“—and I won’t stand fer bein’ treated like that. So you git down on yer knees right now’n fuck me!”
“That won’t be happening,” Rosser said, nose crinkling at the shit-smell from his shirt. “That’s an impossibility.”
“Then gimme more money!” she demanded.
“No. I already gave you money.”
“Why you prick! You asshole!” she began, her face nearly crimson now. The baby was crying in force, in machine-like bursts.
“Who do you think you are!” Maxine continued, “treatin’ me like common tramp!”
Rosser rolled his eyes.
“Well, I’ll show you, I’ll show you—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Rosser said.
She’s flaking out. I’ll just leave. It’ll only take me a half hour to get back to Luntville.
He picked up his dollar-store bag, turned to leave—
“Oh, yeah, I’ll fix your wagon, buddy.” Now she was on her feet, the baby left to squall on the bench. “You just watch.”
She bumbled toward him, flipflops snapping, tits jumping. At first Rosser thought she was going to assault him, but instead she edged out of the shelter, maniacal. Rosser just stared at her.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She stood in the middle of the vacant road, waving at something. That’s when Rosser noticed that the vacant road wasn’t vacant anymore.
The next bus was coming.
Maxine ludicrously jumped up and down in the road, waving her hands. Each time she landed, her fat jiggled in ripples.
“Help! Help! Hurry!”
Rosser was totally off guard. “What-what are you doing?”
“Help! This man molested my l’il baby!”
WHAT!
“I didn’t do anything of the sort!” Rosser shrieked at her. “You’re the one who spit my semen in his mouth! Stop it!”
“Help! Hurry! Child molesterer! Child molesterer!”
The bus was getting real close, and the driver would have a radio.
And call the police,
he realized. “Just stop it! Here, here, I’ll give you more money—”
“Fer-GET it, ya prick. I’m gonna fuck you up!”
Rosser tried to calm down. If he ran away, it would appear to the driver and passengers—material witnesses—that Rosser was guilty. If he stayed and stood his ground to dispute the allegation, he’d be more credible than she, right?
Then he looked at the baby. Shots was sitting back up in the shelter, waving pudgy arms and flinging more excrement. But his little fat and thoroughly atrocious face told all. Cloudy white blobs were still ringing his mouth.
Fuck!
Rosser ran.
The area seemed so wide open but then he noticed a decline off the road. He trotted down. He dared jerk his gaze behind him and saw the bus had already stopped, the driver and several rather rough-looking passengers coming out the door as Maxine wailed, “He molested my baby, my poor li’l Shots, right here in the shelter. I tried to stop him but he said he’d kill me—”
Oh, that’s just terrific!
Rosser thought.
“Jerked off right in my baby’s face, he did!”
“Look at that! Damn if she ain’t right,” a passenger exclaimed. “Poor kid’s face is covered with jizz—”
“I’m calling the police,” the driver yelled and went back in the bus.
“Ain’t gonna be no need fer no police,” another, bigger, passenger assured, “not if we find this sick fucker first—”
“There! There he is!” Maxine shouted. She pointed right to Rosser, who was in the decline but his head showing. “Get him! Make him pay fer the horrible crime he done to my baby!”
Several figures began to run after him. Rosser hightailed it faster than he ever had in his life.
Lower into the decline, the woods began. He thrashed through brambles, leapt over tree stumps, tore through the forest. Deeper, it occurred to him that he had no idea where he was going, only a general inclination of direction. It also occurred to him, quite quickly, that he was not in the greatest physical condition. His heart hammered, he grew winded, and his knees and ankles began to ache—
My God, I’ve got to rest!
—but a surge of adrenalin dumped into his blood when he heard more thrashing behind him, the rapid footfalls of several men.
“Daggit, Jory. I’se think I see the monster, right down yonder past them trees!”
“Shore’s shit do, Judd! We’se’ll tune that sick bastard up
real
good!”
If those hayseeds catch me, they’ll lynch me right here in the woods!
Rosser kept running.
The tear through the woods seemed endless. As he progressed he felt more and more lost; he’d deliberately been zigzagging, hoping to lose them. Spider webs stretched across his face, bugs covered him, including masses of mosquitoes. At one point he slipped on something and fell flat on his face: a rotten woodchuck. At another point, when he thrashed through some vines, a yard-long green snake fell on him. Somehow, though, he managed to fling it off without shrieking. Within these woods, the humidity doubled, sucking sweat out of his skin.
Rosser kept running.
He stopped when it felt as though his heart would pop, leaned behind a tree. He wheezed in deep breaths that simply didn’t seem to suffice; for a few seconds he feared he might pass out from exhaustion. The most dreadful notion told him that he’d soon be able to hear his pursuers, gaining on him, strong, young men, men who weren’t winded at all but instead bent on vengeance.
Please, please, God. Don’t let them get me, or if they do, please let it be quick…
Hugging the tree, he held his breath.
Listened.
Nothing.
Thank God…
His pursuers had branched off in the wrong direction. A few shouts in the distance verified the absolving observation: the shouts were getting further and further away, until they disappeared.
Yes, yes. Thank God.
Finally, luck seemed to be on his side. Another thirty yards through the woods showed him an open field beyond the trees, and the modest valley in which Luntville had been built. When he squinted he could even see Mrs. Doberman’s rooming house!
Twenty-minute walk and I’m home!
It would be difficult, but he thought he could make it. He couldn’t stay in town, of course, not with crazy Maxine accusing him of child molestation, but with just a little more luck, he could get in the house, get into his room and retrieve his money, then slip out again and hike to the next town and catch a bus somewhere else.
It was the only plan he had and it didn’t sound too bad. Maxine had been the only one to see him, and he hadn’t told her his name, nor his address.
