A Couple of Fools

by Tyler McCurry

1.

Cottonmouth, Tennessee is home to a stretch of woods called Killer Kull. They say it’s inhabited by monsters you’ve only ever seen in your nightmares.

From an early age we’re taught to avoid it at all costs. No one would dare step foot in it, especially the most popular girl in school.

In the mirror it’s easy to see how I earned that distinction. My long golden-blonde hair is tousled after a decent night’s sleep. Combing it every morning is murder on my hands. Women like me don’t come around in a small town all that often.

I do my best to get ready quick. I have to beat Eli out the door, or he’ll yap my ear off all day long.

It didn’t used to be like this.

Growing up, Eli was my best friend. My only friend really. We were both total goofballs back then and would spend our days running naked through the wildflowers, pulling pranks on neighbors, telling fart jokes to each other until we were red in the face from how hard we were laughing, and lots of other stuff I’m not proud of. We used to be so close.

Then the unthinkable happened. I grew into myself in a truly transcendent way, and went from being awkward and gawky to Cottonmouth’s golden girl. Now I had legions of boys pandering to be my future husband.

And you know what? I liked it.

At least I grew up. Eli never had. He was still the same goofball he was when we were kids. I’m about to start my last year of high school, with my sights set on graduating next spring. After that, the sky’s the limit.

Everyone has to grow up sometime. Maybe one day Eli will too.

2.

Cottonmouth’s been around since the early days of the fur trade. In all that time, I wonder if it’s ever produced a pest quite like Eli.

I’m unsuccessful in my efforts to beat him out the door. He’s there waiting for me like always.

“Hey, Kay. Looking snappy as usual.”

I just pass right by him without answering. He tails me. The sad thing is that if I hadn’t grown out so nicely, not to be crude, I would have to settle for dating him probably.

I was lucky I had, because now I was dating the mayor’s son Colt, a strapping young man with muscles to spare. He’s a far cry from Eli, who’s all skin and bones. His big brown moppet he has is a lot like the big leafy tuft on top of a stalk of celery. Aside from the mayor’s family, and by association mine since I’m dating his son, no one in town eats well. It’s always been a burnt-out burg.

As it happens, I’m going to meet Mayor Meeks and Colt for breakfast, and I’m late as it is. I walk to their house as fast as I can, doing my best to ignore Eli breathing down my neck.

“So I heard a good joke yesterday.”

I sigh. Maybe if I run, I can lose him, but he’s a good runner. I know he can catch me.

“Can you maybe tell me it later? I’m so late.”

“You mean for your date?”

That stops me in my tracks, and I turn to face him with my hands on my hips. It’s one thing to grow up, but I fear I’m turning into my mom too, and that really scares me.

“Just shut up and hold this.”

I hand him my bag and bend down to tie my sneakers. They don’t match my nice clothes, but I don’t own any other shoes.

“What’s Colt got that I don’t? I mean, he has looks and money, but other than that…”

“I ought to have him pop you like a pimple if you don’t stop bugging me.”

“Please, I make scarier shit than him in the toilet. Speaking of which…”

He squinches up and farts loudly.

“Ugh. Sounds like I have to hit the head.”

“You never change, do you? Now stop following me or I’ll be hitting the you.”

I yank my bag out of his hands and keep walking. He doesn’t follow. At least he can tell when he’s pissed me off.

It isn’t easy being friends with the class clown.

3.

I get to Colt’s house at ten sharp. Breakfast is just being served.

Before we go eat, I pull Colt up into his bedroom. He was named after the revolver, and he’s got nothing but guns on his walls. He and his father are championship hunters. A big ass trophy is displayed on a stand above his bed.

“I want to talk to you, Colt.”

“What about?”

Colt’s wearing a camo windbreaker and ripped jeans. Guess he didn’t feel like dressing up. He’s the captain of our school’s basketball team. There’s really nothing he can’t do, it seems.

“About the plan.”

“I thought we were all squared away with it.”

“Well, I think I’ve decided I don’t want to do it.”

“You’re chickening out, in other words.”

A pair of Colt’s dirty briefs is inside out on the floor. It’s got a big skid on it. He probably wouldn’t have just left it out if he knew I was dragging him in here. I do the same thing with my dirty underwear unless I have company if I’m honest.

“I knew you would. You were never much of a hunting partner.”

“Yeah, well, no one goes hunting out in Killer Kull.”

“You’ve heard all the stories about what lives there. If I come back with a kill from there, I could be world famous. Maybe even Nat Geo famous.”

There’s a knock at the door.

“Breakfast is ready whenever you kids want to come down.”

I smack Colt on the chest when the coast is clear.

