Deer Killed by Beauty Van

Not working was always a key element in my philosophy of life, but every once in a while, lacking in regular cash, I'd have to pick up some dumb job. I had no marketable skills but I did have a driver’s license and that was enough to get me hired delivering beauty products.
My route was on the other side of the state, the Lake Huron shoreline, The Redneck Riviera. I’d never been over there. I thought of it as the wrong side of the state but I considered anything more than thirty miles away from Traverse City wrong. For me wrong meant ugly scenery sparsely populated with rednecks. I didn’t see myself as a snob; I thought Traverse City was a dump too, just that these outer realms were worse.
My vehicle was a big brown snub-nosed van. I'd load it up with shampoo, dye, chemicals and electronics then head north and east stopping at house and garage based salons along the way. These beauty shop ladies were creepy and my favorite drops were ones without any social interaction.
If I needed a signature I was out of luck and would have to field their nosy questions, Was I married? Did I have a girlfriend, children?
They seemed stupid and it occurred to me that they might be experiencing brain damage from inhaling perm solution and nail-polish remover all day. These women were accidental huffers. Later of course I realized that they were collecting gossip fodder to pass on to their homebound associates and possibly a visit from the delivery boy was a highlight of their day. I had a friend who delivered flowers and he was always getting frightened by sexually aggressive housewives. Some of them were not hideous but he was afraid that if he had sex with one he’d have to have sex with them all. Word would get out.
It was a dull drive that was easily enhanced by liquor, so I started drinking on the way home, usually when my route was almost over. This was when I still thought drinking and driving was a safe practice and I guess it was, I had no repercussions from it, until I hit the deer.
I was driving south through pitch black woods. I had one more stop that I knew I would never find. Not because I was on my second bottle of Lambrusco but because I’d never been there before and it was remote. A town called Higgins Lake. I didn’t know if it was a town even, it could just be a lake. The drop was tiny anyway, a couple bottles of toner, so I planned on skipping it. I passed by this XXX drive-in theater that always distracted my imagination. It was off in the woods, and aside from the sign by the road all you could see of it was the top of the screen. What I imagined was what kind of people patronized it, the beauty shop ladies for sure, what sort of vehicles they used and what they did in them. I was just getting into that last bit, trying to gross myself out, when a big animal face blotted out the road.
There wasn't much to the front of the van and the deer was up and across the windshield almost before I could blink, long enough though for its bulging eye and rolling tongue, its little teeth, to be imprinted on my retina. Later when I retold this story, my memory enhanced by time I'd envision the animals head ripped from its torso, blood veined eyeballs popping out of its skull, thick black lips curled back revealing razor sharp teeth. A monster born of the woods.
I hoped it was dead and not crippled but I didn't get out to look, I didn't want to and as it turned out I didn't have to. It was November 14th the day before hunting season opened, and the woods were already filled with hunters horny for a kill. My view of these men as freaks was reinforced as I watched a handful emerge from the mist at the edge of the woods; swamp muck sucking at their boots as they sniffed at the air.
Drawn by the squeal of tires and the smell of blood, they lurched towards my van like movie zombies. One of them approached and seemed to be trying to speak so I rolled down my window. He was fat and gasping for air from trudging thru the woods or, it occurred to me, in anticipation for the dead deer and the promise of sexual release it held. I looked down to see if I could spot an erection but his trousers were all bunched up and I couldn't tell.
“It gawn blow!” A newly dead deer will bloat with gaseous fumes and explode if not gutted immediately. This was what the hunter was trying to tell me. He wanted the deer and I said “sure”, glad to have it removed from my sight while I waited for the wrecker.
I watched through the busted windshield as he unsheathed a huge knife. He bent over, exposing an ass so big it almost dwarfed the deer, and with some difficulty slit open it’s belly. Blood flooded the pavement and settled into a dark pool. Steam rose up as the heat of the animal met the cool night air.
They're gonna fuck that thing, I thought, watching him and another man drag the carcass off the highway and into the woods. I rode to a nearby gas station in the cab of the tow truck. The driver owned the station and told me that although the van still ran it wouldn't make it back home without a replacement radiator. He would see if he had a used one around.
I checked into a nearby motel and then walked to a party store for beer. Across the road from the store was a bar, a roadhouse advertising music and dancing. I wondered if they had food and what kind it would be, I was hungry, but eating food in remote places like this could be risky. I was served a plate of rotted meat at a restaurant in the U.P once. It was just like this one, stuck in the middle of nowhere. When I told the waitress it tasted weird she asked if I was from the city, that I probably wasn't used to wild meat. I tried to imagine what a wild cow might look like? Maybe it would resemble the bony ones with horns from Texas; Longhorns.
I walked back to the cabin and lay on the bed drinking beers and watching scrambled porn on the TV. I thought about what I'd do if I lived over here, and couldn’t come up with anything. I became filled with boredom and wanted more beer so I decided to walk back to the store. The land was flat and the woods just sort of took off into nothingness on either side. I knew there was water off to my left cause the motel cabins were on the lake but I couldn't see it. No glimmer of lights in the woods no signs of people. It was creepy but not scary really. Scary were the hunters earlier, and where they might be now, lurking behind trees, waiting for midnight, or getting hammered at the bar.
They were getting hammered at the bar, a handful anyway. The store was closed and I was still hungry and only half drunk so I walked over to the roadhouse. I would order bar food, it was frozen, came from elsewhere, and was deep fried. It was safe. Earlier I'd hung out at the garage for a bit with a couple local guys while I waited on news about the van. That's when I found out I'd be there over night. If there's been more than just me and at least one girl it could've been a set up for your average strangers off the main track horror movie. Young people stranded in a town filled with ominous uglies. Someone would have sex and then they would be killed, horribly.

