Beetlebottom #15

Not a Good Day to be Dead

The rain squall ran itself out about midmorning. The sun pushed through the clouds and brought really pleasant and welcome warmth.

The trees dripped and the mud on the back roads of Beetlebottom were steaming as the ground warmed up.

Lanky Pete was walking on one of those back roads. Hands in pockets. Head down, just trying to stay invisible and out of the way.

Lanky was starting to feel the burns on his legs again. The stitches and bandages on the cuts from broken glass felt tight and itchy.

Lanky popped two more magic white pills from his stolen bottle.

He didn't realize it, but he took those little white morphine tablets about 4 hours before he should have.

Just out of habit, Slim Jim gravitated towards the same Beetlebottom backroads as Lanky.

The whole point, was to avoid Monty, the principal, and for sure, the sheriff…plus..their own homes and parents.

Slim saw Lanky first. He was up ahead on the backroad.

 Lanky was just standing there, facing the sun that just popped out from behind the clouds.

Slim struggled to believe that was really Lanky standing there.

Last time he saw Lanky, his buddy was bleeding and on fire at the school.

Slim walked closer. Lanky didn't register Slim's approach at all, didn't flinch, didn't turn to look.

“ Hey …Lanky, what are you doing, man?”

Nothing. Lanky is standing in the middle of the dirt road. There's an open field on one side, scrub brush and small trees on the other side. The road is muddy from the rain. There's yellow grass on the sides of the road.

Lanky has his eyes closed, standing perfectly still.

Slim walks right up to him.

“Lanky, fuck sake, buddy…what are you doing. Are you ok?”

Lanky opened his eyes and turned towards Slim.

Lanky smiled and nodded, his eyes at half mast.

Lanky took a big breath and then let it out slowly.

“ Isn't this great, I'm mean really, wow…this is pretty cool” 

Lanky was tripping on a nearly double dose of pain numbing, I don't care pills.

“What's great? ..what are you talking about…what the fuck are you doing out here? I don't get it “ Slim Jim was maxed out.

Lanky, “ hey buddy, pass me another one of those beers, I'm thirsty”

“Beer?...I don't have beer, man. That was yesterday. Hey man, really, are you ok…you don't look right”

“ Aren't you hurt or something?”

“ No way, man. I feel fucking fantastic, never better. Where's that beer anyways?” Lanky was in full Buddhist monk junkie mode.

“ Lanky, buddy…I'm telling you, I don't got ..we don't got beer. That was yesterday, man”

Lanky nodded a blissful all knowing head nod.

“Wow, ok. That's cool”

“Hey…hey, Slim, you know what I was thinking. I was thinking, man. 

"You're gonna like this.”

“ I was thinking, we should go grab some gas, and go burn that fucking school down”

Whaddya think, man?”

Let's get rid of that thing…that'll teach Monty a thing or two “

Slim's brain just completely seized up.

“ Lanky, did you hit your head on something?...you're not talking right, man."

“ Don't you remember yesterday…we, well actually you, already tried to burn the school down. Don't you remember that? C'mon, you're just screwing with me. C'mon, cut it out , you're acting all weird.”

Lanky, “ No man, not yesterday…no no. We'll go do it tonight after dark.

“No school, no Monty, no teachers”

All Slim Jim could was just stare at his buddy in bewilderment.

Finally, Slim had to ask. “ Hey, Lanky, buddy ..aren't you hurt? I'm mean last time I saw you, you were um, well yeah, you know. I mean. Holy shit, Lanky, you were on fire last time I seen you!”

“ Really? On fire? How'd that happen?”

“Jesus, Lanky you don't remember? What's wrong with you? You're freaking me out here”

“C'mon, let's get out of here, let's go for a walk, before somebody sees us out here “ Slim offered up. He had absolutely no clue why Lanky's thinking was all messed up.

All Slim really knew was that standing around here in the middle of the week, during school hours was a recipe for more trouble than they needed.

The young hoodlums took off walking away from town on the old road. They had to walk around puddles and avoid the muddy parts.

As they wandered further away from town, people, school, questions and judgement, Slim kept asking Lanky questions.

After about a mile of walking, Slim got a scrambled bit of Lanky's story.

Lanky recalled morphine muddled fragments of the past 24 hours.

Laying in the back of the Sheriff's car for some reason. Two really weird and odd people in a really clean house, half dream, half nightmare.

Then Lanky felt the magic pill bottle in his jacket pocket.

“ Hey man, some of that stuff must have been real, man. Cuz, look…look at this. I got this from that weird house”

Lanky offered the brown bottle.

Slim knew a bit about pill bottles.

When his Mom would take to yelling, crying and seeing things that weren't there, she would take a handful of pills and then sleep for three days.

Slim kinda liked those nice quiet three days. At least he could have a few thoughts on his own, and…not be afraid.

Lanky was so stoned that he was practically levitating.

“ Take a couple, these things, they are fantastic. I've never felt so good, ever!”

Lanky preached.

Slim pondered briefly.

He couldn't show up at school or home. He couldn't hang around downtown, the sheriff or some other dipshit adult would ruin his fun.

