Uschi! (25 page)

“Now you go right ahead,” she told it, “and make your sorry self comfortable in there. Make some new friends. I bet you and that bag of frozen peas beside you have got a lot in common.”

Uschi slammed the lid on the case shut.

“Honey,” said Denny. “There’s something you need to know.”

“What is that, best thing?”

“You got a kinda something going on.”

It was difficult for him to put the problem in words, so he just pointed at her general upper body half and tried to convey with his facial expression what that something was.

She misunderstood the direction he was pointing in and assumed he was referring to something below the neckline. She looked down at herself and did find a wardrobe malfunction currently in progress. Whoops, nipple slip. Her great big right titty had sometime during the rumble tumble popped out of her latex nurse’s costume and was seeking adventure. That big areola in the center was as black as a thrill killer’s intention’s.

“I guess it’s got a mind of its own.” And Uschi grabbed hold of her anti-freeze and peanut butter fattened hooter and returned it home back inside the dress. She gave it a couple of jiggling palm pats to be certain it was secure. “How is it Vampirella never has this trouble?”

“That’s not actually what I’m talking about. Up. What you got is happening higher up.”

“Huh?” She put her hands on her cadaver bliss face and started to feel around the cheeks and chin.

“Still higher, sugar cube.”

Felt around her eyes.

“You’re getting real close. More along the left temple. No, my left. There you go.”

Uschi’s fingers found a hockey puck shaped object attached to the side of her brow. She tapped a fingernail against it and there was a recognizable metal
tink, tink
sound.

“What the fuck is this?” she asked.

It was a can of tunafish. A 5 OZ. can of StarKist, to be specific. She must’ve acquired it when the devil vegetation walloped her into the shelves. It was mounted on Uschi’s head not too terribly far above her left eye, protruding like the stub of a sawn off horn. She tried to pry it off, but it was embedded in her quite firmly. Downright uncooperative thing, the can was. Fucker had its own agenda: stay where it was. It would not relinquish its new home. Uschi used both hands and a lot of body english to tug and yank, but no hope. It was as if it was somehow fused to her skull.

“Aw man, come on,” she complained and continued struggling with the can’s removal. “Come on. Work with me. Work with me.”

The StarKist’s paper label did manage to tear off. She supposed that was a puny victory of a sort.

She found a bottle of Quaker State motor oil on the floor, opened it and poured a liberal amount over the can, hoping this would make things slippery enough for taking it off. But it only complicated matters for the worse. Now Uschi couldn’t master a firm grip, her hands sliding and flying off.

“Let’s find the bathroom,” suggested Denny. “Maybe we can figure this out in there.”

In the washroom—a tiny one sink and one toilet closet of a room—the faucet was turned on and a bunch of paper towels wetted. Uschi and Denny together industriously worked cleaning the oil and whatever else was on the can off.

In the mirror bolted to the wall above the sink, in a lower corner, there was a decal applied to the glass. It was old, speckled with water stains, and showing a topless hippie chick holding an oversized sunflower in her hand and a peace symbol painted over each of her saggy nature girl titties. Beneath that were the words LET IT ALL HANG OUT, BABY.

Uschi eyeballed that sticker and was not at all in the mood to let it all hang out. She wanted the tunafish off her head and everything else returned to her idea of normal. Uschi wanted that now. She was getting pissed.

Okay, ready to give it another try. Standing there in the cramped, smelly shithouse, her back arched and head leaning back, the only sounds were of the trickling of the faucet water continuing to run and the fleshy squish of fingernails digging in deep for the best possible hold. Uschi pulled with all she had.

And all she had came up short. Failed again. Hands came away missing four nails and the StarKist unbudged.

Denny got out his pocketknife. “Here, give this a go.”

“It’s nut cutting time.” Uschi forced the blade through her skin and wedged a good majority of it between skull bone and can metal. The objective was to work it like a spatula on a pancake stuck to the griddle—just pop that motherfucker clean off. She started to pry the knife’s blade away from her head.

Barely into the operation when:
Glink
.

Glink
was the sound of a Dunlap pocketknife’s blade breaking apart.

“You got to be shitting me?”

