Sloughing Off the Rot (11 page)

“Did you say Crawling King Snake?” asked the feeble voice.

“Yes. Crawling King Snake.”

“He is the lizard king. Thatwise, he can do anything,” said the shaky voice. From behind the door came clicks, grunts, and the sounds of flatulence. And then, “Open the doors for these men and let them in.”

The doors pulled inward and revealed an ancient, small man wearing a toga. Perhaps he was a tall midget, or maybe just an extremely short normal-sized person. His size presented as an optical illusion, making it hard to tell if he was a gargantuan dwarf or a diminutive oaf. A thin strip of sparse white hair ringed the man’s head, starting just above one ear, swooping down around the back of his dome, and climbing again to sit atop his other ear. And from the front of each ear sprouted a chin curtain of long white hair along his jaw line, covering his chin and flowing to just above his nipples. Frosty white eyebrows sprang from his forehead in a dense scraggly mess, as if reaching out to catch any insects that might buzz by. He held a tin ear horn that started with a tiny tapered piece that fit in his ear and then spiraled around his hand in convoluted bulbous sections that increased in size until they reached the flared bell that captured sounds at the other end. Shouting so as to be able hear himself, the man said, “My name is Chelloveck. I am the town elder. We will welcome you to our village for the night and allow you to pass through because you speak in the old tongue. That is a sound we have not heard in ages and, thatwise, it is dobby to hear even a malenky chumble of aldspeak. Now enter and what say you?” Chelloveck placed the ear trumpet to the side of his head and awaited a response.

Crazy Talk stepped inside the doors and moved his mouth near to the bell of the ear trumpet. “Grapta, Sa,” he shouted into the horn. “We gromb on the navels and slaughter baby seals in your honor.”

A look of disgust came over Chelloveck’s face. He pulled the horn away and snapped at Crazy Talk, “I’m not deaf, you know. You don’t need to shout.” And he threw the ear horn to the ground and stomped away, mumbling and grumbling to himself.

They all stood and watched Chelloveck as he shuffled into the bus-walled village. Realizing that the interlopers were not following him, Chelloveck stopped and returned to grab his ear horn. “Come on, then,” he said to the men, “don’t be put off by my behavior. I’m old and cantankerous. And, actually, I am nearly deaf. I don’t know why I did that.” He gestured to John and his men to follow him. “Come,” said Chelloveck, “Come in. You’ve arrived just in time to celebrate our festivities. We were blessed just this yesterday with a stampede of interesting meat and mighty fighters. Everybody come in. The ceremony is about to begin.”

John, Santiago and Alf the Sacred Burro followed Chelloveck. But, Crazy Talk stayed outside of the front gate.

“I viddy you in good now with Chelloveck,” said Crazy Talk. He held up his hand in a lazy farewell wave. “My work done for now. My gulliver is gloopy and ready for sleepy-weep. I go for now. Guarding fumes and making haste ain’t my cup of meat.” And with that, Crazy Talk disappeared from the doorway and left John and Santiago to follow the strange little-big-man into a labyrinth of buses.

They left Alf the Sacred Burro tethered to a bloodwood tree just inside of the front gate. Alf left donkey vomit balls at his feet as an even-up trade for the windfallen bloodwood fruit that he ate from the ground. Chelloveck assured John that his men would tend to the donkey. And then the strange little-big-man escorted John and Santiago through a circular maze of buses that led on an almost imperceptible downward slant. Curtains pulled back from the bus windows and suspicious eyes probed at the newcomers as they passed.

A circular pit, six cubits deep and fifty cubits in diameter, marked the center of the bus-labyrinth. The edge of the pit wore a crown of mud bricks one cubit high. Rows of seats – bus seats, benches, stumps, boulders – ringed the pit in terraced levels leading up to the circle of buses surrounding the amphitheatre. And in each seat sat a large midget of a toga-clad man who looked just like the men to his left and right. The men ranged in age from mid-teens to ancient, but all were younger versions of Chelloveck. Even the adolescents were already bald and graying and sporting the flowing chin curtains.

Chelloveck led John and the others to an open space at the edge of the pit, in between the rows of men. Chelloveck turned and waved his hands toward the surrounding crowd. “These are my sons. I am Chelloveck. These are Chellovecks.” And he placed his ear trumpet to his ear to hear the roar of the crowd as the men cried out in response to their father’s acknowledgement.

