Slowly creeping across the tight down carpet of the small apartment, Dalmatian splotches of Newport ash, notice them, keep moving, stay low, see the cheap brown wood walls, the popcorn ceiling, the whirring fan in the corner of the room buzzing left to right, the game is on, which game, doesn’t matter, dad’s passed out, seven empty beer bottles sit on the coffee table, there’s a half full on its side, the gold ocean in glass, Little Spanks takes his bike off the wall and leaves the nest. He will never return. He will be dead by lunchtime.
Little Spanks got his name the way any rad fourth grader would. He spanked Charlene May when they were waiting in line to return from recess. It was hot as hell and the mulch from the playground was rancid from the piss and shit of birds, raccoons, and quite possibly the littler kids that played out there earlier in the day. Donkey Knee O’ Malley said he wouldn’t but Little Spanks reared his hand back like his dad often showed, gripped Charlene’s shoulder, and let her have it. He kept at it too, quick, little spanks, pa! pa! pa! And Charlene May cried into the sky and turned and shoved him good and hard and ran to the teacher who was a skinny pale fool of about twenty years young.
“Oh I didn’t do nothing! She’s a lair!” Little Spanks spat back violently. He marked Charlene in his mind, as what? A target? He was an idiot, the poor poor Little Spanks – an idiot kid that never stood a chance.
When his father found out he was suspended he beat him nice and good, real nice and good, and tossed a couple of Ice House beers at his head. This was back when the logo of Ice House was still the picture of that frigid, snow covered cabin that nothing could grow in. It was such an icicle-covered place that the idea of any warmth inside of it was impossible. The first few bottles missed and shattered along the wall but one clipped Spanks on the down turn and the butt of the bottle cut his lower lip, ripping the inside against his crooked snaggle teeth. An ugly night, but the dad got teary eyed and apologized but Little Spanks thought apologizing was a sign of weakness and told his dad, “It’s okay, pa, you didn’t do nothing.” And Little Spanks went to his room and what? Who cares? The things he did in his room, anything he ever did, ultimately had zero import to anybody – especially when he splatter paints the world with guts guts guts.
The Bird Stompers was the fourth grade gang that Little Spanks was the leader of. The requirements were simple. You had to be in fourth grade. And you had to kick ass. But actually, the one real requirement for entrance was catching a bird of any kind, bringing it to the tree house in the woods about a mile away from the run down Kash N’ Karry and stomping on it for everyone to see. They wore white t-shirts with BS painted on the back. And they’d say, about anything that was bullshit, “We’re BS and that’s BS!” and that’s how the kids toiled away their breaks.
As Little Spanks rode his Huffy down Main Street he liked to poke his nose into the air and feel the wind wrap him like a stone in a stream. It was Saturday and the boys were waiting at a Halloween Shop because the word on the street was that the old coot that ran the joint had dementia or something and stored old war relics in the back. Little Spanks liked the idea of stealing from an old whimpering man. He imagined the man on his hunched back clawing for God like an upturned turtle. He chuckled to himself. He felt his nose cut the air, the breeze billowed up the little short sleeves of his t-shirt like a stunted ugly duckling. An ugly duckling that would never be graced with the happy ending simple enough it could be delivered with a turn of a page – an ending that simple was never in the cards for Little Spanks. In his deck was muerte, dos de las manos, diez de cervezas, y cero de corazones.
And onward he glided, his rubber taking him far, kicking up dust, gone gone gone like his mother may have done if she used an actual car to leave, rather than the blood ocean she set sail on in the bathtub of their tiny cage when he was what, one, two? Who cares? He was excited to see his snot nose friends. Donkey Knee O’ Malley was the second in command when Little Spanks was out. He got his name when he took Belly Beth’s sack lunch and she gave him the good ol’ kick to his gonads – and though they hadn’t dropped yet – she kicked them even higher. He let out a mule’s whinny and stomped his foot on the ground like a counting jackass before he fell over to the boisterous laughter of the kids that had either gotten their nicknames already or were close to. Donkey, too, came from a stressful household for his dad beat on his mom like she had a box-spring in her. His famous combo was to put a grapefruit in a pillowcase and when it was pulped up and juicy it was breakfast for Donkey in the morning. What can ya do, right? She took it like a champ, though, only showing her face around at Parent-Teacher Conferences. However, no amount of foundation covered up how it looked like purple beef, which was only fitting because when cows are about to be slaughtered, and they realize it, a surge of adrenaline hits them and effectively purples their meat. So, you know.