I’ll get my money and run,
he reasoned.
And I’ll NEVER solicit a prostitute again!
He was just about to exit the woods when sharp voices rose. He jumped to the ground behind a fallen log.
The voices blared with rage and urgency. Male voices.
“Kin ya believe the sick shit that people do?”
“Shee-it, brother. A baby, a little
baby!”
The voices…were grimly familiar.
The Harkins boys.
The quadruplets….
“Maxine even said he butt-fucked the baby!”
Rosser nearly pissed in his jeans.
“Yeah, boys, he’s one sick piece of shit, but if he thinks
he’s sick…
we’ll show him sick…”
“Yeah, man!”
All Rosser could think after that was two things:
A mallet-job…
And a dick-snagglin’…
“Bet he went in the woods. Let’s go!”
No!
“Naw, why would he do that? Bet he went up the main road, to hitch a ride.”
Yes, yes!
“Anybody know what the fucker looks like?”
“Naw, not his face ’er nothin’. Shouldn’t be hard ta spot though, ’cos Maxine said he was wearin’ a button-down white shirt.”
“Come on, yer right. Let’s head to the main road—”
Rosser let out the longest sigh of relief when they stomped off. Luck kept blessing him, that or God. He’d most easily be recognized by his shirt (which still reeked of infant excreta, by the way) but he still had his dollar-store bag, with t-shirts in it.
He changed shirts, waited until the Harkins boys were gone, and crept back to town.
Just act like everything’s cool,
he thought when he got back to the house. Not enough time had gone by for police to begin canvassing the neighborhood for the “child molester.” Rosser did a competent job method acting once he was back inside. Speaking briefly to other boarders, smiling and nodding, acting as thought nothing were out of the ordinary. No one gave im a second glance.
Once he’d returned to his room, he thought strategically. He’d leave town with a bare minimum—not that he’d arrived with much—but it made the most sense. The money he’d stolen from the company safe and the clothes on his back were all he needed.
I’ll just go somewhere else, somewhere far from here.
Florida, perhaps, or Texas. It wouldn’t take long.
And I’ll wait till dark, easier get out of Luntville, lower visibility. Yeah, then hitchhike out and get a bus.
He’d simply start again, this time having learned his lesson.
He showered and changed, put the money in an innocuous bag, and at about nine p.m., left the room.
Another tenant greeted him as they passed on the stairs, an old man. “Night’s coolin’ down, ain’t it?”
“Yes, sir, it is.” Rosser feigned a chuckle. “It’s about time, too, hot as it was today.”
The old man paused, “Oh yeah, I’se almost fergot. Mrs. Doberman was lookin’ fer ya.”
Rosser almost shuddered.
Careful, careful!
But he knew he was also prone to overreacting. “Really? I saw her this morning. Any idea what she wants?”
“Naw. She’s down in her office right now, though.”
“I’ll…go see her. Thanks.”
This was something Rosser didn’t need. But he still kept his cool.
If I sneak out without seeing her that could definitely raise suspicion.
It was probably nothing, though.
She probably just wants to ask about next week’s rent, wants to know how long I intend to stay. I’ll pay next week’s rent now. Then no one’ll know I’m gone.
He walked stolidly downstairs, through the day room to the office. The office door was open.
Rosser cleared his throat and entered.
“Oh, Mr. Rosser! There you are!” the landlady greeted from behind her desk. “I was just about to go to bed.”
Mrs. Doberman had what could be described as a “hatchet-face.” Mid-fifties, paunchy, graying hair pulled back in a bun. Through her tacky blouse, her breasts seemed to hang down to her stomach in tubes. Not a becoming woman, in other words, and—now that he thought of it…
She’s almost as ugly as Maxine. Jesus. Must be something in the water.
“One of the other tenants said you wanted to talk to me.”
“Why, yes.” A big bright smile. “I just wanted to let you know that I didn’t call the police.”
Rosser’s heart nearly stopped. He stared.
The ungainly woman stood up, came around the desk, and traced a crabbed, veiny hand across his shirt. “I couldn’t do that. Selfish, call it.”
Rosser croaked: “Puh-police.”
“Of course. See, I know what you did. Molestin’ that poor baby. Shame on you, Mr. Rosser!”
Rosser’s throat felt like it was sealing shut. “I-I-I was set-up. I didn’t do it, I swear to God. This-this woman I met on the bus… She made the whole story up.”
She walked around, closed the office door, and locked it. Then she returned and sat up on the desk.
“Woman like me, gettin’ on in her years, not much to look at no more? Then you walk in, the handsome stranger, so
different.
And on the run.”
Rosser could not fathom this. “What…are you…talking about?”
The big stiff smile seemed to hover in the air. “Oh, I know that stuff about you messin’ with the baby is all malarky—”
Rosser’s eyes went wide. “You do?”
“Oh, shore, hon! Maxine told me all about it. She’s always pullin’ stunts like that. What a character! But don’t you worry none. You take care’a me, and I’ll take care’a you.”
God Almighty!
Rosser thought. Now Mrs. Doberman had hoisted her skirt, revealing a panty-less pubis. She was masturbating right there on the desk, her finger roving a vagina that was as much of a repulsive mess as Maxine’s.
“You give me a some lovin’ when I need it, and everything’ll be fine,” she said. “Oh, and just so ya know, what I like best is ta have my pussy et.”
Rosser’s mind spun.
Nightmare,
he thought but he knew he was awake. Then he remembered what she’d just said:
Maxine told me all about it.
Rosser’s voice grated like millstones. “You know Maxine?”
“A’course! She’s my daughter, and she just moved in here with cute li’l Shots. Hey, Maxine?”