BigCity
– Excerpt - Scot Sothern
Backdoor
Byway
Charlie
Debunk drops two lead balls, plunk-plunk, into the flared mouth of his
flintlock Blunderbuss. The balls tumble
down the rusty barrel like fishline sinkers.
He sets the antique weapon across his legs and picks up a red clay jug
of cornjuice. He takes long happy drinks
that scorch his gullet and muddle his head.
Charlie
Debunk has been loading his Blunderbuss for a week and has yet to pull the
trigger. He is waiting for something
special to shoot. Five days and a
hundred miles ago he and his two partners made a trade with a big lunking
Polack who calls himself Big Polack. Big
Polack gave Charlie the gun, along with a pouch of lead balls, a pouch of
powder, a pouch of flints, a twenty-inch ramrod, and a pouch of gold nuggets
easily worth five hundred dollars.
Charlie and his partners, Eddie Plague and Skunk Brewster, in turn, gave
Big Polack a ten-year-old aborigine girl they had liberated from a starving
tribe of Chickasaws. Charlie figures
they got the better end of the deal. The
girl had not even been old enough to noodle and had whooped like a warrior when
Charlie noodled her anyway.
Charlie
pours powder into the long muzzle of the black-iron red-rust rifle, rips a
piece of rag and rams it with his ramrod, in and out. It makes him think about noodling, which
makes him think about Bitch Bantam, the fully grown woman he has chained to a
tree.
Charlie's
youngest partner in the white slavery concern, Eddie Plague, is preoccupied
with other things, none of which has anything to do with noodling the savage
bitch. Eddie prefers people who are free
of stink. He would no more consider physical
relations with the bitch than with either of his two idiot partners. Very soon Eddie will be done with them
all. They will sell the pit-woman, split
the take and sever ties.
Eddie
looks to the horizon. He has seen
cityscapes in his years, but he has never seen what he sees now, camped here
alongside the Backdoor Byway. On a
backdrop of smokestack black, mysterious giant white rings of smoke float like
fuzzy donuts up above the city. Spheres
and steeples sprout from bridges and buildings above the tree line. Eddie smells sweet sewage, oil refineries,
factories and steel mills. He smells
poverty and waste, opulence and passion.
Eddie soars into this fabulous city where other dandies like him have
their own saloons, where gayblades and kinky babes appreciate Eddie's good
looks and groove to the same alternative beat, thump thump thump.
Other
than the price that she will bring, Eddie Plague has little thought for the
shackled woman at the edge of camp. The
sooner they rid themselves of Bitch Bantam the better. Charlie Debunk takes another long drink of
corn and feeds a couple more lead balls to the mouth of his musket. Makes sense to Charlie: just as each drink
makes him feel a little better, the more gunpowder, lead and wadding he puts
into the gun, the bigger hole it will blow.
He rams his ramrod with passion.
Charlie
has worked up an intense hankering for poon.
Problem is, Charlie has an intense fear of Eddie Plague. Along with his clean good looks, Eddie Plague
is intensely scary and Charlie does not want to piss him off. Maybe he should check with his true partner,
Skunk Brewster. Maybe Skunk is wanting
some poon too. Maybe together they can
get some bitch nookie.
Charlie
says to Skunk, "I reckon if we was to hold down Bitch Bantam jus right we
could get us some mighty good puss."
Skunk
is smarter than Debunk. He is not as
ready to follow his dick into a danger zone.
He is not as likely to forget why this woman is worth more than any ten
of the women they have sold in the past.
Skunk does, however, agree with Charlie: Bitch Bantam would be mighty
good poon. Skunk needs to give the
situation some thought. "Hand me
that there juga bugjuice," he tells Charlie. "I need to think." Skunk furrows his brow as though thinking
hurts his head.
