The Turkey Buzzards

from The Fruitcake Empire
Originally published by Entropy Magazine and The Fanzine

Larry and Andy, a mortician and a taxidermist in a blackwater pond, swap fishing tales when the bitins no good. Perched up in their rusty tin boat all covered in moss, they cast out their lines or drop down to deep bottom til their rods bend, buckle and fold. When the fish aren’t hungry, they reel up til the swivel meets top eye and switch out the rig with fresh bait or a lure: crankbait, jitterbug, sluggo or spook. Red wiggler, nightcrawler, cricket or slug. If they still won’t bite, troll into a cove and cast out the net: shad, minnow, crappie or brim. Slip on a bullet and tie on a hook. Drop straight down, crank three times and wait. If nothin hits, reel up. Sink again.

* * *

Long before the sun comes up, Larry and Andy meet up at a roadside diner out by the interstate for breakfast.

Andy pulls into the parking lot at half past four to find Larry sitting behind the steering wheel listening to the fishing report on the radio.

Largemouth’re down in the creek beds spawnin. Spots’re out on the points. Striper runnin deep by the dam. Hybrid’re showin some topwater action in the mouths of the rivers. Bait fish’re 

“Mornin Boss,” Andy says, slamming his hand on the hood of Larry’s truck.

“Jesus, Andy!” Larry snaps. “You scared the shit out of me!”

“Shoulda been payin attention,” Andy says with a grin.

“You shoulda gotten here on time. I been waitin half an hour.”

“Aw quit your whinin. Let’s go eat.”

Larry throws open his door, climbs out the cab and slams it shut. The two men walk into the diner, where they can smell their breakfast already cooking on the griddle.

“Mornin boys,” the cook shouts over the fan.

“Mornin, Sam,” Andy hollers back.

They take their seat in a booth by the window.

“I’ll be right with ya,” says the cook.

In a second, the cook’s at the table with two mugs of freshly-made coffee in his hands.

“Y’all goin fishin this mornin?” he asks, setting down the cups.

“You bet yer ass we are,” responds Andy.

The cook smiles and turns around and crosses the diner to the blacktop.

Andy notices that Larry’s staring at something behind him.

“Whatchu lookin at?” Andy asks, turning around to see for himself.

“Them men over there,” Larry says suspiciously, nodding his head in their direction.

At the counter that faces the griddle are three men drinking coffee. They are wearing coveralls and steel-toed boots, and on the countertop in front of them, each has an orange hardhat with a decal labeled LOWCOUNTRY BRINE.

“You seent em before?” Larry asked.

“Nope,” Andy responded.

“I ain’t either.”

Andy slurps his coffee loudly and turns around to look at the men again, but sees that the cook is on his way with their breakfast in hand. He sets the plates down carefully on the table in front of them: two eggs over easy, hashbrowns scattered, covered and peppered, dry wheat toast and a side of bacon for Larry. Steak and eggs for Andy.

“Hey Sam,” Larry says, just as the cook is about to turn around.

“What is it, Larry?”

“Them men over there. You seent em before?”

“Nope. They came in late last night. Parked their truck outside and been sippin on the same cup of coffee for hours. Guess they’re just passin through.”

“Well I certainly hope so. I don’t like no outsiders.”

“I don’t mind em,” Sam responds. “Long as they got money, I don’t give a damn where they’re from.”

Larry sips his coffee, picks up the salt shaker and turns it over onto his food. Andy grabs his fork and knife and starts on his steak.

Tammy, the night-shift waitress at the diner, walks in from out back with a garden hose in hand. She’s spraying down the floors for the morning shift, so that the crumbs and the grease are cleared off of the tiles. When she gets to where Larry and Andy are seated, she asks them to lift their feet up, which they do politely.

With their knees touching the bottom of the table and their boots dangling above the ground, the two men watch as the dirty water washes down the tiles and runs into little rivers along the grout, to where it finally empties out into an open drain in the floor.

* * *

Andy dove down to pond bottom got his bowels into a twist shakin the hot fries out his pants like dust bunnies at the moonshiner’s parade. Peeled back his eyelids and let the silt coat his corneas like a seasoned cast iron hangin on a rusted laundry line.

Sank his feet into the pluff mud and staggerstepped his way up the embankment where the tree roots crawled down the overhang into the rift in sand and silt. Bubbles spurted out his nostrils as he stirred up the muck underfoot til a cloud a sediment gathered in the stagnant water round.