Santiago stood with them, puffing on a bezoar in the peace pipe he filched from Crazy Talk.

“How many sons do you have?” asked John into the bell of the ear trumpet.

“Three-hundred-and-one as of today. I lost five and twenty of them yesterday in an ambush outside of our village. Damn Po’kinhorns.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said John, not knowing what else to say.

“What?” asked Chelloveck, sticking the ear horn in John’s face.

“I’m sorry to hear about your loss.”

“It’s okay,” said Chelloveck in a tone that indicated that it really was all right. “I can always make more. And besides, we fought off the attackers and even took some prisoners. Tonight, we celebrate our victory.” And the little-big-man placed his mouth to the earpiece of the ear horn and blew a frantic hardcore-avant-jazz screech that slammed the crowd in the face with a dissonant musical fist and screeched at the men to sit down and shut up.

And the screech of Chelloveck’s ear horn reminded John of the blistering giggle-jazz that greeted him upon his entry into the new and strange world where he now found himself. John’s body tingled with some sort of emotion, though he found that he was quite inept at interpreting the new feelings starting to bubble up in him. Instead, the emotion manifested itself as a prickle on his skin, and as beads of sweat forming in his armpits and dripping down the sides of his ribcage. He felt tense, excited, angry, sad, confused, and the feelings grated at his raw emotional nerves. His mind reeled at the thought of having three-hundred-twenty-six sons. He wondered how Chelloveck could proliferate when there did not appear to be even one female in the village.

John said into the ear horn, “Please don’t think I’m rude for asking, but how can you have so many sons when there are no women to mother them?”

“What?” asked Chelloveck, holding the bell of his ear trumpet toward John.

“You have so many sons. Where are their mothers?”

“Blumpkins,” said Chelloveck. “That’s why we were ambushed. For our blumpkins.”

At the mention of blumpkins, Santiago snapped to attention. He craned his neck back, sniffed at the air, and began to scan the compound with a fierce curiosity. And before John had the opportunity to inquire further, Chelloveck once again blew a wet, warbling trumpet blast.

“Now it is time that we feast,” shouted Chelloveck, the force of his voice a surprising contrast to the faint murmur with which he originally addressed Crazy Talk. “Thatwise, Chellovecks, let’s enjoy yesterday’s bread, today’s meat, and last year’s cider.” A roar issued from the crowd in response. Chellovecks carted in roasted earth pig, baby scruff goat cooked in its mother’s milk, and other curious meats.

“Yesterday,” said Chelloveck to John, “we were overrun with strange new creatures and scruff goats and earth pigs. If you look toward the tops of our buses you will still see some of the creatures running about. And we have found that these strange creatures are most delectable, their meat being sweet and tender and salty. Thatwise, tonight we feast on the bounty of meats that blessed our camp.”

John scanned the tops of the surrounding buses and he did see strange creatures that looked most familiar to him. Some of the creatures had three legs and two heads. Some had the heads of a bird and the body of a cat. And others – unrecognizable amorphous blobs of fur and feathers – rolled about and chattered at one another. John recognized all of them as the myriad forms of his jizz-critters.

Chelloveck clapped his hands and several younger Chellovecks placed a table and chairs in the clearing at the edge of the pit. “Sit,” said Chelloveck, motioning to the chairs. “Sit and feast and enjoy the festivities with me.” He again clapped his hands and several more Chellovecks placed food and clay pitchers of hard cider before the three men at the table.

John helped himself to the baby scruff goat and ribs from the earth pig and found them to be a delicious change from the dry, tough dirt-rats. He avoided dining on his own jizz-critters, as it just didn’t seem right to him. Santiago chugged his cider and motioned to a server-Chelloveck to fill his goblet again and again. On Santiago’s plate sat a mound of many meats – scruff goat, earth pig, jizz-critters. His appetite overwhelmed him and Santiago tore into the mound of many meats with zealous abandon. Chelloveck gnawed at a large leg bone of jizz-critter. When he had stripped the leg bare of meat, Chelloveck snapped the thick leg bone and sucked the marrow from it.

