The old timer frowned, then caught on and burst out laughing. A moment later the others got it too.
“The naked fat guy!”
“The one mooning us!”
Arwin nodded. “I’ll bet he has one. We’ve got to capture him and get a key from him.” He thought quickly. “We need a distraction. Something to keep the white collars off our backs long enough to tackle the fat man.”
“Why don’t we start a fire?” a very stupid man suggested.
Arwin kept his voice patient, like speaking to a baby. “Um, why don’t we think of something that won’t rapidly get out of control and burn up the forest we’re completely surrounded by, putting us all in mortal danger?”
“Oh.” The dullard nodded. “That’s smart. So, what should we do about the one I already started?”
“The one you—?” Arwin jumped to his feet.
The dullard pointed behind himself. A small fire burned in the grass and weeds just outside the dirt floor they all sat on.
“Put it out! Put it out!” the man beside Arwin shouted, taking leadership.
Frantically, the men rose and sought to put the fire out. They beat at it with clothes, tossed the meagre remains of their gruel at it, but nothing helped. The grass was dry and fire rapidly spread. Soon the white collars caught wind of the smoke and, shouting, they too went into panic mode.
Arwin caught the old timer’s arm. “Now’s our chance! Keep the white collars occupied! I’ll find the blue mooner!”
The old timer nodded and set off yelling, calling the white collars towards the fire.
Arwin found the man who had been sitting next to him earlier. He pulled him aside. “Hey. What’s your name?”
“Me? Jacque.”
“Jacque. Grab a couple of men. Let’s get the mooner and find that key!”
The man nodded. He turned and pulled two big, athletic men away from fire fighting. Together, the four raced to the edge of the forest, seeking the point where the mooner had last been seen.
They found the nude man curled up, taking a nap. They cautiously surrounded him and moved in.
A twig snapped underfoot and the mooner woke. “Ah! Whaddya want, ya slaves!”
Arwin held up his hands in a gesture of peace. “You have a special key, don’t you? A dental key?”
The mooner shiftily looked back and forth. “Ain’t got no key.”
“So you do have it!” Arwin stated with a confident smile.
The mooner looked at Arwin in surprise, eyes wide. “How’d you know that?”
“You used a double negative. Ain’t got none means that you do have one. Also, you just confirmed it.”
The mooner scowled. “Drat!”
“Please,” Arwin begged, “we need that key to free people from their collars.”
“Bah! And ruin my fun? Never.” The man crossed his arms with a smug grin. “Why don’t ya get back to your rock breakin’ and I’ll be along shortly to give you something special.” He chuckled evilly.
Arwin shared a glance with Jacque. The other man shrugged and Arwin nodded. Together they advanced on the mooner.
Realizing his predicament, he put up a fierce fight. It took all four of the men to subdue him. They pushed him to the ground and sat on him.
“You’ll never get it, you bastards!” the mooner spat at them, helpless and furious.
“What now?” one of the blue collars asked.
Arwin interrogated the mooner. “We need that dental key. Lives are in danger! Where is it?”
The obese man replied with a fierce snarl, showing a mouth full of rotten teeth. Then he laughed. A cloud of revoltingly bad breath struck Arwin full in the face, making him reel backwards and gag. “Ha! Good luck getting anything out of me!”
“He’s not being very helpful,” the blue collar leader remarked.
They tried repeatedly, but the fat man refused to cooperate, saying nothing more, just grinning at them like he knew something that they didn’t.
Arwin glared at him. Then he had an idea. A very repulsive one. His face fell. “Oh-no. Once in a blue moon,” he muttered.
Jacque cocked his head, curious. “Yeah? Ok. So we got him.”
“No. Once in a blue moon,” Arwin said, emphasizing the word in.
They all looked down at the obese man’s bare buttocks, which had the texture of lumpy cottage cheese, kind of like the surface of the moon.
“So who wants to do the honours?” Arwin asked.
They all looked at him.
“It was your idea,” Jacque stated.
Arwin felt sick. “Dammit.” But what needed to be done must be done.
They maneuvered themselves so that Arwin sat atop the fat man’s legs and behind the two mountainous buttocks. The mooner’s crater faced Arwin squarely, er, roundly. Actually, it was kind of star shaped. And it was filthy. Perhaps the man lived in the woods and had neither paper nor soft furry creatures on hand with which to clean up after himself. Nor did he seem to bathe often.
Arwin hesitantly reached forward, fervently wishing there was any other way to go about this. This was pretty much the last thing that he wanted to do with this overweight delinquent. “This is so disgusting,” Arwin complained.
The mooner burst out into fresh, mocking laughter. “Come on then. What are you waiting for? Dig in there. I dare ya!” The laughter jiggled his expansive buttocks.
A blue collar man near the mooner’s head clubbed him twice with a ham fist. The mooner went limp.
Arwin nodded to the man. “Thanks.” He reluctantly began the vile extraction process.
“Hurry!” a blue collar man urged. “They’ll come for us soon.”
Arwin gritted his teeth and did his best. Then, almost up to the elbow, he felt something that didn’t belong inside a human body. “Got it!” he announced. Withdrawing his arm, he held up an old-fashioned dental key. Arwin wondered how something so dangerous and sharp had remained harmless inside the moon man. Magic? Or the most advanced bowel gymnastics of all time?
“Clean it off!” Jacque urged. “And for goodness sake, don’t touch anything with that arm.”
Arwin found a streamlet slithering around the roots of some nearby blue spruce. He washed his arm the best he could, pledging to himself that he’d cut his own limb off and burn it the moment that he no longer needed it. He tried to squelch the thought of ever handling food again.
When Arwin returned, the mooner had regained consciousness. He pouted as he noticed Arwin holding the key.
“Now what?” asked one of the blue collars.
“Now you get lost!” the mooner shouted. He bared his rotten, blue teeth and tried to bite the man closest to him.
“His teeth. Take his blue teeth!” Jacque exclaimed, jerking out of the mooner’s way.
The mooner’s head snapped around and his eyes focused on the key. “Hey now. Wait just a minute—“
“Look,” Arwin broke in, reasoning with him. “You obviously need dental surgery. I’ll bet those things cause you a lot of pain, don’t they?”
The mooner glowered at him but didn’t argue the point.
Arwin continued in a practical manner. “You know, rotten teeth contribute to infection and heart disease. Those things are dangerous. You really should have them taken out before things go even worse for you. You don’t want those foul things to kill you, do you?”
The mooner mumbled, “No, I suppose not.”
“A couple of minutes quick work and you’ll feel better and healthier. And likely live longer. I promise.”
The fat man frowned and glanced at the others, then at the key. “Fine,” he grumbled, “get on with it.”
The inside of the man’s mouth would probably terrify any real dentist. Arwin gave a sharp twist and the mooner howled in pain. But a rotted blue tooth emerged. Arwin, despite always taking good care of his own teeth, mentally promised himself to brush and floss twice as much in the future to avoid getting a mouth so black and revolting inside.
Comments (0)
See all