Different Seasons(142)



But Lard Ass had no hope or intention of winning. He could not have continued at the pace he was currently setting if his own mother’s life had been the prize. And besides, winning for him was losing; revenge was the only blue ribbon he sought. His belly groaning with castor oil, his throat opening and closing sickly, he finished his fourth pie and called for his fifth, the Ultimate Pie—Blueberries Become Electra, so to speak. He dropped his head into the dish, breaking the crust, and snuffled blueberries up his nose. Blueberries went down his shirt. The contents of his stomach seemed to suddenly gain weight. He chewed up pasty pastry crust and swallowed it. He inhaled blueberries.

And suddenly the moment of revenge was at hand. His stomach, loaded beyond endurance, revolted. It clenched like a strong hand encased in a slick rubber glove. His throat opened.

Lard Ass raised his head.

He grinned at Bill Travis with blue teeth.

Puke rumbled up his throat like a six-ton Peterbilt shooting through a tunnel.

It roared out of his mouth in huge blue-and-yellow glurt, warm and gaily steaming. It covered Bill Travis, who only had time to utter one nonsense syllable “Goog!” was what it sounded like. Women in the audience screamed. Calvin Spier, who had watched this unannounced event with a numb and surprised expression on his face, leaned conversationally over the table as if to explain to the gaping audience just what was happening, and puked on the head of Marguerite Charbonneau, the Mayor’s wife. She screamed and backed away, pawing futilely at her hair, which was now covered with a mixture of crushed berries, baked beans, and partially digested frankfurters (the latter two had been Cal Spier’s dinner). She turned to her good friend Maria Lavin and threw up on the front of Maria’s buck-skin jacket.

In rapid succession, like a replay of the firecrackers:

Bill Travis blew a great—and seemingly supercharged-jet of vomit out over the first two rows of spectators, his stunned face proclaiming to one and all, Man, I just can’t believe I’m doing this;

Chuck Day, who had received a generous portion of Bill Travis’s surprise gift, threw up on his Hush Puppies and then blinked at them wonderingly, knowing full well that stuff would never come off suede;

John Wiggins, principal of Gretna Elementary, opened his bluelined mouth and said reprovingly: “Really, this has ... YURRK!” As befitted a man of his breeding and position, he did it in his own pie-plate;

Hizzoner Charbonneau, who found himself suddenly presiding over what must have seemed more like a stomach-flu hospital ward than a pie-eating contest, opened his mouth to call the whole thing off and upchucked all over the microphone.

“Jesus save us!” moaned Sylvia Dodge, and then her outraged supper-fried clams, cole slaw, butter-and-sugar corn (two ears’ worth), and a generous helping of Muriel Harrington’s Bosco chocolate cake—bolted out the emergency exit and landed with a large wet splash on the back of the Mayor’s Robert Hall suitcoat.

Lard Ass Hogan, now at the absolute apogee of his young life, beamed happily out over the audience. Puke was everywhere. People staggered around in drunken circles, holding their throats and making weak cawing noises. Somebody’s pet Pekingese ran past the stage, yapping crazily, and a man wearing jeans and a Western-style silk shirt threw up on it, nearly drowning it. Mrs. Brockway, the Methodist minister’s wife, made a long, basso belching noise which was followed by a gusher of degenerated roast beef and mashed potatoes and apple cobbler. The cobbler looked as if it might have been good when it first went down. Jerry Maling, who had come to see his pet mechanic walk away with all the marbles again, decided to get the righteous f**k out of this madhouse. He got about fifteen yards before tripping over a kid’s little red wagon and realizing he had landed in a puddle of warm bile. Jerry tossed his cookies in his own lap and told folks later he only thanked Providence he had been wearing his coveralls. And Miss Norman, who taught Latin and English Fundamentals at the Gretna Consolidated High School, vomited into her own purse in an agony of propriety.

Lard Ass Hogan watched it all, his large face calm and beaming, his stomach suddenly sweet and steady with a warm balm it might never know again—that balm was a feeling of utter and complete satisfaction. He stood up, took the slightly tacky microphone from the trembling hand of Mayor Charbonneau, and said ...

17

“ ‘I declare this contest a draw.’ Then he puts the mike down, walks off the back of the platform, and goes straight home. His mother’s there, on account of she couldn’t get a baby-sitter for Lard Ass’s little sister, who was only two. And as soon as he comes in, all covered with puke and pie-drool, still wearing his bib, she says, ‘Davie, did you win?’ But he doesn’t say a f**kin word, you know. Just goes upstairs to his room, locks the door, and lays down on his bed.”

I downed the last swallow in Chris’s Coke and tossed it into the woods.

“Yeah, that’s cool, then what happened?” Teddy asked eagerly.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Teddy asked.

“It means it’s the end. When you don’t know what happens next, that’s the end.”

“Whaaaat?” Vern cried. There was an upset, suspicious look on his face, like he thought maybe he’d just gotten rooked playing penny-up Bingo at the Topsham Fair. “What’s all this happy crappy? How’d it come out?”

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