Read description for title.

I don't even know where to start this story. I'll tell you what though; I couldn't imagine this shit if I tried. Lord knows I wouldn't want to try either. I guess I'll start with the phone call I got from my friend, Yank.

I call him Yank on account of his “northern roots.” I use quotations because I've known that son of a bitch since third grade and the farthest north he's ever been is Jeffersonville Indiana. He barely even left the bridge at that. Sometime around high school, he just decided to claim his parent's hometown of Boston as his own. Whatever.

I guess that goes to show how unnecessary the Civil War was after all. You know, if you can go off and claim heritage somewhere else whenever you choose. That shit makes me wonder how many southerners claimed northern heritage out of humiliation after their defeat in the war. Hopefully none. No shame in being southern. If you ask me, history books would shift their focus had the South claimed victory. It was either Winston Churchill or Adolph Hitler that said “History is written by the winner.” Well, all you ever hear about that war is “slavery, slavery slavery!” Seems to me that's just the excuse they came up with to make the victors seem like heroes.

Hell, I've gone off on a tangent. Fuck me. I guess the story starts with Yank calling me around 6pm on a Sunday.

“Jimmy? I need your help,” he said over the phone. I'll tell you, he sounds just like George W. Sometimes, when I'm not expecting, he'll say something and the resemblance alone can make me double over in laughter.

“Whatcha need, Yank?” I asked. He told me to come to his place with a shovel. From the sound of his voice, I figured we weren't planting a tree. “Aw, hell. What've gotten yourself into?”

“Just come! I'll explain when you get here,” he said. His voice was shaken. There were only so many things he could have done to need a hole dug ASAP. He didn't have a big dog that I knew of if you catch my drift.

I eventually made it to his place and the sight of him on the front porch, smoking, tipped me off that it was real bad. He hadn't smoked since his last wife died of lung cancer.

“What the hell, man?” I yelled, walking up his lawn. He shook his head.

“Come on inside. I'll fuckin' show ya.” The screen door slapped behind him as he went in. The echo was enough to bring back childhood memories of evenings much like this one when the world was quieter. You could hear kids playing for miles. Screen doors slapping against their frames, also. Echoes of all that shit. Fireflies, lemonade, fireworks. But here I go again.

His house was a whole other world from the outside; the main difference, being the lighting. The house wasn't lit by a red setting sun. Then, of course, there was the fact that the yard was decorated with a gnome and a birdbath as opposed to the ex-president in his living room. One that, might I add, had a hole in the back of his head and made the strangest sound from behind a length of duct tape across his mouth. His whole body was limp except for that jaw that kept flapping under the tape.

I honestly didn't believe him at first. He explained something about a trip on his boat {he loved that boat. Called it “Ulysses.” Leave it up to Yank to do something like that.} and a man in the water. Said it was a merman got caught on his boat. I don't know, he was wigging out. What I could understand was something like: He had been on his boat. A merman was trapped in a net that got hooked to his boat, he freed him. In return, the merman granted a wish.

Here is where the wish he made and the one I would've made differ. I would have wished for a few million. Better yet, I would have wished to be able to reach into my pocket and pull out exactly how much money I needed in any given situation. He wished, in so many more words, that he could talk to Abraham Lincoln. Well, turns out he should have specified that it was imperative the president not be fucking dead.

I pretty much came around to believing when I figured he was less likely to kill or torture a man than have something like this pushed on him.

“What's he sayin'?” I asked. Yank sobbed.

“He won't stop talkin'. Wouldn't be so bad if it was about the actual war. Naw, he just keeps screamin' 'bout the pain of being shot in the head. I'm at my wit's end. We need to bury him.” I had no idea how to feel at that point. I've only seen Yank cry maybe twice; when he got drunk and wrecked his daddy's car and now. Probably cried when the missus died but I didn't see it. I prefer not to think about it.

