The Bighead (4 page)

“
Whuh-what it is, Balls?”
Dicky inquired.

“
It’s a colosteramy bag! I
know ’cos my Uncle Nat had one. See, the docs give ya one’a these
when ya cain’t shit out yer a-hole no more. They’se repipe yer guts
to yer side an’ make a hole there an’ then they’se hook this
plastic bag ta the hole so’s whenever ya et, yer shit comes out’n
the bag.”

“
Aw, shee-it, Balls,” Dicky
moaned, closing his eyes. “Ya mean that’s what that there bag is
fulla?”

“
Shore is, Dicky, but we’se
ain’t got no use fer the bag.” An’ with that, Balls ripped that
disgustin’ brown-filt bag right offa that poor ol’ lady’s side, an’
then ya know what he did?

Balls dropped his pants
again.

“
What’cha—” Dicky gulped.
“What’cha droppin’ trow fer, Balls?”

“
Shee-it, Dicky. A nut’s a
nut, ain’t it? Hail. I’se hard agin, so’s I’se gonna fuck me this
ol’ lady’s colosteramy hole!”

Dicky, see, though he liked ta watch a
good rompin’, he didn’t have no desire ta watch this. An’ when
Balls were finished humpin’ that hole, he cracked the poor ol’
lady’s head open with his homemade jack till her brains were layin’
alls over the dirt, an’ then he grabbed that brown plastic bag an’
squirted its stinky contents right onta the brains. Just fer
kicks.

So’s anyway, that’s the kinda fella
Tritt “Balls” Conner were, an’ this is the type’a shennan-er-gans
they did fer fun ’tween their hooch runs fer Clyde Nale.
And—

“
Well bless my soul!” Balls
about shouted out just then in the passenger seat.

Aw, no,
Dicky thought, ’cos he saw it too.

Standin’ there in the fine bright
light’a day, there she was, a sweet-lookin’ li’l brunette with long
slim legs an’ cutoff shorts an’ what looked ta be a fine set’a
milkers strainin’ against her halter top. An’ she were standin’
there on the shoulder’a Tick Neck Road, smilin’ just pretty as you
please, an’ stickin’ her thumb out.

“
Hail,” Balls remarked.
“Pull this jalopy over, Dicky. We’se gona give this gal a
ride.”

(IV)

Jerrica didn’t quite know what to make
of her passenger. Charity was very nice, a very pretty woman, and
she seemed very introspective and intelligent. But—

Hmm,
Jerrica thought at the Miata’s wheel.

There was something almost
mysterious about her, resting anxiously behind the shy and
introverted veneer.
She’s thirty but she’s
not married, doesn’t even have a boyfriend.
This, of course, Jerrica Perry could scarcely conceive. Was
she gay? Was she catholic or something?

“
So, what exactly is it
that you do?” Jerrica asked next. Interstate 199 had nearly run its
course for them, the 23 exit should be coming along in just another
twenty miles or so. “You work at University of
Maryland?”

“
I’m just an administration
clerk,” Charity revealed, her sable curls roving in the breeze.
“But I’m taking classes too.”

“
Where did you go to high
school? I went to Seaton.”

“
I didn’t go to high
school, I had to get a job once I got out of the
orphanage.”

Orphanage. Shit, Jerrica,
you sure know how to ask the wrong question!
But at least she’d broken the proverbial ice. “I guess that
was pretty hard, huh?”

“
I made out better than
most,” Charity admitted. “But the way the system works—well, it’s
almost impossible to graduate from high school under those
circumstances. It’s a different world. And once you turn eighteen,
they kick you out, give you a hundred dollars, and say good luck. I
worked three crummy jobs to make ends meet, took my G.E.D. through
the state. But what happens to a lot of these kids, they put them
out on the street, nowhere to go, next thing they know they’re
being stabled by a pimp and they’re hooked on drugs. I was really
fortunate.”

