Sloughing Off the Rot by Lance Carbuncle Read Free Book Online Page A

dirt-rats.
    “Please, palaver with me and my men,” said Three Tooth, ignoring Santiago’s rant. “We want to help. We are the helping kind of scurves.”

     
    The day blew its wad and ran out the door with some sorry excuse about an early meeting in the morning. And evening was on them quickly. The men pissed a large perimeter around themselves and the continuously burning thorn bush. Santiago skinned and gutted his kills and turned the dirt-rats over a small fire, deeply concentrating on his chore in an effort to ignore the presence of the others. But Crazy Talk did not want to be ignored. He stood in front of Santiago, demanding attention.
    “Word is you not think good,” said Crazy Talk to Santiago. “Word is rats nibble your braincheese. Word is your heart was torn out and eaten by buzzards.”
    Santiago laughed and stood up from his squat in front of the fire. “Word is you not think good,” he repeated, tittering, scratching at his beard and screwing his face up in a disdainful sneer. “Word is, you’re an old woman. Word is you have turkey in the sky. Word is, you fellas enjoy each other’s company a wee bit too much. How you like them apples, you crazy talking Injun?” Santiago’s face flicked through a random series of twitches and settled on a half-smile. And he laughed again at Crazy Talk. “Word is you not think good. Now hit the road, Tonto.”
    But Crazy Talk did his best impression of a statue. He stood across the small fire from Santiago and occasionally uttered his gibberish when Santiago looked up. “Word is you’re a bad banana with a greasy black peel,” he said.
    Santiago wrung his face into a grimace but remained still, squatting in front of the fire.
    “Word is your brain is full of spiders and you have garlic in your soul,” said Crazy Talk.
    Santiago rose to his feet.
    “Word is your heart’s a tomato splotched with moldy purple spots,” said Crazy Talk. “Word is you’re a crooked dirty jockey and you drive a crooked hoss.”
    “I’m gonna tell you something, brother,” said Santiago, his eyes wide open and bulging from the sockets like bloodshot tulip bulbs. You got this stuff in your head about me, your preconceived notions and judgments and whatnot. But, I’m the man in the mirror, guy. You like me, I’ll like you. You swing at me, I’ll swing on you. You try to cut me, and I’ll hack you to shreds. So let’s cut it with this trip you’re on. Walk away and leave me to my business and we’ll call it all great and groovy. Alright, chief?”
    “Word is, your soul is an appalling dump heap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of rubbish imaginable and tangled up in knots.”
    “Word is this. Word is that. Bladdah-don-dooo-doo-dat-didilly,” said Santiago, stomping around in a small circle and slapping himself in the face. “Well, I got a word for you: incoming.” Santiago bent over and dredged the bottom of his lungs for an infected brown and yellow glob of mucous. After a good deal of grunting and clearing his throat and slapping his hands on his chest, Santiago horked up sputum from his depths and spat the enormous gob high into the air, launching it in Crazy Talk’s direction.
    And time crossed its arms and became stubborn and sluggish. The airborne loogie moved in a slow-motion arc, first rising high above them and then quickly picking up speed on its downward trajectory. Crazy Talk watched, unable to move as the projectile flipped about in the air and headed downward toward him. He had time to study it and notice the greens and yellows and browns of the globule. He saw a small mist of spittle trailing off of it like the tail of a comet. Before he could jump aside, the spit splattered on his shoulder and a stench fumed off of it. The stank sickened Crazy Talk, and he vomited just a little of his breakfast up in his mouth. The substance that rose from his stomach was a bilious madness, a fetid resentment that had been brewing in Crazy Talk well