The American Reader is publishing Henrytown in its entirety over the space of three issues. The second installment appears in the January issue, while the third and final installment will appear in the February issue.
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YETUNDE WAS STANDING holding baby Paco; he had on just his diaper. Yetunde said, “Where’s your uncle Marty-Neil?” Paco looked, and you could see him looking. “Where’s Uncle Marty-Neil at?” she said. Paco pointed at Marty-Neil Willard standing there; Marty-Neil gestured to him.
Yetunde said, “Where’s baby Mustafa?” Paco moved his arm and finger and pointed at Mustafa being held by Henriette Lightbody with one arm; Henriette looked at Mustafa; Mustafa had on a blue, hooded suit.
Yetunde put her fingers in Paco’s hand; he squeezed it hard and made a triumph sound with his mouth.
✖
ON ONE NIGHT IT WAS BAD WILLIE SLEMMONS in aisle six of the Star Market looking at frozen meals.
“Like an old fool angel he looks,” thought Hwang the night manager, looking at Bad Willie. Hwang was standing holding a mop in his hands.
Bad Willie Slemmons was a crippled individual. Had he two little decrepit arms, no elbows or hands, and only one little finger growing straight out of his right wrist. His dukeless arm—that was his left—appeared to be a vast, uncut wiener on the droop.
Despite his disability problems with his arms, he was still pretty good with a knife, he said. He had an eighteen-inch customized Jim Bowie at his house. A Danville cutler had put a leather strap and fingerhole in the handle for him. When Bad Willie took and belted the weapon to his arm, he had to make sure to pull the strap through using his molar teeth on the right side of his head-mouth; his other teeth he had (few) were liable to come out; the looseness was caused by oral negligence and chemical habits. He said he would belt that knife to his arm and chase after somebody if they got smart with him. He had it at his house.
Maybe he would have liked to doll that knife up in a man’s gore for real, but, of course, civilization says you can’t do that, even if you don’t murder your opponent. Bad Willie Slemmons understood that. So, he worked around civilization’s rules in two ways:
1) He said he threatened people with the knife, without touching his victim with the blade
2) He introduced the knife into the sex act
Let it be said that Bad Willie Slemmons did not substitute knife for his regular wiener or cut down a sex collaborator during a coitus; all he did was point it at his collaborator and yell at his collaborator while he got pumped. Not to say yelling isn’t hurtful to a collaborator, but my deal is, if you have to use a blade in your sex act, you should get permission from your collaborator before you do so, or at the very least, warn your collaborator. But, as you know, I am not Bad Willie Slemmons and neither are you.
Hwang looked, as he drew up to Bad Willie, at the young man’s severely deformed person, which I have already described to you.
“It’s—right now—it’s between a meatloaf and chicken breast right now,” Bad Willie said; spit flew off his mouth onto the glass door of the freezer. “Which of the ones you be eating?”
Hwang thought Bad Willie had the most high, beautiful voice. Hwang looked at the freezer and said he likes Healthy Choice brand complete meals. “The entrées taste wonderful.”
Bad Willie leered at Hwang. “You be working out?”
Hwang was looking at Bad Willie’s arms. Hwang invited Bad Willie to take his time in selecting a frozen meal: “They have many flavors to choose.” Hey, that was Hwang—customer care was first to him. He goes, “I am simply going to finish mopping this,” but ultimately he stayed put, looking at Bad Willie’s wrists.
Bad Willie squared up to his man. He looked upon Hwang’s business district for longer than you would expect. He was looking right there. He pushed back his glasses with his arm. His brain was communicating with his body capsule. His autonomic nervous system performed its office: Corpus cavernosum, look out!
A thoroughgoing report on what you would have seen in Bad Willie’s front left trouser pocket at that moment would have had to include the word movement. Bad Willie’s mouth filled with spit; his head moved; his arms went forward.
Hwang wondered on the side: “In the grand scheme of things, what does it mean to want to hold this young man down and study his arms and his finger? To want to try gripping his wrists tightly and gently to see what the difference is? I will make notes about him in my private journal. Maybe I could take a shot at a poem.”
