Different Seasons(139)
“Will you shut the f**k up, Vern?” Chris cried violently. “For the last time! Honest to God!” He had finished his Coke and now he turned the hourglass-shaped green bottle upside down and brandished it over Vern’s head.
“Yeah, right, I’m sorry. Go on, Gordie. It’s a swell story.” I smiled. I didn’t really mind Vern’s interruptions, but of course I couldn’t tell Chris that; he was the self-appointed Guardian of Art.
“So he’s turnin it over in his mind, you know, the whole week before the contest. At school, kids keep comin up to him and sayin: Hey Lard Ass, how many pies ya gonna eat? Ya gonna eat ten? Twenty? Fuckin eighty? And Lard Ass, he says: How should I know. I don’t even know what kind they are. And see, there’s quite a bit of interest in the contest because the champ is this grownup whose name is, uh, Bill Traynor, I guess. And this guy Traynor, he ain’t even fat. In fact, he’s a real stringbean. But he can eat pies like a whiz, and the year before he ate six pies in five minutes.”
“Whole pies?” Teddy asked, awe-struck.
“Right you are. And Lard Ass, he’s the youngest guy to ever be in the contest.”
“Go, Lard Ass!” Teddy cried excitedly. “Scoff up those f**kin pies!”
“Tell em about the other guys in it,” Chris said.
“Okay. Besides Lard Ass Hogan and Bill Traynor, there was Calvin Spier, the fattest guy in town—he ran the jewelry store—”
“Gretna Jewels,” Vern said, and snickered. Chris gave him a black look.
“And then there’s this guy who’s a disc jockey at a radio station up in Lewiston, he ain’t exactly fat but he’s sorta chubby, you know. And the last guy was Hubert Gretna the Third, who was the principal of Lard Ass Hogan’s school.”
“He was eatin against his own princibal?” Teddy asked.
Chris clutched his knees and rocked back and forth joyfully. “Ain’t that great? Go on, Gordie!”
I had them now. They were all leaning forward. I felt an intoxicating sense of power. I tossed my empty Coke bottle into the woods and scrunched around a little bit to get comfortable. I remember hearing the chickadee again, off in the woods, farther away now, lifting its monotonous, endless call into the sky: dee-dee-dee-dee ...
“So he gets this idea,” I said. “The greatest revenge idea a kid ever had. The big night comes—the end of Pioneer Days. The pie-eating contest comes just before the fireworks. The Main Street of Gretna has been closed off so people can walk around in it, and there’s this big platform set up right in the street. There’s bunting hanging down and a big crowd in front. There’s also a photographer from the paper, to get a picture of the winner with blueberries all over his face, because it turned out to be blueberry pies that year. Also, I almost forgot to tell you this, they had to eat the pies with their hands tied behind their backs. So, dig it, they come up onto the platform ...”
16
From The Revenge of Lard Ass Hogan, by Gordon Lachance. Originally published in Cavalier magazine, March, 1975. Used by permission.
They came up onto the platform one by one and stood behind a long trestle table covered with a linen cloth. The table was stacked high with pies and stood at the edge of the platform. Above it were looped necklaces of bare 100-watt bulbs, moths and night-fliers banging softly against them and haloing them. Above the platform, bathed in spotlights, was a long sign which read: THE GREAT GRETNA PIE-EAT OF 1960! To either side of this sign hung battered loudspeakers, supplied by Chuck Day of the Great Day Appliance Shop. Bill Travis, the reigning champion, was Chuck’s cousin.
As each contestant came up, his hands bound behind him and his shirtfront open, like Sydney Carton on his way to the guillotine, Mayor Charbonneau would announce his name over Chuck’s PA system and tie a large white bib around his neck. Calvin Spier received token applause only; in spite of his belly, which was the size of a twenty-gallon waterbarrel, he was considered an underdog second only to the Hogan kid (most considered Lard Ass a comer, but too young and inexperienced to do much this year).
After Spier, Bob Cormier was introduced. Cormier was a disc jockey who did a popular afternoon program at WLAM in Lewiston. He got a bigger hand, accompanied by a few screams from the teenaged girls in the audience. The girls thought he was “cute.” John Wiggins, principal of Gretna Elementary School, followed Cormier. He received a hearty cheer from the older section of the audience—and a few scattered boos from the fractious members of his student body. Wiggins managed to beam paternally and frown sternly down on the audience at the same time.
Next, Mayor Charbonneau introduced Lard Ass.
“A new participant in the annual Great Gretna Pie-Eat, but one we expect great things from in the future ... young Master David Hogan!” Lard Ass got a big round of applause as Mayor Charbonneau tied on his bib, and as it was dying away, a rehearsed Greek chorus just beyond the reach of the 100-watt bulbs cried out in wicked unison: “Go-get-’em-Lard-Ass!”
There were muffled shrieks of laughter, running footsteps, a few shadows that no one could (or would) identify, some nervous laughter, some judicial frowns (the largest from Hizzoner Charbonneau, the most visible figure of authority). Lard Ass himself appeared to not even notice. The small smile greasing his thick lips and creasing his thick chops did not change as the Mayor, still frowning largely, tied his bib around his neck and told him not to pay any attention to fools in the audience (as if the Mayor had even the faintest inkling of what monstrous fools Lard Ass Hogan had suffered and would continue to suffer as he rumbled through life like a Nazi Tiger tank). The Mayor’s breath was warm and smelled of beer.