Grundish & Askew (8 page)

“
Blahhhhhhh
!” Shirley screams and runs for his front door. Blood streams down his cheek and onto his exposed chest. Only when he reaches the apparent safety of the inside of his trailer, with the door locked, does he pluck the hard frozen meat-stick from his eye socket. Blood trickles down the side of his nose, down his neck, and soaks into his dirty robe. Shirley drops into a shuddering mass of flesh on his couch, rolls up into fetal position, and weeps.

Outside of Shirley’s trailer, Grundish doubles over in a hysterical fit of laughter.

“I think maybe you went a little bit far with this one, Pal,” Askew says to Grundish. He laughs too, though. “I mean, aren’t you afraid that the cops’ll be out here and that Ms. Velda will violate your parole for this crazy fit you just threw?”

Gaining control of himself, Grundish stands erect again and laughs some more. “Hell, no! These guys want as little to do with the law as me. Nobody is gonna go and call the pigs out here. Hell, if the law comes out this way, they’re gonna be looking to bust all of these guys for anything that they can. These old boys around us are sexual offenders, Son. They’re a bigger target for the cops than one little old ex-con burglar who has been staying out of trouble.”

“You may be right,” Askew agrees. “But then again, you never know what’s going to happen when you pull crazy shit like this. I guess the point is
mute
now. Next time though, please try to
appraise
me of your intentions to do crazy shit like this. I don’t need to be involved in these kind of
incidences
.”

In his peripheral vision Askew catches a blur of action. Before he has time to think about what is happening, Askew acts. And when the whole situation is done, and the blood is shed, and their lives are irreparably changed, it all plays back in his head like a bad movie.

•  •  •

Askew saw the man known as Bumpy D sprinting toward Grundish’s back. Bumpy D’s trousers were dropped to mid-thigh, the pervert’s flag flying at half-mast, and he still displayed the swiftness of a track star. Even more amazing was that fact that the entire time he charged Grundish, Bumpy D was jerking his dick in large violent strokes.

Grundish had looked out for Askew almost all of their lives. If Askew was going to get caught for something illegal, Grundish gladly took the fall and never mentioned it again. If someone challenged Askew to a fight, Grundish jumped in and threw down before Askew ever had a chance to defend himself. If Askew needed money, Grundish would give him whatever little amount he could scrounge up or steal. Grundish, the ultimate big brother figure to Askew, always took care of his best friend. It was only natural that Askew’s instincts would lead him to protect Grundish.

Bumpy D charged Grundish like a demented knight jousting with a crooked pork sword. Instinctively, Askew screamed “
Noooooooooooo...
” and dived in Bumpy D’s path, blocking Grundish from the masturbatory onslaught. At the same moment that Askew launched himself into the air, Bumpy D discharged a massive wad of spuz from his battered penis. The jism stretched into a pink-tinged pearlish strand, rounded on both ends and thin in the middle. The lustrous gob flew, end over end, seeking contact with Grundish. In mid air, Askew intersected the path of the projectile spunk. “
...oooooooooooooo
,” continued Askew’s scream until the warm load of Bumpy D’s love went
SCHPLAAATTTT
across Askew’s cheek and mouth.

The salty taste on his lips did something to Askew. Something awful. A switch was flipped in his brain. That switch turned off the self-control mechanism which had served to keep Askew out of trouble (in conjunction with intermittent interventions by Grundish) for so many years. The switch loosed a heap of crazy and sent violent pulses through Askew’s body. His fat hands balled into tight fists, arms flailing. The muted
THUD, THUD, THUD
of bone-on-bone, fists crunching cheek bones and jaw and nose, did not register in Askew’s head as he repeatedly pummeled away at what was once Bumpy D’s face, turning the visage into a lump of ground meat. Askew mounted the prone figure, exacting a vicious ground-and-pound on the back of Bumpy D’s head. Askew remembers being pulled off of the motionless heap that was once Mr. D. He remembers his arms still swinging, connecting with nothing but air and throwing off a crimson spray. He remembers his swollen hands flailing in front of him and Grundish lifting him off of Bumpy D, off of the ground. He remembers the deafening silence as the finality of his act dawned on him, and the complete loss of control faded. He remembers the shocking realization that his act forever changed his life. He remembers the awesome feeling of power and freedom. He remembers Grundish slapping his face and screaming: “We have to go! Now!”

