Too Far Gone

17

Leland Ticholet tied his boat to the pier beside Moody’s store and lifted the wooden crate he’d brought from his cabin. Balanced on his haunches atop a pier post, a gawky young man of indeterminable age who did odd jobs around the dock watched Leland. Without the overalls, ratty T-shirt, and unlaced work boots, Grub might have passed for a very large version of one of the pelicans that often perched in that exact spot, resting and watching for a meal of opportunity between flights.

“What’s in yur box, Lee-lund?” the boy asked.

“Rusty old cottonmouth,” Leland said. “’Bout big around as your empty head.”

“Naw it ain’t, Lee-lund. Tell me what’s really in it.”

“Tails.”

“Whut kind of tails is it?”

“Nutria,” Leland answered just gruffly enough to discourage further conversation. “What else would it be-catfish tails?”

Grub snorted. “State gives four bucks a tail on swamp rats. How many is it in your box, you reckon?”

“I reckon forty-one,” Leland said.

“How much that add up to in money?”

“Four dollars times forty-one. Figure it up.”

“Ninety-one dollars,” the boy said, a worried look on his face.

“I’m lucky they ain’t paying me by your calculations.”

“How’s that, Lee-lund?”

“Because you’re a idiot and I’d starve to death on account of it, you scrawny little dog fucker.”

“Big as you are, you ain’t missed any meals, you…you. Ijit your own self,” Grub hissed, spreading his legs wide apart and freeing his eel-like penis through a ragged hole in his crotch with hands that looked like he’d been working on diesel engines. “Tickle this, Lee-lund Tickle-ay.”

“It’s Ticholet, you wormy retard.”

“Lee-lund Teesh-o-lay this, goober-puller.”

Leland climbed from the boat slowly, lifted up the crate, and lurched suddenly sideways right at the boy, who sprang off the perch and ran guffawing toward the gasoline pumps outside the store.

“Somebody should gut that little idiot and bait gator hooks with his meat.”

As he walked up the dock toward the store, Leland Ticholet threw back his head and barked his laughter at the sky.