A TWEAKER'S TALE

      Eli likes to brag that he killed a man who got fresh with his wife.
      “Didn’t do no time, either,” he'll say. "'less you count living with that bitch.”
      He points with his thumb to Lori, who doesn't pay Eli much attention anymore.
      She will, however, verify the story, saying that Fat Billy Shaw was drunk on his ass late one Friday night and, as she and Peggy McElveen staggered across the parking lot of Sammy’s Pub, offered to drink beer out of Lori's shoe.
      “I said okay just to see if that goddamn pervert would do it.” She snorts a laugh and shakes her head. “I started to slide my ol' stank-foot shoe off, pour some beer in it, and dare that fat son of a bitch to drink it. But before I could make a move he was down on his knees right there in Sammy's parking lot.”
      She takes a toke from her Marlboro, exhales, coughs up a loogie, and spits it off the porch.  
      "Then he just knelt there like a moron, staring at my feet like he didn't know what was next. I leaned my fat tail against that piece of shit he used to drive and lifted my right foot a little. ‘Go on,’ I told him. ‘Take my shoe off, Billy.”
      “Billy takes holt o' my foot like it's the most precious goddamned thing he's ever touched in his life, slides my ol’ shoe off, and lays it on the ground. He’d forgot about drinking beer out of it by then. Instead he puts his big, ugly nose right on my bare, stink-ass toes and takes two or three long, deep whiffs. 'Like heaven,' he tells me. And that's when I told him to kiss it. Just like that. I said, 'Kiss it, Billy. Kiss my goddamned foot."  
      “It’s amazing how it feels to tell a man, even Fat Billy, something like that and have him down on his knees doing it. I didn't really think he would, but the son-of-a-bitch starts kissing my toes, real gentle, with his lips closed. Then he looks up at me, pitiful, like I'm going to suddenly deny him the pleasure of further humiliating his big, stupid self. And I say, “Go on, now, Billy. You know what to do. Clean it up.” So Billy lays down on his belly right there in the gravel and mud and starts licking' my foot like it was a Popsicle. I tell him, ‘That’s right, Billy Boy, lick it good. Suck those toes. Get that toe jam out of there.’ Shit like that. An’ Bill was going to town, snortin’ and suckin’ like a pig in slop. Then he starts humping the ground, and Peggy Lynn is just a-laughin.”
      “They'uz other people stopped to see what the hell was goin' on --Joe Henry, Lindell, Sue Brazell, an' a couple others, and I decide to put on a little show. I said, ‘Roll over on your back, Billy boy, and take it out. I want see you jerk it while you suck my foot.’ And that fat bastard rolls over just like I tell him and pulls his thing out. Then I held my foot over his mouth and let him lick the sole, and, I tell you what, that boy was goin’ at it.”
      And that, Lori says, is when Eli came upon them and slammed his big, booted foot into Bill’s ribs.       
      “That big, dumb shit never had a chance. He just rolled over to one side and lay there with his thing hangin’ out while Eli put the boot to him. We’re talkin’ those big, steel toed motherfuckers Eli wore when he worked over to the weldin’ shop, and Eli was puttin’ some force to it, kickin' poor ol' Billy like he actually gave a shit who sucked my toes. Smashed that boy's big, ugly nose. Kicked his yellow teeth in. Kicked his belly so hard he was pukin' brown. Kicked him for ten minutes and I tol’ him to quit it, that he was gonna kill the man, but you know how that bastard is when he gets goin’ on somebody. Eli jus’ said to shut the fuck up, and then tells me and Peg to grab his Bill’s feet and pull his legs apart, and we knew what was coming. And poor ol’ Billy tried to shake us loose, but he was more feeble than usual by then, and I swear if Eli didn’t kick that man’s balls up into his big, stupid head. I saw Bill’s eyes roll up ‘till the whites was showin’. Then he starts prayin’, askin’ the lord to save his sorry ass. But after three of four hard as hell kicks between his legs you didn’t hear nothin’ else. That fucker wasn’t even flinchin’. But Eli wasn’t finished, and he goes to the truck to grab an ol’ piece of 2x4 he’s got back there and starts beatin’ the son of a bitch, tellin’ him he’ll teach him to fuck with a man’s wife.”
      “We weren’t sure if Fat Billy was alive or dead when we loaded him in his truck. Next day it come out in the news he was dead.”
      Anybody who lives around here knows about when they found Billy Shaw dead and a “likely victim of foul play.” Likely, my ass.  But I always thought Bill’s body had been discovered in a ditch. I said as much, and Eli said that Bill must have managed to climb out of his truck and crawl toward the highway.  
      "Cep' he fell in the goddamned ditch and drowned."
      It was that fact -- that Billy was able to climb out of his truck and crawl toward the highway -- that saved Eli from a murder charge. That and the other fact that, while folks said they had seen Bill sleeping it off in his truck early that morning after last call, nobody was willing to testify that they had seen Eli working him over.  
      So why, if Eli had beat a man to death, would he confess it so free and easy.
      “So you’ll know that what’s mine is mine, and that I’ll kill any son of a bitch who touches it.”
      I have to admit I felt a little edgy after that. I mean, Eli ain’t that big, and the years of abuse have taken their toll, but I knew he was mean even before this tale was told, and that he doesn’t care about much in the way of the law.  
      “I am,” he told me once, “my own goddamned law.”
      Another thing I’ll tell you is that, between you an’ me, I’ve had  a time or two with Lori, who doesn’t think twice about layin' it on you if she’s in the mood and Eli ain’t around.  Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t have anything to do with either of them if it weren’t for the the merchandise that brings me here.
      So I go ahead and make my deal and get the fuck out of there.
      And hope that son of a bitch never finds out I fucked his girl.