“I’m not a chicken, but if someone catches us, we’ll be in deep shit.”

“Excuses excuses. You just hang tight like we agreed. I’ll pick you up around eight.”

He leaves the room and I assume that’s that. I follow him down to the kitchen. His family has a nice, big house, the only really big house in town. They even have a butler.

He’s laid out quite a spread for us in the dining room. Honey ham Eggs Benedict drizzled in hollandaise sauce, brioche French toast with a side of cheesy potatoes and whipped crepes topped with fresh fruit are some of the highlights. I set my bag on the chair next to mine. Colt sits down on the opposite side.

Mayor Meeks has none of the muscle of his son. He’s a short, gaunt man. It’s said constantly being worried can help you lose weight. I have to think he worries about his town a lot.

You don’t have to be mayor to be depressed by the sad state of affairs in Cottonmouth. Most of the shops in it are shuttered, and even the staples like the restaurants and grocery stores are failing. If the local distillery most of the people here work at goes too, we’ll be screwed. Probably nothing more than a Trump write-off. It’s that bad around here.

The mayor piles his plate high with food. Seems like he sorely needs it. He almost makes Eli look fat.

“Please, eat. Don’t want all this food to go to waste.”

I help myself to some Eggs Benedict. Before I can swallow my first forkful, I perk up.

“That reminds me, Colt, I got you a little something to celebrate our two-year anniversary.”

I open my bag and fish around for the gift in question. Hopefully I didn’t forget it.

“I know it’s not much, but…”

Instead of the new Memphis Grizzlies hat I was planning on giving him, my fingers touch something hard and scaly, and also moving. I grab whatever it is and yank out a huge wriggling centipede. It’s easily the size of a ruler. I throw it into the platter of potatoes with a shriek, sending everything in it all over the three of us.

The centipede writhes in agony. Drowning in potatoes is a hell of a way to go. Colt wipes splotches of cheese off his nose.

“What the hell, Kay?”

“I…I don’t…”

There’s a window past him, and I can see a face in it. I’d know that beady little face anywhere.

“I’ll be right back.”

I get out of my chair and storm my way through the front door, going around to the side of the house. It’s a big house and it takes me a hot minute. I’m sure he won’t be dumb enough to stick around, but he’s still there, standing on a rock, looking in on us.

I grab Eli by the front of his shirt and yank him to the ground.

“Eli, for fuck’s sake...”

“Ah come on, it was just a harmless prank…”

Colt comes up behind my idiot friend and spins him around. They’re both the same age, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at them. Eli’s head only goes up to about his midsection.

“Prank nothing. That damn thing could have bit Kay.”

“Even if it did, it wouldn’t have been that bad. Come on, Kay, back me up here.”

Colt decks him square in the eye in response. Eli falls back and hits his head on the ground.

I run to check on him. His eyes are shut and he isn’t moving. He could be out cold, but if I’ve learned anything from years of watching his pranks go awry, it’s that he’s a whiz at playing dead until the heat dies down.

“Jesus, Colt…”

“That all you have to say? Which side are you on?”

“Yours and all, but you didn’t have to punch him.”

“I did you a favor. Now maybe he’ll leave you alone.”

Colt’s a big boy, and the sun hangs off his shadow. I’ve never seen him punch someone before. Normally he’s a hopeless romantic. Playing the guitar is another one of his talents, and writing me songs is how he first won me over. Maybe tonight’s getting to him too.

He grabs me by the hand and pulls me aside.

“Look Kay, someone had to cave his fool head in sooner or later. Maybe we could go back inside and pretend like it never happened?”

I look over my shoulder. Eli’s gone. Little weasel must have slipped away when we had our backs turned.

“Tell you what. You don’t have to worry about tonight either.”

“Are you sure?”

“I know you don’t have the stomach for it. You’ll just have to be my lady in waiting.”

He kisses me on the cheek, much more like the Colt I fell for.

“Now that, I can do.”

4.

Eight o’clock rolls around, and at the moment I’m sitting pretty on my bed. I’ve put on jeans and a flannel hoodie like the plan’s still a go. The woods can be harsh if you don’t dress in layers.

I’m glad to be off the hook, but I’d be lying if I said letting Colt go out to Killer Kull alone wasn’t eating at me. At breakfast I made him promise to call me when he got there right at eight.

Half an hour later, he still hasn’t called, and all my calls to him go straight to voicemail. He’s brought me on his hunting trips before, and one thing he told me he likes to do is go out early to set up a perimeter. It’s possible he did that tonight and something happened to him.

A whole hour passes. I start to worry. I've always been a worrywart just like my mom.

Soon I can’t take it.

