South of the Pumphouse by Les Claypool

Author:Les Claypool
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2009-11-26T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

CRABMAN AND STING

The sun peered randomly through the marine layer. Fair weather was all well and good, but Earl was irritated by the lack of action. He was a patient man, however, sitting stoically, arms crossed, staring outward, as he watched the pole tips for any signs of life.

Ed sat reclined as far back as his seat would allow and propped his feet up on the top of the transom. He scanned the horizon, marveling at the lack of definition between the sky and water. It looked like a huge, seamless piece of shimmering fabric, the colors shifting from warm tints of orange to silver to cool baby-blue. The surface of the water pulsated as huge, bulbous globules rose from the liquid like salmon-colored spheres of gelatin drifting up into the haze of scattered clouds. Some of the shapes were more irregular than others, resembling, though they were much bigger, the bright fish-row sacks that his father would cure for use on the rivers for steelhead fishing. As he watched the magnificent random vessels drift away, Ed grinned. He had reached a familiar place, the heart of a psychedelic mushroom trip. He felt content as the winter sun caressed his face. He had always enjoyed being out in nature when he took hallucinogens, and he was happy that he was tripping now.

Looking to his right hand, Ed stared at the large can of beer that he’d been nursing. He had been holding it so long that the tin no longer felt cool. He admired the graphic design on the blue, gold, and white can. How clever, he thought, being an artist himself, and he liked how simply yet effectively the text FOSTERS was splayed out across the face of the can. As he gazed, he noticed that his hand was taking on an orange hue, similar to the morning sky, only blotchy and less consistent. It reminded him of the faux sponge-painted walls that had recently become trendy in the cafés and restaurants around Berkeley. The shape of his hand was altered as well. It had swelled to magnificent proportions, and his four fingers had morphed into a single jagged appendage opposed by one similar replacing his thumb. His hand now resembled a large crab claw. A Dungeness crab, he thought, remembering the ones he had seen while tending traps with his father in the old days. He waved it back and forth in front of his face, watching the color trails it left before his eyes.

Donny cocked his head back and watched Ed, who at this point had decided to test the strength of his crustaceous limb by crushing the Fosters can, spewing its remaining contents over himself and his brother.

Lurching back, Earl blurted out, “Damn, Ed. What the hell ya doin’?”

“Sorry.”

Ed returned to observing his claw in silence. Donny chuckled at the curiousness of it all. Earl, relatively undaunted, crossed his arms and returned to mindfully watching the poles. Donny gulped down the rest of his beer and threw the bottle into the five-gallon bucket that held the other empties.

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