Appalachian Galapagos Read online

  Frank spun just in time to get a twelve pack in the chest, the impact sending him teetering along the edge of the crumbly clay shore. Fighting to maintain his balance, he glanced fearfully at the muddy, rushing water below.

  At the last second, he was yanked to safety. In Jimmy's stoned stare, he saw his own fear reflected from the mirror sheen of too much weed. He needed to get a hold of himself.

  "Thanks, man," Frank said.

  He grinned as he noticed he had somehow managed to hang on to the beer.

  "Thanks nothin'. I was more worried about the beer than your big city ass."

  Jimmy turned and swayed back to the pickup where he continued unloading. Frank sat his load of beer down onto the ever-growing pile of supplies and wiped the sweat from his forehead, watching his friend. Jimmy had put on a little weight, but he still looked basically the same—a giant bear of a man, his thick beard fell against a barrel chest.

  Frank returned his gaze to the river. The strangeness of returning to the place where he had grown up was anachronistic. He should feel at home. Even now, as he watched his old friends, he could almost believe that he had never left. Almost. Even though the boys had treated him like he had just been on a long vacation, it was still different. He saw things differently. And it wasn't just his perception. He was different. Frank was a product of his own environment and for years now, his environment had not been within the Smokey Mountains of Eastern Tennessee.

  And he wasn't sure he liked himself for it.

  Like when they had picked him up from the Holiday Inn. He had been standing in front of the entrance in his waterproof Hi-Tec boots, brown cotton Duckheads, and an L.L. Bean jacket when he had heard his friends approach. They must have been a block away, but David Allan Coe singing X-rated country music preceded them like a redneck siren, a soundtrack to their beer-drenched lives. As Frank waited for them with a nostalgic smile, he realized just how damn much he missed them.

  An old Ford pickup, bondo and rust-colored paint holding the rattling mass of Detroit metal together, skidded to a stop underneath the green and yellow awning. Frank's smile evolved into a grin as he realized that it was the exact same truck he remembered partying in when he was a kid. The same truck that he had shown Renee' what his thingy was used for. The same truck he had driven pell mell through the tall trees of a Jacob Mountain pine nursery, three dead deer in the back and a sheriff hot on his trail. The same truck he had called his second home throughout his teen years.

  Right up until the truck pulled up, Frank had been standing next to a tight young Asian girl who had been giving him a definite fuck me stare while waiting for a cab. But as Jimmy and Lukas fell out of the truck in an avalanche of empty Budweisers and man giggles he could feel her heat turn frosty. The friendly hugs and kisses of his best friends made it even more difficult to explain, but he was home again and that's all that mattered.

  Yeah, he was home.

  Jimmy walked up beside him, studied the angry rapids, and nodded before cracking open his can of beer. "Hell yeah, let's do this!"

  Lukas was already pulling the aluminum bass boat from the back of his truck. His black hair whipped behind him as he worked. It was a haircut that went out of style in the late 1980s. They called it a mullet—short on the sides and top, long in the back like a tail. Only professional wrestlers, porn stars, and country singers seemed to wear the style now.

  And of course, Lukas.

  "You're goddamn, right. The river ain't never goin' to get any better than this."

  Frank watched his friends for a brief moment, smiling softly at their little kid-like excitement, and let his eyes drift slowly to the rushing water of the river. Normally, the Hiawasee was pretty tame with families floating languidly down the center on rented rafts and inner tubes, or old men fishing along the edge for the elusive southern trout. The rains had been cascading for a week, however, and now the laziness of the creek had turned hyperactive, the water hurling by like a jet, the mist from the churning rapids sending his blond hair whipping around his head.

  Frank took a long look at the aluminum bass boat and the mound of beer and sleeping bags and beer and food and fishing supplies and beer and knew that what they were going to do was stupid. In fact, it bordered upon the retarded.

  He turned as he heard Lukas giggle and watched Jimmy push at his own belly button through his shirt, a big smile underneath his furry mustache, bobbing his head up and down in innocent joy. Frank grinned and glanced over at Lukas who was jerking out yet another case of beer from the back of the truck. The feeling of belonging was in a slamfest with his real desire not to do what he was about to do.

  "Ever see the Darwin awards?" Frank asked. The river blasted air and mist behind him.