Seemed about right to freak out but something was missing. This whole scenario just didn't make any sense. I wasn't sure what was stranger, the “merman” or the wailing Civil War hero. I just started laughing. I mean, what do you do?

I think Yank started laughing in intervals too. He must have seen the absurdity in the whole situation. Either that or he was losing his mind. If you ask me, he had to have lost his mind long before to believe in mermen. Not to say that they don't exist but, shit, you either gotta be crazy or drunk to accept that.

I figure I'm a little of both considering I'm Yank's friend. Not to mention, I do like to maintain a fairly decent buzz when I can. Hey, I'm retired with nothing else to do but drink and hang out at the Frazier Arms Museum. Sometimes, with Yank.

The kids are all spread across the states except my middle son; he's spread across an Afghani mountainside. Don't get me started on that war.

Then there's my youngest daughter, of course. She lives about five minutes away from Yank with that weird psycho she calls “honey.” Sad that she's the only one that wants to have anything to do with her old man. I guess that's why I drink so much. There's no one to wish I didn't.

Yank and I rolled President Lincoln up in a length of tarp from the garage and loaded him up into Yank's pickup along with the shovels and a dead rosebush from his back yard. It was the only thing we could think of at the time. None of the other plants nearby were technically his to move. Transplanting a long dead rosebush seemed about as dumb as wishing Honest Abe was in your living room but, hell, did we have any other option?

It was almost dark by the time we were ready to roll. Our plan was to find some woods just off of Highway 44 and bury him there. Plant the bush on top. People would laugh at the pathetic bush as they passed but, hopefully, no one would fuck with his resting place.



It went beautifully. The dirt was soft where we stopped. So we were able to dig a hole in a couple of hours. Neither of us spoke the entire time. It just didn't seem right. We dumped the president, filled the hole in, “beautified” our stretch of highway with a rosebush, and stashed most of the remaining dirt in the rolled up tarp. I couldn't have asked for a more seamless cover-up.

It was probably midnight when we got back to his place. We tried our damnedest to forget where the body was. Decided that once we made it back into the house, we'd do some drinking to try and separate our actions that night and our lives from then on.

Seemed like an awesome plan. That is, of course, until he opened his door. Right there, smack dab in the middle of his floor was the goddamn sixteenth president of the United States of America. The duct tape was gone but his mouth was crammed full of dirt that muffle the screams, at least.

“What the fuck!” Yank exclaimed. Seemed like he was on the edge of crying. That would be the third time I'd see him cry and truth be told, I wasn't looking forward to the opportunity. I needed a smoke. Bad.

We smoked damn near three packs between the two of us that night. Eventually I remembered Jackson. He was a friend of my brother's that lived out in Payneville. To put it lightly; if “Snatch” had any truth to it, this man would have the fucking answer.

“I know a man, lives out in Payneville,” I said.

“So?”

“Well, he owns a pig farm-”

“Good for him.”

“-and I heard a pig can eat, like, two pounds of uncooked flesh in a minute. They did that in the movie 'Snatch.' Might work.” Yank's eyes lit up for a minute then faded.

“I don't want to get anyone else involved in this shit,” he said.

“Well, we could always cut him up and toss him in the Ohio River somewhere,” I said. It was about one in the morning. There'd be no one on the water. Of course, if, by chance, someone found us out, what could we say? Fate would have it, that's the one dumb-assed idea he'd go for. He looked up.

“Let's do it,” he said.

“Fuck No!” I exclaimed. He must've truly lost it.

“Fine! I'll do it all by myself,” he said and went out to his garage to find a chainsaw.

“Goddammit!” I ran after him. When I caught up to him, I realized he was perfectly prepared to chop the poor bastard up. “Let's just tie a cement block to his feet and dump him,” I suggested. “Right now, he's an improbability. As soon as you cut into him, he becomes a murder victim. Do you really want another man's blood on your property?” He stared at me for a moment, a crazed look in his eye. In our forty-odd year history together, I'd never seen him like that before. Honestly, he was starting to scare me a little.

