The Choirboys (45 page)

"He'll drown it!" Harold Bloomguard cried as Father Willie and Francis plunged into the water to rescue the bird.

Roscoe Rules pitched wildly in the slime and choked on filthy water and shouted for Spencer who didn't want to get his eighty dollar shoes wet.

They grabbed Roscoe and dragged him and the duck onto shore just as the bird got a death grip on the sac containing Roscoe's left testicle. Roscoe shrieked again and broke through the drunken ranks and ran bellowing toward the blankets where he had left his gun, wallet, and keys. He fell over the body of Ora Lee Tingle who woke up to blink sleepily at the dripping man standing six feet away with a fat white object swaying wildly between his legs. She said, "I don't know who you are, honey, but welcome to choir practice!"

"He'll break its neck!" yelled Harold Bloomguard who led the charge toward the horror stricken Roscoe Rules who was pitching wildly side to side, the duck swinging like a pendulum.

Harold tackled Roscoe at the ankles and several choirboys pulled off Roscoe's pants and extricated the bird from his shorts. Then there was more pandemonium as Roscoe Rules, naked from the waist down except for wet shoes and socks, made a screaming lunge for the gun. But by then they were crawling all over him. Sam Miles jumped on Roscoe's gun and Father Willie yelled, "Handcuffs! Anybody got some cuffs?"

"I do!" yelled Baxter Slate and ran to his gunbelt which he had wrapped in his blanket.

"Over there! Over there to the tree!" commanded Spermwhale Whalen as they dragged the kicking biting Roscoe Rules to the elm tree where he snapped and snarled like a rabid dog. . "Put his arms around the tree!" Spermwhale ordered, and then Roscoe found himself hugging the elm, his wrists locked together in front.

"I'll kill you for this!" Roscoe screamed. "I'll kill you all!"

"Don't kill me, Roscoe, I'm your pal," Father Willie belched but the half naked policeman kicked out at him with a drippy shoe.

"Did the duck hurt your dick, Roscoe?" asked Carolina Moon solicitously.

"I'll kill you for sure, you scrotes!" Roscoe howled, now kneeling against the tree, the bark rough against his wounded genitals.

"Let's just leave him alone for a few minutes," Spermwhale Whalen said. "Just leave him be."

"I think he's really mad at us this time," said Father Willie as they went back to the blankets to suck the last few drops of booze out of the empty bottles.

"I think we should make a rule, no guns at choir practice," said Harold Bloomguard.

While the handcuffed Roscoe Rules raged and cursed around the elm tree, the choirboys returned to their places because Carolina Moon announced that she was going to take her blanket off into the bushes and pull that train.

"I'm first! I'm the engineer!" cried Harold Bloomguard.

"I'm second! I'm conductor!" cried Spencer Van Moot.

"I know who rides the caboose," Father Willie pouted.

But Carolina Moon put Spermwhale Whalen's big arm around her shoulder and helped the hulking choirboy off to her nest while Calvin Potts yelled grumpily, "You're gonna die in the push-up position, Spermwhale. You oughtta slow down, man your age."

By now it was after 4:00 A. M. Alexander Blaney had gone home and was at this moment trying to explain to his bawling mother that he had been asleep alone in MacArthur Park and hadn't been bedded by a tattooed merchant seaman.

And by now Ora Lee Tingle had decided to pull her own choo choo and made public her choice of engineer.

"I want Whaddayamean Dean," she said.

"Why him? He can't even understand what we're talking about," Spencer Van Moot whined.

"Him first or nobody," said Ora Lee Tingle.

"What're you trying to say? What're you trying to say?" asked Whaddayamean Dean blankly and the choirboys cursed and swore and walked in nervous circles.

"Well I'm taking my blankets and going to the bushes in private," announced Ora Lee Tingle, "and if there's gonna be a choo choo, I better see Whaddayamean Dean first."

So then the choirboys squatted and began lightly slapping Whaddayamean Dean on the cheeks and rubbing his wrists and ankles as he stared vacantly from one to the other with a drunken, sincere, idiotic smile that chilled their hearts.

Especially when Spermwhale Whalen stepped out of the brush and said, "Train jumped the track."

"Whaddayamean? Whaddayamean?" asked Father Willie, not Whaddayamean Dean.

"I mean Carolina passed out. I guess I ain't so old after all, boys. Just wear em out is what I do."