Bad Willie went with a Healthy Choice brand complete meal, like Hwang said to. But since the registers had been counted, Bad Willie couldn’t pay—not even with his personal debit card. Hwang told him, “It’s OK with me to take the item. You can come again tomorrow and pay. Maybe at this same time. It’s OK with me. I will be here regardless. I am closing tomorrow regardless.” Bad Willie was standing there just taking it all in.
Next evening same time, Bad Willie showed up and got a bunch more Healthy Choice brand and paid via personal debit card. Hwang had already let Liza the checker go early; she was asking to go early.
After a little standing around, Hwang and Bad Willie went for a bunch of coitus in the back office. It was heavy duty but Bad Willie brandished his knife not; it was at his house. All during, he kept making this soft little warbling noise. Meantime, Healthy Choice brand in the bag thawing out.
Hwang had trouble gripping the floor with his loafers working on Bad Willie. So he took them and his socks off so he could, you know what I mean, grip a little better on his different pumps, leverage his man better. And one point I do want to say is that when Hwang bent down to set his loafers and socks aside, Bad Willie’s little bare moneymaker was there. Right, right there.
Cramped but organized accommodations. Everybody did OK. Stand-up deeds mostly.
Hwang did do his gripping experiment on Bad Willie’s wrists and finger. It was great but, remarkably, Hwang didn’t go on to record his findings in his journal.
✖
JOHN DINGER ON A DAVENPORT, knees sticking clear out in the room.
His uncle Milgotz was in the chair; Aunt Era was in the other chair. They were fine to have John over even if they didn’t know him that well.
Johnny Carson was on; Michael Landon was on there. They looked great. Landon said something to Johnny and looked at the audience; Johnny looked at the surface of his desk, then at the audience.
Era’s little dog Ryan was standing by the davenport, vibrating; he had on his red nylon harness he wore all the time.
When John Dinger moved, Ryan looked and moved. When Dinger got up and went to the toilet when it was commercials, Ryan started vibrating uncontrollably.
✖
PACO’S BIOLOGICAL WAS OVER his woman’s taking his wiener indoors of her; the collaborators’ skins stuck together and peeled apart on the different pumps.
Subsequent to withdrawal, Paco’s Biological walked down Lula Mae Street with a can of beer. He was bare-chested and when he passed under the street lamp, you could see his stomach for the soft, slickery brown area it was.
He went up till he come to Lamoille Park. He stood by the monkey bars awhile. He put his hand on a bar and, feeling it wet, slid his hand along there. He put his beer on the ground and tried to raise his thigh up to dry the bar on his cutoffs, but it was too tall to him. So, he undid his cutoffs, took them down, and stepped out of them. He wiped the monkey bar down with his cutoffs. His wiener kind of joggled around in the darkness a little bit while he did it.
He wiped his mouth, stomach, and undercarriage with the cutoffs before putting them back. He got up his can of beer and walked toward Bearing’s horse stable on the west of town.
He felt his way from the road through the weeds to Jim Bearing’s wire fence and leaned his arms on it. He saw two little horses standing together. He didn’t know if they were mares or geldings or what; he didn’t know because he couldn’t see. He looked beyond the pasture area, across the bean field toward Polk Plastics. He could see the little lights way, way out there. The big male horse was standing by the fence not ten feet from him.
✖
LADY BUTTON CHIPPED ICE off her driveway with a snow shovel. She had a half dozen clear dildos strapped on. And a few red ones, too; Christmas was coming.
✖
GLORIA-HALF-OF-SOMETHING THE WAMPUS CAT MURDERED Mandu Fam Lam Bartlum on a day in 2002. She ran him down behind the Park Tavern at Mineral, tore his head open to one side, pulled out his eyeballs, and cored out his rectum. She walked it over and placed his rectum in the parking lot. You couldn’t tell what it was; it wasn’t in the right context, and it was all kind of stretched out.
It was Queen Mother Brard with her male helper in front of the post office; they were standing holding their mail and communicating with each other. You could see them. Mandu Fam Lam went by on his nice dirt bike. He looked, and now Brard and them were looking up the street the other way.
