Appalachian Galapagos Read online

  APPALACHIAN GALAPAGOS

  By Weston Ochse & David Whitman

  Crossroad Press Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Copyright 2011 - Weston Ochse & David Whitman

  Cover design by David Dodd

  Part of cover courtesy of:

  http://moon-willowstock.deviantart.com/

  LICENSE NOTES:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Except for historical personages and events, all subject matter is a product of the imagination of the author. Any resemblances to living persons are unintentional and coincidental.

  ALSO FROM WESTON OCHSE, DAVID WHITMAN

  & CROSSROAD PRESS

  COLLECTIONS:

  Scary Rednecks & Other Inbred Horrors

  NOVELLA

  Butterfly Winter

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  Dedication

  To Banjo Boy and his one forever moment of fame.

  And to The Cabal for their friendship and inspiration.

  Foreword

  What the hell's wrong with the liberals these days?

  Is there no verity at all in their philosophies?

  Hypocrites, I say—all of 'em.

  Why? Because they're not bellyaching about the work of Weston Ochse and David Whitman in particular—and the Redneck Horror sub-genre in general. Don't worry. Though I'll freely admit that the following intro is, shall we say, Corona Light-inspired (correction, Corona Light NFL—that's No Fuckin' Lime), I won't drag you through some inebriated rant about modern conservative ideology. I just wanna know why folks like the American Civil Liberties Union, Tipper Gore, and the APCF (that's American Political Correctness Foundation) aren't burning effigies of the purveyors of Redneck Horror, especially Whitman and Ochse.

  I don't know about you, but I want to piss these libs off. Not because I have much of a problem with the notion of Political Correctness (I only have a problem when such notions bleed into other proactive principles that preach censorship and affront freedom of speech), no, my problem is simply the hypocrisy. Why don't the liberals walk it like they talk it? They invented this whole PC-thing, and by now it's insinuated itself quite solidly into our wonderful society.

  Good job.

  For instance, I don't think it's free speech to use the N-Word. Instead, it's ignorant. It's a demonstration of fuckin' incivility, and I'd like to think that the American culture is comprised of more than just a bunch of fuckin' morally bankrupt, indecorous, unsophisticated morons. No, that ain't us—at least I hope it's not.

  All right, I'm rambling, I'm off track. I'm not getting to the point. (This happens to me on occasion, especially with an abdominal vault full of Corona Light NFL; I just got back from a Free Beer party at my local watering hole. Ask me if I'm sober.) What I'm bitching about is the deviously deselective nature of overall PC Thought. From their long list of inclusions, they've excluded one particular group.

  Rednecks.

  Rednecks are people too, right? And they should be afforded the same level of respect that's granted to every other ethnic, regional, or cultural group. I mean...right? Why haven't the libs created a PC-friendly name for Rednecks? What is the cause of this rude and outrageously hypocritical oversight? Why, I ask you, isn't the name of this book APPALACHIAN GALAPAGOS: A Scary Educationally-Challenged Rural Indigenite Collection? How come the libs aren't having grand mal seizures over the way horror writers treat this genus of human being? How come they aren't insisting that guys like Ochse and Whitman come up with an appropriate label for 'necks? Like Americanus Whitetrashus, or Boondocks Endemics?

  Hmm?

  I'll tell you why? Because nobody gives a flying dump about respecting Rednecks, and—to be honest—neither do I. I suppose, given the tenor of my intro thus far, that that makes me a hypocrite, too. Fine.

  My point, ultimately? Thank GOD we still have Rednecks to stereotype. It's friggin' FUN. Jesus Christ, these people hump sheep and blow their noses in their hands.

  We need 'em.

  I need 'em.

  Without these hayseeds, these corn-holin' Petticoat Junction misfits, these veritable crackers, there'd be no one left to exploit. They deserve it anyway, don't they? After what those dirty sons of bitches did to Ned Beatty? You bet your overalls.

  All right, I'm getting sober now. Time for me to grow up and write something intelligent. Lately, some critics may insist that I've lost—or never possessed—such a capability, but I'll sure try. One reason why Ochse and Whitman are high on my list of favorite horror writers is the uniqueness they bring to the field. This collection exemplifies that uniqueness, and the most important example, I think, is this writing duo's diversity. What successful fiction must always do above all else—above its potential relativity, above its meaning—is entertain. Everything else is secondary, be the fiction aesthetic literature, or be it escapism.

  In GALAPAGOS, Whitman and Ochse go to great effort to meet this prerequisite. There's no sameness here—something that seems to make story collections wearisome. These guys engage the reader with a variety of styles, themes, and structures, a clever web through which their ability to entertain shines.

  You ain't gonna get bored.

