I said, “Huh.”
Adazee kept talking and talking for maybe twenty minutes. She named off everyone she knew in Calloustown who could’ve been a world record holder of one type or another, had they owned either luck or tenacity. She continued her monologue until Worm came back through the back door. They looked at each other for a second too long, I noticed, and then she excused herself for the restroom which, I learned later, had a hand-painted sign that read UNSEX on it.
I said to Worm, “Goddamn she’s got the biggest boobs I’ve ever seen.”
“You remember that time when we were at that ‘spend the night’ party over at Ms. Whalen’s house the night before the Sherman Knew Nothing festival?”
It’s not something anyone would forget. Every year Ms. Whalen — the sixth-grade teacher — had a sleepover party so that her husband could tell the boys about sex. The sixth-grade girls spent the night elsewhere and received sex ed from a woman. This was a Calloustown tradition, and the next day the boys and girls met up in order to watch men burn down a courthouse that never existed. According to legend, General Sherman thought our town worthless and swerved between Savannah and Columbia. Seven or eight generations later, descendants of the original Calloustowners still felt slighted, and it showed in their everyday goings-on, thus why Stuart “Worm” Harrell shunned me at first.
I said, “Yeah. Somebody pulled out his pecker to show off pubic hair, and you and I went back home. As a matter of fact, I remember our promising one another we’d never tell anyone about that night.”
Worm said, “Exactly. I’m glad you remember. I’m about to tell you something, and I want you to make that same promise with me, at least for a day. Promise?”
I nodded. I said, “What’s up?”
“Listen. You might be the man I been looking for. Listen. And don’t think I don’t know that a man like you gets good money for advice. Ever since you come back because your daddy’s in prison for mass murder, I’ve been thinking about how I could get in that book of famous records. We need us another celebrity in Calloustown so we don’t plain dry up. Economy’s bad enough. Bad economy without even a Virgin Mary sighting on a tree trunk or pothole spells out disaster, if you ask me.”
I said, “I’ll trade free advice for one shot of Old Crow.” I said, “My father’s not in prison for mass murder, by the way. If he was, he’d be the most famous person from Calloustown ever.”
Worm unscrewed the cap and handed over the entire quart bottle. He said, “You do what you need to do. I ain’t a part of this. I ain’t pushing you.”
I thought, fuck. I thought, if I drink, I’m not going to stop until I get brave enough to find Louise, drive to where she and I once lived, and get pulled over by police for driving under the influence. Then I’ll have the worst lawyer ever and get thrown in prison with my father. In between the court case and incarceration I’ll drive out to AfriCall of the Wild, ask for Louise’s forgiveness, and end up volunteering to muck the elephants’ stalls. An elephant will step on my foot, I’ll get gangrene, and then I’ll die. Somebody will have to not only clear out my mother’s belongings, but all of my Mexican jumping beans, and that person will do nothing but curse my existence, which will negate any notoriety I’d gained for the hornet stings.
The preacher on the cassette tape got all animated and said, “Everybody’s talking about the importance of bonding. We ain’t here to bond! If God wanted us to bond, He’d’ve given us a special glue gun instead of an index finger,” which wasn’t from the Book of Job.
“I got a few ideas. In that book of yours they got people down for eating hot dogs, Krystal hamburgers, pie, pancakes, deviled eggs, pickled eggs.” He went on and on.
I screwed the cap back on the Old Crow without drinking from it and pushed the bottle toward Worm. Adazee came back smiling and said, “So I guess Buzz thought it was a great idea, huh? Y’all don’t appear mad about anything.”
Worm took the Old Crow and drank straight out of the bottle just as Reverend Mixon got back on track and said, “‘Gird up your loins now like a man: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. Will thou also disannul my judgment?’”
They looked at one another again, for too long, and I realized that something had been planned, something I wasn’t in on.
Worm said, “I just broke into your momma’s house — actually the door wasn’t locked — and I ate exactly a hundred and thirteen of your Mexican jumping beans. I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t find a Mexican jumping bean — eating world record, so I guess I’m it. Thirteen’s my lucky number.”
I took the bottle back from him. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“We got us another celebrity!” Adazee said. “Calloustown’s back on the map!”
Worm said, “I feel real bad about what I said earlier. What I made up earlier. Truth be told, your ex-wife didn’t call up. Why would I say such a thing?” He hit himself in the leg. “I got to learn some things about business.”
I said, “You can’t just say you ate a bunch of something, or performed some kind of act, or had something happen to you like with me. There has to be witnesses. You have to have certified verifiers in a controlled environment.” I’m not sure how that last sentence developed in my head, or why.
“That story about Adazee’s brother’s not true either, by the way. In a way it’s all your fault, Buzz. He could play a trumpet real good, that much is right. But from what I understand, he nailed his own hand to the table and then cut it off with a ax. He wanted to get known as the best one-handed brass player in the world. At least that’s what people finally figured out, once Bernard made it all the way up to New York.”
Adazee jumped up and down quickly. It was obvious she’d taken off her brassiere when she was in the unisex restroom, probably because of discomfort, nothing else. She said, “That’s not true about Bernard.”
“It doesn’t matter. Do you know how much those jumping beans cost me? You owe me some money, my man.” I still didn’t drink from that bottle of Old Crow.
Worm said, “I don’t feel so good.” He said, “I don’t know if I can eat those things again, with witnesses or not.”
Adazee said, “That’s what you get.”
Reverend Mixon said, “‘They were children of fools, yea, children of base men.’”
I didn’t make eye contact with either of them. I thought of my childhood, and how I, too — before and after the hornets’ nest — wanted to be remembered. I wondered what my father did in his cell, at that very moment. I hoped that there was no afterlife, for I didn’t want my mother witnessing anything I would partake of, ever, in the future. I said, “Well, I guess there’s still hope.” I said, “Those beans you ate will have moths emerge. It’s got a big old Latin name that I have written down somewhere. I guess if you pull down your pants we can count the moths flying out of your ass and be official certified witnessing verifiers to that.”
Adazee said to Worm, “I did my job. I got him here and I kept him occupied. Pay up.”
They may have had an argument. I started daydreaming. Maybe I heard Adazee say something, again, about how I was old enough to be her father, and how she didn’t have time to be making up fake Welcome Wagons just so people could make my acquaintance. I wondered what my wife did at that moment. Was she helping an ex-circus zebra foal? Did she study a blister on her palm from raking and shoveling too often? And then, unfortunately, I thought of the moths—Cydia deshaisiana—that might indeed emerge from the end of Stuart Harrell’s alimentary canal. What kind of life-beginning is that for an insect that will live less than a week? It won’t even have time to make its way into a bakery, attracted by bags of flour, in order to foul grain meant to be used in congratulatory and festive dessert, for people who completed an education or bested someone else’s long-standing record or knew that their wedding vows were impenetrable and relentless. I thought, I am back in my hometown. I thought, it might be good to throw away my father’s rifle, plus every book with my name listed inside.