The Bear in a Muddy Tutu (6 page)

R
eleased
from
the man’s iron-like grip
, Billy Wayne
struggled
with
his muddy suit jacket
and
st
ood
in floppy socks that had been pulled half off.

“Warden
Flint
.
”
He
reached
his muddy hand back out for Billy Wayne to shake. “What were you doin’?
”

“I, uh, came down for a walk.
”
Billy
Wayne
tried to come up with
a reason other than his divine vision
,
which seemed completely ridiculous at th
e
moment. “I was trying to pick up some trash floating there in the water and I lost my balance
.
”

T
he icy suspicion in the warden’s eyes softened a bit.

“Billy Wayne Hooduk.
”
H
e
took
th
e
warden’s hand in a muddy
clasp
, his composure coming back in uneven little pieces. “I hate to see such a beautiful place all trashed, you know?
”

*
*
*

Flint had an uncanny ability to put a face to a name, and a slightly blurry catalog of faces ran across his vision as if
he were
flipping through a deck of baseball cards.
Despite the thousand liters of cheap Russian vodka
he’d
consumed over the last couple of decades
—
and how much a face change
d
from boyhood to manhood
—
Clayton
Flint
knew he’d had some dealing with this pasty, fat little man from the moment he opened his round mouth. The eyes
were
set too close, the nose
was
too small
in contrast to the
chubb
iness
of the
cheeks, and
the chin was barely
discernable
.

Finally,
it was the mouth that gave the face a name, or at least
told him
where he knew
it
from. The prissy, gol
d
fi
sh-l
ike round mouth was the same as the boy’s mother
’s
. The little bastard had sulked outside the locked bedroom door, whining for cereal or something, while
Flint
was pinning his kooky mom to the mattress for one of their half-dozen afternoon romps, back when he ran his commercial pest control business. Sure as shit, standing
there
before him was that same little turd
blossom
.

For a moment
Flint
stood lost in memories
of
the days when there
had been
real purpose to his pest control efforts. Those neighborhoods were chock full of lonely and misunderstood housewives, and he provided a little shot of real
Flint
,
yes
,
si
r
.

But then
Flint
’s brow furrow
ed
at
a memory
just outside the reach of his vodka-soaked
capacity
. Something bad was attached to the memory of Mrs. Hooduk
…
What the hell was her name?
Flint
worked his brain, searching through letters of the alphabet. Her name, he decided, began with an L or an A. Somethin’ like Lisa?

“I got some fairly clean rags up in my truck,
”
Flint
offered. “That shit’ll stink up your car somethin’ bad.
”

“I’d sure appreciate it,
W
arden.
”
Billy Wayne
’s
suit was plastered to his fat body, his white
shirt
r
u
ined for sure
,
probably
his suit
as well. He blew his nose on his sleeves
,
and mud came out in slimy little clumps. Billy Wayne fell in line behind the ambling
Flint
, the toe portions of his stretched out socks flopping as they trailed behind his heels
.

“Allison!
”
Clayton
Flint
nearly shouted
and coughed real quick to cover up his revelation.

“Pardon?
”
Billy Wayne said absently
, padding across all the God-forsaken pointy things hidden under the mat of sea grass.

“Watch your step here,
”
Flint
said. “Some broken glass up
’
round this spot.
”

The little man cringed behind him.

Allison Hooduk had been a
first-
class
basket case, for sure. She was from one of those Eatontown termite jobs. Jesus, those neighborhoods were a gold mine. Chase the
bugs
out of one house and right into the next. Couple weeks later, you got a frantic call to come spray the same damn swarm under a different roof. Any good pest control expert,
Flint
could tell you, knew how to make even the most roach infested crack house absolutely insect free by herding them right on over to the neighbors.
Ka
-
ching!

The Hooduk job,
Flint
now recalled, had
involved
a nest of termites
that
hadn’t really gotten going into the wood, although he’d explained the dire need for a full treatment. The lady of this house had the sweetest round mouth, and
real
meat in all the right places. This pest control expert liked some flesh to hang onto when the lights went down,
yes, sir
. And the Hooduk woman was quick to let
Flint
know the coast was clear as far as the husband was concerned. That was how
Flint
knew he was
gettin’
the nod: when the wife made it perfectly clear what time mister so
-
and
-
so was due home, and that mister so
-
and
-
so was not inclined to come home unexpectedly.

But that fat little pain in the ass of hers was another
story
. “Mommy, I’m hungry.
Mommy, I’m thirsty.
Mommy, how come the door’s locked?
”

“We’re killin’ bugs in here,
ho
n.
”

“But I’m hungry now!
”

“You go right ahead and fix yourself a peanut butter on bread,
”
Allison
Hooduk huffed, as
Clayton
Flint
humped away doggy-style, which was his favorite way to do a woman with such a nice wide behind. He loved the waves he caused in the fat, as he slapped his groin against her large raised buttocks. Sometimes he’d reach forward and grab hold of a handful of hair and yank it back a little. Had he done that to
her
hair?