“Alright,” he said, smiling. It was a creepy fucking smile too. “Let's do this shit.” With that, he started into the house.



We were back on the road in his pick up again. The president was rolled up in the tarp again. The boat was hitched to the back and we had rope, a cement block, and a bottle of whiskey this time.

It's the funniest thing; In the wee hours of morning, nothing you do seems real, you know? Here we are with a dead president in the back of a pickup truck, heading down to the waterfront with intentions of dropping him into the water and Yank looks over at me and says, “you think the Sunday night line-up will repeat sometime this week?” He had definitely lost his mind. I must have as well because that seemed like a legitimate concern at the time. I think we all just kind of hide things from ourselves when we don't know how to deal with them.

Once again, another seamless disposal; We backed into the water, unhitched the boat, loaded the yankee, set into the water, dropped his ass, and packed back up in record time. You'd think we were professionals. Neither of us wanted to go back to Yank's place though. We had a feeling of what we'd find there.

Of course, we were right. We stood in his doorway, staring into the dead, screaming face of the man who'd freed the slaves. Except now, he was dripping all over Yank's hardwood floor. The tape dirt had washed out of his mouth and he was screaming:-

“ThepainthepainmyheadwhoshotmewhereamIwhatinhellishappeningwhathaveIdonetodeservethis...”

“God-damn-mother-fucking-bull-tits!” Yank yelled, stomping on the floor. I just stood there in wonderment. How the hell does stuff like this even happen? The president kept going.

“DearmercifulsaviorsavemefromthistormentthepainofdeathistoomuchtobeardearGod-” Yank officially signed the back of his crazy check at that point.

“Stop-fucking-screaming-Mr-President!” He screamed, clearing the floor to the carcass and kicking him right in the face. His bearded jaw dislocated, probably shattered. Did it fucking matter? It was probably more satisfying than it needed to be to see the hypocrite loose the mouth he used far too often.

“Aaaaaahyaiyheadyaiyheadthehain...” The screams were becoming unintelligible gibberish without two jaws to speak with. Yank just kept kicking the body and screaming. Things seemed to be getting a little too rowdy and I didn't want to wake his neighbors so I had to stop him the only way I knew how; I hit him over the head with a table lamp. Maybe not the best idea but it knocked his ass out regardless. Honest Abe was next.



I had the opportunity to wrap the president's head in plastic wrap and smoke a few more cigarettes on the front porch before Yank came to.

“What the Hell, Jerry?” He asked, walking out to where I was sitting. It must have worked; his tone was a lot more acceptable when he woke up. I guess that's where the phrase “knock some sense into you” comes from.

“You were wakin' the neighbors. I wrapped Abe's head in plastic wrap. Keeps his mouth shut. What the fuck are we gonna do?”

“Well, it's only three. We could probably go with your first idea.”

“The pigs?” I asked.

“Yeah. The pigs. Could we do that without getting caught, you think?” I snorted.

“Of course. Sheeyit, he's got those fuckers so far away from his house, I doubt he'd even see anything if he was watching from his window. We'd better hurry though. It's three now. He'll be up in two hours to feed the pigs. It takes and hour and a half to get to his place from here.”

“Aw, shit,” Yank said standing up and rushing into the house.



Once again, we were on the road with that goddamn president in the bed of a truck, this time he was naked. This time, we took my truck. His was running low on gas and we really didn't want to fuck with getting gas and wasting precious nighttime. I drove since I was the only one that knew where the hell Jackson's place was.

Hell, I didn't even really like Jackson. He was a chubby, smelly guy with a fucking gap in his teeth. His personality was probably just as offensive as his appearance. He always called you friend and assumed you wanted to hear about the methods used in raising and slaughtering pigs. This made it easy for me to frame him for a murder committed by John Wilkes Booth 150 years ago.