  Lukas' eyes crossed and uncrossed several times.

  "It's a list of morons that comes out every year."

  Lukas cracked open a beer and threw one to Jimmy. "We ain't morons. They live over in Hixon and are nuthin' but a bunch of married cousins."

  Jimmy punched Lukas in the chest and both of them cracked up in drunken laughter. It was several seconds before they straightened and noticed Frank's dull Not Funny stare.

  "So what are the Darin awards?" Jimmy asked. "Is that for best husband on Bewitched?"

  "I like Dick York, myself," Lukas said.

  "I bet you do, ya old fag."

  "I ain't no fag. I just got good taste. And speakin' of taste, ain't you the one who has had a crush on Barbara Eden all these years. Shit, I bet you're the only one who has ever rented Harper Valley PTA from the Blockbuster store. Hell, Frank. The dumb bastard could have owned it ten times over the number of times he rented the damn movie."

  "What? You don't like I Dream of Genie? You actually tryin' to say Genie ain't hot? And you call yerself a man of taste?"

  "Listen. One on one, in a Texas Cage Match, I'd take that Bewitched lady any day. All she'd need to do is jerk her head and POOF, Genie's in a straight jacket hanging upside down pretendin' not to be a piñata. Can't cast her spells if she can't move her arms."

  "And Elizabeth Montgomery wouldn't be even able to cast a spell once Barbara got her in a headlock."

  "Fool, all Elizabeth's gotta do is be able to wrinkle her nose. I don't think a headlock is gonna stop the witch from a nose-wrinkle move. Genie's fucked if she don't slap the witch in the face but quick and maybe break it."

  This time their laughter carried them to the fern-covered forest floor and their howls mixed with the sound of the raging river. They wrestled, each trying to punch and kick the other until they finally wobbled to their feet, beer and mud coating their clothes.

  Frank grabbed a beer. Instead of joining his friends in their Budweiser-soaked excitement, he cleared off the top of the cooler, sat down, and watched. He couldn't help but laugh at the childish delight exhibited by his friends. They were absolutely nothing like his associates in the fast and deadly world of big city business.

  And he was thankful for that.

  "All right. All right," Jimmy said, still breathing hard from his impromptu WWF audition with Lukas. "We're just funnin'. What's up with the Darwin Awards? What's your point?"

  "My point is," Frank said with a sigh, "is that these morons are put on this list because they kill themselves in moronic ways. Some stick their heads through storm drains to get a quarter they dropped and end up getting drowned. Some pull down soda machines on themselves trying to steal a Pepsi. Some get stuck in chimneys trying to play Santa Claus and get roasted. Hey, the point is that most people find this list funny."

  "Only a sick, city dwellin' fuck like you would find a list like that funny, Frank," Lukas said. "People dyin' ain't funny."

  "Don't listen to Frank, Lukas," Jimmy said. "He's always ramblin' on about strange shit. You should hear him after a couple more beers. He just gets fuckin' weirder and wierder. I think it's all that culture he's been gettin' watchin' the Discovery Channel and that homo-Australian Snake Handler. Besides, who the hell is Darwin to be judgin' ev
eryone?"

  "He's the one said we came from monkeys," Lukas said, his voice almost scholarly.

  "You callin' my mother a monkey, Frank? Is that what yer doin'?

  "A freakin' Chimpanzee! Even better, King Kong was yer daddy!"

  Jimmy sneered, either too tired or too stoned to kick the shit out of Lukas.

  "For fuck's sake. Calm down. Nothing like that at all. Charles Darwin was a scientist who hypothesized...made a guess...that there was no way that the Bible was totally accurate. He believed that we were like apes once. Over the years, we're talking millions here, those apes changed and became human."

  "And you believe that nonsense? I learned different. Hell, we was even in the same high school, Frank. You and I both know that Mr. Murray taught us that Adam and Eve was the first man and woman. Even though I didn't pay attention all the time, I know he never said anything about monkeys."

  As Lukas broke into a sad refrain of The Monkees trademark song, Frank shook his head. Had he changed that much? If the fallacies of creationism were too difficult for his old friends to grasp, he wasn't even going to attempt to explain their seventh grade curriculum where the Civil War was discussed at length as The War of Northern Aggression.

