Hogg, page 19
The policeman's bullet belt ground my belly, and his gun holder wedged under my hip. He was panting and humping with his forearms on the ground.
With my face mashed on its side, I could just see Red's pants, moving with his hand inside.
Rufus let go his dick, reached down under the policeman's shoulder and stuck three fingers in my mouth. I started to suck them, but he was scraping around—his hands were horny as wood—to get some soft shit. He pulled them out and rubbed them over, then under, then over his dick again, finally going back to shucking.
"Hey. . .," the policeman grunted. He was really humping me
hard. "You smelly motherfuckers get out of here Come on, you
two stink like a shithole out of lime. ..." I heard the policeman's hands close on dry leaves, open again. "Nigger, get your dick out of my face.... I don't want to sniff at your black pecker. I wanna fuck this ass!"
Coming up like wind in leaves far away, or the sea, Rufus chuckled again.
I held onto the policeman's shoulders. His jacket was pretty thick. I tried to wrap my legs up around him like Maria used to do when the guys fucked on her. But I could only get one up. His gun got in the way of the other.
I lay there, getting fucked, and watching Red's hand working inside his pants. I kept on hoping he would pull it out and shuck on it like Rufus was doing; I wanted to see if he had freckles on his cock too.
"Come on, Red," the policeman said again, still grunting, still humping, but a little whiny. "You and Rums get away from me, now. I just wanna get my rocks off in this kid's—"
A woman screamed.
It was out on the docks, but I couldn't tell how far down.
The scream ended up funny, twisted off like a piece of metal.
"Jesus!" The policeman stopped humping.
A man shouted; only the shout was cut off by a shot. Then two more shots, right after.
The woman screamed again—well, it wasn't a scream, now: just a sound that was loud enough to hear this far in.
"Holy shit!" The policeman's dick came out of my ass as he pushed back to his knees.
My ass stung.
"What the fuck—!" He stood up, almost falling, pushing at his cock, half hard and still shitty, but thick and white under it as a parsnip. The flashlight in the leaves leaned so that you could see it, clear back into his fly. "What's goin' on out there—
Rufus, still squatting, looked up. "Ain't you gonna finish him off, Whitey?"
Red, looking down, said, "That's an awful sweet hole to let hang around empty."
Whitey's zipper stuck the first time he tried to pull it up— "Fuck—!" Then it came free. He swiped up the flashlight, took about three steps, then looked back: the light swept across us. "Look, you two better leave that—" Then I guess he changed his mind. He just shook his head, and crashed on off through the brush. In the leaves the light flittered away.
Rufus's chuckle swelled up again in the dark, and this time broke out to full laughter.
"Goddamn," Red said, laughing too. "Goddamn, nigger! Ain't that Whitey a bitch!"
I heard Rufus stand up. "What you suppose that shootin' was?"
"I don't know," Red said.
I thought Red was going to stand up too, so I rolled over and put my hand on his foot. Red said: "I guess we could finish up on the little cocksucker and go take a look."
"Hell." Rufus took a couple of steps off; looking up, I could see him trying to see out over the bushes. "He done got a taste of what we can give 'im. He want some more, he get tired of Big Sambo, he can always come on down to the scow and get him some good stuff. He know where we anchored."
I pushed myself up on one hand, reached in for Red's cock. He took his own hand out so I could get it. "I guess he do," Red said.
But he didn't get up. It was too dark to see about the freckles. So I put his cock in my mouth. It still had some shit on it. Red's hands came together in my hair, while I sucked. "I guess so," Red said again after a moment. "But I think I'll work out here a little more anyway. I sort of like the little bastard's style, you know, Rufus— hey, come on, cocksucker. Get up on your knees. I can't shoot all squatted down here like this."
So I got up on my knees and Red stood.
He held both my hands in his—they could have wrapped around mine twice—and began to pump again. "You go on, if you want, Rufus. I'll be out in a second. . . !"