I asked him, while we unloaded the body at the piggery, “How exactly did you word your wish? You know, to the merman?” I couldn't believe I was asking him such a question. But hell, was it easier to believe I was carrying a screaming dead man? Was it easier to believe that man was Abraham-goddamn-Lincoln? Yank closed his eyes, remembering.

“I think I said, 'I wish Abraham Lincoln was in my livin' room so we could talk.'” It gave me the feeling that this shit wasn't going to work either. I dreaded seeing what form he would go back in this time. “Come to think of it, I'm surprised I got the right Abraham Lincoln. If this happened, you'd think the merman would've given me some random dude with the same name.” Of course, that was the last thing on my mind. I think the lamp made him too cool-headed. “Maybe there are none.”

“Maybe,” I said, too distracted by the task to really pay attention anymore.



We got back to his place around five and he opened the door. Shut it.

“Well?” I asked. He shrugged.

“Maybe I can put a rug over it,” he said. I looked inside. There was a pile of bloody chunks, mouthfuls. A layer of bone shards covered the mound of flesh. Yank started laughing. “This shit ain't going anywhere, is it?”

We set to work, gathering the pile into a few garbage bags and stuffed it under the futon against the wall. That was the best we could do at that point. We'd have to take care of it after catching some sleep. At least the screaming was over.

“I just realized somethin',” he said, grinning.

“Yeah?”

“Ain't no one lookin' for him. I might as well let him rot in here.” I couldn't help but wonder if we woke the neighbors with all the screaming. No doubt we did. But hell, the ones to the right were a bunch of kids that always did crazy shit in the middle of the night. We could probably put it off on them. No one would know the difference. It didn't seem like anyone complained.

I don't know if it was talk of crazy kids or simply the dilemma with disposing of a body but something made me think of the psycho.

“Hey, later today, I could call the psycho my girl's been seein',” I suggested.

“The one that does shit with bones?” He asked.

“Well, yeah. He does shit with bones and he does taxidermy and all kinda other morbid shit,” I said. He seemed to like that idea. He smiled and nodded. I guess words were failing him. The adrenaline rush ended once the president was tied up in garbage bags. “Mind if I stay here tonight? I don't think I'm good for a drive home. Too tired.”

“Sure, Jerry. Use the guest room,” he said. “Oh, hey,” he added as an afterthought.

“Yeah?”

“Did you notice Abe's dick?”

“What?”

“You know, his wiener, root, baby-maker.

“No,” I said, glad I could say it honestly.

“Well, it caught me off guard. I mean, who woulda' thought?” I shook my head. I didn't really care to know the size of his dick and Yank seemed cool leaving it at that.

That was the end of the first night. I fought my way to sleep through memories of the previous night. Yank kicking Abe was priceless, I thought. If you ask me, Lincoln had no interest in the freedom of the blacks. He was just as racist as everyone else of the time. The motherfucker only wanted to oppress southern agriculture. Slavery, however wrong it was, gave that to them. If he cared about the people he was “helping”, it wouldn't have been for another century before they had any kind of civil rights.

Then Yank kicked his hero right in his lying mouth.



Neither of us slept very long. I got about three hours of sleep. He was up when I got up, with a bottle of bleach, scrubbing the wooden floor. Bad idea more than likely. I decided to call the psycho for him. That idiot didn't know much if it didn't apply to killing so this stuff should be easy for him.

It was hard to get my daughter to let me talk to him since we didn't exactly have the best history together. When I finally got through to him and told him we had some dead shit we needed to do something with, he was more than eager to help. Freak.

Within the hour, his black hearse with the red dice and purple flames was parked out front of Yank's place. His black-clad figure walked up the lawn to the porch where I was sitting with a cigarette. I couldn't concentrate on anything besides his Pompadour/Mohawk fusion hairstyle. What do they call it? A wedge? Ramp? I sat there, wondering what the hell I'd gotten us into.

“Psy-David,” I said, extending my hand. He took it, shook it, smiled.

“Where's the specimen? You said it's big?” He had a habit of slurring all of his words together.