  They tackle their concepts from numerous angles, sometimes with outrageous humor, sometimes with allegory or fable, sometimes with subtle psychological darkness or kick-your-ass-down-the-fuckin'-street-bust-your-chops horror. You want laughs? You got it. You want gross-out? Here's a bucket. You want subtext, rites of passage, spiritual overtones and philosophical symbology?

  Check.

  Check.

  And Check.

  There's even fundamental Darwinism.

  In one way or another, it's all here, and that's not just entertainment, that's exceptional entertainment.

  This is a very successful collection of fiction that's unlike anything else being done today, perhaps the most successful collection of the year. Take my word for it. Of course, this is kind of a continuation of their previous collection SCARY REDNECKS AND OTHER INBRED HORRORS, and you know what they say about tough acts to follow. It made me think of this great maxim they had when I was in the Army: "Never write a check with your mouth that you can't cash with your ass." Well, I'm happy to report that there are no bad checks in this batch. And I'm enthused—terribly enthused—by what this latest effort must portend for the future of these two writers, and that's the truth.

  Hmm. Truth. Well, I did lie about one thing. I wasn't really drunk when I wrote this intro. I was hungover. The Free Beer party was yesterday. Christ, and after all this talk of Rednecks, you know what I need right now?

  Forget the Corona Light NFL—I need a jug of 'shine and a bag of Red Man.

  —Edward Lee

  author of CITY INFERNAL and MONSTROSITY

  Introduction

  Excerpt from a Speech by Professor Elvis G. Giddy on Survival of the Fittest

  So here I am at the University of Appalachia asked to speak on Evolution.

  …asked to speak about God.

  …about survival of the fit
test and the rheumy ruminations of a certain Mr. Charles Darwin who has been causing such an uproar for the past few years.

  I must admire y'all's intelligence by choosing me to address you. After all, my PHD is in Logical Reasoning and not in any of that hocus pocus religion non-science or that mumbo jumbo Darwinistic non-science.

  I am merely an arbitrator of thought.

  I am a descrambler of puzzles.

  You've heard of actuaries?

  I am a factuary.

  You've heard of an apothecary?

  I am a hypothecary.

  There isn't a fact I cannot subvert nor a lie I cannot wring the truth from.

  Now, before you start thinking I'm no better than one of them fellows on the street corner selling a couple hits of well-being and before you start thinking that I gladly lie to prove a point, let me tell you this—

  Facts are thought to be as sacrosanct as they are, merely because people have yet to disprove them. Since the last time I checked, the world and a pancake are geometrically different, therefore it seems that facts tend to have their own sort of evolution as they are born, grow and then die.

  Let us not forget about faith, however.

  Faith is the entire reason I am here today.

  Faith has killed millions with its power of obfuscation.

  Faith, that silly thing without a definition that allows one person to believe in the Bible and the other to believe in Mad Magazine, each person with such ungracious hospitality they would kill one for reading the other.

  Faith, which like facts, can be changed by the natural inequities of human tampering resulting in the perfection of a Kipling Conundrum.

  So, my partners, my co-conspirators in this great sham we call Blind Faith, consider me to be nothing more than the person who sits inside your skull and asks the eternal Big 3...

  ...What?

  ...How?

  ...Why?

  Think of me as a rather large, un-green Jiminy Cricket who can advise you as only your conscience can. Most importantly, think of me by my own true name—I am Professor Elvis G. Giddy and I thank you for your invitation to speak.

  The question is, when this is all done, will you return that thanks? Or will you string me up on a pole?

  You know, it's a strange irony receiving this invitation as I did. Me and my Eugenia Joe were sitting upon the porch drinking some of our Kudzu Sun Teas when the mailman came and delivered the invitation. Seems that some of you here felt the need for me to speak upon such a tense and uneasy topic. Someone believed that I was a person to speak and elucidate without truly unleashing the inherent devastation Darwinistic dictums tend to trend.

  Of course, the fact that the University of Appalachia is the one who wants to discuss Darwinism is the actual irony. Appalachia, a region stretching from the north of Maine to the south of Georgia. A band of mountains that truly shows no political, regional or social affiliation. Really it's nothing more than a geological formation—just a long ridge of fairly mediocre mountains that do nothing more than break up the monotony of driving across the rolling woodlands of the Eastern United States by offering a few vistas and a few interesting folks to meet.

  Which interestingly enough is what sailors once thought about the Galapagos Islands.

  Tell me if anything sounds familiar here…

  The Galapagos Islands...

  Small

  no, tiny

  out of the way

  unimportant

  something easily overlooked in the grand scope of things.

  A group of islands that truly shows no political, regional or social affiliation. Really it's nothing more than a geological formation. As many would say, merely a group of fairly small islands that did nothing more than break up the virtually never-ending monotony of the Pacific Ocean before the sailors could feast upon the sights, sounds and sirens of South America. All these islands had to offer was some nuts, some berries and a few strange animals.

