Helton nodded with authority.
All four men exchanged grievous glances in the warehouse parking lot, all shuffling their feet.
“Shit,” Paulie said.
“Shit is right,” Helton remarked. “We all just had ourselfs a great cum but now?”
Dumar stepped right up next to his father. “The fun’n games are over, and the feud’s back on.”
More silence, more glances.
“It’s fucked up,” Argi said, preposterously large testicle throbbing.
“Yeah, I could be spendin’ Christmas with my wife in Vegas,” Paulie griped, “but, no, you guys had to fuck it all up.”
The outrage of the statement seemed to cause Helton’s neck to cock his head forward. “Oh, we fucked it all up, huh? Well just you tell me, Paulie, how ya arrive at that!”
Paulie pointed and blared, “Your family started all this shit way back when! All I was doin’ was pulling some legitimate vendetta for my wife! Only reason any of this is happening is because your nephew, Travis Tuckton, fucked my wife’s father in the head!”
Dumar howled while Helton’s face reddened, and then the elder blared back, “Well, I hate ta tell ya this, Paulie, but the only reason my nephew, Travis Tuckton, fucked your wife’s father in the head is ’cos your wife’s father, Thibald Caudill, fucked Travis’ mother in the head!”
The heaviest silence of all dropped over the scene.
Paulie’s mouth fell open. He looked to Argi, then he looked back at Helton. “What?”
“You heard me!” Helton thundered. “Thibald Caudill, your wife’s fuckin’ father, was a cad, a creeker, and a thief, and he stolt valuable land from my brother Tuff, he did! So when he hears that Tuff’s fixin’ ta sue, Caudill killed Tuff and then ta add insult ta injury, he fucked Tuff’s wife, Joycie Tuckton, in the head! Joycie Tuckton was Travis’s maw!”
Paulie and Argie stared, slack-jawed.
Helton continued to roar, “So it was your side that started this feud, not mine!”
More seconds of silence ticked by.
“Argi,” Paulie croaked, “I don’t think he’s lyin’.”
Argi shook his head. “Ain’t seen none of the seventeen signs, boss.”
“Helton, are you on the level about this?”
“Yer dang straight I am! We’re decent backwoods folks who mind our own business! We don’t do nothin’ ta no one less’n they deserve it!”
Paulie seemed flabbergasted. “Well how do you like that shit? Marshie never told me it was her father who started it all. She told me he was an innocent victim…”
“Ain’t anothin’ inner-cint ’bout Thibald Caudill! Lower than snake-shit, he was! The evilest man ta ever come out’a these parts, and he got what he deserved!”
Paulie began opening and closing his fists, clearly in a high mode of agitation. “Why that lyin’ bitch. She only told me half the story, and here we are tearin’ the shit out of each other just so she can have a laugh. Man, that pisses me off!”
“It’s fucked up, boss,” Argi said. “And it looks like all this—”
“—is our fault!” Paulie cracked. “If she’d told me the fuckin’ truth in the first place, then there’s no way I’d have pulled a vendetta on you guys! It’d be a violation of the code!” Paulie stormed tight circles in the lot. “Fuck! I hate it when chicks fuck with me like that!” He looked at Helton. “Shit, man. I don’t know what to say.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry.”
Helton’s bushy brow cocked up. “You’se…apollergizin’?”
“Well, yeah,” the don admitted. “I fucked up ’cos I believed my fuckin’ wife.” He ground his teeth. “Argi, what’s wrong with me? I do it every time, don’t I? Marshie’s my third fuckin’ wife and she’s pullin’ the same shit the first two did. Paulie the Puppet. They lie like fuckin’ rugs but I believe ’em every time. Just show me a great set of legs and a great set of tits and a pretty face, and they get me wrapped right around their fuckin’ fingers. Paulie see, Paulie do.”
Helton chuckled. “Well all men git hoodwinked by purdy gals on occasion. See, it’s a gal’s nature lie to their fellas’n make ’em look like a horse’s bee-hind.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.” Paulie’s gaze drifted back to Helton. “Well, Helton. It’s your call. If you want to keep this fight up and try to get your revenge, I gotta admit, you got the right to.”
Helton reflected. “Aw, yeah, we could do that, and I don’t mind tellin’ ya you’d more’n likely git’cher asses wored out, but…seein’ how you’se just apollergized…I’m perfectly fine in considerin’ this whole awful thing as nothin’ but a great big misunderstandin’.”
“Well shit, Paw,” Dumar barked. “This man deserves to die bad on account’a what he done ta my fine li’l son Crory!”
“I understand what’cher sayin’, Dumar,” Helton replied, “but you’n me both know that Crory weren’t really a fine li’l son. The kid was born with glue on his fingers. Bet a day didn’t go by when he didn’t steal somethin’. A kid with a touch’a the thief runnin’ that deep in his blood? His death might easily have been a case of somethin’ goin’ around and then comin’ around…”
Dumar chewed his lip. “Well, I never thunk of it that way so’s…maybe you’re right,” but then hatred flared back in his eyes. “But what about my poor wife! These boys dug up her corpse, fucked it, then pumped her belly up with shit! My lovin’, faithful Mary Beth!”
Helton winced a bit, “Son, that may be true that they fucked her dead body’n filled her with shit, but…”
“But what, Paw!”
Helton sighed. “I never told ya ’cos I didn’t think it needed tellin’, but shit, boy, there weren’t nothin’ lovin’ and faithful ’bout Mary Beth. Since the day you was married, I started hearin’ stories ’bout her fuckin’ and suckin’ fellas fer hooch or cash”—he pointed his omnipotent finger—“and you cain’t tell me you didn’t hear some’a them stories your own self.”
Dumar stalled, then admitted, “Well, yeah, Paw, I did. But I were so up’n in love with her, I didn’t believe ’em.”
“Hey, I hear ya, kid,” Paulie said and then he and Argi laughed. “Fuckin’ wives, huh? They’re all a pack of liars.”
“Guys need to think more with the heads on their shoulders than the heads in their pants,” Argi offered.
Helton continued, “And there was one time, son, when Mary Beth wanted to suck my dick if’n I give her extra ‘shine—”
Dumar glared. “Did you let her?”
WHAP!
Helton’s huge hand smacked Dumar across the head so hard he almost flipped in the air.
“Oooow! Gawd dang, Paw!”
“A’course I didn’t let her, ya blammed a-hole! What kind’a hill trash ya think I am? Ya think I’d take a blowjob from my own son’s wife?”
Dumar dragged himself up. “Shit, Paw, I’se sorry. I’se just kind’a all twisted up now. I’se confused.”
“It’s a confusin’ world we’se all livin’ in, son. It’s what they’se call the conver-loo-shuns of human nature. We’se got ta be careful how we reckon it. And gittin’ back ta Mary Beth…shit, I hate ta speak ill’a the dead, but yer wife was a alky tramp and lazier than Charlie Fuchson’s egg-suck dog. She weren’t a good wife. Wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if it turned out that that li’l thief Crory come from some other fella’s load.”