her wanted to chuck it out the window as they drove to town. Part of her wanted to chuck Riley out the window if she could fit him.

  #

  “Moron,” she said.

  “Bitch,” he said back.

  “Asshole”.

  “Cunt”.

  “Piss mop”.

  “Piss mop?”

  “Yeah. Like, a janitor’s mop after he cleans the restroom,” Violet explained.

  Riley stopped at the entryway to the museum with his hand on the door handle, “I am not a piss mop”.

  She paused and raised her eyebrows, her eyes going from her husband to Anna who was standing on the other side of the glass inside looking back at them with her arms crossed, a look of confusion apparent on her face.

  “Admit that I’m not a piss mop or we’re not going in,” he said.

  “I’m not going to admit to something that’s not true. You are the pissiest piss mop that’s ever mopped a piss-covered restroom floor. But if it makes you feel any better, it’s a floor in a very upscale hotel restroom,” she replied with a smirk.

  Riley moaned and leaned his back against the door as if to imply that they weren’t going in anytime soon.

  Without words Violet pointed over his shoulder at an old couple trying to leave the building, and the longer they had to wait the more exceedingly mystified they were by Riley’s choice of resting place.

  “Oh shit,” Riley said with a jump, getting out of the way and holding the door open for their exit.

  “I’m sorry for my piss mop husband and his rude demeanour,” Violet apologized as she swept past them and into the museum as if he had been holding the door open for her the entire time.

  Riley followed inside like a scorned child just as Anna greeted them with open arms, a small smile beaming across her face. She was standing excitedly on her toes with a cup of tea held high in her hands. She seemed to be in a much better mood than the previous time that they had visited, perhaps simply because she was hoping for something in return for her effort in the exchanging of pleasantries.

  “I thought you two wouldn’t be back again, let alone so soon,” said the woman as she took a sip from her red mug emblazoned with cartoon kittens.

  “We mops get around. Sometimes it takes a while though, with all of our back and forth swaying. If we get real lucky somebody puts us in a bucket and carries us abou,t” Riley jested at himself rather sternly.

  “What?” Anna asked bewildered from behind her cup.

  “Nothing,” Violet answered with a slap on her husband’s arm.

  Anna gave her head a twist like a cat as if to shake the thought, “I’m hoping that you brought me a gift?”

  Riley nodded and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out the book sans barbed wire.

  The Museum Woman reached out and grabbed away the journal, opening it with one hand at a feverish pace to admire the contents.

  “We were hoping that you could help us now that you can get your hands on this. A bit more than last time at least, not that what you told us was worthless,” Riley said awkwardly as he watched her scan the pages with a delirious smile.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, you desperately need my help. I heard you the first time you asked. I just don’t know what you want me to do for you. I’ve told you all that I know,” Anna said with her face deep in the book.

  “You said that you heard stories about Sourmouth when you were little. Obviously there are other people that might know something else if there were people who were able to tell you,” Violet rationalized.

  Anna made a little acknowledgment with the corner of her mouth, “I suppose. There’s a small tribe that lives on the island. I wouldn’t advise you to simply walk onto their reserve unless you fancy being shot with an old Garand. I suggest you bother them someplace more neutral”.

  “And how would we go about that?” Riley queried.

  Anna raised her eyebrows, her eyes still examining the book, “There’s a small shack of a building upwards into the mountain, real dredge to find it though. They call it a business but between you and me, I’ve got no idea whether or not they even make money. It’s a taxidermy shop that doesn’t even have a name as far as I know. The thing about it is that hunting here is pretty much illegal. Guns can’t be discharged and there’s no large game anymore. The bears and cougars have all been killed off. And the deer have been hit by so many cars that the RCMP has had to give them a few years to repopulate, so it’s illegal right now to kill any of them. So you’re basically left with shooting rabbits and birds with crossbows and only on private property. How a taxidermy shop stays alive in these conditions is beyond me”.

  “How do you think the person could help
us?” Violet said quizzically.

  “Persons, actually. It’s run by two older gentlemen. They are known as some of the more fantastical storytellers on this island. That is, when they’re sober. Not to sound like a racist...but they’re a couple of louses if you ask me. They spend a little too much time in one of the bars ‘round these parts. Can’t say that I blame them, if they can’t work what else are they going to do? Fact is that there aren’t a whole lot of activities on this island but to drink, golf and see the so-called glorious sights. So I can’t fault them for choosing the former of the options”.

