Wednesday, August 10, 2005
In Response to Cricket's Call for Controversial and/or Weird Posts
So last night I was up late gutting children. Jimmy Bob came home with an empty Kidsack, so at first it looked to be a nogo. But then Red Johnson's pickup roared up the mud path, and the headlights slashed through the slats in our shack, turning Jimmy Bob into a zebra. Once Red laid into that horn we knew the fun was on. He came in draggin that sack full of kids and dumped em out on the floor like a bunch of fish heads, ready for cleanin. I use an old steak knife I stole from the Meat and Eat, but Jimmy Bob, he prefers to use his own incisors.

. . .

Sometimes when I'm running, and there's a kid sitting cross-legged in the sidewalk, I want to punt them just to see what would happen. "That jogger just punted my baby!" some woman would say, and I'd give a thumbs up, as if to say, "Yes, I did."

. . .

This is how I had sex for money. The first time.

August approached me in the reading room of the Albia Library. He had a romance novel hooked under one arm, like always, and I looked up from my US News feature on the Matrix sequels. August smiled and I smiled back; this is what you do for old men. And he asked my name.

"We'd like to have our way with a boy like you," he said.

"What?"

"Fuck you, I mean. Me and my buddies. Down at the Eagles'. Ten bucks a piece."

I looked around for Goathead or Ryan. They'd put this guy up to it, right?"

"Are you serious?"

"Serious as hell and twice as horny."

I sighed, ran a hand over my eyes. "Make it twenty a piece."

"For your scrawny ass?" He laughed, then went into a coughing fit. "Fifteen's as high as we go, you gangly manwhore."

I made 175 bucks that night, before tips.

. . .

Sometimes I cut off parts of myself. I've only done it three times so far, and it's all done on my feet at this point, so none of you know.

For research, I tell myself. But really it's because I get off on it.

Alyssa works nights now, and is out of the house when I'm home, so this is easier.

I get in the bathtub. There's a cleaver beneath the hand towels in the spare closet, and I get it out, pick a toe, and then just go, thwock, the sound of a tennis ball on bricks. And then I usually scream and lose control of my bladder and pass out for a few seconds into the tub.

. . .


"So," I said. "You're the last African Blue-Tailed Crocodile."

The crocodile said nothing. He wiggled his head a bit but all the duct tape kept him pretty firmly in the lawnchair.

"What's your name?" I sauntered up, took a first drag off the Camel, and then tossed it into the corner. It spun end-over-end out of the beam of light, then disappeared into shadow. The glowing cherry twinkled in, twinkled out, and finally the smoke landed in the corner. I can't stand smokes, not even for effect.

The crocodile swished his tail.

"Come on!" I said. "What's your name?" And I lost it, I sunk my fist into the croc's belly. The scales and loose flesh felt like a wet suitcase.

"Come on!" I said again, and slapped him in his duct-taped jaw. I fished around for my walkie talkie to order in a shockstick, but then the croc's tail shot across the bottom part of my vision and cracked my knee in two. I was on the ground before I knew what that splintering sound meant. "You motherfucker," I said, and passed out.
. . .

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