We have to go! Now!” Grundish shouts into Askew’s crazed face. And Askew registers the urgent tone of his friend’s voice. And a flurry of hectic activity follows. Still holding Askew off of the ground, Grundish carries him into the trailer and sets him down. “Get what you need and let’s get out of here. Now!”

Without thinking, Askew grabs the keys to his El Camino and a carton of Blue Llamas from the freezer. Grundish tosses all of Turleen’s belongings into her oversized suitcase and grabs his knapsack full of filched goods. “Get Turleen. She’s coming with us,” Grundish commands as he kicks the front door back, launches himself out the doorway and tosses the bags in the bed of the ridiculous truck-like car. The bags land in a pile of moldy work shirts, beer cans, and broken 8-track tapes. Grundish grabs his bike off of the ground and sets it in the back of the El Camino.

“Come on!” Grundish shouts into the trailer. The park residents slowly start peeking their heads out of their trailers once again. Slowly and awkwardly they lumber from their doorways, growing cautiously curious once again about what is happening outside. One neighbor, a lanky man with a head no bigger than a grapefruit, ventures from his retreat and approaches Bumpy D’s fresh corpse, nudging it with his foot. Bumpy’s form gives no more than a sack of potatoes. “We have to go, now,” barks Grundish.

Inside the trailer, Askew hooks his hands under Turleen’s arms and drags her backwards. In her efforts to get outside to see all of the commotion, Turleen twisted her ankle and fell in the bathroom. Unable to ambulate, Turleen allows herself to be dragged out of the trailer and set down in the middle position of the El Camino’s bench seat. To Askew she says: “I need you to bring me my wine, I do, if we’re gonna be cruising around.”

Grundish, in the trailer, stuffs goods in a duffle bag. “Bring Turleen’s wine,” comes the shout from Askew, still outside. Grundish grabs a large bottle of Chianti from the refrigerator and throws it in the bag. The bottle, rounded at the bottom and tapering up toward the mouth, has a screw-on cap and is already half empty.

Outside, the crowd gathers around the pervert formerly known as Bumpy D. The lifeless exsanguinated corpse, he says nothing. The meaty unrecognizable knot-of-a-head gurgles a puddle of stinking blood, a slow-growing amorphous pool of Bumpy D’s former life. The perverts stand and stare, confused doltish cows witnessing the end result of a slaughter, backing up little by little as the puddle of blood grows and advances on them. The man with the grapefruit head finally tears his eyes away from the gory display and points at the El Camino. Askew quickly cranks up his window and leans across Turleen to lock her door. An uneasy feeling about the crowd tugs at the base of Askew’s scrotum. His testicles retract and his penis pulls back like a turtle under attack.

BLURRP...BLURRP...BLURRP
. Askew, now too scared to leave the security of his locked car, honks the horn to get Grundish out of the trailer and to the car.
BLURRP... BLURRP...BLURRP.

The gathering congregation of pimps, pederasts, pud-pullers, prostitutes and pickle-puffers collectively takes offense at the interlopers in their presence. The murderous, straight-laced, judgmental interlopers. Grapefruit-Head continues to point at the El Camino and belts out a piercing, multi-toned screech, incongruous high whines and deep bass notes clanging painfully off of each other. Moving in the manner of a provoked pack of attack dogs, the perverts charge, converging on the El Camino, banging on the hood, kicking the doors, pulling at the door handles, ripping off the windshield wipers and antenna. One man, a crooked-necked, squinty-eyed molester named Fester, pulls down the front of his sweat pants and smashes his smallish but semi-aroused genitals on the passenger side window. His bushy pubic mess envelopes the shriveled weenis, making his goods look like a tiny slab of fetid meat sinking into Easter basket hay. Pulling back, he leaves a greasy thumb-shaped smear on the window.

From the front door of the trailer, Grundish takes in the melee and formulates a plan. Not a great plan, but an effective one. He dashes back into the trailer and grabs more meat from the freezer – mostly boosted hotdogs – and dumps it into a pillow case. He sprints into the middle of the mob swinging the frozen meat in wide arcs with all of his might.

FWAAAPPPP!
The pillow case connects with Grapefruit-Head’s face, crushing his nose and knocking out his front teeth. Dropping to his knees, his hands held to his flattened and bloody face, Grapefruit-Head emits another discordant screech that throws the crowd into a frenzy. Grundish swings the frozen meat and connects with another head, immediately dropping the man to the ground. A circle forms around Grundish, just out of reach of the brutal weapon. One at a time, the perverts charge him and are felled by the mighty meat bag.