Mandu Fam Lam Bartlum came to Uncle Forrey’s visitation. He was standing near the casket looking at Forrey. Mandu Fam Lam had on a gorgeous blue sweater; there was fine embroidery all on it. He looked very beautiful to the family; they could never be through looking at him.
✖
BIG JOHN DINGER CAME OUT of the tavern. He had gore on his fingers and sleeves. It was a big welt on his forehead. His hair was blowing around.
He was looking at the gore; it was freezing on his clothes. He tasted throw-up saliva coming on the side of his tongue. He crossed the highway and stood on Jim Bearing’s property.
His fingers hurt from tearing down the urinal and pounding the person with it. He leaned over and threw up on the property. He kept shivering and throwing up in the snow two more times. His hair was moving.
He came across out of the ditch and saw it was glare ice on the asphalt. He got down and placed his fingers on the ice; he put all the different parts of his sore fingers. He was putting his hands. His hair was plastered to his head.
✖
ALL RIGHT, Joshua Waughop the hunchback dwarf had a real limited set of magical powers he could do. I mean real limited. Some dwarfs can do metallurgy and everything else, but not Joshua. In fact, the only trick he could do in this world was conjure a little blue wagon and ride around in it.
And anyway, one day in ’83, Joshua was eating a sack lunch in his little fort made out of blankets in the woods north of Edda Pond, and thinking about what Rambo had done and said in the movie. Rambo had yelled in the movie and Joshua thought about that, about Rambo yelling and losing it. Rambo was a guy who meant business; you could tell by how the authorities on there were reacting to Rambo. There was, of course, the part where he kept riding a dirt bike.
A little later, Joshua conjured his blue wagon and rode around in the woods like he never saw the movie.
✖
MARTY-NEIL WILLARD WAS RIDING in Yetunde’s hatchback. Marty-Neil’s beard was all over the place. Yetunde was driving; her hairdo was hitting against the roof. Paco was in the back in his child seat trying to figure out how to word a question he had in his mind.
OK, Marty-Neil’s seatbelt strap was under his beard, right exactly between his boobs. I want you to know that Marty-Neil had these real soft, bald boobs. He was hairy up and down his arms and legs and on his chest and back; and he pretty much had second and third beards on his frontal genital area and on his anus area, respectively.
But, you know, he had these soft little bald boobs.
The structuring on his was different from regular human boobs; his were more tube-like. They reminded me of the water snake novelty toy you can get, because if you pushed or squeezed one, the nipple part, or sometimes the whole other boob, would bulge out toward you in your face.
But you never wanted to squeeze his boobs real hard or handle them in a rough manner—you always carefully took control of Marty-Neil Willard’s boobs.
You know when you go to touch regular boobs your fingers point up or maybe to the side, depending on your angle? Well, with Marty-Neil, you held your hand like you were going to shake hands, and then you gently curled your fingers under and around his boob like that. Actually, before you touched his boobs at all, you had to get his beard out of the way. But you always, always carefully took control of his soft little bald boobs. And you smiled warmly at him.
“Here we are, Mr. Five Years Old,” Marty-Neil said, turning around in his seat to talk to Paco. Yetunde turned her vehicle into the Danville mall parking lot.
Marty-Neil had the impulse to get out and walk into Bergner’s, tie his beard back, and empty a bottle of real fancy moisturizer all on his boobs. He would need to get away to do it, for his family members would feel bad seeing that kind of a scenario. They would recoil from that. Plus, he didn’t know if he could bring himself to do it in front of them; he didn’t think he could stay in the same frame of mind. But he didn’t want to get away from them. He didn’t want to be alone in Bergner’s. He wanted them near him. He wanted to buy them nice things they wanted to have. He also wanted pure white moisturizer to be upon every, single square inch of his boobs.
✖
From: John <fishburnej@yahoo.com>
To: Ads <ads@henrytowncrier.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2004 10:15:03
Subject: Advert Placement Quotes Needed
Dear Publisher,
I am John Fishburne The asigned Team instructor of the position available at TRANSCORP ELECTRONICS GROUP OF COMPANY. I will like to place an Advert in your paper for five weeks and will like to know the advert quote for the six weeks. Be Advised that payment will be via credit card and AD text is written below.
