Bum Magic: A Tale of Sludge and Slime

“What in the world do you want with the Futrells?”

A horribly skinny man with a distended belly looked at me like I was crazy. His eyes were wide, and his mouth hung open a little when he wasn’t talking, making him look like a bloating corpse. I made it to Chattanooga, and he was the first man I saw who looked like he would talk to me – a fellow bum. He was downtown in front of an ATM, leaning against a telephone pole on the sidewalk, attempting to look nonchalant but actually looking like he was struggling to stand. He had clearly partaken in something earlier that day. I figured I’d ask him if he knew the Futrells anyway.

“Just wanna know if they still live around here,” I said.

“Well, if you’re lookin’ to buy, you can’t just walk up to the Futrell House and ask for a bag of ice. It ain’t a convenience store. You gotta find someone on the street unless you’re friends with them, which I reckon you ain’t.”

“Do you know where they live or not?” I said. I hate it when people give me the run-around.

“Sure do, but I ain’t gonna tell you,” he said with a condescending yellow-toothed smile. “Well, kinda. I mostly know. I know people who know. The guys I buy from get it from them.”

“Alright, then point me to one of these street dealers,” I said. His wide eyes narrowed and he backed away from me a little.

“You a cop?” he asked. I actually busted out laughing. I couldn’t help myself. It was the most ridiculous question anyone had ever asked me.

“Jesus Christ, I’m not a fucking cop,” I said, still chuckling. “Now tell me where the dealers are before I smash your fucking head into this pole.”

He gave it some serious consideration. It was clear he was scared shitless of the Futrells. I wouldn’t be surprised if they actually did skin him alive – you don’t get into the drug dealing business because you’re a nice person who wants to help people – but they weren’t standing in front of him. I was, and he could see that I wasn’t playing when I said I would crack his skull on the sidewalk in broad daylight.

“Alright, alright,” he said. His hands were trembling and his voice was shaky. “Go to the Bojangles on the east side of town at around three o’clock. Look for a chubby black guy with a tattoo of a bison on the side of his head. He’ll get you whatever you need, man. So we’re good?”

“Yeah, we’re good,” I said. I had about four dollars left over from my night of drinking. I took two dollars out of my pocket and handed it to him before I scooted away.

I sat at a table in the corner of the Bojangles and stared at the door. It wasn’t even one o’clock yet, but I had shit else to do. It was crazy how these places all looked exactly the same -- brown tile floors, sticky wooden booths, a silver jug of sweet tea that was almost definitely empty. I got there around noon, slunk down into a booth and dozed for about an hour, and then I sat, waiting for the man with the bison tattoo on his head. An employee thought about approaching me, probably to ask me to buy something, but I gave him my best “scary bum scowl” and he almost ran back to the kitchen. It wasn’t busy anyway; they could spare the seat.

Scaring idiots like that was so fun, honestly. It was one of my favorite pastimes. Back in Leesville, Mickey, Beth and I would go to the park and spook people like it was Halloween. We were homeless, but we never begged; we didn’t need their shit. I was a Boy Scout once upon a time, believe it or not, so I knew what plants we could eat and what plants we couldn’t. You’d be surprised at the tasty shit that’s growing in your backyard. It’s not like we lived entirely off foraging though. Turns out, grocery stores give out free food as long as you don’t mind that it’s a little past the expiration date it’s sitting in a dumpster. Beth was the best at slipping into a trash can and coming out in less than a minute with her arms full of good shit. Mickey was the one that got us booze, and that’s about it. It’s all he really cared about. We never asked him how he got it. It was better that way.

I ruminated on the not-so-distant past as people trickled in and out through the door. We had a good thing going, not too long ago. We had everything we needed. We had fun. I even had a girl that actually enjoyed my company for some reason. Now she’s dead, and the fun is over. I became agitated in my seat. I almost wished Alec and his boys would bust through the door right now; the action at least kept my mind occupied.

