Bumper Crop by Joe R. Lansdale Read Free Book Online Page A

care."
    "A dead cat's sacred, you know that."
    "We made that up."
    "And because we did that makes it true. A dead cat's sacred." Harold could not find it in his heart to refute this. They found the dead cat on the street next to the curb the day before, and Joe had said right off that it was sacred. And Harold, without contesting, had agreed.
    And how could he disagree? The looks of the cat were hypnotizing. Its little gray body was worm-worked. Its teeth exposed. Its lips were drawn back, black and stiff. All the stuff to draw the eye. All the stuff that made it sacred.
    They took the cat over the creek, through the woods and out to the old "Indian" graveyard and placed it on the ground where Joe said an old Caddo Chief was buried. They took the cat and poked its stiff legs into the soft dirt so that it appeared to be running through quicksand.
    Joe said, "I pronounce you a sacred cat with powers as long as there's hair on your body and you don't fall over, whichever comes first."
    They made an oath on the sacred cat, and the oath was like this: They were going to sneak over to the Fat Man's house when their parents were asleep, and find out just what in hell and heaven the Fat Man did. Maybe see him eat so they could find out how quickly he went through those boxes and cartons of chicken, pizza, egg foo yung , hamburgers, and the like.
    Above them candlelight flickered through the thin curtains and window. Joe raised up cautiously for a peek.
    Inside he saw the candle residing in a broken dish on an end table next to the telephone. And that was it for the Fat Man's furniture. The rest of the room was filled with food boxes and cartons, and wading knee-deep in their midst was the Fat Man.
    The Fat Man had two large trash cans next to him, and he was bending quite nimbly for a man his size (and as he bent the fat about his middle made three thick anaconda coils, one of which was spotted with the blue half-moon tattoo), picking up the boxes and tossing them in the cans.
    Harold raised up for a look. Soon the cans were stuffed and overflowing and the Fat Man had cleared a space on the floor. With the handle of a can in either hand, the Fat Man swung the cans toward the door, outside and off the edge of the porch.
    The Fat Man came back, closed the door, kicked his way through the containers until he reached the clearing he had made.
    He said in a voice that seemed somewhat distant, and originating at the pit of his stomach, "Tip, tap, tip tap." Then his voice turned musical and he began to sing, "Tip, tap, tip tap."
    His bare feet flashed out on the hardwood floor with a sound not unlike tap shoes or wood clicking against wood, and the Fat Man kept repeating the line, dancing around and around, moving light as a ninety-pound ballerina, the obscene belly swinging left and right to the rhythm of his song and his fast-moving feet.
    "Tip, tap, tip tap."
    There was a knock at the door.
    The Fat Man stopped dancing, started kicking the boxes aside, making his way to answer the knock.
    Joe dropped from the window and edged around the corner of the house and looked at the porch.
    A delivery boy stood there with five boxes of pizza stacked neatly on one palm. It was that weird guy from Cab's Pizza. The one with all the personality of a puppet. Or at least that was the way he was these days. Once he had been sort of a joker, but the repetition of pizza to go had choked out and hardened any fun that might have been in him.
    The Fat Man's hand came out and took the pizzas. No money was exchanged. The delivery boy went down the steps, clicked down the walk, got in the Volkswagen with Cab's Pizza written on the side, and drove off.
    Joe crept back to the window, raised up next to Harold. The Fat Man put the pizza boxes on the end table by the phone, opened the top one and took out the pizza, held it balanced on his palm like a droopy painter's palette.
    "Tip, tap, tip tap," he sang from somewhere down in his abdomen, then he turned, his back