An engine rattling. A quiet curse in the distance, “Drat. Drat. Drat.” Who the fuck says drat? Skippy the mailman, that’s who. Come on, Skippy, stay still. Smile for the camera. Edgar’s comin’ for you.
“Drat!” I parrot back at him, laughing loud enough that he can hear me. “Drat! My snowmobile won’t start! Drat!”
He’s sobbing. The sissy doesn’t have enough in him to get off that damn snowmobile, walk up to me, and finish the job. I’m blind and stabbed but he’s still afraid of me. Time to put on the crazy-pants again.
He’s really sobbing now, so loud that it reminds me of the lion from that movie with the chick goin’ down that yellow road, you know… the one with the witch and the scarecrow. Ain’t seen that movie since before my balls dropped, but I remember the way that lion cried. Skipper sounds just like that. Blubberin’. I think that’s the word. Skippy Zippy is blubberin’.
Skip-To-My-Loo keeps tryin’ to turn the ignition over. I can tell from the sound the engine is making that he’s flooded it. If he had five minutes (he’s lucky if he’s got one minute) then he could wait it out and try again. Instead, he’s panickin’ cause old Edgar is coming.
“Drat!” I scream. I sound like a devil on crystal meth. I wish I could see the mailman’s face.
He turns the ignition again. Skipper is only about ten feet away now.
I tighten up the knife in my hand.
Spluk. Spluk. Spluk.
That’s the sound the kitchen knife makes as I return the favor. He got me once in the shoulder, just above my titty. I gave it back to him in the throat (I think), and then followed that one with one in the chest, and then another that was probably on the back of his skull. The third one felt hard, like I was goin’ up against some steel or some shit like that.
I hear him gurgle and cry out. He says something like, “Comma comma lama domma.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talkin’ about, Skippy.”
He tries again now that he’s dumped off the snowmobile, face first in the snow. He says, “Breck a leck. Jabby. Jabby.” I’m guessin’ that when you die sometimes you say stupid shit. Sort of like you’re talking some other language. Maybe dead folks have their own language, so when you’re halfway between worlds, you sort of start learning the new one and forgettin’ the old one. Sometimes I come up with silly theories, but try to disprove ’em motherfucker.
“Shut up,” I say, feeling around for his body. My eyesight is startin’ to come back. I manage to get my left lid open. There’s no more snot coming out of my nose, but everything still hurts, still screams, like I just got sprayed by that shit. I still can’t believe I got my shit fucked up by a goddamned mailman. “Now where we gon’ bury your body? Huh, Skippy?”
He groans and then he shuts up for good. Pretty sure that the S.O.B. is dead now.
“Good idea,” I say. “We’ll bury ya’ in the snow. Brilliant. Woulda never thought of that myself.”
Before I get to giving Skippy a final burial, I pull off his jacket. It’s cold out, and a man needs a warm jacket. I put on his hat and his gloves too. I was a dang fool, coming out here like this. Gonna catch a death of cold out here.
Once I got all the good stuff off his body and I have it on myself, I start to drag his dead weight away from the snowmobile. The blinding gusts of wind mask me from any nosy onlookers. Cause that’s all I need, for somebody else to check me out and get into my business. Then I have to kill them. And then somebody else sees me killin’ on that person, and then I have to kill that next one. And so on. And so on. You get to a point where you just get tired of killin’ motherfuckers and you just wanna take a goddamned nap.
“Head first?” I ask. Truth is, I don’t have to really bury him at all. Just get him out of the way. The snow will do the rest. This shit ain’t stoppin’. Not anytime soon.
It’s like Jesus is listenin’, cause the snow picks up just as I’m finding a sweet spot for the mailman. The snow is comin’ down so hard that I swear the whole cocksuckin’ world will be buried by the end of the week.
I crawl back to the snowmobile, leaning up against it. I stare up at the sky as a sudden wooziness overtakes my ass. I’m seeing all kinds of weird shit in my eyes—stars mixed with titties mixed with leprechauns mixed with snow-snow-snow. It’s like I’m on some kind of drugs but then I think again. Maybe it’s just a mix of being tired as hell and losing a lot of blood.
The wound looks pretty bad. Worse than it feels. There’s blood all over the snow.
As much as it pains old Edgar to admit it, I need help. I need to get patched up.
Fuck it all, I need help.
I don’t want to die. Not yet. Too much fun to be havin’.
Marianne won’t be able to help. Cause I ripped her in half.
Skipper can’t help. Cause I skewered ’em like a pig.
There’s another house, just across the way. One, two, three, I move down the line. Pickin’ one place after another, wishin’ on those dreams that only a wanderin’ man can grow inside him. Marianne had mentioned the other people, the neighbors next door, and she said that they were still home, waitin’ out the storm like everybody else.
I think about movin’ the snowmobile, but it’ll be buried by the snow in no time. Just like everything else. Just like the whole damn world, sinkin’ deeper and deeper. The mailman and the snowmobile won’t be much of a problem.
Ding dong. Ding dong. Just a friendly neighbor, lookin’ for some sugar.
Chapter Five
Here comes the pity parade, so everybody get them binoculars out. Light your sparklers. Poor ol’ Edgar is all ripped up n’ broken. I’m damaged goods, but I can play it up to my advantage, do my little possum act for the people. I been practicin’ all my life and it’s my favorite move. Somebody once called me the world’s slickest con man, but that person don’t say nothin’ anymore, mostly cause I snipped out his throat with a pair o’ rusty hedge clippers.
I’m crawlin’ across the snow, dragging my body towards the next house in the line, hoping that somebody is home. I keep on movin’ from one house to another. Reminds me of that game where you buy up all them little red houses and then you start buyin’ up them big green hotels. Or is it the other way around? Either way, I hated that there game. Too much countin’.
I’m feelin’ my way through the snow. Can’t see shit. The wind is whipping like a son of a bitch. I’m feelin’ mighty tired, like I need a nap.
Dammit all to hell, I need a break from all this drama. Marianne’s house is tainted and I can’t go back there. Skipper ruined it, even more so than the pissy cats and that stench of Marianne’s perfume, clingin’ to everything like an STD. Fuck that place. Not a good place to settle in and definitely not one you want to settle up in either.
Skipper put a hurtin’ on me. Pretty bad one. I can feel the blood oozin’ out of me.
I wish I hadn’t been so loosey-goosey with him. You see a dope like Skipper, wearing some asshole’s mustache and putting himself out there like the world’s biggest doormat, well, you can’t help but let your guard down a little. I’ve run into a lotta fellas like Skipper in my day, and that son of a bitch won’t be the last. In the end, I always take what I got comin’ to me. I never been bested and I never will. Skipper mighta had some tricks up his sleeves, or maybe I was just bein’ sloppy, but I got that beast still lurkin’ inside me, sittin’ pretty right next to Jesus Christ.
Thems a dangerous combination.