to ’em. Right, Gordie?’
‘Sure,’ I said, but privately I thought Vern was right- Gretna was a pretty
stupid name for a town. I just hadn’t been able to think of another one. ‘So anyway,
they’re having their annual Pioneer Days, just like in Castle Rock -‘
‘Yeah, Pioneer Days, that’s a fuckin’ blast,’ Vern said earnestly. ‘I put my
whole family in that jail on wheels they have, even fuckin’ Billy. It was only for half an hour and it cost me my whole allowance but it was worth it just to know where that
sonofawhore was -‘
‘Will you shut up and let him tell it?’ Teddy hollered.
Vern blinked. ‘Sure. Yeah. Okay.’
‘Go on, Gordie,’ Chris said.
‘It’s not really much -‘
‘Naw, we don’t expect much from a wet end like you,’ Teddy said, ‘but tell it
anyway.’
I cleared my throat. ‘So anyway. It’s Pioneer Days, and on the last night they
have these three big events. There’s an egg-roll for the little kids and a sack-race for kids that are like eight or nine, and then there’s the pie-eating contest. And the main guy of the story is this fat kid nobody likes named Davie Hogan.’
‘Like Charlie Hogan’s brother if he had one,’ Vern said, and then shrank back
as Chris rabbit-punched him again.
‘This kid, he’s our age, but he’s fat. He weighs like one-eighty and he’s always
gettin’ beat up and ranked out. And all the kids, instead of calling him Davie, they call him Lard Ass Hogan and rank him out whenever they get the chance.’
They nodded respectfully, showing the proper sympathy for Lard Ass,
although if such a guy ever showed up in Castle Rock, we all would have been out
teasing him and ranking him to the dogs and back.
‘So he decided to take revenge because he’s, like, fed up, you know? He’s only
in the pie- eating contest, but that’s like the final event during Pioneer Days and
everyone really digs it. The prize is five bucks -‘
‘So he wins it and gives the finger to everybody!’ Teddy said. ‘Boss!’
‘No, it’s better than that,’ Chris said. ‘Just shut up and listen.’
‘Lard Ass figures to himself, five bucks, what’s that? If anybody remembers
anything at all in two weeks, it’ll just be that fuckin’ pig Hogan out-ate everybody,
well, it figures, let’s go over his house and rank the shit out of him, only now we’ll call him Pie Ass instead of Lard Ass.’
They nodded some more, agreeing that Davie Hogan was a thinking cat. I
began to warm to my own story.
‘But everybody expects him to enter the contest, you know. Even his mom and
dad. Hey, they practically got that five bucks spent for him already.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Chris said.
‘So he’s thinkin’ about it and hating the whole thing, because being fat isn’t
really his fault. See, he’d got these weird fuckin’ glands, somethin’, and -‘
‘My cousin’s like that!’ Vern said excitedly. ‘Sincerely! She weighs close to
three hundred pounds! Supposed to be her Hyboid Gland or something like that. I
dunno about her Hyboid Gland, but what a fuckin’ blimp, no shit, she looks like a
fuckin’ Thanksgiving turkey, and this one time -‘
‘Will you shut the fuck up, Vern?’ Chris cried violently. ‘For the last time!
Honest to God!’ He had finished his Coke and now he turned the hourglass-shaped
green bottle upside down and brandished it over Vent’s head.
‘Yeah, right, I’m sorry. Go on, Gordie. It’s a swell story.’
I smiled. I didn’t really mind Vern’s interruptions, but of course I couldn’t tell
Chris that; he was the self-appointed Guardian of Art. ‘So he’s turnin’ it over in his mind, you know, the whole week before the contest At school kids keep comin’ up to
him and sayin’ Hey Lard Ass, how many pies ya gonna eat? Ya gonna eat ten?
Twenty? Fuckin’ eighty! And Lard Ass, he says, How should I know. I don’t even
know what kind they are. And see, there’s quite a bit of interest in the contest because the champ is this grownup whose name is, uh, Bill Traynor, I guess. And this guy