Jerrica tried to think of something
appropriate to say, but all her mind came up with were sociology
stats she’d read in her own newspaper. “Yeah, I was reading, right
now this country’s got 800,000 orphans but only one-third of them
even get a G.E.D. and get jobs. The rest either disappear or work
the streets.”

“
Right, and that’s the sad
part. My aunt raised me, but the state took custody because she
didn’t make enough money. I would’ve been better off staying with
her, though, I’m certain of it.”

“
I guess you miss your
aunt, not seeing her for so long.”

“
Yeah, well, kind of. It’s
been twenty years, and after that much time, a person becomes only
a vague memory. I mean, I still remember her—believe it or not, I
still remember so much about home—but it’s so distant it doesn’t
seem real. That’s why I’m a little bit nervous. I’m not sure what
it’s going to be like seeing her again, and seeing
Luntville.”

“
Well, you’re certainly
entitled to be nervous,” Jerrica offered, but she could imagine how
phony that sounded. What did she know about the real world? Raised
in Potomac by millionaire parents, private schools her whole life,
a brand-new Z28 for her sixteenth birthday.
I don’t know shit,
she
admitted.

“
So what were you saying?”
Charity asked next. “About this guy Micah?”

Wow.
Not it was Jerrica’s turn. All at once, though, and
considering Charity’s own confession, she felt remarkably open. “A
real fox, thirty, good job—he works for a bio-engineering firm in
Bethesda. A prime catch, for sure. And, well, he was
dynamite
in
bed.”

Charity blushed slightly
and obviously quickened to recover. “But didn’t you say that
you
were the one who
broke off the engagement?”

Jerrica’s mind raced to figure it out.
“I don’t know, it’s hard to say. I—I threw him out.”

“
Why?”

More faltering.
Be honest!
she demanded
of herself. And what did it matter? Charity was someone she’d just
met and would probably never see again after this trip. Jerrica lit
another Salem, set her teeth and blinked. “He caught
me.”

“
Caught
you?”

“
He caught me with two
other guys. I was cheating on him.”

Charity’s face seemed to tint in
confusion. “But I thought you just said he was—”

“
Yeah, I know, I said he
was dynamite in bed. It’s true. But…I guess I have a problem. I
mean, I loved the guy, I
still
do. But I cheated on him right and left, and I’ve
cheated on every boyfriend I’ve ever had. It was never about love,
it was never about Micah not giving me what I needed. It
was…something else. I don’t know. Maybe I’m a sex addict or
something.”

“
Maybe you should see a
counselor,” Charity suggested.

Ordinarily, Jerrica
would’ve fumed. But, for some reason, Charity saying it was
different. “Micah suggested the same thing, he wanted me to go to
Sex Addicts Anonymous or some shit, and I just couldn’t see myself
sitting in the middle of
that.
And I’d been to some counselors for a while in the
past, but I never got anything out of it.” Her thoughts backtracked
then.
Wait a minute… Is that what I am? A
sex addict?
It sounded so cliched, just
another excuse of the modern age to pursue indulgence and
recklessness. Nothing was weakness anymore; it was all a “disease”;
alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling, for Christ’s sake, eating too
much. And sex too. Shit, in this day and age, even shoplifting was
a disease! Jerrica couldn’t believe that, not even considering her
own indiscretions.

And there’d been many.

She’d kept a tally, hadn’t
she? Over five hundred since she’d lost her virginity at
sixteen.
Five hundred.
And she was only twenty-eight. Obliquely, then, she tried to
explain. “I don’t know what comes over me. When I’m with a man,
it’s like I become a different person. I need… I need the
sensation, the stimulation. At least I guess that’s what it is.”
She’d read something once, in
Cosmo,
about how some people were
“sensualists.” They craved the feelings administered by others.
More excuses to exploit the human self. Jerrica didn’t believe it
for a minute. But then…

She didn’t know what she
believed.