Rufus had come back over, though. "Yeah, he is a good little cocksucker, now, ain't he. I wouldn't mind gettin' him down on the scow for a couple of days, you know, Red? I wouldn't mind swipin' 'im from Big Sambo, for maybe just awhile. A week or two, now. Hey, boy: you could have shit-pie with nigger-piss three times a day if you wanted—didn't I pull out an old dog leash and collar from the dumping, Red? We could chain the little bastard up to the bedpost in the cabin so's he wouldn't get out and folks'd see him. Shit, Big Sambo'd never know he was there. ..."
Red had got his feet apart—the toes of one foot were propped on my knee—and holding my hands tight against his thighs, was scooping his hips into my face. For awhile I tried to stay pretty far back and get into his foreskin again, but he wanted to put it in deep; finally he let go my hands and grabbed my hair, hard. I reached between his legs and felt the seat of his pants; his pasted-up buttocks swung back and clamped forward again. He shot. It was a strong, long spurt; and he went out once and came back in again in the middle of it too.
Rufus was standing so close to us his knee brushed my arm.
Red took a breath, let go my hair, and said, "Nigger, wfoarare you doin'?"
Rufus chuckled once more. "Pissin' on yo' knee." I came off Red and grabbed for Rufus, got one ear full of pee; the other was still a-rumble with the nigger's soft, bass laugh. "Come on... easy, boy. Now, easy ..." His big hands clamped my head while I tried to get it in my mouth. "Easy, boy ..."
I had piss all over my face.
"... that's right. Easy ..."
Red was still breathing hard. And still standing close, too. His
hand came around the back of my head, now. I held the warm, hard pipe and sucked. "Go on, Red," Rufus said. "Play around with my nuts and stuff; you know I like to feel you feelin' around my dick when I'm peein' in a cocksucker's face. Still got a mouth full of shit, too."
Red's hand came around to the cock in my mouth—he was still panting, and with his other arm he was leaning on Rufus's shoulder. And he was grinning too; you could just hear it in the sound of his breath.
"Yeah," Rufus said, "sometime in the next couple of days— maybe when Big Sambo's gettin' tired of him—we gotta get this little cocksucker down on the barge, where we can really put 'im through his paces, you know? And you know something else, Red? I don't think he gonna mind comin' along. Not a bit." Brine streamed hot from the head. "I'd be a good nigger for ya', boy," Rufus said. "You could take it out, nurse on that big, black fucker anytime, day, night, if I'm sleepin', waking', workin'—no matter what I'm doin'. I wouldn't care—long as we were someplace where we wouldn't get in a whole lot of trouble. And a little trouble now, that ain't so bad—Red'll tell ya'. Somebody sees me doin' somethin' nasty, an' it just makes me feel all good and warm inside."
"A little trouble?" Red said. Now that he'd come, he was pulling himself together and stepping around, probably trying to get the seat of his pants loose from his ass. "That nigger plays with himself all goddamn day long! He'll flip it out and beat on it anywhere, I swear. I never seen him with his fuckin' fly closed more'n an hour at a time. Two years ago, they put him in the hoosegow for jerkin' off somewhere uptown—"
"It was just in a movie," Rufus said. "When I do it in the street or in the parkin' lots, I'm always a lot more careful. But it was in a movie an' it was dark; an' I was sitting by myself—there wasn't many people sittin' around me, cept'n some faggots, what was gettin' off on it. But Red's right—I rforc'tmind showin' what I got!"
" It wasn't even a dirty movie, either," Red said. "One of the ushers called in a policeman. After they took him to jail, they put him in the hospital."
"Once they caught me," Rufus explained in that vibrating basso he had, "I figured there wasn't no reason to stop then. It was better them thinkin' I was some kinda crazy, then just a pervert or a criminal or something. So every time they turned around, I'd pull
it out and start to beatin' again. If they hadn't of put me in the hospital, Red, you wouldn't of seen my black ass no more!"
"I had to go and get him out and sign a paper sayin' I'd be his guardian. Nigger, how many times Harry or Mona caught you on the back of the barge, sittin' there with it out and you beatin' off?"
"Harry thinks it's funny," Rufus said. "And Mona, she just pretends like she don't see it. And goes away. So I pretend like I don't see her either. Though I like her peekin' at me."
"Jesus!" Red laughed. But he seemed to think it was funny too. "You bad as Big Sambo, nigger—you two black bastard's just alike!"
