The Choirboys (43 page)

"You know she wouldn't do nothing in front of everybody. They're just kissing," said Ora Lee Tingle as Spermwhale kneaded and squeezed every inch of Carolina's ample body.

"Why doesn't a Jap have a camera anyway, I'd like to know?" Roscoe remarked suspiciously. "Maybe Francis is really a Chinaman. A Commie, no doubt."

"I'm a Mexican and you can go scratch your ass," said Francis Tanaguchi.

"I'm gonna have you defrocked, Padre," Ora Lee giggled when Father Willie groped her.

"Anybody gets frocked it better be me!" Carolina whooped when Spermwhale let her breathe.

Just then Harold Bloomguard staggered a few paces away and threw up. He was the first. Everybody jeered and hooted and he walked ashamedly down to the duck pond and washed his face in dirty water.

". so this guy demands his rights when I arrest him," said Roscoe Rules to Whaddayamean Dean who hadn't the foggiest idea what Roscoe was talking about. "And I say, 'You'll get your rights and a few lefts too, asshole! Bang! Pow! Splat!'"

Whereas Spencer Van Moot only whined to Father Willie Wright when he was sober, he was now whining to as many assembled choirboys as would listen now that he was drunk.

"This dirty scummy rotten bitch that lives next door."

"Watch that fuckin language," said Spermwhale Whalen who was passionately kissing Carolina Moon a few feet away in the shadows while Francis Tanaguchi knelt beside them, grinning.

"Sorry, Spermwhale. Sorry, girls," said Spencer who belched sourly and quickly took a few sips of beer. "Anyway, this bitch always wears these short shorts and comes out by the fence when I'm down on my knees trimming the grass. So finally after three months of this I kneel there and look right at her bird and up it goes!"

"A blue veiner?" asked Father Willie.

"A goddamn diamond cutter!" said Spencer and Ora Lee said, "Ooooooohhhhhhh, Spencer, that's sexy!" and fell over backward as Francis Tanaguchi pounced on her and smothered her with kisses.

"Why do you wear those sissy faggy mod clothes, Spencer?" asked Roscoe, beginning to turn mean. "And why does a man your age have one of those kiss-me-quick haircuts?"

"Lemme finish my story, goddamnit."

"Spencer's so mod he wears flared jockey shorts," said Harold Bloomguard who was trying to stand with the aid of a broken willow branch.

"Why do we need a motel?" Ora Lee said to Roscoe who whispered something in her ear. "You can beat off in a nickel toilet, ya cheap little fuck, ya."

"Anyway," Spencer continued, "my neighbor sees my diamond cutter and she runs into her house. Runs. And I mean after she'd done everything but rub, my face in it. She runs in and calls my wife and tells her that I'm going around the yard looking at her with a big hard on."

"Probably a libber," said Roscoe Rules. "All these cunts're like that these days. Wanna be truck drivers. I say back em up and give em a load, they wanna be truck drivers."

"You ain't got a load, Roscoe, you dirty mouthed chauvinist pig!" said Carolina Moon, coming up for air, while Spermwhale Whalen looked around, saw double, got dizzy and had to stagger away to relieve himself.

"Who asked you? You a libber or something?" Roscoe challenged.

"I know you ain't got a load," said Carolina, taking a drink from Calvin's bottle. "You walk into a wall with your little hard on and you'll break your nose."

To keep Roscoe and Carolina from fighting, Harold Bloomguard-began to sing a soothing song he just made up called "She'll not puncture your kidney, Sidney. And he shan't rupture your spleen, Kathleen."

But Spermwhale Whalen hobbled back in their midst and his enormous presence looming over Roscoe quieted down the meanest choirboy. Especially when Spermwhale said, "You look like a ruptured rectum sittin there with your mean little mouth all scrunched up. Why don't you quit pickin on the ladies?"

"Yeah, it makes you ugly, Roscoe," said Ora Lee. "You get drunk you get uglier than usual."

"I don't have to take this," Roscoe Rules said, struggling to his feet and heading toward the duck pond, hoping to find a duck he could kneedrop.

"He gets so ugly he looks like something carved off the back of Quasimodo," Spencer Van Moot observed.

