Horseshit Chapter 1 (Andy Petty story 1/1)

“Andy Petty’s Summer; the Idylls of Child”

Andy Petty’s last day of summer began and ended with dead cats, in this last summer of Horseshit. The first was in an old wooden shed. It sat still and looked alive for who knows how long. The first time Andy went and saw the cat he tried unsuccessfully to win a girl over by masturbating to her school photo five times. In small towns poor kids don’t have matchmakers. And with loneliness, there exists superstition.

He took his old Huffy from his aunt’s trailer by the miniature wildlife reserve and rode about a mile. Aunt Debbie lived outside of town, off Route 225, south of Dornsnife under curled billboards. She earned $24,000 a year because she made it through high school. She didn’t buy her anti-depressant medication much so she could play the lottery. Both she and Andy lived alone. They weren’t sure if they were happy with each other, but they got along

He could feel it as he drove by. The voices of the germs between its hairs and on its flesh whispered to him through the rows of corn. And in the center of the field, slightly to the left, sat the shed which looked like a tandem outhouse. The hexes on the side made him think of the room in the trailer where the dog slept. The one with the red light Boofie stared at ‘til she fell asleep.

But as the cat called—the draw of somewhere different from this Dinty Moore earth crust—he rode his bike and thought about a song a friend played for him at school, but he couldn’t remember the title—the catchiest thing he ever heard. He whistled something else to himself. The girl he jerked off to earlier came back into his head. The corn looked so green against the butter, Redenbacher sun that he thought of her teal eyes and wheat-shining hair. Her little freckles like kernels. Beth Cuomo. He would never talk to her. He couldn’t figure out why he would never talk to her.

The cat’s presence drew him through the field. He hid his bike so no one would take it. Bikes in the country were like sculpture. They decorated roadsides and construction sites. They disappeared like lost children and turned up on foreign corners later, used and worn out

The corn was thick and tall, wet-spider-leg plantation. Andy was five-foot-five and the sharp green leaves scraped against his cheeks’ acne. Aunt Debbie was supposed to order new lotion this month. She didn’t. Publisher’s Clearing House calling. Andy kept going further into the sunset dust, Goodwill Nikes scraping the pressed dirt from the tractor treads as he kicked the molded rows of earth apart. His socks browned while he ran fast through the arms of the earth. Finally he came to the shack and tried looking through the cracks. The hexes scared him a little and the cracks were too thin. He pictured an old witch with pale skin and white-silver hair inside, sitting spread on a hole for shitting, black robe, making a dump. And she stared straight at him, crooked eyes shooting right through him like a broken river whitewashed in its spray. Weren’t all the witches supposed to be dead? But, hex signs along the highway...

Insects buzzed inside. In the distance he could hear a tractor turning over dirt. He could hear the cars on the highway, but they were so common that he hardly noticed the roads anymore.

Inside the cat sat on the floor. Nothing moved. It didn’t look dead or hurt. And he just stared. He wanted to pet it. It made him sick. He needed his zolpidem. Everything felt razed. He couldn’t open the door no matter how many times he touched the knob.

The ice cream place near town was still open and Andy thought he could go see who was around even though he didn’t have any money and didn’t have any friends. He needed something to get the witch’s voice out of his head. That silent voice. Passionless, utter-less, thoughtless. She was the kind of thing that would live in the red light.

Dexter and Billy hung out by the pool, but Andy rode by. He wanted to see people eating ice cream. If Aunt Debbie wasn’t watching her soaps he might have asked her for money. She didn’t have money because he didn’t have acne cream. There was so much acne going around.

Jed and Trevor were at Corner’s, the ice cream stand next to the Tire Iron. Andy rode up and skidded in the stone parking lot. His bike was shit and they looked at him funny, but they could deal with talking to him. Jed was talking about [wallpaper and] his half-brother in LA.