  The major difference between the two, I suppose, is that Mr. Darwin never traveled to Appalachia. As far as I know, he never even heard of it. But, and this we do know, he did travel to the Galapagos and here are the facts. Darwin traveled there aboard the HMS Beagle in the year 1835 and the divergence of species that he observed in those isolated islands helped set him on the path to the theory of evolution.

  Darwin's observations of these unique animals, their remarkable adaptation to a hostile environment, and the subtle variations between races of the same species living on different islands led directly to his theory of natural selection; and it is with this theory that he explains how the vast multitude of species on the Earth have evolved from a simple, singled-celled ancestors.

  So, what might he have thought of the cultural and physical divergences found within Appalachia?

  Did the vast multitude of species in America evolve from that simple low organism called the Redneck?

  Or are we entirely discounting this heretical theory and embracing the words of God's anointed?

  The Jesus people say that all Darwinists are Hell-bound and insane. 'After all,' they say, 'Adam wasn't a chimp and Eve most certainly wasn't an orangutan.' In that, I tend to agree, for unlike Darwin, I haven't lost my religion and the belief that the mother of my species was the second cousin to one of Clint Eastwood's co-stars is just plain too much for a simple man like me to handle.

  And yes, you heard me right. Darwin lost his religion. Once devout, he was unable to make room for God in his self-created cosmos. According to Dawkins, in his book The Selfish Gene, Darwin said later in life—'I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the digger wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars.'

  I suppose he has a point.

  So who was it who created the man with no-legs who propels himself from place to place upon a cheap skateboard, knuckles bruised, soul wounded, despised by the whole?

  Who was it who created the babbling woman who spits on cars because they refuse to answer the riddles of life?

  Who was it who created a father who would rather use the scarred back of his favorite son to put out his cigarette rather than the plastic ashtray he stole from the local fast food restaurant?

  Is evolution merely a scapegoat we created so we wouldn't get pissed off at this whole divine tragic comedy?

  I say if God has a problem with this whole Darwin thing, he should just make it go away. That'll solve the whole she-bang, as long as that action by God doesn't prove that whole pesky survival of the fittest theorem. That one might hurt.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Preface:Excerpt from a Speech given by Professor Elvis G. Giddy on Survival of the Fittest – Edward Lee

  Origin of A Species

  or

  Up Shit's Creek With A Case of Beer and No Fucking Paddles

  Weston Ochse and David Whitman

  Pitfighter Serenade

  Weston Ochse

  With Quiet Violence

  (Originally published in The Edge, 2000)

  David Whitman

  The Winnowing

  Weston Ochse

  Killin' Lenny

  David Whitman

  The Smell of Leaves Burning in Winter

  Weston Ochse

  Beautiful Ugly

  (Originally published in Electric Wine, 2000)

  David Whitman

  The Rememory Man

  Weston Ochse

  Who Watches the Watcher

  (Originally published in Sinister Element, 1998)

  David Whitman

  The Qualities of Mercy

  (Originally published in Primordial Magazine, 1999)

  Weston Ochse

  Degeneration

  David Whitman

  Eli's Coming

  Weston Ochse

  We've Only Just Begun

  David Whitman

  Summer Planting

  (Originally published in Si
nister Element 1998)

  Weston Ochse

  Flying Through Heavens With Beer In Hand

  David Whitman

  Origin Of A Species

  or better known as

  (Up Shit's Creek With A Case of

  Beer and No Fucking Paddles)

  Chapter 1:

  Bradbury...Bewitched...Mullets...Darwin...Stupid Is As Stupid Does...WWF Free For All...Chimneys and Easter Bunnies...Goldilocks and Picky Bears

  Frank stared out upon the green, easy river, wondering why he had ever returned.

  Many years had passed since he'd even thought of the Hiawasee much less rafted upon it. Yet now, confronted with the perfect mnemonic of the real thing, a memory that he had successfully forgotten resurfaced like a rotting catfish.

  Memories of a Dandelion Wine summer, a boy scout canoe trip, marshmallow roasting and ghost stories around a campfire, the frivolity of adolescence and his best friend dead...half-eaten.

  Bloody lacerations mixed with the unmistakable reality of teeth-marks.

  Ragged spaces where organs and limbs had once called home.

  Strips of flesh and ligaments that looked too much like red yarn dangling from a body which had been wedged in the crux of an oak.

  And within the congealing mess beneath it all, within a pool of green, gray and red body fluids, was a lone handprint.

  Unmistakable.

  Out of place.

  And impossibly huge.

  "Hey Frank! Stop your dreamin' and give me a hand!"