Pollen by E. Scott Manning

Best Girl by E. Scott Manning

It was a Thursday night, and I’d gone over to Pete’s Parlour like I usually do. Pete’s is the only place for mile around, and he’s got decent barbecue most nights. The beer is okay provided you don’t want anything with actual taste or body, and some nights he’s even able to get a game on the TV, if there aren’t too many planes taking off over at the military base on the other side of the hills.

It was a Thursday night, like I said, and I’d gone over to get something to eat. I’ve been trying to cut back my drinking, but I still had a couple of beers with dinner. A man can’t live off meat alone, you know?

Normally at Pete’s it’s just usually a few of us locals, and Pete himself, scowling at the rest of us with his ugly face, but every now and then some tourist who’s decided to see the back roads of this great country’ll get lost and they’ll end up at Pete’s, desperate for food and something to look at besides the endless desert blurring passed their dashboard. And since there’s nothing out here but the military base and a few reservation gas stations that are never open when you need ‘em, Pete’s is the place everyone ends up at.

When the door opened up behind me I knew that it couldn’t be any of the regulars; we was all already there. I ignored the newcomers, figuring it’d just be some tired looking family with some whiny brats in tow. I was damned surprised when I caught a whiff of something real flowery, and then I heard a burst of these real girlie giggles. I don’t know if it was the smell or the giggles that made me turn in my seat, but standing in the doorway were a couple of beautiful college girls, with a half dozen more pushing into the door behind them.

They came in like with a wave of sugar scented air – like when you get a field of flowers all heavy under a summer sun- and they was all tittering and giggling and talking about how rustic this place looked, and how utterly “wild west.”

All of us in the bar just stared at them and I got to say: they were just about the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life. Real magazine-quality girls, and they couldn’t be no older than 19 or 20. They all moved to the back of the bar, where the larger tables were, and we all followed them with our eyes. Only when I saw the expressions on the other guys did I realise how my jaw hung open, and what I must have looked like, staring at these ladies. I closed my mouth, but I continued to watch them as they gave their drink orders to Pete. For once that son of a bitch didn’t look so sour, and I think he may even have smiled at them a little.

They ordered those fancy sweet mixed-drinks that I’m sure no one around here had ordered in years. I wasn’t even sure that Pete would know how to mix them up right, but I guess he did alright, because the girls all downed their drinks and order a few more rounds. They giggled and tittered and talked to each other in loud voices, and it was only as one got up and staggered to the jukebox that I realised just how drunk these girls were.

They put on something loud. I wish I could remember what it was because, at that moment, I never wanted to forget this night. It was something loud and fast and quick, something that you could fuck to, and suddenly that’s just all I could think.

You may have thought I’d been there already, but the shock of seeing them hadn’t worn off so quick. You see some vision like those girls walking into a dirty old bar and you get to wondering if maybe you’ve got the shakes and visions, the way some people do when they drink. Seeing these angels walking in, I figured maybe I’d been drinking too heavy for too long, and even though I quit down to almost nothing, maybe it was just those delirious tremblin’s getting me.

But when that music hit the juke, I knew I couldn’t be imagining all of this. I just couldn’t be! Some of the girls, they got up and started dancing together, and it was all I could do no to flip the table over with my erection. One of the girls must have liked what she saw because she came over and sat down next to me, none of this “Is this seat taken?” crap. She just came and sat down right by me, and I was swallowed whole by the smell of flowers and heavy pollen on the air, and the sweet sugary smell of her breath.

She invited me to sit over with her friends, and before I knew it, I felt myself being led over to the table where all those college girls were sitting. My girl led me to the booth and pushed me into the seat. She squeezed up next to me, and even though it weren’t one of those round booths you see sometimes, it sure felt like I was in the middle of all those girls. Thank heavens it was one of those old fashioned big booths, the kind that you could use to fuck the minister’s daughter in if you didn’t have your own car yet, because when Tom and Davies showed up with another round of drinks, the table seemed to get awfully small as they glared at me and pushed their way into the seats opposite. The table got uncomfortably small then -no matter how many firm young girls were pressing at me.