"Well passed out or not, I'm next," whined Spencer Van Moot.

"No you ain't," said the glowering Spermwhale Whalen. "We ain't animals to take advantage of a passed-out girl!"

Then there was wailing and gnashing of teeth in MacArthur Park as several choirboys pleaded in vain with Spermwhale Whalen who of course dominated them all by his age, seniority, courage and ability to kick the living shit out of them.

"What's the matter with Ora Lee? She's conscious, ain't she?" asked Spermwhale.

"Yeah, but she wants Dean first or nobody," Father Willie whined, starting to sound like his partner Spencer Van Moot.

"I see," said Spermwhale, shaking his head sadly as he looked over at the simpering choirboy sitting on the grass, red hair tousled by Harold Bloomguard who still worked frantically massaging his wrists and neck.

Then Francis Tanaguchi sat by Whaddayamean Dean, telling him exaggerated lascivious impossible things that Ora Lee Tingle was going to do to him, and Father Willie shouted, "That's exactly what the Dragon Lady promised to do to me the night she phoned and made my wife punch me in the eye! Now I know who the Dragon Lady works for, ya dirty Godless heathen little fuck, ya!"

And temporarily everyone forgot Ora Lee and looked at Father Willie in astonishment because he had uttered the second vulgarity of his life.

"I can't help it," Father Willie said sheepishly. "That was the dirtiest trick anyone ever played on me."

"Lemme try," said Calvin Potts. "Since Dean can't understand regular English I think you should talk to him like we talked to the whores in Vietnam. We always managed to communicate and they couldn't talk no English."

Several choirboys agreed that it was worth a try, so Calvin knelt in front of the placid redhead whose face from eyebrows to chin was caked with dried barbecue sauce and tried pidgin.

"Ora Lee like bang bang. Her plenty good. All time bang bang. Plenty good. You sabby?"

And Whaddayamean Dean clapped his hands happily and chuckled.

"Jesus, you're just entertaining him," said Spencer Van Moot. "That ain't getting us nowhere. He ain't a gook. That rice paddy talk ain't the answer."

"You got a better idea?" Calvin asked.

"Yeah I do," said Spencer. "I been analyzing this. He's sitting there now with the mind of a three year old, right?"

"Approximately," nodded Harold Bloomguard.

"Okay," said Spencer. "We couldn't tell a three year old to go screw in the bushes, could we? You have to talk to a three year old like a three year old."

Spencer Van Moot elbowed Calvin out of the way and squatted in front of Whaddayamean Dean. "Spencer has secret for Deanie," Spencer said desperately. "Ora Lee loves Deanie. Ora Lee take Deanie and blow up like biiiiiig balloon!" And Spencer Van Moot drew a biiiiiig sausage-shaped balloon in the air before the watery eyes of Whaddayamean Dean who sat cross legged in his barbecue-stained Bugs Bunny sweatshirt and clapped his hands like an infant. And squealed.

"My God, he's regressing," said Harold Bloomguard grimly.

"He'll be spitting up in a minute," Father Willie observed.

"Well have to burp him, for chrissake," said Francis Tanaguchi.

"All right, all right, outta the way!" said Spermwhale Whalen, staggering forward and sitting on the grass next to the simpering redhead who now had his hands folded uselessly in his lap, his brain marinated.

"Gimme a can a beer," Spermwhale said and Baxter Slate flipped him one.

While the other choirboys watched, Sperm whale popped it open and soaked a paper napkin in beer and sat in front of Dean and washed all the barbecue from his face and plastered down the tangle of hair as Whaddayamean Dean sat unprotesting.

When the young man was cleaned up Spermwhale said, "Listen, Dean. Listen, son. It's me, your da da. It's Spermwhale. You know me, don't ya?"

And Whaddayamean Dean licked his chops happily and cried, "Beer! Beer!"

"No no," said Spermwhale Whalen. "First you listen. Then beer beer. Get it?"

Whaddayamean Dean eyed them all craftily and chuckled at some private joke.

"Now, Dean, my boy, we been pals awhile and I know you trust old Spermwhale. So listen careful. This thing that booze does to you, turnin you into a carrot, this ain't a good thing for you. You gotta master the effect a that booze. I been doin it for years. Remember when I flew us on that Palm Springs raid, dead drunk?"