Unlike
Eddie Plague, Skunk and Charlie are caked with filth. Charlie passes the jug and Skunk drinks a
dizzying gulp. Charlie crams another
load into his rifle. Skunk takes another drink and eyeballs the woman. She glares back from behind a jungle of
ash-blonde hair, her eyes, through the tangled vines, opaque violet, firing
blank rounds of antipathy.
Bitch
Bantam has thus far spent her relatively short life in iffy, but still legal,
servitude to others. Born nameless and
fatherless in Joplin, Missouri, Bitch had been dumped by her mother and found
by an enterprising gambler named Dicey Deucey.
Normally Dicey would never have bothered with a two year-old garbage-heap
orphan, but Bitch was special.
Dicey
found the thirty-pound tot already so toughened by life that she sat gurgling
and cooing amid a pile of savagely exterminated and partially eaten
terrier-sized rats. The kid had a talent
for killing.
Dicey
Deucey took Bitch under his wing and went to work, setting her up as the first
ever pit-bitch. Initially he pitted her
against as many as ten rats at a time, drawing such enormous crowds that soon,
along with the wagering, he began to charge admission. As Bitch grew, she graduated from rats to
cocks (thus the name Bantam) to pit-bulls and wild hogs.
At
twelve years of age Bitch was five-nine, one hundred and fifty pounds. Her baby teeth had been replaced with a set
of permanent choppers Dicey had filed to sharp fang-like points. Her fingernails were long and hard and
sharpened like daggers. In a pit against
anything short of a grizzly bear, Bitch was likely to bring even money.
The
thing Dicey Deucey never figured was that Bitch was not just a dumb woman; she
was smarter than he and she held no loyalties to a man who would lash her with
a horse whip, kick her like a dog and call her a worthless skank. The thing that always puzzled Bitch was the
surprised look on Dicey's face when she leapt from the bloody guts of a dead
Arkansas razorback to ringside, where she ripped out Dicey's throat with her
teeth and nails. Dicey Deucey looked at
her as though his best friend had turned on him. He had expected eternal gratitude for his
guidance and care. Dicey earned his
violent death and was too oblivious to know it before taking his final breath.
Afterward
Bitch ran from the crowd, hoping to hide away in the woods, make her way to
another town where no one knew who she was.
Unfortunately, her escape brought hysteria to the townsfolk, as though a
full-moon werewolf was stalking their young.
The
local sheriff, along with a gun-toting posse and a kennel of hysterical hounds,
hunted her down, chained her and put her in a cage. The sheriff was a law-abiding entrepreneur;
slavery had been abolished yet he found legal ways to hawk feminine wiles to a
buyer's market.
It
took seven of the sheriff's men to hold Bitch down and force her hand to sign
an X to a contract. The agreement was a
ditto of the forms the sheriff used in his China-girl whorehouses. The girls were employed at a dollar a
day. They agreed, unknowingly, to pay
back a week's wages for every day they were sick. A woman's nature is to bleed a few days each
month and this, according to the contract, was classified as an illness keeping
them from work. The girls were thus
indentured by debt for life, which mercifully was usually short.
Now
Bitch Bantam is twenty-years-old. She
has grown six-feet high. She is hard,
cut like a superhero. She conceals great
pulchritude beneath a curtain of dirt and animosity. The contract means nothing to her. But still she is chained, when not center
ring, and sold and traded time and time again.
She is legally the property of the holder of the now yellowed and
creased to a soft-cottony-sheet contract.
Skunk Brewster, Charlie Debunk, and Eddie Plague keep the nine-year-old
contract, with Bitch Bantam's squiggly X, folded up in an oilcloth haversack
along with their pouch of gold nuggets and Bitch's clothes.
Bitch
is accustomed to indignity but these three shitheads are the worst yet. Skunk, Charlie, and Eddie have clubbed her,
stripped her of clothing and dragged her chained and naked halfway across
America. Much of her time is whiled away
with castle-in-the-sky fantasies. At
this moment, however, Bitch Bantam is plotting escape, murder, freedom.
