#6 Under the Moon and Stars in Beetlebottom

Later That Evening 

Back at the bootlegger's house, the Old Man was four glasses of bourbon deep, David Lee Royce was two whiskeys in, plus half a joint.

Mama was nursing her homemade gin and asking Destiny about life in the big city.

Porch Man drank store bought beer and smoked the other half of David Lee's joint.

Porch Man wasn't sure what Billy was up to. Billy would go outside to the porch deck…and smoke something…take a few puffs and come back inside. When he fell into his chair, he'd take a few gulps of Mama's home brew.

As the evening wore on, Billy Brown just got weirder and when he talked, you couldn't make heads or tails of what he was trying to say.

They all gnawed on some of Mama's pan fried chicken, with a side dish of ripple potato chips.

David Lee had stopped drinking at two fairly large glasses of good whiskey on the rocks, but made sure that the Old Man always had a full tumbler of that crappy bourbon going, while they talked.

They were just telling stories back and forth. Bullshitting. The very definition of bullshitting.

At about 11 pm, Destiny pulled herself up out of her chair. She said.” I'm going out for a smoke”

Mama piped up, with a bit of a drawl mixed with an alcohol slur, “ Ah, honey you can smoke in here, we do it all the time.”

Destiny came back with, “ I just gotta stretch my legs a bit”

Mama, returned with,

 “ it gets cold at night out here, you'll catch your death.”

Destiny paused for a bit.

She looked at the Old Man, a has-been, never was…way past whatever prime he might have imagined. Drunk and slovenly, a pig of a man…

Mama, sat on her fat ass in a flower print, bag shaped dress. Holding her cigarette in a plastic holder, trying to look like something she really wasn't. Mama was deep into her home made gin, probably couldn't have stood up if she tried.

Porch Man was staring drunkenly at Destiny's tits, when she moved her gaze over his way.

She thought to herself…” I've seen dozens of you guys, small town tough guy, a stump farm king….you have no idea what's coming”

Whatever Billy Brown was smoking had pushed him over into la la land. He was on the floor telling a story to somebody that no one else saw.

David Lee looked at his glass and shook the ice cubes around.

Destiny replied to Mama's warning.

“ I'll be fine”...and with that she stepped out into the night air.

“Son of a bitch” Hoodsdigger muttered to himself as he made sure that all the gasoline fueled flames were out on Lanky Pete.

The pain of the burns and stab wounds from the broken glass shot forward in Lanky's whole self.

He started thrashing and trying to get up, each time, getting carved up more, and feeling the blowtorch pain of his burns.

Lanky Pete was howling and and screaming while Hoodsdigger tried to pull him up and away from the broken glass and last few pockets of burning gasoline.

Lanky's face looked like he had been standing in front of an atom bomb blast, it was bright red, and some of the skin was already starting to peel. His eye brows were burnt away, his eyes looked like something from a wild animal that had just had a electric shock.

Hoodsdigger pulled Lanky to his feet. He tried to pull some of the glass from Lanky's back, but Lanky was in so much pain, he couldn't stay still.

Hoodsdigger cut himself on the few shards of glass he did manage to grab.

“ Can you walk?” The Sheriff asked.

“ I ..I .I don't know…maybe. Not sure..

Lanky tried to lift a leg but howled in pain as the pants pulled against his burnt legs.

“Shit”....” Ok, wait here, I'll be right back “

Hoodsdigger went to his car.

Lanky stood with his arms out, burnt and bloody. He looked like that photo he had never seen…the Vietnamese child that had been burned by American napalm, running down a dirt road.

Hoodsdigger came back with the same blanket that he used to keep Abe warm on the drive to the doctor’s house.

“The doctor ! Shit ..shit …shit.”

“The doctor isn't here! Shit!”

Hoodsdigger brought the blanket to Lanky, and carefully wrapped it around him as Lanky stood, howling and shaking.

Hoodsdigger said “ hey look, buddy, I gotta go for help.*

“You're burned in the front and full of glass in the back.” 

“Doc and his wife took Abe to the next town over, he's not home”

"He'll be back in a couple hours, but you need help right now."

Hoodsdigger helped Lanky move with straight legs over to the corner of the school. 

Lanky howled at every inch of movement.

“ Hold on to the wall, just try to hang in there, I'm going for help. You're gonna be ok”

Lanky couldn't hear over his own howling.

Destiny eased herself down the rickety old wood stairs, sliding her hand down peeling paint handrail.

The air was definitely cold…it had a bite.

She opened the car trunk, and pulled out some well worn jeans, a pair of old school military boots, and a heavier jacket.