When Little Spanks met up with his cronies they set out to the Halloween Store. The kids whispered that the old bat inside had, in the far back, a grenade. A Model 24 Stalk Hand Grenade that the krauts probably used to kill Jews – and Little Spanks watered at the mouth at this. Not that he was anti-Semitic or anything like that – he just thought it was badass. For Halloween he would wear an entire SS uniform if he could. Instead of doing what he always did when dad bailed on taking him shopping, which was wrap the funny section of the paper around his body and go as a stand up comic.
A few of the boys stood lookout as the others crept in like rats. The door didn’t jingle upon opening. The old man, translucent in the right light, fake slept on the counter. His wispy cobweb hair gently waved with his breaths. The racks and racks and rows and rows of the store were filled with garish rubber masks and horrific plastic weapons and cheap outfits of cheap cotton and nylon.
Little Spanks led the way, on all fours, crawling to the back behind a curtain of sparkles. Behind the curtain was a wide room with a single light bulb sticking out of the ceiling. On the ground, presented to the boys, was a delicately arranged pile of porno rags, like fifty issues of hot pink popped flesh and on top of that, like a cherry, was the grenade. It was arranged just for them like a fruit basket of pestilence. Little Spanks felt the crotch of his pants tighten at the glossy watery everything. He grabbed the grenade and commanded his cronies to grab the rest.
“Leave no boobie behind,” he ordered and giggled to himself. And with that, the kids left.
“Let’s see how far we can throw this thing,” Little Spanks said as he pulled the cord at the butt of the handle. The Bird Stompers gathered around their leader. They thought they had pulled a fast one on the shopkeeper, but the troll man was older than Methuselah and knew what was to happen the moment Little Spanks slithered out of his mom. Back at the store the man stood there and smiled at the emptied back room. Under the dim bulb the gross-out geezer looked moldable like a warm hunk of wax. And he smiled at the space on the floor where the pile was. His brown teeth stuck crooked like mulch.
The moment Little Spanks set off the timer he gripped the stick and pulled his arm back. He thought of how his dad would grab the neck of beers and really let them rip, and he followed suit. But his skinny chicken grease fingers dropped the stick and it clanged to the floor at the feet of the kids. They stared at it for five seconds and then it exploded in a disgusting confetti blast of entrails. They stood behind the run down Kash n’ Karry and faced the woods but it made no difference. The parking lot was coated red with BS.
Every egg there burst: Little Spanks, Donkey Knee, Yapper, Ugly, Footface, Otterpunk, and even Ugly’s trailer park mutt Veneer. They all burst like a million firecrackers tied to a million hams. Or like a blender with someone’s hand in it. Or like that flesh pocket on Jesus’ chest when that spear got it good. It was an explosion the kids would’ve gotten excited about watching on HBO, when their parents were done with them.
And so to the universe, it wasn’t surprising when the resulting meat chunks started to shake and move. The bones rolled in the dust and the organs wormed their way together like reverse silly string. All the bits and pieces piled up and mashed into the same hunk. One hunk here, a foot there, a torso tied to this, a spleen wedged there. They smacked and smushed, play-doh-ing themselves into a semblance of something and Veneer’s dog head rolled to the top of the red bleeding mass and it barked with human teeth and double tongues stupidly and without recompense.
Amalgamating in that dirt patch a fleshy mass of carrion and hellion rose to its bent and crooked feet. It donned a leather jacket and rode a motorcycle out of there. Later in its life it raped and robbed and was never there for anyone. And everybody that looked at it thought, “Well, that’ll happen when you’re from that home.” And the bleeding sludge man with a dog head will nod in agreement and it’ll ride off like fissures through a prairie, cracking and seething brimstone.
And that warlock from the magic shop knew all along that Little Spanks snatched the stick. And he whimpered and capered about when he felt the blast in his heart and through the ground. Then the crust wax man melted back into hell where he planned it all again because that’s what you did when you came from that home.