[LJL]

Excerpt from On the Origins of Joy Boy's Chasm

CHAPTER 36:

How Jed asked for a Snoball, and the repercussions thereof


“Pass me a Snoball Boy!” Jed said, reaching his hand over to Lerou as the truck trembled down the highway. “And don’t be brushin’ all the coconuts into yer mouth lik’ya dun with the last’un!”

Lerou put his Pabst Blue Ribbon between his legs and leaned down, reaching into the plastic bag on the floor at his feet. While he rummaged through the empty wrappers in the bag in search of a fresh pack, Jed inadvertently steered the truck over towards the side of the road while smiling at a woman who was passing by in a Range Rover, thus causing a violent vibration to the truck from the deep grooves which bordered the side of the highway. The PBR between Lerou’s legs consequently tipped over, causing him to kick his left leg out in an effort to avoid the spilling liquid. As he kicked his leg, his rollerblade smacked into the spittoon on the axle bump, thereby projecting said spittoon towards Jed’s right leg, which it hit sharply before falling to the cab of the truck at Jed’s feet.

On its side, the spittoon released the spit onto the floor and Jed’s legs began slipping and sliding all over the place as the truck jerked erratically from Jed’s feet slamming intermittently the gas and the brake pedals. The jerking of the truck caused Lerou to crack his head into the glove box, just before he was hit in the head by the spittoon as it came flying back over to his side of the truck, having been kicked by Jed’s sliding foot. A bit of residue from the spittoon made its way down Lerou’s cheek, towards his neck, and Lerou put his hand to the inner thigh of his carpenter’s pants, where the beer had spilled, applying then his moistened hand to his cheek in order to clean the spit away.

While he wiped, his rollerblades rolled back and forth on the floor and over the plastic bag, thereby mashing any remaining Snoballs. Suddenly, the spittoon, from its position on the seat where it had landed after hitting Lerou in the cheek, and in a good turn of chance, hopped back off the seat and onto the floor at Jed’s feet, wedging itself eventually behind the gas pedal. Jed shimmied the truck over to the shoulder and waited for it to come to a halt.

Eventually stopping about a quarter mile down the road, the truck let out some puffs of smoke from various places underneath the hood and then settled into itself. Jed held his hands on the wheel for a few moments, and then turned to Lerou.

“Dammit, Boy!” he said. “What’s yer problem? All I dun asked fir was a dang Snoball!”