CRUDDY by Lynda Barry Page A

in all the crevices of her teeth. She was clenching and unclenching her fingers. “I think I’m feeling it. You guys have to guard me, OK? Because I can get insane when I drop. Very insane.”
    “Will you come to New Orleans?” said the Turtle. “We have an appointment at Dorothy’s Medallion that the Great Wesley really would like to keep. Have you heard of the place called Dorothy’s Medallion where large women wear small golden bathing suits and squat for the audience? Can either of you dance?”



Chapter 11
    LIES ARE messengers. One was on a blade of dead grass right below where I was trying to barf. It was scrutinizing me and I did not like it. I said, “Sometimes I am in the mood for fly scrutinization and sometimes I am not.”
    “So be it,” said the Turtle. “Absolutely.”
    “New Orleans,” said Vicky Talluso. “Is that serious? Because seriously I could go. Because my philosophy is just, like, screw it, I’m going. Now I don’t feel it. Roberta. You feel it? Were you lying about the cash money?”
    I shook my head no.
    “No, which?” she said. “No you don’t feel it? No you’re not lying? Which?”
    “Both,” I said. My stomach was in ripples and I could smell tripe, fresh and unrinsed and very strong. Memory smells are a problem for me. Actual smells can be difficult, sometimes almost impossible for me to stand. But actual smells are things a person can get away from. The memory smells are impossible to fight. The tripe smells steamed. I started heaving. The fly continued to scrutinize.
    Flies have always been part of my life. In the days of Rohbeson’s Slaughterhouse, flies were everywhere, crawling up the walls like living designs. I used to fall asleep looking at them. Thinking about their world. Their society. Did they have kings? Did they steal from each other? My light fixture was black-full with bodies of them. I used to think they had feelings about certain people. People who noticed them. Certain people. Me.
    There was a fly in the car with the father and I. I wasn’t sure if he was a slaughterhouse fly or just a middle-of-nowhere fly. One that got in when no one was noticing. And I wondered what it was going to be like for him when he got out again. What would he think when he flew out of the car and didn’t recognize anything or anybody?
    Only in a fairy tale could he ever get home again. In fairy tales it happened all the time. It was possible. I was thinking it was really very possible. And while I was thinking this, the father snatched the fly out of the air and mashed him with a gesture so quick I barely saw it. Meat men can do that. They can snatch flies right out of the air.
    The father checked on me in the mirror and asked if I was hungry. He said, “I still owe you that hamburger.”
    I started throwing up but nothing came.
    “Roberta, Roberta,” said Vicky Talluso. “Are you OK? Is that going to happen to me, Turtle? Because really, I cannot throw up. I mean actually physically I cannot throw up.”
    The long fingers of the Turtle touched the back of my neck as he gathered my hair away from my face. “It will pass,” he said.
    Vicky said, “What if it doesn’t?”
    “I’m OK,” I said. “I’m OK.”
    “Lay back.” said the Turtle. “Just be cool and feel the peace and be free and feel the love raining down on you and it will pass.”
    Vicky said, “If that Creeper-whatever makes me do that? If I start talking about flies and dry barfing? I’m going to seriously kick your face in, Turtle.”
    The Turtle was right. It did pass. Like a snake it slithered away out of me, dividing the grass as it went. My head was on the Turtle’s lap and he was looking down at me through his eerie fringes of white eyelashes. He said, “Hillbilly Woman.”
    I said, “Turtle.”
    Vicky said, “Unless I get a cigarette, I’m going to claw someone’s face off.”
    Vicky wanted to go the Washeteria to get cigs. She said the lady there was a troll with a million warts