One of the guys from the garage was at the bar so I walked over and sat next to him. “What's with the whores?” I asked by way of greeting. There was a trio of sluttily attired women around a table by the dance floor. I wasn't worried about insulting anyone's sister or mom, I'd noticed the short bus version of a Winnebago in the lot. It was not a rig locals’ or even hunters would drive. I had no personal knowledge but had heard that these mini-campers were the chosen ride for the hunting season hookers.
“Oh” said my friend turning to look, “They fuck the hunters” he tells me what I already know but appreciate the validation of a local.
“The hunters come up here to kill and the women follow to suck their dicks for money” he adds succinctly.

“Gross” I say thinking They suck the cocks of the killers! Would be an interesting movie ad blurb.
“I don't know why they don't just stay where they are and do all that”
This makes so much sense that I take another look at the guy. He's maybe my age but at first glance looks older, growing out haircut under a trucker hat; quilt lined plaid flannel shirt and indefinable brand jeans. His baby face poorly hidden under raggedy facial hair. I thought he was a rube and he looks like a rube but clearly he isn't. He just doesn't care about appearance. I'm tempted to offer him some beauty products but don't want him to stop talking to me. I have a compulsion to kiss him on the lips but quash it when I catch him looking at me oddly. He probably saw it in my eyes. I don't know what came over me, probably the beer. Right now we're cohorts, and I'd like to keep it that way.
“Don't you need their money?” I ask under the impression that places like this depended on outsider influxes of cash.
“Not me, I'm on welfare, I just need the bitches to pay their taxes and vote democrat” I like this guy.
“What was your name again?” I ask.
He tells me his name is Ronnie and points out one of the hookers, “I think that's a dude,” he says.
He could be right, boxy of shape and wearing an obvious wig, she's holding court with her chair tilted back, legs spread, longneck in hand.
“Go find out” says Ronnie.
“No, you”
“I live here, you'll be gone tomorrow and I'm gonna be running into the dude all weekend, I could end up with my ass kicked, or worse”
This makes sense so I think about it, how to do it without instigating some extended interaction. You talk to a stranger in a bar and it can turn into a short term relationship.


“Okay” I decide “I'll ask her for the time but I won't refer to her as sir or mam, I'll call her Mrlady” I don't know how this is going to resolve the mystery but I think it's funny. So does Ronnie.
Mrlady and her table watch me approach. To her left is a stringy haired woman with a shiny face and drawn on eyebrows. If she had an expression it would be rage. Across from her is a small pink ball of a woman, a girl, with a short pony tail sticking out the back of her head like a dart. Up close our Mrlady's got a big female-sized rack but it's stacked on top of an equally dense roll of fat. Her face is heavily made up even under the dim bar lights but so are her buddies. I look close and see no sign of beard stubble trying to bust through.
“Excuse me Mrlady douyouhavethetime?” I blurt out. She points over my shoulder in the general direction of where I know there's a clock above the bar. Her expression reads as non-plussed, maybe even pissed off, which turns out to be correct. As I turn to walk away, our question unanswered but at a loss for a follow-up, I’m stopped short by a deep bass voice barking, “Get back here Asscrack!” I assume this is me and turn around.