URGENT PART-TIME JOB OFFER AVAILABLE AT TRANSCORP ELECTRONICS GROUP OF COMPANY !!! Certified Payroll Specialist (CPS) that will be acting as Company’s Account Manager, writing payment out to the Company’s client is urgently needed. Monthly Salary:- $1500.00 Interested Applicant should get back to us immediately with their resumes via Email Address at: transcorpfirm@yahoo.com.
I want you to get back to me with the advert quotes for the five weeks as soon as possible so that I can forward my credit card details for the AD payment.
Name: John Fishburne
Company Name: TRANSCORP ELECTRONICS GROUP
OF COMPANY
COMPANY’S ADDRESS: 119 Wayne Street
City : Omaha
State : Nebraska
Zip Code : 68046
Phone : (609) 394-2302
✖
PILAR KUSNETSOV WOKE UP two in the morning to toilet. Her urinary bladder was full to pain. This was when she was carrying number seventeen baby Maddox Kusnetsov. Pilar was forty-six.
To toilet, her kidneys were sloshing around in her body capsule: One was up in front by her stomach by the baby; the other was behind a breast. Her liver went floating up her back. Her intestines came apart and went down in her leg.
Maddox was in the uterus area, where he lived at that time. He was pumping his legs and messing with the cord.
✖
From: <ads@henrytowncrier.com>
To: John <fishburnej@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2004 07:58:41
Subject: RE: Advert Placement Quotes Needed
Hi John,
We do not publish classified ads from outside our area. But I’m sure you can find great people in Omaha to work in the payroll department at Transport Electronics Group of Company.
Don’t worry; Omaha is a great town.
Yours,
Carlier Johnson
Editor and Publisher
(217) 364-3250
carlier@henrytowncrier.com
✖
ALFHILD BUTTER TOOTH, DAUGHTER OF EUNICE FREDERIKSSEN, rode to the park on an evening. She counted nine different abandoned jackets on the playground.
She got up on the New Equipment and looked for her friend coming. She stood on the New Equipment; her fingers were touching it; it was warm to her.
If you had been standing looking from across the playground you would have seen Alfhild Butter Tooth, a tiny child, standing upon the New Equipment; you would have seen her bicycle.
Now she saw it was a new little pile of children’s jackets down on the playground. She went to count how many. How many.
Now it was all kind of tiny jackets blowing across through the air, and it was jackets on her handlebars. Before you knew what, this thing had turned into a hailstorm of children’s jackets.
She moved her helmet down onto her face and looked where she was going through the air vents on the top of the helmet. Children’s jackets were falling on top of her and in front of her; the zippers were hitting on her fingers. She had to hold the helmet in place.
From the road, she looked (through the helmet) and saw a hundred jackets flying toward the New Equipment like it was a magnet for the actual children’s jackets.
✖
YOU SAID NOBODY EVER MADE a dildo cape.
Well, I guess it was vanity made you do that because there really was somebody who made a dildo cape.
That’s right, a dildo cape, d-i-l-d-o c-a-p-e, a cape of dildos.
Verily, starting in her twilight years, Lady Button had this thing where she liked to get strapped into a dildo harness. She enjoyed feeling the Naugahyde strap part under her buttocks area; she liked the weight of that PVC tackle hanging off the front. She was an anxious person, and it gave her comfort to do this, to get in a harness. Except, what happened I think, her mind got obsessed because it got to be where she would get into a harness first thing in the morning—even before cereal. She would go to the post office, harness on, with a dildo bent down somewhere under her coat; it would actually be bent down under there.
Then she kept ordering more and more dildos every week: clear ones, red ones, flesh-colored ones, chocolate ones, glitter plastic ones, by and large they were in a Kong size. And she ordered harnesses for every one. And she put it on. I’m talking about she put them all on. She used to walk around inside her home with the dildos kind of sticking out.
