FRESH YARN presents: That Bastard Flud Talley Gets His... by David Watts

FRESH YARN presents:

That Bastard Flud Talley Gets His
By David Watts

Mahatma Ghandi, that great proponent of peace and wearer of man-diapers once declared, "Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man." While that sentiment might sound good, I'd be willing to bet you ol' Mahatma never crossed paths with Flud Talley.

I grew up in a tiny little town on the Ohio River in southern Indiana. When I say tiny, I mean if you farted on one end of town, somebody on the other end would yell, "Jaysus, Watts! Enough with the chili already!" and start hissing Glade Pine Forest Medley into the air.

When you grow up in small town America you get used to seeing violence. It's everywhere -- like gun racks or Baptists. From hunting mishaps to tractor rollovers, life in the country is like one continuous slasher film. Growing up in this perilous environment, I learned that if I was ever going to live to see to marrying age (nine if by free choice, three if pre-arranged) I had to honor two very simple rules. First, never pee on an electric fence. (I know this might seem obvious, but some hillbilly from French Lick did it on a bet and blew off both his McNuggets -- swear to God). And rule two, never, under any circumstances, get into a fistfight with Flud Talley.

Flud Talley! Even after all these years when I hear that name my palms start sweating and my bowels loosen.

Every neighborhood has one, a kid that elevates meanness to an art form. While most nine-year-olds were busy undercooking muffins in their Kenner Easy-Bake Ovens, or cross-dressing G.I. Joe in Barbie clothes, Flud was ripping the wings off butterflies, setting fire to snapping turtles, and jamming M80's up the poop shoots of woodchucks. He was a regular Dr. Moreau in Toughskin Jeans.

The Talley yard always seemed eerily devoid of life. No birds dared fly above, no moles dared tunnel below, even brainless insects somehow knew enough to keep the hell away. Nature feared Flud Talley and rightfully so.

The inherent problem with a kid like Flud was that, at some point, the torture of bunny rabbits and crawdads wouldn't be enough to keep him satisfied. In time, like a parched vampire, his blood lust would demand larger and more challenging prey -- namely human kids! I know this for a fact, dear reader, because one day, Flud Talley came after me. But before I get to that life-changing moment -- allow me to first paint a better picture of Flud.

Flud had the body of a crack addict, long, skinny -- unpredictable. In a fight he was all elbows and knees -- right angles of pain. Kids dumb enough to face off with him emerged from the encounter looking as if they'd been thrown into a cement mixer.

What Flud possessed in barbarity he totally lacked in fashion sense. In all the years I knew him, he never once wore a pair of pants that fit. The waists were okay, but for some reason, the inseams were always ridiculously short. It was as if his mother was grooming him for a career in clam digging. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out how Flud got his name -- High water = Flood/Flud = Flood? Do the math, people.

Although Flud was built like a tent pole, he had the biggest thumb knuckles I've ever seen on a person. From the appropriate angle, his thumbs looked like a couple of queen snakes choking on croquet balls. While most of us would be ashamed to have wielded such doorknobs for thumbs, Flud embraced them, "What the fuck? They're good for eye gougin'."

While on the subject of eyes, Flud had not one, but two lazy eyes. This ocular malfunction not only caused him to stare at the world like an un-medicated mental patient, but also required him to wear the single most butt-ugly pair of prescription glasses ever fashioned. Forged from Kevlar, Flud's glasses were as indestructible as they were repugnant. I overheard him tell our bus driver once, "If I wanted to, I could weld in these cock suckers."

As you can see, Flud had many "interesting" personal attributes, but I have saved his most "interesting" for last. Flud Talley had no hair. That's right, you heard me. Due to some unholy medical condition Flud was as bald as a balloon -- no eyebrows, no eyelashes, no nothing. Here was a nine-year-old kid forced to wander the road of life looking like a skinny-assed, google-eyed Telly Savalas with over-sized thumbs.

It's not easy being bald. Throughout history, many great men have suffered the devastating side effects of hair loss; two of the more famous examples I can think of are Samson from the Bible and Curly from The Three Stooges. Now, imagine having to shoulder that burden if you're just a nine-year-old kid. I bet you'd think that was pretty awful, wouldn't you? But wait, it gets worse.

Although everyone in town knew that Flud was bald, no living human had actually ever seen his hairless head. Because instead of simply taking his lumps, Flud had chosen to conceal his "condition" with a wig that looked something like a cross between a beaver pelt and a bathmat. Nature had been exceptionally cruel to Flud Talley and somebody was going to pay. One hot day in the August of my ninth year, that somebody -- was me!

There are only two places cooler than Indiana during the month of August. The first is the surface of the Sun and the second is Satan's asshole the morning after a five-alarm chili festival. In addition to the punishing heat, Indiana summers are notorious for their humidity -- or as the old timers call it "liquid air." I remember one summer it got so incredibly humid that all the fish drowned because when they came up for air there wasn't any. It was on one of those liquid-air days that I collided head-on with Flud Talley. Here's how it went down.

I had just bought a box of Cap'n Crunch cereal down at old man Hinton's store and was sneaking off to the privacy of my tree house to eat myself into a sugar coma. In case you're from another planet or your parents were dentists, Cap'n Crunch is the single-best breakfast cereal in the history of humankind. I don't give a damn what Wheaties says, Cap'n Crunch is the undisputed "Breakfast of Champions."

