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I saw the aftermath, but predominately I lived on the flat, though today I had clambered down its edge, a valley of sharp stones and trickling water beneath me. I could not bear to hear Neil Diamond songs on AM radio and be satisfied anymore.
I no longer felt the need for isolation. Something drove me. I now wanted more of a social life, here with others in the cabin.
Charm stuttered, ran her hands over her the thighs of her baggy jeans, and said, “I found God. He lives in the outhouse behind the A-frame, down at the bottom where jewels and angels live.” Well, that was original, I thought. Generally, she had no gesture that was not someone else’s, her words and phrases copied from others. Perhaps I was starter dough, mother dough, its fermentation made a large sourdough brought out the latent substance and aura residing in Charm’s firmament.
“Why, Lowy, why?” Nat was agitated. What was in this blunt?
“I smashed him in the head with a shovel, kicked in his ribs. I heard them crack, then dragged him to the outhouse and broke the toilet open and forced him down to the bottom of the hole.” I had no idea either, using Charm as an excuse. Was she worth it? A big No and a little Yes.
Meg tossed a sexy look towards Nat, Suze imitated Meg and stared at Nat’s crotch. I said, I thought, to myself: Trinity code word for the first A-bomb test blowing its lid at the White Sands Proving Ground, sunlit shadows of their bodies, shades on the cabin floor, their imprints just as dead as the outlined, radiated vanished bodies on the naked Nagasaki streets.
“What was that about?” Nat said. “Psychobabble?”
“That asshole hippie must’ve dipped the blunts in PCP,” I said. I wanted to divert the lust which powered animal currents in the cabin. I blocked sex out with the energy of the shovel that smashed the hippie’s head open.
We quieted down. I made more noise on the flat: listening to the small creek that ran from the hillside above, cleaning out the plastic pipe plugged with leaves, my footsteps, birds, water, wind, shit-suction from my bowels popping into the neat two-by-eight foot trench, turning pages of the only book in the cabin. It featured Lhasa, Nepal, seat of two Buddhist statues and a guided tour of a monastery, just so many Frito chips.
Little Suze hugged Nat’s ponch, Meg wrapped her arms both of them.
After a long, long time, the Trinity un-clung themselves. Nat and Meg went up to the loft bed while Suze stayed behind with Charm and me.
“Wanna see something God would do?” I asked. Charm looked surprised, then said, “Okie-doki.”
I pulled Charm out of her funk, ripped off the skaggy dress, she naked underneath, then took my clothes off, looked at Suze, her eyes large with fear, with curiosity, then pushed back her back on an old couch, stuck my dick into her, this I had done once before after I heaved the poor hippie down into the outhouse’s vortex. I needed great stimulus for the vastly overrated performance of sex, who needed it, war, what is it good for, and she, an epileptic, must have forgotten her meds, and as her legs wrapped around my waist, she began to shake uncontrollably, far harder and violently than from simple passion. Charm panted, her tongue stuck out going “Ag, Ag, Ag,” her teeth clamped down and a small, purple monster stared at me. Charm, whom I liberated from the scummy hippie, no longer merited worthiness, so I reached for my long blade Buck knife, and sliced off an inch-worth of tongue.
Little Suze went, “Aww.” Charm, her head moving back and forth as a driver’s head might shake on the Salt Flats pushing the car as it broke the land speed record.
“Any Dilantin in the house?” I asked. No answer.
I climbed the loft and threw the tongue into Meg’s face. Before she reacted, I ran out, dragging Suze with me and knocked on Roy’s nearby trailer.
He poured soy nuts into her open palms, and rubbed her cheek.
Snow from yesterday melted. Roy took the slushy dirt lane and hooked a right on the road that led to town, his driving much improved after detoxification. Tire tracks made the snow dark.
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