As you’re like to know (because you’re a person), they make harnesses for about anywhere you want to have a dildo on yourself—you can put them all up and down. You know what, too, is they’ve been around since the Stone Age, dildos. They weren’t as bendable back then because, you know………………but there you have it: Humans have been physically enjoying dildos for thousands of years.
Anyway, perhaps you can see Lady Button’s line of thinking on this emerge, which was, “The sheer amount of dildos I have strapped to my head and body is directly proportional to the level of comfort I feel with my emotions.”
Now to get to the dildo cape part. So, like any normal day, Lady Button woke up and strapped on every harness and dildo she had. She walked into the hall. Right in front of the downstairs, her shoulder dildos knocked down several photographs from the wall, and she tried to look at that, but she got tangled up and went down hard and stayed down. Now, yeah, the dildos were heavy, but, more than the gravitational force acting upon those dildos, it was the fact that because it was harnesses all on her limbs she couldn’t bend her joints. She couldn’t move. Tough situation. But it worked out because it was at that time that she had the idea for the dildo cape. All right?
She pictured a huge, glaucous-blue vinyl cape with either mango tango or dollar bill trim. To actually get the dildos on the cape, she figured she would fasten little brass rings on there, make them even, space them out nice and even, drill brass hooks into the base of the dildos themselves, and then hook the dildos on the rings.
She said, “Yeah, you get your harnesses and your dildos going, then you stick a cape with a hundred dildos hanging off it over everything: KA-BANG!! Twice as many dildos right there!” She was talking out loud to herself, pretty much shouting like I was just doing. But, of course, her speech was a little bit muffled because there were a great many dildos across her mouth………………………………………
D-i-l-d-o.
Well, you know, my hope is now you don’t feel so good. I don’t know exactly why I hope that; I just want that for you.
✖
HENRIETTE LIGHTBODY WAS OVER Yetunde’s having coffee.
“He isn’t one of these ones that like big women,” Henriette said.
“He’s little,” Yetunde said. “It’s little ones that do.”
“How you know? You’re little.”
“I know, and I like big men.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Henriette said. “Because I never saw you with a little one yourself.”
“I’m saying I know him, and he does,” Yetunde said, having coffee. She looked at the placemat; she looked at Henriette.
Henriette had some coffee. She looked at the sweet rolls; she was breathing from her mouth and steady looking at the sweet rolls. Her bottom teeth were sticking out. “I’m saying,” she said.
✖
MAYOR SPEEDY KUSNETSOV’S TOOTHBRUSH had mashed bristles.
He would stand at the sink with his knees oh-so-slightly bent and rake the brush across his teeth hard as he possibly could, stripping off enamel rods like siding. The brush often slipped out of his mouth and suds got on his chin and sometimes even on his throat area.
It was textbook how not to do something.
Because of these efforts over many years, his gums got shoved up and back and you could see more of his teeth than you’re supposed to. Not a great situation in terms of the oral stuff.
When the dentist told Speedy maybe stop brushing his teeth so hard, Speedy made a face and goes, “I’m mayor! Lot of people depends in me. I got lot of duties. People breathe down my neck is twenty-four seven about every problem: ‘Mayor, please do not levy tax! Mayor, get please livestock fences! Fix pothole,’ on and on, day to night. Eh? I looking to interests of citizen. That’s is what is being public servant all about!
“But you, you don’t know jack about. What do you? Pry mouth open? Yell because gum push back? I am mayor! You breathe down my neck because gum? Big deal, asshole! Get a real life!”
Speedy’s head was shaking violently, and he was leaning forward bearing his teeth like a wild animal at the dentist.
He continued: “Is not enough to you I run town? I make peaceful village and you can have bed, have little business, pry mouth, and no brick come in window? Tire slash? Bandits attacking? Without tank in streets and rabble rouse? And evidently somehow that’s is not enough for you? I give and give and give and give, and you take, take, take, take—me, me, me, me! Eh?
“This is not Soviet Union! You cannot insult mayor!”
Speedy was holding his arms up in the air. His face and body capsule were real red and extra hot. He looked at the carpet.