Cap'n Crunch was a forbidden fruit when I was growing up. My Mom had declared it an "uncontrolled substance" and banned it from our house. Of course, her reasons for doing this were completely understandable. Not only did "the Cap'n" make kids more hyper than puppies on crystal meth, it also shred the roof of the eater's mouth into a bloody pulp. To a kid, however, the risk of oral surgery was a small price to pay for the ultimate in sugar highs. Like a junkie with his jones on, I was willing to take my chances.

After arriving at the base of the ladder leading to my tree house, I wedged my box of sugarcoated booty under my chin and began my ascent. But after only two rungs, I heard a strange hollow "thunk" followed immediately by a searing pain in my skull. The next thing I knew I was laying spread eagle on the ground facing up at the sky. As my eyes regained focus, the first thing they saw was a pair of ugly-ass glasses peering down at me from the door of my tree house. I quickly realized there was only one person in the world with a pair of glasses that hideous -- Flud! Flud Talley was in MY tree house and had just nailed me in the head with a rock. I was as good as dead!

"Gimme the goddamned box!" Flud demanded.

Still fuzzy-headed, I groaned, "Wharg?"

"You heard me," he howled, "Gimme that fuckin' cereal or I'll bust my foot off in your ass!"

He punctuated his ultimatum by chucking an even bigger rock at my head. Soon I heard another "thunk" followed by another blinding flash of pain. I reached up and felt a knot the size of an eggplant taking root on my noggin. Then, despite my greatest efforts not to -- it happened, I started to cry. But this wasn't your regular crying, this was gut-heaving, body-wracking, snot-projecting, caterwauling. I was crying so hard it seemed that I wasn't crying only for myself, but for all humanity. Within seconds my "I'm With Stupid" t-shirt was completely soaked. Unfortunately, tears to a guy like Flud were like chum to a shark. I lay on the ground convulsing like a beached manatee as he climbed down for the kill.

"Maybe next time you'll listen when I'm talkin', you fuckin' pussy," he snarled, stepping over me en route to his ill-gotten plunder. And although I wanted to stop him, all I could do was lay there and bleat like an epileptic goat.

But as I lay there I felt something happen deep inside me -- something that, even after all these years, I still can't explain. We've all read the stories. You know, where the tiny mother gets so filled with adrenaline that she saves her baby by hoisting a Buick over her head? Well, blame it on adrenaline if you want, but when I saw that bastard Flud rip open my box of Cap'n Crunch and start stuffing it into his pie hole, I totally lost it. If I had been a cartoon, steam would have hissed from both of my ears. Before I realized what I was doing I was on my feet and heading straight for him. It was like someone had taken control of my body. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I could tell it was going to involve violence. My fists clenched involuntarily.

Although I'd personally never punched anyone in the face before, I'd seen enough Star Trek episodes to understand what needed to happen. Being a devoted follower of Captain Kirk, I knew that any given punch could be broken down into four basic parts:

1) You grab the filthy Klingon (Ricardo Montalban)
2) You punch the filthy Klingon
3) There's a loud cracking sound
4) You win the hot alien chick/Uhura/Scotty (Oh, please, like you didn't suspect!)

I wanted my Cap'n Crunch back and with Captain Kirk's help, I was going to get it. I was on Flud so fast he didn't even have time to extract his giant thumb from the box. In fact, Flud only had time to mutter a defiant, "Go fug yor elf," before I clamped my left hand around his windpipe. Next, I cocked my right arm, closed my eyes, held my breath and swung with everything I had. Then time stood still.

I waited for the loud cracking sound I'd always heard on Star Trek, but it never came. If you've never hit anyone in the face (and I strongly urge you not to, unless they're Quaker because they're not supposed to hit you back) it is really weird. The first thing you notice is an intense pain in your hand because you just hit bone, which just so happens to be really fucking hard. The next thing you notice is that you don't hear that loud "cracking" sound made popular by TV shows like C.H.I.P.s or The View. Instead, you hear this flat, dead, "splag" that just makes your stomach curl.

Any "first punch" is a weird, life-changing event, but mine proved even weirder because when I punched Flud I hit him so hard I knocked his hair off. That's right. After I experienced the cold, hard splat of flesh striking flesh -- I opened my eyes in time to see what appeared to be a raccoon leap from Flud's head, and land in a nearby mud puddle.

Looking at Flud standing there totally bald was like walking in on your Mom as she's stepping out of the shower. But what was even more horrifying was that Flud was still alive -- which meant that I was going to be dead soon. Realizing that I had only seconds to live, I whipped out a hasty "Our Father" and got ready to say "Howdy" to Jesus. But instead of hearing a howl of rage I heard something no one had ever heard before. Like the "Fah who doh rays" of the Whos in Whoville -- it started in low and then it started to grow. I heard Flud Talley start to cry!

I was stunned. Here was the meanest sumbitch in all of Indiucky bawling like a baby. It was official, Flud Talley's reign of terror had come to an end. But you want to know something weird? Instead of feeling the joy of a conquering hero -- I was overcome by an overwhelming sadness, like I had witnessed the end of an era. I was so confused by my own emotions that I began crying again, too.

We stood there for a moment, Flud and I -- our tears mixing on the battlefield like the blood of so many valiant warriors. Wordlessly, I fished Flud's hair from the mud puddle where it floated, shook a tadpole from it and returned it to him. With as much dignity as he could muster, he replaced it like a hairy divot and started for home through the liquid air.

As for me, I stayed there until long after dark, when I finally cried myself out. My tears weren't shed for the loss of my favorite sugarcoated breakfast cereal, but for the loss of my own innocence.