“Listen you little weasel, if you and your boyfriend at the bar there think you can fuck with me you're dead wrong, and when I say dead I mean that the coffin is empty and the lid is open,” she grabs my wrist, digging in so hard one of her nails pops off, “Got it, fuck?”
“Yes mam,” I say heading back to Ronnie and the safety of the other side of the room.
“He’s a dude” I tell him, “and she’s scary”
“She made it clear she’s got her eye on us both” I point at my eyes and then his for emphasis. I decide to leave.
“I gotta go,” I grab my sack of fried food off the bar, “I’ll look for you when I pass through again, hopefully you’ll still be mobile.”
I left the next afternoon, stopping at the store for a bottle of wine to lessen a hangover headache. As I drove past the roadhouse I spotted an orange vested hunter on his knees outside of Mrlady’s Winnebago. Vomit was pouring out of his mouth. I wondered if she had some deal with the bar owner, setting up shop in the lot like that.

Rehab Nipple

There always seems to be some old queen hovering around the all male rehabs and at Harbor Hall it was Walter. He was the money man and when he was around we were supposed to pay attention to him, be grateful I guess, I spotted him as a predator early on. He liked to hug the better looking and/or younger residents. When he moved in on me the first time I blocked him by extending my hand between us as a rigid barrier. He had no choice but to abandon his intended flesh-press and grab the hand for an awkward shake. The aborted embrace left our faces no more than a couple inches apart. I briefly glimpsed my own reflection in his rheumy eyes then looked over at JD to see if he had caught the maneuver. His smile indicated he had. He’d told me that the old man had blindsided him with a hug that’d quickly turned into a discreet dry hump before he could break it off. I told him about the hand trick and that I’d demonstrate it for him if I got a chance although I wasn’t sure if I was in his target group. Turned out I was.
Walter had a sort of gentlemans farm outside of town where he and his wife lived. He would choose one rehab guy to work a couple days a week as a sort of farm hand. I was offered the job and accepted. I could use the money plus anything to get away from the Hall was cool. The wife always made me a super white person lunch of a bologna and mayo sandwich, a couple of cookies from a bag and a glass of milk to drink. It was a lunch you'd send your kid off to school with back in the day.
Walter wanted me to wear overhauls at the farm, so I did. I decided this was a whores job and I would treat it as such by doing whatever Walter, the trick, needed me to do. I never wore a shirt and always left one strap undone allowing for a glimpse of nipple here and there.

Hillbilly Delirium

The wind roared up from the beach surrounding my cabin. The pine paneling was creaking and the windows were rattling. I was laying in bed detoxing from a drinking binge, and after three days of not using I thought i was pretty much over the hump; no more vomiting, shaking, cold spells, flop sweats or hot flashes. My equilibrium seemed to be restored and i could make it to the refrigerator and back without falling over. I'd taken a handfull of Valerian root tablets to help me sleep, but they hadn't.

I don't know how long i lay there, or what time it was when I became aware that there were hillbillies in my bathroom. I heard their voices first; a man and a woman talking illiterate style. Blood rushed from heart to my brain and my veins filled with adrenaline. I was terrified.
The bathroom door was door was parallel to the bed on my right side; it was open wide and light was coming out. I didn't want to move and draw attention to myself. I wanted them to think I was asleep and no bother. But I also needed to see who these people were. I turned my head slowly so I could see into the bathroom. There was a woman in baggy clothes sitting on the toilet, using it as a seat. She had stringy brown hair and was talking to a big tall man with long hair and a beard. This man had a roll of duct tape, and was doing something with it to a kid who I couldn't get a good look at he was partially hidden in a sort of alcove behind the door.
I kept my eyes closed and stared at the ceiling, afraid I'd catch their eye. I don't know how long I lay like this, but it seemed like forever.
At one point I realized that the man had a gun, I heard him say, "Lets kill 'em both,” and knew he meant me. I jumped out of bed and ran outside. My feet were bare and I was wearing pajamas. The driveway was thick with ice and crusted snow. It was so slippery i couldn't stay up right. I started crawling towards my nearest neighbor. His cabin was only about fifty feet away, but it seemed to take forever, the whole time I thought the hillbilly was right behind me.