“What’s that b
umping noise, Mommy?
Who’s jumping on your bed?
I’m hungry!
”

He
’d
got
ten
paid for the job and was perfectly in the clear until a month or two later. That’s when he started getting those crazy-ass calls on his answering machine.

“Please, you gotta call me back,
”
was the gist of her first message, and had
Clayton
Flint
not just come from a very successful and satisfying afternoon job at another lonely broad’s
roach
-i
nfested
home, he just might have. It wasn’t beyond him to go back and lay some more pipe, but the pipe was good and done for the day. Instead, he erased the message and forgot about it, until a
nother
flood of whiney calls
came in
a week later. Allison Hooduk had some nutty idea she was knocked
up
,
or
some such bullshit, and was trying to pin the blame on his sorry
ass.
Flint
became very
wary of
answering his telephone, as well as any knocks at his door. Best let those things work themselves out on their own.

But now,
Flint
wondered with dread
what had become of the woman and the alleged baby.

“You got any younger brothers or sisters?
”
Billy Wayne
seemed to flinch at the question, the jumpy little bastard.

The two had reached
Flint
’s pickup with the mist
blower mounted in the bed. Billy Wayne took a grease stained towel from
Flint
, wip
ed
his hands, and then
used
it to scrap
e
away some of the muck that had begun to coagulate.

“I’m an only child
.
My mother and father divorced when I was little, and my mom never really moved on. It hit her pretty hard.
”

Oh, shit
,
Flint
thought. He prided himself with not having a single guilty bone in his
body and
hadn’t anticipated growing any new bones at sixty years of age. So where was this guilt coming from? Too much time alone in the marsh, he figured. Too much poison
had
made its way into his fragile
system.

Bil
ly Wayne looked to be faring
a little better no
w that he had his socks off
; he was
examining
a couple of tiny scratches
on the soles of his feet
. He
’d
dumped
what appeared to be a wad
of soggy cash from eac
h sock, squeezed out some brown
water, and shoved
it
in
to
his pant
s
pockets. He accepted a second towel from the
wa
rden, eyeing
his
gun
like he was jealous. Flint surely enjoyed men feeling jealous
of
his big gun.

“Never had no children of my own,
”
Flint
said
.
“What line of business you in?
”

“I’m a preacher of sorts
. I
came down here to
enjoy
some quiet time just between me and Him
.
”
Billy Wayne
didn’t w
ant
t
o admit
that the
boys had tricked him into following the road down here.

“Is that so?
”
Flint
stuck
Billy Wayne right into the nutcase category. He
’d
never had much use for any kind of religious folk.

“And I couldn’t help feelin’ terrible about all the trash people leave behind
.
”

Flint pulled him back out of the nutcase category for the time being.

“Hey, you mind me asking what type of gun you have there?
”

A
medium-sized grin cracked
Flint
’s thorny, sun
-
weathered face. Warden
Flint
paused for just a second, then clicked open the passenger side door of his official-use truck, grabbing a shiny new bottle of Russia’s not-so-finest from a toolbox on the floor.

“You like guns, boy?
”
He t
wist
ed
open the screw cap, offering the bottle to the
chubby
little man.
There was some good in most everyone,
Clayton
Flint decided. And with the sun now halfway up in the sky, a man didn’t need an excuse to tip back a few to soften his fall.

Billy Wayne and Warden
Clayton
Flint
each sat on their own
grease
-s
tained
towel
spread over black mud
and passed the bottle of cheap Russian vodka back and forth, gulls swooping in from time to time to check for French fries
or whatnot
.

With the end of the bottle near, even a dedicated drinker like
Flint
was drunk off his uniformed ass
.
And as drunk as he was, he was getting a kick out of the muddy little guy drinking from the bottle
just
like a high school kid sneaking a smoke out
in
back of the gymnasium. He’d check behind them real quick, eyes dartin’ all around before tippin’ the bottle, and then hand it back fast like it was a hot potato. Sure seemed like he had some sorta hell looking over his shoulder
.
Flint had half a notion it might be that loon mother of his.

“You are not.
”
Flint
g
agg
ed
on his pull from the bottle, coughing and laughing.
“God?
”
Vodka sprayed from his nose, burning, causing his eyes to tear up.

“Yes, I surely am.
”
Billy Wayne
shook his
head with drunken sincerity.

“So, lemme get this straight.
”
Flint
was a
mused just the same as
he’d been
from the fifty other drunk men in bars over the years who’d suddenly decided they
,
too
,
had become God
, Jesus Christ, or even Satan himself
. Hell, he’d probably told people he was God a few times
but had been too far gone to remember. “You just woke up one day and shazzam, you’re God Almighty?
”

“Well, there was a process,
”
Billy Wayne said
.

F
lint
really didn’t want to hurt the guy’s feelings. It seem
ed
he’d already
screwed
up the poor bastard’s life
by knockin’ up his goony mom.
Ah, but t
here
was
some fine junk in that crazy broad’s wide trunk
,
Flint
thought.