I was so happy I almost clapped my heels like a fucking leprechaun when a chubby black man with a bison head tattoo walked through the door. He wasn’t just chubby; the man was huge -- at least six inches taller than me, and I'm not a short guy. The sides of his head were shaved clean, but he had a long dreadlocked mohawk tied into a ponytail, and he had droopy eyelids that made him look profoundly unimpressed with everything around him. The silky white dress shirt he wore tucked into his black pants made him look like an off duty bouncer. He ordered four cajun chicken biscuits and sat down at a booth at the other end of the restaurant. I didn’t move, just kept an eye on him as he ate, careful to only look at him in my peripheral vision. He ate in silence and then walked out the door, and I followed close behind.

He was pretty well dressed for a man whose work involved sitting at a bus stop next to a fast food restaurant. I crouched behind a row of bushes and peeked at him through the leaves. At least five people came up to him within the span of fifteen minutes, and none of them were waiting for the bus. They’d sit next to him, have a short conversation, shake hands and walk off. Once it seemed like the opening rush was over, I took a seat next to him.

“How much you want?” he said the moment I sat down.

“How do you know I’m not waiting for the bus?” I said.

“How much you want?” he repeated.

“None,” I said. “I want you to tell me where the Futrells live.”

“Get the fuck out of here.” His expression did not change at all.

“Not until you tell me how to find them. I have business with one of their friends.”

I still had the two guns I got from those kind fellows back in Bryson City. One of them was in the storage compartment of my scooter. The other was tucked into my pants. I pulled it out and jabbed the barrel into his ribs. I couldn’t really shoot him. If I killed one of the Futrells’ guys, Mickey would find out and scurry out of town like the rat he is – but this guy didn’t know that.

“What do you think you’re gonna do with that?” he asked.

“Whatever I need to do,” I said. “Now, where do they live?”

“They’d do worse than shoot me if I snitched, so why don’t you go ahead and pull that trigger? I wish you would. There’d be fifty goons on your ass before the sun went down.”

Fuck. He wasn’t going to talk. I tucked my gun back into my waistband and held my open, marked hand in front of his face. His expression changed ever so slightly. He must've been shocked.

“Oh, shit. You have one of them too?” he said. “God damn, Chattanooga’s going to shit.”

“So you’ve seen Mickey?” I said.

“Didn’t I tell you to shut the fuck up?” he said.

“No, you told me to get the fuck out of here.”

“Well shut the fuck up and get the fuck out of here.”

He’d already said too much. He had too much information for me to just walk away. I needed to know where to find Mickey and I needed to know what he was capable of, and the answers were right in front of me. I just had to pull them out.

“ You ever think about what it would be like to drown?” I asked.

He didn’t say anything.

“Wouldn’t it be even worse to drown in grease? Imagine, being stuck in a vat of lard or something, sinking to the bottom, and it filling up your lungs until you can’t breathe anymore. Wouldn’t that be an awful way to go?”

A drop of sweat shot down the side of his head. He was one of the few people who knew what someone like me was capable of. He was probably shitting his pants internally, but the only sign of discomfort he showed was that little drop of sweat.

“You’re just gonna have to kill me,” he said. “I’m not a fuckin’ snitch.”

I jumped up and covered his mouth with my hand. Slime gushed into his mouth and his droopy eyes opened wide. He convulsed under me and tried to scream, but I held him down and kept pumping slime into him. He looked desperate. Suddenly he wasn't so nonchalant about the idea of me killing him. I didn't want to kill him though, so I let go after a second and he fell to his knees. Slime shot violently from his mouth and streamed from his nostrils.

“Alright, alright,” he said between heaves, “I’ll tell you, god damn. They have an apple orchard about fifteen minutes out of town. It’s called Paw Paw’s Pickin’ Orchard. It’s a front. They live in the big house at the farthest end of the property. You’ll know what I’m talking about when you see it. Now please, leave me the fuck alone. I need to get my wife and kids and get the fuck out of town.”

I patted him on the shoulder, which made him heave again. “Sorry about that, but you know how it is out here.”

“I sure as hell don’t know how it is out here, now that you crazy motherfuckers are in town,” he said.

We walked together back to the parking lot, which was super fucking awkward, but we both needed to get to our rides. He got in his car and peeled out of the Bojangles parking lot, speeding into the distance. I wasn’t in such a hurry. I was in a great mood. I’d always wanted to go apple picking.