Chilly down here, he thought to hisself in his cut-offs and worn-out flannel. Ceegar clenched between his buckteeth hangin out his yapper all puckered and chapped.

Dropped down on his haunches and got into a crawl. Brushed through the duckweed with rolled-up shirt sleeves, two flaming eyeball neck tattoos and a roundabout crankwatch. Knocked the algae from a tree limb. Spooked a crappie in a tire fire. Red wigglers risin beneath a bright spillin moon til a carp swooped down and ate up.

Reached the overhang with a thud, his eyes rolling back into his head like moth balls. Laid down belly flat in the leaves and the cud, stuck his arm into the manhole feelin for some tongue-spots, whiskers, dorsals or gills. Felt the cavern close down on his arm round his shoulder. Pulled that heavy sonnabitch out the hull and saw his hand stickin straight to the tailfin.

Two silver dollar coins starin out behind a curtain a scales and set a lips full a treble hooks and spinnerbaits. Frayed fishin line and busted up plastic worms packed down in his gullet like a mud pie on a window sill. 

Well I’ll be damned, Andy said with his mouth wide open, comin out all muffled as the silt filled his palate and dripped down his throat to his lungs. Chomped back down on the ceegar floatin in front a his face and kissed that fish on the mouth. Bent his knees and pushed off pond bottom, felt the mud squish beneath his toes as he shot straight up to surface.

* * *

On their way to the pond, they pass a truck on the highway labeled INLAND OIL.

Larry checks his rear-view to double check the license plates, but the road’s too dark to see anything. He flicks on his brights, scanning the shoulders for deer, as the fishing report continues on the radio.

At the boat ramp, he eases the trailer down into the water. Andy jumps out the cab, unhooks the carabiner and climbs aboard. When the prop of the outboard is submerged, he fires up the motor and throws the throttle into reverse, sending the boat out into the swamp while Larry parks the truck.

Andy looks out across the water and sees a crane wading in the shallows on a nearby bank. The swamp is completely still, except for the small wake made by the boat. Patches of fog are scattered across the surface, and there’s a breeze that’s blowing through the cypress trees, causing the Spanish moss draped across their branches to sway.

At the sound of Larry’s shoes on the dock, Andy spins the boat around and picks him up. The two men sit at the console while Andy cruises through the blackwater at full-throttle.

They slide into a cove and cut off the engine. Andy hops up to the bow and lowers the trolling motor, then picks up his pole in the side of the boat. He waits until they’re close enough to the shore to cast, then he flips his top bug onto the bank and wiggles it on in.

Larry’s at the stern twitching a zora spook through a cluster of stump-heads. The sun’s starting to rise at their backs, lighting up the swamp little by little, until the fog slowly begins to lift.

Somewhere in the back of the cove behind the trees, a small piece of equipment starts running. Within seconds, they hear a chainsaw cutting through a thick tree trunk.

“What the hell is that?” Andy asks.

“Sounds like a chainsaw to me.”

They listen to the sound of the wood cracking and then the tree toppling to the ground.

“Hm,” Larry grunts. His gears are spinning. “Who owns this land?”

Andy looks out at the lake, then back at the trees. “This property right here used to be owned by Uncle Delment.”

“Used to be owned?”

“Yup. He was propositioned a few weeks ago. Just sold it off this weekend.”

“To who?”

“Some boys down south.”

“Well I’ll be goddamned,” Larry says through clenched teeth. “I wonder if them boys at the diner this mornin are in on this too.”

“In on this? What the hell you talkin bout Larry? Them boys bought that land, they got the right to do whatever the hell they want with it.”

“To hell they do. Don’t you remember what happened at the golf course a few years back?”

“You mean Gnat’s Landing Country Club?”

“Yeah. Them folks bought that land from the Hendricks. Then they went to tearin up the land and fillin in those ponds. Before they knew it, goddamned ground opened up and swallowed that country club whole, Andy.”

“Well that ain’t their fault, Larry. They said the -”

“I don’t give a goddamned what they said. Them folks tore up that land and made a bunch a money. Then they flew the coop, Andy, and left us a mosquito-ridden cesspool to deal with.”

The chainsaw is running again, and every few minutes, another tree topples.

“Now I’m serious, Boss,” Larry’s tone had changed. He expressed genuine worry to the other angler in the boat. “We don’t know what them sons a bitches are up to.”