I didn't know my neighbor although he was what i considered a regular guy. I doubted that he'd ever been confronted with a situation like the one I was presenting him with, but he handled it well. I was sprawled out on his porch, banging on the bottom of his door, my voice was almost gone but I managed to get across that someone was being killed, and please call 911. He ran inside grabbed a coat and let me into his truck, explaining that he couldn't let me in his house cause he didn't know me.
I sat in the truck shaking from fear or cold I wasn't sure. Repeating pleasepleaseplease over and over to myself. I was sure the hillbilly would appear any minute. One after the other three cop cars pulled into the driveway, lights flashing. In the instant they appeared I knew that no one was in my house, I had imagined the whole thing, and that had to mean i was insane.
A couple of the cops ran into the cabin, my landlord had come out of the main house and he and my neighbor were talking to the others. A lady cop came over and and helped me into the back of one of the cruisers. I was still shaking and she turned the heat up.
The cops came over from the cabin and told me it was empty. I wanted to go back and lie down, but they were adament that I go to the hospital. I hadn't realized that my hands and feet were cut up from the ice, and covered with blood.
At the hospital they took some blood, and I talked to a psychiatrist for about twenty minutes. She told me that I wasn't crazy, I was detoxing, complicated by lack of sleep, and the Valerian root, which apparently can bring on psychotic episodes. I can't say this knowledge made me happy, but I felt some relief that i didn't have to continue life with the extra baggage of being nuts.

a theme emerges

Wreck of the month
As a kid I would build complicated roadways in the sand and dirt under a huge five-trunked Weeping Willow near our house. My collection of HotWheels, Corgi, and Matchbox cars would barely hit the the streets before there'd be a violent pile-up, usually resulting in flames. Imaginary drivers and passengers who occupied cars with functional doors would run off, the others had no escape route and were imaginarily mangled or burned alive, screaming for help!
My friends and I also liked to hang around a gas station that had a new totaled car on display every month. We loved the smell of gas and would get nauseous inhaling the nearby fumes as we inspected the crumpled cars. Usually these cars were set up as warnings against teen drinking and driving. These tableau didn't scare us. We were intrigued by the drama and violence the twisted steel and smashed glass hinted at. The degree of damage and amount of blood and trash inside always told us a story. Aside from underage drinking teen sex was always a key ingredient. (Another one of our pastimes was rousting half-naked teenagers doing whatever they were doing down the beach from our house. The boys would always chase us, pulling up their shorts, threatening our deaths) We'd work up a scenario on the way home from the garage only to come back the next day because one of us would insist they had seen some bit of evidence that the others hadn't noticed. Was that a trace of blood on the tire iron, or just rust?
The hazardous roadways I built under the willow during the day rarely made it through the night, flattened by the passed out bodies of the bums that hung out there after dark and drank. They always left behind wine bottles and small label-less tins that I learned contained Sterno. She told me not to touch them that it was poison. I'd been using them as substructure for my highways and ignored her warning.


Beach House
We had a canvas tent that my brother, sister, and I slept in sometimes. It was set up at the edge of where the grass met sand. Our mother called it The Beach House. One night as we lay on our sleeping bags waiting to sleep, a flashlight beam started darting around the wall that separated us from the lawn that led up to the house, someone was coming. We sat up on our elbows waiting to see what was up. The front flap opened revealing mother in a nightgown. She had a big knife that she waved around, motioning for us to follow her. As we left the beach the driveway filled with cop cars, and the officers took off towards the willow. We tried to malinger and see what was going on but mother hustled us up to the house.
The next day we found out a bum had killed another bum, stabbed him. We were banned from going to the tree, but overwhelmed by curiosity, we went. We hoped for evidence, blood splatter, ripped clothing, we didn't know. We wanted anything that would reveal the details of what happened cause no one was telling us. My streets were trampled of course, but evidence-wise there was nothing, not even the usual discarded Sterno cans. I suppose we expected what the wrecks-of the-month provided, a story. I checked the paper for a few days but there was nothing.

