Lance closed his eyes. Thought about hanging from an old oak tree with his mother standing in front of his swaying feet, saying: "Oh, why couldn't you have come home earlier!"
He looked south again. Ramona was still wiping away the jizz with her tongue – only now she was licking his balls clean as a whistle.
Lance looked north.
Then he looked sick. Like the time he saw his skunk being rolled into an animal cracker by his Aunt Mabel's Corvette Sting Ray.
CHAPTER SIX
Kirby Mosher was looking at the mouth of a starfish. Through a looking glass that had once belonged to his Aunt Emily before she had passed away while rocking in her favorite early-American rocking chair.
The rocking chair was very expensive and very well made. Said to have belonged to Jefferson Davis' nephew-in-law before the carpetbaggers stole the fucking thing from him. But after much searching, later, the Davis family had recovered the rocker intact – except where some of the vandals had shaved off parts of the arm.
But three score and seven years later, it had ended up in the hands of Emily Davis, Kirby Mosher's very old and very rich aunt.
People had considered Emily to be very old because even her toes looked varicosed and because she was very senile. Like she always tried to make collect calls to Richmond, Virginia asking for a Mister Jefferson Davis.
But Aunt Emily's death only proved how well-built the old rocker was. If people so much as breathed on that old Confederate chair, it would rock and rock and rock. Like a lullabye. Like the ages.
Old Emily had simply died of old age while rocking in her chair, her carcass rocking back and forth, back and forth with each passing breeze.
And the first person to notice that she was dead was Kirby.
He had wandered over to see his aunt to use her phone. And since he used her phone every day, it was a week before it dawned on him that his Aunt Emily had not pestered him into making those long-distance collect calls to Richmond to talk to her famous uncle about what he was going to do about Sherman and his march to the sea.
At first Kirby was scared when he put his hand on her forehead, and the graying head of the carcass simply wouldn't budge.
Then he was embarrassed 'cause he had pissed in his pants. Because he had knelt down and looked at Aunt Emily. And the sight of Aunt Emily's eyes was simply ghastly.
And the rest of her wasn't too decent for public view either.
So Kirby knew she was dead. And he used her phone one last time to call the funeral parlor.
And it was almost two weeks before Aunt Emily's corpse could be laid to rest.
Then came the mortician's bill.
Christ! Seven thousand dollars.
Mr. Grimsly of the Happy Trails Funeral Home had solemnly explained to Kirby that his aunt's rigor was very mortis and that it had required putting the old lady into a coffin in the shape of a rocking chair instead of the normal four-thousand dollar, buried-in-a-box special.
So Kirby had reluctantly paid the bill. Well, it wasn't so much reluctance as it was niggardliness. Because it was the first time that so much money had flowed through his hands.
Shit, he hadn't known how rich Aunt Emily was. Christ, the rocker alone was worth a couple of thou. And the first stock certificates ever issued by Ford and General Electric and Lowry Organs weren't anything to laugh at.
But Kirby laughed.
Laughed because he had been a poor lazy son of a bitch all his life and now he was the wealthiest soul in Weedley. Well, that was debatable because some people still considered the Rathers to be A-1 in the number of greenbacks.
So, now that Aunt Emily was laid to rest, or rather sat to rest, Kirby relaxed in the rocker in his new home.
Of course, Kirby's new home wasn't exactly new. It had once belonged to Wendell Rathers before Ramona had urged her husband to build the Rathers Estate in the Belvedere section of Weedley because she needed about twenty-thousand square feet to do her yoga lessons.
So, Kirby was sitting comfortably in his two-hundred-thousand-dollar home, rocking in a rocking chair worth a couple of thou, watching his ninety-nine-dollar TV set with a ten-inch screen.
The reason he owned a ninety-nine-dollar TV set with a ten-inch screen was because Eula Peters, the famous interior decorator, had not returned from San Diego with the latest in modern decor and up-to-date appliances to fill out his thirty-room house.
So he sat in his dead aunt's rocker with a can of Hamm's casually switching channels with his toes. Kirby was very good at switching stations with his toes because he was a lazy asshole who worked hard at being lazy.
Which was a very easy thing for Kirby to do. Consider the fact that he could also pop the tops off Hamm's beer cans with his toes. And also the astounding fact that he could hold the can in a tilted position between the arches of his feet and guzzle the beer from a reclining position.
Which left his hands free to do other things. Like scratch at the crabs that infested his balls. Or pick the lint from his navel. Or scratch his left earlobe, the one that had runny earwax drooping from it like an earring.
Yeah, he was a lazy motherfucker. But that was probably because his mother was a lazy whore who didn't give a shit who fucked her cunt as long as they left a big tip so she wouldn't have to work at decent jobs like being a waitress at the Deserted Inn, or be a wrench inspector for the Rathers Wrench Company, or be unemployed like her ex-husbands.
Mother's name was Madeline Mosher. And since she was Kirby's mommy, she was older than Kirby. Like twenty-eight years older than her lazy asshole of a son.
Half the people in Weedley called Madeline Mosher "Maddy" for short. The other half called Madeline Mosher "that lazy asshole bitch" for long.
But neither the long or the short bothered Madeline. She was quite content being known as Maddy, or that lazy asshole bitch. Mainly because she didn't give a shit. About anything. Except the tips her customers left her after she had fucked their cocks high and dry.
Yeah, Madeline was a very lazy bitch. So, it was only natural that her only living baby was strong enough to avoid the quack doctor's coat hanger and weak enough to be a lazy asshole.
Thus, Kirby grew up in a lazy household. A household where dirty dishes were reused, and yesterday's leftovers were simply mingled in with that night's dinner. A house where guests and home-owner used the same towels and toilet paper. A house where the occupants were always on their asses and used their toes to grab whatever their fat bodies craved – like Oreo cookies, or Camel cigarettes, or some Certs, or some toothpicks.
And that's why Kirby was in the midst of guzzling his Hamm's while holding the can with his feet. And while he was lazily drinking his beer, he was astounded by what he saw on the TV set.
A set of tits.
A very big set of tits.
And then he heard a very familiar voice. And the familiar voice was saying: "…now, in order to check for those bumps or warts that may be cancerous, please do as I am doing. Lift your tit up. That's right, girls. Now, press against the base of your tit. Does it feel lumpy, like your tit was made out of Polish sausage? Or does it feel like my tit? Very warm and soft, yet very firm and smooth."
Kirby belched, the Hamm's foaming in his mouth.
That was Ramona Rathers' voice! And that had to be her tits!
Kirby gasped as he watched a pair of carmine-finger nailed hands massage those huge titties that filled his ten-inch screen.
Then Kirby was pissed. Shit, no decent woman should ever show her tits on TV. Balls o'fire! His mother may have been the laziest asshole bitch in town, but she still had enough energy to put her clothes on in front of him.
Christ! Who did that woman think she was? The tit empress of Weedley? Balls! Her stilt stunk just like everybody else's! Just because she was the richest bitch in Weedley didn't give her any right to expose her titties to the whole community.