And only then did she
realize what she was saying in the first place.
My God,
her thoughts croaked. Charity
was, essentially, a stranger, and here Jerrica was telling her
things of her utmost personal life. Well, maybe that was okay. A
person needed to talk about things, to people who were safe. And
that’s what Charity was: Safe.

But enough was enough; Jerrica’s mind
raced like a rat in a maze, scurried for exit. She lit another
Salem and changed the subject. “So how about some more about you?.
You’ve already told me you’re not married and don’t have a
boyfriend.”

Charity at once looked down
at her lap. Not embarrassment, but puzzlement. Like Jerrica,
Charity Walsh felt puzzled, not by the world and the people in it,
but by her own self. “I don’t understand it,” she said. “I’ve dated
a lot of men—I
like
men—but…but, never in my life have I had more than one date
with the same guy. I just don’t get it. I just can’t figure out
what it is I’m doing wrong.”

“
Hey, don’t blame yourself
because things don’t turn out,” Jerrica assured. “Christ, I like
men too, but I’ll be the first to tell you that they’re all
assholes. But, I mean—I mean, did you…”

“
Did I have sex with them
on those first dates?” Charity blushed again. “Yes. Every time. But
it just didn’t…work.”

Didn’t work.
Even Jerrica, in her wild complexity, couldn’t
quite get a handle on that.
Maybe she’s a
lousy lay,
she considered.
Maybe she doesn’t know how to give head…
But these things, of course, she could never give
voice to.

“
Something just doesn’t
work, just doesn’t
happen
, you know?” Charity went
sheepishly on. “I don’t know what it is.”

This statement could be deciphered in
innumerable ways. Did Charity mean orgasm? Did she mean chemistry?
“Look,” she offered without speculating further. “I think what it
all boils down to is finding the right guy. Maybe that’s our
problem. We just haven’t found the right guy.”

Charity’s thin shoulders rose and
fell.

Yeah, maybe that was it.

They veered off onto Route 23, the
little red car whisking along the open country road, long fields
passing them by. Right now they were dividing the Allegheny and
Appalachian Mountains; the world had changed over indeed,
prolapsing from a domain of skyscrapers and smog to one of
forestlines and scarecrows. For Jerrica it was strange but
refreshing nonetheless. She couldn’t wait to write her article on
Appalachian rural culture. This trip enthused her, but there was
one thing ticking at the back of her mind…

How long can I go
without—

She didn’t dare even finish the
query.

“
It’s so good to be back,”
Charity said.

“
What?”

“
I wasn’t sure how I’d
feel, but now that we’re getting back into the old hill country, I
can see I made the right choice to come back. The people here are
simple, and so is the life. But it’s so much more honest and real
than where we come from.”

Jerrica thought about this, flicking
yet another butt out the side. The engine purred, the car’s frame
sucking down onto the blacktop through each winding turn. To either
side came a blurred spread of beautiful sweeping green—the forests.
And the air smelled so clean Jerrica thought she was getting
high.

And Charity was the perfect riding
mate. She knew the area, plus her aunt had the boarding
house—they’d be all set up. She followed Charity’s coming
directions, and within an hour, they passed a corroded green
roadsign which read LUNTVILLE.

Luntville.
Jerrica had known all along that that was where
they were going. But the name sent a tick in her head just then.
Something she’d read. “Hey, didn’t I read something in the papers a
long time ago, about some convent or monastery near
Luntville?”

“
It was an abbey, I think,”
Charity corrected. “But I really don’t know anything about it. You
can ask my aunt, though.”

That’s right, it wasn’t the
papers she read it in, it was her Nexus notes. There was some
controversy, if Jerrica remembered correctly. Something about a
hospice, dying priests.
Hmmm.
But before she could think any more on it, Charity
declared, her finger pointing, “Turn here!”

Jerrica veered off.
Yeah, yeah,
Jerrica
thought. Christ, they’d been on the road over ten hours. Were they
ever going to get there?

“
We’re here!” Charity said,
her roundish face bright with exhilaration.