“About 160 maybe,” I said, looking up at him. He removed his dark sunglasses.

“What the hell is it?” He asked.

“The most dangerous game.” I hoped he would get my reference.

“You mean...” His eyes widened.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Who was it?” I laughed. It's not like he would have believed me.

“A guy from Illinois,” I said. It was around nine and the sun was debating whether it should really be bright or not. I lead David into the living room. One glance at the tall hat on the couch and he started to laugh.

“Who whacked the Lincoln impersonator?” Yank had the most serious look on his face as he said what he said next.

“John Wilkes Booth,” he said.

“I like this cat,” David said, jabbing his thumb in Yank's direction. Yank seemed to have a physical reaction to the comment.

“Hey, fuck you,” Yank said. I shot a hazardous glare at him. We needed this guy, however much he offended us.

“Whatever, dude. Where's the body?” I swear that kid was made of something else. He wasn't like the rest of us. He was insulted and it didn't even phase him. He saw a dead body and didn't need to look away. I wasn't sure if I was jealous of or disgusted by his inability to care. I think the same went for the attention he paid to his hair.

Yank pulled out the garbage bags and opened them up. That shit was starting to stink by then.

“Fuck, dude. What have you guys been up to all night? I thought you needed my help.”

“Well,” I said. “We do. The problem here is that the body always comes back.” He furrowed his brow. I'm sure he didn't believe me. I mean, I didn't believe me so why should he? “We buried him offa' 44, sank him in the Ohio, and fed him to pigs. Each time-”

“The cat came back, huh?” David grinned.

“Yeah,” I said. It was embarrassing, taking advice from this guy. Especially since he was openly making fun of me. But he was the only one that I knew could do it, enjoy it, and not fucking talking about it so I bit the bullet. He thought for a moment.

“I say we turn this shit into soap. Gotta bathtub we can use...” He said to Yank, gesturing that he might need a name from him.

“Name's Roger,” Yank said.

“...Roger?” David said and grinned. There was apparently a joke in there somewhere.

“Like in 'Fight Club?'” I asked. He smiled.

“Well, sort of. Get a shit ton of lye, pour it in the bathtub with the flesh. You basically get a soap...ish substance, glycerol...and other stuff.”

“What do you mean, other stuff?” I don't even remember if it was Yank or me that asked that.

“Well, lye won't dissolve everything. There will be bone bits that we might need to pick out of the mixture. Do something else with.” Yank shook his head, angrily.

“Really? That seems like a good idea to you? That is probably the worst idea I've ever heard!” It seemed kind of fishy to me as well but, hell, I wasn't going to argue with the psycho...or Chuck Palahniuk. They pretty much had to be right, right?

“Less dangerous than hydrochloric acid. We just need to make sure we have vinegar at hand to neutralize any spills in the event of an accident.” We conceded. Why the hell did we do that?



Next thing I knew, we were dumping a garbage bag each of the remains of the late president Lincoln in Yank's bathtub. We had each gone to different hardware stores, at Yanks expense, and had bought as much lye as we could manage with the amount of money he'd rationed to each of us. That translated as 15 pounds. We poured the crystals in and David added water from the faucet. I realize now that the tub should probably have been sealed. That shit stank and the fumes were probably toxic.

“Used to do this at my dad's farm,” David said, beaming. “We had to dissolve all kinds of shit. This shouldn't take as long since the body's in pieces. We nodded. This ordeal seemed to be coming to a close. “When we are fully soupy, we'll just let this drain. There will be some powdery shit left but that can be swept up when it's all said and done.” David looked at the two of us in turn. “So...I'm starving. I say we get a drink or something while this shit cooks.” We both nodded. It seemed like a good idea. Always watch out for shit that seems like a good idea.



We ate and drank. Our appetites were surprisingly healthy considering our current situation. Showed that we must have been getting used to things. David had long ago. He shoved two hamburgers down his throat. Where the hell did that kid put it? It brought my mind to images of a bathtub full of brown sludge. That is what we'd have to go back to. Unless, of course, the bathroom was too far away from the living to count and...