“No,” informed an increasingly frustrated Denny. “No shitting. It broke.”

Uschi could feel the short nub of blade where the break occurred, saw it in the mirror’s reflection peeking out beneath the can. She looked at the impotent knife’s handle in her hand. The sad luster of coming to terms with defeat washed over her dead girl’s eyes; she calmly said, “Well, color me disappointed.”

“Sorry.”

“What have you got be sorry for, best thing? It’s not your fault.” She gave the knife handle back to Denny, and he tossed it right away into the trash. She turned off the faucet and leaned herself against the sink, hands on the sides of it and head lowered. Uschi stayed that way for a spell. Quiet, settled, contemplative.

Denny stepped back and watched her. He didn’t know what to do. In his life there had never been anyone to step up and comfort him when he was in a bad way, and his lack of experience kept him frozen in place and unable to find words to say to her that might be of some help. All he could do was leave her alone. Let her work it out herself.

Uschi decided to go apeshit.

She suddenly belted out a Fay Wray in the hollow of Kong’s hand scream and ripped the sink from the wall. Severed pipes gushed and immediately flooded the floor. She turned away from the mirror and her classy cha-cha shoes slipped in the water and legs went out from under her and she fell on her ass. A pipe sprayed Uschi in the face like a clown’s seltzer bottle and stopped her screaming. She awkwardly kept the sink in her hands as she made her way to a standing position.

More senseless vandalism was called for. She raised the sink over her head, hitting the ceiling light fixture and busting two out of the three fluorescent tubes, and quite forcefully she spiked the sink into the commode’s bowl. There followed a whale of a crash and the biggest splash this bathroom would ever have. Toilet and sink both shattered to crumbs and more water gushed. She kicked the tank in to complete the destruction.

“I do not deserve this!” Uschi raged. “I swear I don’t!”

She punctuated her remarks by smashing the mirror and hunting down that stupid little hippie sticker. She took particular mean joy in tearing it to itty-bitty bits. Then she punched a series of holes in the cinderblock walls and stomped the bathroom door off its hinges.

Surly, miserable, filthy and wetter than a half drowned dog, she turned toward Denny and said to him in a sad, pouting voice, “I need you to be honest with me, best thing. Can you love a zombie with tunafish stuck to her head?”

And just like that Denny Gleeth all of a sudden knew exactly how he should comfort his watermelon-chested walking dead delight. It didn’t have to be anything special or grand. He only had to be himself and show her in his own way he cared and was there for her.

Denny stepped forward and embraced her in his arms and kissed her long and passionately. This was the first time in their relationship he had initiated such intimacy between them. Up until now Uschi was the one to always be the aggressor in such matters. When that was done, he then raised his mouth and kissed the tunafish can.

“I don’t know if I could love just any zombie with tunafish on her head,” he said while holding her face up by the chin and staring unflinchingly into her eyes. “But I sure as hell know I love this one. There is nothing that can change that. I’m more than likely to always be the first to admit there ain’t that much to me, but what there is—every last little grain of it—is here for you and won’t stop loving you no matter what.”

She was smiling now, after hearing all that, her attitude undergoing a total one-hundred-fifty-degree turn. “Goddamn, boy, you got it all going on for you, don’t you? Good looking, a dick that won’t quit when it comes to making me feel super good, and now I find you’re one silver-tongued bastard as well. Best thing to ever happen to me.”

The world saved from alien fauna annihilation, it was time to leave this shitty-ass establishment. Denny at her side, Uschi exited the Get It Quick with a gallon jug of milk in her hand. Open and upended, she allowed its contents to empty on the parking lot asphalt as they made their way to the gas pumps.

The cows across the street from the store huddled together at the fence line. Equally spooked and curious, they intensely watched the unnatural Uschi and mooed her.

She gave them a friendly wave. “Hey there, livestock.”

Denny reached inside his car and pushed in the dashboard cigarette lighter.

Earlier, before barehanded removing the nozzle from the unleaded hose, Uschi had thoughtfully tied a knot in it to prevent any major gasoline spillage. Now she untied that knot and filled the milk jug. She didn’t bother with a second knot, just discarding the hose when its usefulness was done and allowed it to pump fuel out onto the lot.