Crooked-necked, squinty-eyed Fester darts in and out of Grundish’s striking zone, trying to get quick jabs in at Grundish. Pecking here and there, Fester delivers ineffectual strikes. With each successful poke or kick at Grundish, Fester grows more confident. He strikes out with a kick. His foot is caught in mid-air by Grundish’s left hand. Swinging the meat bag at full force in a circle at his side with his free arm, Grundish brings the bag up, a power-packed meat product upper-cut, and slams the pillow case into Fester’s chin, lifting the man’s other foot off of the ground and throwing him back against the El Camino. Grundish swings the pillow case around his head and charges directly into the growing crowd, bellowing his own unintelligible screech, dropping all challengers with a face-full of frozen pain. A path to the El Camino clears and Grundish charges through, diving into the bed of the car. He slaps the top of the car with both hands and screams, “GO!”

With Grundish in the bed of the car, Askew drops the automatic gear selector into drive and mashes the accelerator to the floor. Twin streaks of smoking rubber tattoo the concrete as a wave of human perversion washes over the hood of the El Camino. The raw crunch of bones, the roar of the engine, and Grundish’s battle cry fill the air as the bodies are thrown out of the way and off of the hood. Reaching into the pillow case, Grundish resumes his hot-dog massacre, flinging frozen wieners at the angry mob with precision, sapping the group of its mob bravery and dispersing the pathetic deviants. At the edge of the trailer park, just before turning onto the public street, Askew brakes and leans over to unlock the passenger door. Grabbing his backpack and Turleen’s bottle of wine, Grundish jumps out of the truck’s bed and lets himself into the passenger compartment. He smells of hotdogs, sweat, and victory.

“Where the fuck are we going to?” asks Askew in a panic. “What the fuck do we do?”

“Drive, Bro. Just drive us on out of here and don’t stop for nothin’,” answers Grundish. “We’ll figure out where to go once you get us away from here.” He uncaps the bottle of wine and chugs mouths full of the cheap grape squeezings. Wiping the mouth of the bottle on his shirt, Grundish passes the
vino
to Turleen. “Here you go, ma’am. Take a glug from the jug.”

Grundish pushes an unmarked 8-track into the tape player. The opening notes of
Sweet Home Alabama
twang from the blown speakers:
Duh-da duh-duh, Da-Duh-da duh-duh, Da-Duh-da duh-duh, duh-da-duh-da-duh-da-da.
“Shit, Boy. Is that freedom rock?” asks Grundish.

Askew smiles, snaps out of his muddlement
^[16]
, and yells, “fuck yeah, man!”

“Well, turn it up!” says Grundish over the distant sound of approaching sirens from somewhere behind them.

Turleen takes a glug from the jug and grows excited about the hullabaloo. Her throwing knife is still strapped to her thigh, and she wonders if the right time to use it has already passed. After the loss of her lung and her detention at Emiction Lakes, she had wondered if she would ever have any fun again. Seeing Grundish bludgeoning the scuzzy losers in the trailer park moved her in a way she never expected. And fleeing a gory crime scene was certainly a novel thing. Even listening to that rock and roll through the blown speakers of Askew’s El Camino stirred something new in her. It all jammed a stick up her ass and stirred up her shit. Just when she was starting to feel her spark fading, Turleen Rundle was gaining a new zest for life. Chugging another glug from the jug and then passing the bottle back to Grundish, Turleen speaks: “I know where we can go, I do. But,” she cups her hand in front of her nose and mouth and exhales, as if to check her breath, “I’m gonna need a day or two to line things up.”

“Okay,” says Grundish, panting heavily and taking another swig from the bottle. He grimaces at the sharp acid flavor of Turleen’s wine. Warm fumes gather at the back of his mouth and gently ride out on a puff of stale breath. Grundish, still shaking from the major adrenaline dump into his system, takes another swig to calm himself and passes the bottle back to Turleen. “Okay,” he repeats, “but we have to find somewhere to lay low for now. I think Bumpy D is worm food. Sex offender or not, when there’s a dead body involved, the fuzz is gonna be looking to bust somebody. That somebody is gonna be us. You ever been picked up by the fuzz?” he asks Turleen.

“Heck yes, and it hurt like hell, it did,” she answers, beating Grundish to the tired old punch line.
^[17]