“Aw, hell,” I said when the realization struck me.

“You thought of it too, huh?” Yank said beside me. David was on my other side and seemed oblivious. Well, in his defense, he simply didn't believe this was happening the way it was. He just didn't ask questions.

“As I said before,” David said after swallowing a huge bite. “This shit will look like, well, coffee...sort of. Some sort of coffee/shit amalgamation but the flesh will be gone.”

“For some reason, I doubt that,” Yank said, groaning.



When we got back to the house, Yank and I were reluctant to walk in. David offered to take the key and open the door. He didn't see what the big deal was.

“Holy shit. How did this happen?” I heard him exclaim. I groaned. So did Yank.

“Magic,” we said in unison. We walked into precisely what we'd expected. The floor was covered in brown shit. It looked like diarrhea when some of the shit is still somewhat solid. The place smelled of shit, looked like shit and, hell, if I listened close enough, I can guarantee it would have sounded like shit. I'm sure shit makes a sound.

“Fuck, fuck, fuckfuck-fuck,” Yank said into his hands. “We're never gonna be able to clean this shit up! Fuckin' mer...fuck!”

I tried stepping around where the puddle was spreading to get to the kitchen but stepped in some of the shit and it turned out to be more slippery than it looked.

That's when things got really weird for me. I fell back into the shit. It splashed out around me, covering my back and and the top and back of my head. Thank God none of it got in my ears because I'll tell you what, that shit burned like a motherfucker damn near immediately.

“Fuck! It burns!” I yelled. The living room exploded in activity. Yank was running to the kitchen and David was trying to help me up without getting covered, himself. It was everywhere, a million maggots digging into my flesh, cauterizing with burning pincers as they tore my skin away.

Yank came from the kitchen with a bottle of white vinegar, ready to pour it all over me. David ran to stop him and in his haste, knocked the bottle out of his hands. It slid over to the puddle and poured out. There was a fizzing sound and it was obvious they were reacting.

“You can't pour that shit straight on him! That's gonna create...heat! Think, would you?” Meanwhile my back felt like the main course in a fire ant's dinner.

“Fuck you. That was all the vinegar I had! It worked in 'Fight Club!'” Yank was livid. “Now what's going to stop the acid?”

“It's not a fucking acid, lye is a base! And 'Fight Club' was wrong, got it? Well, it was right but...wrong. Fuck! I don't have time to explain! Take him outside and strip him. I'll be out there as soon as I can get out there.”

“What?”

“You fucking heard me. Are you a moron? His clothes are killing him! Take them off. Pretend they are hot lava. Oh! How about flesh-eating lye? Pretend they are soaked with flesh-eating lye!” Yank glared at him and pulled me out through the back door. At least he had a privacy fence.

It was sometime after noon and this shit was getting weirder by the second. I managed to undress with dignity until I was standing buck-ass-naked in his back yard. David came out with a green bottle.

“Lemon juice should work as well. We need to hose him down with water first. Then quickly pour this on the burns.” Yank went over and grabbed the garden hose, turned it one and aimed it at me. The cool blast of water covered me in a wide variety of sensations. None of them were really pleasant. David shielded my eyes as Yank sprayed down my hair and then moved down my back to my ass and legs. David opened the bottle behind me and poured the lemon juice over the back of my head and down over my shoulders. As it rushed over my burns, it replaced the burning with milder burning. Overall, relief enveloped the upper part of my body. My ass and thighs still burned like Hell though.

“My legs. My ass. They still burn,” I barely got out. The pain was amazing. Seemed to be moving closer to my asshole.

“Fuck,” David muttered under his breath. “There's only one option,” He said in the same tone. “Roger! Get over here. We need to piss on Jerry!” Yank looked at him, wide-eyed.

“What?”

“It's easy! Did I stutter? Pull out your dick and piss on him.” David made gestures to accompany the steps he described.

