Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet Read online

  I shouted, “Run, Eliza!”

  “What about Ned?”

  “Just get the hell out of here!”

  Still clutching her trophy necklace, Eliza scuttled away from the house and dove into a thicket of tall grass, ducking for cover behind a rusted feed trough.

  Satisfied she was safe, I scrabbled through the dirt towards Blubberguts’s remains … and the sawed-off in his thigh holster. Smiley—streaked in gore and frozen in shock—saw what I was doing, snapped out of his inertia, and began raising the axe to hurl it at me. There was no time for me to wrench the sawed-off from the holster, so I just aimed Blubberguts’s leg at Smiley and pulled the trigger. The shot tore through the bottom of the holster and obliterated Blubberguts’s foot before it punched a ragged red hole through Smiley’s stomach. The axe dropped from his hand and he splashed to the ground in a pool of his own blood and guts, his toothless mouth popping like a fish.

  Now I wrestled the sawed-off from Blubberguts’s holster—

  A long length of chain snaked around the barrels and the shotgun was snatched from my hands. I looked up in surprise. Chains had removed the biggest of the chains from around his neck and was wielding it like a bullwhip. With an expert flick of his wrist, he sent the sawed-off clattering away in the dirt far from my reach; another flick of his wrist and then the chain whistled through the air towards me. The heavy steel links smashed into my chest, punching the wind from my lungs. As I hacked for breath, Chains darted forwards and started whipping me with the chain like a junkyard Indiana Jones. It was all I could do just to curl into a ball, shielding my skull as he flogged me with the chain.

  Sheltering behind the feed trough, Eliza saw me in trouble and hatched a plan to rival the bridge fiasco, a plan that would have been the envy of the late Lester Swash. Digging a Zippo lighter from her pocket, she set fire to the plastic doll heads on Baby Doll’s necklace. As their nylon hair caught light, they burned like marshmallows, and she fetched up a rock and pitched it through the farmhouse window. Then she hurled the flaming necklace like a bola. It sailed above Chains and me … through the broken window … straight into the Apes’ shake-and-bake meth lab.

  In the Mark Wahlberg movies, you see old Marky Mark swaggering away from Hiroshima-sized explosions without a care in the world, the blast tousling his hair like a shampoo commercial, the flames giving his complexion a healthy glow.

  But this was nothing like that; this was like Armageddon had arrived.

  The farmhouse exploded like a cherry bomb inside a mailbox. A monstrous fireball punched out the walls and roof, spewing wood and glass and shingles. The Apes’ bikes, parked in front of the porch, were scattered like toys hurled by a brat. The blast tossed Chains and me across the yard like dice flung from a gambler’s hand. Still curled in a ball, I bounced across the yard until I woofed to a crunching stop against a junk refrigerator lying on its side in the weeds. I didn’t see what happened to Chains. He’d been standing when the house exploded and took the brunt of the blast; the last I saw of Chains he was on fire, soaring through the air like a human cannonball stunt gone wrong. The force of the explosion was too much for most of the outbuildings to withstand. The barn collapsed like a house of cards. I hoped Ned had got out in time.

  Reasonably sure I remained intact, I hauled myself upright and sat slumped against the refrigerator. My ears were ringing from the explosion. I surveyed the devastation. Fiery debris rained down from the sky. I saw Eliza poke her head above the feed trough to witness the hell she had wrought.

  Her eyes were wide with shock. Looking like a prankster whose prank had spiraled out of control, she ducked back down sheepishly behind the trough.

  I was about to call to her when my eyes found Salisbury. The skunk aper was splayed on his back in the tall grass. His teeth were bloody and bared in pain. He’d clamped a hand to his ruptured chest in a futile attempt to staunch the blood flow. As his lifeblood gushed through his fingers, he looked at me, and his eyes filled with shame. He rasped: “Forgive me, Levine … I—I was wrong about you … You—you’re no quitter …” And then he smiled at me strangely before lapsing into a lung-shredding coughing fit that spattered his beard with blood.

  I told him, “Just hang in there, Salisbury.” I looked around the smoldering farmyard. I still couldn’t see Chains anywhere. It didn’t know what had happened to Shitface and Mofo. They’d been inside the house when it exploded and I figured they must have been incinerated in the blast. Then I heard a whistling sound above me, and I rolled my eyes slowly upwards.