Harbor Hall native oral

HH
Harbor Hall was a big L-shaped colonial mansion high on a residential hill. Massive injections of cash from wealthy, guilty alcoholics, had allowed it a return to its once former glory. It occupied a corner lot with inside access to the glassed-in porches along the public side, but none from the street. A roofed porch also ran along the inner flank of the shorter wing. It was bordered by the lawn and parking lot. It was out of sight from the street.
There were usually a few guys malingering on this porch til lights out. One night I hung out with them and found out it wasn’t only the last drag on their cigarette that was keeping them up late. It was also for the blow-jobs that were offered up by an old native woman who set up camp a few nights a week in an alcove between a row of bushes and the side of the vacant warehouse across the alley.
I was being a wet blanket because none of them wanted me to see what they were up to. At first I thought they were afraid I’d snitch, then I saw her, and understood their shame. She was built like a motel refrigerator, with short stick-like legs holding it up. Cropped dark hair was tucked behind her ears, her age was indeterminate. She stood still for a moment, hands on hips, and barked her presence. I couldn't tell what she said, if it was a word even.
The others were watching to see what I'd do. It seemed like a good enough opportunity to get my first female blow-job, plus it would put them at ease, so I went after her. I found her squatting with her back up against the side of the warehouse. It looked like she was taking a shit, and my penis inverted at the sight. Her head was tilted back, eyes slitted, and her nearly toothless mouth wide open, abnormally wide. Arousal was out of the question. I wondered if they paid her, they must, and dropped a five in her lap. She didn't move, she was waiting. God built her for this, I thought.

Tits-N-Ass Stack

Every weekend we had to do a thorough house cleaning. You either had to hide or look busy. I was assigned to dusting in the big/main room. It was long but not deep with an entrance/exit at each end. I guess back in the day this area was where the nuns kicked back. One wall was glass and the other lined with built in book shelves and cupboards where us clients kept our books, cigarettes and candy, although I didn't stash candy or any other food, I was getting fat as it was. The floor was high-gloss green linoleum, so shiny you could see your—grotesquely distorted—reflection in it. Someone buffed it every other week, one of the jobs that inspired my library, cause I didn't wanna get stuck with it or something equally unpleasant. Any job that involved physical work looked bad to me. I could see that letting any staff members know you had an exploitable skill was a big mistake.
A big faux-fieldstone fireplace took up one end of the room. There was never a fire, instead it was used to house a plastic Ficus tree. I didn't know it til I ventured out into the town but all the stone used in Alpena was fake. Aside from the dead paper mill, the big industry was making cement blocks that stood in for real rocks and stones. The nunnery was a design anomaly. It resembled mid-century west coast architecture, with red stained wood and faux limestone siding. The highest floor was 2 ½ and the roofs were flat and slanted. All the rooms were made for two and had built in closets, shelving and sinks that didn't work.
Do to the inactive sinks we had to use a community bathroom down the hall, for everything. Every morning for a few weeks toilet paper wads were stuck to the tile walls using bits of shit as glue. If you were seen leaving the bathroom without washing your hands, word would get out and no one would hold your hand during prayer circle. The culprit was never discovered and the mischief eventually stopped.



Saturdays sucked, there was so much dead time, and you could only pretend to clean for so long. Also there was really no where to hide, the basement was off limits after someone set fire to the laundry room. There were so many snitches, you couldn't go anywhere really without being reported, although most of the snitching was vendetta based so if you had no enemies you were safe.
Initially I was just going to sort the National Geographics in chronological order, and I recruited a couple guys to help me. Very quickly though it became apparent that everyone was drawn to the naked flat African breasts so we started cataloging those separately. Penis's and gore was fun too so those issues also got separate shelves. We laughed a lot pricking up the interest of the others, but we didn't want to get shut down so we kept mum, irritating them even more. After we finished word got out and you couldn't walk through the room without passing a couple guys perusing the tits-n-ass stacks. The issues with both nakedness and gore were stacked in their own cupboard and used one issue at a time as weekly specials, and were displayed accordingly.