A Western
A shadow snakes across the dirt, a long black tongue ending at a pair of black boots and skinny legs, a tall skinny man who is our friend. The sun hot on the back of his neck, he presses his hands deeper into his pockets, touching coins, lint, scrotum.
It's time.
There, across the road, stands his rival: broad, hatefully muscular, with lustrous hair, unaware of any rivalry. So self-assured. But soon this poor man will poop his pants, make a boom-boom.
Besides the death, the bowel evacuations will be the best part. In those tight blue-jeans there will be nowhere for the poop to go except for in a slowly expanding circle around the butthole. Sand will cake there. What kind of man wears tight blue-jeans, anyway? One who doesn't expect to die today.
How she will cry, the night growing more humid with her tears, her sobs joining the frog calls, handkerchiefs piling up in her laundry-baskets. The image flashes: her man lying there with flies on his ass and bloody foam in his cold mouth.
It's inevitable now. The poison has been administered.
Our friend has never killed a man before, never even wanted to for more than a moment. He feels belted by a great wide belt. Murder is a belt made of stone.
His rival staggers, coughs, and falls writhing and writhing and finally curls up, a potato bug. The breeze kicks up a cloud of dirt. His eyes and mouth are shut tightly. He shivers.
A bird calls out, "Koo-roo, koo-roo!"
---
Back at the shack, our friend sweeps the floor and considers how long before he should go meet her to offer his condolences and support. The tincture will help them both.
That night he sleeps with candles burning. Each noise worries him that his rival did not die or became undead -- such things are possible. Each time he closes his eyes he must open them, convinced that someone is standing over his bed, blue-faced with a death-sneer. Murder might have been a mistake.
---
In the morning he considers whiskey instead of juice. He settles on equal parts of each. He works silently except for the sound of hammering nails.
---
It's time.
There, across the road, stands his rival: broad, hatefully muscular, with lustrous hair, unaware of any rivalry. So self-assured. But soon this poor man will poop his pants, make a boom-boom.
Besides the death, the bowel evacuations will be the best part. In those tight blue-jeans there will be nowhere for the poop to go except for in a slowly expanding circle around the butthole. Sand will cake there. What kind of man wears tight blue-jeans, anyway? One who doesn't expect to die today.
How she will cry, the night growing more humid with her tears, her sobs joining the frog calls, handkerchiefs piling up in her laundry-baskets. The image flashes: her man lying there with flies on his ass and bloody foam in his cold mouth.
It's inevitable now. The poison has been administered.
Our friend has never killed a man before, never even wanted to for more than a moment. He feels belted by a great wide belt. Murder is a belt made of stone.
His rival staggers, coughs, and falls writhing and writhing and finally curls up, a potato bug. The breeze kicks up a cloud of dirt. His eyes and mouth are shut tightly. He shivers.
A bird calls out, "Koo-roo, koo-roo!"
---
Back at the shack, our friend sweeps the floor and considers how long before he should go meet her to offer his condolences and support. The tincture will help them both.
That night he sleeps with candles burning. Each noise worries him that his rival did not die or became undead -- such things are possible. Each time he closes his eyes he must open them, convinced that someone is standing over his bed, blue-faced with a death-sneer. Murder might have been a mistake.
---
In the morning he considers whiskey instead of juice. He settles on equal parts of each. He works silently except for the sound of hammering nails.
---
Labels: from the notebooks
posted by JMH | 10:55 PM
5 Comments:
I love a good Western.
Every time I put on my belt I think "Will this be the death of me?" Maybe I shouldn't pull it so tight.
freud - I wish there were Easterns.
jorg - anytime you restrict blood flow you risk death. Or pleasure.
They just don't show all that poop in Sergio Leone films.
I know. Even if it was spaghetti-textured.
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