My girl, the one that had led me over, said something to the other girls, and they all started giggling again. Tom and Davies just stared at me. They didn’t like me, and they didn’t like the competition. My girl leaned in real close, and I must have said something funny because she started giggling again, setting off all the other girls into giggles that made their tits wiggle and jiggle, and then, I swear to you: she put her hand down my pants, and right on my Charlie Daniels. No other words, no sweet-talking, nothing, not even an apology: just hand on cock.

I think I jumped a little, but who could blame me? It was surprising as hell! Davies and Tom and all the girls laughed at my jump, and then Davies, utter prick that he was, told my girl that maybe she just needed a real man, one who wasn’t afraid of girls. They all giggled at that, and I got to admit it: I started to get real nervous real fast.

Now, I got no problems with my goods, and I ain’t never had no complaints, but then again, I’ve never had a gorgeous beauty like her just suddenly lay on hands without even an introduction or nothing. It was a little surprising, and if I may have wilted under the pressure, so to speak, I’ll be damned if there ain’t one of you out there that wouldn’t have done so too!

Davies and Tom continued to charm the girls, causing flurries of titters and giggles. My girl, anything I said to her, she just responded back with giggling, and a slight flexing of her hand. You’ve got to understand: it started to get really uncomfortable, sitting across from those assholes, with all these flowery girls around me, and the one girl who just wouldn’t take her hand off my junk; I finally just couldn’t take any more of it. To make matters worse, I was looking at one of the girls as she happened to drain her shot in one gulp, and I thought I saw something flex inside her lips. I thought I saw something that moved like it weren’t supposed to, something that weren’t her tongue or her perfect lips, but some sort of other appendage, pushing against the skin and sucking the liquid as it entered her mouth.

Now, it could have just been the heat: it was a hot night, and sitting in between all these even hotter girls was scorching. It could have been that I’ve been cutting down on my drinking quite a bit, and though I still tossed back a few tonight, I’d given up a lot of the dog’s bite; enough that I’d started getting the shakes a little, and seeing things like heat mirages or little nothings that weren’t actually anything at all. And if you want to add to all the things it could have been, it just could have been as simple as the fact that I was sitting across from Tom and Davies, two of the men I hated most in this town, and feeling a bit put upon by them and the girl with her hand wrapped around my Tom Foolery.

Whatever it was, I whispered to the girl holding my deflating self that I needed to get up and get another beer; anything to escape the booth and the presence of that thing inside the other girl’s mouth that I must’ve imagined. My girl giggled and told me that she didn’t mind sharing with me, and she and the funny-mouth girl pushed another of their sugar drinks into my hand.

I thought real fast and told them I had to go take a piss, but they didn’t seem to hear me. The one holding me flexed her hand real strong, I swear on purpose, and I almost felt like crying it hurt so bad.

I hope you never had a woman do that to you, but sometimes they seem to think it’s funny to mishandle a man’s goods. They seem to get some sort of kick out of pulling that sort of power trip on us, like since they don’t have no balls to get punched it’s funny to do the punching.

That was the last straw and I forced my way out of the booth and away from that girl’s hand. I kept from vomiting from the pain, but it were a near thing. Tom and Davies both laughed at me, and my girl started to stand up. I waved her back and told her I just had to go to the bathroom, I’d be right back. She gave me one long look, and then without a word or anything, turned to sit next to Davies. That hurt a fuck lot more than I thought it would, and as I all but ran to the bathroom like a little school girl, I could hear Davies laughing loudly, fucker that he was.

I washed my eyes out in the sink, the pipes squealing shrilly at the water pressure. I thought about the girl with the funny mouth, and the way it moved like there was something in it that shouldn’t have been, and I thought about the way drinking can get you, fuck you up and around, even when you’re trying to straighten out you’re life. I thought about what kind of guy gives drinks to an already drunk group of college girls, and then I thought about what kind of girl puts her hand down your pants before you’ve even said two words to each other.

I stared at myself in the mirror, old grey eyes meeting old grey eyes, but there weren’t any answers there, at least none that were better than the ones in my head. I turned the water off, and I could hear the juke out in the bar, playing some sort of wailing song of love and loss, and I just couldn’t help but shake my head in self-disgust. My junk was throbbing where the girl had squeezed me, throbbing like she’d cut me with those damn pretty nails.