  “You gotta be shitting me …”

  20.

  For those of you unfamiliar with the sound a burning orangutan makes as it falls from a great height, take my word for it; there’s nothing quite like it.

  Salisbury’s eyes widened in horror as he saw the plummeting ape. Its shadow cloaked him, growing larger and larger, like a falling safe about to flatten Wile E. Coyote in a Road Runner cartoon. When Salisbury realized there was nothing he could do to prevent what was about to happen, he sighed, shook his head ruefully and said, simply, “Shit—”

  I turned my head and looked away before it struck him, but I heard the sickening crunch as it landed, and felt the shuddering impact through the soles of my boots. I wished I hadn’t looked back. What I saw of Salisbury and the orangutan’s remains looked like a failed experiment of Dr. Moreau.

  Before the echo of the orangutan’s crash landing faded away, a second shadow fell, over me this time. I searched the heavens for Shitface, expecting to see his flaming corpse rocketing down towards me like a man-shaped missile.

  But it was Chains. He’d been flame-grilled like a Whopper. His eyes glared hatefully from his barbecued face. The jagged splinters puncturing his cheeks and scalp were also charred black. Smoke coiled like ghostly puppet strings from the scorched rags of his biker vest. He was clutching Smiley’s axe.

  Chains snarled at me in rage and lashed out with a boot, kicking me onto my back like a turtle. Then he raised the axe above his head to strike. Flat on my back—winded, exhausted, helpless—I waited for Chains to bury the axe blade in me. I had no more fight left. All I could do was pray death came quickly.

  Then some kind of animal roared, and behind Chains, I saw a monstrous black shape loping through the smoke like a demon summoned from the fiery pits of hell. Was it—? Could it be—? Of course not, dumbass. But it was only when the creature pounced on Chains, clinging to his back like a giant hairy leech, that I realized it was Boogaloo Baboon.

  Ned wrestled Chains to the ground. The axe fell from Chains’s hands. Ned got his paws on the axe, raised it above him in a wide arc, and then brought the blade thudding down into Chains’s chest. The biker gave a gurgling scream as Ned wrenched the axe free, and then brought it down again, and again, hacking with a feral fury. Through the ragged holes in his baboon mask, the look in Ned’s eyes was more animal than human. He continued hacking long after Chains had stopped screaming, or even breathing. Exhaustion finally overwhelmed him and Ned sank to his knees beside the shattered carcass.

  I warily approached him, and managed to prise the bloody axe from his paws. He bowed his head and I heard him weeping inside his baboon mask. I went to remove the mask but he growled at me. I let him alone and just patted his shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay, Ned.” What else could I say?

  Eliza came and returned my shirt to me. Through all this madness, I’d been running around shirtless; if I’d been in better shape, it might’ve even looked heroic. I put my shirt back on. “You alright?”

  She nodded. “Is Ned okay?”

  “He’ll bounce back,” I said, though after everything he’d been through, I wasn’t sure about that.

  I picked through the wreckage of the farm, satisfying myself that all the Damn Dirty Apes were dead, and that nobody else, neither man nor beast, was likely to crash-land on us from the heavens. There was still no sign of Shitface. He must have been cremated in the explosion; either that or his corpse was currently res
iding on the moon. It looked like Chains’s motorcycle, the one with Mofo’s sidecar attached, was the least damaged of the bikes. Eliza helped me haul it upright. I tried the engine. After everything I’d been through, I wasn’t expecting any favors, but wouldn’t you know it, the bike roared to life the first time I cranked the throttle. Little late in the day, but maybe God was finally starting to cut me some slack. Eliza led Ned by the paw to the bike. We helped him into the sidecar. He sank gingerly into the cushioned leather seat, hissing in pain. “We’ll get that butt looked at just as soon we get back to town,” I told him. Then I straddled the hog, Eliza climbed on behind me and cinched her arms around my waist, and I hit the throttle. The bike revved away from the smoldering ruins of the farmhouse and the mushroom cloud of smoke rising over the horizon.

  21.

  That’s about the size of it; that’s my story, the one I sold to the Hollywood movie people. These days they’ll make a movie about any old nonsense.