  “A lead is a lead, no matter how fantastical,” said Riley.

  Riley reached out with his palm up waiting for the book back, “Thank you for your help”.

  Riley’s fingers hovered over the book for what felt like ages. Finally she responded by looking up towards him with a sneer. He could tell that she was contemplating not even handing it over. But realized that the value wouldn’t be worth the trouble she’d get if she just decided to create a fuss and claim it as hers. Reluctantly she closed the book and handed it back.

  “Would it be too much trouble to ask you for directions?” Violet asked inelegantly, sensing the tension between the other two.

  Anna hooted as she turned to walk away, “Do I look like your damn GPS?”

  #

  Violet rested her arms on top of the rental car, her head dropping into a sleeping position.

  Riley leaned against the car on the other side, his arms folded against his chest.

  “If you want to try to look all cool against your badass ride, might I suggest doing it on the side of the street where there isn’t traffic?” Violet said, her eyes locked on the back of her husband’s head.

  He looked up and down the street and shrugged, “I’m not seeing any traffic. Even standing still I think that we are the traffic”.

  “I’ve got a million dollar life insurance policy out on you anyway”.

  “How’d you manage that? I’m pretty sure I’d need to sign something for that,” he asked inquisitively.

  “I slept with the bank manager. It’s amazing what a man like that can accomplish when he’s given the right persuasion”.

  Riley turned around with a smile, “And you’re the right persuasion?”

  Violet stepped back from the car, mocking being offended, “You’re questioning my feminine wiles?”

  “A little bit. After all I’m the one that wooed you,” he stated.

  “That right? We seem to remember the past differently. I remember that I came to work wearing a tight, short yellow dress that was practically the colour of the sun. And you were doing some guy’s lizard makeup for a fight scene. And as soon as you saw me you nearly poked him in the eye with your paintbrush. I think you might have been drooling all over the actor’s latex”.

  Riley licked his lips, nodding as if amused by her description.

  “I think it went something like that but with a few minor changes. I recall you showing up on set looking like a humanoid banana. Of course I was distracted. Even I couldn’t come up with a monster design that farfetched. I was very impressed, creatively that is”.

  Violet broke out in laugher, the corners of her eyes crinkling up like Christmas paper.

  Riley pushed off of the car door and walked around the hood, ending up beside his wife.

  “Even though you looked like you fell off of a tree, I loved you from the moment that I saw you,” he professed, running his hands down the sides of her arms.

  “And you couldn’t wait until you could peel back my skin and get to the delicious mushy center,” Violet joked as she leaned in to hug her husband.

  He leaned over and kissed his wife on her forehead, “My doctor did say that I do need my potassium”.

  With a slight pause of recognition that they were no longer going to bicker, at least for the time being, the couple stepped back and looked around.

  “You have any idea of what direction to head in for this mystery shack?” she asked, squinting in the mid-day sun.

  “I’m going to guess that it’s on the island and probably higher up than we are now. But aside from that I’m as lost as you are”.

  “Options then? There are a few women that have already done more than enough for us that I’d prefer not to keep hounding even if they did answer. And I definitely don’t want to go back to the information centre unless we’re burning that to the ground”.

  “I could always swallow my manly pride and ask for directions”.

  “Aww. You’d do that for me?” she asked with a smile.

  “I’d do anything for you,” Riley started, “You are my main Chiquita, aren’t you?”

  Chapter 10

  Riley asked a few people where the taxidermy shop was with little luck. It seemed that somehow everyone he spoke to was a tourist. That was until he had the bright idea that he should ask someone who worked in one of the nearby businesses, as they’d in the very least frequent the island enough to know about the place, better yet they were more likely to live there. The idea paid off as the first man they spoke to in a small trinket store pointed them in the right direction. The couple were given intense details on the winding roads to the store, otherwise affectionately known as Skin N Bones. And after an almost brisk fifteen minute ride in the opposite direction of their typical route, they were able to find the house-turned-business which would have otherwise been invisible to the side of the road.

