heart still thudding from the nearness of my escape, I thought that Milo looked like a human version of Chopper.
‘I know you!’ Milo raved. ‘You’re Teddy Duchamp! I know all of you! Sonny,
I’ll beat your ass, teasing my dawg like that!’
‘Like to see you try!’ Teddy raved right back. ‘Let’s see you climb over this
fence and get me, fatass!’
‘WHAT? WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?’
‘FAT-ASS!’ Teddy screamed happily. ‘LARD-BUCKET! TUBBAGUTS!
COME ON! COME 0N!’ He was jumping up and down, fists clenched, sweat flying
from his hair. ‘TEACH YOU TO SIC YOUR STUPID DOG ON PEOPLE! COME
ON! LIKE TO SEE YOU TRY!’
‘You little tin-weasel pecker wood loony’s son! I’ll see your mother gets an
invitation to go down and talk to the judge in court about what you done to my dawg!’
‘What did you call me?’ Teddy asked hoarsely. He had stopped jumping up
and down. His eyes had gone huge and glassy, and his skin was the colour of lead.
Milo had called Teddy a lot of things, but he was able to go back and get the
one that had struck home with no trouble at all–since then I have noticed again and
again what a genius people have for that… for finding the LOONY button down side
and not just pressing it but hammering on the fucker.
‘Your dad was a loony,’ he said, grinning. ‘Loony up in Togus, that’s what.
Crazier’n a shithouse rat. Crazier’n a buck with tickwood fever. Nuttier’n a long-tailed cat in a room fulla rockin’ chairs. Loony. No wonder you’re actin’ the way you are,
with a loony for a f-‘
‘YOUR MOTHER BLOWS DEAD RATS!’ Teddy screamed. ‘AND IF YOU
CALL MY DAD A LOONY AGAIN, I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU, YOU
COCKSUCKER!’
‘Loony,’ Milo said smugly. He’d found the button, all right. ‘Loony’s kid,
loony’s kid, your father’s got toys in the attic, kid, tough break.’
Vern and Chris had been getting over their laughing fit, perhaps getting ready
to appreciate the seriousness of the situation and call Teddy off, but when Teddy told Milo that his mother blew dead rats, they went back into hysterics again, lying there
on the bank, rolling from side to side, their feet kicking, holding their bellies. ‘No more,’ Chris said weakly. ‘No more, please, no more, I swear to God I’m gonna bust!’
Chopper was walking around in a large, dazed figure-eight behind Milo. He
looked like the losing fighter about ten seconds after the ref has ended the match and awarded the winner a TKO. Meanwhile, Teddy and Milo continued their discussion of
Teddy’s father, standing nose to nose, with the wire fence Milo was too old and too fat to climb between them.
‘Don’t you say nothing else about my dad! My dad stormed the beaches at
Normandy, you fucking wet end!’
‘Yeah, well, where is he now, you ugly little four-eyed turd? He’s up to Togus,
ain’t he? He’s up to Togus because HE WENT FUCKING SECTION EIGHT!’
‘Okay, that’s it,’ Teddy said. ‘That’s it, that’s the end, I’m gonna kill you.’ He
threw himself at the fence and started up.
‘You come on and try it, you slimy little bastard.’ Milo stood back, grinning
and waiting.
‘No!’ I shouted. I got to my feet, grabbed Teddy by the loose seat of his jeans,
and pulled him off the fence. We both staggered back and fell over, him on top. He
squashed my balls pretty good and I groaned. Nothing hurts like having your balls
squashed, you know it? But I kept my arms locked around Teddy’s middle.
‘Lemme up!’ Teddy sobbed, writhing in my arms. ‘Lemme up, Gordie! Nobody
ranks out my old man. LEMME UP GODDAMMIT LEMME UP!’
‘That’s just what he wants!’ I shouted in his ear. ‘He wants to get you over there
and beat the piss out of you and then take you to the cops!’
‘Huh?’ Teddy craned around to look at me, his face dazed.
‘Never mind your smart mouth, kid,’ Milo said, advancing to the fence again
with his hands curled into ham-sized fists. ‘Let ‘im fight his own battles.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘You only outweigh him by five hundred pounds.’