"The hell I am," Rufus said. "That nigger ain't nothin' but a damned child molester! You don't do a little girl like that, even if she is your own—less'n she wants it bad as this little fucker here do. I know she like it—but I don't know if she like it like him." Rufus moved his feet in the loud leaves. "Somebody watchin' you get a blowjob, now," Rufus said, "or pissin' on some cocksucker—or him eatin' your shit, that's better than just flippin' it out and wavin' it in the sunlight. We gonna have this cocksucker on a dog collar, we gotta take him out for a walk, now and then, don't we Red? Don't we? But you could have dick—black or white—whenever you wanted, boy. You think you'd like that?"
I was going to nod, but—as Rufus's urine ran out—he began to hump my face.
So I wrapped my arms around his leg and began to dog-off on his shin, while I sucked. Rufus was going side to side, too, as well as in and out. Red had slid a couple of fingers in there by now. Rufus's cockhead was really stirrin' around in my gullet. "... Little sucker's bad . . ." Rufus grunted. ". . . as / am. He pissin' all over . . . my leg...." which was true. But it got him off. And me too. He came, half a minute later, like a black Mac backfiring!
So did I—right in the middle of pissing in my pants, and I didn't hardly stop shooting hot water.
I clung to his leg while he panted: "Aw, shit, Red . . . ain't he gonna be a nice neighbor ... to have here down on the docks!"
"You wanna take 'im with us now?" Red said, dragging his big hand back and rubbing my face. "I'm for it if you are, nigger." Maybe he was getting worked up again.
"Come on, cocksucker." Rufus laughed like a big engine turning over and pushed my head away. "Get up off it."
I kneeled back in the leaves. I was breathing pretty hard too.
"Like I said, Red. Just take it easy. The cocksucker know where we are. It's funny now," Rufus said, "Red bein' my guardian an' all. This carrot-headed honky's crazy, boy. He's a good ol' white boy, but he's crazy. I got to beat his hairy red ass from time to tjme—figuratively speakin', that is—cause I'm the only one of us who got any sense. But we make good partners. Look, Red, he wants it, he knows where to come lookin' for it. Ain't no need to get Big Sambo all upset on the first night the little bastard's around." Rufus pulled at his pants, kicked his leg a little—where I'd wet it down from the knee—and stepped back, pulling at his
fly.
"Can you walk, boy?" Red got a hand under my arm and hauled me upright. Piss had collected in the knees of my pants and ran down my leg and ankle. You could hear it spill out on the brush. I was a little unsteady. But I felt good. "Guess you right, Rufus," Red said. He ran his big hand through my hair, frowned, shook the piss off it, then did it a couple more times. The last time he wiped his hand on his pants. Then he said, "Guess that'll have to do you for tonight, boy. But I'll tell you, I'm sort of lookin' forward to seein' you again."
On the docks a siren sawed the silence.
"Come on," Rufus said. "We go see what all the commotion is out there."
Red stood up, took a breath.
Rufus started walking. Red started after him.
Rufus looked back. "Come on, boy." I caught up; the nigger put his hand on my shoulder. "You be okay. Puke if you want. All that piss in your belly, you go on an' puke."
"He ain't gonna puke," Red said. "He likes it."
I felt a little funny. But not like I was going to throw up. Just lightheaded.
We came out the bushes onto the docks.
Somewhere in the bushes, Red had shucked out of his shirt. He was barechested now, and, under the dock lights, looked like a big red bear.
"Jesus," he said. "What you suppose. . . ?"
Fifty yards down, a scarlet police-light flickered across the heads of some dozen people. Another truck was just pulling up among the loose crowd. As we walked, some older black kids ran by us.
"Oh, shit!" Rufus took his hand off my shoulder. "That's down by our scow, Red!"
"What you think it is, Rufus?"
Another siren whined across the dark.
The van rolling up now was an ambulance. The spot turning on the roof of the police car, already parked, bled over its white sides.
"Nigger, maybe we better go check this out!"
"Think you're right, Red!"
The two barefooted garbagemen lumbered off along the planks. There was a sudden, clear smell of seawater. It surprised me—till then, Red and Rufus's smell had just about covered all the warm night.