Charlie
Debunk stands, torques his skinny frame and points his musket at Bitch. Bitch knows what Charlie wants. All she has to do is get him close enough to
grab. Chains or no chains once she puts
a grip on Charlie Debunk he will never buy or sell another woman. Bitch sits butt on heels, balls of her bare
feet in the dirt. She opens her legs to
Charlie.
"Looky
there, Skunk," Charlie says.
"The Bitch is in heat."
Skunk
is not so sure, "I ain't so sure. I
doan think we oughta be gettin too close.
I think meybe we oughta club her down a little first."
Charlie
takes a couple of baby steps toward Bitch.
"Hell's bells, Skunk. We
club her first, she woan do no humpin."
Bitch
is shackled, at the wrists and ankles, with maybe two feet of play in the heavy
chains. She begins to growl deep in the
back of her throat.
Eddie
Plague is getting irritated, distracted by his imbecile partners and their
penis-motivated hijinks. Eddie is tall
and muscular, his face is symmetrical and his nose is perfect. Eddie is a literate sociopath with homicidal
tendencies and a loud whisper voice. He
packs a cutthroat razor and a two-shot derringer in his polished boots. He carries a bottle of patchouli oil with
which he douses himself two or three times a day. His pants' pockets are filled with peppermint
drops which he sucks nonstop. He wears a
black slouch hat with a low brim that grays his hypnotic blue eyes with
shadow.
Unlike
his idiot partners, Eddie is only eighteen.
Skunk and Charlie have been slavery vendors since back when it was
legal. Eddie entered the flesh trade as
a barefoot preteen selling suck jobs to a trail of horny yokels expanding
westward. Soon he added gigolo to his
résumé then pimp and from there built a stable where he sold and bartered in
fine quality boys and girls. But Eddie
wanted more culture and so teamed with Skunk and Charlie as a means to travel
east to BigCity. Now, he just wants to
get back on the road. He wants his
partners to leave the woman alone. Bitch
Bantam could dispose of Charlie and Skunk with a well-placed bite. Yet, these idiot associates are risking life
and limb for a space between her legs.
Eddie would like to kill Bitch Bantam, Charlie Debunk, and Skunk
Brewster, but that is not what he does.
"Leave
the woman alone," Eddie demands, "If you don't, I'll shoot her
dead. Get your things together. It's time to go."
Skunk
hasn’t slept well since Eddie joined them.
Eddie gives Skunk creepy dreams.
Skunk screws up his courage.
"Crud sake, Eddie it ain't nothin personal. Sides, ifn you shoot her we ain't gonna be
able to sell her no more, an ifn I club her we still got our vestment
intact. An, me and Charlie ain't had us
no real poon since forever. We ain't
ready to go yet." Skunk is hoping
Charlie will back him up.
Charlie's
fear of Eddie is also well developed, just not as developed as his craving for
poon. Charlie's peter has gone stiff and
he’s thinking maybe he can poke Bitch while Skunk is clubbing her. That way she will be jerking around and
such. It might make it more better. He takes another baby-step toward the woman.
Skunk
is up now. He and Charlie have silently
voted to ignore Eddie and go for the woman.
Skunk removes his rosewood truncheon from under his canvas bag. He ventures within a few feet of Bitch Bantam.
Bitch
knows what is coming. She flexes her
body and the tight iron bracelets cut into her skin. She watches the men, closely.
Skunk
takes a quick step forward, swings the club, which bounces hard across Bitch's
shoulder blades. She winces and grabs at
the polished cudgel. Skunk jumps
backwards and gives a whoop.
Eddie
Plague is disgusted, he doesn’t like his partners, but he hates Bitch Bantam,
hates all women. He wants assurances
that she will not enjoy Skunk and Charlie's assault. Eddie's opinion being that bondage and rape
are enjoyable experiences.
"Give
me the club," Eddie tells Skunk.