  Eliza talked me into selling my story rights. I agreed under one condition: That the role the movie producer had promised Eliza contained no nudity. The producer wasn’t happy about that. Eliza would be playing herself in the movie and the guy made a convincing argument that nudity was integral to the character of a topless dancer. But I put my foot down and he finally relented.

  The last I heard, the movie is scheduled for release next fall. Oscar-winner Nic Cage is playing yours truly. Could’ve been worse, I guess; I understand Shane Moxie was briefly in the running. I’m curious to see what hairpiece Cage brings to the role.

  Eliza wrote me from Hollywood, where she’s living the dream. She’s shacked up with the movie producer—rather him than the nice man from Austin, Texas at the sleazier end of the market. She invited me out to the premiere. Ever since he saw the invite had a plus one, Walt keeps badgering me to take him. I just tell him, “We’ll see.” I’m still a little ticked off with Walt, or letting him think I am.

  When Eliza, Ned and me got back to town from the Sticks, and I skidded Chains’s bike to a stop outside The Henhouse, and then climbed off the hog and collapsed in the parking lot, Walt had scuttled outside with a big beaming smile and the first thing he’d said was: “Good news, Reggie! Henrietta-Sue and me! I got my dates wrong! Eliza ain’t my you-know-what!” Eliza asked me what he’d meant. I told her she’d just dodged a bullet. Then Walt said, “Where’s Salisbury? Where’s Lester? Ah shit, Reggie— Where’s my shotgun?” The old skinflint docked it from my next paycheck. Eventually he did get around to asking how I was. He claimed he’d never had a doubt I’d be okay. “You’re like the cat who came back, Reggie.”

  If that’s true, I’ve got to be all out of lives by now.

  While I was laid up hospital, Constable Gooch came to take my statement. Given how crazy it all sounded, I half-expected the feisty little lawman to start swatting me with his hat. But Eliza backed up my story—Ned still wasn’t talking much—and despite himself, Gooch seemed impressed by my derring-do.

  Legally speaking, for my part in the deaths of the Damn Dirty Apes, not to mention Lester and Salisbury, I escaped with little more than a slap on the wrist. Mofo the orangutan was another matter. The A.S.P.C.A. brought me up on charges of animal cruelty, and I was lucky just to be fined. Had they learned about the black bear—I left that part out of my statement—I might’ve been looking at some serious jail time.

  After extensive surgery on his ass, and a long spell at the Shady Oak nervous hospital, Ned Pratt did indeed bounce back from his ordeal. Well, maybe not ‘bounce’ exactly. He still walks with a pronounced limp, and carries a donut cushion for when he sits, but without Lester around to lead him astray, Ned’s a changed man. On the advice of his therapist, Ned ritually burned his Boogaloo Baboon costume, and is learning to let go of the past. He’s become a committed churchgoer, and unlike the rest of those sinners, we rarely ever see him at The Henhouse anymore. I understand there’s a horror movie producer interested in telling Ned’s version of events. Who the hell would want to watch two hours of an orangutan sodomizing a man, I do not know. But then again, until recently I’d been unaware of the demand for skunk ape porn, so maybe I’m just out of touch?

  Lester Swash was exonerated of having murdered Ned, and his name (if not his good name) restored around town. Lester’s body—you may recall I last saw it in a sleeping bag, floating downriver like a Viking funeral—was never recovered. Maybe bears fished it from the river; or it sank and was eaten by flatheads? But I like to think the body made it all the way out to sea. I picture Lester floating out over the horizon as the reflection of the setting sun shimmers on the ocean waves.

  The Bugle’s front-page story on Eliza and me, calling us heroes, was a business boon for Walt. He framed the news cutting and put it on the wall next to my other one. I would’ve preferred if he’d replaced the other one, but he claimed they complimented each other. For a spell, folks flocked to The Henhouse to hear me tell the story in person, which I could usually be coaxed into doing for the price of a beer or the slim chance of getting laid. Less welcome were the people who started coming to me with their problems, like I was some kind of one-man A-Team who could help them, and not just a shit-magnet who’d survived Mofo and the Damn Dirty Apes only by the skin of his teeth.

