A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews

Author:Harry Crews [Crews, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Literary, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780684842486
Google: eGgUjNJfZeQC
Amazon: 0684842483
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 1976-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

***

They had fought each other to an absolute draw on the bench, but they both knew that one of them would have lost if Duffy Deeter had not run out of weights. And neither of them was dead solid certain which of them it would have been. Duffy Deeter had gone with them up to an even three hundred pounds, which astounded them both and immediately changed their attitude toward him.

A hundred-and-fifty-pound guy who could get three hundred pounds on the bench was nobody to fuck with. It meant that somewhere there inside him was a little knot of craziness that made him pay the price. But it was not entirely enough to make them forgive him for weighing a hundred and fifty pounds. He was still a runty, second-string grunion. But a very strong grunion.

They’d left him at three hundred and then both got one final rep with three-twenty, which was all the weight Duffy had with him in the Winnebago. Joe Lon and Willard were fired up and when they found out there was no more weight they automatically faced off and almost went one on one against each other right there in the dirt and probably would have if it had not been for Susan Gender. Duffy Deeter had enjoyed it immensely and was hoping they might hurt each other, because while he admired them for turning out to be stud jocks instead of just looking like they might be, he could not forgive them for beating him. He wasn’t used to getting beat, even by men who outweighed him fifty or sixty pounds. So it was left for Susan Gender to stop them. She had been watching through the window with Hard Candy Sweet when Willard popped up off the bench and turned to face Joe Lon, whose response was to dip slightly, bring his elbows out from his body, and thrust out his thick corded neck.

“He’s gone strike a lick,” Hard Candy said happily.

“What? Which one?” said Susan Gender.

“Take you pick,” said Hard Candy. “They fixin to bust ass.”

But Susan got to the door first and cried: “Let’s go find us a tonk!”

Duffy and Poncy looked at her but Joe Lon and Willard only slightly shifted their bodies toward her, the smallest change in the position of their shoulders. But their eyes stayed locked on each other.

“Tonk,” said Willard quietly, not a question, just repeating the word.

“I want to dance!” cried Susan Gender. “I want to play the juke and eat a pickled pig’s foot. I want to drink beer and shake my ass.”

Now they turned together to look at her and stared with hostility at her head majorette legs straddling across the door frame.

“Ain’t no tonk in this county,” Joe Lon said. “It’s damn nigh fifteen miles.”

“Shit, boy,” said Susan Gender. “We got wheels.” She spread her arms and looked back into the Winnebago. “Duffy Deeter ain’t got nothing if he ain’t got wheels.”

Poncy, suddenly alive again in their young contentious voices, said: “I got a Porsche my own sef,” and two things happened at once.

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