* * *

Larry fell off the turnip truck wound up in a drain ditch with a plastic grocery sack tied over his head in a top knot. Laid out in the weeds with the rubbish and the trash til the sky opened up and down came the cats and dogs. Washed that sack a potatoes down the roadbed with the bullfrogs perched up on his ribcage croakin. Coughed up a tadpole gnawin on a june bug singin out a tune like a fork in a hog pen.

Eyes popped open like a mudskip sprawled out on the riverbank squawkin. Got a fist full a wiregrass pulled his body forward til his chin skimmed the surface like a poppin cork in a birdbath. Pondskaters in his eardrums, gnats in his nosehairs sent em underwater with a pocketful a slip weights. 

Slow drift down with the sunlight scattered in the underbelly fading.

Turtle swam by with cracked shell and hooked nose all crane necked and gaudy. Guppies nibblin on the houseboat while a gar swirls around a pontoon prop with a bill caught in chicken wire. Largemouth bass eats largemouth bass stuck together like a burlap finger trap.

Stuck his fingers in the gills tugged along in the downdrift. Grabbed ahold of the fishheads twisted em apart pinched finger to thumb on their lip lines and hollered out NOW WHY CAIN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG? Choked on some pond scum hocked up a pigtail yanked those lunkers to his face and looked em in the bullseye.

Furry tail stickin out the gullet of the right one, so he shook off the other watched it dart up to the stumpheads. Made a crooked digit with his free hand wrapped the tail round the knuckle pulled the carcass from his stomach and saw it was a squirrel.

Loosened up his grip on the largemouth, skittied off in a hole woodpeckered in a gum tree eatin up with termites.

Still sinkin, Larry pulled out a spool with a worm hook attached, stuck that tip through the squirrel lip and let out the line — that critter soarin overhead like a candy wrapper caught in the wind.

* * *

When the sun casts no shadow on their rods, Andy pulls up to the shoreline beneath a towering oak tree and ties a rope around the trunk. Larry reaches down into the cooler and pulls out two brown paper sacks with fried chicken sandwiches inside. The two men take their seats at the helm, fold back the foil and sink their teeth into their lunch.

“Not bad,” Andy says, wiping the mayonnaise from his mustache.

“Not bad at all,” Larry echoes. “That Kickin Chicken sure as hell knows how to fry up some bird.”

“You got that right. But you know it ain’t Kickin anymore.”

“Watchu mean ain’t Kickin anymore?”

“It’s Lickin.” Andy explains. “Lickin Chicken. They went and changed the name after that lawsuit with the franchise.”

“You’re shittin me right? I knew they was bein sued, but wasn’t sure what for.”

“Next time you drive by their trailer, take you a look at that sign. They still got that K there, but they’ve got it rigged so that at night, when it’s lit up, it says Lickin.”

Larry grabs a beer out of the cooler, shakes off the moisture from the lid and opens it up. He takes a slug and looks out towards the trees.

“Wonder where they’re gettin their chicken from,” he says.

“Prolly Claxton Poultry,” Andy answers, pulling a beer out of the cooler for himself.

“I sure as hell hope so. Everybody else in town has already switched to Holyfield. Say the chicken’s bigger at a lower price. Cain’t say I blame em, but what are we supposed to do once the plant closes down?”

“I could get you a job at the bakery,” Andy reassures him. “This town still orders bread from Aura Lee.”

“It ain’t just me, Andy. You go up and down these roads and what do you see? Chicken houses. Dozens of em. And for every chicken house, they’re filled to the brim with tens of thousands of birds. Now if the processin plant goes under,  we ain’t gonna have no town to order any bread.”

Andy throws back his beer can and finishes it. He crumples up the sandwich wrapping, throws the trash in the hull of the boat and lies down in the bow. 

“Well hell Larry. I don’t know. And to be honest I don’t really care. I could give two shits about this town and the people that live in it. Way I see it, if Claxton Poultry goes under, we’ll have us a chicken fry bigger than you could ever imagine. People’ll come over from all corners of this country to feast on our deep fried breasts, thighs, legs and wings. And I’m sure there’ll be some money to be had. That is a guarantee.”

Larry props his feet up on the console and reclines in his chair. He pulls another beer out of the cooler and throws back the brew in a swelling gulf.