“Bring more cider for our guests,” ordered Chelloveck to a server-Chelloveck. The ancient man gnawed at another piece of meat, getting just slightly more of the food in his mouth than on his beard.

Server-Chellovecks handed out meat and unleavened flat bread and cider to all of the spectator-Chellovecks. And a great gluttonous feast ensued. Chellovecks attacked their food as if they had not eaten in weeks. They tore at the fresh meat and tossed the cleaned bones toward the center of the amphitheatre pit. Server-Chellovecks tossed grilled jizz-critters to the spectator-Chellovecks and filled all empty goblets with strong cider.

As they dined, a thick, sturdy door along the pit’s wall opened and three Chellovecks marched to the center of the arena. The three men held horns that somewhat resembled their father’s ear trumpet. The horns twisted and turned in tight convolutions and ended in flared bells. Before the assembly stood the trumpet-Chellovecks, old and wrinkled, their dry skin looking as if it were coated in a thin covering of dust and cobwebs. They wore red turbans and over their togas they sported ephods of white, blue, scarlet and purple, and interwoven with gold thread.

The middle-trumpet-Chelloveck raised the mouthpiece of his horn to his lips. He looked to the Chelloveck on his right and nodded and then did the same to the Chelloveck on his left. His foot tapped out a sick, slick rhythm, stirring up a small cloud of dust on the ground. And then his horn blew hot, spewing a torrent of unhinged notes that slammed into each other with reckless disregard, the result being a slurred and climbing trumpet scream that rent the air but still somehow held a compelling melody at its core. The Chellovecks on both sides stood and snapped their fingers to the beat of the bandleader’s foot. Right-side-trumpet-Chelloveck picked up on the gist of the screaming horn and started spitting scorching notes himself. And the two horns rose and fell and twisted their tunes around each other, with a
blum-blum-doo-dat-doo
honking out of one while a tremulous sustained
screeeeeeeee
soared above it. And left-side-trumpet-Chelloveck dug on the chaotic strain and he sprayed steaming arpeggios all over the groove with his
bloo-doo-doo-doo-dat, bloo-doo-doo-doo-dat, bloo-doo-doo-doo-dee-dah-di-dah-di-blah-dah
. And the Demon Zorn looked on, snapped his thin fingers, and smiled a pointy-toothed grin.

As if drawn by the pied-piping Chellovecks, a stampede of all shapes and sizes of jizz-critters scrambled through the pit door and spilled into the arena in a massive wave of snarling, scratching, snipping and snapping beasts. The Chelloveck horn section continued to kick out the jams, stirring up a roiling tornado of intertwined musical lines. Physical manifestations of the notes, appearing as proper but mangled sheet music with the notes twisted in the tangled ledger lines, swirled in the cacophonous cyclone that spewed from the Chellovecks’ horns.

And the music whipped the jizz-critters into a frenzy. The chimeric animals in the arena pounced on one another and tore at flesh, sucked at the blood from defeated beasts. Bovine creatures with unwieldy horns ran and tossed their thick heads about, goring all that stood in their way. Small simian creatures pounced on the backs of the heavy-footed bull beasts and scratched at the massive animals’ eyes. Other animals became tripping blocks for the members of the horned stampede and were crushed under hooves. As the bull beasts slammed into the ground, other jizz-critters pounced on them and tore open the bovine underbellies, unraveling the mess of intestines, feasting on the entrails. And the melee swirled in a bloody current all around the clearing at the center of the arena where the Chellovecks spat their mad shit from blow-horns.

When the song ended, the trumpet-Chellovecks held their horns to their sides and gazed at the fracas around them. Without the horns blowing, the jizz-critters felt no need to steer clear of the center of the pit. The swirling current of animals scattered. The Chellovecks found themselves in no better of a position than the bull beasts as they fended off attacks from all manner of animals. One trumpet-Chelloveck swung his horn wildly at the crush of furry attackers, knocking five-legged dogs and fish-birds to the ground. But, the effort proved futile when the massive longhorn of a bull beast poked through his back and out of his chest. With a Chelloveck-kabob on his spike, the bull beast flicked his head to the side and tossed the little-big man aside, leaving him to bleed out and be trampled and fed on by the panicked jizz-critters. Before the remaining trumpeters could scramble for safety, the frenzied animals knocked them to the ground and tore them to scraps.