The dentist sat holding a mouth mirror and looking at Speedy’s mouth and sometimes his arms. He was used to this kind of an outburst because his patients hated him. They believed he was an agent of evil. He wasn’t; neither was his hygienist; neither was his administrative assistant.
✖
OUT IN THE VILLAGE OF NIANTIC, too, on the side of their gob pile, you could see a huge figure the size of a dinosaur running up and down. Long ago, they paid the famous troll-killer Big Bob a hundred dollars to go get rid of the figure. You know how it can be. So, Big Bob put on his famous burlap battle helmet and went up. But he come back down after an hour saying he hadn’t seen anything up there. A smart-aleck villager came up to Big Bob, pointed at the figure in the distance still pacing upon the gob pile, and asked him if he needed glasses. Whereupon, Big Bob destroyed the villager and rode back to Henrytown.
They say Big Bob was the best troll-killer you ever saw; he had this nelson he’d do. He was a great big sexy kind of guy. He wore his hair in a beautiful low fade, and he had great skin.
He always had suggestions for you, or a request. Like if you went up to his place, before he’d invite you in, he’d ask you how you got there, what route you took from town. He’d look out and tell you another way to get there for next time. On your way out, he’d give you a clock-radio, or some gadget, maybe a boombox, and ask you to take it in for repair since you were going right by there. He’d be standing there, holding the boombox, and looking into your eyes. What could you do? He was awesome.
Big Bob loved holding things in his hands, like rabbits or a boombox. He liked to yell at people in the ear. He liked biscuits and would sometimes toss them at people as a goof. Now there’s something that hasn’t been documented too much: the way old Big Bob of the 116th would sometimes toss biscuits at people as a goof. He never learned your name; he called everybody “Brian,” even God. He wasn’t a religious man. Once, a neighbor asked Big Bob if he believed in God, and he picked up a biscuit and tossed it at the neighbor.
They say he killed five thousand Confederate cattle during The March using that nelson he’d do. He’d draw up and execute the nelson, and the animal would sit there and die. One thing about him, the Army never issued Big Bob a uniform. Never-you-mind he was too big; they just didn’t want him to have one, to ever be in one. Nobody wanted to have to see him in one, for they loved him too much. They said he could just wear whatever. He had this kind of weird, tan jacket he wore all the time, plus his famous burlap helmet. He was a real physical guy.
After the war, Big Bob came back and settled outside Henrytown and, using his nelson, killed every troll in a hundred miles (plus their cattle). He was a pretty good-natured guy; when he stormed a troll village, he always spared their infants and children. He took them and kept them out at his place and brought them up himself. He always had land in those days. He used to walk his bean fields with the troll-children, always telling them he was not their natural father.
“I’m not your real daddy,” he would say. “Forget about what you heard against that. If they tell you different, tell me, and I will kill they ass.”
✖
JOHN DINGER CAME OUT of Star Market; dew point: 39ºF.
“Where you about to go?” Bad Willie Slemmons said; he was standing in the darkness.
Dinger looked at him. Bad Willie appeared to be eating. Dinger went toward him; he could hear eating.
“Where old-girl at?” Bad Willie said. All the sudden, as he said this, he dropped the food on the pavement. He knelt down to pick it up; his stump and finger touched the food that was on the pavement. The food had all come apart.
Yetunde came out of Star Market and went toward her Metro.
“There she go right there,” Bad Willie said with some effort; food was stuck in the folds of skin on his stump. Dinger went toward her Metro.
✖
UPON ONE PART OF THE LOCATION was John Dinger; Bad Willie Slemmons was upon another. Somebody with a flashlight walked by.
The old lawyer appeared in the sky about two hundred feet above Dinger’s head. The lawyer was glowing bluish and so was his briefcase he had; legal documents to do with a deceased man were within the case; the legal documents themselves were not glowing.
The lawyer floated slowly upward; he looked pretty pleased with himself. He disappeared into stratus opacus uniformis clouds.
Six hundred million bushels of soybeans appeared over Bad Willie’s head. Now, in terms of elevation, the beans were about where the lawyer had been, but, obviously, the beans took up more room than the lawyer ever did. Yeah, beans miles back of Bad Willie’s head, clear to Bement, it looked like.