So, the obvious option was right there in front of him.

Lanky, smiling his stoned Buddha smile, tapped two white pills into Slim's outstretched hand.

Slim took one last look at them and then tossed them into his mouth.

“ Ok, cool”, Slim declared. C'mon, let's go up to the dump.”

Lanky and Slim knew the old quarry site only as the unofficial Beetlebottom garbage dump. They didn't know a fucking thing about a quarry.

The dump had possible treasures to be found and hauled home. Or ..if you had a borrowed 22 rifle, it was great fun to plink away at rats.

Or, just simply throw rocks at old fridges and car parts for target practice. The dump was a virtual amusement park with no entry fee.

It didn't take long for Slim's two tablet dose of morphine to hit.

At first, Slim kept on checking his boots, because he kept on floating up off the dirt road. He had to make sure that he didn't float up too far.

Then it occurred to Slim that he might be right off the ground and not making any headway.

Slim looked over at the trees and grass to see if they were moving backwards as he was meant to be walking forwards.

That didn't really work.

“ Lanky…Lanky!.. hey man. Are we moving? I mean are we walking…or just floating here?”

“ What?” Lanky had to return from his space flight to wrap his head around the question.

“ Yeah, man. Of course we're walking, just like you said we were going to”

“ Oh wait a sec…”

Lanky looked down to see his feet moving.

“ Yeah, we're good. I'm walking, so I guess you are too”

Lanky offered newly discovered sage advice.

“ Hey Slim…here man, pop one more for the road. Chill out, relax and enjoy the ride.”

Lanky handed a tablet over, and threw another one down his own gullet.

The boys pretty much floated the rest of the way up towards the old quarry dump site.

 They approached the dump on the back road that entered on the lower floor of the pit. 

The first thing the boys spotted was the bashed up white cube of an old washing machine.

Slim Jim bent down to get a rock to throw, but couldn't grab it. The rock kept squirming around, making it extra difficult.

Lanky Pete giggled, and then tried to pick up his own rock. All he managed to do was to fall over and start laughing.

Slim had to get down on his hands and knees to finally corner the rock he was after.

When he stood back up in super slow motion, he couldn't locate the washing machine, because he was faced the wrong way.

Slim and Lanky staggered closer to the washing machine with rocks in hand.

Standing about six feet away, they both launched rocks at big boxy target. They imagined a nice satisfying “clunk” of the rocks bouncing off the sheet metal.

They both missed. Having lost all sense of space and time..and their location in the universe, the rocks flew to parts unknown.

That boys laughed as they lurched around trying to maintain balance.

“ Hey…hey, Slim…check out those wheels man. Look it!”

Lanky had spotted the chrome wheels of a red car that was laying upside down on the garbage pile.

Everything else in the dump was rusty, dirty or overgrown with moss.

Those wheels were absolutely sparkling in the sunlight.

“ Man, I bet those things are worth a fortune.”

“Some dummy just threw all that away…it's our lucky day, Slim!”

Lanky and Slim, completely stoned out of their gourds, clambered over the garbage pile to get closer.

Lanky went to the back wheels and Slim went to investigate the front shiny chrome wheels.

“ Oh cool ..these things are brand new. Not a scratch!

“ I can't believe some idiot threw all this away “

Slim was adjusting his footing in the debris pile, when he looked down.

At first, it looked like a pile of wet clothes all crumpled up.

Slim tried to focus and maintain balance at the same time.

When he got both eyeballs finally aimed in the same direction, he saw hands and feet sticking out of the clothes.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Jesus, Lanky , there's a dead guy over here.”

Lanky had to pull his floating mind back from chrome wheel treasure to respond.

“ You got a what?”

“There's a fucking dead guy laying over here ..well …he better be dead. He don't look so good!”

Lanky, almost completely detached from any earthly reality and cruising high on morphine warmth, came back with, 

“ Wow, man. That is really fucking weird, cuz there's some big guy sleeping in the ground over here, and you know what?...he don't look so good either."

Right then. Right at that very moment, an old pickup truck putted around the corner. One of the local Beetlebottom men was bringing a load of rusty scrap metal up to the dump.

It was late morning, when that same pickup truck drove into downtown Beetlebottom.

The sheriff was just walking out of the hardware store gossip session.

Lilli was getting the lunch menu ready over at the HazBean Cafe.

Always Right Rose was at her job, giving her coworkers her prediction on the TV talent show winners.

Her sister, Paula was having a pre lunch snack of apple fritters and potato chips.

The old Doc and his wife were wondering where the young man had gotten off to.

Carletta, at the bus depot was organising the freight receipts and passenger tickets.

Two truck drivers were doing what truck drivers do best. They were pulled over at the edge of town, telling stories to each other, lying about the past and complaining about everything.

The old fella in the pickup truck had Lanky Pete and Slim Jim riding in the back.

The driver called out to Sheriff Fussfutter.

“Sheriff, hey, sheriff…you better come over here.”

“These two boys found something that you need to see up at the dump.

It's awful. Just awful I tell you.”

“ These two poor boys are in shock, they can barely even talk, they're so shook up.