The sound of chainsaws and falling trees had stopped about an hour earlier, giving way to the loud buzzing of cicadas and the occasional splash from a jumping fish. The two men had had a few bites, but had not caught anything all day. Now that the sun was high in the sky and their bellies were full of chicken and beer, they knock off for a few hours until the heat subsides. 

* * *

Andy strapped on his water skis glided cross the surface pulled along by a sea doo runnin off a fry oil. Guppies nibblin on his ankles wind blowin in his face mullet whippin around out back in a pig tail curly cue lickity split lard bucket.

Sun beatin down on the well-oiled lobster squint-eyed and boilin in a low country crock pot. Fists clenched on the handlebars, tenderloins strainin, cracked ivory piano keys stickin out behind a set a duck lips.

Whipped out a hand net from the seat of his swim shorts, leaned to the left dipped down into. 

Water sprayin in his face, drip droplets runnin down the crow’s feet chubby bunny high cheek bone stubble all along jawline and turkey wattle. Belly hangin over waist line: a fur rug laid out from toe to neck to finger tip to ear lobe.

WOOM. Felt the weight in the net pulled that sucker out saw it was a football deflated and waterlogged. Grabbed it with his free hand, pumped three times, chunked it to the shoreline up into a pine tree. Pivot on his back foot, lunged the net to the right and steadied with a stiff arm.

Sea doo made a sharp turn, slung em round to the lake bank. Skis dug into the red clay, knocked loose pebbles and sand and sent em up into a tizzy. Slid back in the shallows, net scrapin cross the surface like a dorsal fin.

WOOM. Bicep curl to lift was an unopened coke can hangin by an empty six pack. Tucked the net into the crotch of his pants and cracked that soda open with two taps and a wrist flick. Cool brown liquid spurtin out the lip pourin down his throat fillin up his belly like a slot machine.

Crushed the can on his forehead tossed it back from where it came from. Submerged net in the water looked up and saw they was out in the thick of it. Wake from the sea doo splashin against the banks comin back in his direction, the water boilin round.

WOOM. Tightened his grip hollered out YIPPETY YEE knew it was a big one. Pulled net to face saw it was a hybrid stuffed to the gills with baitfish. Shook out the shad, let go of the handlebars, slid back into a cove passed the buoys passed the docks passed the dingies tied to pylons — that net just a skimmin.

* * *

Larry and Andy wake up in the late afternoon with headaches, so they crack open the bottle of whiskey and take turns taking sips from the jug. Andy unties the rope from the tree trunk and drops the trolling motor down into the water, then picks up his spincast baited with a crankbait and throws it out into the middle of the cove.

At the stern, Larry’s biting off his Carolina rig and tying on a helicopter lure. He casts out to the bank and immediately starts reeling, waiting for a largemouth to lunge at the skirt.

Andy pulls out two cigars from his shirt pocket and passes one to Larry. As the two men unwrap the plastic, they hear a large engine roll over in the woods, followed by the sound of a motor running.

“Now what in the hell could that be?!” Larry asks.

“Beats the hell outta me,” Andy responds, biting down on the cigar in his mouth.

“Cain’t be a chainsaw. Too damn loud. Cain’t be a tree splitter. Don’t hear nothin bein split. Gotta be somethin bigger.”

They crank their reels and listen in, trying to identify the noise coming from the trees and echoing across the lake.

“Could be a drill,” says Andy.

“You mean like a wellin drill?”

“Yup. My great grandmother was a well witcher, and my grandfather had him a drilling business. To me, that sounds about like a drill borin down into the dirt.”

“I’ll be goddamned,” Larry says. “Ain’t you worried about this?!”

“Not really. Sounds to me like somebody’s drillin a well, Larry. Must’ve cut them trees down to clear out the plot.”

Larry shook his head. “Well that’s all fine and dandy if that’s what’s really goin on. But I think there’s somethin else cookin up here. Them boys this mornin at the diner, they had them hard hats with company logos on em. LOWCOUNTRY BRINE. Then on the way to the boat ramp, I could’ve sworn I saw a truck that read INLAND OIL on the side.”

“What in the hell does any of that have to do with well drillin, Larry? Besides, we ain’t even sure that’s what’s makin this noise in the first place!”

“You think if I knew the answer to that question I’d be so shook up?! Somethin just ain’t makin sense here, Andy. And I’m gonna get to the bottom of it.”

Larry reels in his spinnerbait and throws it out again towards the shore.