After a minute, the beans floated upward into the clouds.
Dinger and Bad Willie were, I don’t know, seventy-five feet apart, I guess.
Dinger, suddenly wearing a different shirt, waved his arms around and issued verbal taunts to Bad Willie; the latter got his knife out and belted it to his stump. He held it in the air and looked.
Jens Kujawa appeared over Dinger; Jens Kujawa was glowing a little bit.
Dory Funk Sr., Dory Funk Jr., and Terry Funk appeared over Bad Willie. The Funks issued verbal taunts to Jens Kujawa and made gestures. The Funks were all trying to breaststroke in the air over to Jens Kujawa; presumably, they wanted to get over there and throttle him.
Meanwhile, Jens Kujawa looked like he didn’t know where he was at; he was turned the other way; he had to kind of flail so he could see wherefrom the verbal taunts were being issued. Jens Kujawa looked down at Dinger. Jens Kujawa and the Funks drifted up.
Highway to Heaven appeared over Dinger’s head. Bad Willie looked at Highway to Heaven’s windblown hair. Bad Willie squealed and burst into tears. Highway to Heaven turned and looked down at him. Bad Willie wiped his eyes and nose on the wrist part of his jacket sleeve.
A brightly glowing toddler appeared twenty feet over Bad Willie’s head. Dinger looked. The toddler looked discouraged; she was floating upwards.
In the other part of the sky, Highway to Heaven pointed at the toddler; the toddler pointed back at Highway to Heaven; Highway to Heaven laughed and asked the toddler if she wanted some juice. Dinger was staring at the toddler best he could.
Bad Willie wanted to walk up, climb up, and ram his knife blade in Dinger’s throat area. He wanted Dinger’s gore to all the time be showering his person and for it to coat the ground. He wanted his glasses and body to float in the gore; he wanted to dunk his chin in it and let it run in over his labium inferius oris and around his lateral incisor.
✖
THE MAYOR’S WIFE WAS PREGNANT a long time. That is to say, Pilar Kusnetsov was pregnant a long time. And I can’t think of one single, solitary reason not to list off all of her children for you.
They are as follows: Madison, Clayton, Hunter, Haley, Jordan, Tristan, Brenda, Ian, Chase, Megan, Mackenzie, Maddox, Asher, Cody, Gage, Brooke, Brodie, Tiffany, Braden, Courtney, Jennifer, Kaley, Amber, Skylar, Reagan, Jayden, Riley, Connor.
Good kids—all of them. I’m very sorry to say a small number of them are no longer with us. I’ll check my notes for exactly which ones, then email you.
✖
CARL THE MINI-DONK DIDN’T know the Fujita-Pearson Tornado Intensity Scale from a hole in the ground.
He went and stood by the well. The actual way he had his body oriented in relationship to the well made it look like he was looking at the side of the well. I don’t know if he was or not. I don’t know what he was doing. He was an old barn donk. He was not a circuit donk.
In the air above Carl were stratus opacus uniformis clouds. Pretty soon, some nimbostratus opacus clouds rode in. The family come and took Carl to the cellar. Pretty soon, a tornado formed and resulted and the well got ripped out of the ground.
Carl was fine. As I specifically mentioned, he was in the cellar. In fact, he saw about a few turnips while he was down there. Joining Carl in the root cellar were the rest of the Bearing family: Jim, Graciela, Humph, Sis, Grace the pygmy goat, Janet the cat, and Private First Class Wilberforce Burlingame Laudermilke Jr., Jr. the basset hound. All fine.
One of Bearing’s geldings got killed—his head had got in the way of an airborne chunk of the well.
When they were let out of the cellar, Carl and Grace went and stood by the hole where the well had been. Bearing was standing looking at the dead horse.
OK, my point in telling about him is, if you had come and literally spread out a Fujita-Pearson Tornado Intensity Scale by that hole and then repositioned Carl the mini-donk so he could potentially see both the hole and the Fujita-Pearson, he would not have known the difference between them.