Cole motions to Joe, “go on now Joe, get singing” but Joe is shy on account he ain’t sung around anyone new but Cole says “would you rather sing in front of these here or get a bullet in the guts from Uncle?” Joe starts in singing real loud but sweet and I ain’t heard that song before. We all come to an opening in the trees with Joe singing and me and Jacob standing in back of the boys since we ain’t want to get shot in the guts by uncle, and there’s a muddy road that leads away from a house and the house is bigger than ours and has a chimney made of tin with a little metal hat on it.
There’s piles around the house like ours, but one is on fire and it’s tires what are burning and I guess that’s the smoke what I seen when we were getting close. There’s a lanky man sitting on the porch wearing a pair of camo pants and a white t shirt what is watching us all come up. He’s smoking a cigarette and wiping on a gun with a black oily rag that ain’t look like the BB gun Joe has and he’s staring at us. Sam tells us that that’s Uncle.
Uncle props the gun against the side of the house and puts the rag what he been wiping it with on the chair and Cole calls out, “got her cleaned ok?” Only he sounds nervous and Uncle takes his time and stretches like a cat, then clops down the two dirty porch stairs and comes close up to Cole.
“Where the fuck you all been? You didn’t finish your chores and that pile of tires isn’t going to burn itself. Or maybe it is. Does it burn itself, Cole?” and Cole mutters that no it ain’t and Uncle snaps “you were tasked with feeding the tires into that fire and how do we get rid of the tires unless they is on fire?” Uncle is chest to chest with Cole, Cole talks defiantly, maybe because we’re all there watchin’ him talk to Uncle.
“Them tires burn slow and I ain’t need to watch them all the time, we was looking for...” Uncle is on him and grabs his head with two hands and pushes it all the way back until Cole’s back is bent like he’s doing the limbo and now he’s flat on his back on the ground in the mud.
“Don’t you fukkin’ talk back to me you fukkin’ faggot!” and he flips Cole over and pushes his face in the mud now and takes one of his arms and twists it all the way up so Cole is screaming loud and muffled with mud in his mouth. “What did you say?” Uncle has his ear cocked close to Cole’s head “you say you’re going to burn the tires like I asked until they’re only black smoke?” Cole squeals when uncle pulls up harder on his arm and he’s saying yes any way he knows how and Uncle gives the arm one more yank for good measure and there’s a popping sound.
Uncle gets up off Cole and Cole scrambles back like a crab and is sitting there all covered in mud and we’s all watchin’ this but now Uncle is looking at us and I look away so he ain’t do the same to us and I feel guilty like I should have some chores to do too. Uncle is wiping his hands and Cole is holding his arm now which looks flopping and dangling and Uncle says to Sam and Joe “who the fuck are they” without looking at us.
Sam says “we kicked their asses in the woods and now they’re prisoners” and Joe says “they was trespassing and we protected the lands” and I look at them with surprise for I though we turned into friends and Uncle turns now and regards us. “you two were walking my lands? taking things that don’t belong to you?” and motions at the stick Joe give me what looked like a gun “and now you’re here. On my property. I buried five people and five people haven’t been found. You believe that shit?” He’s close to Jacob with his head to the side and is waiting for an answer.
Jacob says “no sir, we was lost and looking for wood what we can cook our food on. Momma is waiting for us now and we is all terrible hungry and we found some things to eat under our house and in a hole and we’re going to fix them up into a feast which is what we’re all needing.” Uncle shakes his head “that sounds like a bunch of horseshit to me. Where’s your Daddy?” Jacob says “Daddy is gone to town and he’s bringing back a truck full of corn so we can make everything to eat out of corn” and Uncle scoffs and spits into the mud in front of us and Cole is stood up now and is trying to feed a tire into the belching black fire but only one of his arms is working. The other that Uncle popped is just dangling like a sweater sleeve with no arm in it.
Uncle says for him to get loading faster or before God, Cole’s going into the fire next after the tires and then he’ll also be black smoke. “My arm ain’t workin’ Uncle, honest, it’s just swinging here and it ain’t picking nothing up!” and Uncle looks like he’s really going to put Cole in the fire but he spits again and tosses his smoking cigarette butt and it bounces off my foot “God fukkin’ dammnit!”
He stomps over to Cole and grabs the limp arm and raises it above Cole’s head and Cole gives a yelp. Uncle drops it and it falls straight down and kind of wags around and Cole is trying not to cry since he’s the big one and I get the Idea it ain’t too smart to cry in front of Uncle.
“Sam, Joe, take hold of him.” They come right quick, only It looks like they don’t know how they’s supposed to be holding him, but they want to do it right. “You fukkin’ dummies. Sam, you put your hand over his mouth, Joe, you hold him around the waist so he can't run away” Jacob and me is about to take this chance to head on off since these people were liable to do all manner of awfulness to us, but I guess Uncle has eyes on the back of his head because without looking around he tells us we better stay put as he ain’t done with us yet.
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Me and Jacob stay put but we’s looking at each other and we is stricken faced and shivering with the cold. Uncle grabs Cole’s arm and there’s a muffled sound from Cole but it ain’t too loud since Sam has his hand on his mouth so tight his hand is white and Joe is holding his waist real hard.