“You ain’t got a church?
”

“No,
”
said Billy Wayne. “Not yet.
”

“And you ain’t got a congregation?
”

“No, but I’m workin’ on it.
”

“What are you gonna preach about?
”

Billy Wayne just sat there looking at Flint
, a
drunk
en
glaze over his eyes.

“Guess that’s the tough part,
”
Flint said.

Clayton
Flint
had only been inside a church four times in his life and all
were for
professional reasons. The Methodist church in Wanamassa had carpenter ants from the basement up to the damn steeple. Getting up into the steeple was a bitch
on his sore back
, and there was no way in Hell he was going to part the legs of the broad with the keys. The woman did have a little shape on her, but she wore a mustache on her upper lip e
ven a
shot of
DDT couldn’t
scare
o
ff
.

“I never been to church.
”
Flint
held th
e nearly empty bottle out in front of him as if to inspect the contents. “Never saw no need.
”

The bright overhead spring sun cast harsh shadows around the two inebriated men. The marsh and ocean beyond lost some of their color this time of day
.

“I just got beat up by a kid,
”
Billy Wayne
b
lurted
out, ta
king
a small sip from
the bottle. “And he robbed me.
”

“Fucking kids,
”
Flint
said sympathetically. “No real good ever come
s
from kids.
”

“And then he pissed on my head
.
”
Te
ars began to well up in his eyes. “Nobody ever pissed on me before.
”

“That’s rough.
”
Flint
felt
more like a heel than ever about nailing his mother and not answering his phone. She did have a fine set of knockers, though, with them jumbo nipples that looked like friggin’ plates.
“I pissed myself more times than I can count but never had nobody else piss on me. I seen it done in skin flicks. Made me wanna barf
.
”
He
burped long and hard and threw up a little in his mouth, spitting it out next to his towel. He was casual, as if it happened all the time.

“I need a gun like yours.
”

Flint
was now lying on his side, propped up on his left elbow, his long legs extended in the sand, crossed at the ankles. He reached down with his right hand to pat the
.44 Magnum
on his thigh. He hadn’t discharged his sidearm in at least five years, since a raccoon
had
come charging up out of the marsh while he was on his back under the truck. He’d been using coat
-
hanger wire to reattach the tail pipe when the son-of-a-bitch came hissing and stomping out of the grass like it was a pissed-off wolverine. He’d seen a television show about those crazy
fuckers
;
yo
u
didn’t wanna
be
corner
ed by
them for
the life of you.

Flint
’s first reaction was to wonk his forehead on the undercarriage, while his second was to unbutton his holster and pull out his loaded forty-f
our
. He had a clear and easy shot right down between his legs
—
a little low and he’d shoot off his pecker from
that
angle
—
as the
rabid act
in’ coon
made its final insane charge. After blowing the animal to smithereens,
Flint
wriggled out from under the truck and poked its body with the toe of his boot. There probably wasn’t enough left of its head to consider shipping off to be confirmed for rabies, even if
Flint
had been
inclined to do so. Why bring any unnecessary attention on his quiet sanctuary? And then there would be all the friggin’ paperwork.

Instead,
Flint
picked the coon up by the tail
,
walked back to the edge of the swampy marsh, and swung the dead animal in two big arcs before flinging it as far as he could. Little bits of blood and gore parted from the spinning raccoon as it sailed out and splashed down.
Flint
knew there weren’t any insects to eat or cart off the corpse, what with all the poison he released into the immediate environment on a weekly basis, but the marsh had a way of consuming, of slowly rotting away
,
anything it got its hands on. And
Flint
had looked down at his own hands out here at the edge of the swamp. He’d put them all over this poor bastard’s momma, and now look what they’d done. Fucking guy thought he was
the Lord above
.

Flint
struggled to his feet, stumbled sideways into the rear quarter-panel, and then slid along his truck for balance to retrieve a fresh bottle.

“Boy, you’d be
better
of
f
with something
that has
a little less kick than this girl.
”
Flint
ru
bb
ed t
he side of his big holster as if it were a beloved pet.
“Somethin’ tucked away for emergencies.
”

“Bringing the word can be dangerous,
”
Billy Wayne said earnestly, digging at the sand in front of him with his white feet.

“Okay, so you need a small gun and a good place to find people
who
need to be closer to God, am I right?
”

“That about sums up my life right now.
”

“Well,
”
Warden
Clayton
Flint
began
, “
y
ou
just happen to be about half an hour from Valhalla. Ever hear of Valhalla?
”

“Something to do with Vikings?
”

“I ain’
t talkin’
’
bout fucking Vikings.
”
Flint
dropped ba
ck down on his stained towel next to Billy Wayne
, too exhausted to crack open the new bottle just yet
. “I’m talkin’ about a
magic
place adorned with gold, where people go to find treasure
s, anything they could ever
possibly
want. R
ight down
the Parkway a couple of exits
;
it’s a place
called Atlantic City.
”