"Hey, stick around, Roscoe!" Carolina yelled. "Every choir practice needs a soprano."

"Don't get nasty now," Spermwhale whispered as he bit the fat girl on the neck and sent her into paroxysms of passion. They resumed their interminable kiss and rolled around on the ground, making the earth shake under the ear of Francis Tanaguchi, who said, "Dynamite!" and lay next to them hoping the behemoths would couple before his very eyes.

Just then a park homosexual with sandals, long hair and beard walked by the group curiously.

The choirboys looked at this Biblical apparition and Sam Niles said, "Think he'll take us to heaven?"

"I can use my ticket validated by somebody," said Father Willie who was furiously trying to think of a way to steal Carolina Moon from Spermwhale Whalen.

"All I can say is I get treated like a dog at home," Spencer Van Moot whined, returning to his favorite subject.

"Anytime they wanna teach you a lesson they just hold back the sex," Father Willie agreed, suddenly having a miserable vision of the chubby Jehovah's Witness seeing him drunk and playing with the thigh of Ora Lee Tingle.

"Well who cares?" said Spencer. "The three most overrated things in the world are: home cooking, home pussy and the FBI."

"You know, Spermy, you got more hair in your nose than on your head," Carolina Moon said from the shadows where she and Spermwhale and Francis Tanaguchi rolled around.

"What dialogue! What dialogue! I could make you a star, girl!" cried Francis. "Say something back to her, Spermwhale! Something romantic!"

"Okay. I adore you, my darling," Spermwhale crooned to the sighing fat girl. "Your ass is springy as a life raft."

"And I love you, Ora Lee," Francis Tanaguchi blurted suddenly, turning to the other cocktail waitress, dragging his fingers through her upswept hairdo, which was no mean task given the half can of hair spray that was on it.

"That's just whiskey talking, you cute little shit."

"No it ain't! I love! I love you!" Francis proclaimed. "If you had a hysterectomy and took your teeth out and owned a liquor store, I swear I'd marry you!"

"Thanks, Junior," said the disgusted waitress as she pushed Francis away. "You handled that love scene like a real pro- a prophylactic!"

Just then the bearded park fairy with the ascetic face, shoulder-length hair and sandals encountered Roscoe Rules down by the duck pond trying to entice a black duck out of the water so he could hit it with a rock and drown it.

"Hello," said the Jesus fairy.

"Holy Christ!" said Roscoe Rules and the remark was not that inappropriate.

"Are you with those others?" asked the bearded man, stooping to scoop some water in both hands.

"Yeah. Who the fuck're you, John the Baptist?"

Ignoring the remark the man said, "Do you men actually screw those women in the park?"

"No, in the cunt," said Roscoe. "Now take a walk, John, before I bring your fucking head to Salome."

Meanwhile, back at the choir practice Father Willie was going to hell in a hurry. He had stripped off his shirt and shoes and was asking Ora Lee if she dared him to streak through the park as Harold Bloomguard composed a song called "I Left My Heart in Titty City."

"Put your shirt back on, Padre," said his partner Spencer Van Moot. "I gotta quit feeding you all the cherries jubilee. You're getting to look like a basketball."

"How's your como se llama these days, Ora Lee?" asked Francis as he tried to squeeze a finger inside the leg of Ora Lee's ruffled pants, causing her to honk him severely, making him cry out in pain.

"How do you like being a sex object, huh?" the fat girl grinned.

"See, you're not a real Mexican!" yelled shirtless Father Willie who was staggering around looking for trouble. "You're not even a Jap! A real Mexican like General Zapata could take a little hurt without whimpering!"

"How'd you like to get your nuts crushed by this big moose?" said the injured choirboy, holding himself.

"Who's a moose?" demanded Ora Lee Tingle, glowering at Francis. "You call me names I'll hit you so hard and fast you'll think you was in a gang fight!"

"Carolina's putting on a little more weight," Baxter Slate observed as he sat next to Sam Niles and the two quietly tried to drink themselves into unconsciousness.

"She's pregnant," Sam observed.

"What are you trying to say, what're you trying to say, Sam?" mean Dean cried out but quieted down when Baxter handed him a full bottle of bourbon.