Destiny opened the car door on the far side and slipped quietly inside. She pulled the door shut with an almost inaudible click.

Destiny lit her last cigarette of the night, and when she was done, curled up into a ball and went to sleep.

She wasn't in the mood to have David Lee Royce angry and drunk, climb on top of her tonight.

Inside, the bullshit session went on till 2am. The Old Man was dead drunk asleep, having passed out in mid sentence.

Mama was in her favourite chair, trying to make a come hither look in her face to the new and large, dangerous looking David Lee.

But Mama was so far into her homemade gin that she couldn't get her eyes to stop rolling around in different directions.

David Lee got up from his chair with just an almost imperceptible wobble and finally noticed that Destiny wasn't sitting beside him.

Billy Brown was sitting with the dog a while ago, talking drug fueled gibberish. Billy was nowhere in sight either.

David Lee assumed that Destiny had slipped away into the back room to get some sleep without saying anything.

David Lee didn't give a shit where Billy Brown was.

Back in town, Sheriff Fussfutter was wracking his brain in who could help the burnt and bleeding idiot back at the school.

The only thing that made a bit of sense was the horse veterinarian.

A cow and horse doctor would be better than nothing.

Hoodsdigger pulled up in the driveway of the vet's house and office minutes later.

When he got up the stairs and to the front door, loud music was blaring away on the stereo.

Hoodsdigger didn't recognize it right away, but realized it was Louis Prima singing at full blast.

Hoodsdigger could see the vet, obviously drunk, dancing madly to the music while spilling a martini all over the floor.

The Sheriff knocked loudly in the door, but Louis Prima was louder.

Desperate, Hoodsdigger just opened the door and walked in.

The vet ( drunk as he was) felt something different in the room and turned around to see the Sheriff standing in his front room.

Shocked and surprised, the vet shrieked, tossed his martini glass away and put his hands up.

Hoodsdigger went over and turned off the record player, and explained his situation.

The vet was three sheets to the wind, and seemed to understand most of what the Sheriff was saying.

“ I'll get my bag” the vet offered heroically.

Hoodsdigger piled the inebriated old horse veterinarian into his patrol car and headed back to the school.

When they pulled in round back of the school, Lanky Pete was somehow still standing, shivering, whimpering and sobbing, bleeding and burnt.

The Sheriff and the vet climbed out of the car into the cold night.

“Well, what's all this?” the vet's asked incredulously.

“This kid is hurt bad, burns and he's full of broken glass.”

“Well, that's a person, a human” the vet half asked half stated.

“ I thought we were tending to a calf that got hit by a car….I don't do people…I do four legged things.”

Hoodsdigger “ Shit …Doc, don't I know it, but the people doctor won't be back in town yet, and this kid needs medical help right now!”

“Ok. .. ok, highly unusual, highly unusual. I could lose my license for this.

Hey by the way, Hoodsy, got anything to drink in that car of yours?”

“ No…no I don't have any booze in my car, now , please ..can you help this kid?”

“Yeah yeah sure thing, easy does it there Hoodsy, we'll have him fixed up in a jiffy."

The vet bent over to dig around in his bag, and came up with the biggest godamned syringe that Hoodsdigger had even seen…and then a brown bottle with some unknown liquid in it.

Just the sight of that giant syringe made the Sheriff a bit queezy and wobbly on his feet.

The vet started to pull the liquid from the brown bottle with the syringe, and then asked, “ Hey there, Hoodsy…hey man, how much do you think the kid weighs?”

 

“ I dunno, scrawny bastard, but tall…maybe 140 or so…godammit…what does it matter.?!”

“"Ah ..uh huh"..replied the intoxicated vet, as he decided to pull a bit more into the log sized syringe.

The vet staggered over to Lanky Pete who was suffering terribly from his injuries, and without ceremony, jabbed the giant syringe into Lanky Pete's left bum cheek as deep as it would go.

Lanky Pete let out a high pitched awful scream, and then the scream stopped , but his mouth stayed open.

Lanky Pete looked upward, searching the night sky for answers.

For a brief moment , there was silence.

Lanky Pete's arms hung at his sides. He continued to look up vacantly into the sky. No sound came from his wide open mouth.

And then, Lanky Pete collapsed, fell forward and landed on his face in the gravel parking lot, before the Sheriff could catch him.

“ There, that oughta do it, let's go get a drink” the vet announced.

Link to Beetlebottom #7

https://adventuresinmikeslife.blogspot.com/2025/01/7-thursday-morning-nothing-ever-happens.html