  "All right. Let's just say that most of the world agrees with Mr. Darwin and the awards are given for those who end up drowning in the shallow end of the gene pool."

  Blank stares.

  "All right, let's just say that some dude gave out awards for people acting stupid."

  "Well hell, why didn't you say that in the first place."

  "Yeah, Frank. You know you don't need to impress us," Lukas said. "It's not that we're stupid, understand, but we've been smokin' and drinkin' like crazy since we found out you were comin' down. Gets us in the mood to wax nostalgic, ya know what I'm sayin'?"

  Frank downed his beer, fought the urge to shake his head once again, and shrugged the international I'm Sorry.

  "You know," Lukas said. "My uncle got stuck in a chimney once. Didn't find him until winter. My Aunt thought he had run off with some woman. It was weird how she was so happy when we found him."

  "I heard once about this guy who saw a six point buck up in Jacob. You know that cliff back behind the fairgrounds? Well, he got it through the neck with his 30.06, and then stood there as the huge thing fell on top of him."

  "Yes! That's the kind of stupid shit I am talking about."

  "You callin' my uncle stupid?"

  "He was stupid, Lukas. All dressed up in an Easter Bunny outfit. Easter Bunnies don't come down chimneys."

  "He was tryin' to sneak in," said Lukas, his mumble barely heard.

  "I can see the Darwin Awards getting handed out next year," Frank continued, ignoring his friends, his voice loud in an attempt to be heard over the raging Hiawasee. "A group of Tennessee rednecks decide to get out their bass boat, up shit's creek with a case of beer and..."

  "...and no fuckin' paddles," Jimmy interjected, beer exploding from his nose.

  Frank nodded. "A case of beer and no fucking paddles. They decide to take this creaky ass boat and put it in their local creek which winds into the mountains like a snake, each corner more dangerous than the next. The Devil's Shoals. Satan's Dip. Widow's Corner. A bad rain has made the creek into a furious monster of water, and these fools decide to go white water rafting in the Hiawasee. Their bodies were found days later, being munched on by a family of bears."

  "Like in Goldilocks," Lukas said. "And Darwin, he says, after interviewin' the bears, they apologized for their eatin' so messy like. The problem was they was tryin' to find the perfect one and they was either too cold or too warm. It wasn't until they ate the city boy that it all tasted good."

  Jimmy and Lukas sat down hard, their laughter making them choke. Long moments passed before they were able to return to their own version of normality. Frank was frowning, but you could tell he really wanted to smile.

  "You done?"

  Lukas nodded and grabbed a beer.

  "Yep."

  "Good, help me carry this boat to the shore. My back hasn't been the same since our little rock climbing expedition three years ago. My back still hurts and I had to wear that cast for four months. When a subway rattles by, I can feel it straight through my spine."

  "Fun as hell though, right? You felt more alive than ever? Come on, Frank. You have to take some risks, man. It's the risks that separate us from the animals. Better to be dead than a coward, you know?"

  "Okay. Okay. It was fun," Frank said, grabbing his end of the boat. "But I can't keep from thinking of that Clint Eastwood film The Outlaw Josey Wales. This bounty hunter says to him, 'I aim to kill you. Bounty Huntin' is what I do for a living.' Then Clint says, 'Dyin' ain't much of a living, boy.'"

  Jimmy laughed, his belly shaking like a mound of lumpy mashed potatoes during an earthquake.

  "I love that movie. I like the ones with the monkeys better, though. It's fuckin' amazin' what they get them monkeys to do. What the hell are they called?"

  "You gotta be fucking kidding me, Jimmy. You like Clint Eastwood's monkey movies more than you like Josey Wales? My God, man, I don't even know what the hell to say. Why don't they just put a fucking monkey in every movie, that way you'll be sure to enjoy it?"

  Jimmy nodded. "Actually, that ain't a bad idea. If you think about it, you can't go wrong if you put a monkey in your movie. Things is always more entertainin'." Jimmy kept his voice dry, but Frank knew that his friend was merely playing it up. "Clint Eastwood is cool and all, but if you put a monkey with him, he's even cooler."

  "Clint is the fuckin' man," Lukas said. Then his eyes widened considerably and he ran towards the truck. "Jesus, I almost forgot it!"