Skunk
grins, shrugs like an idiot and hands the club to Eddie.
Charlie
Debunk sets down his musket and begins to unbutton his grimy pants and
long-johns. Eddie readies himself to
crack the woman's skull when he notices that she is no longer looking at
him. She’s looking beyond him up to a
hilly crook on the dirt byway. Skunk
Brewster, Eddie Plague, and Charlie Debunk turn together and look up the road
at a most unusual sight.
Slab
Pettibone and his bear FuzzyWuzzy have materialized from around the bend. Slab is singing and playing a ukulele. FuzzyWuzzy is dancing along in a four-footed
two-step.
"My Lulu hugged and kissed me,
She wrung my hand and cried,
She said I was the sweetest thing
That ever lived and died."
Slab
Pettibone and FuzzyWuzzy stop in the middle of the rutted road and look down a
hundred yards at the three men and the shackled woman. FuzzyWuzzy stands on his hind legs to his
full six-foot height to get a better look and taste the air.
Technically,
FuzzyWuzzy is an American Black Bear, Ursus Americanus, but FuzzyWuzzy's hair
is not black. FuzzyWuzzy is a rare bear,
an Ursus Americanus Kermode, also known as a Ghost Bear. FuzzyWuzzy's fur is buttermilk yellow.
Slab
Pettibone has no legs. Years ago they
were cut off, mid-thigh, a couple of inches above a hungry gangrene
monster. FuzzyWuzzy serves with honor as
Slab Pettibone's legs. Slab is harnessed
to FuzzyWuzzy's back, just above FuzzyWuzzy's front shoulder bones. His hair is long and silver. He has a gentleman's face with a curly
triangle of chin hair and a thick handlebar moustache. He wears a black tuxedo coat with long tails
and a red sombrero hat. When FuzzyWuzzy
stands on his hind legs, they look to be nine feet tall.
FuzzyWuzzy
smells the gathering of humans, their scents a cartoon jet-stream of windowsill
pie. The woman's bouquet is tastier than
the usual odoriferous stench of homo sapiens, almost like a she-bear. She is naked and in chains. Before Slab Pettibone, FuzzyWuzzy had been in
chains. It is an image that bristles his
scruff and lays back his ears. He curls
his lips in aggravation and issues a low moan from the back of his throat.
Below
them, at the campsite, Charlie Debunk and Skunk Brewster seem frozen in
incredulous mouth-breathing stares, as if neither has the brain power to digest
the song and dance team of Slab Pettibone and FuzzyWuzzy the bear.
Charlie
is the first to break the spell. He
picks up his musket and grabs for his flints and powder horn. He puts powder in the firing cup and two
flints under the hammer. Charlie has
shot people before and he has shot animals before. But he has never shot anything like these
two. Charlie Debunk is about to shoot
himself the trophy of a lifetime.
Slab
Pettibone takes in the scene, the woman in chains, the man with a club, and the
other man with an old-fashioned blunderbuss, pointing at them. He tweaks FuzzyWuzzy's ears forward, the
command to hit the deck. FuzzyWuzzy
irons-out flat like a fluffy beige carpet.
Charlie Debunk pulls the trigger.
The
old flintlock's hammer clicks, sparking the flints which ignites the spoon of
gun powder, which lights up the nine loads of powder, wadding, and lead balls,
which explode the barrel, the stock and Charlie Debunk's head. Charlie's headless corpse lists from side to
side. He takes three rubbery steps like
a vaudeville comedian's drunken pantomime then collapses to the ground.
Skunk
Brewster's pants are still at his ankles.
His peter has deflated. He goes
for his pistol, a thirty-eight-caliber small-frame automatic which
unfortunately is not loaded. Skunk
frantically digs bullets from his drooping pants' pocket and shoves them into
the five-shot cylinder.
