Chapter 42

The stuttering suddenly stopped.

"It's mmmy dddaddy!" Mule said.

Squiggy whirled around to look at the man. There was some resemblance, he decided. Squiggy leaned over and looked under the table at Mule's father.

"What're you looking at?" the woman said.

"Nothing," Squiggy said. "Mule, you sure this is your daddy?"

"It's him."

"I thought he was like dead or something."

Mule stared at his father, who was looking up at the roof. "Yeah, we thought you got ate by a bigfoot!"

"Naw, that's just what I told people to get your momma off my butt," the man said.

"Ain't no such thing as a bigfoot!" the woman said.

"Is too!" Mule said. "We seen one out near Squiggy's cellar!"

She shook her head and rolled her eyes.

"Go somewhere else, you scab," Mule said.

The woman looked at Mule's father for help. None was coming. She sat up straight and glared at Mule. "You can't talk to me like that! I'll go get my four brothers over there and they'll come over here and put some knots on yer noggin!"

"Go gets em!" Mule said. "I'll sic Squiggy on em."

Squiggy was in the middle of getting a drink. He gurgled up a large amount of beer. "Now holds on just a second there, Mule. Them boys are bad."

Mule paid no attention. The woman looked at her brothers and back at Mule. "I'll let it slide this time."

"Whatever," Mule said. "Git! I wanna talk to my daddy."

"I have to go urinate anyway!" the woman said and climbed down off the stool. She about lost her balance at the bottom but Squiggy caught her, almost ripping his shoulder out of the socket.

"Dadgum, that hurt," he said. "You's a big woman!"

She smiled. "You like that in a woman?"

"Not particularly. I gotta be pretty drunk fore my standards drop that far."

She nodded and headed off toward the bathroom. The woman grabbed an unattended beer off one table and slipped away.

Squiggy turned his attention back to Mule and his father. This was going to be good, he decided. Mule was one hacked off fellow.

"So, is this really your big-membered, dumb daddy?" he asked.

Mule nodded, then said, "That ain't right what you did. Makin us all think you got et by a bigfoot! We even put a cross with your name on it in the backyard!"

The man started to smile before realizing that was probably not a good idea. "I couldn't take livin with yo momma no more. Dang, boy, ever seen yer mother without no clothes on?"

Mule shivered. "Yeah, it ain't a pretty sight."

"You really got a unit big nuff to bruise yer dadgummed knees?" Squiggy asked.

"Not no more," the man said. "I had an accident and lost most of my goober."

"No way!" Mule said.

"Naw, it's true. I was having sexual innercourse with this chick and her brother came home and caught us."

"How'd that make you lose your thing?" Mule asked.

"I knew he was her brother so I wasn't too concerned until the feller pulled out a gun and said he was gonna shoot my dork off."

"Now why'd he wanna go and do that?"

"Cause he was having a thing with her."

"That's dadgummed gross," Squiggy stated.

"The man was a pretty good shot," Mule's father said. He shot me and knocked off most of it. We went to the doctor and tried to get it surgically repaired, but it was beyond repair."

"You's makin this up!" Mule said.

"Ain't nobody sick enough to make something like this up," the man said.

Squiggy nodded. Mule shivered. That was certainly a tragic accident. "Why'd you leave us, Daddy? Was it me?"

"Naw, you didn't get on my nerves that bad," he said. "I couldn't stay with her no more. She kept drinking all my beer and nagging all the time."

"So you made me stay with her! I been stuck there for a lotta years. I had dreams bout doing something with my life, but couldn't do it cause of what you did!"

"You wanted to do something other than sit around and drink beer all the time?" Squiggy asked.

Mule leaned over and whispered in his friend's ear. "Not really, just thought it sounded good."

Squiggy nodded and glared at Mule's father. "You ruined his dreams!"

The man yawned. "Sorry bout that. You seem to have done okay for yourself, other than yer choice of friends."

"Thanks, Daddy!" Mule said and brightened considerably.

