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
Traynor, he ain’t even fat In fact, he’s a real stringbean. But he can eat pies like a whiz,
and the year before he ate six pies in five minutes.’
‘Whole pies?’ Teddy asked, awe-struck.
‘Right you are. And Lard Ass, he’s the youngest guy to ever be in the contest’
‘Go, Lard Ass!’ Teddy cried excitedly. ‘Scoff up those fuckin’ pies!’
‘Tell ’em about the other guys in it,’ Chris said.
‘Okay. Besides Lard Ass Hogan and Bill Traynor, there was Calvin Spier, the fattest
guy in town – he ran the jewellery store -‘
‘Gretna Jewels,’ Vern said, and snickered. Chris gave him a black look.
‘And then there’s this guy who’s a disc jockey at a radio station up in Lewiston, he ain’t
exactly fat but he’s sorta chubby, you know. And the last guy was Hubert Gretna the
Third, who was the principal of Lard Ass Hogan’s school.’
‘He was eatin’ against his own principal!’ Teddy asked.
Chris clutched his knees and rocked back and forth joyfully. ‘Ain’t that great! Go on,
Gordie!’
I had them now. They were all leaning forward. I felt an intoxicating sense of power. I
tossed my empty Coke bottle into the woods and scrunched around a little bit to get
comfortable. I remember hearing the chickadee again, off in the woods, farther away now,
lifting its monotonous, endless call into the sky: dee-dee-dee dee …
‘So he gets this idea,’ I said. The greatest revenge idea a kid ever had. The big night
comes – the end of Pioneer Days. The pie-eating contest comes just before the fireworks.
The Main Street of Gretna has been closed off so people can walk around in it, and there’s
this big platform set up right in the street. There’s bunting hanging down and a big crowd
in front. There’s also a photographer from the paper, to get a picture of the winner with
blueberries all over his face, because it turned out to be blueberry pies that year. Also, I
almost forgot to tell you this, they had to eat the pies with their hands tied behind their
backs. So, dig it, they come up onto the platform…’
16
From The Revenge of Lard Ass Hogan, by Gordon Lachance, originally published in
Cavalier magazine, March, 1975. Used by permission.
They came up onto the platform one by one and stood behind a long trestie table
covered with a linen cloth. The table was stacked high with pies and stood at the edge of
the platform. Above it were looped necklaces of bare 100-watt bulbs, moths and night-
fliers banging softly against them and haloing them. Above the platform, bathed in
spotlights, was a long sign which read: THE GREAT GRETNA PIE-EAT OF 1960! To
either side of this sign hung battered loudspeakers, supplied by Chuck Day of the Great
Day Appliance Shop. Bill Travis, the reigning champion, was Chuck’s cousin.
As each contestant came up, his hands bound behind him and his shirtfront open, like
Sidney Carton on his way to the guillotine, Mayor Charbonneau would announce his
name over Chuck’s PA system and tie a large white bib around his neck. Calvin Spier
received token applause only; in spite of his belly, which was the size of a twenty-gallon
waterbarrel, he was considered an underdog second only to the Hogan kid (most
considered Lard Ass a comer, but too young and inexperienced to do much this year).
After Spier, Bob Cormier was introduced. Cormier was a disc jockey who did a
popular afternoon programme at WLAM in Lewiston. He got a bigger hand, accompanied
by a few screams from the teenaged girls in the audience. The girls thought he was ‘cute’.
John Wiggins, principal of Gretna Elementary School, followed Cormier. He received a
hearty cheer from the older section of the audience – and a few scattered boos from
fractious members of his student body. Wiggins managed to beam paternally and frown
sternly down on the audience at the same time.
Next, Mayor Charbonneau introduced Lard Ass.
‘A new participant in the annual Great Gretna Pie-Eat, but one we expect great things
from in the future … young master David Hogan! Lard Ass got a big round of applause as Mayor Charbonneau tied on his bib, and as it was dying away, a rehearsed Greek chorus
just beyond the reach of the 100-watt bulbs cried out in wicked unison: ”Go-get-’em-Lard
Ass?
There were muffled shrieks of laughter, running footsteps, a few shadows that no one
could (or would) identify, some nervous laughter, some judicial frowns (the largest from
Hizzoner Charbonneau, the most visible figure of authority). Lard Ass himself appeared
to not even notice. The small smile greasing his thick lips and creasing his thick chops
did not change as the Mayor, still frowning largely, tied his bib around his neck and told
him not to pay any attention to fools in the audience (as if the Mayor had even the faintest
inkling of what monstrous fools Lard Ass Hogan had suffered and would continue to
suffer as he rumbled through life like a Nazi Tiger Tank). The Mayor’s breath was warm
and smelled of beer.
The last contestant to mount the bunting-decorated stage drew the loudest and most