"If she's pregnant I'll take her soon as her milk comes in," said Spencer Van Moot. "I can't feed my wife and kids no more on a policeman's pay what with the inflation and all."

"That's cause you spend all your money on faggy clothes! A man your age!" said a voice from the darkness as Roscoe Rules got tired of waiting for someone to coax, him back to the flock.

Then Francis Tanaguchi staggered away from the other choirboys and they heard him retching on the grass.

"Booo! Booo! Zapata my rear end!" giggled Father Willie Wright.

And while the party entered its final phase, Alexander Blaney slept on the grass not a hundred feet away beside two friendly ducklings while his mother wept at home and imagined him locked in the cruel embrace of a tattooed merchant seaman in some skid row flophouse.

At the end of that memorable choir practice some ordinary and extraordinary things started to happen.

An ordinary thing was that Whaddayamean Dean broke out in several crying jags and sobbed, "What're you trying to say?" every time a choirboy was foolish enough to send a remark in his direction.

An extraordinary thing was that Sperm whale Whalen lost his diamond cutter and in fact lost the use of all his muscles. He could only sit against an elm tree and snarl at anyone who came near him. Spermwhale, the biggest strongest and bravest choirboy, was so drunk he was as helpless as the baby ducks out of water.

Another ordinary thing was that Roscoe Rules became as mean as a rabid dog, and with Sam Niles drunk and Spermwhale Whalen helpless, it seemed for a time that no one was around who could tame the young policeman. He was going around jealously insulting Ora Lee and Carolina because they didn't feel like pulling that train and in any event wouldn't let, anyone as mean as Roscoe have a ride. "Pig fuckers!" Roscoe Rules sneered. "If you don't Oink they won't touch you! Gotta lead you up to a trough first to see if you're worthwhile, huh?"

Sam Niles looked up from where he lay on his stomach groaning, and said, "Roscoe, this just might be the night I get you in a lip lock and shut you up for good."

"Yeah, go ahead and try it, Niles," Roscoe said. "You and your friend Slate together couldn't handle me. Don't think I don't know you dopeheads go over there by Duck Island and smoke grass. You ain't fooling nobody, you two."

"Who's got grass?" piped Harold Bloomguard. "Better knock off that talk about grass, Harold," Father Willie advised as he tried in vain to slap Spermwhale Whalen alive so he could scare Roscoe Rules and make him quit throwing his weight around.

"I told you about smokin grass, Harold!" the paralyzed Spermwhale growled. "I got nineteen and a half years on the job and that don't ring the bell. You bring any pot here and get me fired and lose my pension with only six months to go and I'll buy a whole kilo a grass. And I'll pound it right up your ass and bury your head in the dirt and let the fuckin ducks get loaded by eatin the seeds outta your shit! YOU GOT ME?"

"I was just kidding, Spermwhale," Harold gulped.

"Well I know Slate and Niles smoke grass, the fucking degenerates," said Roscoe Rules.

Actually Roscoe was partly right. Baxter and Sam did go down by the duck pond occasionally for an illicit drug. But it wasn't marijuana. Baxter had been dating a nurse who lived in his apartment building who was an inveterate pill popper and kept Baxter supplied with sedatives and hypnotics. So it was red capsules and yellow ones which Baxter and Sam swallowed with their booze down by the duck pond, both knowing the risks involved when they mixed the drugs with heavy drinking. In fact, Baxter Slate only seemed to want the barbiturates when he had been drinking excessively.

Roscoe walked over to Father Willie Wright who was telling Ora Lee Tingle how cute she was as the fat girl's head started to drop on her shoulder.

Roscoe sniffed and said, "Padre, fucking that pig without a rubber is like playing the Rams without a helmet. Hope you got protection."

"Well I like her!" shouted Father Willie, lurching to his feet combatively. "She's better'n Frank Buck any old day. She really brings em back alive!"

"Siddown, you drunken little prick," Roscoe Rules said, shoving the chaplain to the ground, making Father Willie yell, "Darn you, Roscoe! Gosh darn you, you bully!"

"Hey, Tanaguchi!" the jealous Roscoe yelled as he saw Francis stroking Carolina's quaking buttocks. "I hear when Carolina was living with that Greek bartender he used to butt-fuck her all the time."