I watched them hurry ahead.
I was still half-sopped in nigger piss—that what wasn't my own. I wiped my hands on my pants, wiped my mouth, and wiped my hands again. I had piss in both sneakers. Trickles ran out my hair and down my neck, even though Red had wiped it. I pulled my shirt loose off my chest and let it fall back. Then I licked my salty fingers.
It would have been okay if it was Hogg piss.
I tried to remember what he smelled like.
A breeze came up the dock, loaded with the stink of oil and the stuff that floats around dock pilings.
Hogg smelled something like Red and Rufus. Only different. But I couldn't say exactly how.
As I walked toward the crowd, I could hear people muttering, whispering; I even heard two people laugh.
More than half were boatmen. When I got closer, I saw some white cops shooing people back from the edge of the water. I came up beside the ambulance. An orderly—this young nigger with his head shaved clean bald and wearing wire-framed glasses—in a short-sleeved white uniform, leaned against the ambulance's turned-back door. Another, this one with blond hair back in a rubber band—he had glasses too, but black-framed ones—came up through the crowd.
"You find out what the fuck is going on?" the nigger asked. He sounded disgusted. He didn't uncross his arms or stand up or even move.
The white one—he wore tennis sneakers that had a flag design on them and red socks—made fists in his white hip pockets and
hunched his shoulders. "I don't know. After all that hurry up and rush but would you wait awhile before you start—"
"It's more of this Harkner shit?"
"That's what I heard. But when I asked a cop down there, he just told me to mind my fuckin' business."
"If it's Harkner," the nigger said, "there ain't no use to rush. Everybody's gonna be dead."
"Yeah," the white one said. "Not as many people dead, but it's supposed to be a bigger mess than the Stevens's place."
The nigger looked off through the loose crowd. "I hope it's Harkner. 'Cause if there're two of them crazy maniacs runnin' around, I don't even want to know about it."
I looked through the crowd too.
All the activity was around the barge beside Red and Rufus's scow. Searchlights had already been set up to shine over the water. Others shone on the barge cabin. A couple of cops came out the cabin door. On the peeling tarpaper, in wide, brown-red swatches— some of it was still wet and redder—were the big letters:
ALL RICH
followed by a smear, like whoever'd written them had been interrupted. There were dribbles from both L's and the G.
One cop turned another spotlight on the wall: all the little tongues of shadow from the tarpaper tatters swung up, then went away. Flashbulbs popped.
Parts of the letters, still wet, glistened. Parts had dried a dull rust.
"Shit," the nigger orderly said. "That's Harkner. Might as well get ready for another leisurely trip to the morgue."
"Naw, man: we gotta rush." The white orderly gave a grin like a cup of cold tea. "I mean, you never know when we gonna have to make the next one!" I guess he didn't like his own joke, because he scowled and shook his head. "When I went up close, I could see part of the woman through the door, when one of the cops came out. Man, she looked like a fuckin' watermelon somebody's taken an ice-pick to—for about an hour!" He took his hands out of his pockets, opened them, closed them, put them back. "Jesus!"
" Whyn't they just scrape 'em into a couple of baggies and let us haul 'em in, huh?" The nigger still hadn't really moved. "You know? Instead of makin' us stand around like this?"
"They got measurements and pictures to take and stuff." The white one put all his weight on one hip, shook his head again, then put it all on the other. "Besides, they're looking for a baby."
"A baby?" The nigger uncrossed his arms and let them drop. "Aw, man, a baby?" His dark hands hung against his white pants. Behind his round, rimless lenses, his eyes got all scrunched up.
"There was supposed to be a baby on the barge, but nobody can find it now. We're supposed to wait around in case they got to get it to the hospital fast or something—"
"Jesus God," the nigger said softly. He took a breath, crossed his arms again, again looked off through the crowd.
I walked on, trying to get a better look.
Police were on the garbage scow too.
Rufus stood on the deck, one thumb hooked under his tanktop strap. One leg of his pants—a searchlight swung across his face and made him turn aside—was wet.
Arms out for balance, Red was climbing to the top of the highest garbage pile. He turned around to watch, back pretty much to me. There was a dark stain all down his ass.