“What? No! I'm not going to piss on my best friend.”

“Do you want to see a man get seriously injured tonight? That shit could do some serious damage if it burns into his ass. I, personally, don't want to see that happen so if you don't pull out that shriveled dick of yours soon, I may have to dive in there after it. And don't think I've never had to do something like that, old man!” His voice commanded obedience and Yank obliged.

It was like a bizarre fetish video. I was bent over with my possible future son-in-law and and my best friend pissing on my ass. With, probably, two cups of liquid, they had castrated me. But I was going to be alright. At least, I hoped so.

They left me to, I guess, to gather my dignity from the urine puddle it was washed off in and ran back inside. I lay down in the cool grass hoping no one would come out and see me like that. I could hear Yank yelling all the way in the back yard.

Of course one of the neighbors walked out to the back porch to see what was going on. When she caught a glimpse of me, she shrieked. I waved but she ran back inside.

I was laying on my back, naked, under the blue sky when I made out the word, “Fire!” Without thinking, I shot up, ran for the hose, turned it on and ran into the house. Why did I do that? Because I am an idiot. The fire spread like fucking crazy and engulfed the futon.

“This is bad...” I heard Yank mutter.

“What the fuck!” David yelled. He was looking at me like an idiot. By then, I'm sure the cops had been called. How could any good neighbors overlook something crazy like this? We all ran out into the back yard and watched the smoke rise. This was definitely bad. Fucking Yankee president.



I had no idea what I would say to the firemen when they asked. No doubt, the neighbor would be sure to let the cops know I was naked in the back yard. I'd considered skipping town but changed my mind. Shit. Accidents happen, right?

David sat with me in the back of an EMS truck while the fire was being extinguished. Yank was pacing despite the number of people who had advised him otherwise. It was evening by this point. The fire department was finishing up. Yank had said it was a soap-making accident that escalated. I doubted they believed him but neither David, nor I even acknowledged having anything to do with it. Come to think of it, I wonder how the cops would have handled knowing that was the remains of a body buried over a century ago? Would Yank be charged for grave-robbing? Would we be accomplices? I don't think they even questioned him. Chalked it up to human dumb-assery, laughed about my naked ass in the yard, said “fuck it”, went home, fucked their wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, siblings, dogs, etc.



The setting sun hit David's black sunglasses, casting threads of light to play throughout the inside of the truck like that game I used to play with my cat when I was wearing my wristwatch, sitting in the chair next to the window. You know; where you move it around and your cat chases the light that reflects from the face? Something about the moment made me feel sentimental, I guess. I doubt it was the fact that I was naked and covered in two other men's piss. More than likely I couldn't help but feel pretty impressed with David. He hadn't changed at all. It was only my opinion of him, I guess.

“You know? I'm sorry I ever believed you weren't good enough for my daughter,” I said. It wasn't even like I had meant to say it but I guess I meant it when I did say it. He shook his head.

“Shit, don't apologize. It makes it harder to view you as a bitter old fuck.”

“Fuck you. You pissed on me to save my life,” I said. “That really stands out to me as a display of character. And you got Yank to piss on me as well. That's something I could have never imagined him doing before and certainly don't want to imagine him doing ever again.” That was definitely true. The motherfucker best not piss on me unless, I suppose, I'm covered in lye and we're out of vinegar and just finished up the last drop of lemon juice.

“Dude, I won't lie, I've pissed on a bunch of people. I guess this is the first time I've done it out of mercy though.” I laughed. For so many reasons. The past couple of days would probably disappear now. There was no telling what would happen after this. I suppose Abraham Lincoln will stalk Yank wherever he moves to for the rest of his life. Sort of his own tell-tale heart. The idea was somewhat amusing too, honestly.

“You're alright, David,” I said. He shook his head.

“You know. I liked it better when you called me “Psycho.” I laughed again. “By the way, Laura really wants to talk to you about a few things. Between you and me, she thinks you drink too much.”