Read Online They Had Goat Heads by D. Harlan Wilson - Free Book Online Page A

turned off the light and slammed the door behind him.
   The boy flipped over and sobbed into his pillow.
   In the hallway, a machine roared to life and labored in quick, methodic spurts . . .
   The door opened and the father walked back in and turned on the light. He leaned a blow-up doll against the wall. The doll had a 1960s flip hairdo and wore a blue airline stewardess dress.
   “Mom?” said the boy, springing to his knees.
   The father arranged himself next to the doll. He removed a banjo from a long wicker case, got into position, and strummed a fast, friendly tune . . . Ten minutes later he abruptly smashed the banjo to pieces against the floor like an angry rockstar, then attacked the doll with a large kitchen knife, stabbing it over and over in the chest and screaming “Die! Die! Die!” until he had reduced the doll to a clump of mauled, ruined plastic.
   “Excuse me, son,” said the father, turning off the light. This time he shut the door carefully, quietly.
   The boy lay flat and pulled the covers over his head. The extreme darkness beneath the covers scared him. He poked his head out into the open and peered at the ceiling.
   In the hallway . . .
   The door opened. Nobody came in. The door closed.
   The boy remembered something about sleeping. The next step. The step that came after closing your eyes . . .
   In the middle of the night, the boy awoke. Moonlight shone through a half open window. His father sat on the edge of the bed. “I can’t keep doing this,” he said softly. “Being your father, I mean. It’s too hard. There’s too much explaining to do.” Groaning, he stood and walked into the boy’s closet. “I’ll be in here if you need me.” He shut the closet door.
   The boy closed his eyes to go back to sleep, but he had forgotten how to do it again. He got out of bed and went to the closet to ask his father for advice, but the closet door was locked. He went downstairs to the kitchen to get a snack, but the refrigerator was locked. He went back upstairs to lie in bed and think about things, but his bedroom door was locked.
   He heard something inside . . . the sound of a crow tearing flesh from roadkill . . . The boy kneeled and peered through the keyhole.
   There was a man dressed in his father’s clothes. In place of his head was a giant white egg tilted to one side. “I am an egg man,” he whirred. “I am an egg man and I commit egg raids.” He sprinted toward one wall and crashed into it. He sprinted toward another wall and crashed into it. He sprinted toward the bedroom door and crashed into it. The boy leapt backwards on impact . . . He got up. Tentatively he put his ear to the door and listened . . . No movement, no sound. Nothing . . .
   Yolk leaked into the hallway . . .
   He opened the door and stepped into the bedroom. The door stayed open.
   Turning on the light, he tiptoed across the bedroom, and shut the window. He tiptoed to the closet and looked inside. No sign of his father. He shut the closet door.
   He tiptoed to his bed where the butler slept, soundly, using the mangled carcass of the blow-up doll for a sheet . . .

 
    STRONGMEN & MOTORCYCLES (& MONKEYS, TOO)
     
    Well-mannered strongmen are hideous anomalies. Don’t believe their polite handshakes, their nods of friendly affirmation . . .
   I edit the sound of the daily news with a synthesizer and a pocketful of nitroglycerine. Nobody minds. The lights flicker. The night retreats into a bellhop’s expectant gaze.
   Dialup connection snapcracklepop.
   The question is—why are muscles a prerequisite for strongmen? Strength is a relative term. Strength can indicate corporeal authority in equal measure with Einstein’s motorcycle . . .
   Vroom.
   Screech.
   Kachunk. Kachunk-kachunk.
   To drape oneself across a motorcycle. To treat the machine like a chaise lounge, one leg