“Hole in the World”
“Capturing the raw energy, resilience, and murky lawlessness of a bitter wilderness, Northwoods Pulp Reloaded by T.K. O’Neill is a stirring and wild collection.” – SPR review
Roy has the Eldor doing fine. There’s a radar detector so he’s always pushing the road. Thing corners like a big cat. Holds the pavement without too much sway.
Now Roy is flying up this steep grade leading to a blind turn and we hit the turn and pop around the bend and there’s Lake Superior, big and awesome, right on top of us, moonlight all over her like a wedding dress. I get the surest feeling we’re going over the edge of the hundred-foot cliff on my right and I grab for the armrest on the door as the Caddy digs into the turn.
Roy snickers. “These cliffs do that to people,” he says. “You’re not the only one.” Then he weaves us through the upcoming S-turn one-handed, about twenty mph beyond safe, me holding on tight all the while.
We speed northward, chased by the mocking moon, through two bright tunnels and a tiny settlement called Castle Danger. We stop to take a piss by the water’s edge just outside of a touristy looking town name of Beaver Bay. I know it was Beaver Bay because Roy starts up about how he chased a lot of beaver around this area. I, like a dummy, ask him if beaver is good to eat, you know, because I always wondered what trappers did with the rest of the beaver after they skinned off the pelt.
Roy laughs and bobs his head, covering his mouth with his hand—merriment at my expense. “I try to eat all the beaver I catch, don’t you, Don?” he says. “I mean, I love eating pussy, don’t you, paisano? You don’t eat your woman’s pussy I can steal her from you, man. With me, you see, munching carpet is a passion. In the heat of the summer—Christ—I fuckin’ dream about opening up a Cunnilingus Center for Women. They would come in there and lay that thing down on the table and pay me to gobble it. I’d die a rich and happy man.”
“If your face doesn’t fall off from diving diseased muff.”
“Women love that shit, Don, I’m telling you. I had a girl friend once was a dyke. I mean, you know, she went both ways. Man, we had a couple of nice three-ways with some of her friends. She was the one perfected my technique—showed me a few tricks. And now I am the master.”
“You were in three-ways? You lucky asshole. Only time I ever had a chance at a three-way, the bitches wouldn’t let me in the goddamn room. Locked the door on me. I’d never have eaten either one of their pussies, though, I can tell you that right now. So, ah—was that the same girlfriend whose house we just visited, back there in Superior?”
“Nah, Jane was a while ago, in another town. I was down in Minneapolis then, hanging with the militants.”
“I’m sure that was a tough one to give up. All that hair pie I mean. Be like a fat man in a bakery.”
“I got sick of those dykes being around all the time, to tell you the truth. There was this butch one, she was a stripper—called herself G.I. June—was always wanting to bang me up the ass with her strap-on. One night I’m lying on the couch in my underwear, watching the tube and nodding off on some ludes, y’know, when I see her coming out of the bathroom with this big rubber dick bouncing in front of her and she’s carrying a big jar of hand cream. Woke my ass up in a hurry, I’ll can tell you that much. I moved out the next day.”
“No shit,” I say. Then: “JESUS MAN, WATCH OUT!”
Roy slams on the brakes and swerves into the oncoming lane to avoid a deer. Empty beer cans clank in the backseat and the tires screech and my stomach jumps into my throat.
After my heartbeat comes back down to tolerable, I notice on the beautifully glowing dashboard clock that it’s 3:45 a.m. Now the booze and the pills are like a heavy throbbing weight behind my eyes, my gut is leaden and a touch of paranoia is creeping in. The question I begin to ask is: Do I—we—drive up to the Moser’s at this time of night and start this thing off on the wrong foot for sure, or find some place to crash for a few hours and get after it in the morning when I can see straight.
I pose the questions to my guide and well-paid chauffeur, and much to my surprise, he answers by pointing to the glowing light of a small motel up ahead. He, however, recommends some cabins a little ways farther along, where we can park the car out of sight from the bulk of traffic.
I vote for the second alternative. And that is how we choose the Evergreen Point Resort and Motel. Roy turns off the highway at the Evergreen Point sign and a green arrow points the way. It’s a bumpy little road that crosses over some railroad tracks as it winds downward to the lake and then to a brushy point with a gravel shoreline that stretches out into the bay about a hundred yards. A few small, green, old-time cabins stand among the pines and birch trees. Up ahead in a cul-de-sac sits a newer but definitely not new, building, OFFICE glowing above the door in orange neon.
I get out of the Eldor by the office and stretch. A small paper sign on a bulletin board informs me that I am to choose a room from the available keys on the board and then place the fee in one of the provided envelopes and drop it down into the slot on the door of the manager’s office.
I choose cabin number four, the farthest from the office.
Roy parks behind the unit. I grab the rest of the beer from the trunk while Roy unlocks the door on our little cottage. It’s a little musty and damp but the scent of cleanser and Lysol and ammonia from countless washings keep everything on the pleasant side. I put the beer in the faded copper-colored fridge and sit down on the brown hide-a-bed couch. Roy is pacing around, stretching and growling. “I’m a little strung out, I confess,” he says, working his jawbone. “If I’m going to sleep tonight I’m going to have to reach into the ol’ bag of tricks. Maybe I should just stay up all night. Maybe we should’ve driven straight through, it’s not that much farther.”
“I told you, man,” I say, “I’m not sure what’s there waiting for me. At least in the morning I can get a look at it beforehand. And if you don’t sleep you won’t be in any shape to guide me. That would mean you’re not earning your pay. I’m afraid I’d have to dock you.”
“Fuck you, dock me. I could drive these roads blindfolded and drunk in a snowstorm. I could stay up for three nights running and still be better then all of these assholes around here. But you are right, boss; I should sleep. I’m getting too old for all-nighters on drugs. My god, the toll it takes.”
“Just make sure you take your vitamins, Roy, and you’ll be all right. You seem like the resilient type.”
“I’ll drink to that. Vitamin S it is then.”
Roy reaches in his jacket pocket and brings out four red capsules and lays them on the red, Formica table. Vitamin S. Seconal. Some of the worst shit there is. I take one; he takes two. We leave the other one on the table for the mice. We sit there drinking beer for a time, waiting for the slumber to overtake us. I look over at him every so often, and there’s this glowing ring around him, sometimes blue, sometimes red. He talks about living up in this country as a kid: how his father disappeared before he was old enough to remember much about him. Some said the old boy was a shapeshifter, he says. And others said that he was just shiftless. In that paternal respect, Roy and I share an unspoken bond.
The shapeshifter business kicks off a whole weird bunch of stories. Stories about weird shit that I don’t believe for a minute. But I get nervous inside anyway and stumble into the bedroom just to escape.
(To be continued)
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