The lighter popped and was ready to go. She took it and the jug of gas back into the store. She thoroughly doused the dead tree and other spots and used the red-hot end of the cigarette lighter to set on fire a torn open roll of Bounty paper towels.

Uschi tossed the burning roll and hightailed it from the Get It Quick as fast she could go. Her hands clutched at her huge bosoms to prevent them from bouncing too high and flogging her in the face as she was in full run. She reached the El Camino, where Denny was already behind the wheel. The engine was running and in gear, and she was shutting the door and putting on her seatbelt as they got moving.

The fire spread at an awesome clip of speed. As the El Camino got on the road and began to drive off, the gas spilling over the parking lot reached the blaze. Instantly an orange carpet of fire spread and raced to the pumps. There was a colossal explosion and a thirty-foot-tall fireball was brought into the world and the little country store was removed from it. A huge, flame-belching crater in the blacktop was now where the gas pumps once stood. A hailstorm of blazing debris of a variety of sizes and variable grade of being aflame fell in all directions.

The terrified cows screamed like the doors to the slaughterhouse were thrown open and they were being treated to an educational peek inside. They promptly dispersed and skeedaddled for safer territories.

The shock wave from the blast reached the El Camino and forced it to fishtail, swerving over into the other lane, tires squealing. The intense heat blistered and bubbled the paint job on the tailgate. Denny fought with the steering wheel, won the battle, and never took his foot of the accelerator.

“I just went and had me a revelation of a thought,” said Uschi.

“What about, darling?” said Denny.

“We never did get your Dr Pepper and a Sprite for me.”

“You’re right. That is a disappointment, ain’t it? Sorry.”

“We’ll survive.”

Chapter Eighteen

T
he speed limit on this old country two-lane back road running through the heart of the Mapache Thicket was thirty. On both sides of the road there was only open land that was overrun with mature and tall mesquite, bodark and cedar trees. Their long and entwining branches reached out over the road and formed a leafy canopy that obstructed much of the afternoon sun and kept the shadows thriving. This was a remote area, rarely traveled or bothered, so the roadkill in these whereabouts was far from being plentiful, but they did happen upon a perfectly fine and only four days dead Irish Setter.

The postmortem princess Uschi had insisted that Denny pull the El Camino over so that she may partake of the dead dog. Now she was enjoying the hind leg while Denny kept the car at the speed limit and his window down and an arm hanging out. She chewed on her juicy mouthful, scarlet fur wedged between her teeth and rancid fluids dribbling down her chin. Both of their heads energetically bobbed along in beat with Pat Benatar’s “Stop Using Sex as a Weapon” playing on the radio.

Once her belly was full, she wanted sweet loving. Uschi tossed the canine bones out of her window and removed her seatbelt. She scooched over and pressed herself against her man. A hand settled in his lap, started to play with his dick lying under his jeans’ zipper. She covered his face in kisses; her dog gore slathered mouth leaving behind bright red lip prints, each one as thick and oily against his skin as a veneer of Vaseline petroleum jelly.

“Somebody’s feeling awful friendly,” said a smiling Denny. He guided her hand to the perfect spot on his groin to manipulate.

She had earlier taken her fingers and combed her platinum hair down in Bettie Page fashion bangs over her brow in hopes of concealing the can of StarKist tunafish stuck to her temple. It did a fine job of hiding it. If you didn’t know the can of tunafish was there, you never would have thought to look for it.

Her hand manipulations made Denny well stimulated and his penis stiff. “Let me inspect your gearshift,” she purred into his ear. Uschi got his jeans open suitable enough to set loose his erection. Next she hiked up her skirt and straddled Denny, sliding a leg in over his lap and squeezing her large and in charge green ass in between himself and the steering wheel. As she came down on him with his dick slipping into her wet pussy, she completely obstructed his view of the road.

“Uh, not the best of ideas, sugar cube. At least not now.”

“Not to worry,” Uschi assured. “Just keep your dick hard and put your trust in your Satan blessed sweetie. I assure you I know what I am doing.”