  Frank glanced over at Jimmy, cocking an eyebrow.

  "Watch this," Jimmy said.

  Frank was reminded of a redneck joke that he had heard as he observed his friend scampering back to the truck. It was said that anytime you heard a redneck say, Watch this, chances were you'd never see him alive again.

  Lukas returned with a large, bizarre stick clutched in his fist. More than a stick, it was a staff about six feet long. Instead of wood, however, it seemed as if someone had stacked about a dozen Budweiser cans on end and then welded them together. At the very top end of the stick, like a large diamond-encrusted jewel, sat a broken bottle, wickedly embedded. Just below this, hanging upon thick wires, were a dozen bottle caps falling like fringe and jingling as Lukas moved.

  "What the fuck is that?" Frank asked, wondering if his friends had finally degenerated into the insane, nose-picking country bumpkins the rest of the world believed them to be.

  "This here is the Bitch-Be-Quick Stick," Lukas proclaimed, placing the staff in the boat as if it were made of glass. "My cousin Judd gave it to me for Christmas. Says it's good luck. Helped him out of a jam once."

  "That the same cousin that got bit in the dick by a rattlesnake?" Frank asked.

  "Yep," Lukas said.

  Frank sighed and climbed into the boat. "Oh wonderful."

  Chapter 2:

  Wet Dog…Noah's Acid Trip...Chimney Sweep...Banjo Boy…B-Movie Titties...Kung Fu Fighting...Brother Siskel and Cousin Ebert…McGyver...Sissy Boy Screams...Suicide Serenade

  Frank's throat felt scoured. All the screaming he had done in the last ten minutes had burned his trachea raw. Barely able to control his hyperventilation, he inhaled the fresh, clean air in deep adrenaline-filled gasps. Reaching down into the two feet of water in the bottom of the boat, he grabbed a beer can as it bobbed by. His hands still shaking, it took three tries for him to open it. Seven seconds later, he hurled the empty can into the slow water they were now floating gently in and leaned against the back of the boat.

  "This has got to be the stupidest thing I have ever done," Frank said to no one in particular.

  Lukas and Jimmy were inhaling beers of their own, the wildness of the ride still flashing through their eyes. Their cheeks were flushed like little boys who'd been caught spying their first brea
st. Their hair hung in lank ropes covering their eyes, like a sheep dog after a shower. Water dripped from Jimmy's beard.

  They finished their own beers at the same time, tossed the empties over the side, and grabbed another. They took their time with these, casting wild-eyed glares back towards the insanity they had somehow lived through.

  Frank was as drenched as his friends were and couldn't help but feel he had just been through the spin cycle of God's great washing machine. At least now, no one would notice he had pissed his pants in their ride through the Devil's Shoals.

  Besides the occasional caw of a crow and the constant undertone of cicadas, the sound of water dripping was all he could hear. The rush of the rapids had disappeared around the last bend and was muffled by the half gallon of water that had surely entered each and every one of his orifices. He slammed the heel of his hand against his ears in an attempt to dislodge the water.

  "What the fuck were we thinkin'?" Lukas asked, pushing his mop of dripping hair back against his head. "And who's the asshole that came up with this insane idea? No one runs a river after forty days and nights of rain. I feel like Noah on acid."

  "And the beers went two by two," Frank said.

  Jimmy and Lukas craned their necks and stared back at him. Frank answered their stare with one of his own, finally crossing his eyes and opening another beer.

  "Never mind," he said.

  "Man, the city made you ignorant," Jimmy said.

  Instead of replying, Frank's gaze went to the right-hand bank. He had noticed movement, and sure enough, there was a man, clad all in black, standing on the side of the river. He was unusually tall. A top hat rested on his head. Shaggy white hair fluttered around the sides of his face. Leaning on a thick gnarled cane, he appeared to be studying Frank and his friends, his upper lip rising beneath his Van Dyke mustache. Even from a distance, the man's eyes could be seen enlarged through the thick spectacles that rested upon the crook of his large patrician nose.

  "How you doing, my friend?" Frank shouted towards the shore as Lukas and Jimmy finally noticed the man. "Need a hand? Want me to throw you a beer?"