It took a second for what the man said to sink in for Squiggy. "Say something like that again and you're gonna wish a bigfoot had ate you."

The man was not phased. "I whipped yer daddy and could kick yer lardbutt."

"You never kicked Daddy's butt!"

"Sure did, it was right between when he was married to the first Sally and the second Sally."

Squiggy's father was married three times. All three women shared the same name since it was easier for Elrod to keep track of them. He was a huge man, muscles swollen by a lifetime of hauling wood.

"Only way you could have whipped him was to catch him passed out drunk!" Squiggy said.

"Calm down," Mule said. "I wanna talk to my daddy!"

"I ain't calming down, Mule! Yer daddy might have had a big one fore it got shotted off and I'm sorry to hear that, but he's a dadgummed liar!"

"Don't be callin my daddy a liar!"

"He is a liar! He made you think a bigfoot ate him!"

"So?"

"So the retard's a dadgummed liar in my book."

Mule got down from the stool. He had a look on his face like Squiggy had not seen before. "Ain't nobody callin Daddy a retard or a liar!"

"You did!"

"That's different!" Mule started coming around the table toward Squiggy.

"You plannin on going redneck on me?" Squiggy said.

"I's gonna kick your butt!"

"Bring it on, ya homo!"

Mule stopped and took a drink. "I'm gonna hit you so hard you'll be able to wipe and blow yer nose with the same paper towel!"

Squiggy also got off the stool. He was a little sad that their friendship had come to this, but he wasn't one to back down from a fight. "Oh yeah! I'm gonna be on you like Michael Jackson on a cub scout!"

Several people started circling around, expecting a good bar fight. Mule's father was taking advantage of the distraction to drink all the beer on the table. Some started wagering on the outcome. Mule was a heavy favorite to win.

Squiggy heard the odds from one of the bookies. "I'm a ten-to-one dog?"

The bookie nodded.

Squiggy dug a five out of his pocket. "That's on me."

The bookie took the money and wrote it down on a notepad he always kept close. Mule and Squiggy squared off and waited for somebody to make the first move.

"Kick his butt, Mule!" hollered somebody from the crowd.

"Yeah! He needs a good buttkicking!" said another observer.

"I heard Squiggy can't get it up no more!" said a woman in the back.

Squiggy dropped his guard for a second. "Hey!"

It was the opportunity that Mule had wanted. He shot out a left jab that was headed for Squiggy's eye. Squiggy saw it coming, though, and ducked out of the way.

Squiggy swung a wild haymaker, hoping to land an early knockout. He hit Mule right in the side of the head, but he didn't even blink.

"Uh oh," Squiggy said.

Mule moved with amazing quickness and grabbed Squiggy in a bearhug with both arms trapped. He gave a big squeeze and Squiggy farted.

"Oh my gosh!" said one woman.

"That sounded wet!" voiced another man.

"The smell!" hollered a short woman who got the full blast right in the face.

"Sorry," Squiggy managed to say. He tried to wriggle an arm free for his patented eye gouge, but he was pinned. There wasn't anything else to do so he bit Mule on the nose.

"Aye!" Mule said. "You's bitin my nose!"

Squiggy growled to increase the effect. It seemd to work as Mule released the bearhug.

"That ain't fair fighting!" Mule said. "Biting a man on the dadgummed nose!"

"I don't fight fair," Squiggy said. He noticed some motion off to the side. "Yer daddy's leaving."

"I ain't fallin for that!" Mule said. He smiled and turned around to look at the crowd, expecting them to honor his brilliance for not falling for that obvious trap. As he did, Mule saw that his father was leaving. "Daddy!"

It was just for a second, but the opportunity Squiggy wanted. He grabbed one of the barstools and was starting to swing it.

"No, Squiggy!" a woman shouted. He looked around to see who hollered at him, saw her standing in the crowd, fighting to come toward him and Squiggy dropped the barstool.

"I'll be danged," he said.

Chapter 43