in his own lap and told folks later he only thanked Providence he had been wearing
his coveralls. And Miss Norman, who taught Latin and English Fundamentals at the
Gretna Consolidated High School, vomited into her own purse in an agony of
propriety.
Lard Ass Hogan watched it all, his large face calm and beaming, his stomach
suddenly sweet and steady with a warm balm it might never know again–that balm
was a feeling of utter and complete satisfaction. He stood up, took the slightly tacky microphone from the trembling hand of Mayor Charbonneau, and said…
17
‘I declare this contest a draw.’ Then he puts the mike down, walks off the back of the platform, and goes straight home. His mother’s there, on account of she couldn’t get a babysitter for Lard Ass’s little sister, who was only two. And as soon as he comes in, all covered with puke and pie drool, still wearin’ his bib, she says, “Davie, did you win?” But he doesn’t say a fuckin’ word, you know. Just goes upstairs to his room, locks the door, and lays down on his bed.’
I downed the last swallow in Chris’s Coke and tossed it into the woods.
‘Yeah, that’s cool, then what happened?’ Teddy asked eagerly.
‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t knowT Teddy asked.
‘It means it’s the end. When you don’t know what happens next, that’s the end.’
‘Whaaaat? Vern cried. There was an upset, suspicious look on his face, like he
thought maybe he’d just gotten rooked playing penny-up Bingo at the Topsham Fair.
‘What’s all this happy crappy? How’d it come out?’
‘You have to use your imagination,’ Chris said patiently.
‘No, I ain’t!’ Vern said angrily. ‘He’s supposed to use his imagination! He made
up the fuckin’ story!’
‘Yeah, what happened to the cat?’ Teddy persisted. ‘Come on, Gordie, tell us.’
‘I think his dad was at the Pie-Eat and when he came home he beat the living
crap out of Lard Ass.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Chris said. ‘I bet that’s just what happened.’
‘And,’ I said, ‘the kids went right on calling him Lard Ass. Except that maybe
some of them started calling him Puke-Yer-Guts, too.’
‘That ending sucks,’ Teddy said sadly.
‘That’s why I didn’t want to tell it.’
‘You could have made it so he shot his father and ran away and joined the
Texas Rangers,’ Teddy said. ‘How about that?’
Chris and I exchanged a glance. Chris raised one shoulder in a barely
perceptible shrug. ‘I guess so,’ I said.
‘Hey, you got any new Le Dio stories, Gordie?’
‘Not just now. Maybe I’ll think of some.’ I didn’t want to upset Teddy, but I
wasn’t very interested in checking out what was happening in Le Dio, either. ‘Sorry
you didn’t go for this one better.’
‘Nah, it was good,’ Teddy said. ‘Right up to the end, it was good. All that
pukin’ was really cool.’
‘Yeah, that was cool, really gross,’ Vern agreed. ‘But Teddy’s right about the
ending. It was sort of a gyp.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, and sighed.
Chris stood up. ‘Let’s do some walking,’ he said. It was still bright daylight, the
sky a hot, steely blue, but our shadows had begun to trail out long. I remember that as a kid, September days always seemed to end much too soon, catching me by surprise-
-it was as if something inside my heart expected it to always be June, with daylight
lingering in the sky until almost nine-thirty. ‘What time is it, Gordie?’ I looked at my watch and was astonished to see it was after five. ‘Yeah, let’s go,’ Teddy said. ‘But let’s make camp before dark so we can see to get wood and stuff. I’m gettin’ hungry, too.’
‘Six-thirty,’ Chris promised. ‘Okay with you guys?’
It was. We started to walk again, using the cinders beside the tracks now. Soon
the river was so far behind us we couldn’t even hear its sound. Mosquitoes hummed
and I slapped one off my neck. Vern and Teddy were walking up ahead, working out some sort of complicated comic book trade. Chris was beside me, hands in his pockets,
shirt slapping against his knees and thighs like an apron.