Shotgun Scotty

A Shotgun in The Anos

The ghetto of Anos, Alabama was no place to be, day or night.

Yet that was where many made their home and their trade. 

Including Scotty.

He shambled down the narrow sidewalk, inches from disaster with traffic racing by.  It made wind that teased his knuckles.

The street was on a hill and he looked down at the scenery under the hot Alabama son.

The vast urban landscape danced in the dizzying heat.

He walked with his best friend: the warped cast iron skillet that he always carried with him.  Just in case a meal presented itself someplace there would be wild onions or herbs growing in the sidewalk to sautee. His right eye dangled from its socket. He watched it with his left eye and thought about how much it reminded him of a pendulum. Or a watch during a hypnotist's session.

He ate a hypnotist once. It was easy. All he had to do was pretend that he was hypnotized. Probably the easiest meal he had back to that week.

The difficult part was getting the body out of the office suite. Luckily for Scotty the office down the hall was a surgeon so a bone saw was at the ready and the hypnotist exited the building in several pieces in garbage bags.

Oh, what a memorable meal. Scotty breaded the eyes in the hypnotist's chest hair. He ate them with tears in his own eyes, thinking of how long it had been since he had eaten this good.

He figured out how to make a wine from his own urine and feces, and the hypnotist's flavor married with it perfectly.

It would be a long time until he could eat that good again.

He was so distracted by the memory of Hypnotiste De Mignon that he didn't see the figure propped up against the splintered planks of a privacy fence that was barely still standing.  There wasn't much left to recognize as a human being.  It was a man that was quite bald and missing both of his arms and his lower jaw.  The tongue hung like a poorly done up necktie.  He had the buggy eyes of a Boston Terrier and long gums.  In other words he looked so.. so.. Ghuurrff!

In fact that's what he said to Scotty when he saw him. 

"Ghuuuurrff!"

Scotty sized the stranger up and decided he was too scrawny for a meal.  He also knew that there wouldn't be much of a fight, and Scotty believed that food tastes better when it struggles.  

The armless, jawless stranger started bouncing a bit on his heels which revealed another peculiarity.  His pectorals hung long and low like overstretched pink pancakes.  His bouncing caused his titty trunks to sway until by some bizarre twist of functional anatomy, his nipple flaps swung to his fly, unzipped his pants, and a golden arc of hot urine spattered Scotty.  

Scotty already smelled like pee.  It was the principle of the matter that upset him.  He leered at Pee Man with his one good eye.  Pee Man's tongue waggled and thrashed like a hooked trout.  He was laughing, his pecs undulated with his mirth.  

Scotty considered.  He could probably bash this character's skull in with the skillet.  What would he defend himself with?  His man-boobs?  Actually he probably would.  He could pee with them, so no telling what else they could do.  

The traffic finally lulled.  Near the faded broken yellow line, there was the carcass of a squirrel that must have never played Frogger.  

Pee Man was awfully pleased with himself, his face turning pink from laughter, doubled over and nearly falling to the ground.  You'd think he hadn't laughed like this in years.  Too bad this was the last time he would ever laugh in his entire life.  When he got ahold of himself enough to stand up straight, he had neither lower jaw nor limb to block the remains of a roadkill squirrel from being crammed down his throat.  His face once pink from laughter now red from distress.  Veins popping and pulsing on his temples.  His buggy eyes looking around for help.  His pancake tits slapping against his neck fruitlessly.  

Maybe that last look was an apology.  Maybe it was a curse.  Pee Man fell over dead and Scotty dragged him into an alley.  He sighed and began inspecting the weeds around him for wild onions.  There weren't any, but there were some bitter clover sprigs here and there.  That would do just fine.  One edge of his skillet was sharpened so that it would serve as a makeshift kitchen knife.  

With a slikt and a slakt, and some intense sawing, Pee Man's flappy pecs were removed along with his face in the genesis of a cold cut sandwich.

-----------------

Like any real princess, Eunice was in the backyard having tea with her stuffed animals.  She pretended that her electric wheelchair was a crossbreed between a magic carpet and a throne.  Her toys were her royal counsel.  She kept her daddy's inflatable doll in a nearby lawn chair as a rescued princess from another kingdom.  

Eunice's mouth was locked in a permanent grin from the bulk of her braces.   The dentist told her daddy that she was going to need braces really soon and it wasn't going to be cheap.  Her daddy thought about it and pounded several nails into his daughter's gums.  

"There.  Now you got braces.  Now if yer teeth don't straighten out, yull be on the porch making money with mommy."  

Eunice wasn't quite down with that.  Mommy wasn't allowed to wear a bra when she was on the porch.  

So there she was, smiling as wide as the moon.  Pouring dirty puddle water from a grubby plastic teapot for her royal court.  Telling them how "shplendid" they all looked.  

Her apartment sat atop a hill that felt like a rollercoaster ride if you drove too fast.  Eunice watched cars drive by far down below. 

"Shimpletons.  Peasantsh," she'd say.

She wasn't watching when a tall, thin homeless man shuffled up the steep sidewalk beside her street.  Up her hill.  He had a long ragged beard.  The only thing he owned besides the clothes on his back and the fleas in his hair, was a warped and heavy frying pan.