“We should get an apartment. Think of all the beer we could fucking drink. And the chicks. I need an apartment. We need an apartment. My step-brother in LA has it sweet. No parents, no curfew, just fun. He’s banging all kinds of chicks. Every race, every drug habit. It’s more exciting than here.”

“Asians, dude. Yeah, man. They are hot, but I can’t understand what they’re saying,” Trevor said. “When you see Asian girls in a group, they’re all giggling about something I don’t understand.”

“You’re telling me? I coulda fucked one, once. I hate this town.”

“Hey guys.”

“Hey Andy,” they said, looking away.

Jed spoke. He always spoke. “My brother says LA’s fuckin’ better than college. But he’s an idiot.”

“I dunno . . . College is like all pussy, right? It’s supposed to be all pussy.”

“I know. Still thinkin’ of moving to LA, though. Just gotta save up from working at Quincy Appleton’s. May cut out halfway through this year if I decide no college. No one gets out of this town, so I gotta make it happen. Otherwise I’m fuckin’ stuck. He only went ‘cause his mom’s out there. Divorce shit. She’s a lesbian now, apparently.”

“Haha, no way. Dude, you’ll be homeless. Like some piece of shit, man. You ain’t gettin’ laid then.”

“Just goin’ with the flow. Either we get an apartment or I have to move.”

“I need something to smoke,” Trevor said.

Jed coughed, waiting for Andy to leave, until: “So, Andy, ‘sup with you?”

“Nothing guys. Just riding around. Saw something cool and came over.”

“Oh wow man,” Jed said rolling his eyes. “We’re going to the park if you wanna come. This place is dead.”

“Yeah, sure. What’s going on there?”

“It’s the park. Who cares? Nothing’s going on in Horseshit, man. We’re here. And it’s the end of summer. What else is there?”

“Okay.”

Horseshit Park stood on the gradual hill gulfed by the valley with the Turkey Hill (Indian heritage), CVS (corporate heritage), and Wine and Spirits (government) that stood between the pool and park. Horseshit Park was East Horseshit, near the Shoppin’ Rite (Negro lingo) owned by Gray Building and the Nails and Beauty Adventure Salon (you go, girl). Andy, Jed, and Trevor went to the north parking lot and tied their bikes to a tree. Sometimes when Andy parked his bike somewhere and forgot his lock he pissed on the seat to deter people from stealing it, but not with other people around. Only he had broken a sweat on the ride up.

They walked alongside a macadam path without walking on it. Their feet never left the dark grass except to rise forward, or when Trevor jumped on a thick tree stump as wide as their overweight bus driver Carl Schroeder. Each year they hid uncooked meat in Carl’s trailer. Their next target was Fridge Johnson, the fattest girl in school.

They all sat down at a busted picnic table stenciled with razor blade. Most kids at Horseshit High carried razor blades, either to use on themselves, public property, or kids they figured to disfigure. They were cheap. Everything attainable was.

“Fuckin’ shit,” Jed said, tossing an acorn at two ducks.

“Yeah,” Trevor said.

And they didn’t say anything for a while.

Jed drummed on the table. “Beth Cuomo has some real nice knockers. I really like the way she’s been developing.”

“Haha, yeah man. They’re fucking sweet. Like the pears at that Amish stand outside town.”

Jed agreed. “You like ‘em Andy?”

“They’re nice.”

“‘Nice,’” Jed laughed. “Oh yeah. Cuomo’s a fuck in a million. Twice that, being from here. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t peg her ass if you could. Maybe let her suck on your sad sack. Say she comes over to your house, blindfolds herself, and lets you tie her hands behind her back, man. Tighter than a Scout knot. Lets you do anything you want to her, all nice. Full consent. Rape don’t even matter. What would you do, Andy? C’mon. And don’t be easy about it.”

Andy thought for a moment, looking toward the sunset as it hurt his eyes and made them feel like aching muscles. And he could feel the guys’ eyes bleeding all over him, their mouths open and wet for answers, their hands dangling over his face waiting to grab his words.