Eddie
Plague is ahead of the situation. He
knows all about Slab Pettibone and his pet bear, FuzzyWuzzy. They are nothing to run from, just another
ten-cent pulp novelty, white-hat heroes not known to strike the first
blow. Eddie steps back a couple of feet
to avoid splatters of Charlie Debunk's blood and bone-fragments. He’s calculating his cut of Bitch Bantam now
that the take has changed from thirds to fifty-fifty. Eddie forgets for a moment that he has moved
closer to the woman.
Slab
Pettibone looks up from FuzzyWuzzy's furry back and assesses the
situation. While it is true that Slab and
FuzzyWuzzy never start a fight, getting shot at is deemed a challenge. Slab gives FuzzyWuzzy a command, "Go get
em, FuzzyWuzzy!" FuzzyWuzzy takes
off like a fubsy rocket. Slab holds onto
his hat and yells, "Yaaa hoop hoop hoop yahooey!"
Skunk
has two shells loaded and no time for more.
The bear/man is closing in at an alarming rate.
Eddie
Plague backs slowly away from the action, closer still to the pit-fighting woman. Bitch Bantam grabs him by the ankle, pulls
him to the ground and takes a bite, through his cotton twill pants, out of his
thigh. He struggles to hit her with the
billy-club. She grabs an arm and an ear
and pulls his face close enough to kiss.
She spits his hunk of thigh and tattered pant's fabric in his face then
bites off his nose.
Slab
Pettibone and FuzzyWuzzy screech to a standstill in front of Skunk just as he
raises his thirty-eight. FuzzyWuzzy
rears back on his hind feet and roars a challenge into Skunk's face. Skunk turns white. He smells berries and grub-worms from FuzzyWuzzy's
lunch. He attempts to point and shoot
but his hands are shaking out of control.
FuzzyWuzzy
has been given the signal for a round of fisticuffs. With the heel of his right front paw,
FuzzyWuzzy rabbit-punches Skunk in the chest.
Skunk
lands hard to the ground. He sees above
him an enraged beast poised for attack.
He comes to a rash and irreversible conclusion: death by a bullet is
easier than death by mauling. Skunk
Brewster grins up at Slab and FuzzyWuzzy.
He puts the pistol to his head and pulls the trigger. The gun pops and Skunk drops dead. It is the most peculiar thing Slab Pettibone
has ever seen.
Eddie
Plague has used the truncheon to successfully batter his way free of Bitch
Bantam. He is discombobulated and he
scuttles onto the road and keeps going until sometime later when he falls
unconscious into the brush.
Slab
Pettibone diverts his eyes from the two dead men. Slab hates when all manners of creatures die,
even no-account slave-traders like Skunk Brewster and Charlie Debunk. Slab is as well embarrassed to look at the
naked woman. He is shy around the
opposite sex, they make him nervous.
And, this woman is not only naked, but she’s the most magnificent gal he
has ever seen. She’s near big as
FuzzyWuzzy. Slab Pettibone embarrasses
himself with his thoughts. He flushes
red behind his whiskered face and his heart thumps his head. He averts his eyes from everything outside of
the back of FuzzyWuzzy's crown and begins to sing.
"If you monkey with my Lulu gal
I'll tell you what I'll do
I'll carve your heart out with my
razor,
I'll shoot you with my pistol,
too."
FuzzyWuzzy
sways with the song and sings along in a low slow soulful bellow. He looks at the woman and senses a primitive
kinship. He wonders if she will wrestle
with him. FuzzyWuzzy loves to wrestle
and this feral woman is just the right size.
He bows and does a do-se-do.
"I seen my Lulu in the springtime
I seen her in the fall
She broke my heart last winter
Said, Good-by, honey, that's all."
Bitch
Bantam watches the shy singing legless man and the dancing bear. She smiles at the bear and cannot remember
the last time she smiled at anyone, man or beast. It feels strange and happy on her face. She spits Eddie Plague's nose into the dust
and wipes his blood from her lips.
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