Uncle gives a great heave, pushing the arm back into Cole and there’s a sound like dropping a rock into thick mud and Cole’s eyes are watering and Uncle says “it’s fukkin’ fixed now, so get the fuck back to workin’.” Cole gives the arm a try and it’s working ok now I guess since it ain’t flopping around anymore. Uncle asked him if he’s going to say thank you for the free doctorin’ and Cole does and Uncle spits into the fire and says “fukkin’ a right. Next time you mind me. I’ve done a lot worse than that in the desert and I killed a raghead with a rock and his eye came out and looked like a grape on a string.” Sam and Joe are nodding and Sam says “that’s right, Uncle killed about a hundred people ain’t you, Uncle” and Uncle looks proud and lights another cigarette and says through blue smoke, “I did enough. Not that the fukkin’ government cares about it since I’m dishonorable now for all the killing. But I guess dishonorable is better than getting murdered by a fukkin’ kid with a sharp piece of rebar. Killed him too. Wrapped my bootlace around and around his neck until he turned purple, but that was damned inconvenient since I had to wait to get it back and his face was black by that time.”
Uncle spat near my feet and I stepped back a bit for I didn’t want no spit juice on my shoe. Uncle doesn’t like that. “You two look like city folk with your white sneakers and fancy hair. Probably cut by a fag in some barber chair where they like to touch your dick. That what you two are all about? Touching each other’s dicks? Cover each other in flower petals while touching each others dicks?”
We done forgot we was stil covered in flower petals and Jacob and me start to brush them off and Jacob’s eyes are darting to Sam and Joe but they’s just looking at us with no help in their eyes. They’re safe for now since they got Uncle to be happy even though it was killin’ talk and they ain’t going to take our side for nothin’.
Uncle says “yeah, you two probably can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch with those mouths. Probably learned it from your Daddy who’s fukkin’ stupid for getting corn this time of year. What, you’re going to plant it in your asses?” And Sam and Joe are snickering behind him but Cole ain’t laughing or saying nothing since he’s already in trouble and can't get nothing out of laughing at Uncle’s jokes.
Jacob still ain’t sayin’ nothing and I’m mad now since my Daddy can do anything and he give us jobs and ain’t hit us none and climbs trees and ain’t mean like these here folks and I say the first thing that comes to my mind. “Least we ain’t ugly dumbheads! You ain’t talk about my Daddy like that and he’s as tall as a phone pole and he can beat you up easy!” That’s the first curse I said to an adult and dumbhead ain’t too bad although I wished I could have remembered to say something better like what me and Jacob have been practicing when we say “crap” and “damn” and “shitter”.
Uncle gets a funny look on his face and he turns to Sam and Joe and shrugs. Cole is still stoking the fire with his back turned but he’s stopped now and is listening for what Uncle does next. Uncle turns back to us and says “I guess you’re not too far off. Sam and Joe over there both came by my sister and she drank every day of her life until she turned yellow and keeled over. She’s buried somewhere around here and I guess they do have a funny look about them.” Uncle is considering now and I say “Me and Jacob is fierce fighters and Jacob whipped Joe there good what with a branch and he’s probably going to have a scar for life and Jacob give it to him!”
Uncle asks Joe if that’s the truth and Joe says he come by the scratch just walking through the woods and Sam is nodding along like he seen it happen himself but Cole speaks up and says, “We all had a tussle and that Jacob done whipped Joe after Joe shot that little one in the neck and we all done shook hands afterward.” Uncle runs his hand through his hair and turns on Joe. “You got whipped by this boy? You better not lie to me or so help me, I’ll bury you next to your mother if I can remember where she lays.” Joe shuffles his feet and says it weren’t a fair fight and I snuck up on him but Uncle gives him a dead eyed look and Joe says it was like Cole said after all “but I shot him real good first! Would be dead probably if I pumped the gun a hunnert times!”
Uncle says “shootin’ someone real good and them still being alive afterward isn’t ‘shootin’ real good’ and you’re the one that got your blood spilled.” Joe is sulking now and Sam is standing there watching and he lied along with Joe, and Cole by the billowing foul smoke is smirking for now Joe and Sam is the ones in trouble and he ain’t no more. Uncle says “and you all shook on it.” He gestures to me “You. you get shot and you still shake on it afterward.” He looks us up and down and turns to Sam and Joe and stomps at them and yells “and you all shook on it too, and you got blood on your face and shot the little one and you didn’t kill him and you all shook on it!” Joe is quavering as Uncle goes on “you shook hands! All shook hands! I told you what that means! You don’t shake a hand and lie about what happened afterward after you shake hands!”
Now he’s hittin’ on Joe and Sam as they cover their heads from his beating and he picks them both up by the backs of their pants like luggage and walks out of view behind the house. There’s some clanging and hollering back where we can't see.
Jacob says now is a good time to hustle on out, but Cole says to wait, for Uncle ain’t on us no more and now he’s on Joe and Sam.
Uncle comes back around the house and is out of breath and his face is red but he says “those pussies need to learn. They’re no men, but cowards, and don’t know how to battle right.” He turns to Cole and says “that’s enough tires, retard, we don’t want that poison smoke in the house.” And Cole stops working and Uncle says “let’s get inside, I got something to show you boys.” And he tosses his cigarette aside where it fizzes in the mud.