  The Skin N Bones was nearly creepier than they would have typically expected of a place that gutted and stuffed dead animals. It was only about twenty feet wide and thirty feet long. For a place to be both a storefront and a working shop, breathing room inside must have been awfully scarce. Its exterior was made up of timeworn grey wood, depressingly sapped of any of nature’s original colouring as it had baked in the sun over years and years. Its few windows were boarded up with plywood, streaks of graffiti plastered over top. The only sign advertising its services looked to have been a small sign that hung on the front door with the business’s name written on the side of a torn off piece of a cardboard box.

  “I might not be ready for this,” Violet said as she eyed the establishment which was long beyond starting to decay.

  “We’ll be fine. I’m sure that we’re not going to get a stuffing tube shoved down our throats and turned into human teddy bears”.

  She turned to her husband, “Is that how taxidermy works? I don’t think that making children’s toys and turning a corpse into a statue is quite the same process”.

  “Will you stop calling me out on things I don’t know?” he asked as he started off towards the front porch with his head pointed to the ground.

  With hesitation Violet followed, her eyes constantly scanning the scene every few feet for the forensic evidence that would tell of serial killers ahead. The logical part of her brain said that it was good news that there weren’t human fingers lying in the grass. But the crazy in her wanted to find a tongue lying about just so she could brag to her husband about how she was right to be so cautious.

  “How do you want to approach this?” Violet asked as they stood awkwardly in front of the doorway, trying to peek through the screen door like sheriffs stumbling into a saloon to take away a pesky varmint that’s been terrorizing the town.

  “You could always pretend that you want to stuff your kitty so that we don’t get thrown out on our asses for harassing the workers. Then as we’re inquiring about their services we could ask a few questions about local history and all that jazz”.

  She nodded, impressed, “I did not even think about them being annoyed for us bugging them with questions. For some reason I thought they’d just go with it”.

  “That’s why you married me”.

  “I married you for your money”.

  “What money?” he laughed.

  Riley knocked twice on the creaking screen door which begged to be ripped down and replaced, before opening it without invitation. Immediately inside they
were hit by the strangest combination of scents. Their untrained noses detected whiffs of alcohol combined with clay, with bits of bleach and notes of copper that indicated stale blood. Neither of them knew anything about hunting, so they couldn’t surmise whether or not the smells matched what they should have been in such a place. What they were being assaulted with could very well have been the scents to the domain of mass murderers.

  On the thick oaken walls were plaques with the detached heads of various animals ranging from the snarling wolves to the wide eyed coyotes. In the corner by the entrance hovered the towering body of a Grizzly bear reared up on its hind legs, its head scraping against the ceiling with its mouth agape in complaint. In the background of the shop, Blue Oyster Cult played over the static filled radio, giving the room an unwelcome ambiance. Every surface in the store was covered in dust and grit. The floorboards were stained with brown puddles of dried blood from hunters dragging in their fresh kills to be stuffed.

  About a quarter of the way in was a line on the ground, a long strip of duct tape crookedly laid down to split the shop into sections, clearly designating where the customers and workers were allowed to go. Behind the line was a workshop area, blanketed with various tools and animals mid transformation. For every unlabelled bottle of chemicals was a sharp tool covered in crimson. Closest to the door laying on a metal table a few feet off of the ground was a slab of meat, closely resembling the body of a skunk. But close was the defining description, as it had its head replaced by that of a small dog.

  “What on Earth is that?” Violet asked as she craned her neck to inspect closer.

  “That is what I call a Skunknine, a skunk and canine hybrid,” said a voice from behind a cabinet oddly sitting in the middle of the showroom.

  The man who spoke was sitting in a backless swivel stool, his partner a few feet beside him standing by a drafting table. The men were both native and in their fifties at least, possibly even a decade older. Both had lengthy white and grey beards that masked a lot of their faces and made it hard to distinguish their features and age. Their noses were bulbous and red; gin-blossomed from many years of lounging around in dingy bars. Both wore wide ties that looked like they belonged to cowboys. And both were oddly dressed in faint coloured dress suits that were far too baggy and drenched in dry blood; based on the level of wrinkles and setting of the stains the shirts appeared to have never been pressed or cleaned. The two men looked so similar to one another that they could easily have been mistaken for brothers that had continued dressing alike beyond childhood.