“Son of a bitch,” he says, seeing that he had overcasted and got his lure hung up in the oak tree’s limbs. “Take us over there Andy, I’ve got a goddamned bird’s nest and my lure’s caught in that there tree.”

* * *

Larry rocked in the wake of an ice cream steamliner with a cane pole baited with a bare rusty hook. Yanked that switch from white cap to hat brim coverin his bases from lake bottom to midriff. Stumblin around the hull in a hissy fit reekin a gas station ceegars and spent corn liquor drippin down his hog jowels with the hot sauce stained on his popped up shirt collar and cuffs.

Waves throwin the skiff around like a buoy in a hurricane, water splashin over starboard with portside dippin down into the backwash. Livewell overflowin with baitfish and lunkers, earthworms already turnt up in the big gulp cupholder. 

That boat a bucket in an open sea, Larry the deranged captain of an aquatic crew.

Upward jerk of the limb and down went the tip - hook in the lip, gills, fin or gut. Wrapped his hand round the line and got to pullin. Fish spun the vessel round and ran to deep water, captain knee-deep in cats and crickets crawlin up his backside bowed legs fiddlin in a squawk and a gulp.

Larry’s back bent like the stick of a well witcher pullin up that lunker from deep in the ground. Veins on a receding hairline bulging and a spine cracking from butt bone to cerebellum. Sweat runnin down his temples all the way down his heels. Eyes poppin out their sockets like a bullfrog stuck in a vacuum cleaner hose.

Line runs from under the boat out into the depths. Fish surfaces and sees the prize: a 100 pound largemouth with lips the size of an inner tube.

WELL TEXAS RIG, GUACA MOLLY, HOLY JEEBLES, LAP IT UP! came out the angler’s belly up his throat and through his lips. Sat the pole down in the crank and pully and reeled him on in.

Got em to the boat and saw he was gonna need a net. Threw open the stowage, sifted through the ropes and the tools. Found the casting net and threw it out on the bass. Tied it to the stern, fired up the big one and cruised on in.

* * *

After the sun sinks down into the trees, Larry and Andy decide to try their luck at night fishing. They mount flashlights around the hull of the boat to lure in the fish, and tie circle hooks onto their lines baited with dead shad bought from the tackle shop. Larry has a moon pie in one hand while he steadies his rod with the other. Andy’s pole is in a holder while he empties a bag of pork rinds.

“Andy,” Larry says. “Where’s this water come from?”

“This water here,” Andy answers, “is just runoff.”

“Runoff? From where?”

“Just about everywhere,” Andy responds with a laugh.

“You tellin me this swamp is a retention pond?”

“Well yeah, Larry. What’d you think it was? You know there ain’t no natural lakes around here.”

“Course I know that. I just assumed y’all dammed up a creek. Diverted a spring. Hell I don’t know.”

Andy was chuckling again.

“That’s why we ain’t catchin nothin! Shit, Andy. You stock this pond?”

“Uncle Delment used to. We used to catch a lot of fish. Catfish, brim, carp. Largemouth, spot, bluegill. Gar -”

The two men hear something rustling in the bushes on the shore. Andy picks up one of the flashlights and surveys the bank.

Perched up on a low-hanging branch is a turkey buzzard, staring right at them.

“Well would ya take a look at that,” Andy says.

Larry says nothing. He’s thinking about the drain ditches that line the highways.

They hear another sound up in the cypress trees behind them. Andy shines the light in that direction.

“Well I’ll be. Another goddamned turkey buzzard.”

He points the lantern down to the surface of the water and sees that the stumpheads are crawling with turkey buzzards.

Andy stares into the eyes of the birds. Larry’s thinking about the drainage pipes at the poultry plant that empties out into a creek that runs behind the parking lot.

Andy picks up another flashlight and scans the shoreline. Sure enough, there are dozens of turkey buzzards all along the banks. They’re down in the mud and up in the trees. He stands up and hollers at the birds.

“What in the hell you turkeys doin?!”

While Andy’s voice echoes across the swamp, Larry hears a gurgling noise beside the boat. He looks down and sees that the surface of the pond is bubbling beneath them. He sits his rod down in the holder and reaches down into the water.

“Andy,” Larry says calmly. “Shine your light down here.”

The two men watch as the oil bubbles up to the surface, leaving a shimmering film from where the boat is anchored for as far as they can see.

It was then that the turkey buzzards descended.