KooKooLand by Gloria Norris Read Free Book Online

horsewoman. She’s got a way with the most skittish horses.”
    Jimmy grunted, unwilling to concede Doris was good at anything besides aggravating Hank.
    Just then a guy waddled up to the counter. He had a beer belly that made him look like a pregnant lady.
    â€œHey, Susan,” he said with a snorty laugh, “gimme a pair of balls.”
    â€œYeah, me too, Susan. What about my balls?” said his buddy, like it was the funniest goddamn thing in the world. Like he was goddamn Groucho Marx.
    Balls were what hunters called a certain type of ammo when they wanted to be wise guys. When they wanted to make a girl get all red in the face. They seemed to like that one little word could get girls all bent out of shape.
    I knew what balls were. Sort of. Besides being something fun and round you bounced against a wall, they had something to do with Down There. Something round Down There that guys thought was fun and funny. The shape is what threw me. I thought it was supposed to be long like a maple cruller.
    The pregnant guy wasn’t done having fun.
    â€œYou ever fired up any balls, Susan? You ever seen ’em shoot off?”
    Jimmy stepped in. Right in the pregnant guy’s face. The red-hot end of his cigarette butt was an inch from the guy’s schnoz.
    â€œLeave the kid alone. She’s a good kid, a decent kid. Don’t talk to her like that.”
    â€œI was just kidding around. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
    â€œIf I tell Hank what you said to her, he’ll belt you so hard in the schnozzola you’ll see more stars than Wile E. Coyote.”
    â€œI didn’t mean anything by it,” the guy repeated.
    â€œThen maybe you want to open your stupid piehole and apologize.”
    â€œSorry,” the guy mumbled to Susan, staring down at the ammo.
    â€œMaybe you wanna look at the person you’re apologizing to so you at least give the impression you mean what you say.”
    The guy looked up at Susan. His stupid piehole was all twitchy.
    â€œI’m sorry. Real sorry.”
    Susan gave him the ammo and he thanked her very much and slunk the hell out of there like a cat that had peed where it wasn’t supposed to.
    Jimmy had showed the guy who was boss. He had protected my best friend. He was the best goddamn father in the world.
    â€œAny jerko bugs you, you tell your uncle Jimmy,” he told Susan. “I’ll straighten him the hell out.”
    â€œThat’s what I’m afraid of,” she said.
    A door banged open and a gruff voice boomed out.
    â€œLook what the cat dragged in. A goddamn Greek.”
    It was Susan’s father, Hank. The millionaire.
    He didn’t look so hot. He looked like he might’ve just gotten up or had tied one on the night before. I caught a glimpse of a makeshift bed in the smoky back room he had come out of. And a whole bunch of empty beer bottles. It made me think of a song I sang in the car to pass the time while Jimmy was in the bookie joint.
    Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall
    Ninety-nine bottles of beer.
    Take one down, pass it around.
    Ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall.
    You kept going until you had gone through all the bottles of beer or until your father came back.
    I could smell the beer on Hank’s breath when he got closer. He was puffing on a cigar as usual. Cigar smoke made my stomach do flip-flops worse than Jimmy’s Lucky Strikes. I turned my head to the side and tried holding my breath. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi . . . I couldn’t hold it long enough.
    Hank handed Susan a wrench. He told her to go straighten up his place in the back, then finish putting that boat trailer together, then stock the shelves, then go buy him some more goddamn cigars, he was almost out. Susan took the wrench like she knew what to do with it.
    Before she left she spoke to me again. “Don’t forget about Rat Cliff.”
    â€œI won’t. I