Yes’m, I know. I got th’ stuff tested later, after it was all over. Chemist said th’ closest thang he’d ever seen to’t was somethin’ he called Aquia Reqa or somethin’ like—kind’ve a mix a’ all kinda acids together, real nasty stuff, etches glass an’ everthang.
Anyhow, I reckon gettin’ fed an’ then sickin’ it all back up agin jest made the poor critter ’bout half crazy bein’ hungry. But next I know, Thang’s took off like a shot, a headin’ fer one’a my chickens!
Well, he caught it, an he ate it down, beak an’ feathers, an’ he sicked it right back up agin’ ’fore I could stop ’im.
That made me hot all over agin’. Some dang idjut makes a mess’a my hayfield, then this Thang makes messes all over m’yard, an’ then it eats one’a my chickens. Now I’m a soft man, but there’s one thing I don’t stand for, an’ that’s critters messin’ with the stock. I won’t have no dog that runs cows, sucks eggs, or kills chickens. So I just grabbed me the first thang that I could and I went after that Thang t’lay inta him good. Happens it was a shovel, an’ I whanged him a good one right upside th’ haid ’fore he’d even finished bein’ sick. Well, it seemed t’hurt him ’bout as much as a rolled-up paper’ll hurt a pup, so I kept whangin’ him an’ he kept cowerin’ an’ whimperin’ an’ then he grabbed the shovel, the metal end.
An’ he ate it.
He didn’t sick that up, neither.
Well, we looked at each other, an’ he kinda wagged his tails, an’ I kinda forgave ’im, an’ we went lookin’ fer some more stuff he could eat.
I tell you, I was a pretty happy man ’fore the day was over. I reckoned I had me th’ answer to one of m’bills. See, I c’n compost ’bout ev’thang organic, an’ I can turn them aluminum cans in, but the rest of th’ trash I gotta pay for pickup, an’ on a farm, they’s a lot of it what they call hazardous, an’ thats extra. What? Oh, you know, barrels what had chemicals in ’em, bug-killer, weed-killer, fertilizer. That an’ there’s just junk that kinda accumulates. An’ people are always dumpin’ their dang old cars out here, like they dump their dang dogs. Lotsa trash that I cain’t get rid of an’ gotta pay someone t’haul.
But ol’ Thang, he just ate it right up. Plastic an’ metal, yes’m, that was what he et. Didn’ matter how nasty, neither. Fed ’im them chemical barrels, fed ’im ol’ spray-paint cans, fed ’im th’ cans from chargin’ the air-conditioner, he just kept waggin’ his tails an’ lookin’ fer more. That’s how he come t’ chew on my Chevy; I was lookin’ fer somethin’ else t’feed him, an’ he started chawin’ on the bumpers. Look, see them teethmarks? Yes’m, he had him one good set of choppers all right. Naw, I never took thought t’be afraid of him, he was just a big puppy.
Well, like I said, by sundown I was one happy man. I figgered I not only had my trash problem licked, I could purt-near take care of the whole dang county. You know how much them fellers get t’take care’a hazardous waste? Heckfire, all I had t’do was feed it t’ol’ Thang, an’ what came out ’tother end looked pretty much like ash. I had me a goldmine, that’s how I figgered.
Yeah, I tied ol’ Thang up with what was left of a couch t’chew on an’ a happy grin on his ugly face, an’ I went t’sleep with m’accountin’ program dancin’ magic numbers an m’head.
An’ I woke up with a big, bright light in m’eyes, an’ not able t’move. I kinda passed out, an’ when I came to, Thang was gone, an’ all that was left was the leash an’ collar. All I can figger is that whoever messed up m’hayfield was havin’ a picnic or somethin’ an’ left their doggie by accident. But I reckon they figger I took pretty good care of ’im, since I ’spect he weighed ’bout forty, fifty pounds more when they got ’im back.
But I ’spose it ain’t all bad. I gotta friend got a plane, an’ he’s been chargin’ a hunnert bucks t’take people over th’ field, an’ splittin’ it with me after he pays fer the gas. And folks that comes by here, well, I tell ’em, the story, they get kinda excited an. . . .
What ma’am? Pictures? Samples? Well sure. It’ll cost you fifty bucks fer a sample’a where Thang got sick, an’ seventy-five fer a picture of the bumper of my Chevy.
Why ma’am, what made you thank Okies was dumb?
Small Print
Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon
This story appeared in Deals With The Devil, edited by Mike Resnick. Larry and I live near Tulsa, Oklahoma, home of Oral Roberts University and widely termed “The Buckle of the Bible Belt.” We have more televangelists per square mile here in this part of the country than I really care to think about. Maybe somebody out there will figure out how to spray for them.
Lester Parker checked the lock on the door of his cheap motel room for the fifth time; once again, it held. He checked the drapes where he had clothes-pinned them together; there were no cracks or gaps. He couldn’t afford to be careless, couldn’t possibly be too careful. If anyone from any of the local churches saw him—
He’d picked this motel because he knew it, frequented it when he had “personal business,” and knew that for an extra ten bucks left on the bed, the room would be cleaned completely with no awkward questions asked. Like, was that blood on the carpet, or, why was there black candlewax on the bureau? Although he hadn’t checked in under his own name, he couldn’t afford awkward questions the next time he returned. They knew his face, even if they didn’t know his name.
Unless, of course, this actually worked. Then it wouldn’t matter. Such little irregularities would be taken care of.
His hands trembled with excitement as he opened his briefcase on the bed and removed the two sets of papers from it. One set was handwritten, in fading pen on yellowed paper torn from an old spiral-bound notebook. These pages were encased in plastic page-protectors to preserve them. The other was a brand-new contract, carefully typed and carefully checked.
He had obtained—been given—the first set of papers less than a week ago, here in this very motel.
He’d just completed a little “soul-searching” with Honey Butter, one of the strippers down at Lady G’s and a girl he’d “counseled” plenty of times before. He’d been making sure that he had left nothing incriminating behind—it had become habit—when there was a knock on the door.
Reflexively he’d opened it, only realizing when he had it partly open just where he was, and that it could have been the cops.
But it hadn’t been. It was one of Honey’s coworkers with whom he also had an arrangement; she knew who and what he really was and she could be counted on to keep her mouth shut. Little Star DeLite looked at him from under her fringe of thick, coarse peroxide-blonde hair, a look of absolute panic on her face, her heavily made-up eyes blank with fear. Without a word, she had seized his hand and dragged him into the room next door.
On the bed, gasping in pain and clutching his chest, was a man he recognized; anyone who watched religious broadcasting would have recognized that used-car-salesman profile. Brother Lee Willford, a fellow preacher, but a man who was to Lester what a whale is to a sardine. Brother Lee was a televangelist, with his own studio, his own TV shows, and a take of easily a quarter million a month. Lester had known that Brother Lee had come to town for a televised revival, of course; that was why he himself had taken the night off. No one would be coming to his little storefront church as long as Brother Lee was in town, filling the football stadium with his followers.