Read Online Give Us a Kiss: A Novel by Daniel Woodrell - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Daniel Woodrell
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Ginger-Rogers-in-distress sensation. Not too many men can do me that way, but I had the great misfortune to have one who can as a brother. He was reminding me of the law of the jungle, which was that he could snap my neck any time the notion seemed agreeable to him. “Make it a combination game,” he said, spinning me, “a li’l bit golf, a li’l bit wrestling.”
I started to laugh, dizzy, and Smoke did, too. He set me down and I had to squat to get my bearings.
I said, “If you’re within six strokes of me tomorrow, it’ll be because I took pity on your clumsy ass.”
Smoke cocked his head, then grinned.
“That’s why I love you, Doyle. You’re too fuckin’ dumb to know when to quit.” He nodded four or five times. “A fella like that might just get something big done, someday.”
Niagra slung the hash every evening, but it was never hash. One evening her hillbillyette surprise was pappardelle con il ragu di fegatini, which is a tongue-twister name for broad, homemade noodles with a fabulous chicken-liver gravy. Another night it was coq au vin, which I love anytime. Then she doubled back on my gustatory expectations and eschewed the continental cuisine in favor of navy beans with ham over cornbread, and collard greens and stewed turnips on the side. Real good redneck chow.
She always watched me eat, and it was never a hardship to eat plenty.
After one evening meal, the redneck one, a dusty Chevy sedan passed by on the dirt lane, and Big Annie said, “I bet you anything that’s a carload of Dollys, out scoutin’ us.”
It was an afternoon I was languishing in when I got hit by the kind of impromptu horror that writers fear. That is, Niagra fell by my trailer with a copy of her screenplay. It was hot and I couldn’t lie fast enough to get out of it. I took a seat on the deck, muttered something about loving to read it.
She fetched me beers as I turned pages. She only had sixty-some pages written, but I was only on the second beer when the other thing writers fear came true; that is, a total fuckin’ amateur you’ve had your eyes on sticks you with a piece of work close to her heart, and you, despite your years of study and experience, don’t know a thing you can do to improve it, or ever make it salable, but you have to come up with some sweet horseshit that can make her smile and be chummy instead of becoming an instant enemy. She’d titled it Goomer Doctor, and it was about a girl named Falls who was hippie spawn and lived in the woods with her mother, Large Lucy. Falls was always being shooshed out of the house when Large Lucy had gentlemen callers, so the little girl would climb to the fork of a big tree I could see in the side yard there and fantasize whilst listening to Large Lucy pleasure her company. The little girl’s fantasies featured bizarre, companionable forms of wildlife, until the evening she trailed a glowing coyote into the deep woods and the glowing coyote led her to the cave where a male goomer doctor lived. “Goomer doctor” is an ancient hillbilly term for a witch, basically, though they are of any sex. The goomer doctor takes Falls in hand and starts apprenticing her to the dark arts. Only a goomer doctor of the opposite sex can truly bring a new one into the fold. Eventually they must be joined in sexual intercourse to realize the full mojo. Falls is only eleven, and goomer doctor doesn’t mean pervert, so there are some years of schoolin’ to come before her doctorate of goomers can be realized.
Cut to: Falls at sixteen. She now chants, “Pully-boneholy-ghost double-yolk! Pully-bone holy-ghost double-yolk!” and similar incantations. The right formula of words to cast goomers have been learned by her. She knows now how to conjure shape-shifting into swamp rabbits or crows, and toss off good charms and evil charms, but she has yet to consummate her doctorate, so her applications of black magic are still entirely theoretical. Then the goomer doctor takes her to the
I started to laugh, dizzy, and Smoke did, too. He set me down and I had to squat to get my bearings.
I said, “If you’re within six strokes of me tomorrow, it’ll be because I took pity on your clumsy ass.”
Smoke cocked his head, then grinned.
“That’s why I love you, Doyle. You’re too fuckin’ dumb to know when to quit.” He nodded four or five times. “A fella like that might just get something big done, someday.”
Niagra slung the hash every evening, but it was never hash. One evening her hillbillyette surprise was pappardelle con il ragu di fegatini, which is a tongue-twister name for broad, homemade noodles with a fabulous chicken-liver gravy. Another night it was coq au vin, which I love anytime. Then she doubled back on my gustatory expectations and eschewed the continental cuisine in favor of navy beans with ham over cornbread, and collard greens and stewed turnips on the side. Real good redneck chow.
She always watched me eat, and it was never a hardship to eat plenty.
After one evening meal, the redneck one, a dusty Chevy sedan passed by on the dirt lane, and Big Annie said, “I bet you anything that’s a carload of Dollys, out scoutin’ us.”
It was an afternoon I was languishing in when I got hit by the kind of impromptu horror that writers fear. That is, Niagra fell by my trailer with a copy of her screenplay. It was hot and I couldn’t lie fast enough to get out of it. I took a seat on the deck, muttered something about loving to read it.
She fetched me beers as I turned pages. She only had sixty-some pages written, but I was only on the second beer when the other thing writers fear came true; that is, a total fuckin’ amateur you’ve had your eyes on sticks you with a piece of work close to her heart, and you, despite your years of study and experience, don’t know a thing you can do to improve it, or ever make it salable, but you have to come up with some sweet horseshit that can make her smile and be chummy instead of becoming an instant enemy. She’d titled it Goomer Doctor, and it was about a girl named Falls who was hippie spawn and lived in the woods with her mother, Large Lucy. Falls was always being shooshed out of the house when Large Lucy had gentlemen callers, so the little girl would climb to the fork of a big tree I could see in the side yard there and fantasize whilst listening to Large Lucy pleasure her company. The little girl’s fantasies featured bizarre, companionable forms of wildlife, until the evening she trailed a glowing coyote into the deep woods and the glowing coyote led her to the cave where a male goomer doctor lived. “Goomer doctor” is an ancient hillbilly term for a witch, basically, though they are of any sex. The goomer doctor takes Falls in hand and starts apprenticing her to the dark arts. Only a goomer doctor of the opposite sex can truly bring a new one into the fold. Eventually they must be joined in sexual intercourse to realize the full mojo. Falls is only eleven, and goomer doctor doesn’t mean pervert, so there are some years of schoolin’ to come before her doctorate of goomers can be realized.
Cut to: Falls at sixteen. She now chants, “Pully-boneholy-ghost double-yolk! Pully-bone holy-ghost double-yolk!” and similar incantations. The right formula of words to cast goomers have been learned by her. She knows now how to conjure shape-shifting into swamp rabbits or crows, and toss off good charms and evil charms, but she has yet to consummate her doctorate, so her applications of black magic are still entirely theoretical. Then the goomer doctor takes her to the
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