I know this is going to sound weird, and let me tell you, it felt weird, but I took a moment to unzip my pants and take a look at my junk to see just what the hell she’d done to me. It was all red and swollen, and not the sweet caresses kind of swollen. Looked like I’d stuck my pecker into a hive of hornets, complete with little stings all over.

Can you believe that? Not even a very good handjob, and some bitch has gone and given me something infectious – and just from a friendly little handshake! Or not so friendly, I reminded myself as I started to feel nauseas again. Fucking bitch.

I tried cleaning it a bit in the sink, but Pete ain’t had soap in his bathroom since Carter was president, and all I could do was splash a little water on it and try to dry off as best I could before zipping up and lighting on out of there.

Now, I tell you that at this point I wasn’t thinking about that girl with the funny face anymore. I was thinking about my poor ol’ hurt and put upon self, and that fucking bitch what done this to my poor self. I still wasn’t thinking this was any sort of special encounter, other than I’d have to go to the clinic if it didn’t clear up too quick. But most of all, I was thinking about that fucking bitch, and her sitting next to Davies like she didn’t just have her hand on me a minute ago.

I began to get pretty mad and angry, and there was a little part of myself, the hurt part of me, that wanted to go out and tell her a thing or too about what kind of girl she was. There was another, smaller part of myself that I'm shamed to admit, that just considered walking right on out of there, and letting her give whatever she'd given to me, to Davies. That would sure give the bastard something to think about alrighty!

By the time I had I tucked myself back into presentable and stepped out of the bathroom, everything had changed.

I realised it wasn’t just the old pipes in the bathroom that had been squealing. It was old Papa Doug who was setting up the racket, screaming and squealing as he tried to push his squirming guts back into the ragged red tear of his belly. I can’t for the life of me remember what song we was listening to on the juke, but I can’t shake the image of old Doug holding great gobs of his guts, all smeared with blood and shit, squealing like a broken set of sewer pipes.

It was unreal, but far more real than anything I’d yet seen from any of my drinkin' trembles. I stepped back in shock, and raised my eyes, and there was only more of the same, all around the bar. Men ripped to pieces, and fleshy parts of things I couldn’t –I didn’t want to- identify.

There was a chemical smell, something heavy and almost recognizable that covered everything, mingling with the smell of blood and shit and vomit that I could almost place; something that reminded me of picnics on long summer days, potato salad and long lines of ants, crushed carelessly under thumb.

I looked over at the booth where I’d been sitting, but Tom and Davies weren’t there any more. I also couldn’t see the girls. There was a piece of one of the girls, the one with the mouth I think, and she was laying draped over the side of the booth, split down the middle like a banana peel, all hollowed out and empty, like a pair of cast off jeans.

This was all happening quickly, you understand, so I didn’t quite put it together all that well at first.

There was another burst of that chemical smell, sharp and acidic, or what would you call it? I’m not a chemist. It made the hairs in your nose burn, and it was ugly, unpleasant, and underneath it, there was this honey smell, like syrupy poisonous flowers.

That’s when I figured it out, or at least, some part of me did.

I looked up, and hanging from the ceiling with delicate spikes instead of legs were these things. They looked like giant dog-sized bugs, like great fucking praying mantises, but they weren’t quite right.

They had too many legs, and their heads weren’t big and football-shaped like mantises either, but more like some sort of hand, that just kept unfolding more and more fingers until you were looking into a face filled with sharp mandibles, all waving and dancing like antennas. Like some sort of underwater creature you see sometimes on those tv shows about the deep dark parts of the ocean.

They moved fast too, without any of that bobbing and weaving that mantises do. One of them skittered across the ceiling and dropped in a pale blur behind another booth, and I heard a wet sound, like a rag getting wrung out.

I was frozen, staring upwards at these things all arranged on the ceiling, bloody trails scattered across the old plaster like fucking stars at night, all in reverse.

They were all still, except where one or another would suddenly dart across the ceiling and drop down onto someone, causing more screams and pleading, or more often, stopping the screams and pleading with a sudden squelch. Old Pete was wailing into his phone when a thing dropped down on him and clipped him open with a weaving couple of forelegs, finally shutting him up.