I grab my phone, and the keys to my dad’s F-150 off the key tree. He and mom are still at work. They both work at the distillery. On my way out the door I get a text from Colt saying everything’s good and he’s having trouble getting reception, but all the same, something doesn’t smell right.

Killer Kull isn’t too far from town. A simple side road’s all I need to go on to get to it. When I reach the outskirts, I see Colt’s pickup there. It’s a new Ram with all the bells and whistles. His dad spared no expense getting him a slick ride for his first car.

I park next to it and get my flashlight from the passenger seat. I brought my dad’s sawed-off shotgun for protection, not that it’ll do me much good, but I won’t be deterred.

Holding the weapon close, I venture into no man’s land.

5.

I imagine Killer Kull can be confusing if you don’t know your way around. Its big deciduous trees all curl into each other at their canopies. The moon’s perfectly centered in their circle like a scene straight out of a James Wan movie. Any moment I feel sure the red and black Darth Maul demon from Insidious is going to reach out and nab me.

I can hear voices though. Not demon voices. One of them’s Colt’s. On another of our hunting trips, he showed me how to track people by paying close attention to their speech patterns. An old army trick his dad taught him. I use it against him and trace him to a babbling brook.

Some lawn chairs and a tent are set up around a campfire at its bank. There’s a girl with Colt. I recognize her as Cyndi Kemp, the second most popular girl in school behind me.

“You sure no one knows we’re out here, Colt?”

“Not a soul.”

“What about Kay?”

“You still on that? I already told you we’re just friends.”

In the light of the campfire, Colt pulls Cyndi close to him and kisses her, in the new Grizzlies hat I gave him at breakfast no less.

“She’ll never have what you’ve got.”

That’s about all I can take of that. I burst out of the bushes with my shotgun in hand, making them both fall on their butts.

“Just friends, huh?”

“Kay? Shit, I…”

“Can explain? That what you were fishing for?”

Cyndi gets up and wipes the dirt off her skirt.

“It sounds like you’ve got a lot of girlfriends, Colt.”

“She’s not my girlfriend, Cyndi…”

I pump my shotgun. I’m not half-bad with guns myself. Everyone in Cottonmouth knows how to shoot.

“That’s just great. I rush out here all concerned about you only to find you cheating on me with your side bitch.”

“Technically you’re my side bitch.”

I lower my gun.

“I was seeing her first.”

“You were?”

“Yeah, but…”

A big grizzly bear bursts out of the shadows behind him and clamps onto his neck, cutting him off. The bear ragdolls him to the ground by his throat, and rips his head clean off his body. Somehow the hat stays in place.

Another bear tackles Cyndi. Don’t even see where it came from. The second one chews right through Cyndi’s torso. Soon it’s in two pieces. Both bears have red eyes like the bear from Balto, demon eyes to be sure. I fire my shotgun at one and don’t even slow it down. There’s no point in shooting demons anyway.

Only one thing to do then. I drop my gun while the bears are preoccupied, and run like hell in the dark.

I take a bad step, and my ankle twists on something, sending me into the mud. I roll onto my back and blink through the gunk in my eyes, waiting for the crazy demon bears to get me.

Two hands clap me on the back. I look up and see Eli.

“What were you expecting, a bear?”

He lifts me up. He’s strong for his size.

“Come on.”

I’m not far from the trucks, as it turns out. Eli helps me into mine and guns it. I must have dropped my dad’s car keys out there, because they aren’t in my pocket. He always keeps a spare in the visor though. Good thing I left the doors unlocked.

I’m damp and dizzy, and maybe bloody. All I can do is watch Eli drive. He must have been lying in wait for me.

For once I’m glad that he was.

6.

My ankle was only bruised after my fall. It could have been a whole lot worse.

Obviously Colt and Cyndi weren’t as lucky. They found their mutilated remains the next day. Nothing much left of them from what I hear. The funerals for them were both going to be closed casket. You won’t catch me at either one. Those two pieces of shit can rot in the ground for all I care.

The second I’m discharged from the hospital, I go right to Eli’s house. It’s weird to be stalking him for a change.

I ring the bell, and Eli answers the door.

“Kay? They let you out of the hospital already?”

“Yeah. I just had some bumps and bruises.”

Speaking of bruises, Eli’s got a wicked shiner from where Colt punched him. I cross one of my feet over the other.

“Can I come in, or…?”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.”

It’s been a while since I’ve been in Eli’s house. It looks just like I remember it, right down to the old leather sofa with the same stress fractures in it that were there when we were kids.

“Want anything to eat? Mom got pizza last night.”

“I wanted to talk to you. Maybe we could talk somewhere more private.”

“How about my room? No one ever bothers me there.”