“Andy . . .”

“I’d fuck her. Yeah.”

“And?” Jed said

“What the fuck?” Trevor laughed. “Oh Jesus.”

“Um, kinda jizz in her eye, you know?” Andy’s voice was small. He spoke like rattling wheat, awkward trembles and scratching. Irritating.

“Get in line,” Jed said, turning back to Trevor. “Wouldn’t she be great in a gang bang? Not that I could share her.”

“I could, just to get more fun out of her,” Trevor said.

“I’d get in line for some of that,” Jed added. “Shit, I need to get out more. It’s tearing me apart.” They sat quietly, the other two wishing they had something to smoke and Andy wishing he could just burst. “I really wish we had my dad’s porn here. You wouldn’t believe what he’s got. Christ,” Jed whispered. “He should be in jail.” He pulled out a small CD player, like the boom box sitting in the corner behind the counter in the Rinky Dink convenience store. They took turns listening, together. “You don’t understand sex,” Jed said after a while. A cat ran out from behind the open amphitheater. It saw them. It prowled behind a tree, peed, and went back. A bird landed on the branches above them, shitting all over the manicured azaleas. They let the radio play, and it played screaming, and it felt authentic, though they couldn’t hear just how blunted was the blitz.

“Well, I’m bored,” Jed said, walking to the amphitheater. The local bands played there. The bad ones.

Trevor trotted along with his shoelace falling apart. “What are we doing?” he said.

“Checking out where that cat went. I don’t know. It went in here. Why don’t you think of something to do?” They came to the small opening, where Jed stopped. They heard kittens talking inside, too small to see because of the shadows. “Where’s a stick?” Jed said. He found one a few feet away while Trevor smiled and Andy waited to see what Jed would do, already feeling it. He looked quickly behind them. Silent houses and old furniture stores. Couples walked by but no one noticed what they were doing, despite the intense feeling of heat over Andy’s back and face. He tried to hide his face.

“Poke around in here,” Jed said, handing the stick over to Andy. “I can’t reach.”

“Why? What are you giving this to me for?”

“Make them talk. Come on. The mom’s gone, you pussy, don’t get scared. They’re just babies. Fuck with ‘em. What’s it gonna do to you? You keep trying to hang with us and don’t want to do anything.”

Andy bent down and saw partially inside, with his face close. The kittens had patchy light hair that reminded Andy of pink skin. Or Peg Oleander’s orange afro tease-hive. He used to stare at her cheeks when they had class together last year. She was more in Andy’s league. If he had a voice, he could approach her. They were both poor and unpopular. They both had skin that looked easy to break. Jed tapped Andy on the shoulder. “No looking away,” he said. “Get down and do it. Hurry up. You’re making us wait.”

Andy stood without saying anything and poked the stick around. The cats meowed like popping bubbles boiling under the amphitheater. Andy jabbed the stick in and out, this piece of brown wood, dusty and splintering, tan underneath, and half-dry from rot in the sun. They watched while the boy meekly did his damage, interested, unsatisfied, disenchanted.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Jed said after the cats’ whimpering stopped. “You’re both fucking sad. Always going to be stuck in this town.”

They walked down a little hill where the park boiled up from the sidewalk and headed back for the center of town. None of them took their bikes, keeping quiet. Maybe the mother would feel sad when she saw her loss, when her eyes met the punctured bellies and seam-split eyes. Or maybe she was just programmed by natural mystery to care for them because they were small and her own.

From the first draft of the whole book, but I've played with this a few times. Still trying to fix the dialog between the friends. Originally Jed and Trevor were other characters, even though Jed and Trevor pop up in other chapters. I changed the names to condense and maybe broaden the characters a bit (Trevor is pretty minor, Jed gets more space much later). So I should make a few more adjustments. Otherwise happy. In real life my friends and I found the cat in the shed, but it wasn't so creepy.