And Whaddayamean Dean filled their hearts with hope, for he nodded at all of them.

"That's right!" Spermwhale said. "You do remember! See, I know you understand. Just concentrate. Okay, so here's what's happened tonight. Old Spermwhale's just too much man and screwed old Carolina Moon till she went fast asleep. Now that means there's only Ora Lee Tingle to pull that train for a few a the boys. And guess what? She picked you first. And that means you gotta go over there behind those bushes and show Ora Lee what a sport you are. And then maybe a couple a other fellas can get on the track. Get it?"

But Whaddayamean Dean cocked his head and wrinkled his brow in confusion and filled their hearts with dread.

"I'll make it simpler, son," said Spermwhale. "You just gotta go over there and do a number on Ora Lee, that's all you gotta do. So I want you to stand up now and show these fellas that my boy ain't no radish. Now you just listen to old Spermwhale and go over there and fuck old Ora Lee's socks off. Get it?" The eager ring of faces shone sweatily in the moonlight and no one breathed as the grinning simpering redhead struggled valiantly with the words. They came and went from his consciousness and at times almost hung together coherently.

Finally he looked Spermwhale Whalen dead in the eye and raised a hand to the oldest choirboy's pink jowls and said sincerely, "Whaddayamean, Spermwhale? Just tell me what you mean."

And then eight choirboys-minus Roscoe Rules who was handcuffed to a tree and Whaddayamean Dean who sat and flashed a bewildered smile-beat their own heads with their fists or strangled phantoms in the air or showed white eyeballs and groaned pitifully.

Suddenly Spermwhale Whalen roared to his feet and grabbed Dean by the belt and the back of the shirt and lifted him four feet in the air as Harold Bloomguard yelled, "Don't hurt him, Spermwhale!"

And Baxter Slate shouted, "He can't help it, Spermwhale!"

And Spencer Van Moot yelled, "Kill the fucking idiot!"

And Whaddayamean Dean broke into tears and bawled, "Why's everyone picking on me? I don't get it! I don't get it!"

Spermwhale Whalen carried the weeping choirboy toward the bushes, toward Ora Lee Tingle and threw the redhead on top of the snoozing fat girl. "There!" Spermwhale bellowed "You stupid goofy simple minded idiotic fuckin moron! Is exactly WHAT I MEAN!"

"Oh hi, Dean honey," said Ora Lee Tingle, waking up and pulling him down on her bulk.

The whimpering choirboy wiped his eyes on his sweatshirt and sniffled and looked back at Spermwhale and the others and then down to the fat girl he was sitting on as she licked her lips seductively.

"Oh!" said Whaddayamean Dean. "Oh! Why didn't you say so? Now I get it! Now I get it!"

And the choirboys sighed in unison and staggered back to their blankets and fell to the ground in relief.

Meanwhile, a fifty-one year old insomniac hairdresser who lived in an Alvarado Street hotel had come for a very early morning stroll through the cool invigorating darkness of MacArthur Park and found a man nude from the waist down sitting beside an elm tree with his arms enveloping the trunk. The hairdresser's name was Luther Quigly and it was the most carnal erotic sight he had ever seen. It was his wildest libidinous fantasy come true.

"My God! My God!" Luther Quigly whispered.

"Who's there?" Roscoe exclaimed.

"Oh!" said Luther Quigly. "Oh!" And the tiny balding hairdresser leaned back against a eucalyptus and tried to calm his pounding heart.

"Who're you?" Roscoe demanded, suffering terrible pain to his shoulders and back from having been totally forgotten by the drunken choirboys.

"Anyone you want me to be," answered Luther Quigly.

"Listen, goddamnit, go over by the duck pond. There's some drunks there. Go get one of em!"

"Who needs anyone else?" gasped Luther Quigly. "Three's a crowd!"

"I do! I'm chained to this tree!"

"Chained!" cried Luther Quigly. It was truly a mad salacious fantasy! It just couldn't be! A man naked except for his shirt and shoes! Chained to a tree!

"Oh, my lord!" cried Luther Quigly, getting faint.

Roscoe scurried around the elm, keeping it between himself and Luther Quigly, saying, "Stay away from me! I'll kill you you touch me, you faggy son of a bitch! I'll kneedrop you, so help me! I'll puncture your kidneys! I'll rupture your spleen! SPERMWHALE!"