“What about your parents?”

“They’re at church. I told them I was sick.”

“Some things really never change, Elijah.”

“You know I hate it when you call me that.”

He takes me to his room. Like Colt’s, it’s got dirty clothes, socks and underwear all over the place. Boys do be messy, but my room’s the same way, so who am I to talk?

“What did you want to say?”

“I wanted to apologize for what Colt did to you at his house.”

“Don’t have to. I’m over it.”

“You sure about that? Just look at your face…”

I squinch up and fart loudly. Eli waves the air.

“Sorry. I forgot to use the bathroom before I left the hospital.”

“Why apologize? That was a nice one.”

He gives me a thumbs up. I plop down on his bed.

“I mean it, though. Colt was a dick to you.”

“Yeah, but I had it coming. I put that centipede in your bag.”

My hot, stiff shirt really itches. I think about taking it off.

“He was more of a dick to you, it sounds like. Cheating on you and all that.”

“Yeah. I guess even good looks don’t count for anything these days.”

“I’ve never cared about your looks, Kay. You didn’t used to either.”

“I’m really starting to miss those days.”

Eli sits on the bed with me. This is when I notice he isn’t dressed. All he’s wearing is his underpants, an honest pair of briefs. He always struck me as a boxers guy. It’s like I have to get to know him all over again, and that sickens me.

“Those days are all I think about. You were much cooler back then.”

“Who even says cool anymore?”

“You’re right though. We should put them behind us.”

He farts loudly. I’m tempted to return fire.

“We’re not getting any younger. It’s time to grow up.”

“It doesn’t matter how much growing up you do. You’ll never stop being you.”

I fidget with my belt. I’m thinking of taking my pants off too. Maybe I should ask Eli to play doctor with me, another thing we used to do a lot in our younger years. I’m sure he’d get a kick out of examining the bumps and creases my kid self didn’t have.

“We were so dumb when we were kids. Like, remember that summer we went streaking through town in our underpants?”

“When we were six? It never leaves my mind.”

That would seem to be the impetus for it.

Without thinking, we take off across the room. He doesn’t even get dressed. If anything the opposite happens. My pants, shirt, shoes and socks all fly off behind me. Soon I’m in naught but my skivvies.

We head off through the front door. Right now my dad’s in the process of mulching our lawn. We leapfrog Eli’s hedges and plop down into it, getting what I hope is mud all over us. My pink bra and panties become brown ones, but I don’t even give half a shit. Old Mrs. Draper from down the street nearly has a heart attack when we lope by her and her little west highland white terrier out on a walk. I’m tempted to ask her to pull my finger.

We break for the center of town in this way, very muddy and mostly naked, laughing and chasing each other around. It’s just like the best of the good old days. Cottonmouth’s mostly a ghost town when church is in session, but in our current state, we’re not complaining about it. Eli drops his briefs and moons me right in front of a gutted hardware store. I let my panties fall and return it. There’s a pimple on my butt that needs popping. Not every part of me can be pretty.

For the grand finale, we go to the field we always used to run through naked when we were kids and do it now as teenagers, losing our underwear in the process. The flowers come up to our stomachs, hiding everything from the waist down. We play tag and red rover and doctor just for the hell of it and every single other dumb kids game we can think of until we’re so pooped that we have to stop and take a breather.

We don’t have the energy to move after that, so we just lay side by side in the flowers, sullying them with our filth. A thicket of hyacinth hangs over my belly button, and between my bent legs, the carpet’s a perfect match for the drapes. I’ve never been keen on trimming it.

“Want to hear my joke now?”

I move my tangled bangs out of my eyes. Cleaning and combing them’s going to be murder.

“Shoot.”

“All right, here goes. So a bear and a rabbit are pooping in the woods and…uh…uh…”

I hear him fart. This time I return fire. Wonder how he’d feel about me copping a squat and dropping anchor right here in the flower field like a bear would? Probably demon bears too.

“Shoot, what was the rest of it….”

“Do I even want to know?”

“You know what? I don’t think it even had a punchline in the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy TV movie I heard it from.”

“In that case, how’s this for a punchline?”

I lean over and plant a wet one on him. It’s a long, drawn out kiss on the lips, the kind of kiss I was preparing to give Colt as he t-posed over a felled nightmare in Killer Kull in victory. Eli’s all googly-eyed when I’m done. His tongue’s hanging out a little.

“We should probably get home.”

“Looking like this?”

“You said you had a plan.”

I touch myself as I’m sitting pretty.

“Well now the joke’s on you.”

Tyler McCurry is a 35-year-old author/photographer from Olathe, Kansas with a passion for food, family and fun, but especially food. A true starving artist.