The thing nearest me seemed to be writhing on the ceiling, its too many legs anchored in the plaster while it flexed its fat abdomen, wriggling like a giant grub. It finally freed itself from whatever held it, and I saw the thing drop right as the knowledge completely hit me: it was the skin of that fucking bitch who had groped me, flopping to the ground at my feet like a fucking peeled banana skin: wet, empty, and completely bloodless as it fell.

I think it was that empty skin that broke me; made me run.

I don’t exactly know how I got out of there. I got some ideas, but I'm not too comfortable sharing them. I keep thinking, telling myself that maybe it was because I wasn’t screaming – I was too afraid to do much else but move my legs. Maybe it was because even though I tripped over the steps of the bar, I kept on going: running on all fours to get away. Maybe it was because I wasn’t no threat, like they knew I couldn’t do nothing, they way sometimes animals in the wild know they don’t have to run after something or attack it, maybe it was like that. Yeah, I keep telling myself a lot of stories about how I got out of there, even as the unease squirms around in my belly. No, I don't know how I got out of there, but I did it: I ran across that charnel-slicked bar floor, and I made it out into the parking lot.

I ran across the parking lot and made it as far as the ditch that separated the bar’s property from the hills before I fell down, puking and crying, and wondering what the hell had gone wrong with the world.

I lay down into the mud and vomit and cried my drunken fool’s eyes out. I tried to tell myself that it wasn't real. That I was just some damned drunk who'd finally gone too far, and that I'd finally become my poor old daddy, seeing beery visions and taking them for truth. I tried to tell myself that, but I knew what it was that I'd seen, and I knew that there wasn't nothing in the drink about it.

I could go back into Pete's tomorrow, and none of them would be cursing at the old tv, trying once again to get reception even as the distant roars came over the hills from the military base, a tidal wave of sound and technology that drowned out any college football game that might or might not be playing on the screen. I knew that I'd never walk into that bar again, and see anything but those bloody stains where Jimmy and Andy sat bleeding through their guts, their mouths opening and closing like stranded fish. I'd never see anything in that bar but for the blood.

I guess that's when the fever started to burn in me a little bit, making me go cold but still some how stopping my shivering and gagging. There was a buzzing in my ears, like all the world's bees had suddenly taken to telling me all their secrets. I tried to get up, more from trying to get away from that sound rather than still trying to get away from those things back there. My eyes swam as I looked around the ditch, everything was blurry and out of synch with where I was looking. It made me feel like I was swimming through the air as I scrambled my way out of the ditch and into the dried hills.

The swarming sound of bees followed me, and my head throbbed. To my surprise, my junk also throbbed, as if it were answering some unheard question from those damn bees in my head.

I stumbled and fell a lot, but made it deeper into the hills, crossing switchbacks and stone washes bare of even the most stubborn desert grasses. I got to where I could look back at the bar, from way on high.

I could see thick coils of acrid smoke boiling up from the bar, and the tiny forms of men dressed like fire fighters, ostensibly trying to put the flames out. I could tell from the way they moved that they were military folks, and that whatever they was doing wasn't about putting the flames out, not as the fire got hotter and brighter, and the smoke billowed out thicker and blacker than before, blotting out the stars.

I watched them from my crouched vantage in the ragged grasses of the hills for a long time, well into the early hours of dawn. My fever got hotter and the bees in my head got louder, and I could feel the earth swaying under my hands and knees.

The bees in my head spoke to me, and I felt I knew what they were saying. Those men down there, those fire-making-men, would look look through the ashes in the morning, and maybe they'd look around for tracks. They'd be looking for something they've had a call on, and they'd have only the vaguest ideas on how to go about it, but they'd still come on looking.

The bees in my head told me all these things and more, but I'll tell you this now: as I slithered back to the far side of the hill I felt the earth swim below me, and I could feel the dance of the stars above me. Deep inside me, some things moved and squirmed, and when they asked me a question, I answered in affirmation, my breath cloying and sweet, like the longest and hottest days of summer.

I could taste it on my breath, and as the sun began to peep over the hills, I could see it too: a trail of pollen following me as I moved away from the bar and the firemen: a smell like a meadow heavy with wild flowers, waiting out the sun, waiting for the next evening’s rain.

-end-
Copyright 2009 E. Scott Manning - please don't steal, I worked hard on these, typos and all!