  Little could I know that the news coverage would catch the eye of a skeleton from my closet; one morning, Boar Hog Brannon rolled up to visit me.

  Now with a name like Boar Hog, you don’t expect a fella with matinee idol looks, and Boar Hog didn’t have those, then or now—but he was radiating such rude health that it shamed me to glance at my sorry-ass reflection in the back-bar mirror. Wearing a crisp polo shirt tucked into jeans, Boar Hog paused at the entrance and glanced around the bar like he was viewing a grisly crime scene. Then he saw me perched at my spot at the end of the slab and grinned. “Reggie?”

  “Boar Hog,” I said, unable to mask my surprise.

  He chuckled bashfully. “Oh …” he said, “no one calls me Boar Hog no more. It’s plain old Clarence nowadays.” He hovered at the entrance like a vampire waiting for an invite; maybe he just didn’t like the look of the joint, and wanted me to come join him outside. But I just plastered a welcoming smile on my mug and said: “Well, hell … Get on in here, Boar— Clarence.” He came inside warily—eyes darting—like a Christian entering the lion’s den. I offered him the stool next to mine at the slab.

  “How long’s it been?” I said, knowing full well how long it had been, to the day.

  “Fifteen years and change, I reckon.”

  “And change,” I said. “What’re you drinking?”

  He tore his eyes away from the liquor display. “Club soda,” he said.

  Walt glanced at me—cocked his eyebrow—and then poured the club soda in silent judgment, placing the glass on the slab in front of Boar Hog.

  I toasted Boar Hog with my breakfast bottle of Coors. “Here’s to you.”

  Boar Hog hesitated, wetting his lips with a flick of his tongue as he ogled the pearls of condensation jewelling my beer bottle. Then he chinked his glass against it.

  “You’re looking good,” I told him.

  He nodded magnanimously. Then thought to say, “You too, Reggie.”

  We both let the lie slide; I heard Walt give a little snort.

  “So what brings you here?”

  “I saw your picture in the paper,” Boar Hog said. “That, uh …” He rolled his wrist like he was searching for the right words. “Skunk ape thing.”

  I told him I recalled the skunk ape thing he was referring to.

  “Heckuva story,” he said. “Did it really happen like the papers said?”

  I smiled enigmatically. “Well, you know how they like to exaggerate things.”

  He nodded. “It sounded kinda far-fetched …

  “Anyway—I saw you in the paper and realized I’d plain left you off my list.”

  I shot a nervous glance at Walt.

  “What list would that be?” I hop
ed it wasn’t a shit list.

  Boar Hog bowed his head in shame.

  “The list of all the people I’ve hurt,” he said softly.

  I frowned. “Not sure I’m following you, B.H.”

  Boar Hog gave a heavy sigh. He glanced longingly at my beer and then took a birdlike sip of soda, grimacing in distaste. “I’m in the program,” he said. “A.A. God willing, next month I’ll be three years clean and sober.”

  “Yeah? That’s great. Good for you,” I said, raising my beer in congratulations.

  He nodded grimly. “I’ve been working the steps, trying to make amends for all the hurt I caused—”

  I realized where he was going with all this and cut him off. “Hell, Boar Hog—” I had a slight buzz going now, and I’d forgotten he’d asked me to call him Clarence. “You don’t owe me nothing. We’re fighters, man. Hurt comes with the territory.”

  He shook his head. “You don’t understand, Reggie.” He sighed like he’d been gut-punched. “When we fought, I was … I was wearing loaded gloves.”

  “Say what?”

  “Plaster,” he said. “On my hand wraps. Christ, I was hitting you with sledgehammers that night. For the life of me, I don’t know how you took it for as long as you did. It damn near killed me just to land that many shots. The ref hadn’t stopped it when he did, I don’t think I could’ve climbed off my stool for another round.”

  “Loaded gloves …” was all I could say.

  He nodded sheepishly. “I’m sorry, Reggie. Truly I am.”

  I glanced at my beer like it was giving me counsel.

  Boar Hog said, “I guess you probably want to take a swing at me?”

  “Ah, what the hell’s that gonna solve?”

  But I slugged him to the floor all the same.

  He peered up at me, blinking and rubbing his jaw. “Guess I deserved that.”